Original subtitles

What is done to infanticides in this country?

Their heads are cut off.

Is that not right, Mr. de Villefort?

Yes, you are right.

My dear, what's the matter with you? You've gone quite pale.

Mr. de Monte Cristo telling us horrible stories,

doubtless intending to frighten us all to death.

Really, Count, you frighten the ladies.

I only wanted some air, that was all.

Are you really frightened, madame?

It's purely a matter of the imagination.

Mme. Danglars is ill. She shall be taken to her carriage.

No thank you. I've got recovered.

Sorry to have behaved so foolishly.

The blame is entirely mine, madame. You are quite right.

It was certainly not a story for somebody so sensitive as you.

Then let us change this atmosphere. Eugénie, why not sing for us?

That's a good idea!

I should be happy to do so but I don't accompany myself.

Maximilian plays the piano.

Eugénie will sing for us it your accompany her.

Please!

I will be an honor for which my talents are scarcely suited.

I'm sure you play the piano very well.

I'll do my best, mademoiselle.

Call at my office tomorrow.

My dear Count, if this is an opportune moment,

I would like a few words with you.

By all means. But what's the matter with you?

You look quite care-worn. Really, sir, you alarm me.

Is it a matter of business you wish to speak of?

Well, let's call it that.

Shall we go into the conservatory?

I rather expected to see the Morcerfs here tonight.

I had intended to invite them,

but they're taking the waters of Vichy for a few days.

But tell me, Mr. le Baron,

is it true that you have suffered some financial reverse?

Good devil! Who told you that?

No one. It's just a rumour. Do you want money?

Do you wish me to lend you some?

It's extremely civil of you. Very generous indeed.

But I am far from being in trouble.

It's extraordinary how these rumors get about.

I did have a minor setback recently, but good heavens,

to a man in my position it was a mere drop in the ocean.

I'm very glad to hear it. But you wish to speak with me?

While we're on the matter of business, tell me...

- What am I to do for Mr. Cavalcanti? - Give him money.

If he's been recommended to you, the recommendation seems good.

He has opened an account at my house and also made an allowance for his son.

May I ask how much he's allowed the young man?

Five thousand livre per month.

I thought I was right in believing old Cavalcanti to be a stingy fellow.

How can anyone expect a young man to exist on five thousand?

You understand that if the young man should want a few thousand more...

Don't advance it. The father will never repay it.

You don't know these multimillionaires. They're regular misers.

Would you not trust the Cavalcanti?

I?

I'd advance him six million on his signature.

Do you know?

I should never have taken him for anything more than a mere major.

The first time I set eyes on him,

he appeared to me like a very old lieutenant.

The young man is better.

A little nervous, perhaps, but on the whole, tolerable.

I believe these Italians are to marry amongst themselves.

- They like to unite their fortunes. - Yes, it is usual, most certainly.

But Cavalcanti is an original.

He does nothing like other people.

I believe that he's brought his son to France to choose a wife.

- Do you think so? - I'm sure of it.

Have you heard his fortune mentioned?

People talk of nothing else, only...

Some say that he has millions and others that he hasn't got a farthing.

What is your opinion?

I believe the good man to be very close.

- You do not flatter him? - I scarcely know him.

I've only met him three times in my entire life.

Accept my thanks for the client you have sent me.

By the by, when these kind of people marry their sons,

do they give them any fortune?

Do you wish to marry the young man yourself

since you're asking so many questions?

It would not be a bad speculation, I fancy.

You're not thinking of Mlle. Danglars, I hope.

And you don't want to see poor Andrea's throat cut by Albert,

who is, after all, engaged to your daughter, I believe.

Certainly le Comte de Morcerf and I have talked about this marriage.

Yes, it would certainly be a triumph to unite a fortune like yours

with the wealth of the Cavalcanti.

But Albert's father might be proved rather awkward.

And after all the name of de Morcerf

must be equally ancient as that of Cavalcanti.

Now I can't see him yielding to an Italian.

My dear Count, can there really be some point

on which you are not informed?

Why very easily.

Then let me hasten to enlighten you.

Morcerf's origins are even more humble than my own.

I may not be a baron by birth but my real name is at least Danglars.

Do you mean to say that his isn't Morcerf?

Indeed it is not.

When I was a poor clerk in Marseille, he was an even poorer fisherman.

A fisherman? Is that possible?

