Читать книгу The Count of Monte Cristo, Part Four - Александр Дюма - Страница 6
ОглавлениеACT I, SCENE 1
The home of Julie and Emmanuel. A room. To the left front a door. Second door and window further back left. A chimney to the right.
(Maximilian enters in the arms of Julie and Emmanuel.)
MAXIMILIAN
Yes, here I am, sister, yes, here I am, my dear Emmanuel and to spend three months with you again!
JULIE
Oh, my dear Maximilian, how happy we are!
MAXIMILIAN
And so am I! But first this purse that I kiss in memory of our poor father.
EMMANUEL
Ah!
MAXIMILIAN
Oh, my friends, what a strange thing has happened to me!
JULIE
What you told us in your letter?
MAXIMILIAN
Yes, you understand that in the midst of the Mediterranean, in a deserted island which is known as Monte Cristo and to find there a nabob and a friend of our family who knew you and who knew Emmanuel—it’s incomprehensible!
JULIE
And this man is coming to Paris—? This man is coming to see us?
MAXIMILIAN
He said he’d be in Paris before me and that one of his first visits would be to the little house in the Rue Meslay.
JULIE
About how old?
MAXIMILIAN
Still young; forty years, perhaps.
JULIE
Handsome?
MAXIMILIAN
Handsome, yes, if expression makes for beauty.
JULIE
And rich?
MAXIMILIAN
Millions.
EMMANUEL
Oh—a carriage is stopping at the door.
JULIE
How strange it would be if it were he.
MAXIMILIAN
Oh! That won’t astonish me.
(opening the window)
It’s a miracle!
EMMANUEL
Why?
MAXIMILIAN
I announce the Count of Monte Cristo to you.
EMMANUEL and JULIE
The Count of Monte Cristo.
MAXIMILIAN
In person.
JULIE
Oh—receive him, brother. I must change my dress.
(She escapes.)
EMMANUEL
I need to put on a coat.
(He leaves quickly.)
MAXIMILIAN
Ah, good, good, ah—Count, so your millions have their effect.
(going to the door)
This way, Count, this way.
(Monte Cristo enters.)
MONTE CRISTO
Well, sir, am I a man of my word? I said that I would arrive before you did.
MAXIMILIAN
Ah, Count, I’ve been here ten minutes already.
MONTE CRISTO
As for me, I got here several days ago and these several days have been well employed, I swear to you. But they told me you were with your sister and brother-in-law.
MAXIMILIAN
Yes, only at the announcement of your arrival, they escaped but, be easy, they will soon reappear, and in outfits more worthy of you.
MONTE CRISTO
Ah, my dear friend, I see with regret that I have caused a revolution in your family.
MAXIMILIAN
Oh, a peaceful revolution! They were both gardening when I arrived and dressed for it. Emmanuel is changing his vest for a suit coat, and Julie her slip for a dress.
MONTE CRISTO
You have a happy family, don’t you?
MAXIMILIAN
Oh! Yes, I can answer for that! They are young, they are gay, and they love each other, and with an income of twenty-five thousand francs, which they consider an immense fortune, they feel they possess the riches of Croesus. They are happy.
MONTE CRISTO
And you, Maximilian—aren’t you happy?
MAXIMILIAN
Oh! Me!
(sighing again)
It’s different.
MONTE CRISTO
Why do you sigh? Why are you silent? You distrust me? Maximilian, don’t you like me?
MAXIMILIAN
Me? Wait, what I am going to say to you is strange, Count, for between men, people don’t exchange this kind of confidence. Do I like you? From the moment I saw you, I felt a strange sympathy. I look at you, I try ineffectively to meet you again. Well, although my reason may tell me I never saw you before our meeting on the island of Monte Cristo, it seems to me that we met before; where? I don’t know. Suppose the two souls of Euryal and Nisus found themselves in the generations which followed them—well, my soul near you, would feel something like their souls would have felt.
MONTE CRISTO
Good, Maximilian, it is an act of providence, my friend.
MAXIMILIAN
Also, I’ve wanted to confide in you, Count.
