"My papers! Thank heavens, no! My papers are always perfectly arranged, since I have none. I'm putting some order into the papers of Monsieur Cavalcanti."

Monte Cristo gave a cry of joy on seeing the two young men together. "Ah, ah!" he said. "Well, now, I hope that it's all over, cleared up and settled?"

"Yes," said Beauchamp. "Some ridiculous rumours which came from nowhere and which, if they were to be repeated now, I should be the first to challenge. So, let's say no more about it."

"What are you doing?" Albert asked. "Arranging your papers, apparently?"

"Albert will tell you that that was my advice to him," said the count, before adding: "Now, as it happens, you find me after what I think is the most detestable morning I've ever spent."

"Monsieur Cavalcanti?" Beauchamp asked.

"Yes, don't you know?" said Morcerf. "He's a young man the count is launching."

"Not at all," said Monte Cristo. "Let's be quite clear about it, I'm not launching anyone, least of all Monsieur Cavalcanti."

"And he's going to marry Mademoiselle Danglars in my stead and place -- which," Albert continued, forcing a smile, "as you can well imagine, my dear Beauchamp, is a cruel blow to me."

"What do I hear?" said Monte Cristo. "Have you been away in the back of beyond? And you a journalist, the bedfellow of Rumour? Parisian society is talking of nothing else."

"I? Hush, scribbler, don't even whisper such a thing! I go a-match-making? Never! You don't know me. On the contrary, I opposed it as strongly as I could; I refused to make the formal request."

"What! Cavalcanti to marry Mademoiselle Danglars?" Beauchamp asked.

"Oh, I understand," said Beauchamp. "For the sake of our friend Albert, here?"

"For my sake!" said the young man. "Oh, no, not a bit of it! The count will support me when I say that I always begged him, on the contrary, to break off the engagement, which has now fortunately been broken off. The count claims that he is not the person I should thank, so, like the ancient Romans, I'll raise an altar 'To the Unknown God'."

"Listen," said Monte Cristo, "so little is this to do with me that I have fallen out both with the father-in-law and with the young man. The only one still to hold me in some affection, when she saw the extent to which I was disinclined to make her renounce her precious liberty, is Mademoiselle Eugénie, who doesn't appear to me to have a marked vocation for the married state."

"Were you responsible for this marriage, Count?" Beauchamp asked.

"And you say this marriage is about to take place?"

"Yes, in spite of everything I could say. I don't know the young man myself, though they say he is rich and comes from a good family; but that's just hearsay as far as I'm concerned. I repeated all this, time and again, to Monsieur Danglars but he is besotted with his Luccan. I even told him about what seems to me a more serious fact, namely that the young man was kidnapped, carried off by gypsies or mislaid by his tutor, I'm not sure which. What I do know is that his father lost sight of him for ten years, and God only knows what he did during that time. Well, none of that made any difference. I have been asked to write to the major, to request some papers from him: here they are. I'm sending them on, but at the same time, like Pilate, I wash my hands of it."

"What about Mademoiselle d'Armilly?" Beauchamp asked. "How does she feel about you, now that you're taking her pupil away?"

"I really can't tell, though it seems she is leaving for Italy. Madame Danglars mentioned her to me and asked me for some letters of recommendation to impresarios. I gave her a note for the director of the Teatro Valle, who owes me a favour. But what's wrong, Albert? You seem quite miserable. Could you perhaps be in love with Mademoiselle Danglars without realizing it?"

"Huh! You speak very lightly about it, as you may; but I'd like to see you with a judicial enquiry going on in your house!"

"Really?" Albert said.

"You, Count?" said Beauchamp. "Something bothering you? What can it be?"

"Travel."

"What is that?" the young man asked.

"You're certainly not in your usual good humour," Monte Cristo went on. "Come, now: what's the matter?"

"That's right," said Beauchamp. "I read about it in the papers. Who is this Caderousse?"

"The one that Monsieur Villefort is engaged in against my lovable assassin, some kind of bandit who had escaped from prison, it seems."

"I've got a headache," Albert said.

