“Oh.” cried Madame de Villefort, “it is really frightful.”
Madame Danglars tried to utter a few words, but was not heard. Many observations were made, the import of which was a unanimous opinion that there was something sinister about the room.
“Is it not so?” asked Monte Cristo. “Look at that large clumsy bed, hung with such gloomy, blood-colored drapery! And those two crayon portraits, that have faded from the dampness; do they not seem to say, with their pale lips and staring eyes, ‘We have seen’?”
Villefort became livid; Madame Danglars fell into a long seat placed near the chimney.
“Oh,” said Madame de Villefort, smiling, “are you courageous enough to sit down upon the very seat perhaps upon which the crime was committed?”
Madame Danglars rose suddenly.
“And then,” said Monte Cristo, “this is not all.”
“What is there more?” said Debray, who had not failed to notice the agitation of Madame Danglars.
“Ah, what else is there?” said Danglars; “for, at present, I cannot say that I have seen anything extraordinary. What do you say, M. Cavalcanti?”
“Ah,” said he, “we have at Pisa, Ugolino’s tower; at Ferrara, Tasso’s prison; at Rimini, the room of Francesca and Paolo.”
“Yes, but you have not this little staircase,” said Monte Cristo, opening a door concealed by the drapery. “Look at it, and tell me what you think of it.”
“What a wicked-looking, crooked staircase,” said Château-Renaud with a smile.
“I do not know whether the wine of Chios produces melancholy, but certainly everything appears to me black in this house,” said Debray.