1001 Stories For The Road

My apologies to all of you great fans for how long this story has taken- I have been putting the word out there for a second voice to help me with some of the work but so far no luck. Soon I will add some longer readings so we can get to the end- and in the future I will keep these selections shorter! Thanks again for your patience.

Meanwhile- in the coming chapter (70) you will find The Count and his long lost love taking a long walk in the garden where they finally get a chance to talk.

The Count received an unexpected visit from Albert Morcerf , who tells him that he and his mother (The Count's old flame, Mercedes) were talking about him the past four days, and that she would like the Count to attent a summer ball that Albert's father has arranged.

Albert returns from his trip to the country with his mother, Mercedes, and visits with the Count to invite him to a ball he's planning on throwing in the next few days. For this, Albert has two reasons: first, because he wishes very much to arrange a marriage between Eugenie Danglars and Andrea Cavalcanti (which Baron Danglars also wants); and second, because Mercedes has mentioned she wants to speak more intimately with the Count. At this second piece of information, the Count shudders but tries to maintain his composure. It is not exactly clear to the reader at this stage why the Count is unwilling to meet with Mercedes face-to-face. It can be intuited that the Count is simply avoiding Mercedes because the thought of their interaction is too great for his heart to bear. Or, it could be that the Count understands that his desire for revenge against Fernand will indirectly harm Mercedes and Albert, and there is nothing he can do about this. Active Themes Justice, Revenge, and God's Will Theme Icon Changes of Identity and Station Theme Icon Love, Devotion, and Redemption Theme Icon Debt and Gratitude Theme Icon Literary Devices Allusions Hyperbole Albert argues that Eugenie would make a wonderful mistress but a terrible wife, and so he feels that it's best if she does marry Andrea. The Count, after some cajoling, says that he will in fact go to the ball because Mercedes requests his attendance. Albert feels that he has been freed of a social obligation to Eugenie, allowing Danglars to continue to push for Eugenie's marriage to Andrea.

Baroness Danglars visits Villefort at his offices, coming in incognito so as to avoid the attention of others. Villefort does not mince words: he tells her that someone seems to be onto both the details of their affair twenty years ago and the death of the child. Based on the dinner at Auteuil, Villefort believes that the Count must know all, although he's not sure how Monte Cristo could have found out, as neither Villefort nor Baroness Danglars has told anyone about their tryst. Villefort demonstrates some of his abilities as a prosecutor, noting what the reader already knows: that the Count is aware of his and Hermine's past misdeeds. Villefort nevertheless really believes that their secret is still hidden – that no one alive could have knowledge of it. But it appears strange that Villefort does not think of the man who tried to kill him, who might still be alive. Active Themes Justice, Revenge, and God's Will Theme Icon Changes of Identity and Station Theme Icon Love, Devotion, and Redemption Theme Icon Debt and Gratitude Theme Icon Villefort reveals that, when Bertuccio stabbed him, he crawled inside to the Baroness, able to survive the wound. After his convalescence in the south, Villefort tells the Baroness, who was not aware before, how he dug in the garden to try to find the body of their illegitimate child, only to discover that Bertuccio had taken it. Villefort was able to track the child to a foundling hospital nearby, but he found no information on the family who adopted him. Villefort wonders if the child is still alive and, if so, where he is living—he also wonders how the Count could have figured out the sordid tale of Villefort's life, which, as he tells the Baroness mysteriously, is filled with other deeds of which he'd rather not speak. What is striking is that Villefort was indeed nearly able to track down Bertuccio, but after Bertuccio's common-law wife Assunta adopted Benedetto, the trail went cold for Villefort. In these pages, Villefort emerges as a man haunted by the things he's done in the past, but also a man unwilling to atone for these misdeeds. Instead, he only wishes to continue covering them up, to do what he can to keep them from ruining his and Hermine's reputations in Paris.

