The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas [some good books to read TXT] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“A pardon!” cried the people with one voice; “a pardon!”
At this cry Andrea raised his head.
“Pardon for whom?” cried he.
Peppino remained breathless.
“A pardon for Peppino, called Rocca Priori,” said the principal friar. And he passed the paper to the officer commanding the carbineers, who read and returned it to him.
“For Peppino!” cried Andrea, who seemed roused from the torpor in which he had been plunged. “Why for him and not for me? We ought to die together. I was promised he should die with me. You have no right to put me to death alone. I will not die alone—I will not!”
And he broke from the priests struggling and raving like a wild beast, and striving desperately to break the cords that bound his hands. The executioner made a sign, and his two assistants leaped from the scaffold and seized him.
“What is going on?” asked Franz of the count; for, as all the talk was in the Roman dialect, he had not perfectly understood it.
“Do you not see?” returned the count, “that this human creature who is about to die is furious that his fellow-sufferer does not perish with him? and, were he able, he would rather tear him to pieces with his teeth and nails than let him enjoy the life he himself is about to be deprived of. Oh, man, man—race of crocodiles,” cried the count, extending his clenched hands towards the crowd, “how well do I recognize you there, and that at all times you are worthy of yourselves!”
Meanwhile Andrea and the two executioners were struggling on the ground, and he kept exclaiming, “He ought to die!—he shall die!—I will not die alone!”
“Look, look,” cried the count, seizing the young men’s hands; “look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die—like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment—that another partook of his anguish—that another was to die before him! Lead two sheep to the butcher’s, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man—man, whom God created in his own image—man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor—man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts—what is his first cry when he hears his fellow-man is saved? A blasphemy. Honor to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!”
And the count burst into a laugh; a terrible laugh, that showed he must have suffered horribly to be able thus to laugh.
However, the struggle still continued, and it was dreadful to witness. The two assistants carried Andrea up to the scaffold; the people all took part against Andrea, and twenty thousand voices cried, “Put him to death! put him to death!”
Franz sprang back, but the count seized his arm, and held him before the window.
“What are you doing?” said he. “Do you pity him? If you heard the cry of ‘Mad dog!’ you would take your gun—you would unhesitatingly shoot the poor beast, who, after all, was only guilty of having been bitten by another dog. And yet you pity a man who, without being bitten by one of his race, has yet murdered his benefactor; and who, now unable to kill anyone, because his hands are bound, wishes to see his companion in captivity perish. No, no—look, look!”
The recommendation was needless. Franz was fascinated by the horrible spectacle.
The two assistants had borne Andrea to the scaffold, and there, in spite of his struggles, his bites, and his cries, had forced him to his knees. During this time the executioner had raised his mace, and signed to them to get out of the way; the criminal strove to rise, but, ere he had time, the mace fell on his left temple. A dull and heavy sound was heard, and the man dropped like an ox on his face, and then turned over on his back.
The executioner let fall his mace, drew his knife, and with one stroke opened his throat, and mounting on his stomach, stamped violently on it with his feet. At every stroke a jet of blood sprang from the wound.
This time Franz could contain himself no longer, but sank, half fainting, into a seat.
Albert, with his eyes closed, was standing grasping the window-curtains.
The count was erect and triumphant, like the Avenging Angel!
Chapter 36. The Carnival at Rome
When Franz recovered his senses, he saw Albert drinking a glass of water, of which, to judge from his pallor, he stood in great need; and the count, who was assuming his masquerade costume. He glanced mechanically towards the piazza—the scene was wholly changed; scaffold, executioners, victims, all had disappeared; only the people remained, full of noise and excitement. The bell of Monte Citorio, which only sounds on the pope’s decease and the opening of the Carnival, was ringing a joyous peal.
“Well,” asked he of the count, “what has, then, happened?”
“Nothing,” replied the count; “only, as you see, the Carnival has commenced. Make haste and dress yourself.”
“In fact,” said Franz, “this horrible scene has passed away like a dream.”
“It is but a dream, a nightmare, that has disturbed you.”
“Yes, that I have suffered; but the culprit?”
“That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?”
“But Peppino—what has become of him?”
“Peppino is a lad of sense, who, unlike most men, who are happy in proportion as they are noticed, was delighted to see that the general attention was directed towards his companion. He profited by this distraction to slip away among the crowd, without even thanking the worthy priests who accompanied him. Decidedly man is an ungrateful and egotistical animal. But dress yourself; see, M. de Morcerf sets you the example.”
