Peppino — The Count of Monte Cristo

As Monte Cristo's steamer fades behind Cape Morgiou, Baron Danglars rides post from Florence toward Rome wearing a fresh Legion of Honor ribbon and shouting Allegro and Moderato to postilions who laugh at his tourist Italian. At La Storta he ignores Saint Peter's dome and checks a folded paper with reverence: Good, I have it still. Pastrini receives him at the Hôtel d'Espagne; Danglars hurries on foot to Thomson and French while Peppino, already informed, watches from a bench as the clerk confirms five million francs on the Count of Monte Cristo's receipt.

Radiant, Danglars whispers I came to touch and raps his pocketbook; Peppino follows the carriage toward Ancona. Delayed by police formalities until three o'clock, the baron distributes silver to beggars who upgrade him from excellency toward highness and sleeps well in calash comfort until the carriage stops at a ruin instead of a posting-house. A hand pushes him back inside; Dentro la testa answers his questions while horsemen flank the calash and aqueducts shift from right to left, proving they circle Rome.

Moonlight and Morcerf's old stories converge on the Appian Way near Caracalla's circus. Scendi, Avanti, and Peppino's torch lead him through catacombs where sepulchres stare like open eyes until Luigi Vampa, reading Plutarch's Life of Alexander, orders fine spoil shown to the captain. Danglars recognizes the bandit Albert once met and the same stranger's cell; remembering Morcerf's four thousand crowns, he doubles his ransom to eight thousand, counts five million still safe at Thomson and French, and falls asleep with the tranquillity of the hero Vampa is studying.