Count of Monte Cristo: Chapter 52

[osprey_archer]

The Count has made quite a splash in Paris! Now everyone wants to know his name, and at last he can get going on some good hardcore vengeancing.



My guess right now is that his plan is to bankrupt Danglars: he shows up at this guy's house (which, Hugo takes care to note, is in the worst possible taste, because Danglars is almost hilarious void of redeeming features) and is all, "I want to open unlimited credit with your bank. I'm thinking maybe six million francs to start with?" and then bullies Danglars into it while Danglars gapes at him like a fish.

So yeah. Danglars' bank is going down.

With Danglars safely hooked, the count took a breather to chat with Mme de Villefort about the best ways to poison people without being detected. I really hope that she is planning to kill her husband, as the Count seems to believe, rather than trying to get rid of her poor innocent stepdaughter Valentine.

It would make a rather ironic point about the collateral damage caused by plans of vengeance, though. Surely at some point Dantes will have to rethink his belief that he can be Providence in human form? There are so many variables in life; surely eventually one of them will catch up with him and an innocent will be hurt.

...but I really don't want it to be Valentine. We have only seen a little of Valentine but I already like her a lot. Elope with Maximilien and be happy, Valentine! You know his sister Julie would adore you, and you could join their happy family in their happy home and never have to worry about being poisoned again.

So Dantes has laid traps for Danglars and Villefort, but I'm not sure he's gotten started on Fernand yet. He visited the Moncerf's house, but perhaps Mercedes' reaction to his face threw him for a loop? Or perhaps he has already begun to lay his cunning snares, and I just wasn't clever enough to catch them.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I discovered Little Springtime's copy of this! So I really can read it at some point. I've already seen several movie versions, so I'm figuring I can dip into your read-through and not care about spoilers, plus, I forget people's names like Whoa, so I think I probably won't even *be* spoiled.

On the contrary re: being Providence in human form, my impression from movie versions of this--no spoilers--is that it's the most cracktastically satisfying, wish-fulfilling novel of Just Desserts ever. OTOH, we **are** talking about the author of Les Mis, so yeah, it seems unlikely. Maybe it's only the movies that are that way...

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Dumas didn't write Les Mis; I'm pretty sure if Hugo was writing this then the Count would have had a spiritual awakening already and would be wandering around Paris giving alms to the poor rather than seeking revenge.

Or maybe also seeking revenge. I could totally see Hugo writing a doorstopper book about why revenge is futile.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

D'oh!!!! I'm an idiot. Oops. Can we just quietly delete this whole thread.

*crawls off to hide*

ETA correct icon

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Aw, no worries. The Count of Monte Cristo and Les Mis start with very similar premises (wrongly convicted criminal/criminal convicted under unjust laws comes into Great Wealth and uses it to right wrongs); the fact that their definition of righting wrongs is so very different is just proof of the idea that if you give twenty authors the same idea they'll come up with twenty very different stories.