“Really!” said Franz.
“Yes, I spent yesterday evening with Cardinal Rospigliosi, and there was a question of one of the two condemned men being reprieved.”
“Andrea Rondolo?” asked Franz.
“No,” the Count answered carelessly, “the other one” (he glanced at the notebook as if to recall the name), “Peppino, alias Rocca Priori. It will deprive you of seeing a man guillotined, but there is still the mazzolata, which is an extraordinary and interesting form of punishment when you see it for the first time, and even for the second time. You asked me for a seat at my window. Well, you shall have it. But let us first sit down to table, for they are just coming to inform us that breakfast is ready.”
And in truth a servant opened one of the four doors saying “Al suo comodo.” aw
They all rose and passed into the dining-room.
At the end of the breakfast Franz took out his watch.
“Well,” said the Count, “what are you doing?”
“Excuse us, Count,” said Franz, “but we have a thousand and one things to attend to.”
“What things?”
“We have no disguises, and they cannot be dispensed with to-day.”
“Do not concern yourselves about that. As far as I know, we have a private room in the Piazza del Popolo; I will have any costumes you desire sent there, and we can change into our disguises on the spot.”
“After the execution?” said Franz.
“After, during, or before, just as you like.”
“In front of the scaffold?”
“The scaffold is part of the festival.”
“Count, upon reflection, I shall content myself with accepting a seat in your carriage and in the window of the Palazzo Ruspoli, but I leave you free to dispose of my seat in the window of the Piazza del Popolo, though I appreciate your courtesy.”
“But I warn you, you will miss a very curious sight,” was the Count’s reply.
“You will tell me all about it,” replied Franz, “and I am convinced that the recital from your lips will make almost as great an impression on me as the sight itself. More than once have I wished to witness an execution, but have never been able to make up my mind to it. I should very much like to pass through the Corso,” continued he. “Would that be possible?”
“It would on foot, but not in a carriage.”
“Well, then, I shall go on foot.”
“Is it necessary for you to go down the Corso?”
“Yes, I want to see something.”
“In that case the carriage can wait for us at the Piazza del Popolo. I shall be quite pleased to go along the Corso myself to see whether some orders I have given have been executed.”
“Excellency,” said the servant opening the door, “a man in the habit of a friar wishes to speak with you.”
“Ah, yes, I know what he wants,” said the Count. “If you will go into the salon, you will find some excellent Havana cigars on the centre table. I will rejoin you in a minute.”
The two young men arose and went out by one door while the Count, after renewing his apologies, left by the other.
“Well, what do you think of the Count of Monte Cristo?” asked Franz of his friend.
“What do I think of him?” said Albert, obviously astonished that his companion should ask him such a question. “I think he is a charming man who does the honours of his table to perfection; a man who has seen much, studied much, and thought much; who, like Brutus, belongs to the school of the Stoics, and who possesses most excellent cigars,” he added ap preciatively, sending out a whiff of smoke which rose to the ceiling in spirals.
That was Albert’s opinion of the Count, and as Franz knew that he prided himself on forming an opinion of men and things only after mature reflection, he did not attempt to change his own opinion of him.
“But did you notice how attentively he looked at you?”
“At me?”
“Yes.”
Albert thought for a moment.
“Ah, that is not surprising,” he said with a sigh. “I have been away from Paris for nearly a year, and my clothes must have become old-fashioned. The Count probably thinks I come from the provinces; undeceive him, old man, and the first opportunity you have, tell him that this is not the case.”
Franz smiled, and an instant later the Count returned.
“Here I am, messieurs,” he said, “and entirely at your service. I have given the necessary orders; the carriage will go to the Piazza del Popolo, and we shall go down the Corso if you really wish to. Take some of those cigars, Monsieur de Morcerf.”
“By Jove, I shall be delighted,” said Albert, “for your Italian cigars are awful. When you come to Paris, I shall return all this hospitality.”
