Returning to the ground floor, however, in order that some document might be signed, Madame Caroline led him along a fresh corridor, and suddenly stopped before a glass door through which he could see a workshop, where some lads of his own age, standing at benches, were receiving instruction in wood-carving.
'You see, my little friend,' said she, 'they work here, because it is necessary to work if one wishes to secure good health and happiness. There are classes in the evening, and I hope you will be steady, and study well. You will, won't you? You will be able to decide your own future here, a future such as you have never dreamt of.'
Victor frowned, a dark expression came over his face. He did not answer, and henceforth his eyes—the eyes of a young wolf—only cast envious, thieving glances at all the lavish display of luxury. To have, to enjoy it all, but without work; to seize and feast upon it, tooth and nail—that was what he wanted. And from that moment he was there only as a rebel, a prisoner who dreams of robbery and escape.
'Everything is now settled,' resumed Madame Caroline; 'we are going up to the bathroom.'
It was the regulation that each inmate should take a bath on his arrival, and the baths were installed upstairs in little rooms adjoining the infirmary, beyond whose two small dormitories, one for boys and one for girls, the linen-room was situated. Six sisters of charity reigned in this superb linen-room, around which ran tiers of presses all of varnished maple, and also in the model infirmary, whose immaculate brightness, whiteness, and cheerful cleanliness were typical of health. And at times, too, some ladies of the Committee of Superintendence would come and spend an hour here in the afternoon, less to exercise any supervision than to help on the work by their own devoted assistance.
That day it chanced that the Countess de Beauvilliers and her daughter Alice were in a room separating the dormitories of the infirmary. The Countess often brought the girl there in order to divert her mind, in order that she might experience the pleasure which the practice of charity affords. And on this occasion Alice was helping one of the sisters to prepare some slices of bread and jam for two little convalescent girls who were allowed a snack between meals.
'Ah!' exclaimed the Countess at sight of Victor, who was given a seat whilst his bath was being got ready, 'here is a new one!'
As a rule, she behaved very ceremoniously towards Madame Caroline, merely saluting her with an inclination of the head, never speaking to her, for fear perhaps lest she might be obliged to enter into neighbourly intercourse with her. However, the sight of this boy whom Madame Caroline had brought to the Institute, the active kindness with which she attended to him, doubtless touched Madame de Beauvilliers and helped to draw her from her reserve. So they began talking together in an undertone.
'If you only knew, madame, from what a hell I have just taken him!' said Madame Caroline. 'I recommend him to your kindness as I have recommended him to all the ladies and gentlemen.'
'Has he any relatives? Do you know them?'
'No, his mother is dead. He has only me.'
'Poor boy! Ah! what misery there is!'
In the meantime Victor did not take his eyes off the slices of bread and jam. Ferocious greed had lighted up his eyes, and from the jam which was being spread on the bread with a knife his glances strayed first to Alice's tapering white hands, then to her slender neck, in turn to all parts of her figure—the spare figure of a sickly girl wasting away in the vain waiting for wedlock. Ah! if he had only been alone with her, how he would have given her a good butt in the stomach with his head and sent her reeling against the wall, so that he might have taken the bread and jam from her. However, the girl had noticed his gluttonous glances, and after consulting the sister of charity with her eyes, exclaimed: 'Are you hungry, my little friend?'
'Yes.'
'And you don't dislike jam?'
'No.'
'So it would suit you if I got a couple of slices ready for you to eat when you have taken your bath?'
'Yes.'
'A great deal of jam on very little bread, that's what you want, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
She laughed and joked, but he remained grave and open-mouthed, with his greedy eyes devouring both herself and her bread and jam.
At that moment, however, loud shouts of joy, quite a violent uproar, arose from the boys' ground, where four o'clock playtime was beginning. The workshops were emptying, and the youngsters had half an hour before them to stretch their legs and eat a morsel. 'You see,' resumed Madame Caroline, leading Victor to a window, 'although they work here, they also play. Do you like work?'
'No.'
'But you like play?'
'Yes.'
'Well, if you want to play you will have to work. Everything will come all right; you will be sensible, I am sure of it.'
He returned no answer. A flush of pleasure was heating his face at the sight of his released companions shouting and skipping hither and thither. Then his eyes reverted to the promised slices of bread and jam, which the girl had finished preparing and was laying on a plate. Yes, liberty and dainties all the time, he wanted nothing else. However, his bath was now ready, and so he was led away.
'That little fellow won't be easy to manage, I fancy,' gently said the sister; 'I distrust them when they haven't a straight face.'
'Yet this one isn't ugly,' murmured Alice. 'To see him look at you, you would think he was eighteen.'
'That is true,' rejoined Madame Caroline, with a slight shudder; 'he is very advanced for his age.'
Before going away the ladies wished to have the pleasure of seeing the little convalescent girls eat their bread and jam. One of them especially was very interesting, a little fair-complexioned thing of ten years old, who already had knowing eyes, a womanly look, the sickly precocity peculiar to the Parisian faubourgs. Moreover, hers was the old story: a drunken father who had gone off with a mistress, and a mother who had likewise taken to drink and chosen a paramour. Yet the wretched woman was allowed to come and see her child, for she herself had begged that she might be taken from her, having retained an ardent feeling of maternal love amidst all her degradation. And she happened to be there that very afternoon—a thin, yellow-skinned, worn-out creature with eyelids reddened by tears—and she sat beside the white bed where, propped up by pillows, her little one, neat and clean, lay eating her bread and jam in a pretty, graceful way.
The woman recognised Madame Caroline, for she had previously called at Saccard's for help. 'Ah! madame,' said she, 'so here's my poor Madeleine saved again. She has all our misfortunes in the blood, you see, and the doctor well told me that she wouldn't live if she continued to be hustled about at home, whereas here she has meat and wine, and air and quietness. I pray you, madame, tell that good gentleman that I don't spend an hour of my life without blessing him.'
A sob checked her utterance; her heart was melting with gratitude. It was Saccard whom she alluded to, for, like most of the parents who had children at the institution, she knew him alone. The Princess d'Orviedo did not show herself, whereas he had long lavished his efforts, peopling the establishment, picking little wretches of all kinds out of the gutters in order that this charitable machine, in some degree his own creation, might the sooner set to work. And, moreover, he had, as usual, grown quite enthusiastic, taking five-franc pieces from his own pocket and distributing them among the sorry parents whose little ones he saved. And to all those wretched folk he remained the one true benefactor.
'And you will tell him, won't you, madame? that there is a poor woman praying for him somewhere. Oh! it isn't that I'm religious. I don't want to be; I've never been a hypocrite. No, between the churches and us it is all over, for we not merely don't think of them any more, but it's of no use to waste one's time in them. Still, that doesn't alter the fact that there's something up above us, and when somebody has been good to you it relieves you, you know, to call down the blessings of Heaven upon him.'
Tears started from her eyes and rolled down her withered cheeks. 'Listen to me, Madeleine, listen,' she resumed.
The little girl, who looked so pale in her snow-white chemise as she lay there licking the jam off the bread with the tip of her greedy tongue, her eyes beaming the while with happiness, raised her head and became attentive, but without interrupting her feast.
'Every evening,' continued the mother, 'before you go to sleep in bed, you must join your hands like this, and say: "Pray, God, grant Monsieur Saccard a reward for all his kindness, and give him a long life and happiness." You hear, Madeleine; you promise me you will say it?'
