World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 74: Luncheon (1)
It will be remembered that the count ate very little at the feast.Albert noticed that he feared that the visitor from afar would at first be uncomfortable with Parisian life in this worldly, but necessary, way. "My dear count," said he, "you have seen me apprehensive lest the cooking in the Rue de Erede is not to your liking as in the Plaza de España. I should have asked your taste before ordering The kitchen prepares a few things you like to eat."

"If you had known me better, monsieur," replied the count, smiling, "you would not consider such an almost shameful thing for a man who comes from afar, and who wanders about, I eat macaroni in Naples, polenta in Milan, Spanish place names in Valencia. Meat and vegetable stew, risotto in Constantinople, curry rice in India, and bird's nest in China. Home, it doesn't matter cooking. I eat everything and everywhere, but I don't eat much. Today you are afraid that I will stash, but it is actually the time when my appetite is the best, because I have not eaten since yesterday morning .”

"What, since yesterday morning!" shouted the guests, "you haven't eaten anything for twenty-four hours?"

"No," replied Monte Cristo, "because I had to take a detour to the French place name of Nîmes. I learned some things nearby, so I was delayed for a little time, and I didn't dare to stop along the way."

"Then you will eat in the car?" Mosef asked.

"No, I just sleep. I sleep when I'm bored and have nothing to do, when I'm hungry but don't want to eat."

"Can you control your drowsiness?"

"Generally yes."

"Is there any good medicine?"

"Yes, a hundred tests and a hundred spirits."

"This is too precious to our African garrison. Our food supply is not guaranteed, and our drinking water is also scarce." Morrell said.

"Yes," said Monte Cristo, "unfortunately, although my medicine is useful to me, because my life is different, it is very dangerous to use in the army, because it will prevent the soldiers from waking up when they need to wake up. Come."

"May we know what kind of medicine this is?"

"Oh, my God, of course," said Monte Cristo, "I have no intention of claiming it as a secret recipe. It is a mixture of the best opium and the best cannabis. I bought the opium myself in Canton, and I can assure you The texture is pure, and cannabis is produced in the east, that is, the two river basins between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The two ingredients are mixed together in equal amounts and made into pills, which can be swallowed when needed, and the effect can be seen in 10 minutes, everyone Ask the Baron Franz d'Epinay again, I think he tasted it one day."

"Yes," said Moserf, "he said a few words to me, and even said that he still feels very comfortable after taking it."

"Then," said Beauchamp, who, as a reporter, would not easily believe, "do you always carry this medicine with you?"

"Yes," replied Monte Cristo.

"Please show everyone this precious medicine, what's wrong with it?" Bo Shang always wanted to catch the foreigner's mistake on the spot, so he continued.

"There is nothing wrong, sir," replied the count.Then he took out an extremely delicate candy box from his pocket.The box is carved out of a whole piece of jadeite, and the lid is a gold screw cap. Once twisted, a light green pill the size of a pea is poured out from the box, and immediately exudes a pungent and refreshing aroma. .The emerald box can hold about twelve pills, and now there are still four or five pills in the box.The candy box passed around in the hands of everyone at the table, but everyone just stared at this amazing piece of emerald, and didn't bother to smell the aroma of the pill.

"Did your chef prepare this delicacy for you?" Beauchamp asked.

"No, monsieur," said Monte Cristo, "I would not hand over to mediocrity the manufacture of such a thing as this, which is purely for my enjoyment. I am quite a student of chemistry, and these medicines are my own. arranged."

"This emerald is extraordinary. My mother has some family heirlooms, and they are all quite outstanding, but I have never seen an emerald as big as this." Chateau-Leno said.

"I have three of these," continued Monte Cristo, "one to the Emperor of Turkey, who put it in his saber, and the other to my Holy Father, the Pope, who put it in his sword." The triple tiara is on. On the other side of the pope's crown, there is a piece of emerald, which was given by Emperor Napoleon to his predecessor Pius VII. It is about the same size as the one I gave, but the quality is slightly inferior. I kept the third piece for myself. , I asked someone to hollow it out, although the value is only half of the original value, but it is much more convenient for me to use."

Everyone looked at Monte Cristo in amazement, and he spoke so naturally that it was evident that he was telling the truth, otherwise he would be talking delirium.However, he has been holding this jade all the time. Of course, everyone tends to the former assumption.

"For such a precious gift, what can the two supreme beings return to you?" Debray asked.

"The emperor of Turkey promised to restore a woman's liberty," replied the count, "and our Holy Father the Pope has pardoned a man's life. So, once in my life, I have been so powerful that it is almost as if God made me born of a king. above the steps of the throne."

"It was Pepino that you saved, wasn't it?" cried Mocerf, "and it was for him that you obtained a pardon?"

"Perhaps," said Monte Cristo, smiling.

"Mr. Earl, you can't imagine how happy I am to hear you say that!" said Moserf, "I have already announced to my friends that you are a legend. The sorcerers of the Middle Ages, the sorcerers of the Middle Ages. But the Parisians are good at disputing each other, an apparently irrefutable fact, which they would dismiss as fanciful if it weren't for the ubiquity of their daily life. For example, Debray reads every day, Beauchamp is also publishing such news every day: what a member of the Knights Club was robbed in the middle of the night on the boulevard, what four people were assassinated in Saint-Denis Avenue or Saint-Germain, what a cafe on Temple Avenue, Or the spa Julian caught 4, 10 or 15 thieves, but they wouldn't believe the Mallem. Central Italy. The area, the outskirts of Rome or the Italian plains of the Ponta. There are robbers. Please, Mr. Count Tell them face to face that I was indeed hijacked by these robbers. If you hadn't interceded generously, I would still be waiting for the resurrection technique in the tomb of St. Sebastian today, and I would never be in Ella. The Delu humble house hosted a banquet in honor of them."

