World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 211 Luri Wangpa's Menu

All sleep, as long as it is not the kind that makes Tang Gela feel creepy, there will be a time to wake up.Tang La woke up.A Parisian like him, used to seeing silk and satin curtains and soft and smooth wall hangings, and smelling the fragrance of the burning wood in the fireplace, drifting to the satin ceiling and then falling down, now in a Waking up in a chalky cave is nothing short of a nightmare.Touching the goatskin used as a mattress, Tangla couldn't help but feel that he seemed to be dreaming, living with the Samoyeds in the Siberian subtundra.Or the inhabitants of the northern regions of Scandinavia, the Laplanders.live together.But in a situation like the present one, the huge doubts will disappear in less than a second, and the facts in front of us cannot be doubted. "Yes, yes," he murmured, "I have fallen into the hands of the robbers whom Albert Mocerf told us about."

As soon as he thought of this, he began to take a deep breath to see if he was hurt, which he learned from the book "Don Quixote", which he had not read himself, but only this book He still knows some of the stories in the book. "No," he said, "they didn't kill me, they didn't wound me, but will they steal my money?" He fumbled for his pockets, which were all good, The 100 gold louis he set aside for the journey from Rome to Venice was still in his trousers pocket, and the wallet with the 505 million withdrawal slip was also in his coat pocket. "Such robbers are rare!" thought he. "They have left my money and my purse untouched! I was right when I slept yesterday, and they want a ransom from me. Oh! My watch is there too." Let’s see what time it is now.” Tanglar’s ​​watch is a fine product made by Breguet. He had carefully wound it before going on the road yesterday, and now the hands are pointing to 5:[-].Without this watch, Tangra would not know the time at all, because the light of the day could not penetrate the dungeon at all.Do you want to take the initiative to ask the robber what happened?Or just wait patiently for them to ask?Waiting is the safest way, so Tang La waited.He waited until noon.

A robber stood guard in front of the dungeon door all night. At 8 o'clock in the morning, another robber came and replaced the man.Tang Gela couldn't help wanting to see who this robber was looking at him.Tangra had already noticed that there were a few rays of light in the dungeon, but it was not sunlight but lights. It turned out that the wooden boards of the door were not tightly assembled, and the light leaked in through the cracks in the wooden boards.He put his eyes on a seam, just in time to see the robber took a few sips of strong wine, which was stored in a sheepskin bag, so the strange smell made Tang La nauseated. "Bah!" he said, shrinking back.

At noon, another robber came to replace the guy who drank alcohol. Tangra was curious and wanted to see what the new guard looked like.So he leaned over the seam of the plank again to watch.This newly replaced bandit has a strong back and a strong waist, like a Goliath (a giant among the Philistines on the eastern coast of the ancient Mediterranean Sea.), with big eyes, thick lips, a flat nose, and long brown hair hanging down to his shoulders. , the strands of curly hair are like snakes. "Oh! Oh!" Tangra said, "This guy is not a human, but a giant monster that eats people. Anyway, I am old, and my meat is hard, white and fat, but it is not delicious." No It's hard to see that Tangra still has the heart to tell jokes at this moment.While he was talking, the guard seemed to want to prove that he was not some giant man-eating monster, and sat down towards the dungeon door, took out black bread, onions and cheese from the bag, and started to devour it. "Damn," Tangra said, glancing at the robber's lunch through the crack of his cell door, "Damn, I don't understand how such a filthy thing can be eaten." He sat down on the goatskin mattress. I couldn't help but think of the smell of the strong wine that the first robber drank.

But it didn’t work for Tangla to hide and sit on the side. The mysteries of nature are unbelievable, and the extremely poor food has an irresistible temptation to an empty stomach.Tangra suddenly felt that his stomach was out of stock, and the robber was not so ugly, the bread was not so dark, and the booze became fresher.And those few raw onions, which are disgusting things that rough people eat, at this moment reminded Tangla that sometimes he said to his chef: "Mr. Denizo, cook me a plate of ordinary people today. home-cooked food." The chef carefully prepared a sauce called Robert's sauce for him, and made him twice-cooked beef with shallots.Tang La stood up and walked over to knock on the door.The robber looked up.Tangra saw that he heard the sound, so he knocked again.

"What are you doing?" The original text was in Italian.asked the robber.

"Tell me! Tell me yourselves! Friends," said Tangra, knocking on his cell door with his fingers like a drum, "I think it's time to think about giving me something to eat. Come on!"

