The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

and no one took offence, or did anything but laugh. Franz and Albert
were like men who, to drive away a violent sorrow, have recourse to
wine, and who, as they drink and become intoxicated, feel a thick veil
drawn between the past and the present. They saw, or rather continued
to see, the image of what they had witnessed; but little by little the
general vertigo seized them, and they felt themselves obliged to take
part in the noise and confusion. A handful of confetti that came from
a neighboring carriage, and which, while it covered Morcerf and his
two companions with dust, pricked his neck and that portion of his face
uncovered by his mask like a hundred pins, incited him to join in the
general combat, in which all the masks around him were engaged. He rose
in his turn, and seizing handfuls of confetti and sweetmeats, with which
the carriage was filled, cast them with all the force and skill he was
master of.

The strife had fairly begun, and the recollection of what they had seen
half an hour before was gradually effaced from the young men's minds,