Albert was drawing on the satin pantaloon over his black trousers and varnished boots.
“Well, Albert,” said Franz, “do you feel much inclined to join the revels? Come, answer frankly.”
“Ma foi, no,” returned Albert. “But I am really glad to have seen such a sight; and I understand what the count said—that when you have once habituated yourself to a similar spectacle, it is the only one that causes you any emotion.”
“Without reflecting that this is the only moment in which you can study character,” said the count; “on the steps of the scaffold death tears off the mask that has been worn through life, and the real visage is disclosed. It must be allowed that Andrea was not very handsome, the hideous scoundrel! Come, dress yourselves, gentlemen, dress yourselves.”
Franz felt it would be ridiculous not to follow his two companions’ example. He assumed his costume, and fastened on the mask that scarcely equalled the pallor of his own face. Their toilet finished, they descended; the carriage awaited them at the door, filled with sweetmeats and bouquets. They fell into the line of carriages.
It is difficult to form an idea of the perfect change that had taken place. Instead of the spectacle of gloomy and silent death, the Piazza del Popolo presented a spectacle of gay and noisy mirth and revelry. A crowd of masks flowed in from all sides, emerging from the doors, descending from the windows. From every street and every corner drove carriages filled with clowns, harlequins, dominoes, mummers, pantomimists, Transteverins, knights, and peasants, screaming, fighting, gesticulating, throwing eggs filled with flour, confetti, nosegays, attacking, with their sarcasms and their missiles, friends and foes, companions and strangers, indiscriminately, and no one took offence, or did anything but laugh.
Franz and Albert were like men who, to drive away a violent sorrow, have recourse to wine, and who, as they drink and become intoxicated, feel a thick veil drawn between the past and the present. They saw, or rather continued to see, the image of what they had witnessed; but little by little the general vertigo seized them, and they felt themselves obliged to take part in the noise and confusion.
A handful of confetti that came from a neighboring carriage, and which, while it covered Morcerf and his two companions with dust, pricked his neck and that portion of his face uncovered by his mask like a hundred pins, incited him to join in the general combat, in which all the masks around him were engaged. He rose in his turn, and seizing handfuls of confetti and sweetmeats, with which the carriage was filled, cast them with all the force and skill he was master of.
The strife had fairly begun, and the recollection of what they had seen half an hour before was gradually effaced from the young men’s minds, so much were they occupied by the gay and glittering procession they now beheld.
As for the Count of Monte Cristo, he had never for an instant shown any appearance of having been moved. Imagine the large and splendid Corso, bordered from one end to the other with lofty palaces, with their balconies hung with carpets, and their windows with flags. At these balconies are three hundred thousand spectators—Romans, Italians, strangers from all parts of the world, the united aristocracy of birth, wealth, and genius. Lovely women, yielding to the influence of the scene, bend over their balconies, or lean from their windows, and shower down confetti, which are returned by bouquets; the air seems darkened with the falling confetti and flying flowers. In the streets the lively crowd is dressed in the most fantastic costumes—gigantic cabbages walk gravely about, buffaloes’ heads bellow from men’s shoulders, dogs walk on their hind legs; in the midst of all this a mask is lifted, and, as in Callot’s Temptation of St. Anthony, a lovely face is exhibited, which we would fain follow, but from which we are separated by troops of fiends. This will give a faint idea of the Carnival at Rome.
At the second turn, the count stopped the carriage, and requested permission to withdraw, leaving the vehicle at their disposal. Franz looked up—they were opposite the Rospoli Palace. At the centre window, the one hung with white damask with a red cross, was a blue domino, beneath which Franz’s imagination easily pictured the beautiful Greek of the Argentina.
“Gentlemen,” said the count, springing out, “when you are tired of being actors, and wish to become spectators of this scene, you know you have places at my windows. In the meantime, dispose of my coachman, my carriage, and my servants.”
We have forgotten to mention, that the count’s coachman was attired in a bear-skin, exactly resembling Odry’s in The Bear and the Pasha; and the two footmen behind were dressed up as green monkeys, with spring masks, with which they made grimaces at everyone who passed.
Franz thanked the count for his attention. As for Albert, he was busily occupied throwing bouquets at a carriage full of Roman peasants that was passing near him. Unfortunately for him, the line of carriages moved on again, and while he descended the Piazza del Popolo, the other
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