Luigi Vampa's Bill of Fare — The Count of Monte Cristo

Danglars wakes in a whitewashed cell unlike Parisian velvet and instantly knows Albert's brigands hold him. Don Quixote supplies his first test: breathe, then check pockets. His louis and five-million-franc letter of credit remain; singular bandits, he decides, intend ransom not robbery, and waits until noon for breakfast that never comes free.

Guards offer onion and black bread he despises until fasting makes even prison food irresistible; when he knocks, a giant ignores him and Peppino arrives with chickpeas, bacon, grapes, and Orvieto, announcing that here you pay before you eat among honest folk. A fowl arrives on a silver dish like the Café de Paris until Peppino stops his knife, names the price at one hundred thousand francs, and demands four thousand nine hundred ninety-eight louis more after the first coin. Danglars calls it jest until Peppino says we never joke; bread costs the same fixed tariff whether he eats much or little.

When Peppino recites the exact five million fifty thousand francs in his pocket, the bandage falls from Danglars's eyes. He signs a draft at sight on Thomson and French, receives a scant bird, sighs at the thin meat for the money, and watches Peppino pocket the paper while calmly eating peas. Hunger has become a wealth transfer drawn on the same Roman house that made him feel untouchable yesterday.