"In that case, my dear Viscount, I have an infallible remedy to suggest, one that has always worked for me whenever I have suffered some annoyance or other."

"An enquiry! What enquiry?"

"Really. And since at the moment I have a lot that is bothering me, I'm going to travel. Would you like us to go together?"

"Not as far as I know," Albert said with a melancholy smile. Beauchamp began to study the pictures.

"Pooh! It appears he is a Provençal. Monsieur de Villefort had heard speak of him when he was in Marseille, and Monsieur Danglars recalls seeing him. The result is that the crown prosecutor is taking the matter very much to heart and that the prefect of police is apparently extremely interested in it; and the result of all this interest, for which no one could be more grateful than I am, is that for the past fortnight they have rounded up every bandit they could find in Paris and its suburbs, and sent them here, alleging that they are Monsieur Caderousse's murderers. And the result of that will be that in three months, if it continues, there will not be a thief or an assassin in the whole fine kingdom of France who does not know the plan of my house like the back of his hand. So I've decided to abandon it to them entirely and go as far away as the earth can carry me. Come on, Viscount, I'm taking you with me."

"Certainly."

"Yes, but where?"

"So, it's agreed?"

"I told you: where the air is pure, noise sleeps and, however proud one may be, one feels humble and small. It pleases me to be humbled in that way, since like Augustus they call me master of the universe."

"I do."

"Let's go, Count, let's go!"

"To the sea?"

"Yes, more or less. I've just been on a little journey to the Borro-mean islands."

"What? From the sea?"

"No, thank you. I have just come back from the sea."

"Well? Come, even so," said Albert.

"So, to cut a long story short, where are you going?"

"To the sea, Viscount, to the sea. You must understand, I'm a sailor. As a child I was rocked in the arms of the old ocean and on the breast of the beautiful Amphitrite. I played with the green robe of the first and the azure robe of the second. I love the sea as one may love a mistress, and when I have not seen her for a long time I pine for her."

"Yes."

"Well, Viscount, this evening in my courtyard there will be a britzka2 in which one can lie flat out, as on a bed. Four post-horses will be harnessed to this britzka. Monsieur Beauchamp, it will easily hold four. Would you like to join us? Let me take you!"

"You accept, then?"

"No, my dear Morcerf, you must realize that if I refuse, it's because it cannot be done. In any case," he said, lowering his voice, "I must stay in Paris, if only to keep an eye on the newspaper's postbox."

"We shall have the company of horses for riding, dogs for hunting and a boat for fishing, that's all."

"Just what I need. I must inform my mother, and then I'm all yours."

"Oh, yes, a man of heart, I can vouch for it. I love him with all my soul. But, now we are alone, though I'm not bothered too much one way or the other, where are we going?"

"Excellent young man, Beauchamp!" Monte Cristo exclaimed after the journalist had left. "Don't you think so, Albert?"

"To Normandy, if you agree."

"Free to go where you wish, alone, I know, since I met you on an escapade in Italy."

The two friends took leave of one another; their final handshake implied all that their lips could not express in front of a third person.

"But will they let you?" Monte Cristo asked.

"Perfect. Well out in the country? No visitors, no neighbours?"

"Come to Normandy."

"Why? Aren't I free?"

"Oh, you're a fine and good friend," Albert said. "Yes, you're right. Watch and wait, Beauchamp, and try to find out who was responsible for this revelation."

"Let me what?"

"You have a short memory, Count."

"Yes, women. But my mother is not "women", she is a woman."

"Why is that?"

"'Woman is often fickle,' said François I; 'and woman is like the waves,' said Shakespeare. One was a great king, the other a great poet, so they must have known women."

"Oh?"

"What I mean is that my mother is not prodigal with her feelings, but, once she has given them, it is for ever."

"Well, then?"

"A poor foreigner might perhaps be forgiven his failure to understand all the subtleties of your language…"

"Oh, really?" said Monte Cristo, with a sigh. "And do you think she does me the honour of granting me any feeling other than entire indifference?"

"Didn't I tell you how much my mother likes you?"

"But are you free to come with the man called the Count of Monte Cristo?"

