Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39
The Guests.

In the house in the Rue du Helder, where Albert had invited
the Count of Monte Cristo, everything was being prepared on
the morning of the 21st of May to do honor to the occasion.
Albert de Morcerf inhabited a pavilion situated at the
corner of a large court, and directly opposite another
building, in which were the servants' apartments. Two
windows only of the pavilion faced the street; three other
windows looked into the court, and two at the back into the
garden. Between the court and the garden, built in the heavy
style of the imperial architecture, was the large and
fashionable dwelling of the Count and Countess of Morcerf. A
high wall surrounded the whole of the hotel, surmounted at
intervals by vases filled with flowers, and broken in the
centre by a large gate of gilded iron, which served as the
carriage entrance. A small door, close to the lodge of the
concierge, gave ingress and egress to the servants and
masters when they were on foot.

It was easy to discover that the delicate care of a mother,
unwilling to part from her son, and yet aware that a young
man of the viscount's age required the full exercise of his
liberty, had chosen this habitation for Albert. There were
not lacking, however, evidences of what we may call the
intelligent egoism of a youth who is charmed with the
indolent, careless life of an only son, and who lives as it
were in a gilded cage. By means of the two windows looking
into the street, Albert could see all that passed; the sight
of what is going on is necessary to young men, who always
want to see the world traverse their horizon, even if that
horizon is only a public thoroughfare. Then, should anything
appear to merit a more minute examination, Albert de Morcerf
could follow up his researches by means of a small gate,
similar to that close to the concierge's door, and which
merits a particular description. It was a little entrance
that seemed never to have been opened since the house was
built, so entirely was it covered with dust and dirt; but
the well-oiled hinges and locks told quite another story.
This door was a mockery to the concierge, from whose
vigilance and jurisdiction it was free, and, like that
famous portal in the "Arabian Nights," opening at the
"Sesame" of Ali Baba, it was wont to swing backward at a
cabalistic word or a concerted tap from without from the
sweetest voices or whitest fingers in the world. At the end
of a long corridor, with which the door communicated, and
which formed the ante-chamber, was, on the right, Albert's
breakfast-room, looking into the court, and on the left the
salon, looking into the garden. Shrubs and creeping plants
covered the windows, and hid