'Yes, mother.'
During the following weeks Madame Caroline's mind was sorely troubled. She had no longer a clear opinion of Saccard. The story of Victor's birth and abandonment, of that poor creature Rosalie's sad affair, of the unpaid notes of hand, and of the fatherless child growing up in the midst of mire—all that lamentable past made her feel sick at heart. She brushed aside the visions of it that arose before her in the same way as she had refrained from provoking Maxime's indiscreet revelations. Plainly enough, there were certain old-time mud stains in all this business, the thought of which frightened her, and the full knowledge of which would have brought her, she felt it, too much grief. And then how strange the contrast. There was that woman in tears, joining her little girl's hands, and teaching her to pray for that very same man. There, in this case, was Saccard worshipped as an incarnation of beneficent Providence; and verily he had given proof of true kindness of heart, had actually saved souls from perdition, by the passionate scheming activity which he evinced, raising himself to virtue whenever the task before him was a fine one. And thus Madame Caroline ended by refusing to judge him, and, like a learned woman who has read and thought too much, sought to quiet her conscience by saying that he, like all other men, was compounded of good and evil.
Three months slipped by, during which she went to see Victor twice every week; and at last, how it came about she hardly knew, she one day again found herself Saccard's mistress. Was it that this child Victor had become as it were a bond, a link, inevitably drawing her, his mother by chance and adoption, towards the father who had abandoned him? Yes, it is probable that in her case there was far less sensuality than a kind of sentimental perversion. In her great sorrow, at being childless herself, the charge of this man's son amid such poignant circumstances had certainly affected her to the point of annihilating her will. And, moreover, her self-surrender was explained by her craving for maternity. Then, too, she was a woman of clear good sense; she accepted the facts of life without wearing herself out in trying to explain their thousand complex causes. The unravelling of heart and brain, the minute splitting and analysing of hairs, was, to her mind, a pastime fit only for idle worldlings with no household to manage, no child to love, intellectual humbugs who ever seek excuses for their frailty in what they call 'the science of the soul.'
She, with her vast erudition, who formerly had wasted her time in a burning desire to know the whole vast world and join in the disputes of philosophers, had emerged from this phase of her life with a feeling of great contempt for all such psychological recreations, which threaten to supersede both the pianoforte and the embroidery frame, and of which she would laughingly remark that they had depraved far more women than they had reclaimed. And so, whenever she felt a gap within her, whenever her free will succumbed, she preferred to have the requisite courage to realise the fact and accept it, and relied upon the work of Life to efface the fault, to repair the evil, even as the ever-rising sap closes the gash in the heart of an oak tree, supplying in time fresh wood and bark.
Thus, if she was now Saccard's mistress, without having desired it, without feeling sure if she esteemed him, she did not experience any feeling of ignominy, but buoyed herself up by judging him to be not unworthy of her, attracted as she was by the qualities he showed as a man of action, by the energy to conquer that he evinced, by the belief that he was good and useful to others. In the need we all feel of purifying our errors, her first feeling of shame had passed away, and nothing now appeared more natural, more peaceful than their liaison. Reason, not passion, seemed to link them together; he was happy at having her with him of an evening when he did not go out; and she, with her keen intelligence and uprightness, showed herself almost maternal, evinced a calming affection. And for Saccard, that freebooter of the Parisian streets, whose roguery in all sorts of shady financial affairs had brought him many a scorching and drubbing, the affection of this adorable woman, who, her six and thirty years notwithstanding, was still so young and healthy under the snowy mass of her abundant white hair, who displayed such valiant good sense, such true wisdom in her faith in life, such as it is, and despite all the mud that its torrent rolls along—this affection was really an undeserved stroke of luck, a reward stolen like all others.
Months passed by, and it must be admitted that throughout all the difficult beginnings of the Universal Bank Madame Caroline found Saccard very energetic and very prudent. Indeed, her suspicions of shady transactions, her fears that he might compromise her brother and herself entirely disappeared when she saw him so obstinately, so incessantly struggling with difficulties, expending his energy from morning till night in order to ensure the perfect working of this huge new machine, whose mechanism was grinding and grating and seemed likely to burst. And she felt grateful to him for it all, she admired him.
The Universal was not progressing as he had hoped it would, for it had against it the covert hostility of great financiers. Evil reports were spread abroad and obstacles were constantly cropping up, preventing the employment of its capital, frustrating all profitable endeavours on a large scale. Accordingly Saccard made a virtue of necessity—of the slow progress to which he was reduced—taking but one step forward at a time, and on solid ground, ever on the look-out for pitfalls, too much absorbed in striving to avoid a fall to dare to launch out into hazardous speculation. He impatiently champed the bit, stamping like a race-horse who is allowed a mere trot. However, never were the beginnings of a financial house more honourable or more correct, and the Bourse talked of it all in astonishment.
In this wise, then, they reached the date of the first general meeting of shareholders. April 25 had been chosen for this meeting, and on the 20th Hamelin, hastily recalled by Saccard, who was stifling in his narrow sphere, arrived from the East expressly to preside over it. He brought excellent news with him; the agreements for the formation of the United Steam Navigation Company were concluded, and he, moreover, had in his pocket the firmans granting the working of the Carmel silver mines to a French company; to say nothing of the National Turkish Bank, the foundations of which he had just laid at Constantinople, and which would become a branch of the Universal. As for the big question of the Asia Minor Railway, this was not yet ripe and must be kept in reserve. Besides, he meant to return to the East directly after the meeting, in order to continue his studies. Saccard, who was delighted, had a long conversation with him, at which Madame Caroline was present, and he easily persuaded them that an increase of capital would be absolutely necessary if they wished to provide for all these enterprises. The large shareholders, Daigremont, Huret, Sédille, and Kolb, who had been consulted, had already approved of an increase, so that a couple of days sufficed to mature the suggestion and lay it before the board on the very eve of the meeting of shareholders.
This special board-meeting was a solemn affair. All the directors attended in that large severe-looking room on the first floor, where the light acquired a greenish tinge through the proximity of the lofty trees in the garden of the Beauvilliers mansion. As a rule, there were two board-meetings every month: the petty, but more important meeting on or about the 15th, when only the real leaders, the true managers, of the enterprise would attend; and the full meeting on the 30th, when the silent and purely ornamental directors came to signify their approval of all that had been prearranged and to give the signatures required of them. On this occasion the Marquis de Bohain arrived one of the first, testifying with an aristocratic weary air to the approval of the entire French nobility. And the Viscount de Robin-Chagot, the penurious, gentle vice-chairman, who had been selected to school those of the directors to whom the position of affairs had not been communicated, drew them aside, and in a few words informed them of the orders of the general manager, the real master of one and all. It was an understood thing, and with a nod they all promised compliance.
At last the proceedings commenced. Hamelin acquainted the board with the report which he was to read at the shareholders' meeting. This was the big task on which Saccard had long been at work, and which he had at last drafted in a couple of days, supplementing it with information which Hamelin had furnished on his arrival. Yet, while the engineer read it aloud, he listened modestly, with an air of keen interest, as though he had not previously been acquainted with a single word of it.
