The Presentation — The Count of Monte Cristo

After breakfast, Albert shows the Count his bachelor pavilion. He jokes that a man who sleeps in a grotto does not need luxury, but he still displays every treasure he owns. There are old cabinets, Japanese vases, weapons, paintings, and a piano covered with music. Albert expects to teach the Count about art. Instead, the Count names every artist and object as if he had studied them for years.

In the bedroom Albert points to a portrait of a young woman in Catalan fisher dress. He says it is a fancy costume picture. The Count stops and stares. He knows the face at once. It is Mercédès, Albert's mother, painted years ago when her husband was away. Albert does not notice the Count's shock. He chatters on about family harmony and how his father dislikes the painting.

Albert then brings the Count to meet his parents in the main house. General Fernand de Morcerf enters first, proud and polite. Mercédès follows. She thanks the Count for saving her son in Rome. When she hears his voice, she turns pale. The Count answers with perfect manners and says saving a young man is only simple humanity. Fernand talks about his military career and invites the Count to politics. Albert is delighted. He thinks the visit is a great success.

When the Count leaves, his own splendid carriage waits at the door. Albert's borrowed horses look plain beside it. Mercédès retreats to her room among strong flowers and smelling salts. She asks Albert whether the Count is really what he seems. Albert says he is like a hero from Byron, young, rich, and strange. Mercédès warns him to be careful with new friends. Albert laughs and leaves, proud of his guest. The Count carries away the image of the woman he once loved, now married to the man who destroyed him.

The portrait does what the breakfast could not. Albert calls the Catalan dress a costume. The Count looks at Mercédès and has to keep his face in the room. Fernand arrives proud of a second life, the sword put down for industry, the Legion of Honour worn like a receipt for usefulness. The Count praises that apprenticeship in a voice that does not praise. When the carriage door shuts, the curtain at the house stirs. Someone has watched him leave. Mercédès will spend the next hour among flowers and smelling salts, asking her son whether the stranger is safe, while the stranger carries her painted face into a city that thinks it has just met him.