“I will not refuse; I hope to go there some day and, with your permission, I shall pay you a visit. Come along, messieurs, we have no time to lose; it is half-past twelve. Let us be off.”
All three went out together and, passing the Piazza di Spagna, went along the Via Frattina which led them straight to the Fiano and Ruspoli Palaces. Franz’s whole attention was directed to the windows of the Palazzo Ruspoli; he had not forgotten the signal agreed upon by the cloaked man and his mysterious companion.
“Which are your windows?” he asked the Count as naturally as he could.
“The last three,” replied the Count with a carelessness which was quite unaffected, for he could not guess the reason of the question.
Franz rapidly looked up at the three windows. The side windows were draped with yellow damask and the centre one with white damask having a red cross on it. The man in the cloak had kept his word, and there was no doubt that the cloaked man and the Count were one and the same person.
By this time the Carnival had begun in real earnest. Picture the wide and beautiful Corso lined from end to end with tall palaces with their balconies tapestried and the windows draped, and at these windows and balconies three hundred thousand spectators, Romans, Italians, and strangers from every part of the world: aristocrats by birth side by side with the aristocrats by wealth and genius; charming women who, succumbing to the influence of the spectacle, bent over the balconies or leaned out of the windows showering confetti on the carriages and catching bouquets hurled up at them in return; the air thickened with sweetmeats thrown down and flowers thrown up; in the streets a gay, untiring, mad crowd in fantastic costumes: gigantic cabbages walking about, buffalo heads bellowing on human bodies, dogs walking on their hind legs. In the midst of all this a mask is raised revealing, as in Cal lot’s dream of the temptation of St Antony, a beautiful face that one follows only to be separated from it by these troops of demons such as one meets in one’s dreams; picture all this to yourself, and you have a faint idea of the Carnival at Rome.
When they had driven round for the second time, the Count stopped the carriage and asked his companions’ permission to quit them, leaving his carriage at their disposal. Franz looked up; they were opposite the Palazzo Ruspoli. At the centre window, the one hung with white damask with a red cross, was a blue domino.
“Messieurs,” said the Count, jumping out, “when you are tired of being actors and wish to become spectators, you know you have seats at my windows. In the meantime, my coachman, my window, and my servants are at your disposal.”
Franz thanked the Count for his kind offer; Albert, however, was busy coquetting with a carriageful of Roman peasants who had taken their stand near the Count’s carriage, and was throwing bouquets at them.
Unfortunately for him the line of carriages drove on, and while he went toward the Piazza del Popolo, the carriage that had attracted his attention moved on toward the Palazzo di Venezia.
In spite of Albert’s hopes he could boast of no other adventure that day than that he had passed the carriage with the Roman peasants two or three times. Once, whether by accident or intentionally, his mask fell off. He took his remaining bouquets and threw them into the carriage.
One of the charming lad
ies whom Albert suspected to be disguised in the coquettish peasant’s costume was doubtless touched by this gallantry, for, when the friends’ carriage passed the next time, she threw him a bouquet of violets. Albert seized it and put it victoriously into his buttonhole, while the carriage continued its triumphant course.
“Well!” said Franz, “here is the beginning of an adventure.”
“Laugh as much as you like,” said Albert. “I think you are right though, anyway I shall not let this bouquet go!”
“I should think not indeed, it is a token of gratitude.”
The Count of Monte Cristo had given definite orders that his carriage should be at their disposal for the remaining days of the Carnival, and they were to make use of it without fear of trespassing too much on his kindness. The young men decided to take advantage of the Count’s courtesy, and the next afternoon, having replaced their costume of the previous evening, which was somewhat the worse for the numerous combats they had engaged in, by a Roman peasant’s attire, they gave orders for the horses to be harnessed. With a sentimental touch, Albert slipped the bouquet of faded violets in his buttonhole. They started forth and hastened toward the Corso by the Via Vittoria.