The report began by recapitulating the business done by the Universal Bank since its foundation. Its transactions were good ones, but they were mainly little every-day matters in which money was promptly turned over—all the usual routine, in fact, of financial houses. Still, some rather large profits had been made in the matter of the Mexican loan which had been floated during the preceding month, after the Emperor Maximilian's departure for Mexico. A queer affair was this, disgracefully mismanaged, with plenty of pickings in the way of premiums for enterprising speculators; and Saccard greatly regretted that lack of money had kept him from wading yet more deeply in these troubled waters. However, if the bank's transactions had simply been commonplace ones, at least it had managed to live. Since its foundation on October 5, until December 31, it had realised profits amounting to rather more than four hundred thousand francs. This had enabled the management to pay off one-fourth of the preliminary expenses, to give the shareholders five per cent., and to carry ten per cent. to a reserve fund. Moreover, the directors had received the ten per cent. guaranteed to them by the articles of association, and there remained about sixty-eight thousand francs, which it was proposed to carry forward until the next distribution of profits. Nothing could have been more strictly commonplace and honourable than all this. It was the same with regard to the price at which Universal shares were quoted at the Bourse; they had risen from five hundred to six hundred francs, not suddenly, but in a slow normal fashion, just like the shares of any respectable banking house. And for two months now the price had remained stationary, there being no reason for any increase, given the humdrum daily round in which the newly-born concern seemed to be falling asleep.
But the report passed on to the future, and here everything suddenly expanded; a vast horizon of a series of great enterprises was spread before the view. Especial attention was called to the United Steam Navigation Company, whose shares were to be issued by the Universal Bank. This company, with a capital of fifty millions of francs, was to monopolise the entire transport service of the Mediterranean. It would amalgamate those two great rival concerns, the Phocæan Company, with its service to Constantinople, Smyrna, and Trebizond by way of the Piræus and the Dardanelles, and the Maritime Company, with its service to Alexandria by way of Messina and Syria; to say nothing of the various minor houses which would be absorbed in the enterprise—Combarel and Co., with their service to Algeria and Tunis; Veuve Henri Liétard, who ran another service to Algeria, but by way of Spain and Morocco; and, finally, Messrs. Féraud-Giraud Brothers, whose vessels plied along the coasts of Italy to Naples, Civita Vecchia, and the ports of the Adriatic. By making one company of all these rival concerns, which were killing one another, the entire Mediterranean would be conquered. By the centralization of capital they would be able to build superior vessels, of unsurpassed speed and comfort; and they would further be able to increase the frequency of the services and the number of the ports of call, so that the East would soon become a mere suburb of Marseilles. And to what importance would the company not attain when the Suez Canal was finished and it became possible for it to organise services to India, Tonquin, China, and Japan! Never had a greater and a safer enterprise been conceived.
Then came the question of supporting the National Turkish Bank, concerning which the report supplied an abundance of technical particulars, fully demonstrating what a secure and substantial enterprise this would be. And the recital of the contemplated operations concluded with the announcement that the Universal would also give its patronage to the Carmel Silver Mining Company, which was to be established with a capital of twenty millions of francs. Specimens of ore, which chemists had analysed, had been found to contain a large proportion of silver. But, more even than science, the antique poesy clinging to the Holy Places summoned up a vision of silver pouring forth in a miraculous stream—a divine, dazzling vision which Saccard had alluded to at the end of a sentence with which he was very pleased.
Finally, after all these promises of a glorious future, the report concluded by recommending an increase of capital. It should be doubled, raised from five and twenty to fifty millions of francs. The suggested system of issue was of extreme simplicity, in order that everybody might understand it. Fifty thousand new shares would be created, and reserved share by share for the holders of the original stock, so that there would not even be any public subscription. Only these new shares were to be issued at five hundred and twenty francs apiece, inclusive of a premium of twenty francs. This would yield a million, which could be carried to the reserve fund. It was reasonable and prudent that this little tax should be levied on the shareholders, since they would be favoured by the new issue. Moreover, only a fourth part of the value of the shares, plus the premium, was payable on allotment.
A hum of approval arose when Hamelin ceased reading. It was perfect; not the faintest objection could be raised. Throughout the perusal Daigremont, to all appearance very much interested in his finger-nails, had smiled at sundry vague thoughts that occurred to him; whilst deputy Huret, leaning back in his arm-chair with closed eyes, almost fell asleep under the impression that he was at the Chamber of Deputies. And meantime Kolb, the banker, quietly and openly devoted himself to making a long calculation on some of the sheets of paper which, like every director, he had before him.
However, Sédille, who was always anxious and distrustful, made up his mind to ask a few questions. What would become of those new shares which the shareholders, relinquishing their right, might not choose to take up? Would the bank keep them on its own account, and, if so, would this not be illegal, as the declaration of increase of capital, required by law, could not be made at the notary's until the entire additional capital had been subscribed? On the other hand, if the Bank meant to get rid of these shares, to whom and how did it expect to sell them? However, at the first words spoken by the silk manufacturer, the Marquis de Bohain, observing Saccard's impatience, intervened, and declared, with his grand aristocratic air, that the board left these matters of detail to its chairman and manager, who were both so devoted and so competent. And after this only congratulations were heard, and the meeting broke up with everybody in rapturous delight.
The shareholders' meeting on the morrow supplied occasion for some really touching demonstrations. It was again held in that hall in the Rue Blanche where the proprietor of a public ball had gone bankrupt; and prior to the chairman's arrival the most favourable reports began to circulate among the crowd of shareholders. One rumour in particular was transmitted in whispers from ear to ear: Rougon, the minister, the manager's brother, whom the growing Opposition was now virulently attacking, was disposed to favour the Universal if the Bank's newspaper 'L'Espérance,' a former organ of the Catholic party, would only defend the Government. One of the deputies of the Left had lately raised that terrible cry 'The second of December[19] is a crime!' which had resounded from one to the other end of France like an awakening of the public conscience. And it was necessary to answer it by great deeds—such as the launching of the approaching Universal Exhibition, which, it was expected, would increase business tenfold. Besides, people would make piles of money in Mexico and elsewhere now that the triumph of the Empire was at its zenith.
In one little group of shareholders, whom Jantrou and Sabatani were schooling, a good deal of laughter was indulged in at the expense of another deputy of the Left who, during the discussion of the army budget, had let his fancy run riot to the point of suggesting that the Prussian recruiting system should be adopted in France. The Chamber had been much amused by this. How the terror of Prussia had been troubling certain brains since that Denmark affair, under the influence of the secret resentment that Italy had harboured against France since Solferino! However, all the hubbub of private conversation, all the loud buzzing that prevailed in the hall, was suddenly hushed when Hamelin and the other officials entered. Displaying even more modesty than at the board meeting, Saccard had withdrawn from all prominence, hidden himself away among the throng; and he contented himself with giving the signal for applauding the report, which embodied the first balance-sheet, duly checked and approved by Lavignière and Rousseau the auditors, and finally proposed the doubling of the Bank's capital. The meeting alone had power to authorise this increase, upon which it decided with enthusiasm, quite intoxicated as it was by the millions of the United Steam Navigation Company and the National Turkish Bank, and realising, moreover, that it was necessary to place the capital on a par with the importance which the Universal was now about to acquire. As for the Carmel silver mines, the announcement concerning them was greeted with a religious thrill. And when votes of thanks had been accorded to the chairman, directors, and manager, and the shareholders separated, they all began dreaming of Carmel and of that miraculous rain of silver which would pour down from the Holy Places amidst a halo of glory.