"Listen! I've said it before, and I repeat: you must really be a very unusual and superior being."

"Yes, because my mother is captivated -- I won't say, by curiosity, but by the interest you have aroused in her. When we are together, you are the only subject of our conversation."

"There or near it."

Monte Cristo turned away and sighed. "Really?" he asked.

"It only takes you eight hours to cover forty-eight leagues?"

"Very well, then," said Monte Cristo. "We'll meet this evening. Be here at five o'clock. We'll get there at midnight, or one."

"Don't worry. I've nothing else to do between now and then, except to get ready."

"No, on the contrary, she told me: 'Morcerf, I think the count is a noble creature; try to win his affection.'"

"So you understand," Albert continued, "far from disapproving of my journey, she will applaud it with all her heart, since it conforms with her daily instructions to me."

"What! To Le Tréport?"

"That's a lot, even so."

"However that may be, Viscount, it will still take us seven or eight hours to get there, so be on time."

"You most certainly are a man of miracles, and you will not only succeed in going faster than the railway, which is not too difficult, especially in France, but even go faster than the telegraph."

"And did she tell you to beware of this Manfred?"

"Monsieur Bertuccio," the count said, "it will not be tomorrow, or the day after, as I originally thought, but this evening that I leave for Normandy. From now until five o'clock gives you more time than you need. Alert the ostlers at the first relay. Monsieur Morcerf will accompany me. Now, go!"

"Five o'clock, then?"

"Five o'clock."

Albert left. Monte Cristo, after having nodded to him with a smile, remained for a moment lost in thought, as though meditating profoundly. At last, passing a hand across his forehead, as if to brush away his reverie, he went to the bell and rang it twice. At this signal, Bertuccio came in.

Bertuccio obeyed and a groom sped towards Pontoise with a warning that the post-chaise would be coming by at exactly six o'clock. The ostler at Pontoise sent an express messenger to the next relay, and so on. Six hours later, every relay along the route was prepared.

Before leaving, the count went up to see Haydée and announced his departure; he told her where he was going and put his whole household under her orders.

Albert arrived on time. The journey, gloomy at first, was lightened by the physical effects of speed. Morcerf had never imagined travelling so fast.

At this the count, leaning out of the window, gave a little shout of encouragement which lent wings to the horses: they were no longer galloping, they flew. The carriage thundered along the regal highway and every head turned to watch this flaming meteor go by. Ali, repeating the shout, showing his white teeth and wrapping his powerful hands around the reins flecked with foam, spurred on the horses, whose fine manes were spreading in the wind. Ali, child of the desert, was here in his element and, through the dust he stirred up around him, with his black face, shining eyes and snow-white burnous, he seemed like the genie of the simoun and the god of the whirlwind.

"I must agree," said Monte Cristo, "that it is impossible to move forward at all, when your mail travels at two leagues an hour, and you have this ridiculous law that forbids one traveller to overtake another without asking his permission -- which means that a sick or ill-humoured traveller has the right to hold up any number of light-hearted and healthy persons on the road behind him. I avoid these handicaps by travelling with my own postilion and my own horses -- don't I, Ali?"

"This is a pleasure I had not previously experienced," said Morcerf. "The pleasure of speed!" And the last trace of gloom vanished from his brow, as though the air that they were cleaving in their path had brushed the clouds aside.

"Just so," the count replied. "Six years ago, I came across a stallion in Hungary, famous for its speed. I bought it, I don't know how much it cost; Bertuccio paid for it. In that same year, it had thirty-two offspring. We shall be able to inspect that entire generation of children from the one father. Each one is alike, black, without a single blemish except a star on the forehead: this privileged member of the stud had his mares chosen for him, like the favourites of a pasha."

"Where in the world did you find such horses?" Albert asked. "Did you have them bred specially?"

"When I have no further need of them, Bertuccio will sell them. He claims he will make thirty or forty thousand francs on the deal."

"Admirable! But tell me, Count, what do you do with all these horses?"

"As you see, I travel with them."

"But you won't always be travelling?"

"There won't be a king in Europe rich enough to buy them from you!"

