'Fifty francs! a pittance! And you accepted them?'
Marcelle had grasped his hands tenderly, calming him with her quiet good sense.
'Come, don't be angry. Yes, I accepted them, and I understood so well that you would never dare to take them to the process-server that I went at once myself to his office, you know, in the Rue Cadet. But just imagine! he refused to take the money, explaining that he had formal orders from M. Busch, and that M. Busch could alone stop the proceedings. Oh! that Busch! I hate nobody, but how he exasperates and disgusts me! Still, all the same, I ran off to his office in the Rue Feydeau and he had to content himself with the fifty francs; so there, here we are, with a little peace before us for a fortnight.'
Deep emotion had contracted Jordan's face, while the tears that he was restraining moistened his eyelids. 'You did that, little wife, you did that?' said he.
'Why yes, I did not wish you to be annoyed any further. What harm does it do to me to get a scolding if you are allowed to work in peace?'
She was laughing now, and forthwith she began to tell the story of her arrival at Busch's office amid all his dusty, grimy papers; the brutal way in which he had received her, his threats that he would not leave them a rag on their backs if the whole debt were not paid at once. The queer part was that she had given herself the treat of exasperating him by disputing his legal right to recover the debt, those three hundred francs represented by the notes, which costs had run up to no less than seven hundred and fifty francs and fifteen centimes, whereas he had probably found the papers in some bundle of old rags which hadn't perhaps cost him a hundred sous. On hearing this he had almost choked with fury; in the first place, said he, he had paid a very high price for the notes; and there was his lost time, and all the running about during a couple of years to discover the person who had signed them, and the intelligence that he had had to display in this hunt. Was he not to be repaid for all that? So much the worse for those who allowed themselves to be caught! All the same, however, he had ended by taking the fifty francs, for his prudent system was always to compromise.
'Ah! little wife, how brave you are, and how I love you!' said Jordan, impulsively kissing Marcelle, although the sub-editor was just passing. And then, lowering his voice, he asked: 'How much have you left at home?'
'Seven francs.'
'Good!' he rejoined, feeling quite happy, 'we can go two days on that, so I won't ask for an advance, which would surely be refused. Besides, it worries me so to ask. To-morrow I will go to see if the "Figaro" will take an article from me. Ah! if I had only finished my novel, and if that would sell a little!'
Marcelle kissed him in her turn. 'Yes, things will go on all right. Now you will come home with me, won't you? That will be so nice of you, and for to-morrow morning we'll buy a red herring at the corner of the Rue de Clichy, where I saw some splendid ones. To-night we have potatoes and bacon.'
Having asked a comrade to look at his proofs, Jordan started off with his wife. Saccard and Huret were also going away just then. In the street a brougham had stopped outside the newspaper office, and they saw the Baroness Sandorff step out. She bowed with a smile, and then went hurriedly up the stairs. She now sometimes visited Jantrou in this fashion, just by way of asking him if he knew of anything. In spite of his sudden rise, she still treated him as she had done in the days when he had presented himself at her father's house, bending double and soliciting orders. Her father had been a frightfully brutal man, and she could not forget how she had once seen him, when enraged by a heavy loss, kick Jantrou out of the door. And now that the ex-professor was at the fountain-head of information, she had again become familiar, and sought to extract tips from him.
'Well, is there nothing new?' she asked, when she had reached his office, where she would not even sit down.
'No, indeed; I know nothing.'
But she continued to look at him with a smile, persuaded that he was unwilling to speak. Then, to force him to be confidential, she began to talk of that stupid war, which was about to set Austria, Italy, and Prussia fighting. The world of speculation was panic-stricken; there had been a terrible fall in Italian funds, as well as in all securities for that matter. And she was very much worried, for she did not know how far she ought to follow the movement, already having heavy engagements for next settling-day.
'Doesn't your husband give you any information?' asked Jantrou jestingly. 'He is certainly in a good position to do so, at the Embassy.'
'Oh! my husband,' she murmured, with a disdainful gesture: 'my husband, I get nothing out of him.'
He continued to laugh at her expense, going so far as to allude to the Public Prosecutor, Delcambre, who was said to pay her losses when she consented to pay them at all. 'And your friends, don't they know anything, either at Court or at the Palais de Justice?'
She pretended not to understand, but, without taking her eyes off him, rejoined, in a supplicating tone: 'Come, be amiable yourself. You know something.'
'Amiable, why should I be?' said he, laughing, with an embarrassed air. 'You are scarcely amiable with me.'
Straightway she became grave again, and a stern expression came into her eyes. That man, whom her father had received with kicks—ah! never! And she turned her back upon him to go away when, out of spite, seeking to wound her, he added: 'You just met Saccard at the door, didn't you? Why didn't you question him? He wouldn't refuse you.'
She suddenly stepped back. 'What do you mean?'
'Why, whatever you please. Oh, don't pretend to be mystified!'
A feeling of revolt filled her; all the pride of her race, still alive, rose out of the troubled depths, the mire in which her gambling passion was slowly, gradually drowning it. However, she did not indulge in an outburst, but in a clear, severe tone of voice simply said: 'Ah! my dear sir, what do you take me for? You are mad. No, I have nothing in common with your Saccard, because I didn't choose.'
Thereupon he saluted her with a profound bow. 'Well, madame, you made a very great mistake. You, who are always seeking "tips," could easily obtain them from that gentleman.'
At this she made up her mind to laugh; however, when she shook hands with him, he felt that hers was quite cold.
The month of June went by; on the 15th Italy had declared war against Austria. On the other hand, Prussia in scarcely a couple of weeks had, by a lightning march, invaded Hanover and conquered the two Hesses, Baden, and Saxony, surprising the unarmed populations in full peace. France had not budged; well-informed people whispered very softly at the Bourse that she had had a secret understanding with Prussia ever since Bismarck had met the Emperor at Biarritz, and folks talked mysteriously of the 'compensations' which she was to receive for her neutrality. But none the less, the fall in public funds, and almost all securities, went on in the most disastrous fashion. When the news of Sadowa, that sudden thunderbolt, reached Paris on the 4th of July, there was a collapse of every kind of stock. Folks believed in an obstinate prolongation of the war; for though Austria was beaten by Prussia, she had defeated Italy at Custozza, and it was already said that she was gathering the remnants of her army together, abandoning Bohemia. Orders to sell rained upon the corbeille; and buyers were not to be found.
