Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 2).djvu/139

Rh the most admired young man of his day, should merely have his labor for his pains. And the thing was so much the more annoying, as according to the characteristic modesty of a Frenchman, Albert had quitted Paris with the full conviction that he had only to show himself in Italy to carry all before him, and that upon his return he should astonish the Parisian world with the recital of his numerous love-affairs.

Alas! poor Albert! Nothing of the kind happened; the lovely Genoese, Florentine, and Neapolitan countesses were all faithful, if not to their husbands, at least to their lovers; and all he gained was the painful conviction that the ladies of Italy have this advantage over those of France, that they are faithful even in their infidelity.

Albert, besides being an elegant young man, had considerable talent; moreover, he was a viscount a recently created one, certainly but in the present day who cares whether you dated from 1399 or merely 1815; but to crown all these advantages, he commanded an income of fifty thousand livres ($10,000), a more than sufficient sum to render him a personage of importance in Paris. It was, therefore, no small mortification to him to have visited most of the principal cities in Italy without having excited the most trifling observation.

Albert, however, hoped to indemnify himself at Rome, the Carnival being, in all the different states and kingdoms in which this festivity is celebrated, a period of liberty when even the gravest mingle in the follies of this time. The Carnival was to commence on the morrow; therefore Albert had not an instant to lose in setting forth his programme.

With this design he had engaged a box in the most conspicuous part of the theater, and made a most elaborate toilet. The box was in the first circle; although each of the three tiers of boxes is deemed equally aristocratic, and is, for this reason, generally styled "the nobility's boxes."

The box engaged for the two friends was sufficiently capacious to contain at least a dozen persons, yet had cost less than one for four at the Ambigu. Another motive had influenced Albert's selection of a seat: who knew but that, thus advantageously placed, he could not fail to attract the notice of some fair Roman; and an introduction might ensue that would procure him the offer of a seat in a carriage, or a place in a princely balcony, from which he might behold the gayeties of the Carnival?

These united considerations made Albert more lively than he had hitherto been. He turned his back to the stage, he leaned from his box and scrutinized each pretty woman with a powerful lorgnette; but, alas! this attempt to attract notice wholly failed; not even curiosity had been excited.