However, maybe this burly man didn't understand, maybe he didn't get any order about Tangla's meal, he just buried his head in eating his meal again.Tang Gela felt that his face had been hurt, and he didn't want to get entangled with this rough man, so he lay down on the goatskin mat and didn't want to say anything.Another four hours later, another robber came and took the burly man's place.Tang Gela felt that he was very hungry. He slowly got up from the bed and pressed his face against the crack of the door again. It was a very shrewd face, and he recognized that this was the person who led the way last night.It turned out to be Pepino, busy trying to make the porter as comfortable as possible.He sat down facing the cell door first, and then put a clay basin between his legs, and in the basin was a steaming, fragrant stew of chickpeas with fat slices.Next to the chickpeas, Pepino placed another delicate basket of Velletri grapes and a carafe full of Orvieto.Obviously, Pepino is very particular about food.Seeing people so busy preparing a delicious meal, Tang La couldn't help drooling. "Mmm! Mmm!" Tangra said, "Let's see if this guy is easier to talk to than the one just now." So he knocked on the door gracefully.

"Come on," said the robber, who had learned a little French from frequent visits to Master Pastrini's, and could understand common speech.He did go to open the door.

Tang Gula recognized that this robber was the one who yelled at him viciously last night, "Put your head in".But now is not the time to criticize others, on the contrary, Tang La put on a very cute appearance, and put an elegant smile on her mouth. "Excuse me, sir," said he, "but I am not going to bring me supper this evening?"

"What?" cried Pepino, "is your excellency also hungry?"

"That's right, that's really good," Tangra said softly, "I haven't eaten for 24 hours." Then he said loudly: "No, sir, I'm hungry, even very hungry."

"Well, would you like something to eat, sir?"

"Eat it right away, okay?"

"It's very easy," said Pepino. "You can eat what you want here, and of course you have to pay for it, as is the rule of all honest Christians."

"That's easy to say," Tang Gula shouted, "but to be honest, since you have arrested someone and locked him up, at least you have to feed him."

"Ah, sir," said Pepino, "we have no such rule."

"It doesn't make sense," Tangra said, and he wanted to be gentle and try to calm the robber, "but I don't care about these things. Well, ask someone to bring me something to eat."

"I'll deliver it right away, Your Excellency, what do you want to eat?" Pepino put the earthen basin down casually after finishing speaking, and the fragrant hot air in the basin was directly drilled into Tangra's nostrils. "Please tell me," he said again.

"So you have a kitchen here?" asked the banker.

"What? We have a kitchen? Of course we do. That's good."

"Where's the chef?"

"They're all top-notch."

"That's good! I want a chicken, fish, game, anything, as long as it's something to eat."

"Just as your Excellency wants, a chicken first, isn't it?"

"Yes, a chicken."

Pepino stood up and shouted loudly: "Give me a chicken!"

While Pepino's shouts were still echoing under the vault, a young man approached.This young man was tall and slender, very handsome, bare-chested like an ancient fish-carrier, holding a silver plate in his hand, with nothing in it except a chicken with its neck raised.

"It's like being in a Parisian coffee shop." Tangra said softly.

"Come, sir," said Pepino, taking the chicken from the young robber, and setting it on a table riddled with moths.This table, together with a small stool, and the bed with the goatskin cushions, are the complete set of furnishings in this dungeon.

Tangla offered to ask for a knife and a fork.

"Come, sir," said Pepino, laying out a knife with a blunted point and a boxwood fork.

Tang La held a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, ready to cut the chicken.

"Excuse me, sir," said Pepino, putting his hand on the banker's shoulder, "here, pay first and eat first, or else you will be dissatisfied after eating..."

"Ah! ah!" Tangra thought, "it's not like Paris, not to mention that they might try to beat me. But I'm not petty. Well, I've often heard people say Things in Italy are cheap, a chicken costs about 12 sous in Rome." So he threw a louis d'or to Pepino and said, "Here!"

Pepino took the Louis d'Or, and Tangra picked up the knife again to cut the chicken.

"Wait a moment, sir," said Pepino, standing up, "wait a moment, sir, you still owe me money."

"I told you they were going to knock me!" Tang La said to himself.Then he thought, now he'll have to let it be knocked. "Okay, how much does a chicken like this cost?"

"Your Excellency just gave a deposit for Louis."

"A louis d'or for a chicken deposit?"

"Yes, this is a deposit."

"That's great, it's done! It's done!"