A couple of days later Hamelin and Saccard, on this occasion accompanied by the Viscount de Robin-Chagot, the vice-chairman, returned to Maître Lelorrain's offices in the Rue Ste. Anne to make the needful declaration of the increase of capital, which, they alleged, had been entirely subscribed. But the truth was that some three thousand shares, declined by the original shareholders to whom by right they belonged, had been left on the Bank's hands and turned over to the Sabatani account by some jugglery in the book-keeping. It was the original irregular device, repeated and aggravated—the system of concealing a certain number of Universal shares in the Bank's own coffers, as a kind of reserve, which would enable it to speculate and throw itself into the thick of the fight at the Bourse so as to keep up prices should any coalition of 'bears' be formed to beat them down.
Hamelin, though he disapproved of these illegal tactics, had ended by completely trusting the management of financial operations to Saccard. There was a conversation between them and Madame Caroline on this subject, but in reference only to the shares which Saccard had compelled the Hamelins to take for themselves. Five hundred of the first issue and five hundred of the second had been allotted to them, a thousand shares in all, one-fourth of the value of which was demandable, together with the premium of twenty francs per share on the last five hundred. The brother and sister insisted on paying the amount in question, one hundred and thirty-five thousand francs, out of an unexpected legacy of three hundred thousand francs which had come to them from an aunt, who had recently died, ten days after her only son, the same fever carrying them both off. Saccard allowed his friends to pay as they desired to do so; however, he did not explain in what manner he expected to release his own shares.
'Ah, this inheritance!' said Madame Caroline, laughing. 'It is the first piece of luck that has come to us. I really believe that you bring us luck. Why, what with my brother's salary of thirty thousand francs, his liberal allowance for travelling expenses, and all this gold that has just rained down upon us—probably because we no longer needed it—we are now quite rich!'
She looked at Saccard with hearty gratitude, henceforth vanquished, absolutely confident in him, each day losing some of her clear-sightedness amidst the growing affection with which he inspired her. Then, carried away by her gay frankness despite everything, she added: 'No matter. If I had earned this money, I shouldn't risk it in your enterprises, I assure you. But, you see, we scarcely ever knew that aunt of ours; we never gave a thought to her money. It's like money picked up in the street, something which seems to me not to be quite honestly come by, something which I feel a trifle ashamed about, and so, you understand, I don't set much store by it, and shan't be so sorry if it's lost.'
'Precisely!' exclaimed Saccard, jesting in his turn. 'It will increase and multiply and give you millions. There is nothing like stolen money to yield a profit. Within a week from now you'll see—you'll see what a rise there will be.'
And indeed Hamelin, having been compelled to delay his departure, witnessed with surprise a rapid rise in the price of Universal. At the settlement at the end of May they commanded more than seven hundred francs. This was the usual result which attends an augmentation of capital: the classic whip-stroke, the trick of stimulating success, of urging the quotations into a brisk canter whenever there is a new issue. But the rise was also in a measure due to the genuine importance of the enterprises which the Bank was about to launch. The large yellow bills, placarded all over Paris, announcing the approaching opening of the Carmel silver mines, had ended by turning every head, kindling the first symptoms of a passionate intoxication which was destined to grow and sweep all common sense away. The ground was prepared; for there, all ready, was that compost of the Empire, compounded of fermenting remnants and heated by maddened appetites, a soil favourable to one of those wild growths of speculation which every ten or fifteen years block and poison the Bourse, leaving only ruin and blood behind them.[20] Swindling financial concerns were already springing up like mushrooms; great companies, by the example they set, were urging people into risky speculative ventures; an intense gambling fever was breaking out amidst the uproarious prosperity of the reign, amidst all the dazzling whirl of pleasure and luxury, of which the approaching Exhibition promised to be the final splendour, the deceptive transformation scene, as at the close of some extravaganza. And amidst the vertigo that had seized upon the mob, amidst the scramble of all the fine chances that were freely offered, the Universal was at last setting in motion, like some powerful machine which was destined to infatuate and crush everybody, and which violent hands were heating incautiously, immoderately, to the point almost of explosion.
When her brother had again started for the East, Madame Caroline once more found herself alone with Saccard, and they resumed their life of close, almost conjugal, intimacy. She obstinately continued to manage his household and effect economies like a faithful stewardess, albeit there was now a great change in his fortune, as in hers. And in the smiling peacefulness of her existence, her temper ever even, she experienced but one worry—her conscientious scruples with regard to Victor, her hesitating doubt as to whether she ought to conceal the child's existence from his father any longer. They were very dissatisfied with the boy at the Institute of Work, where he was ever committing depredations. However, the six months' trial had now taken place, so ought she to produce the little monster, though he was not yet cleansed of his vices? At thought of him, she at times experienced genuine suffering.
One evening she was on the point of speaking. Saccard, ever dissatisfied with the petty quarters in which the Universal was lodged, had just prevailed on the board to rent the ground floor of a house next door, in order to enlarge the offices, pending the time when he might venture to propose the building of the palatial pile which he dreamt of. So it again became necessary to have doorways cut through the walls, partitions removed, and wickets set in place. And on the evening in question, when Madame Caroline returned from the Boulevard Bineau in despair over the abominable conduct of Victor, who had almost eaten the ear of one of his playmates, she requested Saccard to come up with her to their rooms.
'I have something to say to you,' she remarked.
But, once upstairs, when she saw him, one shoulder white with plaster, go into an ecstasy over a fresh idea of enlargement which had just occurred to him—that of covering the courtyard of the next house with glass, as he had done in the case of the Orviedo mansion—she lacked the courage to upset him, as she must do should she reveal her deplorable secret. No, she could continue waiting; that frightful little scapegrace must be reformed. The thought of the suffering of others took all strength away from her; and so she simply said: 'Well, my friend, it was precisely about that courtyard. The very same idea had occurred to me.'
CHAPTER VI
A GREAT STROKE
The offices of 'L'Espérance,' the Catholic journal in distress, which, at Jantrou's suggestion, Saccard had purchased to assist him in launching the Universal Bank, were situated in the Rue Saint Joseph, in an old, dark, damp building, of which they occupied the first floor, at the rear of the courtyard. A passage led from the ante-room, where the gas was always kept burning; and on the left came, first, the office of Jantrou, the director, and then a room which Saccard had reserved for himself; whilst on the right were the contributors' room, the sub-editor's room, and others. Across the landing were the manager's and cashier's offices, which an inner passage, behind the staircase, connected with the editorial rooms.
That day, Jordan, who was finishing an article in the contributors' room, which he had entered at an early hour in order not to be disturbed, went out just as the clock struck four to find Dejoie, the office porter, who, by a broad gas flame, although it was radiant daylight out of doors, was greedily reading the Bourse bulletin, which had just arrived, and at which he invariably got the first look.
'I say, Dejoie, was it Monsieur Jantrou who just came in?'
'Yes, Monsieur Jordan.'