MONTE CRISTO
About what?
MAXIMILIAN
One day when we are quite alone—
MONTE CRISTO
About love?
MAXIMILIAN
Yes.
MONTE CRISTO
Oh, my dear Maximilian, take care! When men like you love, they love with all their being, they love with their heart, they love with their soul, their entire being—their whole future is in their love. Do you think you are loved in return, Maximilian?
MAXIMILIAN
Oh, with a love equal to mine, I am sure.
MONTE CRISTO
Well, then, what’s there to ask of me? Ask God for this love to last, and so that it will last, disdain men, disdain the world—live for your love and in your love.
MAXIMILIAN
Oh! None of our sorrows come from each other. It’s her relatives who wish to marry her to someone else.
MONTE CRISTO
And you are counting on me to combat this opposition?
MAXIMILIAN
Yes.
MONTE CRISTO
Do I know them?
MAXIMILIAN
Perhaps. Eh, you know everyone don’t you—?
MONTE CRISTO
With the result that you want?
MAXIMILIAN
Listen, I know what fairy watched over your birth, my dear Count; but she gave you the power of persuasion. Yes, if I am alone, the relatives of the one I love will make great difficulties about giving her to me. If, on the contrary, the Count of Monte Cristo consents to act as my sponsor I am convinced that all difficulties will vanish before him.
MONTE CRISTO
Listen, Morel, I already told you and I repeat to you, I love you like a son, more than a son. You are right, I can accomplish much when I choose. Well, I choose for you to be happy, and so that you will be happy, I will give not only my fortune, but my blood.
MAXIMILIAN
Ah, Count!
MONTE CRISTO
You know I’m not prodigal with such demonstrations. Come find me at my house in Paris when you wish, #30 Champs Elysees, side by side with the house of Madame de Villefort!
MAXIMILIAN
Door to door, with Madame de Villefort?
MONTE CRISTO
You know her?
MAXIMILIAN
Oh!
MONTE CRISTO
Come when you like. We will lunch together and discuss it further, and you will dispose of your friend in any way you choose.
MAXIMILIAN
You are so good that I want to tell you—
MONTE CRISTO
(seeing Emmanuel enter)
We are no longer alone.
MAXIMILIAN
My brother-in-law, Emmanuel. The Count.
MONTE CRISTO
Come, sir, philosopher, so I can pay you my respect; they present to me a man content with his fortune. I have traveled a lot, Mr. Herbaut, and it’s the first time I’ve met such a prodigy.
EMMANUEL
It’s that we’ve placed our happiness elsewhere, sir.
MONTE CRISTO
Yes, in soft and chaste passions. I know already about that, sir. Also, as just now I was sad and I felt I was on the way to getting worse, I told my coachman, “15 Rue Meslay,” for I knew I’d find calm, innocence and love. The three sacred plants whose balm cures all the complaints of humanity.
MAXIMILIAN
(to Julie as she enters)
Come, take your share of compliments, the Count is treating us. Count, if, since you’ve come to Paris, and don’t yet know what a bourgeois of the Marais is—here’s my sister who will teach you.
MONTE CRISTO
Madame, pardon me an emotion which must astonish you, you who are accustomed to peace and happiness such as I meet here—but for me, the thing is so new, that I cannot stop watching you and your husband.
JULIE
We are indeed happy, in fact, sir, but we have suffered for a long time and few people have paid for their happiness as dearly as we have.
MONTE CRISTO
Ah! Truly! If I were more in your confidence, Maximilian, I would ask you to tell me about that.
MAXIMILIAN
Oh, it’s an entire family history and for you, Count, accustomed to see illustrious misfortunes and splendid joys, it would present little interest. Still, Julie, as you just told him, we suffered many cruel sorrows, until they were shut back up in a little box.
MONTE CRISTO
And God poured consolation on your suffering?
JULIE
Yes, Count, we can say that, for he did for us what he doesn’t do for his elect. He sent us one of his angels.