- What was he called then? - Fernand Mondego.

Fernand Mondego?

I've heard that name before somewhere. In Greece.

- No, it cannot be the same man. - Why not? Fernand was in Greece.

No, the man I'm thinking of is instructor general to Ali Pasha.

That was Fernand!

You astound me, Mr. le Baron.

- Something you know. - Something I cannot repeat.

There was a mystery linked with the affairs of Ali Pasha.

I beg you, my dear Count,

if this information is discreditable to Morcerf, tell me what it is,

for my poor daughter sake.

You place me in a very difficult position.

- Have you an agent in Greece? - Naturally.

Very well.

If he concerns you so much, I can only give you this advice.

Write to your agent and tell him to go to Janina.

Ask him to find out what part

Fernand Mondego played in the catastrophe of Ali Tepelini.

My dear Count, good morning.

Welcome home again.

I only arrived an hour ago from Vichy and come directly to see you.

That's exceedingly kind of you.

Well, what news? Tell me all you've been doing in my absence.

And what do you mean by that?

I spent ten days with my parents at Vichy.

I come back to a scene I scarcely recognize.

Be specific.

- For example, Mme. Danglars. - What about her?

An active, healthy woman who, to my knowledge,

has never suffered a day's illness in her life...

- Is she not ill? - Certainly not ill.

But a convenient migraine confines her to her room.

No one sat eyes on her for days, not even poor Lucien Debray.

You're blaming me for her indisposition?

These days, I attribute any unusual occurrence to your intervention.

I see you as a kind of a grand puppet master.

You pull the strings, we dance.

Any evidence for this remarkable theory?

No, none at all.

Except before you arrived in Paris, life was more or less predictable.

Now it no longer is. Things happen.

Like Mme. Danglars' migraine?

A small thing in itself, but it's part of the pattern of it.

Everything you do seems to involve one or other of us directly or indirectly.

And then your house at Auteuil.

It was once a property of de Villefort's father-in-law.

- Somebody had to own it. - Of course.

And of all people, that somebody had to be poor old Saint-Méran.

Never mind.

You put it at the disposal of an Italian millionaire and his son.

Presto!

My prospects of marrying the lovely Eugénie

seem to vanish into thin air.

Admittedly I took no steps

to prevent Mlle. Eugénie from meeting young Cavalcanti,

but you seem so little set on the union, I thought I was doing you a favor.

So you were!

To be married to Mlle. Danglars would have been dreadful.

Albert, you are very difficult to please.

So I am, for I wish for what is impossible.

And what's that?

To find such a wife as my father did.

Your father was fortunate?

You know my opinion of my mother, Count.

Just look at her, still so beautiful.

- What happened was pure chance. - There's no such thing as chance.

Of course it was chance that Monte Cristo bought the house in Auteuil.

And chance that the gardener found it.

No, nothing was found. No skeleton.

It must have been.

I dug the grave.

I was about to bury the body

when the madman attacked and nearly killed me.

Six months later, when I recovered, you had gone.

I dare not inquire after you.

Then I heard that you had married Mr. Danglars.

The memory of that half-filled grave was always with me.

I went secretly to Auteuil.

Night after night, I went there armed with a lantern and spade.

Till at length, I dug over the whole area of the garden.

There was nothing there.

I think that the man who attacked me thought that I was burying treasure.

I don't understand you.

He would hardly have made off with the corpse of a newly born infant

unless he wished to report it to the police.

No report was made to them.

What are you saying?

The child was perhaps alive and it was saved by the assassin.

My child alive?

You buried my child alive?

You weren't even certain it was dead.

I merely supposed so as I might have supposed anything else.

My child... My poor child.

Madame, I beg you to listen.

I have no proof that the child lives.

I made, as you can imagine, the most painstaking inquiries

without any result but I believe that it does live.

And if it does, it's not our guilty past

but the future which threatens to destroy us.

Monte Cristo speaks in our presence of a disinterred child. Why?

- What are you and I to Monte Cristo? - I don't know but I shall find out.

That's why I had to see you, to warn you against him.

You have never revealed our connection to anyone?

No. Never to anyone.

- You've never kept a diary? - No.

Alas, my life has been spent in frivolity.

I only wanted to forget it myself.

You might have talked in your sleep.

I sleep like a child.

Don't you remember?

True.

I know what I must do. My best agents shall be employed.

