t vast prison and citadel, the Castle of St.
Angelo, and the largest palace in the world, the Vatican.

The Count of Monte-Cristo had always liked Rome because of its
picturesque, mysterious antiquity, but his present mission there had
nothing whatever to do with his individual tastes. He had fixed himself
for a time in the Eternal City that his daughter Zuleika, Haydee's[1]
child, might finish her education at a famous convent school conducted
under the auspices of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Heart.

Zuleika was fifteen years of age, but looked much older, having the
early maturity of the Greeks, whose ardent blood, on her dead mother's
side, flowed in her youthful veins. She had attained her full height,
and was tall and well-developed. She strongly resembled her mother,
possessing brilliant beauty of the dreamy, voluptuous oriental type. Her
hair was abundant and black as night. She had dark, flashing eyes,
pearly teeth, full ruby lips and feet and hands that were of fairylike
diminutiveness, as well as miracles of grace and dainty shapeliness. In
temperament she was more like Haydee than the Count, though she
possessed her father's quick decision and firmness, with the addition of
much of his enthusiasm.

The Palazzo Costi was magnificently furnished, so the Count had made no
alterations in that respect, bringing with him only the family wardrobe
and a portion of his library, consisting mainly of oriental manuscripts
written in weird, cabalistic characters and intelligible to no one but
himself.

The household was made up solely of the Count, his son Esperance,[2] his
daughter Zuleika, the faithful Nubian mute Ali and five or six male and
female domestics. Having no other object than his daughter's education,
the Count wished to live in as thorough retirement as he could, but it
was impossible for him to keep his presence a secret, and no sooner had
it become known that he was in Rome than he was besieged by hosts of
callers belonging to the highest nobility, mingled with whom came
numerous patriots, disciples of the unfortunate Savonarola,
distinguished for their firm devotion to the cause of Italian liberty.

At an early hour of the morning upon which this narrative opens the
Count of Monte-Cristo sat alone in a small apartment of the Palazzo
Costi, which had been arranged as his study and in which his precious
manuscripts were stored in closely locked cabinets. The Count had a copy
of a Roman newspaper befo