EMMANUEL
Those who are born in a royal cradle and who have nothing to desire do not know the joy of living, even as those who do not know the price of a pure sky who have never lived their lives at the mercy of four planks, tossed on a sea rolling in fury.
MONTE CRISTO
(rising, emotionally moved)
Yes, you are right, both right.
(He looks at the room.)
MAXIMILIAN
Our magnificence makes you smile, Count—
(Monte Cristo stops before a globe on which is placed the purse Maximilian kissed when he entered.)
MONTE CRISTO
No, I was only considering this purse which on the one side encloses a paper it seems to me and on the other is a beautiful diamond.
MAXIMILIAN
(gravely)
Count, this purse is the most precious of our family treasures.
MONTE CRISTO
In fact, the diamond is very beautiful.
JULIE
Oh, brother, don’t speak of the price of the stone, although it’s been appraised at one hundred thousand francs, Count. He means to tell you that the objects contained in the purse are the relics of an angel of whom we were speaking just now.
MONTE CRISTO
That’s what I was unable to understand, Madame, and now, I don’t dare ask you. Pardon me, I have no wish to be indiscreet.
JULIE
Indiscreet? Oh, on the contrary, how happy you would make us, Count, in giving us occasion to be heard on the subject. If we were hiding as a secret the fine action that this purse reminds us of, we wouldn’t put it there on view. Oh! We wish we could publish throughout the universe to make our unknown benefactor shiver which would reveal his presence to us.
MONTE CRISTO
Oh, truly!
MAXIMILIAN
(taking the purse and putting it to his lips)
Count, this purse, which I kiss with respect and recognition, touched the hand of a man who saved my father from death, us from ruin, and our name from shame—a man thanks to whom we poor children vowed to misery and tears are now able to listen to others go into ecstacies over our good fortune.
(pulling a letter from the purse)
This letter was written by him in a day when my father had formed a desperate resolve—and this diamond was given as a dowry to my sister by this generous stranger.
MONTE CRISTO
(opening the letter and reading)
“Come immediately to the alley of Meilhan, go into house #5, ask the concierge for the key to room number five, go into the room from the corner by the chimney, take a red silk purse and take the purse to your father. You promised to obey me blindly; I remind you of your promise. Sinbad the Sailor.”
MAXIMILIAN
And in the purse, sir, there was a contract released, a contract for 287,500 francs which was the reason my father was going to blow his brains and also a diamond which is still there with two words written on a little scrap of paper—’Julie’s dowry’.
MONTE CRISTO
And the man who did this for you remains unknown?
MAXIMILIAN
Yes, sir—we have never had the joy of shaking his hand; but it’s not because we did not ask God for this favor.
JULIE
Oh, I still haven’t yet lost hope of kissing that hand as I kiss this purse which touched it four years ago. Penelon was at Trieste when he saw on the dock an Englishman who was embarking on a brig. Excuse me, you don’t know about Penelon, he was an old sailor manned the Pharaoh when the Pharaoh was still voyaging. Well, he recognized the Englishman as the one who came to my father on the fifth of June, 1829 and who wrote me on the fifth of September. He’s convinced it was the same person—unfortunately he didn’t dare speak to him.
MONTE CRISTO
An Englishman you say? He was English? Then wasn’t this Englishman a man that your father had done some great service to, and who with God’s advice, found this way of paying you?
MAXIMILIAN
Sister, sister, remember, I beg you that our father often told us “No it is not an Englishman who has given us this good fortune.”
MONTE CRISTO
Your father told you that, Mr. Morel?
MAXIMILIAN
Sir, my father saw a miracle in this act. My father believed in a benefactor who had returned from the grave to help us. Oh, what a touching superstition, sir, and although I didn’t believe it myself, I was far from wishing to destroy the idea in my father’s heart. Also, how many times did he dream whispering the name of a dear friend, a name of a lost friend and then near to death, as the approach of eternity gave his soul some enlightenment from the tomb, this thought which had never been questioned became a conviction, and his last words in dying were these, “Maximilian, it was Dantès.”