Soon I'll have the life history of Monte Cristo.

Who he is, whence he comes and where he goes.

And armed with these facts I shall act, and perhaps save us.

If it's not already too late.

Will you promise to keep me informed?

Have no fear on that score.

I believe that I am less afraid than you are.

I know what a courageous woman you are.

It's not that. My life is of no importance.

But you are a great name in the land.

Your ruin would shake France but I am a woman and a mother.

And in all you've said to me I can only find one single passionate response.

Perhaps my son,

the child born of our love,

still lives.

- Any regrets? - Regrets?

No!

I feel free as air for the first time in months.

Albert, your lack of gallantry is quite shocking.

I'm honest, that's all, and Eugénie feels just as I do.

She despises me for the frivolous fellow I am,

just as I'm certain she despises our romantic Italian over there.

The understanding between your two families still exists.

Your father has yet to be informed.

Have you not seen Valentine again?

No.

How could any man refuse to receive a splendid fellow like you

because twenty years ago your father supported the little Corsican?

I think it's scandalous.

People have long memories out there.

Why don't you ask Monte Cristo to do something about it?

It is not a matter in which he could interfere.

Not interfere. Use his genius for influencing events.

I know of his warm regard for you. And what about Valentine?

She's head over heels in love with you.

De Villefort has sworn to send her to a convent

if she so much as mentions my name again.

I must be off.

Where's Mr. Danglars?

I must leave before he returns. Haven't you noticed?

He can scarcely endure my presence.

To be candid, I cannot tolerate his.

Goodbye, Eugénie.

Arrivederci, Signor Cavalcanti.

My dear Count.

My dear father-in-law, I was on the very point of departure.

Then let me not detain you, Vicount.

The warmth of your hospitality almost persuades me to stay,

but not quite.

Goodbye, Count. Goodbye, dear father-in-law.

The young scondrel.

Count, have you ever heard such insolence?

But then what can you expect?

They say bad blood always shows itself in the end.

I beg your pardon?

I was saying bad blood shows in the end.

Your advice was excellent.

Excellent!

I shall never forget the service you have done me.

The service?

Mr. le Comte, I've just had news from Janina.

The council at Janina, which formed the protection of the town,

was at the time under the command of a French officer,

General Fernand Mondego.

Mondego, in whom Ali Tepelini reposed the greatest confidence,

not only surrendered the castle to the enemy,

but sold his benefactor to the Turks.

For this act of treachery, the general received 2,000 crowns.

Mondego is better known in France under his title, Comte de Morcerf,

and has a seat in the Chamber of Peers.

- Father! - Well?

This monstrous calumny, what does it mean?

Exactly what it says, it is a monstrous calumny.

But to what end?

Why should anyone wish to vilify a man as great

and honourable as you?

Ask Beauchamp. It is printed in his newspaper.

Beauchamp?

- Beauchamp is my friend. - Indeed.

You still so regard him?

My God, he shall answer for this.

- Have you told mother yet? - No.

Then I'll leave before you do so.

- She'll only seek to dissuade me. - Thank you.

Have no fear, father.

Beauchamp shall eat his words or die if he refuses.

And you, you will refute this foul libel before the whole world.

Before my fellow peers, at least, yes. I shall manage that, all right.

God go with you, my son.

Where was Albert going in such a hurry?

- He hardly greeted me. - The boy's upset.

Was that why you wanted to see me?

Partly, there are two reasons.

This morning I received this letter from Baron Danglars.

He no longer wishes his daughter to marry our son.

You astonish me.

I thought his heart was as much set upon the match as yours.

That is no longer the case.

You have known my feelings all along, Fernand.

I have never sought to hide them.

But what has brought about

this sudden change of mind in your old friend?

That brings me to my second reason,

this newspaper report which I think you should read.

Very well. If you will not sit, you must stand.

- Be cool, my dear fellow. - I am perfectly cool.

And will you first hear me out?

Naturally, since I'm here for your explanation.

Very well. Listen carefully to what I have to say,

for there is more to this affair than you may suppose.

A month ago, Baron Danglars called at this office.

- Danglars? - Yes.

It was he who gave me the report which you read in my paper this morning.

- Never! - I swear to you that he did.

- What did you do? - I laughed in his face.

I told him it was a malicious pack of lies,

and that as the editor of a responsible paper,

I would have nothing to do with it.

