Once a man of display and local pageantry, Gaspard Caderousse has been reduced to shabby obscurity.

In The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 26, we glimpse how prosperity once dressed him in velvet vests, embroidered stockings, and silver buckles, while his wife, La Carconte, shone in the fashions of Arles. Now, those trappings are long gone. Their inn is barely shelter, and their lives are marked more by envy than joy, with the sounds of distant celebrations a bitter reminder of what has been lost.

Caderousse sits idly at his door, staring at a deserted road and a patch of barren grass, until his wife’s sharp voice calls him upstairs — a summons that sets the next turn of events into motion.

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The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years.