cigar and stretching on the divan)
Ah, dear Vicomte, may you be happy in having nothing to do. In truth, you don’t know your luck.
ALBERT
Eh, what will you be doing then my dear fellow, if you are not doing anything? How’s that? Private secretary to the ministry, thrown into the great European cable and into the petty intrigues of Paris, having kings and better still queens to protect, partners to reunite, elections to control, doing more from your office and with your pen and your telegraph, than Napoleon did with his battlefield, with his sword and his victims—possessing 25,000 pounds of income, outside your official salary, a horse that Châteaubrun has offered you four hundred crowns for, and which you didn’t want to give him, a tailor that never fails you; having the Opera, the Varieties and the Jockey Club—you find nothing in all that to distract you? Then I will try to.
DEBRAY
How’s that?
ALBERT
(rising)
In making you meet a new acquaintance.
DEBRAY
A man or a woman?
ALBERT
A man.
DEBRAY
The devil. I know enough of them already.
ALBERT
But you don’t know the one of whom I am speaking.
DEBRAY
Where’s he come from then? The ends of the world?
ALBERT
Further than that, perhaps.
DEBRAY
I hope he isn’t bringing our lunch?
ALBERT
Rest easy—our lunch is preparing in the maternal kitchen. Decidedly, you must be hungry?
DEBRAY
Yes, I dined yesterday at Mr. de Villefort’s. Have you noticed something, dear friend—one dines very badly at the homes of all the legal people.
ALBERT
Oh, by God! Disparage the dinners of others—this way one may dine well with your ministers.
BEAUCHAMP
(in the antechamber)
He’s waiting for us, right?
ALBERT
Eh! Hold on, I heard the voice of Beauchamp in the antechamber, you can argue and that will make you patient.
GERMAIN
(announcing)
Mr. Beauchamp!
ALBERT
Come in, come in—ferocious writer! Wait, here’s Mr. Debray who detests you without reading you—at least that’s what he says.
BEAUCHAMP
I’m the same. I criticize him without knowing what he does. Good day, my dear Albert! An explanation! I see Debray who drinks sherry and eats biscuits. Are we lunching or having dinner? I have to go to the Chamber. As you see, all is not rosy in our job.
ALBERT
We are lunching. We are waiting only for two more people.
BEAUCHAMP
What type of people?
ALBERT
A gentleman and a traveler.
BEAUCHAMP
Fine! Two hours for the gentleman and one hour for the traveler. I will return for dessert. Keep me some fresh coffee and cigars. I will eat a cutlet at the Senate.
ALBERT
Don’t do anything of the kind, my dear fellow, whether the guests arrive or not, at 10:30 we go to table.
BEAUCHAMP
(looking at his watch)
Ten o’clock! Well, all right, we will test it. Anyway, I am horribly sulky this morning.
ALBERT
Fine, you are like Debray. Now it seems to me if the ministry is sad, the opposition should be gay.
BEAUCHAMP
Ah, that’s because you don’t know what threatens me. I heard Mr. Danglars speak in the Chamber this morning and tonight, at his wife’s, a tragedy of a peer of France.
ALBERT
My dear fellow, this morning you are revoltingly bitter. Recall that the Parisian gossip speaks of a marriage between myself and Miss Eugenie Danglars. I cannot in good conscience let you speak ill of the eloquence of a man who one day must say to me, “You know, Monsieur le Vicomte, that I am giving two millions to my daughter.”
BEAUCHAMP
Come now, Albert, this marriage will never take place. The King is able to make Danglars a baron—can even make him a peer—but he can never make him a gentleman and the Count de Morcerf is too aristocratic a swordsman to consent to a misalliance for two paltry millions.
ALBERT
Two millions, that’s pretty now.
BEAUCHAMP
It’s the social capital for a Boulevard theater or a railway from the Jardin de Plantes to La Rapée.
DEBRAY
Let him say it, Morcerf, and get married. You are marrying the escutcheon of a moneybags, right? Well, what does the rest matter to you? A blason less and a zero more is worth more on this type of escutcheon. You have seven martlets in your coat-of-arms and you will give three to your wife—that leaves you with four. It’s one more than the Duke of Guise who failed to be king of France, and whose cousin-germain was Emperor of Germany.
BEAUCHAMP
Oh, you, Debray, everyone knows your weakness for the whole family.
GERMAIN
(announcing)
The Marquis de Châteaubrun.
(Châteaubrun enters.)
BEAUCHAMP
Good! Here’s the gentleman; we are waiting only for the traveler.
DEBRAY