The young man hesitated, experienced a feeling of uneasiness, which for a few seconds kept him there. In the difficult beginnings of his happy household, some old debts had fallen upon him; and, in spite of his luck in finding this paper to take his articles, he was passing through a period of cruel embarrassment, the greater as his salary had been attached, and as that very day he had to pay a fresh note of hand, or otherwise an execution would be promptly levied on his few sticks of furniture. Twice already he had vainly applied to the director for an advance, for Jantrou had fallen back upon the attachment placed in his hands.
However, the young fellow at last made up his mind, and was approaching the door, when the porter added:
'Monsieur Jantrou is not alone.'
'Ah! who is with him?'
'He came in with Monsieur Saccard, and Monsieur Saccard told me to let no one enter except Monsieur Huret, whom he is waiting for.'
Jordan breathed again, relieved by this delay, so painful did he find it to ask for money. 'All right, I will go back to finish my article. Let me know when the director is alone,' said he.
Just as he was stepping away, however, Dejoie detained him, with a shout of extreme delight: 'You know that Universal have reached 750.'
The young man made a gesture as though to say that it was all one to him, and then returned to the contributors' room.
Almost every day Saccard thus went up to the newspaper office on leaving the Bourse, and often even made appointments in the room which he had reserved for himself there, in order to negotiate certain special and mysterious affairs. Jantrou, moreover, although officially only the director of 'L'Espérance,' for which he wrote political articles in the finished, florid style of a University man, articles which his opponents themselves recognised as the 'purest atticism,' was in addition the financier's secret agent, entrusted with the discharge of delicate duties. And among other things he had just organised a vast advertising scheme in connection with the Universal Bank. Of the little financial sheets that swarmed all over France, he had chosen and 'bought' a dozen. The best belonged to doubtful banking-houses, whose very simple tactics consisted in publishing and supplying copies of these prints for two or three francs a year, a sum which did not even represent the cost of postage; but then they recouped themselves in another way, dealing in the money and securities of the customers which the papers brought them. It was pretended that the sole object of these papers was to publish the Bourse quotations, the winning numbers in the bond drawings, all the technical information useful to petty capitalists, but gradually puffs were slipped in among the other 'copy,' in the form of recommendation and advice, at first modestly and reasonably, but soon immoderately and with quiet impudence, so as to sow ruin among credulous readers.
From among the mass of the two or three hundred publications which were thus ravaging Paris and France, Jantrou, with keen scent, had just chosen those which had not as yet lied too boldly, and were not, therefore, in too bad odour. But the big affair which he contemplated was the purchase of one of them, the 'Côte Financière,' which already had twelve years of absolute honesty behind it; only such honesty threatened to be very expensive, and he was waiting till the Universal should be richer and find itself in one of those situations when a last trumpet blast determines the deafening peals of triumph. However, he had not confined himself to gathering together a docile battalion of these special organs, which in each successive number celebrated the beauty of Saccard's operations; he had also contracted with the principal political and literary journals, keeping up in their columns a running fire of amiable paragraphs and laudatory articles, at so much a line, and assuring himself of their aid by presents of shares when new issues were placed on the market. And then, too, there was the daily campaign carried on under his orders in 'L'Espérance,' not a violent campaign of approbation, but an explanatory and even argumentative one, a slow fashion of seizing hold of the public and strangling it.
It was to talk about the paper that Saccard had shut himself up with Jantrou that afternoon. In the morning issue he had found an article by Huret teeming with such extravagant praise of a speech made by Rougon in the Chamber the day before, that he had entered into a violent rage, and was waiting for the deputy, to have an explanation with him. Did they suppose that he was his brother's hireling? Was he paid to compromise the journal's line of conduct by unreserved approval of the Minister's slightest acts? Jantrou smiled silently when he heard him speak of the journal's line of conduct. Still, as the storm did not threaten to burst upon his own shoulders, he listened to him calmly, examining his finger-nails the while. With the cynicism of a disillusioned man of letters, he had the most perfect contempt for literature, for both 'one' and 'two,' as he said, alluding to the pages of the paper upon which the articles, even his own, appeared; and he only began to evince any interest on reaching the advertisements. He now wore the newest of clothes—closely girt in an elegant frock coat, his button-hole blooming with a brilliant rosette of various colours; in summer carrying a light-coloured overcoat on his arm, in winter buried in a furcoat costing a hundred louis; and showing himself especially careful with regard to his head-gear, his hat always being irreproachable, glittering indeed like a mirror. But with all this there were still certain gaps in his elegance; a vague suspicion of uncleanliness persisting underneath, the old filth of the ex-professor fallen from the Bordeaux Lycée to the Paris Bourse, his skin penetrated, stained by the dirt in which he had lived for ten years; so that, amid the arrogant assurance of his new fortune, he still frequently evinced base humility, making himself very small and humble in the sudden fear of receiving some kick from behind, as in former times.
He now made a hundred thousand francs a year, and spent double the amount, nobody knew how, for he paraded no mistress, but was probably consumed by some awful vice, the secret cause which had driven him from the University. Absinthe, moreover, had been gradually devouring him ever since his days of poverty, and in the luxurious club-house of to-day continued the work begun in the low-class cafés of former times, mowing off his last hairs, and imparting a leaden hue to his skull and face, of which his black, fan-shaped beard remained the sole glory. And Saccard having again invoked 'L'Espérance's' line of conduct, Jantrou stopped him with a gesture, with the weary air of a man who, not liking to waste his time in futile passion, had made up his mind to talk of serious matters, since Huret did not put in an appearance.
For some time the ex-professor had been nursing some new advertising ideas. He thought first of writing a pamphlet, some twenty pages long, about the great enterprises which the Universal Bank was launching—a pamphlet, however, which should have all the interest of a romance, and be couched in a dramatic and familiar style; and he wished to inundate the provinces with this pamphlet, to have it distributed gratuitously in the remotest country districts. Then he proposed to establish an agency, which should draw up and 'manifold' a daily bulletin of the Bourse, sending a hundred copies of it to the best papers in the various departments of France. This bulletin would be given away or sold at a nominal price, and in this wise they would soon have in their hands a powerful weapon, a force which every rival banking-house would have to recognise. Knowing Saccard, he thus primed him with his ideas, returning to the attack until the other had adopted them, made them his own, enlarged them to the point of really re-creating them.
In talk like this the minutes slipped away, and they came at last to the apportionment of the advertising funds for the next quarter, to the subsidies to be paid to the principal newspapers, to the terrible financial scribe employed by a hostile house whose silence it was necessary to purchase, and the course which they should take with regard to the approaching sale by auction of the fourth page of a very old and highly-respected print. And, amidst their prodigality with regard to all the money that they thus uproariously scattered to the four corners of heaven, you could detect what immense disdain they felt for the public, what contempt in which they, intelligent business men, held the dense ignorance of the masses—the masses which were ready to believe all stories, and were so incompetent to understand the complex operations of the Bourse that the most shameless traps caught passers-by, and made millions of money rain down.
Whilst Jordan was still striving to concoct fifty lines of 'copy' with which to complete his two columns, he was disturbed by Dejoie, who called him. 'Ah!' said the young fellow, 'is Monsieur Jantrou alone now?'
'No, monsieur, not yet. But your wife is here, and wants to see you.'
