World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 111 The Way to Repel Rats (1)
The Count of Monte Cristo left the city by the gates of the Rue du Hell, not that night, as he said, but the next morning, and took the road to Orleans.When he passed the village of Lena, where the telegraph office was turning its slender arm, the count did not stop, but went straight to the well-known Monleary watchtower, which is located at the highest point of the Montlelie plain.The earl got off the car at the foot of the hill, and walked up the 18-inch wide mountain path, but was blocked by a hedge at the top of the hill.The hedge, which might have been full of red and white flowers, now bore green berries.

Monte Cristo began to look for the gate of the hedge, and found it in a short time.It was a small wooden gate, with wicker hinges, and fastened with a string attached to a nail.It didn't take much for the count to figure out the structure of the door, and it was pushed open.The count entered a small garden twenty feet long and twelve wide, bordered on one side by a hedge, and fitted with the ingenious mechanism we have just described, which was to be called a door.On the other side of the garden is the ancient building, which is covered with ivy, and hung with sweet-scented osmanthus and violets.This ancient building looks like a wrinkled old grandmother with heavy makeup. Grandchildren come to celebrate her birthday one after another. Seeing this appearance, it can be said that if the ancient building could not only talk, but also, as the old saying goes, If the partition has ears, and if it has terrible ears, it must be able to tell many soul-stirring stories.There is a path paved with red sand in the garden, looming under two dense rows of old boxwood trees. This kind of scenery makes the contemporary Rubens Flemish painter (20) —12).Delacroix French painter (1577-1640).After reading it, you will be overjoyed.The path is in the shape of an 1798, winding and twisting, and a 1863-foot walkway is actually paved in the 8-foot-long garden.Never before has the goddess of all kinds of flowers in Latin mythology been so devoutly and purely revered in this small garden.

It is true that among the 20 roses that make up the flower bed, there is not a single leaf with a fly-bitten spot, as for the filaments spit out by the aphids that devour and spoil the crops on the wet ground, but the ground in this garden is also quite beautiful. It is humid, the soil is as black as soot, and the branches and leaves grow so densely, which is an excellent proof.Moreover, a large wooden barrel was buried in a corner of the garden, and the barrel was filled with rotten water, which could be watered by hand at any time to make up for the lack of natural water.There was a frog and a toad in the barrel, most likely out of spite, and they were always perched back to back on the green water, so to speak, they occupied different places.Not a single weed on the path, not a single superfluous vine in the flower-beds, nor a fastidious young lady trimming her china pots of geraniums, nor cacti nor rhododendrons as in this little garden. As fine as its master.

Monte Cristo closed the door behind him, fastened the rope to the nail again, and stopped, looking round the whole garden. "It appears," he said, "that this operator has a gardener for years, or else he's a keen gardener himself." Suddenly he bumped into something curled up behind a wheelbarrow laden with leaves, and the thing Standing up with a scream, Monte Cristo saw a man in his 50s in front of him.It turned out that the man was squatting down to pick strawberries, and the picked strawberries were placed on the grape leaves.A total of 12 grape leaves and 12 strawberries were placed on the cart. When the man stood up, he almost knocked the cart with the leaves and strawberries to the ground. "You are picking strawberries, monsieur?" said Monte Cristo, smiling.

"Excuse me, sir," replied the man, raising his hand to the brim of his cap, "I'm not up there, it's true, but I've only been down a little while."

"I won't trouble you, my friend," said the count, "if you haven't picked them all, pick your strawberries."

"I still have 10 to pick," the man said, "I have already picked 11 here, and this year I can collect 21 in total, 5 more than last year. But there is nothing strange about it, this spring is warm, You know, sir, strawberries need to be hot to grow well. So last year I got 16, and this year, you see, I've picked 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Oh oh my god! 3 pieces are missing, but they were still there yesterday, sir, they are here all the time, there is no mistake, I counted them all. Mrs. Simon's son must have been stolen, I saw him this morning Come here to hang around. Ah, this boy, actually went to the garden to steal something! Doesn’t he know where the stolen things are going to take him?”

"Yes," said Monte Cristo, "it is a serious matter, but as the criminal is young and greedy, give him a little."

"Of course it will be given to him," said the gardener, "but it's always unpleasant. But again, I beg your pardon, sir. You may be the officer, and I've kept you waiting?" He looked timidly. The count glanced at it, and then at the blue coat on the count's body.

"Be at ease, my friend," said the count, with a smile on his lips.This smile, he can change it as he likes, or smile intimidatingly, or smile kindly, but this time, it is smiling very kindly. "I'm not here to inspect your officer at all. I just passed by here and came to have a look out of curiosity, but I regret that I should not come up when I saw that you were wasting your time like this."

"Oh, my time is worthless," the man said with a slight wry smile, "but my time belongs to the government, and I must not be wrong. But the signal I received just now told me that I could take an hour off." Said Here he glanced at the sundial—there was everything in the grounds of Montraeli's watchtower, not even a sundial. "Look, I still have 10 minutes, and besides, these strawberries of mine are very ripe, and they are picked a day late...Sir, do you think the Dormouse will steal my strawberries?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so," said Monte Cristo earnestly. "The Dormouse is not a very good thing, sir, because we, unlike the Romans, do not eat honeydormouse."

"Ah! the Romans ate the Dormouse!" said the Gardener. "Did they really eat the Dormouse?"

"I read it in a book written by the Latin writer of the 1st century A.D., Petraunis," said the count.

"Really? I don't think it's good, though they're saying, 'Fat as a Dormouse'. No wonder the Dormouse is so fat, sir, they just sleep during the day and stay awake at night, eating all night long." Keep going. Look, my apricot tree had four apricots last year, and I gnawed one of them. The nectarine tree had one nectarine, that's all. Seriously, it's a rare fruit. That's good, sir, they've gnawed half the nectarine off this side of the wall. It's a marvelous nectarine, and it tastes the best I've ever had."

"Have you eaten the nectarine?" asked Monte Cristo.

"That is to say, you know, only ate the half that was left. It was delicious, sir. Oh, my God! These gentlemen don't pick bad things, and Madame Simon's son does the same, he I don't pick bad strawberries either. Forget it! But this year," continued the horticulturist, "it won't happen anymore, and when the fruit is about to ripen, I'll have to keep them even if I don't sleep at night."

Monte Cristo understood that, just as worms bite fruit, a man has a passion that gnaws at his heart, and this radio operator's passion was gardening.The count then helped to do the work, picking off the overcrowded leaves of the grapes, so that the bunches in the dark could be exposed to the sun, and this pleased the gardener.

"Isn't Sir here to watch the telegram?" asked the gardener.

"Yes, sir, but I don't know if it's prohibited by regulation."

"Oh, it's not prohibited at all," said the gardener. "What we said in the telegram is not understood by others, and it is impossible to understand it, so there is no danger in reading it."

"Indeed," said the count, "it is said that you repeat these signals without even understanding them yourself."

"Not at all, sir, I prefer it," said the operator, laughing.

"Why do you want to do this?"

"Because then I can be irresponsible. I'm just a machine and nothing else. As long as my machine works, they don't care about anything else."

"Damn it!" thought Monte Cristo. "Have I happened to meet a man who has no ambition at all? Bad luck, bad luck."

"Sir," said the gardener, glancing at the sundial, "the ten minutes are almost up, I'm going back to the plane now. Would you like to come up with me?"

"I'll go with you."

(End of this chapter)