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The Dinner

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Brief overview

Monte Cristo stages a lavish dinner to force Villefort and Madame d'Anglaire toward their buried crime.

  1. Curiosity overrules prudence and decorumEven uneasy guests, including the stiff Cavalcanti, would not like to be absent from the incomprehensible man's house.
  2. Wealth buys the impossible, not the betterThe sterlet and lamprey are likely no better than perch or salmon, but they seemed impossible to procure.
  3. The dinner is a trap, not hospitalityMonte Cristo's smile as he brings up the rear shows the room and the plantain tree were prepared for Villefort and Madame d'Anglaire.
Executive Summary AI
  • In Chapter 63 of Alexander Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, guests uneasily gather at the Count's newly bought house, drawn by curiosity about his eccentric position and almost incredible fortune despite there being no hostess to receive the ladies.
  • The Count serves an Oriental feast worth a thousand louis for ten persons, and displays two live fish, a sterlet from the Volga brought fifty leagues beyond St. Petersburg and a lamprey from Lake Fusaro five leagues from Naples, each carried in a cask and alive after twelve days.
  • Chateau Renaud marvels that the house, bought five or six days earlier and empty for ten years, has been transformed in four days, and the talk turns to its former owner M. de Saint-Morin, whose sale made it part of Valentine's marriage portion — at which Villefort drinks off a glass of rare wine and Morel turns pale.
  • Monte Cristo leads the party to a gloomy room hung with red damask and a crooked hidden staircase, inventing a scene of someone carrying a concealed load down the stairs until Madame d'Anglaire faints and is revived with Madame de Villefort's bottle of red liquid.
  • In the garden he declares before the King's attorney that a crime was committed in the house, saying his workmen digging fresh mould under the plantain tree found the ironwork of a box containing the skeleton of a newly-born infant; d'Anglaire notes that infanticides' heads are soon cut off, and Villefort whispers to Madame d'Anglaire that they must meet tomorrow in his office or the court.
Key Quote
“now to see things which i cannot understand to procure impossibilities these are the study of my life i gratify my wishes by two means my will and my money.”
— Montecristo
Key Quote
“Merely because one might have died,”
— Montecristo
Key Quote
“You are certainly an extraordinary man, said d'Anglaire, and philosophers may well say it is a fine thing to be rich.”
— d'Anglaire

Transcript

0:00 THE DINNER 2006. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Chapter 63. The Dinner.
0:30 It was evident that one sentiment affected all the guests on entering the dining-room.
0:36 Each one asked what strange influence had brought them to this house, and yet astonished,
0:42 even uneasy though they were, they still felt that they would not like to be
0:46 absent. The recent events, the solitary and eccentric position of the Count, his enormous,
0:53 nay, almost incredible fortune, should have made men cautious, and have altogether prevented ladies
0:59 visiting a house where there was no one of their own sex to receive them. And yet curiosity had been enough
1:06 to lead them to overleap the bounds of prudence and decorum. And all present, even including
1:12 Cavalcanti and his son, notwithstanding the stiffness of the one and the carelessness of
1:17 the other, were thoughtful on finding themselves assembled at the house of this incomprehensible man.
1:24 Madame d'Anglaire had started when Villefort,
1:27 on the Count's invitation, offered his arm, and Villefort felt that his glance was uneasy beneath
1:34 his gold spectacles when he felt the arm of the Baroness press upon his own. None of this had
1:40 escaped the Count, and even by this mere contact of individuals the scene had already acquired
1:46 considerable interest for an observer. M. de Villefort had on the right hand Madame d'Anglaire,
1:53 and on his left Morel. The Count was seated between Madame de Villefort and d'Anglaire.
2:00 The other seats were filled by de Bray, who was placed between the two Cavalcanti, and by Chateau
2:05 Renaud, seated between Madame de Villefort and Morel. The repast was magnificent. Montecristo
2:13 had endeavored completely to overturn the Parisian ideas, and to feed the curiosity
2:18 as much as the appetite of his guests. It was an Oriental feast that he offered to them,
2:24 but of such a kind as the Arabian fairies might be supposed to prepare every delicious fruit that the four quarters of the asia minor or the cape sparkling in bottles whose grotesque shapes seemed to give an additional flavor to the draught passed in review before the eyes of the astonished parisians who understood that it was possible to expend a thousand louis upon a dinner for ten persons but only on the condition of eating pearls like cleopatra or drinking refined gold like lorenzo de medici laughing and joking about it. Gentlemen, he said, you will admit that, when arrived at a certain
3:26 degree of fortune, the superfluities of life are all that can be desired, and the ladies will allow
3:33 that, after having risen to a certain eminence of position, the ideal alone can be more exalted.
3:40 Now, to follow out this reasoning, what is the marvellous that which we do not understand what is it that we really desire that which we cannot obtain
3:51 now to see things which i cannot understand to procure impossibilities these are the study of my life i gratify my wishes by two means my will and my money. I take as much interest in the pursuit of some whim as
4:07 you do, M. d'Anglaire, in promoting a new railway line, you, M. de Villefort, in condemning a
4:14 culprit to death, you, M. de Bray, in pacifying a kingdom, you, de Chateau-Renaud, in pleasing a
4:21 woman, and you, Morel, in breaking a horse that no one can ride.
4:31 For example, you see these two fish. One brought fifty leagues beyond St. Petersburg,
4:36 the other five leagues from Naples. Is it not amusing to see them both on the same table?
4:39 What are the two fish? asked Anglaire.
4:44 M. Chateau-Renaud, who has lived in Russia, will tell you the name of one,
5:06 and Major Cavalcanti, who is an italian will tell you the name of the other this one is i think a sterlet said chateau Renaud, are only found in the Volga.
5:12 And, said Cavalcanti, I know that Lake Fusaro alone supplies lampreys of that size.
5:17 Exactly. One comes from the Volga, and the other from Lake Fusaro.
5:25 Impossible, cried all the guests, simultaneously. Well, this is just what amuses me, said Montecristo. I am like Nero,
5:33 cupitur impossiblium, and that is what is amusing you at this moment. This fish, which seems so exquisite to you, is very likely no better than perch or salmon, but it seemed impossible to
5:39 procure it, and here it is. But how could you have these fish brought to france oh nothing more easy each fish was brought
5:48 over in a cask one filled with river herbs and weeds the other with rushes and lake plants
5:54 they were placed in a wagon built on purpose and thus the sterlet lived 12 days the lamprey ate and

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