Very anxious, Jordan hurried out. For a few months past, since La Méchain had at last discovered that he was writing over his own name in 'L'Espérance,' he had been pursued by Busch for payment of the six notes of fifty francs each which he had formerly given to a tailor. He could have managed to pay the three hundred francs which the notes represented, but what exasperated him was the enormity of the costs, that total of seven hundred and thirty francs and fifteen centimes to which the debt had risen. He had entered into a compromise, however, and pledged himself to pay a hundred francs a month; and, as he could not manage it, his young household having more pressing needs, the costs rose higher yet every month, and the intolerable annoyances were ever beginning afresh.
Just then he was again passing through a serious crisis. 'What's the matter?' he asked his wife, whom he found in the ante-room.
But, before she could answer, the door of the director's office was thrown open, and Saccard appeared, shouting: 'I say, Dejoie—and Monsieur Huret?'
'Why, monsieur, he isn't here,' stammered the bewildered attendant; 'I cannot make him hurry.'
The door was closed again with an oath, and Jordan, having taken his wife into one of the adjoining offices, was there able to question her at his ease.
'What's the matter, darling?' he again asked.
Marcelle, usually so gay and brave, whose little, plump, dark person and clear countenance, with laughing eyes and healthy mouth, expressed happiness even in trying times, now seemed utterly upset. 'Oh, Paul, if you only knew!' she replied. 'A man came—oh! a frightful, ugly man—who smelt bad, and had been drinking, I think. Well, he told me that the matter was ended, that the sale of our furniture was fixed for to-morrow. And he had a placard, which he wanted to stick up at the street door.'
'But it is impossible!' cried Jordan. 'I have received nothing; there are other formalities to be observed.'
'Oh! you know still less about these matters than I do. When papers come, you do not even read them. Well, to keep him from putting up the placard I gave him forty sous, and hurried off to tell you.'
They were in despair. Their poor little home in the Avenue de Clichy! Those few little bits of furniture, of mahogany and blue rep, which they had purchased with such difficulty at so much a month, and of which they were so proud, although they sometimes laughed at them, finding them in execrable bourgeois taste! Still they loved them, because ever since their wedding night they had formed part of their happiness in those two little rooms over yonder, those little rooms which were so sunny, so open to space, with a view stretching away even to Mont Valérien. And he who had driven in so many nails, and she who had shown so much ingenuity to give the apartments an artistic appearance! Was it possible that all was going to be sold, that they were to be driven from that pretty nook, where even poverty was delightful to them?
'Listen,' said he, 'I was thinking of asking for an advance; I will do what I can, but I haven't much hope.'
Then, in a hesitating way, she confided her idea to him. 'This is what I have been thinking of,' said she. 'Oh! I would not have done it without your consent, as you may judge from the fact that I have come here to talk with you about it. Yes, I desire to apply to my parents.'
He promptly refused. 'No, no, never! You know very well that I don't wish to be under any obligation to them.'
The Maugendres certainly behaved in a decorous fashion. But Jordan retained in his heart a recollection of the coldness which they had shown him after the suicide of his father, whose fortune had been swept away in speculation. He remembered that they had then only consented to the long-planned marriage of their daughter because she was determined on it, and that they had taken all sorts of offensive precautions against himself, among others that of not giving a sou of dowry, convinced as they were that a fellow who wrote for the newspapers would devour everything. Later on, said they, their daughter would inherit their property. And so the young couple, she as well as he, had taken a certain pride in starving without asking anything of her parents apart from the meal which they took with them once a week, on Sunday evenings.
'I assure you,' she replied, 'our reserve is ridiculous, since I am their only child, since the whole must come to me some day! My father tells every one who will listen to him that he has acquired an income of fifteen thousand francs by his awning manufactory at La Villette; and then, too, there is their little residence, with its beautiful garden, to which they have retired. It is stupid for us to let ourselves be worried like this when they have a surfeit of everything. They have never been cruel to us, you know. I tell you that I am going to see them.'
She evinced a cheerful bravery, displayed a determined air, very practical in her desire to bring happiness to her dear husband, who worked so hard without yet having obtained anything from either the critics or the public, excepting a good deal of indifference and a few smacks. Ah! money, she would have liked to bring it to him by the bucketful, and he would be very stupid to be over particular about it, since she loved him and owed him everything. It was her fairy story, her 'Cinderella:' the treasures of her royal family, which with her little hands she deposited at the feet of her ruined prince, to keep him on in his march to glory and the conquest of the world.
'Come,' she gaily said, kissing him, 'I really must be of some use to you; all the pain must not be yours.'
He yielded; it was agreed that she should go straightway to the Rue Legendre, at Batignolles, where her parents lived, and that she should bring the money back to the office, in order that he might try to pay it that very evening. And, as he accompanied her to the stairs, as much agitated as though she were starting on a very dangerous expedition, they had to step aside to make room for Huret, who had at last arrived. When Jordan returned to finish his article in the contributors' room, he heard a violent hubbub of voices in Jantrou's office.
Saccard, now grown powerful, the master once more, wished to be obeyed, knowing that he held them all by the hope of gain and the terror of loss in that colossal game of fortune which he was playing with them.
'Ah! so here you are,' he shouted on seeing Huret. 'Did you stop at the Chamber to offer the great man your article in a gilt frame? I've had enough, you know, of this swinging of incense-burners under his nose, and I have been waiting for you to tell you that it must be stopped—that in future you must give us something else.'
Quite amazed, Huret looked at Jantrou. But the latter, thoroughly determined not to get himself into trouble by coming to the deputy's succour, had begun to pass his fingers through his handsome beard, his eyes wandering away.
'What! something else?' finally asked Huret; 'but I give you what you asked for. When you purchased "L'Espérance," the organ of extreme Catholicism and Royalty, which was carrying on such a bitter campaign against Rougon, you yourself asked me to write a series of laudatory articles in order to show your brother that you did not intend to be hostile to him, and in this wise to indicate the new policy of the paper.'
'The policy of the paper, precisely,' replied Saccard with increased violence; 'it is the policy of the paper that I accuse you of compromising. Do you think that I wish to be my brother's vassal? Certainly I have never been sparing of grateful admiration and affection for the Emperor; I don't forget what we all owe to him, what I in particular owe to him. But to point out the mistakes that are made is not the same thing as to attack the Empire; on the contrary, it is the duty imposed on every faithful subject. That, then, is the paper's policy—devotion to the dynasty, but entire independence with regard to Ministers, to all the ambitious individuals ever bestirring themselves and fighting together for the favour of the Tuileries!'
And then he launched into an examination of the political situation, in order to prove that the Emperor had bad advisers. He accused Rougon of having lost his authoritative energy, his former faith in absolute power, of compounding with liberal ideas for the sole purpose of retaining his ministerial portfolio. For his part, striking his chest with his fist, he declared himself to be unchangeable, a Bonapartist from the very first, a believer in the coup d'état, with the conviction that the salvation of France lay, to-day as well as formerly, in the genius and strength of a single man. Yes, rather than assist the evolution of his brother, rather than allow the Emperor to commit suicide by new concessions, he would rally the uncompromising believers in dictatorship together, make common cause with the Catholic party, in order to prevent the rapid downfall which he foresaw. And let Rougon take care, for 'L'Espérance' might resume its campaign in favour of Rome!
Huret and Jantrou listened to him, astonished at his wrath, never having suspected that he possessed such ardent political convictions. And it occurred to the former to try to defend the last acts of the Government.