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The Baron Danglars comes to the Count's home in Paris to meet with him about business matters regarding the Cavalcantis. The Count says that Abbe Busoni has just arrived in Paris, and that he has been meeting with him, excusing himself for being late for the Baron. The Baron complains that, in recent days, his fortune has taken a significant hit on the Spanish question, and the Count, mocking the Baron but pretending to sympathize with him, says that the Baron's is a "third-class fortune" because it can be affected by fluctuations in the stock or bond markets, or by changes in and garbled messages on the telegraph wires. The Baron insists that he has plenty of money to survive more stock turbulence, but the Count isn't so sure. The Count uses his meeting with the Baron as another opportunity to bring Danglars down a peg. The Count's revenge on Danglars, as revealed here and in ensuing chapters, will involve the slow erosion of his wealth and status, and the mockery of that erosion as it occurs. Danglars seems not to be surprised that the Count knows of his misfortune, and still appears to suspect that it is Lucien and his wife, and not the Count, who are involved in his losses. The Count also uses this as a chance to indicate just how well-preserved and safe his own fortune is, compared to Danglars'. They turn to the Cavalcantis, with the Count insisting that that family comes from ancient money, that the Major has a great deal of wealth to his name, and that the Baron would be in a good position if he were to do business with Andrea as a "sound investment." The Baron wonders, too, if a young lad like that might not be a good investment for his daughter, Eugenie, who does not want to marry Albert de Morcerf. A second part of the Count's plan regarding Danglars is revealed. The Count knows that Eugenie, Danglars' daughter, does not wish to marry Albert, and the Count wants to do all he can to link Eugenie to an even more reprobate and unsatisfactory match than Albert – whose reputation he also plans to ruin, as he ruins Fernand's. Thus the Count plants the seed of a union between Andrea/Benedetto and Eugenie. When the Count asks whether the name of Morcerf is an ancient heraldry, the Baron admits to him that the Morcerf family "bought" its name with wealth acquired through a shady dealing with the Ali Pasha during the Greek wars, and that Fernand, Albert's father, was nothing more than a fishmonger in Marseille. The Count says that this information about the Morcerf family could be of great use to the Baron, and he gives the Baron a name of a source in Greece to whom he can write in order to confirm this information about the Morcerfs' wealth, which the Baron can use to blackmail Morcerf. With luck, the Baron says, he can force his daughter into marrying Andrea, whom he believes to be a better match than Albert. The Count is delighted at this. The Count is so devilishly cunning that he uses one of Danglars' old methods against him. As the reader might remember from the beginning of the novel, Danglars managed to convince Fernand to send the letter even as he pretended he wasn't involved – that the act was somehow Fernand's, and not Danglars', ultimate responsibility. Here, although the Count wishes very much that Andrea and Eugenie be betrothed, he encourages Danglars to believe that this plan is his own, thus making this turn of the revenge plot all the more satisfying for the Count.

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SummaryAnalysis The narrator turns to the Danglars' home, where Lucien Debray visits the Baroness, asking what is on her mind after the events at Auteuil earlier that day. The Baroness says that it was nothing, that she is simply feeling faint, but she asks that Debray stay with her and read to her in the night. At this, however, the Baron comes in and tells Lucien to leave—that the younger man will have plenty of time to discuss matters with the Baroness the next day. Hermine is surprised, because typically the Baron does not interfere in her affairs so directly and brusquely. The affair between Lucien and Hermine has been referred to for some time in the novel, but has not been shown "on stage," as an event unfolding in the text itself. Here, however, their affair is again referenced only glancingly, when the Baron appears to acknowledge that he knows what has been going on, and that he wishes, contrary to normal procedures in the family, to spend some time alone with his wife. The Baron then has a private conversation with Hermine in her chambers. He reveals that he has long known about her affair with Lucien, just as Hermine, surely, has known about his own affairs, and that they have decided to live "no longer as man and wife" for four years, only pretending to maintain a normalcy in marriage. Danglars says that this arrangement has been fine for him so long as he has not lost out financially. But the Baron strongly implies that Lucien, with his diplomatic connections in Paris, arranged the mix-up in the telegram that resulted in the Baron's enormous financial loss. The Baron seems to understand that someone has been behind the malfeasance with the telegraph operator. Of course, the reader knows that this bungling was caused by the Count, not Lucien, and so we have another instance of dramatic irony. Nevertheless, the Baron seems to sense that his fortune is under attack in some way, and he wishes to do what he can to preserve the money upon which his reputation rests.

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Andrea Cavalcanti leaves the party at Auteuil alone, as his "father," the Major, has his own cab and servants. On his way out the door with his own servant, however, Andrea is stopped by a man dressed as a beggar, revealed to the reader to be none other than Caderousse, who is on the run since murdering La Carconte many years before in the botched scheme with the jeweler. It is revealed that Andrea/Benedetto and Caderousse know each other from the past, in the south of France, when Caderousse was on the lam for his crime and Benedetto for starting the fire that led to his stepmother's death. It has been unclear what has happened to Caderousse in the time since he was sentenced to hard labor in a prison colony for the murders of La Carconte and the jeweler. As it turns out, Benedetto/Andrea and Caderousse know each other from the colony, as will be described in detail later. This is another of the novel's many coincidences, for, of course, Bertuccio (unbeknownst to Caderousse) is the only witness to the murders in the inn so many years ago, when Bertuccio was drenched in the jeweler's blood.

