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"Yes, Madame. It was an excellent idea of yours to open the doors and the shutters." As he said these words, the count noticed that Mercédès' hand was trembling. "But perhaps you are cold, with that light dress and no other protection around your neck except a chiffon scarf?" he said.

Mme de Morcerf directed her companion under the arbour of linden-trees that led towards a greenhouse. "It was too hot in the drawing-room, wasn't it, Count?" she said.

"Do you know where I am taking you?" the countess asked, not answering Monte Cristo's question.

"No, Madame," he replied, "but, as you see, I am offering no resistance."

"To the greenhouse down there, at the end of this path."

They arrived at the building, hung with splendid fruit which matured at the beginning of July in this temperature, designed to replace that of the sun which is so unreliable in our climate. The countess let go of Monte Cristo's arm and went to pluck a bunch of grapes from a vine.

The count looked at her questioningly, but she carried on without a word, so he too said nothing.

"Here, Count," she said, with such a sad smile that it did not disguise the tears at the corners of her eyes, "take it. Our French grapes are not, I know, comparable to those you have in Sicily or Cyprus, but I know you will excuse our pale northern sun."

The count bowed and took a pace backwards.

"Madame," Monte Cristo replied, "I beg you most humbly to forgive me, but I never eat muscat grapes."

"Are you refusing me?" said Mercédès, her voice quivering.

Mercédès let the bunch fall with a sigh. A magnificent peach was hanging from a nearby shrub, espaliered and warmed, like the vine, by the artificial heat of the greenhouse. Mercédès went over to the luscious fruit and picked it. "Then take this peach," she said.

But the count made the same gesture of refusal.

"Again!" she said, with such a pained note in her voice that one could feel it covered a sob. "Truly, I am unfortunate."

There was a long silence. The peach, like the bunch of grapes, had fallen on the sand.

"Monsieur le Comte," Mercédès said finally, looking imploringly at Monte Cristo, "there is a touching Arab custom that promises eternal friendship between those who have shared bread and salt under the same roof."

"Monsieur," the countess suddenly resumed, after they had walked for ten minutes in silence, "is it true that you have seen so much, travelled so far, suffered so deeply?"

"I know it, Madame," the count replied. "But we are in France and not in Arabia; and in France there is no more eternal friendship than there is sharing of bread and salt."

The blood rushed to the count's heart and he became as white as death; then it rose from his heart to his throat and spread across his cheeks. For a few moments his eyes would not focus, like those of a man dazzled by a bright light. "Of course we are friends, Madame," he replied. "Why should we not be?"

"But we are friends, are we not?" she said, breathing rapidly and looking directly into Monte Cristo's eyes, while clasping his arm with both hands.

His tone was so far from the one that Mme de Morcerf desired that she turned away with a sigh that was almost a groan. "Thank you," she said, then started to walk on. In this way they went round the whole garden without saying a word.

"And does your present happiness calm your soul?"

"Have you ever married?"

"It is not my fault, Madame. In Malta I loved a girl and was going to marry her, when the war came and swept me away from her like a whirlwind. I thought that she loved me enough to wait for me, even to remain faithful to my tomb. When I came back, she was married. This is the story of every man who is aged over twenty. Perhaps my heart was weaker than that of others and I suffered more than they would in my place, that's all."

"My present happiness equals my past misery," said the count.

"Yes, of course," the count replied. "No one hears me complain."

"How can you live like that, with nothing attaching you to life?"

"No one."

"She is a slave whom I bought in Constantinople, Madame, the daughter of a prince whom I took for my own, not having anyone else to cherish."

"I do."

"No one, but several times you have been seen at the opera with a beautiful young woman."

"Married?" Monte Cristo replied, shuddering. "Who told you that?"

"Yes, Madame, I have suffered a great deal," he said.

"So you live alone?"

"But are you happy now?"

"You have no sister… son… father?"

The countess stood in front of Monte Cristo, still holding part of the bunch of grapes in her hand. "Take it," she said.

"What? What has happened?" the countess asked, stiffening, as though she had been recalled to reality from a dream. "A disaster? Indeed, disasters must happen."

At this moment Albert ran up. "Oh, mother," he said. "A great disaster!"

"But only her. You still hate those who separated you?"

"Never."

"Her I have forgiven, yes."

"Yes, to Malta."

The countess stopped for a moment, as if needing to recover her breath. "Yes," she said, "and that love has remained in your heart. One is only really in love once… Did you ever see her again?"

"I think so."

"So she is in Malta, then?"

"I never eat muscat grapes, Madame," the count replied, as if the matter had never been discussed between them before.

"I did not go back to the country where she lived."

"To Malta?"

"You are quite inflexible," she muttered. But Monte Cristo remained as impassive as though the reproach had not been addressed to him.

"Never?"

"And have you forgiven her what she made you suffer?"

"Monsieur de Villefort is here."

"So?"

"Why?"

"He has come to fetch his wife and daughter."

"Because the Marquise de Saint-Méran has arrived in Paris, with the news that Monsieur de Saint-Méran died on leaving Marseille, at the first post. Madame de Villefort, who was very merry, did not want to understand or believe in this misfortune, but Mademoiselle Valentine guessed everything from the first words, despite her father's attempt to disguise it from her. The blow struck her down like a bolt of lightning and she fell in a dead faint."

"What is Monsieur de Saint-Méran to Mademoiselle de Villefort?" the count asked.

"Her maternal grandfather. He was coming to Paris to speed up his granddaughter's marriage to Franz."

"Now Franz is delayed. Why is Monsieur de Saint-Méran not also an ancestor of Mademoiselle Danglars?"

"Really?"

"Albert! Albert," Mme de Morcerf said, gently reprimanding him. "What are you saying? Oh, Monsieur le Comte, he has such a great respect for you: tell him he shouldn't say such things." She took a step forward.

"Have you fallen out over something, my mother and you?" Albert asked with astonishment.

"Well, now, Madame," said the count. "Your friend? I should not pretend to that. But, in any case, I am your most respectful servant."

Monte Cristo was looking so oddly at her, with an expression that was at once so abstracted and so full of affectionate admiration, that she advanced again, took his hand and that of her son, and joined them together. "We are friends, are we not?" she said.

"On the contrary," the count replied, "since she has just told me in front of you that we are friends." And they went back to the drawing-room which Valentine had just left with M. and Mme de Villefort. It goes without saying that Morrel followed them.

The countess left with an inexpressible weight on her heart and had not gone more than ten yards when the count even saw her dab her eyes with a handkerchief.