THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (CHAP 61) THE GARDENER AND HIS DORMICE
1001 Adventure and Mystery Stories For The Road
Jon Hagadorn
4.7 • 520 Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Count does as he said he would do and goes on a trip to visit the telegraph operator nearby. First, he notices that the operator spends a great deal of time tending the garden at the foot of the telegraph tower. Then, when he observes the man working in the tower, he learns from the man that operators are paid very little, and that, if they make any mistakes in relaying information to the next post, they are docked a substantial amount of their next month's pay.
The Count is especially skilled at getting people to do what he wants, by convincing them that their interests align with his own. Here, the Count demonstrates what could potentially be a reason for the operator to mind his station at all times – that he is punished if he misses a message. Then, in the next scene, the Count will make an offer that would more than compensate for any penalty the operator might suffer in this scenario.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road and the Count of Monte Cristo. |
| 0:32.2 | Today, Chapter 61, The Gardner, and his Dormice. |
| 0:37.2 | This is your host, John Hagadorn. This is 1001 stories for the road. |
| 0:42.3 | And now our story. How a gardener may get rid of the dormice that ate his peaches. |
| 0:53.6 | Not on the same night as he had intended, but the next morning, |
| 0:57.8 | the Count of Monte Cristo went out by the Barrier-Dunfer, taking the road to Orleans, |
| 1:03.3 | leaving the village of Linus, without stopping at the telegraph, which flourished its great |
| 1:08.1 | bony arms as he passed. The count reached the tower of Monterey, |
| 1:13.1 | situated, as everyone knows, upon the highest point of the plain of that name. |
| 1:18.5 | At the foot of the hill, the count dismounted and began to ascend by a little winding path |
| 1:23.2 | about 18 inches wide. When he reached the summit, he found himself stopped by a hedge, |
| 1:29.1 | upon which green fruit had succeeded to red and white flowers. |
| 1:34.1 | Monte Cristo looked for the entrance to the enclosure, and was not long in finding a little |
| 1:38.8 | wooden gate, working on willow hinges, and fastened with a nail and string. The Count soon mastered the mechanism, the gate opened, |
| 1:47.4 | and he then found himself in a little garden, about twenty feet long by twelve feet wide, |
| 1:52.9 | bounded on one side by part of the hedge, |
| 1:55.6 | which contained the ingenious contrivance we have called a gate, |
| 1:59.3 | and on the other by the old tower, covered with |
| 2:02.1 | ivy and studded with wallflowers. No one would have thought in looking at this old, weather-beaten, |
| 2:08.6 | floral-decked tower, which might be likened it to an elderly dame dressed up to receive her |
| 2:13.6 | grandchildren at a birthday feast, that it would have been capable of telling strange things, |
| 2:19.2 | if, in addition to the menacing ears which the proverb says all walls are provided with, |
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