The Count of Monte Cristo- Chapter 31 — Italy: “Sinbad the Sailor”

Parisian friends Albert de Morcerf and Franz d’Épinay plan to meet in Rome for Carnival, but Franz detours through Elba and, on a whim, sets course for the lonely rock of Monte Cristo. Warned about smugglers and pirates, he lands anyway and finds a Spanish smuggling camp sheltering two Corsican bandits. Their enigmatic chief invites Franz to supper—on one strange condition: he must be blindfolded. Led into a hidden grotto that opens like an Arabian Nights palace, Franz meets the host who calls himself “Sinbad the Sailor”—a cultured, formidable man with servants, treasures, and a yacht that seems to have friends in every port. Over an extravagant feast, Sinbad speaks of vows, freedom, and dispensing private justice; his mute servant Ali is introduced with a chilling backstory. For dessert comes a green paste—hashish—“ambrosia” that unlocks visions. Franz tastes, and the world dissolves into dream: statues breathe, delight blurs into pain and back again. By night’s end, the mystery of Sinbad only deepens, foreshadowing the power and purpose that will soon collide with Albert and Franz in Rome.