V. El abate Faria
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A B1 adaptation of Dumas’s novel
The Count of Monte Cristo El conde de Montecristo
Alexandre Dumas
This is a retelling of Alexandre Dumas’s novel in plainer Spanish, not the original text: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who are ready for the whole range of Spanish tenses and want the full story of Edmond Dantès. In the catalog it is B1: about 13,500 words, 12 words per sentence on average. 14 chapters follow the novel from the Pharaon’s arrival in Marseille and the Château d’If to Paris, where the Count of Monte Cristo comes to settle old accounts.
- B1
- 13 522 words
- 2-4 hours
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 the grammar will stop you more than the words: besides the past tenses you know, the story runs on the pluperfect, the conditional and the past subjunctive (si dependiera, habría sido), at 12 words per sentence on average.
A2B1
This text
You can manage it at B1: sentences average 12 words, all the tenses appear in natural use, and rare words like tartana or procurador del rey are explained by the text itself.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 the retelling reads quickly, almost without translation: in 2-4 hours you get through the whole story of the revenge before turning to the complete Spanish texts, which start at B2 in the catalog.
Start readingThe average sentence has 12 words, and a word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 21 words. That places the retelling between the catalog’s Spanish A2 adaptations, such as Don Quixote (10 words per sentence, one long word in 36) or Alice in Wonderland (9 words, one in 32), and the complete texts at B2, where Unamuno’s Mist has 13 words per sentence and one long word in fourteen. This is the first step of the catalog where a MovaReader retelling uses all the tenses: besides the pretérito indefinido and imperfecto there are the pluperfect (había muerto), the conditional (sería, habría sido) and the subjunctive in its present and past forms (aunque vea, si dependiera, si hubieras desaparecido), with reported speech, at a pace close to that of a real novel. Many of the long words are names: Villefort, Caderousse, Montecristo. Rarer words, like tartana or procurador del rey, are explained by the text itself. The difficulty is even: the 14 chapters have 11-15 words per sentence. Hence B1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 13 522
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 2-4
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
In 1815 the young sailor Edmond Dantès brings the ship Pharaon into Marseille, is promised its command and is about to marry Mercédès. On the day of the betrothal feast he is arrested: two jealous men, Danglars and Fernand, have denounced him as an agent of Napoleon, and the deputy prosecutor Villefort, to protect his own father, buries him in the Château d’If. In prison Dantès meets the Abbé Faria, who teaches him languages and science, works out who betrayed him and tells him of a cardinal’s treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. Fourteen years later Dantès escapes in a dead man’s sack. Rich beyond measure, he secretly saves the shipowner Morrel and reappears in Paris as the Count of Monte Cristo, where his old enemies have become a general, a banker and the king’s prosecutor. What his revenge will cost them, and him, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El conde de Montecristo
VII. El saco y el mar
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Choose an underlined word.
What would have happened
Faria makes Dantès imagine another past. ¿Quién habría sido capitán?: the conditional perfect, “who would have been captain”. Si tú hubieras desaparecido: after si about something unreal in the past Spanish uses the pluperfect subjunctive, “if you had disappeared”. Le convenía works like gustar: a quién le convenía, “who stood to gain”. Ibas a ser: “you were going to be”. Le pidió que recordara: after pedir que comes the imperfect subjunctive, “asked him to remember”.
Actions and background
The fall is a chain of single actions in the pretérito indefinido: balancearon, entró, rasgó, sacó, cortó, subió. What goes on around them is in the imperfecto: la bala lo arrastraba, “the ball was dragging him”, el castillo se levantaba, “the castle rose”. Tuvo la sangre fría suficiente para no perder: “kept cool enough not to lose”. Cuando por fin pudo respirar: poder in the indefinido means “managed to”.
Chapters
- IEl Faraón llega a Marsella
- IIUna carta sin firma
- IIIEl sustituto del procurador
- IVEl castillo de If
- VEl abate Faria
- VIEl tesoro del cardenal Spada
- VIIEl saco y el mar
- VIIILa isla de Montecristo
- IXEl abate Busoni
- XSimbad el Marino
- XIUn extranjero en París
- XIINoticias de Janina
- XIIILa casa del procurador
- XIVEsperar y confiar
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
Reader translates whole sentences, and here that helps most where the tenses pile up, as in Faria’s question: ¿Y quién se habría casado con Mercedes, si tú hubieras desaparecido?
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
A learner adaptation, not the original: MovaReader retold in Spanish Alexandre Dumas’s French novel Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, written with the collaboration of Auguste Maquet and published in 1844-1846; on Project Gutenberg the French text fills four volumes. It is not a translation of the full novel: the language and length have changed, with 14 chapters and about 13,500 words of modern Spanish against the 117 chapters of the original. The main line remains: the betrothal and the denunciation, Villefort, the Château d’If, Faria and the treasure, the escape, the island, Caderousse, the Morrels and the count’s years in Paris among Fernand, Danglars, Villefort, Haydée and Mercédès. The Roman carnival, Luigi Vampa’s story and many secondary plots are condensed or left out. The complete novel is not in the catalog in any language; the catalog also has an English B1 retelling of the same book.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audio version of this adaptation: MovaReader gives you the text, not a recording. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears next to it; here that will often be the words of the sea and of prison, such as timón, tartana, celda or carcelero.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan translates whole sentences. Here they average 12 words, and the ones worth translating are those where the tenses pile up, like si todo dependiera solo de mí, ahora mismo serías el capitán del Faraón, or reported speech, like le prometió que haría todo lo posible. The free plan also translates single words, up to a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole adaptation takes 2-4 hours at the pace of someone who still translates new words. A chapter averages about 970 words, or 10-16 minutes of reading, so one evening covers three or four chapters.
Where does the text get easier?
There is no easier stretch: the 14 chapters average 11-15 words per sentence. The prison chapters, IV-VII, run a little shorter at 11-12 words, while chapter I, in Marseille, has 14 and chapter XI, where the count arrives in Paris and meets its society, has 15.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes, once you sign in: the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so next time you carry on from there. The contents on this page also take you straight to any chapter, say VIII, “La isla de Montecristo”, where Dantès finally reaches the cardinal’s hiding place.