0:00 XXXIX. THE GUESTS the count of monte cristo chapter thirty nine the guests in the house in the rue de helder where albert had invited the count of monte cristo
0:34 everything was being prepared on the morning of the twenty first of may to do honor to the occasion albert de morcef inhabited a pavilion situated at the corner of a large court, and directly opposite
0:46 another building, in which were the servants' apartments. Two windows only of the pavilion
0:51 faced the street. Three other windows looked into the court, and two at the back into the garden.
0:57 Between the court and the garden, built in the heavy style of the imperial architecture,
1:02 was a large and fashionable dwelling of the Count and Countess de Mosef. A high wall surrounded the whole of the hotel, surmounted at intervals by vases
1:12 filled with flowers, and broken in the centre by a large gate of gilded iron, which served
1:18 as the carriage entrance. A small door, close to the lodge of the concierge, gave ingress
1:24 and egress to the servants and masters when they
1:26 were on foot. It was easy to discover that the delicate care of a mother, unwilling to part
1:32 from her son, and yet aware that a young man of the Viscount's age required the full exercise of
1:38 his liberty, had chosen this habitation for Albert. There were not lacking, however, evidences of what we may call the
1:46 intelligent egoism of a youth who is charmed with the indolent, careless life of an only son,
1:53 and who lives, as it were, in a gilded cage. By means of the two windows looking into the street,
1:59 Albert could see all that passed. The sight of what is going on is necessary to young men,
2:05 who always want to see the world
2:06 traverse the horizon, even if that horizon is only a public thoroughfare. Then, should anything
2:12 appear to merit a more minute examination, Albert de Morcef could follow up his researches by means
2:18 of a small gate, similar to that close to the concierge's door, and which merits a particular
2:24 description.
2:30 It was a little entrance that seemed never to have been opened since the house was built,
2:35 so entirely was it covered with dust and dirt, but the well-oiled hinges and locks told quite another story. The door was a mockery to the concierge, from whose vigilance and jurisdiction
2:42 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 Kabbalistic word, or a concerted tap from without, from the sweetestamber, was, on the right, Albert's breakfast-room,
3:06 looking into the court, and on the left the salon, looking into the garden.
3:10 Shrubs and creeping plants covered the windows, and hid from the garden and court these two
3:15 apartments, the only rooms into which, as they were on the ground floor, the prying
3:20 eyes of the curious could penetrate.
3:22 On the floor above were similar rooms, with the addition of a
3:25 third, formed out of the antechamber. These three rooms were a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom.
3:32 The salon downstairs was only an Algerian divan, for the use of smokers. The boudoir upstairs
3:39 communicated with the bedchamber by an invisible door on the staircase. It was evident that every precaution had been taken.
3:47 Above this floor was a large atelier,
3:50 which had been increased in size by pulling down the partitions,
3:54 a pandemonium, in which the artist and the dandy strove for preeminence.
3:59 There were collected and piled up all Albert's successive caprices,
4:03 hunting-horns, bass- viols, flutes, a whole
4:07 orchestra, for Albert had had not a taste but a fancy for music. Easels, pellets, brushes,
4:14 pencils, for music had been succeeded by painting. Foils, boxing-gloves, broadswords,
4:21 and single-sticks. For following the example of the fashionable young men of the time,
4:27 Albert de Morcef cultivated, with far more perseverance than music and drawing,
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