'Well, my dear fellow,' said he, 'if the Empire is moving towards liberty, it is because all France is pushing it firmly in that direction. The Emperor is borne along with the current, and Rougon is obliged to follow him.'
But Saccard was already passing to other grievances, without a thought of making his attacks in any degree logical.
'And see,' said he, 'it is the same with our foreign situation; why, it is deplorable! Since the Treaty of Villafranca which followed upon Solferino, Italy has harboured resentment against us for not having finished the campaign and given her Venice; so that now she is allied with Prussia, in the certainty that the latter will help her to beat Austria. When war breaks out, you'll see what a row there'll be, and what a fix we shall be in; especially as we have made the great mistake of letting Bismarck and King William seize the Duchies in the Denmark affair, in contempt of a treaty which France herself had signed. It is a slap in the face, there's no denying it, and there is nothing for us to do now but to turn the other cheek. Oh! war is certain; you remember how French and Italian securities fell last month, when there was some talk of a possible intervention on our part in German affairs. Within a fortnight, perhaps, Europe will be on fire.'
More and more surprised, Huret became excited, contrary to his habit. 'You talk like the Opposition papers,' said he; 'but you certainly don't want "L'Espérance" to follow the lead of the "Siècle" and the others. There is nothing left for you but to insinuate, like those rags do, that, if the Emperor allowed himself to be humiliated in the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and let Prussia grow with impunity, it is because he had for many months kept an entire army corps in Mexico. Come, be a little fair; the Mexican affair is over, our troops are coming back. And then I do not understand you, my dear fellow. If you wish to keep Rome for the Pope, why do you seem to blame the hasty peace of Villafranca? Venice given to Italy means the Italians in Rome within two years; you know that as well as I do, and Rougon knows it too, although he swears the contrary in the tribune.'
'Ah! you see what a trickster he is!' shouted Saccard superbly. 'Never will they touch the Pope, do you hear me? without the whole of Catholic France rising up to defend him. We should carry him our money, yes! all the money of the Universal. I have my plan, our affair lies there, and really, if you keep on exasperating me, you will make me say things that I do not want to say as yet.'
Jantrou, very much interested, had suddenly pricked up his ears, beginning to understand, trying to profit by the remarks thus casually dropped.
'Well,' replied Huret, 'I want to know what to depend upon with regard to my articles, and we must come to an understanding. Are you for intervention or against intervention? If we are for the principle of nationalities, by what right are we to meddle with the affairs of Italy and Germany? Do you wish us to carry on a campaign against Bismarck? Yes! in the name of our menaced frontiers.'
But Saccard, erect, beside himself, burst out: 'What I want is that Rougon shall not make a fool of me any longer. What! after all that I have done! I buy a newspaper, the worst of his enemies; I make it an organ devoted to his policy; I allow you to sing his praises for months, and yet never has the beggar given us a single lift. I have still to receive the first service from him.'
Thereupon the deputy timidly remarked that the Minister's support had singularly aided the engineer Hamelin in the East, opening all doors to him, and exercising pressure upon influential personages.
'Oh, stuff and nonsense! He could not do otherwise. But has he ever sent me a word of warning the day before a rise or a fall, he who is so well placed to know everything? Remember, I have a score of times charged you to sound him, you who see him every day, and you have yet to bring me a useful bit of information. Yet it would not be such a serious matter—a simple word for you to repeat to me.'
'Undoubtedly. But he doesn't like that sort of thing; he says it is all jobbery, which a man always repents of.'
'Nonsense! Has he any such scruples with Gundermann? He plays the honest man with me, and he gives tips to Gundermann.'
'Oh, Gundermann, no doubt! They all need Gundermann; they could not float a loan without him.'
At this Saccard clapped his hands with a violent gesture of triumph. 'There we are, then; you confess it! The empire is sold to the Jews—the dirty Jews! All our money is doomed to fall into their thieving paws. There is nothing left for the Universal but to collapse before their omnipotence.'
And then he exhaled his hereditary hatred, again brought forward his charges against that race of traffickers and usurers for centuries on the march through the nations, sucking their blood, like the parasites of scab and itch, and, although spat upon and beaten, yet marching on to the certain conquest of the world, which they would some day possess by the invincible power of gold. And he was especially furious against Gundermann, giving way to his old resentment, to his unrealisable mad desire to strike that Jew down; and this in spite of a presentiment that he was the limit against which he (Saccard) would fall should he ever engage in a struggle with him. Ah, that Gundermann! a Prussian in the house, albeit born in France; for his sympathies were evidently with Prussia; he would willingly have supported her with his money, perhaps he was secretly supporting her even now! Had he not dared to say one evening, in a salon, that, if war should ever break out between Prussia and France, the latter would be vanquished?
'I have had enough of it; do you understand, Huret? and get this well into your head: that if my brother is of no service to me, I do not intend to be of any further service to him; When you have brought me a good word from him—I mean a "tip" that we can turn to account—I will allow you to resume your dithyrambs in his favour. Is that clear?'
It was too clear. Jantrou, who had again found his Saccard under the political theorist, had once more begun to comb his beard with his finger tips. But all this did not suit the wily peasant-like prudence of Huret, who was greatly annoyed, for he had staked his fortune upon the two brothers, and would have liked to quarrel with neither of them.
'You are right,' he murmured; 'let us act discreetly, especially as we must wait to see what will happen. And I promise you to do everything to obtain the great man's confidence. The first news that he gives me, I will jump into a cab and bring it to you.'
Having played his part, Saccard was already in a good humour again. 'It is for you all that I am working, my good friends,' said he. 'For my part, I have always been ruined, and I have always devoured a million a year.'
Then, reverting to the advertising, he continued: 'I say, Jantrou, you ought to make your Bourse bulletin a little more lively. Yes, you know, give us some jokes, some puns. The public like that sort of thing; there is nothing like wit to help them to swallow things. That's it, eh? some puns!'
It was the director's turn to be vexed. He prided himself on his literary distinction. But he had to promise. And thereupon, as he invented a story of some fashionable women who had offered to allow advertisements to be tattooed on their persons, the three men, laughing loudly, again became the best friends in the world.
Meanwhile Jordan had at last finished his article, and was impatiently awaiting his wife's return. Other contributors arrived; he chatted with them, and then went into the ante-room. And there he was a little scandalised to find Dejoie, with his ear against the door of the director's room, listening to all that was being said in it, while his daughter Nathalie kept watch.
'Do not go in,' stammered the attendant. 'Monsieur Saccard is still there—I thought I heard them call me.'
The truth was that, bitten by a fierce longing for gain ever since he had bought eight fully paid-up shares in the Universal with the four thousand francs which his wife had saved and left to him, he lived only for the delightful emotion of seeing these shares 'go up' in value; and ever on his knees before Saccard, drinking in his most trifling remarks, as though they had been oracular utterances, he could not resist his desire to become acquainted with his real thoughts, to hear what the demi-god said in the secrecy of his sanctuary. Moreover, there was no egotism in this; his only thought was for his daughter, and he had just become excited by the calculation that, at seven hundred and fifty francs apiece, his eight shares already represented a profit of twelve hundred francs, which, added to the capital sum, made five thousand two hundred francs. Another rise of a hundred francs, and he would have the six thousand francs he desired, the dowry which his neighbour, the mill-board maker, insisted upon as a condition of his son's marriage with the girl. At this thought, Dejoie's heart melted; and he gazed with tearful eyes at the child whom he had brought up, and whose real mother he had been in the happy little home which they had made together since he had taken her from her nurse.