On July 4, Saccard, calling at the office of the paper rather late, about six o'clock, did not find Jantrou there, for the editor's passions were now leading him into very disorderly courses. He would suddenly disappear for a time, returning invariably with a worn-out look and dim, bleared eyes. Women and drink were playing havoc with him. At the hour when Saccard arrived the office was emptying. There was scarcely a soul left there excepting Dejoie, who was dining at a corner of his little table in the ante-room; and Saccard, after writing a couple of letters, was in his turn about to take himself off when Huret, as red as a turkey-cock, rushed in like a whirlwind, not even taking the trouble to close the doors behind him.
'My dear fellow, my dear fellow!' he began; but he was almost stifling, and had to stop and carry both hands to his chest. 'I have just left Rougon,' he added at last; 'I had to run, because I hadn't got a cab. But eventually I found one. Rougon has received a despatch from over yonder; I've seen it! Such news! such news!'
With a violent wave of the arm, Saccard cut him short, and hastened to close the door, for he had caught sight of Dejoie, who was already on the prowl, with ears on the alert.
'Well, what?' he then asked.
'Well, the Emperor of Austria hands Venetia over to the Emperor of the French and accepts his mediation, so that Napoleon is now about to address himself to the Kings of Prussia and Italy with the view of bringing about an armistice.'
A moment's silence ensued.
'That means peace, eh?' said Saccard.
'Evidently.'
Thunderstruck, no idea as yet occurring to him, Saccard gave vent to an oath. 'D—— it! And everybody at the Bourse is speculating for a further fall!' Then, in a mechanical way, he added: 'And does nobody know this news?'
'No, it's a confidential despatch. There won't even be any announcement in the "Moniteur" to-morrow morning. In all probability, Paris will know nothing for four and twenty hours.'
Then the flash of lightning, the sudden inspiration, came to Saccard. He again rushed to the door and opened it to see if anyone were listening. He was quite beside himself, and when he came back he planted himself in front of the deputy and seized hold of both lapels of his coat. 'Keep quiet, not so loud!' said he. 'We are masters of the situation if Gundermann and his gang are not warned. Not a word, do you hear?—not a word to a living soul, to any of your friends, to your wife even! It happens luckily! Jantrou isn't here, the secret will be ours alone, and we shall have time to act. Oh, I don't mean to work merely for my own profit! You are in it, all our colleagues of the Universal too. Only a secret must never be confided to a lot of people. Everything would be lost if there were the slightest indiscretion before the opening of the Bourse to-morrow.'
Huret, who was greatly disturbed, quite upset in fact, by the magnitude of the stroke which they were about to attempt, promised to speak to no one. And then, deciding that they must open the campaign at once, they divided the work between them. Saccard had already taken up his hat when a last question came to his lips.
'So it was Rougon who told you to bring me this news?'
'To be sure,' replied Huret.
He had hesitated, however, in giving this answer, and, in point of fact, he lied. The despatch had simply been lying on the Minister's table, and curiosity had prompted him to read it while he was left alone in Rougon's room for a few moments. However, as his interest lay in furthering a cordial understanding between the two brothers, his lie seemed to him a very adroit one, the more so as he knew that they had little desire to see each other and talk about such things.
'Well,' said Saccard, 'there's no denying it, he's done me a good turn this time. And now let's be off!'
Dejoie was still the only person in the ante-room. He had striven to hear them, but had been unable to catch a single distinct word. Nevertheless, they divined that he was in a feverish state; and indeed he had scented the huge prey they were after. It might be invisible, but there was a smell of money in the air, and to such a degree did it disturb him that he impulsively rushed to the window on the landing to see them cross the courtyard.
The difficulty lay in acting with the greatest possible speed and the greatest possible caution at one and the same time. And so, on reaching the street, they parted company—Huret undertaking to deal with the 'Petite Bourse,' held on the Boulevards in the evening, whilst Saccard, late though it was, rushed off in search of brokers and jobbers to give them orders for the purchase of stock. He wished to divide and scatter these orders as much as possible, in order not to arouse any suspicion; and, moreover, he wished to meet these brokers and jobbers as though by chance instead of hunting them up at home, which might have appeared singular. Luck came to his help. While walking down the Boulevard he met Jacoby, with whom he joked and chatted for a while, and before leaving him he managed to give him a rather heavy order without provoking undue astonishment. A hundred steps further on he fell in with a tall, fair-haired girl whom he knew to be the mistress of another broker, Delarocque, Jacoby's brother-in-law; and as she said that she expected to see him a little later, Saccard asked her to give him his card, on which he wrote a few words in pencil.
Then, knowing that Mazaud meant to attend a banquet of old schoolfellows that evening, he contrived to be at the restaurant where it was held when the broker arrived there, and reversed the orders which he had given him earlier in the day. But his greatest piece of luck was to come. About midnight, whilst he was on his way home, he was accosted by Massias, who was just leaving the Théâtre des Variétés. They walked towards the Rue St. Lazare together, and on the way Saccard had all the time necessary to pose as an eccentric fellow who believed in a rise. Oh! not at once, of course. However, playing his part, he ended by giving Massias numerous orders for Nathansohn and other coulissiers, saying as he did so that he was acting on behalf of a group of friends, which after all was true. When he went to bed, he had taken up position as a 'bull,' with orders representing more than five millions of francs.
At seven o'clock the next morning Huret called on Saccard and acquainted him with what he had done at the Petite Bourse held on the Boulevard in front of the Passage de l'Opéra. Here he had bought as much as he could, but in a prudent way, so as not to bring about any undue rise in prices. His orders represented a million francs; and both, judging the stroke to be so far too modest a one, resolved to renew the campaign. For this they had all the morning before them. Before doing anything, however, they rushed upon the newspapers, trembling with the fear that they might find the news printed in them—a paragraph, a mere line which would annihilate all their plans. But no! the Press knew nothing. It believed in the continuation of the war, and every paper was full of telegrams giving detailed accounts of the battle of Sadowa. If no report should leak out before two in the afternoon, if they should have an hour before them when the Bourse opened, they would, as Saccard put it, make a clear sweep at the cost of the Jews. And then they again parted company, each on his own side hastening to bring fresh millions into the field.