MONTE CRISTO
(very moved)
Dantès! Dantès!
JULIE
Maximilian, there’s another name unknown to the Count.
MAXIMILIAN
But all these details are of little interest, besides—
MONTE CRISTO
Oh, no, you are mistaken.
MAXIMILIAN
And sir, whoever feels compassion for the wretched cannot remain indifferent to the name I’ve just mentioned if he knew how much Dantès had suffered.
MONTE CRISTO
Ah! This—this man suffered greatly?
MAXIMILIAN
All that God, inexhaustible in his rage as in his benevolence, could pour in sorrows and agonies on a single head.
JULIE
Poor Edmond!
MONTE CRISTO
Truly?
MAXIMILIAN
Edmond Dantès was the first mate on a ship that my father owned. He was twenty, he was the most loyal, most pure, the most happy of men. Life smiled on him; he smiled back at life. Edmond adored his father, a fine old man—sweet and religious as in ancient times. He was affianced to a young Catalan girl—the most beautiful woman in Marseille—and she loved him with all her soul.
MONTE CRISTO
Ah!
JULIE
Wasn’t she named Mercédès?
MAXIMILIAN
Yes, Mercédès. A charming name, isn’t it, Count?
MONTE CRISTO
A charming name.
MAXIMILIAN
Edmond, after returning from a voyage had just been named Captain of a ship by my father. He shook hands with old Dantès. He was kissing the hand of his fiancée when police came to arrest him. He had been denounced to a magistrate as being part of a political plot. Denounced by whom? No one knew. They say this magistrate found the evidence against Edmond Dantès so strong that he sent him to the Château d’If. Alas, the prisoner was forgotten.
MONTE CRISTO
Ah! No one asked after him?
MAXIMILIAN
My father, our friends, all those who were interested in this poor young man. We demanded that he be brought to trial. We offered guarantees.
MONTE CRISTO
And this demand?
MAXIMILIAN
Was forgotten like the prisoner. Time went by. It left its black crepe on the family which had seen itself so happy. Dantès’ father succumbed first, every day expecting his son, calling for him every hour. At the end of his resources, too proud to ask, too wretched to wish to live, he shut himself up in his poor deserted house, and one night when the neighbors no longer heard him pacing upstairs, they went up—he was dead; dead of sorrow; dead of starvation.
MONTE CRISTO
(choking)
Oh!
MAXIMILIAN
As for poor Edmond’s fiancée, she succumbed—
MONTE CRISTO
(surprised)
She died?
MAXIMILIAN
No—she married and she left the province. This poor prisoner, they say he attempted to flee, and that in leaping from the height of the walls of the Château d’If, he was broken on the rocks. The sea swallowed his body. God kept the secret of his sorrows! It makes no difference, I am sure, that if Edmond had miraculously escaped from prison, from death, and found under other skies a new life, a new fortune, I am sure that the death of his old father and the betrayal of Mercédès are two memories which would have prevented him from ever being happy.
MONTE CRISTO
That’s very true. But what became of the magistrate whose severity caused all these misfortunes?
JULIE
Rich, honored in the first ranks of the magistrates.
MONTE CRISTO
Who is he then, Madame?
JULIE
He’s—
MAXIMILIAN
(quickly)
Sister, let’s forget, I beg you, sir, don’t mention names.
MONTE CRISTO
Mr. Maximilian is correct. That name pronounced aloud would reawaken God’s wrath.
MAXIMILIAN
Are you all right?
MONTE CRISTO
It’s nothing. The story of this poor man moved me. It’s very natural, isn’t it, Madame?
(to Emmanuel, bowing)
Sir—Maximilian, my friends.
MAXIMILIAN
You are leaving?
MONTE CRISTO
Yes, but permit me to come some time to pay my respects, Madame, my friendly feelings. I love your house and I am grateful for your reception; for here for the first time, yes, for the first time in many years, I was able to forget myself.
Goodbye, goodbye!
EMMANUEL
What a strange man!
MAXIMILIAN
Strange or not, he has an excellent heart.
CURTAIN
