THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (CHAP 64) THE BEGGAR

Andrea Cavalcanti leaves the party at Auteuil alone, as his “father,” the Major, has his own cab and servants. On his way out the door with his own servant, however, Andrea is stopped by a man dressed as a beggar, revealed to the reader to be none other than Caderousse, who is on the run since murdering La Carconte many years before in the botched scheme with the jeweler. It is revealed that Andrea/Benedetto and Caderousse know each other from the past, in the south of France, when Caderousse was on the lam for his crime and Benedetto for starting the fire that led to his stepmother’s death.
It has been unclear what has happened to Caderousse in the time since he was sentenced to hard labor in a prison colony for the murders of La Carconte and the jeweler. As it turns out, Benedetto/Andrea and Caderousse know each other from the colony, as will be described in detail later. This is another of the novel’s many coincidences, for, of course, Bertuccio (unbeknownst to Caderousse) is the only witness to the murders in the inn so many years ago, when Bertuccio was drenched in the jeweler’s blood.

 

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