The Count of Monte Cristo

** Characters:

• Edmond Dantès - our hero
• Old Dantès - Edmond’s Father
• Mercedes - his Edmond’s beloved beautiful Catalan
• Fernand – Catalan dude in love with Mercedes hates Dantès b/c envy
• Caderousse – Neighbor of Old Dantès – dislikes Edmond b/c…?
• Danglars – The supercargo on the Pharaon – hates Edmond b/c envy?

• “A lovely young girl with jet-black hair and the velvet eyes of a gazelle, was standing, leaning against an inner wall, rubbing an innocent sprig of heather between slender fingers like those on a classical statue, and pulling off the flowers, the remains of which were already strewn across the floor. At the same time, her arms, naked to the elbow, arms that were tanned but otherwise seemed modelled on those of the Venus of Arles, trembled with a sort of feverish impatience, and she was tapping the ground with her supple, well-made foot, revealing a leg that was shapely, bold and proud, but imprisoned in a red cotton stocking patterned in grey and blue lozenges”

A young and beautiful girl, with hair as black as jet, her eyes as velvety as the gazelles, was leaning with her back against the wainscot, rubbing in her slender fingers, moulded after the antique style, a bunch of heath-blossoms, the flowers of which she was picking off and strewing on the floor; her arms bare to the elbow, tanned, and resembling those of the Venus at Arles, moved with a kind of restless impatience, and she tapped the earth with her pliant and well-formed foot so as to display the pure and full shape of her well-turned leg, in its red cotton stocking with grey and blue clocks.

• “Come on, come on,’ Danglars muttered. ‘I think that the matter is properly under way now, and all we have to do is to let it take its course.”

• “Why, then, they shall be breached,’ said M. de Salvieux. ‘Was he himself so scrupulous, when it came to shooting the poor Duc d’Enghien?’8”

• Villefort swears he will be pityless to his mom(?) but hints to his fiance that he will be merciful.

• “In reality, apart from the memory of his father’s choice of political allegiance (which, if he did not himself completely renounce it, might affect his own career), Gérard de Villefort was at that moment as happy as it is possible for a man to be. At the age of twenty-six, already wealthy in his own right, he held a high office in the legal profession; and he was to marry a beautiful young woman whom he loved, not with passion, but reasonably, as a deputy crown prosecutor may love.”

• This is ominous tho: ‘Alas! alas!’ murmured he, 'if the procureur du roi had been here in Marseilles, I should have been ruined. This accursed letter would have destroyed all my hopes. Oh! father, must your past career always interfere with mine? Suddenly a light passed over his face, a smile played round his mouth, and his lips relaxed."This will do”, said he, “and from this letter, which might have ruined me, I will make my fortune.”

• Danglars alone was happy and contented, he had got rid of an enemy and preserved his situation on board the Pharaon; Danglars was one of those men born with a pen behind the ear, and an inkstand in place of a heart. Everything with him was multiplication or subtraction, and he estimated the life of a man as less precious than a figure, when that figure could increase and that life diminish the total of the amount.

• 'My son, philosophy, as I understand it, is reducible to no rules

by which it can be learned; it is the amalgamation of all the

sciences, the golden cloud which bears the soul to heaven?

• Abbé Faria bites the dust

• I did not buy Edmond’s broken ribs nor did I buy that anyone else would have bought that. But whatever: TS has a new album.

• Thus the Genoese, subtle as he was, was duped by Edmond who in his favour had a mild demeanour, nautical skill, and admirable dissimulation.

• His naturally sallow complexion had assumed a still further shade of brown from the habit the unfortunate man had acquired of remaining from early morn till latest eve at the threshold of his door, in eager hope that some traveller, either equestrian or pedestrian might bless his eyes, and give him the delight of once more seeing a guest enter his doors. But his patience and his expectations were alike vain. Yet there he stood, day after day, exposed to the rays of a burning sun, with no other protection for his head than a red handkerchief twisted around it in the manner of the Spanish muleteers. This anxious, careworn innkeeper was no other than our old acquaintance, Caderousse

• Dumas makes Caderousse omniscient and its kinda lame

• Eddie just bought up Morrel’s debts and postponed collections and in the last chapter acquired evidence of Villefort’s guilt.

• Morrel is saved! I don’t get why we had to have Dantes show up twice to make this happen? (then again, I haven’t spent a great deal of brain power contemplating this.) Anyway Eddie says he is done playing secret santa.

• When you return to this mundane sphere from your visionary world, you seem to leave a Neapolitan spring for a Lapland winter - to exchange paradise for earth - heaven for hell! Taste the hashish!’

• 'Well, then, Signor Aladdin, replied the singular Amphitryon, 'you heard our repast announced; will you now take the trouble to enter the salle-à-manger, your humble servant going first to show the way? (The banquet hosted by Amphitryon is famously marked by a mythological twist in which Zeus, disguised as Amphitryon, gives a grand feast in Amphitryon’s likeness while the real Amphitryon is away. When Amphitryon returns home, a dispute arises over who is truly the host—the man physically present or the god who provided the feast. The guests and servants resolve this by deciding that the true host is he who gave the feast, highlighting the importance of hospitality and generosity in ancient culture. This banquet story emphasizes themes of identity, deception, and honor, with the act of hosting being a symbol of social status and control over the household.​)