However, he was very much put out at being surprised by Jordan, and sought to hide his indiscretion by saying whatever entered his head: 'Nathalie, who just came up to see me, met your wife out of doors, Monsieur Jordan.'
'Yes,' said the young girl; 'she was turning into the Rue Feydeau. Oh, she was running so fast!'
Her father allowed her to go out as she pleased, certain of her good behaviour, said he. And he did right to rely upon her, for she was really too cold, too determined to ensure her future happiness, to compromise by folly the marriage which had been so long looked forward to. With her slender figure, and her large eyes lighting up her pretty, pale, smiling face, she loved herself with egotistical obstinacy.
Jordan, surprised and at a loss to understand, exclaimed: 'What! you saw her in the Rue Feydeau?'
But he had not time to question the girl further, for at that moment Marcelle entered, out of breath. He forthwith took her into the adjoining office, but, finding the law-court reporter there, had to come out again and content himself with sitting down beside her on a little bench at the end of the passage.
'Well?'
'Well, dear, it is done, but not without trouble.'
Despite her satisfaction, he saw clearly that her heart was full; and she rapidly told him everything in a low voice, for in vain did she vow to hide certain things from him; she could keep no secrets.
For some time the Maugendres had been changing in their manner towards their daughter. She found them less affectionate, more preoccupied, slowly becoming the prey of a new passion—the passion for gambling. It was the usual story: the father, a stout, calm, bald man, with white whiskers; the mother, lean and active, earner in part of the common fortune; both living in too profuse a style on their fifteen thousand francs a year, and sorely worried at having nothing left to do. He, indeed, had nothing to occupy his attention, except the collection of his money. Formerly he had thundered against all speculation, and shrugged his shoulders with mingled wrath and pity in speaking of the poor fools who allowed themselves to be plucked in stupid, unclean, thieving Bourse transactions. But about this time, a considerable sum of money owing to him having been repaid, he conceived the idea of lending it against securities. That was not speculation, but a simple investment; only from that day forward he had contracted the habit of attentively reading the Bourse quotations in his paper after breakfast. And in this wise the evil took root; the fever gradually seized upon him at sight of the mad dance of securities, on breathing the poisonous atmosphere of the gambling world, and his mind became haunted by the thought of millions made in an hour, whereas he himself had spent thirty years in getting a few hundred thousand francs together. He could not help talking to his wife about it at each meal; what strokes he would have made if he hadn't sworn that he would never gamble! And he explained the operation; he manipulated his funds with all the skilful strategy of a carpet general, always ending by vanquishing his imaginary opponents, for he prided himself on having become wonderfully expert in such matters as options and lending money on securities.
His wife, growing anxious, declared that she would rather drown herself at once than see him risk a copper; but he reassured her. What did she take him for? Never in his life would he do such a thing! Yet an opportunity had offered; both had long desired to build a little greenhouse in their garden—a greenhouse costing from five to six thousand francs; and thus one evening, his hands trembling with a delightful emotion, he laid upon his wife's work table six notes of a thousand francs each, saying that he had just won them at the Bourse; a stroke which he had felt sure of, an indulgence which he promised he would never allow himself again, and on which he had only ventured because of the greenhouse. She, a prey to mingled anger and astonished delight, had not dared to scold him, and the following month he launched out into some transaction in options, explaining to her that he feared nothing since he limited his loss. Besides, there were some excellent chances among the lot, and it would have been very stupid of him to let others alone profit by them. And thus—it was fatal—he began to speculate, in a small way at first, but gradually more boldly, whilst she, tortured by anxiety, like a good prudent housewife, yet with her eyes sparkling at the slightest gain, continued to predict that he would die a beggar.
But it was especially Captain Chave, Madame Maugendre's brother, who blamed his brother-in-law. He, who could not live on his pension of eighteen hundred francs a year, speculated at the Bourse to be sure; but then he was the shrewdest of the shrewd; he went there as a clerk goes to his office, and embarked solely in cash transactions, brimming over with delight when he took his twenty-franc piece home in the evening. These were daily operations of the most certain sort, and so modest that there was no possibility of catastrophe. His sister had offered him a home in her house, which was too large now that Marcelle had married; but wishing to be free, he had refused, and tenanted a single room in the rear of a garden in the Rue Nollet. For years he had been cautioning Maugendre, telling him not to gamble, but to take life easily; and when the latter had cried, 'But you?' he had made a vigorous gesture. Oh! he! that was different; he hadn't got an income of fifteen thousand francs! If he gambled, it was the fault of that dirty Government which begrudged to its old soldiers the delights of their old age. His great argument against gambling was that the gambler is mathematically bound to lose: if he wins, he has to deduct brokerage and stamp tax; if he loses, he has to pay these taxes in addition to his loss. So that, even admitting that he wins as often as he loses, he is still out of pocket to the extent of the stamp tax and the brokerage. At the Paris Bourse these taxes annually produce the enormous total of eighty millions of francs. And he brandished those figures—eighty millions gathered in by the State, the brokers, and the bucket-shops!
Seated on the little bench at the end of the corridor, Marcelle told her husband a part of this story.
'I must say, dear, that my visit was ill-timed. Mamma was quarrelling with papa on account of some loss which he has met with at the Bourse. Yes, it appears that he never leaves it now. It seems so queer to me, he who formerly used to say that all men ought to earn their money by steady work. Well, they were disputing, and there was a newspaper, the "Côte Financière," which mamma was flourishing under his nose, telling him that he didn't know anything, that she had foreseen the fall herself. Then he went for another paper, "L'Espérance," in fact, and wanted to show her the article from which he had got his information. Indeed, the house is full of newspapers; they stuff themselves with them from morning till night, and I believe—God forgive me!—that mamma is beginning to speculate too, in spite of her furious air.'
Jordan could not help laughing, so amusingly did she mimic the scene amidst all her sorrow.
'Well, I told them of our worry, and asked them to lend us two hundred francs to stop the proceedings. And if you had only heard how they cried out! Two hundred francs, when they had lost two thousand at the Bourse! Was I laughing at them? Did I want to ruin them? Never had I seen them in such a state. They who were so kind to me, who would have spent their all in making me presents! They must really be going mad, for there is no sense in making their lives wretched in this fashion when they could be so happy in their beautiful house, with nothing to worry them, no care but to live at their ease on the fortune which they so painfully earned.'
'I certainly hope that you did not insist,' said Jordan.
'Why, yes, I did insist; and then they fell upon you. You see that I tell you everything; I had promised myself to keep this from you, and now it escapes me. They repeated to me that they had foreseen how it would be, that writing in the newspapers isn't a proper business for anyone, and that we should end by dying on the straw. Finally, as I was getting angry in my turn, and was just about to leave, the Captain came in. You know that Uncle Chave has always been very fond of me. Well, in his presence, they became reasonable, especially as he triumphed over papa by asking him if he meant to keep on getting himself robbed like that. Then mamma took me aside, and slipped fifty francs into my hand, saying that with that we could obtain a few days' delay, enough time to turn round.'