The Poor Plutocrats | Page 7

some
one or other whom he could plague and worry. Till eight o'clock every
evening he was fully occupied in tormenting the whole family. Then
Madame Langai went to the theatre and Henrietta and the governess
had to sit down at the piano in the large drawing-room till it was time
to put the child to bed. But when Clementina and the domestics had had
supper and there was no longer anybody else with him, the turn of the
night nurse began.
The duties of a night nurse are never very enviable or diverting at the
best of times, yet penal servitude for life was a fate almost preferable to
being the nocturnal guardian of old Demetrius Lapussa. The unhappy
wretch who was burdened with this heavy charge had to sit at Mr.
Lapussa's bed from nine o'clock at night till early the following
morning and read aloud to him all sorts of things the whole time. Old
Demetrius was a very bad sleeper. The whole night long he scarcely
slept more than an hour at a time. His eyes would only close when the
droaning voice of some one reading aloud made his head dizzy, and
then he would doze off for a short time. But at the slightest pause he
would instantly awake and angrily ask the reader why he left off, and
urge him on again.
The reader in question was a student more than fifty years old, who,
time out of mind, had been making a living by fair-copying all sorts of
difficult manuscripts. He was an honest, simple creature who, in his

time, had tried hard to push his way into every conceivable business
and profession without ever succeeding till, at last, when he was well
over fifty, he was fortunate enough to fall in with an editor who
happened to know that Demetrius Lapussa wanted a reader, and
recommended the poor devil for the post. He knew Hungarian, Latin,
and Slovack well enough to mix them all up together; German he could
read, though he did not understand it, but this was not necessary, for he
was not expected to read for his own edification.
This worthy man, then, grew prematurely old in reading, year out year
in, aloud to Mr. Demetrius, one after another, all the German
translations of French novels procurable at Robert Lempel's circulating
library without understanding a single word of them. Mr. Demetrius
had, naturally, no library of his own, for reading to him, in his
condition, was pretty much the same as medicine, and who would ever
think of keeping a dispensary on his own premises? I may add that the
reader received free board and lodging and ten florins a month
pocket-money for his services.
On that particular night when Mr. John flung out of the house in such a
violent rage, Mr. Demetrius was particularly sleepless. I know not
whether Monte Cristo, the first volume of which honest Margari
happened to be reading just then, was the cause of this, or whether it
was due to the old man's nervousness about the terrible things John was
likely to do, but the fact remains that poor Margari on this occasion got
no respite from his labours. At other times Margari did manage to get a
little relief. Whenever he observed that Mr. Demetrius was beginning
to draw longer breaths than usual he would let his head sink down on
his book and fall asleep immediately till the awakened tyrant roused
him out of his slumbers and made him go on again. But now he was not
suffered to have a moment's peace.
Monte Cristo had already been sitting in his dungeon for some time
when Madame Langai's carriage returned from the theatre. Then Mr.
Demetrius rang up the porters to inquire whether Mr. John had also
returned home. No, was the answer. At eleven o'clock Mr. John had
still not returned. Meanwhile Monte Cristo's neighbour had traced the

figure on the floor of the dungeon. Mr. Demetrius here demanded a
fuller explanation of the circumstances. "How was that, Margari?" he
enquired.
"I humbly beg your honour's pardon, but I don't understand."
"Very well, proceed!"
Every time a door below was opened or shut, Mr. Demetrius rang up
the porter to enquire whether Mr. John had come in, to the intense
aggravation of the porter, who appeared in the door of the saloon with a
surlier expression and his hair more and more ruffled on each occasion,
inwardly cursing the fool of a student who had not even wit enough to
send an old man asleep, and envying the other servants who at least
were able to sleep at night without interruption.
And still Margari went on reading.
By this time Monte Cristo had had himself sewn up in a sack