The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas [229]
"About what?"
"About the papers."
"My dear friend," said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, "do I ever read the papers?"
"Then you will dispute the more."
"M. Beauchamp," announced the servant. "Come in, come in," said Albert, rising and advancing to meet the young man. "Here is Debray, who detests you without reading you, so he says."
"He is quite right," returned Beauchamp; "for I criticise him without knowing what he does. Good–day, commander!"
"Ah, you know that already," said the private secretary, smiling and shaking hands with him.
"Pardieu?"
"And what do they say of it in the world?"
"In which world? we have so many worlds in the year of grace 1838."
"In the entire political world, of which you are one of the leaders."
"They say that it is quite fair, and that sowing so much red, you ought to reap a little blue."
"Come, come, that is not bad!" said Lucien. "Why do you not join our party, my dear Beauchamp? With your talents you would make your fortune in three or four years."
"I only await one thing before following your advice; that is, a minister who will hold office for six months. My dear Albert, one word, for I must give poor Lucien a respite. Do we breakfast or dine? I must go to the Chamber, for our life is not an idle one."
"You only breakfast; I await two persons, and the instant they arrive we shall sit down to table."
Chapter 40
The Breakfast
"And what sort of persons do you expect to breakfast?" said Beauchamp.
"A gentleman, and a diplomatist."
"Then we shall have to wait two hours for the gentleman, and three for the diplomatist. I shall come back to dessert; keep me some strawberries, coffee, and cigars. I shall take a cutlet on my way to the Chamber."
"Do not do anything of the sort; for were the gentleman a Montmorency, and the diplomatist a Metternich, we will breakfast at eleven; in the meantime, follow Debray's example, and take a glass of sherry and a biscuit."
"Be it so; I will stay; I must do something to distract my thoughts."
"You are like Debray, and yet it seems to me that when the minister is out of spirits, the opposition ought to be joyous."
"Ah, you do not know with what I am threatened. I shall hear this morning that M. Danglars make a speech at the Chamber of Deputies, and at his wife's this evening I shall hear the tragedy of a peer of France. The devil take the constitutional government, and since we had our choice, as they say, at least, how could we choose that?"
"I understand; you must lay in a stock of hilarity."
"Do not run down M. Danglars' speeches," said Debray; "he votes for you, for he belongs to the opposition."
"Pardieu, that is exactly the worst of all. I am waiting until you send him to speak at the Luxembourg, to laugh at my ease."
"My dear friend," said Albert to Beauchamp, "it is plain that the affairs of Spain are settled, for you are most desperately out of humor this morning. Recollect that Parisian gossip has spoken of a marriage between myself and Mlle. Eugenie Danglars; I cannot in conscience, therefore, let you run down the speeches of a man who will one day say to me, "Vicomte, you know I give my daughter two millions.""
"Ah, this marriage will never take place," said Beauchamp. "The king has made him a baron, and can make him a peer, but he cannot make him a gentleman, and the Count of Morcerf is too aristocratic to consent, for the paltry sum of two million francs, to a mesalliance. The Viscount of Morcerf can only wed a marchioness."
"But two million francs make a nice little sum," replied Morcerf.
"It is the social capital of a theatre on the boulevard, or a railroad from the Jardin des Plantes to La Rapee."
"Never mind what he says, Morcerf," said Debray, "do you marry her. You marry a money–bag label, it is true; well, but what does that matter? It is better to have a blazon less and a figure more on it. You have seven martlets on your arms; give three to your wife, and you will still have four; that is one more than M. de Guise had, who so nearly became King of France, and