"Well," said Monte Cristo, "you promised me never to mention this trouble to me again."

"I didn't say it, Monsieur Count!" cried Moserf, "it was another man who promised it, and you saved him as you saved me, and it is possible that you confused him with me. So I still Please tell me, because if you would tell me how it happened, it would not only allow me to review what I know, but also many things that I have not hitherto understood."

"But I think," said the count, smiling, "that you played a rather important part in this matter, and that you already know as well as I do about it."

"Will you promise me that I will tell all I know, and you will tell all you know?"

"That's fair and reasonable."

"That's good!" Moserf went on, "I'm being self-indulgent, thinking for three days that a masked person is always flirting with me, and I think that person is simply Dulia, the daughter of the sixth king of Rome. Or The mistress of Pope Rome's tyrant Nero, who later became his wife, was finally kicked to death by Nero in a rage. The descendants of the descendants, in fact, are just a village girl. Please note that I said village girl, because I don’t want to talk about peasant women. Now I only know that I was a fool at the time, even more stupid than the person I just mentioned. Auntie, I was about to let go and kiss that pure shoulder, but he held a pistol to my neck, and seven or eight people came to help him take me, or drag me to San Sebastian Inside the Mausoleum of Tien. Once I got there I saw a very learned robber leader, oh, he was reading "The Memoirs of Caesar". He put down the book and told me that if I can't be in his cash drawer at 6 o'clock the next morning 4000 crowns were thrown into the village, and I would die at a quarter past six the next day, as evidenced by a letter in the hands of Franz, with my signature on it, and a postscript written by the chief Luge Wampa. If you have doubts, I can write to Franz, and he will verify the authenticity of this signature. That's all I know. I still don't know, Monsieur Count, how you can let this bossy gang The Roman bandits have such awe of you? I can tell you that Franz and I have great admiration for you."

"It couldn't be easier, sir," replied the Count. "I have known the famous Wampa for more than ten years. When he was young and still tending sheep, he showed me the way one day, and I I gave him a gold coin that I can't remember where it was minted, and he, in order not to owe me, gave me back a dagger with a handle he carved himself. I think you are in my collection of weapons. I have seen it. Originally, we exchanged gifts to maintain friendship, but later, maybe he forgot about it, or maybe he didn’t recognize me, and he wanted to rob me, but instead I ended up with him He was arrested together with a dozen people. I can definitely hand him over to the Roman court, and the court will definitely send him out quickly, especially for a case like his, it will be more aggressive, but I am merciful and he, together with his Everyone is released."

"The condition is that they don't do evil any more." Beauchamp, who was a reporter, said with a smile, "I'm very happy to see them, they really say what they say."

"No, sir," replied Monte Cristo, "my condition is very simple. I only ask that they always respect me and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say will seem strange to you, gentlemen, because you are socialists. Progressives and humanitarians, and I, who have never cared about others, never want to protect society, because society does not protect me, and I can even say that usually when society cares about me, it wants to destroy me. Therefore, I have no respect for the society and others, and I am completely impartial. Even so, the society and others have failed me."

"Excellent!" exclaimed Chateau-Renoir. "You are the No. 1 I've ever heard, with such a stern, open-minded and straightforward self-interest. Well said, it's wonderful, Monsieur Earl!"

"It was frank, to say the least," said Morrel. "The count's principles, which he has just stated with firmness, he once disobeyed, but I dare say that the count has no regrets."

"How can I have a principle and not follow it, sir?" Monte Cristo asked, and he couldn't help looking at Maximilian with great concern from time to time. Two or three times he lowered his eyes.

"But I think," went on Morrel, "that you are doing a service to others and to society by rescuing Mr. Mocerf, whom you did not know at the time."

"Besides, this is the greatest honor of society." Beauchamp said solemnly, and drank a glass of champagne.

"Mr. Earl," cried Mocerf, "this time you have been mistaken by reasoning, but I still say that you are the most rigorous logician I have ever seen. You may wish to read the following reasoning It will be clearly shown to you that far from being an egoist, you are, on the contrary, a philanthropist. Ah, Monsieur Earl, you call yourself an Oriental, Levantine, Malayan, Indian , Chinese, savage, your surname is Monte Cristo, your Christian name is Samba the Sailor, but from the first day you set foot in Paris, you possessed by nature the greatest qualities peculiar to us eccentric Parisians. Your virtue, or rather, the greatest defect peculiar to us, that is to say, you have put on yourself a defect that you do not have, and you have covered up a virtue that is inherent in you!"

"My dear vicomte," said Monte Cristo, "I do not see anything in my words or deeds that deserves the praise that you and these gentlemen have just given me. You and I are not strangers. For I already know you, Because I gave you two rooms, because I gave you a luncheon, because I lent you one of my carriages, because we were together at the masquerade in the Rue de la Cull, because we were together at the Place de la Nation You were almost terrified when you watched the execution of the condemned from a window of yours. So, I cannot help but ask these gentlemen, can I let my guest fall into the hands of robbers whom you all call loathsome and detestable? And, you I also know that I also have my own considerations for rescuing you. When I travel to France in the future, please introduce me to the Parisian society. You may have thought that this was just a momentary pleasure. , but today you see for yourself that the deal is done, and you must keep your word, or you will break your word."

(End of this chapter)