The Dinner — The Count of Monte Cristo

Every guest enters the Auteuil dining-room curious and uneasy. Monte Cristo seats them with care: Villefort beside Madame Danglars, the Count between Madame de Villefort and the pale banker, and the Cavalcantis among the young men of Paris. No one quite knows why he has brought these particular people together, yet none of them wants to stay away.

The dinner is wildly extravagant. Fish from Russia and Italy arrive still alive in special casks, rare fruit and wines cover the table, and Monte Cristo jokes that he enjoys doing what others think impossible. The guests talk about how fast the house has changed. Château-Renaud remembers it when the Saint-Mérans owned it. Madame de Villefort recalls being brought here through the garden door on the night she was saved from danger.

After the meal the Count offers a tour and leads them to the sealed red damask bedroom. He speaks as if the room remembers a murder, shows a hidden staircase, and describes a crime in the garden where a newborn's skeleton was found under a plantain tree. Madame Danglars faints. Madame de Villefort revives her with a smelling bottle. Villefort whispers that the baroness must meet him tomorrow in his office. Horror and a secret appointment leave the table together.