The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (123 page)

‘Yes, I did hear tell of it, but I didn’t know the details. And then I am utterly ignorant when it comes to anything to do with stocks and shares.’

‘You don’t gamble on the Exchange?’

‘Me? How do you expect me to gamble? I already have enough trouble working out my income. I should be obliged to take on a clerk and an accountant as well as my steward. But, on this matter of Spain, it seems to me that the baroness was not alone in dreaming about the return of Don Carlos. Didn’t the papers have something to say about it?’

‘Do you believe what you read in the papers?’

‘Not in the least, but I did think that
Le Messager
was an exception to the rule, and that it only carried authenticated news, news from the telegraph.’

‘And that is precisely what can’t be explained,’ Danglars
said. ‘The news of Don Carlos’ return did come through the telegraph.’

‘All of which means that you have lost around one million seven hundred thousand francs this month?’

‘It’s not a matter of “around”, that’s the figure.’

‘The deuce it is!’ Monte Cristo said sympathetically. ‘For a third-class fortune, that’s a hard blow.’

‘A third-class fortune!’ Danglars exclaimed, slightly insulted. ‘What the devil do you mean by that?’

‘Oh, yes, no doubt,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘I divide the rich into three categories: first-class, second-class and third-class fortunes. A first-class fortune, I would call one which is made up of disposable treasures, land, mines and incomes from government bonds in countries like France, Austria or England, provided these treasures, possessions or incomes add up to a total of at least a hundred million. A second-class fortune is one whose owner possesses factories, business interests, viceroyships or principalities yielding under one million five hundred thousand francs, all adding up to a capital of some fifty million. Finally, a third-class fortune would be capital paying compound interest, profits depending on the will of others or on chance, which are liable to be damaged by a bankruptcy or shattered by a telegraph signal; occasional speculation and other operations subject to the whims of a fate which we might call
force mineure
, by analogy with the whims of nature which are
force majeure
; all of it amounting to a real or hypothetical capital of some fifteen million. Isn’t that roughly your situation?’

‘Good heavens, yes!’ said Danglars.

‘So that means that six months like the one you have just had would send a third-class firm to its deathbed,’ Monte Cristo said imperturbably.

‘Huh!’ Danglars said, with a very pale smile. ‘That’s a nice way of putting it.’

‘Say seven months,’ Monte Cristo continued, in the same tone. ‘Tell me, have you ever considered that seven times one million seven hundred thousand francs makes about twelve million? No? Well, you are right, because if one were to reflect on such things, one would never venture one’s capital, which is to the financier what his skin is to a civilized man. We have our more or less sumptuous clothes, which are our credit, but when a man dies he has only his skin. Just as, when you leave business, you will have
your real wealth – five or six million at most… because a third-class fortune barely represents a third or a quarter of what it appears, much as the locomotive of a railway train, amid the steam and smoke that enwraps it and enlarges it, is only at base a more or less powerful machine. Well, of the five million that represent your real capital, you have just lost around two million, which reduces your notional fortune or your credit by the same amount. All this means, my dear Monsieur Danglars, that your skin has just been opened by a wound which, repeated four times, would mean death. Well, well! You must be careful, my dear Monsieur Danglars. Do you need money? Can I lend you some?’

‘Your sums are quite wrong!’ Danglars exclaimed, summoning up all the philosophy and dissimulation he could muster. ‘The way things stand, money has been coming into my account from successful speculation. The blood that flowed out of the wound has been replaced by nourishment. I may have lost a battle in Spain, and I was defeated at Trieste, but my Indian navy should have captured some galleons and my Mexican prospectors have found a mine.’

‘Excellent, excellent; but the scar remains. At the first loss it will re-open.’

‘No, because my business is founded on certainties,’ said Danglars with the glibness of a charlatan whose profession is to extol his own credit. ‘For me to be overthrown, three governments would have to fall.’

‘Well, it has happened.’

‘And for the harvest to fail.’

‘Remember the seven fat cows and the seven lean cows.’
¹

‘Or for the sea to part, as at the time of the Pharaohs; and even then, there are several seas, and the ships would get by through turning into caravans.’

‘So much the better, a thousand times, my dear Monsieur Danglars,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘I see I was wrong and that yours comes into the category of second-class fortunes.’

‘I think I may aspire to that honour,’ said Danglars with one of those fatuous smiles which had the same effect on Monte Cristo as the pallid moons that inferior painters plant in the sky above their ruins. ‘But since we are talking business,’ he continued, delighted at finding this excuse to change the subject, ‘can you give me some idea of what I might do for Monsieur Cavalcanti?’

‘Give him some money, I suppose, if he has a credit with you and you think it’s good.’

‘Splendid! He presented himself this morning with a bill for forty thousand francs, drawn on you and payable on sight, signed Busoni and forwarded to me by you with your endorsement. You will appreciate that I gave him his forty notes straight away.’

Monte Cristo gave a nod to signify his full approval.

‘But that is not all,’ Danglars went on. ‘He has opened a credit with us on behalf of his son.’

‘If I might venture to ask, how much is he giving the young man?’

‘Five thousand francs a month.’

‘Sixty thousand a year. I’m not surprised,’ Monte Cristo said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘They are so timorous, these Cavalcantis. What does he expect a young man to do with five thousand a month?’

‘But you know, if the young man should need a few thousand more…’

‘Don’t. The father would leave you to foot the bill. You don’t know these Italian millionaires: they are real misers. By whom was the credit opened?’

‘By the firm of Fenzi, one of the best in Florence.’

‘I’m not saying that you’ll lose, far from it. But keep strictly to the letter.’

‘Don’t you have confidence in this Cavalcanti?’