When they were going round the Corso for the second time, a bouquet of fresh violets was thrown into their carriage from one filled with pierrettes,ax from which it was quite clear to Albert that the contadineay of the previous evening had also changed their costumes, and that, whether by chance or whether both parties had been prompted by a similar sentiment, he was now wearing their costume and they were wearing his.
Albert put the fresh flowers into his buttonhole, but kept the faded ones in his hand, and when he again met the carriage he put it amorously to his lips, which appeared to afford great amusement, not only to the one who had thrown it but also to her gay companions.
The day was no less animated than the previous evening; it is even probable that a keen observer would have noted more noise and gaiety. Once the two friends saw the Count at his window, but when they next passed he had disappeared. Needless to say, the flirtation between Albert and the pierrette with the violets lasted the whole day.4
When they returned home in the evening Franz found a letter awaiting him from the Ambassador informing him that he would have the honour of being received by His Holiness on the morrow. At each previous visit to Rome he had solicited and had been granted the same honour, and, moved by a religious feeling as much as by gratitude, he did not wish to leave the capital of the Christian world without paying his respectful homage at the feet of one of the successors of St Peter who has been such a rare example of all virtues. There was, therefore, no question of the Carnival for him that day; for, in spite of his simplicity and kindness, the grandeur of the noble and holy old man whom they called Gregory XVI was such that one was always filled with awe and respectful emotion at the thought of kneeling before him.
On leaving the Vatican Franz went straight to the hotel, carefully avoiding the Corso. He had brought away with him a treasure of pious thoughts, and he felt it would be profanation to go near the mad gaiety of the mascherataaz for some little time.
At ten minutes past five Albert entered overjoyed. The pierrette had reassumed her peasant’s costume, and, as she passed his carriage, had raised her mask. She was charming to behold.
Franz congratulated Albert, who received his congratulations with the air of a man conscious that they were merited. He had recognized, by certain unmistakable signs, that his fair incognita belonged to the aristocracy, and had made up his mind to write to her the next day.
Though given no details, Franz noticed that Albert had something to ask him, but hesitated to formulate the request. He insisted upon it, however, declaring beforehand that he was willing to make any sacrifice for his pleasure. Albert’s reluctance to tell his friend his secret lasted just as long as politeness demanded, and then he confessed to Franz that he would do him a great favour by permitting him to go in the carriage alone the next day, for he attributed to Franz’s absence the extreme kindness of the fair contadina in raising her mask.
Franz was not so selfish as to stand in Albert’s way in the case of an adventure that promised to prove so agreeable to his curiosity and so flattering to his vanity. He felt assured that his friend would duly blurt out to him all that happened; and as a similar piece of good fortune had never fallen to his share during the three years that he had travelled in Italy, Franz was by no means sorry to learn what was the proper thing to do on such an occasion. He therefore promised Albert that he would be quite pleased to witness the Carnival on the morrow from the windows of the Ruspoli Palace.
The next morning he saw Albert pass and repass. He held an enormous bouquet, which he, doubtless, meant to make the bearer of his amorous epistle. This probability was changed into certainty when Franz saw the bouquet, a beautiful bunch of white camellias, in the hands of a charming pierrette dressed in rose-coloured satin.
The evening was no longer joy but ecstasy. Albert did not doubt that the fair unknown would reply in the same manner; nor was he mistaken, for the next evening saw him enter, triumphantly waving a folded paper he held by the corner.
“Well,” said he, “what did I tell you?”
“She has answered you?” asked Franz.
“Read!”
Franz took the letter and read:
At seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, descend from your carriage opposite the Via dei Pontefici, and follow the Roman peasant who snatches your moccoletto from you. When you arrive at the first step of the church of St Giacomo, be sure to fasten a knot of rose-coloured ribbons to the shoulder of your pierrot’s costume so that you will be recognized. Until then you will not see me. Constancy and discretion.