Saccard spent that morning in tramping the streets and sniffing the air, experiencing such a desire to walk that he sent his brougham home after his first call. Whilst in the Rue Vivienne he looked in at Kolb's, where the jingle of gold fell delightfully on his ears, like some promise of victory; and he had sufficient strength of mind to say nothing to the banker, who, he found, knew nothing himself. Then he went up to Mazaud's, not to give any fresh order, but simply to feign anxiety respecting the one that he had given the night before; and here also they were still in utter ignorance of the truth. Little Flory alone caused him some anxiety by the persistent way in which he hovered about him, but the sole cause of this was the young clerk's profound admiration for the financial intelligence of the manager of the Universal Bank. As his friend Mademoiselle Chuchu was becoming a source of considerable expense to him, he had begun to speculate in a small way on his own account, and longed to know what orders the great man might give, so as to follow his lead.
At last, after a hasty repast at Champeaux', where he experienced profound delight at hearing the pessimist lamentations of Moser, and even Pillerault, both of whom predicted a further fall in prices, Saccard found himself upon the Place de la Bourse. It was only half-past twelve; but, as he put it, he wished to see everyone arrive. The heat was overpowering; fierce sun-rays streamed down, whitening the steps, whose reflections imparted to the peristyle the oppressive, burning temperature of an oven. The unoccupied chairs were crackling in this fiery air, whilst the speculators stood up seeking the protection of the narrow shadows which the columns cast.
Under a tree in the garden Saccard caught sight of Busch and La Méchain, who, on perceiving him, began talking with animation; and he even fancied that they were about to approach him when all at once they changed their minds. Was it possible that the news was known by these low ragpickers of the Bourse, who were ever scouring the gutters for such securities as might fall into them? For a moment he shuddered. But he heard himself called by name, and recognised Maugendre and Captain Chave seated on a bench and quarrelling together; for the former was now always jeering at the captain's paltry ventures, which resulted in the gain of no more than a louis a day, just as might have been the case in some little country café after innumerable hard-fought games of piquet. Come, now, said Maugendre, could he not venture on a serious stroke that afternoon in all security? Was not a fresh fall certain, as sure to come as the sun was shining above them? And he called upon Saccard to corroborate him. Was it not certain that there would be a fall? For his own part, he had staked heavily on the fall, so convinced of its coming that he would have ventured his entire fortune. Saccard responded to this direct question by smiling and tossing his head in an indefinite sort of way, feeling meantime a twinge of remorse at the thought that he could not warn this poor man whom he had known so industrious and clear-headed in the days when he sold awnings. However, he had sworn to be dumb, and was swayed by the ferocity of the gambler who has resolved that he will do nothing that may interfere with luck.
Just then, too, a fresh incident diverted his attention. The Baroness Sandorff's brougham passed by. He watched it, and saw that on this occasion it drew up in the Rue de la Banque. And all at once he bethought himself of Baron Sandorff, the Councillor at the Austrian Embassy. The Baroness must surely know the news, and would doubtless spoil everything by some piece of feminine clumsiness. He had already crossed the street, and began prowling around the brougham, which stood there motionless and silent, destitute of all signs of life, with the coachman stiffly erect upon his box. However, one of the windows was at last lowered, and thereupon Saccard gallantly bowed and drew near.
'Well, Monsieur Saccard,' said the Baroness, 'prices are still falling, I suppose?'
He fancied that she was preparing a trap for him. 'Why, yes, madame,' he replied.
Then as she looked at him anxiously, with the wavering expression which he had so often known among gamblers, he realised that she herself knew no more than the others. A stream of hot blood thereupon ascended to his brain, filling him with a sensation of beatitude.
'So you have nothing to tell me, Monsieur Saccard?' she resumed.
'Why, no, madame, nothing but what you must already know.'
And thereupon he left her, thinking as he walked away: 'You have been none too amiable with me, and it will amuse me to see you get a ducking.'
As he was returning to the Place de la Bourse again, the sight of Gundermann, whom he espied in the distance emerging from the Rue Vivienne, made his heart flutter once more. There could be no doubt of it; distance might shorten the great Baron's figure, but it was indeed he, walking slowly as was his wont, carrying his pale head erect without looking at anybody, as though, in the midst of all that crowd, he were alone in his royalty. And Saccard watched him with a feeling of terror, seeking to interpret each movement that he made. On seeing Nathansohn approach him, he imagined that all was lost. But his hopes revived when he saw the coulissier draw back with a discomfited air. No, there was certainly nothing unusual about the great banker; he had his every-day look. And all at once Saccard's heart leapt with joy, for Gundermann had just entered the confectioner's shop to make his customary purchase of sweetmeats for his little grand-daughters; and that was a sure sign of his knowing nothing, for he never set foot in the shop on days of crisis.
One o'clock struck and the bell announced the opening of the market. It was a memorable Bourse, one of those great days of disaster—disaster caused by a totally unexpected rise—which are so rare that they remain legendary. At the outset, amid the overpowering heat, prices fell yet lower. Then some sudden isolated purchases—the desultory fire of skirmishers, as it were, before the opening of a battle—provoked astonishment. But amidst the general distrust, things still remained dull and heavy, when all at once the number of purchases began to increase, demands sprang up in all directions, and Nathansohn at the coulisse under the colonnade, and Mazaud, Jacoby, and Delarocque in the corbeille within the building, were to be heard shouting that they would take any stock at any price. And then there was a tremor, a sudden ground-swell as it were, though nobody yet dared to rush into the fight, so inexplicable was this sudden change in the tone of the market.