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.The dinner is served, and everyone eats heartily, if somewhat suspiciously, the various delights the Count has assembled, including fish from as far away as Russia, carried to the table in specially-fitted water-carriages. After the meal, the Count takes the guests on a tour of the estate, and when he shows them a room in which, he avers, a crime has been committed, Madame Danglars swoons and Villefort rises to comfort her. The Count demonstrates two things in this section. First, he shows that he is capable of bringing in some of the most extreme and expensive delights in all the known (European) world. And second, he makes clear to Villefort and Hermine that he is aware of some crime committed in the house, without explicitly stating that Villefort and Hermine are involved – thus causing them additional agony at the thought of being found out in front of some of the luminaries of French society.

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This chapter marks the beginning of the Count's grand dinner at Auteuil. Bertuccio has decked out the home in preparation, save for one room, which the Count will show his guests after the food has been served. The Count sees that Lucien Debray, Chateau-Renaud, the Baron Danglars (angry from his losses on the market), Hermine Danglars, Villefort and Heloise, and Major and Andrea Cavalcanti arrive. As in the previous scene in the theater, the narrator (and the Count) have arranged things so that all the most important characters are present in the same place. Of course, the Count has also made sure that this is not just any location, but the house in which Villefort and the Baroness Danglars had their illicit tryst many years ago. Active Themes Justice, Revenge, and God's Will Theme Icon Changes of Identity and Station Theme Icon Debt and Gratitude Theme Icon Literary Devices Imagery As he calls for Bertuccio, the Count reveals how these characters intertwine with the servant's story of a Corsican vendetta. Bertuccio, shocked, sees that Hermine Danglars, the Baron's wife, is in fact the woman with whom Villefort was having an affair, and who bore a child out of wedlock. Furthermore, Villefort is in fact still alive, which means that Bertuccio did not murder him when he stabbed him in the garden, and Andrea Cavalcanti is really Benedetto himself, Bertuccio's adopted son who caused so much mayhem in his home life. At this, however, the Count demands that Bertuccio silently serve the dinner, betraying nothing of what he's learned.

The Count does as he said he would do and goes on a trip to visit the telegraph operator nearby. First, he notices that the operator spends a great deal of time tending the garden at the foot of the telegraph tower. Then, when he observes the man working in the tower, he learns from the man that operators are paid very little, and that, if they make any mistakes in relaying information to the next post, they are docked a substantial amount of their next month's pay. The Count is especially skilled at getting people to do what he wants, by convincing them that their interests align with his own. Here, the Count demonstrates what could potentially be a reason for the operator to mind his station at all times – that he is punished if he misses a message. Then, in the next scene, the Count will make an offer that would more than compensate for any penalty the operator might suffer in this scenario.

The Count arrives, again paying a visit to Villefort and his wife. He finds them both dismayed at the idea that their daughter has been disinherited from 900,000 francs, but Villefort insists to his wife and the Count that the marriage between Valentine and Franz is to go on, and that to change it now would be to bring down rumor and scorn on Valentine's name. Heloise notes that Noirtier, a wealthy man, is giving away money that could go to Edouard, who carries on the family name. But Villefort insists that the right course here is to ensure that Valentine and Franz marry. The Count asks why Villefort cares so much about this wedding, and Heloise notes that the D'Epinay family, who are Royalists, have had a long-standing dispute with the Noirtiers, who are Bonapartists, and that he hopes to bury this dispute with the marriage. It is revealed why Villefort cares so much about the wedding of Franz and Valentine – he hopes to move beyond the hatreds of Royalists and Bonapartists that have existed in his family for some time. And indeed, these hatreds have existed in France for at least two generations, as the novel has demonstrated in other contexts. What was in France a problem of two different governments and approaches to democracy, becomes here a problem between two different families, which Villefort hopes to reconcile via his daughter's marriage. Villefort has therefore taken one of the primary preoccupations of his professional life, and made it one of his personal and family life. The Count agrees that this is the best course, then takes his leave from the Villeforts, saying that he is off to indulge a strange pastime of his—he is going to go observe a telegraph structure in Paris, a technology of which he is enamored. Before he leaves, he confirms that the Villeforts will be joining him that weekend in Auteuil, at the house of the former Saint-Merans family. Villefort expresses surprise and trepidation that the Count has bought this structure, as even his wife knows that Villefort never wanted anything to do with Auteuil. It seems clear that Villefort is somehow involved in the strange business of murder and mayhem recounted by Bertuccio some weeks ago to the Count. But Villefort swallows these objections and promises that he and his wife will be present that Saturday.