"Then he must sell them to some simple vizier in the East, who will empty his treasury to pay for them and restock it by bastonading his subjects."

"Count, might I tell you something that has occurred to me?"

"What is it?"

"That, after you, Monsieur Bertuccio must be the richest individual in Europe."

"Well, there you are wrong, Viscount. I am sure that if you were to turn out Bertuccio's pockets, you wouldn't find two sous to rub together."

"Why's that?" the young man asked. "Is this Monsieur Bertuccio such a prodigy? Please, my dear Count, don't test my credulity too far or, I warn you, I shall cease to believe you."

"Pooh! It's in his nature, I think," said Albert. "He steals because he has to."

"There are never any prodigies with me, Albert. Figures and facts, that's all. So, consider this puzzle: a steward steals, but why does he steal?"

"No, you're wrong. He steals because he has a wife and children, and ambitions for himself and his family. Above all, he steals because he is never quite sure that he will not leave his master and he wants to provide for the future. Now, Monsieur Bertuccio is alone in the world. He dips into my purse without telling me, and he is sure that I shall never dismiss him."

"How can he be sure?"

"You're going round in circles, all based on supposition."

"Not at all: these are certainties. To me, a good servant is one over whom I have the power of life or death."

"And do you have the power of life or death over Bertuccio?" Albert asked.

The remainder of the journey continued at the same pace. The thirty-two horses, divided into eight relays, covered the forty-eight leagues in eight hours. In the middle of the night they arrived at the gateway to a fine park. The porter was awake and holding the gates open. He had been alerted by the ostler from the last relay.

"Because I shall never find anyone better."

"Yes," the count said curtly. Some words end a conversation like a steel door falling. The count's "Yes" was one of those words.

It was half-past two in the morning. Morcerf was shown to his rooms. He found a bath and supper ready for him. The servant who had travelled on the rear box of the carriage was at his disposal, while Baptistin, who had travelled in front, was to serve the count.

A little corvette was bobbing in a fairly large cove; it had a narrow hull and tall mast with a flag flying from the lateen yard and bearing Monte Cristo's coat of arms: a mountain on a field azure with a cross gules at the chief, which could also have been an allusion to his name (evoking Calvary, which Our Saviour's passion has made a mountain more precious than gold, and the infamous cross which his divine blood made holy) as much as to any personal memory of suffering and regeneration buried in the mysterious night of the man's past. Around the schooner were several little boats belonging to the fishermen in the surrounding villages, which seemed like humble subjects awaiting the orders of their queen.

Albert took his bath, had supper and went to bed. All night he was rocked by the melancholy sound of the waves. Getting up the next morning, he went over to the window, opened it and found himself on a little terrace, with the vastness of the sea in front of him and, behind, a pretty park adjoining a small wood.

Albert found two guns and every other piece of equipment necessary for hunting in a small room beside his bedroom. A more lofty room on the ground floor was given over to all those ingenious devices that the English -- who are great fishermen, because they have both patience and leisure -- have so far not managed to persuade the more workaday fishermen of France to adopt.

All their time was spent in these different pursuits, at which Monte Cristo excelled: they killed a dozen pheasants in the park, caught the same number of trout in the streams, dined in a pergola overlooking the sea and took tea in the library.

Around the evening of the third day, Albert, worn to a thread by the exertions of this life, which seemed to be a game for Monte Cristo, was sleeping at a window while the count and his architect ran over the plan of a conservatory that he wanted to build in his house, when the sound of a horse's hoofs crushing the gravel on the path made the young man sit up. He looked out of the window and was extremely and unpleasantly surprised to see his valet in the courtyard, having left the man behind to save embarrassment to Monte Cristo.

Here, as wherever Monte Cristo stopped, even if only for two days, the temperature of life was raised to a high degree of comfort, which meant that life immediately became easy.

"Florentin!" he exclaimed, leaping up from his chair. "Can my mother be ill?" He ran to the door of the room.

Monte Cristo looked after him and saw him in conversation with the valet who, still out of breath, took a small sealed packet from his pocket. The packet contained a newspaper and a letter.

