Part 122

“What is it?” “A telegraph. So now I have told my secret.” “A telegraph?” repeated Madame de Villefort. “Yes, a telegraph. I had often seen one placed at the end of a road on a hillock, and in the light of the sun its black arms, bending in every direction, always reminded me of the claws of an immense beetle, and I assure you it was never without emotion that I gazed on it, for I could not help thinking how wonderful it was that these various signs should be made to cleave the air with such precision as to convey to the distance of three hundred leagues the ideas and wishes of a man sitting at a table at one end of the line to another man similarly placed at the opposite extremity, and all this effected by a simple act of volition on the part of the sender of the message. I began to think of genii, sylphs, gnomes, in short, of all the ministers of the occult sciences, until I laughed aloud at the freaks of my own imagination. Now, it never occurred to me to wish for a nearer inspection of these large insects, with their long black claws, for I always feared to find under their stone wings some little human genius fagged to death with cabals, factions, and government intrigues. But one fine day I learned that the mover of this telegraph was only a poor wretch, hired for twelve hundred francs a year, and employed all day, not in studying the heavens like an astronomer, or in gazing on the water like an angler, or even in enjoying the privilege of observing the country around him, but all his monotonous life was passed in watching his white-bellied, black-clawed fellow insect, four or five leagues distant from him. At length I felt a desire to study this living chrysalis more closely, and to endeavor to understand the secret part played by these insect-actors when they occupy themselves simply with pulling different pieces of string.” 30191m “And are you going there?” “I am.” “What telegraph do you intend visiting? that of the home department, or of the observatory?” “Oh, no; I should find there people who would force me to understand things of which I would prefer to remain ignorant, and who would try to explain to me, in spite of myself, a mystery which even they do not understand. _Ma foi!_ I should wish to keep my illusions concerning insects unimpaired; it is quite enough to have those dissipated which I had formed of my fellow-creatures. I shall, therefore, not visit either of these telegraphs, but one in the open country where I shall find a good-natured simpleton, who knows no more than the machine he is employed to work.” “You are a singular man,” said Villefort. “What line would you advise me to study?” “The one that is most in use just at this time.” “The Spanish one, you mean, I suppose?” “Yes; should you like a letter to the minister that they might explain to you——” “No,” said Monte Cristo; “since, as I told you before, I do not wish to comprehend it. The moment I understand it there will no longer exist a telegraph for me; it will be nothing more than a sign from M. Duchâtel, or from M. Montalivet, transmitted to the prefect of Bayonne, mystified by two Greek words, _têle_, _graphein_. It is the insect with black claws, and the awful word which I wish to retain in my imagination in all its purity and all its importance.” “Go then; for in the course of two hours it will be dark, and you will not be able to see anything.” “_Ma foi!_ you frighten me. Which is the nearest way? Bayonne?” “Yes; the road to Bayonne.” “And afterwards the road to Châtillon?” “Yes.” “By the tower of Montlhéry, you mean?” “Yes.” “Thank you. Good-bye. On Saturday I will tell you my impressions concerning the telegraph.” At the door the count was met by the two notaries, who had just completed the act which was to disinherit Valentine, and who were leaving under the conviction of having done a thing which could not fail of redounding considerably to their credit. Chapter 61. How a Gardener May Get Rid of the Dormice that Eat His Peaches Not on the same night as he had stated, but the next morning, the Count of Monte Cristo went out by the Barrière d’Enfer, taking the road to Orléans. Leaving the village of Linas, without stopping at the telegraph, which flourished its great bony arms as he passed, the count reached the tower of Montlhéry, situated, as everyone knows, upon the highest point of the plain of that name. At the foot of the hill the count dismounted and began to ascend by a little winding path, about eighteen inches wide; when he reached the summit he found himself stopped by a hedge, upon which green fruit had succeeded to red and white flowers. Monte Cristo looked for the entrance to the enclosure, and was not long in finding a little wooden gate, working on willow hinges, and fastened with a nail and string. The count soon mastered the mechanism, the gate opened, and he then found himself in a little garden, about twenty feet long by twelve wide, bounded on one side by part of the hedge, which contained the ingenious contrivance we have called a gate, and on the other by the old tower, covered with ivy and studded with wall-flowers. No one would have thought in looking at this old, weather-beaten, floral-decked tower (which might be likened to an elderly dame dressed up to receive her grandchildren at a birthday feast) that it would have been capable of telling strange things, if,—in addition to the menacing ears which the proverb says all walls are provided with,—it had also a voice. The garden was crossed by a path of red gravel, edged by a border of thick box, of many years’ growth, and of a tone and color that would have delighted the heart of Delacroix, our modern Rubens. This path was formed in the shape of the figure of 8, thus, in its windings, making a walk of sixty feet in a garden of only twenty. Never had Flora, the fresh and smiling goddess of gardeners, been honored with a purer or more scrupulous worship than that which was paid to her in this little enclosure. In fact, of the twenty rose-trees which formed the _parterre_, not one bore the mark of the slug, nor were there evidences anywhere of the clustering aphis which is so destructive