Prices had but slightly risen, and Saccard had time to give Massias fresh orders for Nathansohn. Then, as little Flory passed by on the run, he asked him to hand Mazaud a fiche on which he had written a request to the broker to continue buying, to keep on at it indeed until he sent him word to stop. Flory read what was written on the fiche as he trotted off, and, fired with confidence, followed the great man's lead, at once effecting some purchases on his own account. And at a quarter to two o'clock the thunderbolt fell in the midst of the crowded Bourse. Austria surrendered Venetia to the Emperor; the war was over. Whence had the news arrived? Nobody knew; but it came simultaneously from every tongue, and, indeed, from the very flagstones. Someone had brought it, and all repeated it in a growing clamour, like the loud voice of an equinoctial tide. Prices then began to rise with furious bounds amidst the frightful uproar; and before the bell rang out the closing hour there was a difference of forty, fifty francs in many quotations. It was an indescribable mêlée—one of those battles in which confusion prevails, when soldiers and officers alike rush hither and thither, thinking only of saving their skins, but unable to do so because they are blinded, deafened, and no longer possess any clear idea of the situation. Perspiration streamed from the foreheads of the combatants, whilst the relentless sun beat upon the steps, wrapping the Bourse in the blaze of a conflagration.
When settling day came round, and it was possible to form an idea of the disaster, it proved an immense one. The battle-field was strewn with wounded and ruined. 'Bear' Moser was one of the most severely hit. Pillerault, who on this one occasion had despaired of a rise, paid dearly for his weakness. Maugendre was out of pocket to the tune of fifty thousand francs, his first serious loss. The Baroness Sandorff had such heavy differences to make good that Delcambre, it was reported, refused to pay for her; and she turned quite white with rage and hatred at the mere mention of her husband, the Embassy councillor, who had held the despatch in his own hands before Rougon had ever seen it, and yet had not said a word to her on the subject. But the big bankers, the Jewish bankers especially, had been subjected to a terrible defeat—a real massacre, so to say. It was asserted that Gundermann, for his part, had lost eight millions of francs. And this astounded people. How was it that he had not been warned—he, the undisputed master of the market, to whom Cabinet Ministers were but clerks and states, dependencies? There had evidently been one of those extraordinary combinations of circumstances which bring about great strokes of chance. It was an unforeseen, an idiotic disaster that had befallen the market, a disaster outside the pale of logic and reason.
However, the story spread, and Saccard passed for a great man. He had raked in nearly all the money lost by the 'bears.' Personally, he had put a couple of million francs in his pockets. The rest was to be placed in the coffers of the Universal Bank, or rather in the hands of the directors. With great difficulty he succeeded in persuading Madame Caroline that Hamelin's share of the plunder so legitimately gained from the Jews was a million. Huret, having helped in the work, had taken care to secure for himself a princely share of the booty. As for the others, the Daigremonts, the Bohains, they needed no pressing to accept what was offered them. Thanks and congratulations were voted to the eminent manager unanimously. And one heart especially was warm with gratitude to Saccard, the heart of little Flory, who had gained ten thousand francs, a small fortune, which would enable him to live with Chuchu in a little nest in the Rue Condorcet, and join Gustave Sédille and other friends at expensive restaurants in the evening. As for Jantrou, it was found necessary to make him a considerable present, as he was very angry at not having been forewarned. Dejoie alone remained in the dumps, fated to experience eternal regret at having one evening scented fortune vaguely, mysteriously passing by in the air, all to no purpose.
This, Saccard's first triumph, seemed as it were some florescence of the Empire which now had attained its apogee. He became a part of the splendour of the reign, one of its glorious reflections. On the very evening when he waxed powerful and wealthy amidst so many shattered fortunes, at the very hour when the Bourse became but a field of ruin, all Paris adorned itself with bunting and illuminated as on the occasion of some great victory; and festivities at the Tuileries and rejoicings in the streets proclaimed Napoleon III. the master of Europe—so high and mighty that emperors and kings chose him as arbiter in their quarrels, and handed provinces over to him that he might dispose of them between them. No doubt there were protests at the Chamber of Deputies; prophets of misfortune confusedly predicted a terrible future. Prussia increased, strengthened by all that France had tolerated, Austria beaten, and Italy ungrateful. But bursts of laughter and shouts of anger drowned those anxious voices; and on the morrow of Sadowa, Paris, the centre of the world, set all her avenues and monuments ablaze with illuminations, pending the coming of those black, icy nights, those gasless nights, through which the red fuses of shells were destined to wing their flight.
Overflowing with success, Saccard that evening walked the streets, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Élysées, all the footways where lampions were lighted. Carried along in the full-tide stream of promenaders, his eyes dazzled by the day-like brilliancy, it was possible for him to imagine that folks had illuminated in his honour. For was he not also an unexpected conqueror, one who rose to increased power in the midst of the disasters of others? A single annoyance tempered his satisfaction—the anger displayed by Rougon, who, in a terrible fury, on realising the origin of the Bourse stroke, had given Huret his dismissal. So the great man had not shown himself a good brother by sending him (Saccard) the all-important news. Must he dispense with that high patronage? must he even attack the omnipotent Minister? All at once, while he was standing in front of the Palace of the Legion of Honour, which was surmounted by a gigantic cross of fire, glowing brightly against the black sky, he boldly resolved to do so on the day when he should feel himself sufficiently strong. And then, intoxicated by the songs of the crowd and the flapping of the flags, he retraced his steps through flaming Paris to the Rue Saint Lazare.
