Excuse my talking of family matters, but as I shall have the honor of introducing you to the count, I tell you this to prevent you making any allusions to this picture.The picture seems to have a malign influence, for my mother rarely comes here without looking at it, and still more rarely does she look at it without weeping.This disagreement is the only one that has ever taken place between the count and countess, who are still as much united, although married more than twenty years, as on the first day of their wedding."Monte Cristo glanced rapidly at Albert, as if to seek a hidden meaning in his words, but it was evident the young man uttered them in the simplicity of his heart."Now," said Albert, "that you have seen all my treasures, allow me to offer them to you, unworthy as they are.Consider yourself as in your own house, and to put yourself still more at your ease, pray accompany me to the apartments of M.de Morcerf, he whom I wrote from Rome an account of the services you rendered me, and to whom I announced your promised visit, and I may say that both the count and countess anxiously desire to thank you in person.You are somewhat blase Iknow, and family scenes have not much effect on Sinbad the Sailor, who has seen so many others.However, accept what Ipropose to you as an initiation into Parisian life -- a life of politeness, visiting, and introductions." Monte Cristo bowed without making any answer; he accepted the offer without enthusiasm and without regret, as one of those conventions of society which every gentleman looks upon as a duty.Albert summoned his servant, and ordered him to acquaint M.and Madame de Morcerf of the arrival of the Count of Monte Cristo.Albert followed him with the count.
When they arrived at the ante-chamber, above the door was visible a shield, which, by its rich ornaments and its harmony with the rest of the furniture, indicated the importance the owner attached to this blazon.Monte Cristo stopped and examined it attentively.
"Azure seven merlets, or, placed bender," said he."These are, doubtless, your family arms? Except the knowledge of blazons, that enables me to decipher them, I am very ignorant of heraldry -- I, a count of a fresh creation, fabricated in Tuscany by the aid of a commandery of St.
Stephen, and who would not have taken the trouble had I not been told that when you travel much it is necessary.
Besides, you must have something on the panels of your carriage, to escape being searched by the custom-house officers.Excuse my putting such a question to you.""It is not indiscreet," returned Morcerf, with the simplicity of conviction."You have guessed rightly.These are our arms, that is, those of my father, but they are, as you see, joined to another shield, which has gules, a silver tower, which are my mother's.By her side I am Spanish, but the family of Morcerf is French, and, I have heard, one of the oldest of the south of France.""Yes," replied Monte Cristo "these blazons prove that.
Almost all the armed pilgrims that went to the Holy Land took for their arms either a cross, in honor of their mission, or birds of passage, in sign of the long voyage they were about to undertake, and which they hoped to accomplish on the wings of faith.One of your ancestors had joined the Crusades, and supposing it to be only that of St.
Louis, that makes you mount to the thirteenth century, which is tolerably ancient.""It is possible," said Morcerf; "my father has in his study a genealogical tree which will tell you all that, and on which I made commentaries that would have greatly edified Hozier and Jaucourt.At present I no longer think of it, and yet I must tell you that we are beginning to occupy ourselves greatly with these things under our popular government.""Well, then, your government would do well to choose from the past something better than the things that I have noticed on your monuments, and which have no heraldic meaning whatever.As for you, viscount," continued Monte Cristo to Morcerf, "you are more fortunate than the government, for your arms are really beautiful, and speak to the imagination.Yes, you are at once from Provence and Spain; that explains, if the portrait you showed me be like, the dark hue I so much admired on the visage of the noble Catalan." It would have required the penetration of Oedipus or the Sphinx to have divined the irony the count concealed beneath these words, apparently uttered with the greatest politeness.Morcerf thanked him with a smile, and pushed open the door above which were his arms, and which, as we have said, opened into the salon.In the most conspicuous part of the salon was another portrait.It was that of a man, from five to eight and thirty, in the uniform of a general officer, wearing the double epaulet of heavy bullion, that indicates superior rank, the ribbon of the Legion of Honor around his neck, which showed he was a commander, and on the right breast, the star of a grand officer of the order of the Saviour, and on the left that of the grand cross of Charles III., which proved that the person represented by the picture had served in the wars of Greece and Spain, or, what was just the same thing as regarded decorations, had fulfilled some diplomatic mission in the two countries.
Monte Cristo was engaged in examining this portrait with no less care than he had bestowed upon the other, when another door opened, and he found himself opposite to the Count of Morcerf in person.He was a man of forty to forty-five years, but he seemed at least fifty, and his black mustache and eyebrows contrasted strangely with his almost white hair, which was cut short, in the military fashion.He was dressed in plain clothes, and wore at his button-hole the ribbons of the different orders to which he belonged.He entered with a tolerably dignified step, and some little haste.Monte Cristo saw him advance towards him without making a single step.It seemed as if his feet were rooted to the ground, and his eyes on the Count of Morcerf.