The Count of Monte Cristo

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"No, but Franz has; for heaven's sake, not a word of this before him.
Franz went in with his eyes blindfolded, and was waited on by mutes and
by women to whom Cleopatra was a painted strumpet. Only he is not quite
sure about the women, for they did not come in until after he had taken
hashish, so that what he took for women might have been simply a row of
statues."

The two young men looked at Morcerf as if to say,--"Are you mad, or are
you laughing at us?"

"And I also," said Morrel thoughtfully, "have heard something like this
from an old sailor named Penelon."

"Ah," cried Albert, "it is very lucky that M. Morrel comes to aid me;
you are vexed, are you not, that he thus gives a clew to the labyrinth?"

"My dear Albert," said Debray, "what you tell us is so extraordinary."