Two months later, in September, Saccard, rendered audacious by his victory over Gundermann, decided that he must give fresh impulse to the Universal. At the shareholders' meeting held at the end of April the balance-sheet had shown for the year 1865 a profit of nine million francs, inclusive of the premium of twenty francs on each of the fifty thousand new shares issued when the capital had been doubled. The preliminary expenses had now been entirely paid, the shareholders had received their five per cent., and the directors their ten per cent.; whilst, in addition to the regulation percentage, a sum of five million francs had been carried to the reserve fund. With the remaining million they had contrived to pay a dividend of ten francs per share. This was a fine result for an institution which had not yet been two years in existence. Saccard, however, worked in a feverish way, cultivating the financial soil on a violent system, heating it, overheating it at the risk of burning the crop; and thus he prevailed, first on the directors, and then on a special shareholders' meeting held on September 15, to authorise a fresh increase of capital. In fact, the capital was again doubled—raised from fifty to a hundred millions of francs—by the creation of one hundred thousand new shares, exclusively reserved to existing shareholders, share per share. However, these new shares were issued at no less than six hundred and seventy-five francs, inclusive of a premium of one hundred and seventy-five francs which was to be paid into the reserve fund. The Universal's growing successes, the profitable strokes which it had already made, and especially the great enterprises which it was about to launch—such were the reasons brought forward to justify this enormous increase of the capital, twice doubled at short intervals; for it was certainly necessary to endow the Bank with an importance and strength commensurate to the interests it represented. Moreover, this increase of capital had an immediate effect; the shares, which for some months had remained stationary, their average quotation at the Bourse being seven hundred and fifty francs, rose to nine hundred francs in three days.
Hamelin, who had not been able to return from the East to preside over the extraordinary meeting of shareholders, wrote his sister an anxious letter, in which he expressed his fears respecting this mode of conducting the affairs of the Universal, this fashion of madly forcing the pace. He well divined that false declarations had again been made at Maître Lelorrain's office. And, indeed, all the new shares had not been subscribed, as the law required, and the Bank remained in possession of those refused by its shareholders. The instalments on allotment not being paid, these shares were transferred by some jugglery in the book-keeping to the Sabatani account. Moreover, by borrowing the names of some of its directors and employees, the Bank had subscribed a portion of its own issue, so that it now held nearly thirty thousand of its shares, representing seventeen and a half millions of francs.
Not only was this illegal, but the situation might become dangerous, for experience has proved that every financial establishment which speculates in its own stock is lost. Nevertheless, Madame Caroline answered her brother gaily, twitting him with having now become the trembler, to such a point that it was she, formerly the suspicious one, who had to reassure him. She said that she was always on the watch, and could detect nothing suspicious; on the contrary, she was wonderstruck by the great things, all so clear and logical, which she was witnessing. The truth was that she, of course, knew nothing of the things which were hidden from her, and was, moreover, blinded by her admiration for Saccard, the sympathetic emotion into which she was thrown on beholding that little man's activity and intelligence.
In December Universal shares commanded more than a thousand francs. And in presence of this triumph there was a flutter among the big-wigs of the banking world. Gundermann, who was still to be met at times on the Place de la Bourse entering the confectioner's shop to buy sweetmeats with an automatic step and absorbed air, had paid the eight millions which he had lost without complaining, without a single of his intimates hearing a word of anger or rancour fall from his lips. As a rule, whenever he lost in this fashion, which rarely happened, he would say that it served him right and would teach him to be less careless; and folks would smile at this, for carelessness on Gundermann's part was scarcely to be imagined. But the hard lesson he had received must this time have remained upon his heart; the idea that he, so cold, so phlegmatic, so thoroughly a master of men and things, should have been beaten by that break-neck fellow, that passionate lunatic Saccard, must surely have been unendurable to him. And, indeed, from that very moment he began to watch, certain that in time he should have his revenge. In presence of the general infatuation for the Universal, he at once took up position, knowing, as he did, by long observation, that success achieved with unnatural rapidity, that lying prosperity conduct to the most complete disasters. However, the figure of a thousand francs, at which the shares were now quoted, was still a reasonable one, and he waited for further developments before beginning to 'bear' the stock.
His theory was that no man could bring about events at the Bourse, that at the utmost one could foresee them and profit by them when they came to pass. Logic was sole ruler; truth, in speculation as in other things, was an omnipotent force. As soon as the price of Universals should have risen to an unduly exaggerated figure there would come a collapse; a fall would take place, it was a mathematical certainty; and he would simply be there to see his calculations realised and pocket his profits. And he already decided that he would open the campaign when the quotations should have risen to fifteen hundred francs. At that price he would begin selling Universals, moderately at first, but to an increasing extent as each settling day came by, in accordance with a predetermined plan. He did not need to form any syndicate of 'bears,' his own efforts would suffice; sensible people would clearly divine the truth and follow his play. That noisy Universal, that Universal which was so rapidly taking up a big position in the market, which was rising like a menace against the great Jew bankers—he would coldly wait till it should crack of itself, and then with a shove of the shoulder he would throw it to the ground.
Later on, folks related that it was Gundermann himself who secretly facilitated Saccard's purchase of an old building in the Rue de Londres, which he had the intention of demolishing in order to raise upon the site the monument of his dreams, the palace in which he purposed installing his bank in the most sumptuous style. He had succeeded in winning over the directors with regard to this matter, and the workmen began their task in the middle of October.
On the day when the foundation stone was laid with great ceremony, Saccard repaired to the newspaper office at about four o'clock, and whilst awaiting the return of Jantrou, who had gone to carry some reports of the solemnity to friendly contemporaries, he received a visit from the Baroness Sandorff. She had at first asked for the editor, and then, as though by chance, came upon the manager of the Universal, who gallantly placed himself at her disposal with regard to any information that she might desire, and ushered her into his own private room at the end of the passage. And this interview proved decisive.
It happened, however, that Madame Caroline, who had been shopping in the neighbourhood, called at the office at this very time. She would occasionally come up in this way, either to give Saccard an answer about some matter or other, or to ask for news. Moreover, she knew Dejoie, for whom she had found a situation there, and usually stopped to chat with him for a moment, well pleased with the gratitude which he displayed towards her. On this occasion she did not find him in the ante-room, and so turned into the passage, where she ran against him just as he was returning from listening at Saccard's door. This was now quite a disease with him; he trembled with fever, and applied his ear to every keyhole in the hope of overhearing some Bourse secret.
'He is in, isn't he?' said Madame Caroline, trying to pass on.
But Dejoie stopped her, stammering, lacking the time to prepare a lie. 'Yes, he's there, but you can't go in.'
'Can't go in. Why is that?'
Then he, who knew nothing of her position with regard to Saccard, allowed her to divine the truth.