"Your Excellency owes me 4999 louis in gold."

Tang Gela couldn't help but widen his eyes when he heard the lion's loud joke. "Ah! Interesting," he murmured to himself, "very interesting."

He picked up the knife and fork again to cut the chicken, but Pepino stretched out his right hand and squeezed Tangra's right hand with his left hand. "Forget it," said Pepino.

"What? You're not joking, are you?" Tangra said.

"We never joke, Monsieur," said Pepino, with an air of deadly seriousness, like a Quaker sect of Christianity founded in the seventeenth century.believers.

"What? The chicken costs 10 francs!"

"Your Excellency, you can't even imagine how difficult it is to raise chickens in this kind of ghost hole."

"Come! Come!" Tangra said, "I think this is really funny, it's so funny. But I'm hungry, let me eat. Here, I'll give you another louis d'or, my friend."

"Then I only owe 4998 gold louis now." Pepino still said calmly, "Don't worry, the money will always be collected."

"Oh! This kind of thing," Tangla said, teasing him again and again, he couldn't help getting angry, "This kind of thing, don't even think about it. Go to hell, you don't know who you're dealing with."

Pepino made a gesture, and the young man stretched out his arm, and in a second the chicken was gone.Tangra lay down on his goat bed, Pepino closed the dungeon door, and began to eat his fat sliced ​​chickpeas again.Tangra couldn't see what Pepino was doing, but the robber's mouth was babbling, and the people in the prison knew exactly what the robber was up to.Evidently he was busy eating, and eating so loudly like an uneducated man. "A rough man!" Tangra said.Pepino pretended not to hear, and without even turning his head, he just ate his food slowly.Tangra only felt that there was a big hole in his stomach, which seemed to be the bottomless bucket of Danaides. Except for one, all of them killed their husbands on their wedding night, and they were all thrown into hell and filled with water in a bottomless bucket.He couldn't believe that he could still fill his stomach.Yet he patiently endured another half hour--half an hour which, to be fair, seemed like a century to him.He stood up at last, and once more walked over to the cell door.

"Well, sir," said he, "don't keep me so half-dead, and tell me at once what you want from me?"

"But, Your Excellency, you should tell us what you want us to do... just tell us, and we will do it."

"Okay then, open the door for me first."

Pepino opened the door.

"I think," Tangra said, "hi! I want to eat!"

"Are you hungry?"

"You obviously know it."

"What would you like to eat?"

"Since the price of chicken is so expensive in this ghost hole, let's have a piece of dry bread."

"Bread? All right," said Pepino, and then he called out again: "Come! Bring bread!"

The young man brought a morsel of bread.

"Coming!" said Pepino.

"How much?" Tangra asked.

"4998 gold louis, and two gold louis have been paid in advance."

"What? One hundred thousand francs for a loaf of bread?"

"10 francs," said Pepino.

"But you only wanted 10 francs for a chicken just now!"

"We don't charge for the dishes here, but there is only one price. Eat as much as you want, whether you want 10 dishes or one dish, the price is the same."

"Here comes the joke again! My dear friend, let me tell you that what you are doing is absurd and stupid! Come on, are you trying to starve me to death? That would be all right."

"That's not the case, sir, it's you who wants to die. You have something to eat after you pay."

"What will you pay for, you bastard?" Tangra said angrily, "Do you think 10 francs are just put in your pocket so casually?"

"You have 505 million francs in your pocket, sir," said Pepino, "you can eat 10 chickens for 50 francs, and half a chicken for the remaining 5."

Tang Gela couldn't help shivering, he suddenly realized that the joke was a joke, he finally understood the meaning, we should even say that at this moment he doesn't think this kind of joke is too boring as he did just now. "Well," said he, "I paid the hundred thousand francs, and you won't ask me any more? I can eat my food?"

"Of course." Pepino said.

"But how to pay the money?" Tang La said, and his anger somewhat subsided.

"Very easy. You have your account at Thomson & French, Bank Street, Rome. Write me a check for 4998 louis d'or, and our banker will draw it for us." .”

Tangra at least thought in his heart that it is better to be polite in this regard, so he took the pen and paper that Pepino handed him, wrote a check, and signed his name. "Here," said he, "the check is payable at sight."

"Here's to you, here's your chicken."

Tang La sighed while cutting the chicken. He felt that the chicken was too thin for such a large price.As for Pepino, he read the check carefully, stuffed it in his pocket, and ate his fat sliced ​​chickpea stew.

(End of this chapter)