"Who is this letter from?" Albert asked urgently.

Albert opened the letter, trembling. At the first lines, he gave a cry and grasped the newspaper, a visible shudder running through his frame. Suddenly his eyes clouded, his knees seemed to buckle and, as he was on the point of falling, he leant against Florentin, who reached out to support him.

"From Monsieur Beauchamp," Florentin replied.

"Yes, Monsieur. He called me to his house, gave me the money for my journey, summoned a post-horse for me and made me promise not to stop until I reached Monsieur. I covered the distance in fifteen hours."

"So did Monsieur Beauchamp send you?"

"Poor young man!" Monte Cristo muttered, so low that even he could not hear these words of compassion as he spoke them. "It is written that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons, even to the third and fourth generation."

"Oh, good Lord! And how was the house when you left?"

Meanwhile Albert's strength had returned and he went on reading, while shaking the hair on a head drenched in sweat. Then, crumpling both the paper and the letter, he said: "Florentin, is your horse in any condition to return to Paris?"

"Quite calm. But when I returned from Monsieur Beauchamp's, I found madame in tears. She called me to ask when you would return, so I told her that I was going to fetch you, at Monsieur Beauchamp's request. Her first impulse was to reach out as if to restrain me, but after thinking for a moment, she said: 'Yes, go, Florentin. Let him come back.'"

"It's a lame old post-horse."

"Yes, mother, yes," said Albert. "Have no fear, I am coming -- and a curse on the vile slanderer! But, first of all, I must get started." And he set off towards the room where he had left Monte Cristo.

He was no longer the same man. Five minutes had been enough to accomplish a pitiful change in Albert. He had left, his usual self; and now he returned, his voice strangled, his face blotched with feverish flushes, his eyes glistening beneath blue-veined lids and his walk unsteady like that of a drunken man. "Count," he said, "thank you for your excellent hospitality, which I should like to have enjoyed longer, but I have to go back to Paris."

"What has happened?"

"No, that would take too long, and in any case I need the fatigue that you fear for me: it will do me good."

"My stables are at your disposal, Viscount," Monte Cristo said. "But you will drop dead of exhaustion if you go by post-horse. Take a brougham, a coupé, some sort of carriage…"

"A great misfortune; but please let me leave: this is something more important than life itself to me. No questions, Count, I beg you; just a horse!"

Albert took a few steps, reeling like a man with a bullet wound, and slumped into a chair near the door. Monte Cristo did not see this second moment of dizziness; he was already at the window, shouting: "Ali, a horse for Monsieur de Morcerf! Hurry, he has no time to lose!"

"None. Simply hand over the one you are riding and another will instantly be saddled up for you."

These words brought Albert back to his senses. He ran out of the room, followed by the count. "Thank you," he muttered, bounding into the saddle. "Come back as soon as you can, Florentin. Is there any password I need to get horses?"

While the count was picking up the paper, he dug the spurs that had just been attached to his boots into the horse's flanks and the animal, astonished at coming across any rider who thought he needed such encouragement, went off like a shot from a sling.

Albert was about to gallop off, but paused.

"You may find my departure odd, even senseless," he said. "You may not realize how a few lines in a newspaper can drive a man to despair. Well," the young man added, throwing the paper to the count, "read this, but only after I have left, so that you do not see my shame."

The count looked after him with a feeling of infinite compassion. Only when he had altogether disappeared did he turn back to the newspaper, where he read as follows:

The French officer in the service of Ali, Pasha of Janina, who was mentioned three weeks ago in the newspaper L'Impartial, and who not only betrayed the castles of Janina, but also sold his benefactor to the Turks, was indeed at that time named Fernand, as stated by our honourable colleagues in that newspaper. Since then, as well as his Christian name, he has acquired a title of nobility and the name of a landed estate. Today, he calls himself Monsieur le Comte de Morcerf and is a member of the chamber of peers.

So the dreadful secret which Beauchamp had so generously buried had reappeared like an armed phantom; and, on the day after Albert's departure for Normandy, another newspaper had been maliciously informed and had published these few lines that drove the unfortunate young man to the brink of insanity.