For a moment Madame Caroline remained motionless. In the dim passage the livid pallor of her face could not be detected. She had just felt so keen, so cruel a pain in her heart that she could not remember having ever suffered so much before; and it was the stupor caused by this frightful pang which nailed her there. What should she do?—force her way in, create a scandal?
Whilst she still stood there, dazed, destitute of will, Marcelle, who had come to fetch her husband, approached her gaily. 'Oh, is it you, dear madame?' the young woman exclaimed. 'Just fancy, we are going to the theatre this evening. Oh! it's quite an affair, for we can't afford expense. But Paul has discovered a little restaurant where we shall feast ourselves at thirty-five sous a head.'
Just then Jordan entered the passage and laughingly interrupted his wife. 'Two courses, a decanter of wine, and as much bread as one can eat,' said he.
'And then,' continued Marcelle, 'we shan't take a cab. It is so amusing to walk home at a late hour. As we are rich to-night, we shall spend a franc on an almond cake to take home with us. It will be a perfect fête, a reckless jollification.'
She went off, delighted, on her husband's arm; and Madame Caroline, who had returned to the ante-room with them, now found sufficient strength to smile. 'I hope you will amuse yourselves,' she murmured in a trembling voice.
Then she in her turn departed. She loved Saccard, and carried away with her a feeling of astonishment and grief—grief, as it were, for some shameful sore which she was unwilling to reveal.
CHAPTER VII
REVELATIONS
Two months later, one grey, mild November afternoon, Madame Caroline went up to the room where her brother's plans were kept, immediately after breakfast, in order to set to work. Her brother, when at Constantinople, busy with his great scheme of the Oriental railways, had asked her to go through all the notes he had made at the time when they had travelled through Asia Minor together, and to draw up a kind of memoir, which would be an historical résumé of the question. During two long weeks already she had been trying to give her whole mind to this task. It was so warm that day that she let the fire go out and opened the window, whence, before sitting down, she gazed for a moment at the tall bare trees of the Beauvilliers garden, which had a violet hue against the pale grey sky.
She had been writing for nearly half an hour when the need of some document forced her to engage in a long search among the portfolios heaped upon her table. She rose, stirred up some other papers, and sat down again with her hands full; and whilst she was classifying various loose documents she came upon some religious pictures, an illuminated view of the Holy Sepulchre, and a prayer surrounded by emblems of the Passion, guaranteed to ensure salvation in those distressful moments when the soul is in peril. She then remembered that her brother, like the pious fellow he was, had bought the pictures at Jerusalem. Emotion suddenly overcame her, and tears moistened her cheeks. Ah! that brother of hers, so intelligent, so long unappreciated, how happy he was in being able to believe, in being able to refrain from smiling at that naïf view of the Holy Sepulchre, executed in the style of the pictures which are used to decorate sweetmeat boxes! And how happy he was, too, in being able to derive a serene strength from his faith in the efficacy of that rhymed prayer, which, poetically, was on a par with the verses found in Christmas crackers! She again beheld him, ever trustful, too easily imposed upon perhaps, but so upright and tranquil, never revolting, never struggling even. And she, who had been struggling and suffering for two months past, she who no longer believed, whose mind was scorched by reading, worn out by reasoning, how ardently in her hours of weakness did she not wish that she had remained simple and ingenuous like him, so that she might lull her bleeding heart to sleep by thrice repeating, morn and eve alike, that childlike prayer, around which were depicted the nails and the lance, the crown and the sponge of the Passion!
On the morrow of the day when chance had so brutally made her acquainted with the truth concerning Saccard and the Baroness Sandorff she had exerted all her will power to resist her desire to watch them. She was not this man's wife, and did not wish to carry jealousy to the point of scandal. She was no longer twenty, but six and thirty, and the terrible experience of her married life had made her tolerant. Still it was in vain that she practised abnegation; her nature revolted, and she experienced intense suffering. There were times when she longed to sever the ties which bound her to Saccard, to provoke a violent scene and hurl in his face the wrong that he had done her. However, she succeeded in mastering herself, in forcing herself to remain not only silent, but calm and smiling; and never indeed in her existence, hitherto so hard, had she been in greater need of strength than now.
Still holding the religious pictures, she bent her eyes upon them for a moment longer, smiling the sorrowful smile of one who cannot believe, and her heart melting with affection for her brother. But a moment later she no longer beheld them. Her mind had wandered away, as it always did directly she ceased to occupy it, and she was again thinking of Saccard, of what he had done the day before, of what he might that day be doing. He seemed to be leading his usual life, devoting his mornings to his worrying duties at the Bank, his afternoons to the Bourse, his evenings to the invitations to dinner which he received, to the first performances given at the theatres, to the society of actresses whom she was not jealous of, to everything, in fact, which is supposed to make up a life of pleasure. And yet she felt that some new interest absorbed him, an interest, no doubt, in that woman, whom he met somewhere. No doubt she had prohibited herself from trying to ascertain where and when it was that they met; yet it all made her distrustful and suspicious, and, as her brother laughingly expressed it, she had begun playing the gendarme again, even with regard to the affairs of the Bank, which she had previously ceased watching, so great at one moment had her confidence become. At the present time, however, she was struck and grieved by certain irregular practices; and then was quite surprised to find that she really cared nothing about the matter at bottom, lacking the strength alike to speak and act, so completely did a single anguish fill her heart—anguish for that betrayal, which she would have condoned, but the thought of which stifled her, despite all her efforts. And now, ashamed at last to find her tears flowing again, she went and hid the religious pictures, deeply regretting that she, who had no faith, could not go and kneel in some church, and find relief by weeping and praying.
Having at last calmed herself, she set to work on the memoir again, and had been writing for some ten minutes or so when the valet came to inform her that Charles, Saccard's coachman who had been dismissed on the previous day, absolutely insisted upon speaking to her. Saccard himself had detected the fellow stealing the horses' oats. She hesitated for a moment, and then consented to see him.
Tall, good-looking, with shaven face and confident, conceited gait, Charles came into the room and insolently exclaimed: 'I've come, madame, about the two shirts of mine which the laundress has lost, and won't make an allowance for. Madame surely doesn't suppose that I can put up with such a loss. And, as Madame is responsible, I wish Madame to pay me for my shirts. Yes, I want fifteen francs.'
