he made some excuses for stopping you, right?
ALBERT
Exactly.
DEBRAY
Why then this was Ariosto?
ALBERT
No—it was the Count of Monte Cristo.
DEBRAY
Come on! No one’s called the Count of Monte Cristo.
BEAUCHAMP
Wait, wait! I think I can get you out of this embarrassment, Monte Cristo is a little island near which I passed on my way to Palermo.
ALBERT
Precisely. the man I speak of is King of this grain of sand, of this atom. He must have bought his title of Count somewhere in Tuscany.
BEAUCHAMP
He is rich, your Count?
ALBERT
I should think so. He has a cave full of gold.
BEAUCHAMP
And you have seen this cave?
ALBERT
No, but I’ve heard it spoken of.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Eh, but so have I. One night, in the tent while we were waiting for our supper which did not come.
DEBRAY
Like our lunch today.
ALBERT
Don’t interrupt, Debray. What the devil! We are not in the Senate.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Well, Morel, my savior, had always told me that he was going to hunt in this island of Monte-Cristo, and that there he had been invited to supper by a stranger, but on the condition that he let himself be blindfolded and escorted so he didn’t know where he was.
ALBERT
Well?
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Well—he went down to a cave. There he found a kind of magician who was served by mutes and by women compared to whom Aspasia and Cleopatra were only sluts.
ALBERT
Well, you are throwing ball of twine in my labyrinth, my dear Châteaubrun, the Count of your Captain de Spahis, is mine.
DEBRAY
Truly, my friend, you tell of unlikely things.
ALBERT
That doesn’t prevent my Count from existing.
DEBRAY
Everybody exists, quite a miracle!
ALBERT
Yes, but nobody exists in similar conditions. Not everybody has black slaves, princely galleries, weapons like Casuaba, horses of six million francs a piece, Greek mistresses.
BEAUCHAMP
He has a Greek mistress? Have you seen her?
ALBERT
Seen, with both my eyes, once at the Vallée theater and once when I lunched with the Count. Two times in all.
DEBRAY
So he actually eats, your extraordinary man?
ALBERT
My word, if he eats, it is so little that it is hardly worth speaking of.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
You see—he’s a vampire.
ALBERT
Well, gentleman, you are going to mock me, but I won’t say no.
BEAUCHAMP
Ah, bravo.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Your Count of Monte Cristo is a gallant man in his lost moments, right?
DEBRAY
Yes, except in his little arrangements with Italian bandits.
BEAUCHAMP
Bah! There are no Italian bandits.
DEBRAY
No vampires!
BEAUCHAMP
No Count de Monte Cristo! And the proof, my dear friend, is that the clock’s striking 10:30.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Admit you are having a nightmare, and let’s go to lunch.
GERMAIN
(opening the door)
His Excellence—the Count of Monte Cristo.
MONTE CRISTO
(entering)
Punctuality is the politeness of Kings, I believe one of your sovereigns pretended, but whatever may be their wish, it isn’t always that of travelers. Now, my dear Vicomte I hope you will excuse, in favor of my good intentions, the two or three seconds delay I have taken in arriving at the meeting. Five hundred leagues are not without some inconveniences, in France especially where it is forbidden, it seems, to beat the coachmen.
ALBERT
Count, I was just occupied in announcing your visit to some of my friends that I had brought here on the occasion of the promise you had kindly given me in Rome of coming to visit me in Paris, on June 25 at 10:30 in the morning. I have the honor of presenting them to you—they are the Marquis de Châteaubrun whose noble ancestors include a dozen peers of the realm and whose ancestors had their place at King Arthur’s roundtable. Mr. Lucien Debray, private secretary to the ministry. Mr. Beauchamp, a terrible journalist—terror of the government and delight of his friends.
MONTE CRISTO
Gentlemen, permit me, I beg you, an admission which will be my excuse for all the inconveniences I may ever cause. I am a stranger, but a stranger to such a degree that this is the first time I have ever been to Paris. French life is completely unknown to me, and until the present moment, I’ve practiced an oriental life, the most antipathetic to all Parisian traditions—I beg you to excuse me if you find me too Turkish, too Neapolitan, too Arabic.
ALBERT
And, I, Count,