‘Me? I’d give him ten million against his signature. My dear sir, his is one of those second-class fortunes we were just talking about.’

‘Yet he is such an ordinary man. I’d have taken him for a major, nothing more.’

‘He would have been honoured, because you’re right, he’s nothing to look at. When I saw him for the first time, he looked to me like an old lieutenant gone to seed. But all Italians are like that: either they look like old money-lenders, or else they dazzle you like Oriental magi.’

‘The young man is better,’ said Danglars.

‘Yes. A trifle shy, perhaps. But all in all he seemed respectable enough to me. I was worried about him.’

‘Why?’

‘Because when you met him at my house, that was virtually his first encounter with society, or so they tell me. He travelled with a very strict tutor and had never been to Paris.’

‘These upper-class Italians, they usually marry among themselves, don’t they?’ Danglars asked casually. ‘They like to unite their fortunes.’

‘Usually that’s true. But Cavalcanti is an eccentric who does nothing like anyone else. I am convinced that he has sent his son to France to find a wife.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

‘And you know about his fortune?’

‘I hear about nothing else. Except that some people say he has millions, others that he doesn’t have a farthing.’

‘What’s your personal opinion?’

‘Just that: personal, so don’t rely on it.’

‘But…’

‘My opinion is that all these old
podestas
, the former
condottieri
– because the Cavalcantis used to command armies and used to rule provinces… Well, my opinion, as I say, is that they buried millions in nooks and crannies that only their ancestors knew and passed down from eldest son to eldest son through the generations. The proof is that they are all dry and yellow like their florins from the days of the republic: their faces have spent so long looking at the coins that they have come to reflect them.’

‘Exactly,’ said Danglars. ‘All the more so since none of these people seems to own a square inch of land.’

‘Very little, at least. In Cavalcanti’s case, all I know is his palace in Lucca.’

‘Ah, so he does have a palace,’ said Danglars, laughing. ‘That’s something at any rate.’

‘Yes, and he rents it to the Minister of Finance, while he himself lives in a cottage. I told you: I think the fellow’s tight-fisted.’

‘I must say, you don’t flatter him.’

‘Listen, I hardly know him. I may have seen him three times in my life. What I do know comes from Abbé Busoni and from Cavalcanti himself. He was talking to me this morning about his plans for his son and hinted that he was tired of letting large sums of money sleep idly in Italy, which is a dead country, so he would like to find a way, in either France or Italy, of making his millions bear fruit. However, I must insist that, though I have every confidence in Abbé Busoni himself, I can guarantee nothing.’

‘No matter. Thank you for sending me a customer. It’s a fine
name to write on my register, and my cashier, to whom I explained about the Cavalcantis, is full of self-importance about it all. By the way – just out of idle curiosity – when such people marry off their sons, do they give them a dowry?’

‘It depends. I knew one Italian prince, as rich as a gold mine, one of the leading families in Tuscany, who would give millions to his sons when they married as he wished and, when they went against his wishes, cut them off with an income of twenty
écus
a month. Supposing Andrea were to marry someone of whom his father approved, he might give him one, two or three million. If it was with the daughter of a banker, for example, he might take an interest in his son’s father-in-law’s firm. On the other hand, suppose he was not pleased with his daughter-in-law: well,
slap-bang
, old Cavalcanti grabs the key to his safe, gives a double turn to the lock and Master Andrea is obliged to live like a young Parisian beau, marking cards and loading dice.’

‘The boy will find a Bavarian or Peruvian princess: he’ll want a closed crown, an Eldorado with the Potosi running through it.’

‘No, these transmontane aristos often marry mere mortals: they are like Jupiter, they like mixing species.
²
But tell me, my dear Monsieur Danglars, you’re not thinking of marrying Andrea yourself are you, with all these questions?’

‘By golly, it might not be a bad investment,’ Danglars said. ‘And I am a speculator.’

‘But surely not Mademoiselle Danglars? Do you want Albert to cut poor Andrea’s throat?’

‘Albert?’ said Danglars with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘Oh, he’s not worried.’

‘But he’s engaged to your daughter, I think?’

‘The fact is, Monsieur Morcerf and I have spoken a few times about this marriage, but Madame de Morcerf and Albert…’

‘You’re not telling me he isn’t a good match?’

‘Just a moment! I think Mademoiselle Danglars is worth Monsieur de Morcerf.’

‘Mademoiselle Danglars’ dowry will certainly be fine, I don’t doubt, especially if the telegraph doesn’t get up to its tricks again.’

‘It’s not just the dowry. But tell me, now we mention it…’

‘What?’

‘Why didn’t you invite Morcerf and his family to your dinner?’

‘I did so, but he said he was going to Dieppe with Madame de Morcerf, who was advised to take some sea air.’

‘My word, yes,’ said Danglars with a laugh. ‘It must be good for her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is the air she breathed when she was young.’

Monte Cristo let the allusion pass without comment. ‘But, when all’s said and done,’ he continued, ‘while Albert may not be as rich as Mademoiselle Danglars, you cannot deny that he bears a fine name.’

‘Yes, but I like mine too,’ said Danglars.

‘Agreed, your name is a popular one, and it ennobled the title with which they sought to ennoble it; but you are too intelligent not to realize that, according to certain prejudices which are too deeply ingrained for them to be eradicated, a title five centuries old is better than one of only twenty years.’

‘And that,’ said Danglars, with an attempt at a sardonic smile, ‘is why I should prefer Monsieur Andrea Cavalcanti to Monsieur Albert de Morcerf.’

‘Yet I imagine that the Morcerfs do not cede to the Cavalcantis?’

‘The Morcerfs! Tell me, my dear Count, you are a noble man, aren’t you?’

‘I think so.’

‘And well versed in heraldry?’