to plants growing in a damp soil. And yet it was not because the damp had been excluded from the garden; the earth, black as soot, the thick foliage of the trees betrayed its presence; besides, had natural humidity been wanting, it could have been immediately supplied by artificial means, thanks to a tank of water, sunk in one of the corners of the garden, and upon which were stationed a frog and a toad, who, from antipathy, no doubt, always remained on the two opposite sides of the basin. There was not a blade of grass to be seen in the paths, or a weed in the flower-beds; no fine lady ever trained and watered her geraniums, her cacti, and her rhododendrons, in her porcelain _jardinière_ with more pains than this hitherto unseen gardener bestowed upon his little enclosure. Monte Cristo stopped after having closed the gate and fastened the string to the nail, and cast a look around. “The man at the telegraph,” said he, “must either engage a gardener or devote himself passionately to agriculture.” Suddenly he struck against something crouching behind a wheelbarrow filled with leaves; the something rose, uttering an exclamation of astonishment, and Monte Cristo found himself facing a man about fifty years old, who was plucking strawberries, which he was placing upon grape leaves. He had twelve leaves and about as many strawberries, which, on rising suddenly, he let fall from his hand. “You are gathering your crop, sir?” said Monte Cristo, smiling. 30193m “Excuse me, sir,” replied the man, raising his hand to his cap; “I am not up there, I know, but I have only just come down.” “Do not let me interfere with you in anything, my friend,” said the count; “gather your strawberries, if, indeed, there are any left.” “I have ten left,” said the man, “for here are eleven, and I had twenty-one, five more than last year. But I am not surprised; the spring has been warm this year, and strawberries require heat, sir. This is the reason that, instead of the sixteen I had last year, I have this year, you see, eleven, already plucked—twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Ah, I miss three, they were here last night, sir—I am sure they were here—I counted them. It must be the son of Mère Simon who has stolen them; I saw him strolling about here this morning. Ah, the young rascal—stealing in a garden—he does not know where that may lead him to.” “Certainly, it is wrong,” said Monte Cristo, “but you should take into consideration the youth and greediness of the delinquent.” “Of course,” said the gardener, “but that does not make it the less unpleasant. But, sir, once more I beg pardon; perhaps you are an officer that I am detaining here.” And he glanced timidly at the count’s blue coat. 30197m “Calm yourself, my friend,” said the count, with the smile which he made at will either terrible or benevolent, and which now expressed only the kindliest feeling; “I am not an inspector, but a traveller, brought here by a curiosity he half repents of, since he causes you to lose your time.” “Ah, my time is not valuable,” replied the man with a melancholy smile. “Still it belongs to government, and I ought not to waste it; but, having received the signal that I might rest for an hour” (here he glanced at the sun-dial, for there was everything in the enclosure of Montlhéry, even a sun-dial), “and having ten minutes before me, and my strawberries being ripe, when a day longer—by-the-by, sir, do you think dormice eat them?” “Indeed, I should think not,” replied Monte Cristo; “dormice are bad neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved, as the Romans did.” “What? Did the Romans eat them?” said the gardener—“ate dormice?” “I have read so in Petronius,” said the count. “Really? They can’t be nice, though they do say ‘as fat as a dormouse.’ It is not a wonder they are fat, sleeping all day, and only waking to eat all night. Listen. Last year I had four apricots—they stole one, I had one nectarine, only one—well, sir, they ate half of it on the wall; a splendid nectarine—I never ate a better.” “You ate it?” “That is to say, the half that was left—you understand; it was exquisite, sir. Ah, those gentlemen never choose the worst morsels; like Mère Simon’s son, who has not chosen the worst strawberries. But this year,” continued the horticulturist, “I’ll take care it shall not happen, even if I should be forced to sit by the whole night to watch when the strawberries are ripe.” Monte Cristo had seen enough. Every man has a devouring passion in his heart, as every fruit has its worm; that of the telegraph man was horticulture. He began gathering the grape-leaves which screened the sun from the grapes, and won the heart of the gardener. “Did you come here, sir, to see the telegraph?” he said. “Yes, if it isn’t contrary to the rules.” “Oh, no,” said the gardener; “not in the least, since there is no danger that anyone can possibly understand what we are saying.” “I have been told,” said the count, “that you do not always yourselves understand the signals you repeat.” “That is true, sir, and that is what I like best,” said the man, smiling. “Why do you like that best?” “Because then I have no responsibility. I am a machine then, and nothing else, and so long as I work, nothing more is required of me.” “Is it possible,” said Monte Cristo to himself, “that I can have met with a man that has no ambition? That would spoil my plans.” “Sir,” said the gardener, glancing at the sun-dial, “the ten minutes are almost up; I must return to my post. Will you go up with me?” “I follow you.” Monte Cristo entered the tower, which was divided into three stories. The tower contained implements, such as spades, rakes, watering-pots, hung against the wall; this was all the furniture. The second was the man’s conventional abode, or rather sleeping-place; it contained a few poor articles of household furniture—a bed, a table, two chairs, a stone pitcher—and some dry herbs, hung up to the ceiling, which the count recognized as sweet peas, and of which the good man was preserving the seeds; he had labelled them with as much care as if he had been master botanist in the Jardin des Plantes.