She was very severe in all these household matters. Perhaps she would have paid the fifteen francs to avoid any discussion. But she was disgusted by the effrontery of this man, who had been caught thieving only the day before.
'I owe you nothing, and I shall give you nothing,' said she; 'besides, Monsieur warned me, and absolutely forbade me to do anything for you.'
Charles took a step forward with a threatening air. 'Oh, Monsieur said that, did he? I suspected as much, and Monsieur made a great mistake, for now we shall have some fun. For I know all about Monsieur and his goings on. Yes, indeed, I know all about them!'
Madame Caroline had risen to her feet, intending to order him out of the room; but before she could do so he had forced the whole horrid story upon her unwilling ears. She tried to get rid of him by handing him the fifteen francs that he had asked for, and he took them and even became polite; but nothing could stop his venomous tongue. And thus she learnt everything; the meetings of Saccard and the Baroness, and a horribly scandalous scene in which Delcambre, the Public Prosecutor, long the woman's lover, had taken part.
But at last the coachman went off, and after remaining for a few moments motionless Madame Caroline sank with a prolonged wail on to a chair beside her work-table, giving free course to the tears which had so long been stifling her. For a long while she wept in silent agony, but the time came when amidst all her grief for self, her grief for the wrong which had been done her, she felt the many suspicions, the many fears respecting other matters that she had sought to bury, reviving.
She had forced herself to tranquillity and hope in the affairs of the Universal, becoming in her loving blindness an accomplice in all that was not told her and that she did not seek to learn. And now, in a fit of violent remorse, she reproached herself for writing that reassuring letter to her brother at the time of the last shareholders' meeting. For, since jealousy had again opened her eyes and ears, she had known that the irregular practices were continuing, ever growing worse and worse. The Sabatani account had increased to a yet higher figure, the Bank was speculating more and more extensively under cover of Sabatani's name, to say nothing of the monstrous lying puffs which were being disseminated, the foundations of sand and mud on which had been reared that colossal edifice, whose rise, so rapid that it seemed miraculous, inspired her with far more terror than delight. And it was especially the terrible pace which distressed her—the continual gallop at which the Universal was driven along, like some engine stuffed full of coals and set upon diabolical rails that it might rush on until a final great shock should make everything burst and smash.
She was not a simpleton, a booby, who could be deceived; albeit ignorant of the technicalities of banking, she fully understood the reasons of this overdriving, this feverishness destined to intoxicate the mob and plunge it into epidemical madness. Each morning must bring its rise; it was necessary to keep on inspiring a belief in fresh successes, in streamlets of gold converted into great rivers, oceans of the precious metal. Her poor brother, so credulous, fascinated, carried away—did she mean to betray him, to abandon him to the mercy of that flood which threatened to drown them all some day? At thought of her inaction, her powerlessness, she was once more filled with despair.
Meantime the twilight was darkening the workroom; there was not even a reflection from the fire-place to illumine it, for she had let the fire go out; and in the increasing gloom Madame Caroline wept more and more bitterly. It was cowardly to weep in this fashion, for she was perfectly conscious that all these tears were not due to her anxiety about the affairs of the Universal. Assuredly it was Saccard alone who was forcing that terrible gallop, lashing the monster on and on with extraordinary ferocity and moral unconsciousness, careless as to whether he killed it or not. He was the only guilty one, and she shuddered as she tried to read him, to read that murky financier's soul, of which even he himself was ignorant, a miry Infinite of all degradations, hidden one from another by the darkness in which they were enveloped. Though there were things which she did not yet clearly distinguish, she suspected them and trembled at them. But the mere discovery of so many sores, the fear of a possible catastrophe, would not have sufficed to bow her in this fashion over that table, weeping and strengthless; it would, on the contrary, have set her erect, eager for struggle and cure. She knew herself; she was a warrior. No, if she sobbed so bitterly, like a weak child, it was because she loved Saccard, and because Saccard at that very moment was betraying her. And this avowal which she was obliged to make to herself filled her with shame, redoubled her tears until she almost choked. 'To think that I have no pride left, my God!' she stammered aloud; 'to be so weak and miserable! to be unable when I would!'
But just then she was astonished to hear a voice address her in the darkness. It was the voice of Maxime, who had just entered, like one at home. 'What! you in the dark and crying?' said he.
Confused at being thus surprised, she strove to master her sobs, while he added: 'I beg your pardon, but I thought that my father had come back from the Bourse. A lady asked me to bring him to dinner at her house.'
However, the valet now brought a lamp, and, after placing it on the table, withdrew. The whole of the spacious room was illumined by the soft light that fell from the shade.
'It is nothing,' Madame Caroline tried to explain—'merely a woman's fretting, and yet I seldom give way to my nerves.'
Her eyes dry and her figure erect, she was already smiling with the brave mien of a fighter. For a moment the young man looked at her, as she thus proudly drew herself up with her large clear eyes, her thick lips, her expression of virile kindness, which her thick crown of hair softened and endowed with a great charm; and he found her still young, white-haired though she was, her teeth also very white—indeed an adorable woman, who had become beautiful. And then he thought of his father and shrugged his shoulders with contemptuous pity. 'It is on account of him, is it not,' said he; 'that you have put yourself in this fearful state?'
She wished to deny it, but she was choking, tears were again coming to her eyelids.
'Ah! my poor lady,' resumed Maxime; 'I told you, you will remember, that you entertained illusions about papa, and that you would be ill rewarded. It was inevitable.'
Thereupon she remembered the day when she had gone to borrow those two thousand francs of the young man in order to pay part of Victor's ransom. Had he not then promised to have a chat with her whenever she might desire to know the truth? Was not this an opportunity to learn all the past by questioning him? And an irresistible need of knowing urged her on. Now that she had commenced the descent she must go to the bottom. That course alone would be brave, worthy of her, useful to all.
Still the inquiry was repugnant to her, and, instead of boldly starting upon it, she took a circuitous course, as though with the object of changing the conversation. 'I still owe you two thousand francs,' said she; 'I hope you are not too angry with me for keeping you waiting.'