- Go on. - He insisted that it was true,

and told me flatly that if I didn't publish it,

there were plenty of other papers that would be glad to do so.

I was in a difficult position out there.

I could see that he meant what he said.

And I knew the damage which such a report, even though it were false,

could do to a man in your father's position.

In the end, I bargained with him.

- Bargained with him? - Yes, I bargained for time.

I asked him to give me a month, and unwillingly he agreed.

But why? What did you hope to achieve?

I hoped to prove that the report was false.

Do you know why you haven't seen me for the past three weeks?

No, I simply heard you were away.

So I was. I went to Janina.

A week to get there. Another to return.

Four days in quarantine.

Forty-eight hours to stay there and if you don't believe me...

... there's my passport.

Go on.

I'm sorry, Albert. The report is true. It's accurate in every detail.

Liar!

Signed statements by the mayor of Janina

and three other important men of the town.

You were my friend.

You made it public knowledge without a word of warning.

I had no choice. I had made my bargain.

And when I reached Paris last night, Danglars was waiting for his pound of flesh.

Who honors bargains with a man like that?

I honor the truth, Albert. That is my task as a journalist.

And the obligations of friendship, they mean nothing, I suppose.

My regard for you is unchanged.

But you know as well as I do that I could not,

on that account, conceal your father's crime.

What will happen, Beauchamp?

The Count de Morcerf will have to answer to his fellow peers.

Who knows? They may acquit him.

- Will you give evidence? - No. My job is done.

I have published a report, in good faith.

No one but you knows that I have a deeper knowledge.

But there is one question you've not asked, Albert.

What's that?

Who told Danglars how he might come by this information?

You know the answer.

Yes, Danglars gave it to me himself.

Well?

It was your friend Monte Cristo.

Yes, well...

I was only down there a few minutes.

But I'm not an inspector.

I see.

It's not often I have visitors.

You surprise me. I should have thought

most people would have been interested in telegraphy.

Maybe.

There's not many interested in climbing all them steps.

450 odd. It's quite a long way.

Still, it's well worth it when you get up here.

All the same, don't you find life rather tedious?

I get used to it.

And, of course, there's holidays sometimes.

Holidays?

- When there's a fog. - Yes, I see.

And what do you do on your holidays?

Well, there's my patchy garden down there at the...

... put to the tower.

That's where I'm most happy, at my beauty gardern.

Of course, the soil's not much. Very poor. Doesn't yield much.

There's always something to do.

Weeding, planting, pruning, killing insects.

And dormice. They're the worst of the lot.

They eat half the fruit.

Do you know that the ancient Romans used to eat dormice preserved in honey?

The ancient Romans used to eat dormites?

- Yes, it was a great delicacy. - I don't think I like that.

- How old are you? - Fifty-five.

- How long have you been here? - Fifteen years.

How long do you have to serve before you get a pension?

Twenty-five years.

- And how much is the pension? - Hundred crowns.

- Poor humanity. - What did you say, sir?

Do you understand all the signals you receive?

No, they're in code, I just pass them on.

But these signals here are addressed to you.

- Do you understand them? - These I do.

They're all the same, see?

"Nothing new", "Nothing new". "You have an hour", "Nothing new".

- That seems simple enough. - Yes.

Isn't that your colleague over there signalling to you now?

Yes, monsieur. Thank you.

What's he saying?

He's asking me to be ready to receive.

And what do you reply?

The signal I'm sending him now,

that's my left-hand correspondent, tells him that I'm ready,

and the same signal warns my right-hand correspondent

that he must be ready in turn.

I find that most ingenious.

Yeah, you'll see! In a few minutes, he will speak.

- How much do you earn per year? - A thousand livres, monsieur.

- You can't live very well on that. - I live badly. But I live.

What happens if you miss a signal?

I can't pass it on.

If I can't pass it on, I get fined a hundred livres for negligence.

It happened to me once. It teaches you to be careful.

Yes, I should think it does.

And what happens if you alter a signal or substitute another?

I'll get turned off and lose my pension.

Why are you asking me all these things?

Because that's what I want you to do.

- Do you know what these are? - They're banknotes, sir.

Twenty-five notes of 1,000 livres each.

Your entire income for twenty-five years.

They're yours, my friend.

I can't.

I can't. You mustn't tempt me, Monsieur.

But I must.

Because in exchange,

you're going to send this message for me.

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