“Well?” asked he, when Franz had finished reading. “What do you think of that?”
“I think that the adventure is looking decidedly interesting.”
“If my unknown be as amiable as she is beautiful,” said Albert, “I shall stay at Rome for at least six weeks. I adore Rome and I have always had a great taste for archaeology.”
“Yes, to be sure, two or three more such adventures and I do not despair of seeing you a member of the Academy!”
At length Tuesday, the last and most tumultuous day of the Carnival, arrived, the day on which the theatres open at ten o’clock in the morning and Lent begins at eight in the evening; the day when all those who, through lack of money or enthusiasm, have not taken part in the Carnival before, let themselves be drawn into the orgy and gaiety and contribute to the general noise and excitement. From two o’clock till five, Franz and Albert followed in the line of carriages, exchanging handfuls of confetti with other carriages and pedestrians, who crowded about the horses’ feet and the carriage-wheels without a single accident, a single dispute, or a single fight.
Albert was triumphant in his pierrot costume with a knot of rose-coloured ribbons falling from his shoulder almost to the ground.
As the day advanced, the tumult became greater. On the pavement, in the carriages, at the windows, there was not one silent tongue, not one idle hand. It was in truth a human storm composed of a thunder of shouts and a hail of sweetmeats, flowers, eggs, oranges, and nosegays. At three o’clock the sound of rockets let off in the Piazza del Popolo and at the Palazzo di Venezia (heard but dimly amid the din and confusion), announced that the races were about to begin. Like the moccoli, the races are one of the episodes peculiar to the last days of Carnival. At the sound of the rockets, the carriages instantly broke the ranks and retired by the nearest by-streets.
The pedestrians ranged themselves against the walls; the trampling of horses and the clashing of steel was heard. A detachment of carabineers, fifteen abreast, galloped up the Corso to clear it for barberi.ba Almost instantly, in the midst of a tremendous and general outcry, seven or eight horses, excited by the shouts of three thousand spectators, passed by with lightning speed. Then three cannons were fired to indicate that number three had won, where
upon the carriages moved on again toward the Corso, surging down all the streets, like torrents which, pent up for a while, flow back more rapidly than ever into the parent river; and the immense stream again continued its course between its two granite banks.
A new source of noise and movement was given to the crowd when the moccoletti appeared on the scene. These are candles which vary in size from the paschal taper to the rush-light, and which awaken in the actors of the great scene which terminates the Carnival two opposed ideas—the first is how to keep their own moccoletti alight, and the second how to extinguish those of the others.
Night was rapidly approaching, and already at the cry of “Moccoletti!” repeated by the shrill voices of a thousand vendors, two or three stars began to twinkle amidst the crowd. It was a signal. At the end of ten minutes fifty thousand lights were glittering. It seemed like a dance of Jack-o’-lanterns. It is impossible to form any idea of it without having seen it. Imag ine all the stars come down from the sky and mingling in a wild dance on the face of the earth, the whole accompanied by cries never heard in any other part of the world! Irrespective of class, the mad revellers blow, extinguish, relight. Had old Aeolus appeared at this moment, he would have been proclaimed king of the moccoli, and Aquilo the heir presumptive to the crown.
This flaming frolic continued for two hours; the Corso was light as day; the features of the spectators on the third and fourth storeys were visible. Every five minutes Albert took out his watch; at length it pointed to seven. The two friends were at that moment in the Via dei Pontefici. Albert sprang out of the carriage, moccoletto in hand. Two or three masks strove to tear it from him or extinguish it, but, being a neat boxer, Albert sent them sprawling one after the other, and continued his course toward the church of St Giacomo. The steps were crowded with curious and masked revellers striving to snatch the torches from each other’s hands. Franz watched Albert’s progress and saw him put his foot on the first step; a masked lady wearing the well-known peasant’s costume instantly stretched out her hand and, without meeting with any resistance, snatched the moccoletto from him.
Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 23