without the owner knowing who he was; and however the old sailor
and his crew tried to "pump" him, they extracted nothing more from
him; he gave accurate descriptions of Naples and Malta, which he
knew as well as Marseilles, and held stoutly to his first story.
Thus the Genoese, subtle as he was, was duped by Edmond, in whose
favor his mild demeanor, his nautical skill, and his admirable
dissimulation, pleaded. Moreover, it is possible that the Genoese
was one of those shrewd persons who know nothing but what they
should know, and believe nothing but what they should believe.
In this state of mutual understanding, they reached Leghorn.
Here Edmond was to undergo another trial; he was to find out
whether he could recognize himself, as he had not seen his own face
for fourteen years. He had preserved a tolerably good remembrance
of what the youth had been, and was now to find out what the man
had become. His comrades believed that his vow was fulfilled. As he
had twenty times touched at Leghorn, he remembered a barber in St.
Ferdinand Street; he went there to have his beard and hair cut. The
barber gazed in amazement at this man with the long, thick and
black hair and beard, which gave his head the appearance of one of
Titian's portraits. At this period it was not the fashion to wear
so large a beard and hair so long; now a barber would only be
surprised if a man gifted with such advantages should consent
voluntarily to deprive himself of them. The Leghorn barber said
nothing and went to work.
When the operation was concluded, and Edmond felt that his chin
was completely smooth, and his hair reduced to its usual length, he
asked for a hand-glass. He was now, as we have said,
three-and-thirty years of age, and his fourteen years' imprisonment
had produced a great transformation in his appearance. Dantes had
entered the Chateau d'If with the round, open, smiling face of a
young and happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been
smooth, and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past.smooth, and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past.
This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling
mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken
resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with
thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths
occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his
complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color
which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair,
the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound
learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a
refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being
naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses
which has so long concentrated all its force within itself.
To the elegance of a nervous and slight form had succeeded the
solidity of a rounded and muscular figure. As to his voice,
prayers, sobs, and imprecations had changed it so that at times it
was of a singularly penetrating sweetness, and at others rough and
almost hoarse. Moreover, from being so long in twilight or
darkness, his eyes had acquired the faculty of distinguishing
objects in the night, common to the hyena and the wolf. Edmond
smiled when he beheld himself: it was impossible that his best
friend — if, indeed, he had any friend left — could recognize him;
he could not recognize himself.
The master of The Young Amelia, who was very desirous of
retaining amongst his crew a man of Edmond's value, had offered to
advance him funds out of his future profits, which Edmond had
accepted. His next care on leaving the barber's who had achieved
his first metamorphosis was to enter a shop and buy a complete
sailor's suit — a garb, as we all know, very simple, and consisting
of white trousers, a striped shirt, and a cap. It was in this
costume, and bringing back to Jacopo the shirt and trousers he had
lent him, that Edmond reappeared before the captain of the lugger,lent him, that Edmond reappeared before the captain of the lugger,
who had made him tell his story over and over again before he could
believe him, or recognize in the neat and trim sailor the man with
thick and matted beard, hair tangled with seaweed, and body soaking
in seabrine, whom he had picked up naked and nearly drowned.
Attracted by his prepossessing appearance, he renewed his offers of
an engagement to Dantes; but Dantes, who had his own projects,
would not agree for a longer time than three months.
The Young Amelia had a very active crew, very obedient to their
captain, who lost as little time as possible. He had scarcely been
a week at Leghorn before the hold of his vessel was filled with
printed muslins, contraband cottons, English powder, and tobacco on
which the excise had forgotten to put its mark. The master was to
get all this out of Leghorn free of duties, and land it on the
shores of Corsica, where certain speculators undertook to forward
the cargo to France. They sailed; Edmond was again cleaving the
azure sea which had been the first horizon of his youth, and which
he had so often dreamed of in prison. He left Gorgone on his right
and La Pianosa on his left, and went towards the country of Paoli
and Napoleon. The next morning going on deck, as he always did at
an early hour, the patron found Dantes leaning against the bulwarks
gazing with intense earnestness at a pile of granite rocks, which
the rising sun tinged with rosy light. It was the Island of Monte
Cristo. The Young Amelia left it three-quarters of a league to the
larboard, and kept on for Corsica.
Dantes thought, as they passed so closely to the island whose
name was so interesting to him, that he had only to leap into the
sea and in half an hour be at the promised land. But then what
could he do without instruments to discover his treasure, without
arms to defend himself? Besides, what would the sailors say? What
would the patron think? He must wait.
Fortunately, Dantes had learned how to wait; he had waited