He made a gesture as though to imply that she might take all the time she needed, and then abruptly said: 'By the way, and my little brother, that monster?'
'I am greatly grieved about him. I have so far said nothing about him to your father. I should so much like to cleanse the poor boy a little, so that it might be possible for your father to love him.'
A burst of laughter from Maxime disturbed her, and as she gave him a questioning look he exclaimed: 'Well, I think that you are wasting time and trouble in that respect also! Papa will hardly understand your taking all this trouble. He has experienced so many family annoyances.'
She was still looking at him, so demurely egotistical in his enjoyment of life, so disengaged from all human ties, even from those which a life of pleasure creates. He had smiled, alone enjoying the covert maliciousness of his last words. And she was conscious that she was at last about to discover the secret of these two men.
'You lost your mother at an early age?' she said.
'Yes, I scarcely knew her. I was still at Plassans, at school, when she died here in Paris. Our uncle, Doctor Pascal, has kept my sister Clotilde with him there; I have only once seen her since.'
'But your father married again?'
He hesitated. A kind of ruddy vapour seemed to dim his empty eyes, usually so clear.
'Oh! yes, yes; he married again, the daughter of a magistrate, one Béraud du Châtel—Renée her name was; she was not a mother to me, but a good friend.' Then, sitting down beside her in a familiar way, he went on: 'You see, one must understand papa. Mon Dieu! he isn't worse than others. Only children, wives—in short, all around him—hold in his mind a second place to money. Oh! let us understand each other; he doesn't love money like a miser, for the sake of having a huge pile of it and hiding it in his cellar. No; if he wishes to make it gush forth on every side, if he draws it from no matter what sources, it is to see it flow around him in torrents; it is for the sake of all the enjoyments he derives from it—luxury, pleasure, power. What can you expect? It is in his blood. He would sell us—you, me, no matter whom—if we were a part of some bargain. And he would do it as an unconscious and superior man; for he is really the poet of the million, so mad and rascally does money make him—oh! rascally on a very grand scale!'
This was just what Madame Caroline had understood, and while listening to Maxime she nodded her head in token of assent. Ah! money, that all-corrupting poisonous money, which withered souls and drove from them all kindness, tenderness, and love for others! Money alone was the great culprit, the agent of all human cruelties and abominations. At that moment she cursed it, execrated it, in the indignant revolt of her woman's nobility and uprightness. Ah! if she had had the power, she would with a gesture have annihilated all the money in the world, even as one would crush disease with a stamp of the heel in order to preserve the world in health.
'And your father married again,' she slowly repeated after a pause, with a tinge of embarrassment in her voice as vague memories began awaking within her. Who was it that had alluded to the story in her presence? She could not have told. But doubtless it had been some woman, some friend, in the early days of her residence in the Rue Saint Lazare, when Saccard had rented the first floor of the mansion. Had there not been some question of a marriage which he had contracted, some marriage for money, some shameful bargain? And later on had not crime quietly taken its seat at the hearth, abominable depravity, tolerated, suffered to abide there without let or hindrance?
'Renée,' replied Maxime in a very low tone, and as though despite himself, 'was only a few years older than me.'
He raised his head and looked at Madame Caroline. And then, suddenly throwing off all self-restraint, with unreasoning confidence in this woman, who seemed to him so healthy and so sensible, he told the story of the shameful past, not in consecutive phrases, it is true, but in shreds—involuntary, imperfect confessions which it was for her to connect together. So, in this wise, Madame Caroline learnt the frightful story: Saccard selling his name, marrying a girl in trouble for money's sake; completing the unhinging of the poor child's ailing mind by means of this same money, by the mad, prodigal, dazzling life he led; and then, because he was in need of money and required her signature, closing his eyes to whatever she might do. Ah! money, money the King, money the deity, beside which tears and blood were as nothing! Money adored for its infinite power far above all vain human scruples! And in proportion as the might of money increased in her eyes, and Saccard stood revealed to her in all his diabolical grandeur, Madame Caroline was seized with real terror, frozen, distracted by the thought that she too had become this monster's prey, after so many others.
'There!' said Maxime, concluding. 'It pains me to see you like this; it is better that you should be warned. But don't let this make trouble between you and my father. I should be very grieved if such were the case, for you would be the one to weep over it, not he. And now do you understand why I refuse to lend him a sou?'
As she did not answer, for her throat was contracted and a terrible pang tortured her heart, he rose, and glanced at a mirror, with the tranquil ease of a handsome man who is certain of his correctness in life. Then, coming back, he stood before her.
'Such examples age you quickly, do they not?' he said. 'For my part, I promptly settled down; I married a young girl who was ill and is now dead; I swear to-day that no one shall ever induce me to act foolishly again. No! But papa, you see, is incorrigible, because he has no moral sense.'
He took her hand, and, holding it for a moment in his own, felt that it was quite cold.
'I am going, since he doesn't come back. But pray don't grieve like this. I thought you so strong! And you ought to thank me, for there is only one thing that is stupid in life—to let oneself be duped.'
Finally he started off, but at the door he stopped to add, with a laugh: 'I was forgetting; tell him that Madame de Jeumont expects him to dinner.'
Left to herself, Madame Caroline did not stir. Bowed down on her chair in the spacious room, which had sunk into an oppressive silence, she gazed fixedly at the lamp with dilated eyes. It seemed to her that the veil had been suddenly torn aside. All that she had hitherto been unwilling to distinguish plainly, which she had only tremblingly suspected, now appeared before her in its frightful crudity, so clear that it would henceforth be impossible to doubt it, to gloss it over. She beheld Saccard naked, with the ravaged, complicated soul of a man of money, murky and rotting. For him there were neither bonds nor barriers; he rushed on to the satisfaction of his appetites with the unbridled instincts of a man who knows no other limit than powerlessness. He had sold his son, his wife, all who had fallen into his clutches; he had sold himself, and he would sell her too, and sell her brother, dispose of their hearts and their brains for money. He was nothing but a maker of money, one who threw beings and things into the melting-pot to coin them into money. In a brief interval of lucidity she saw the Universal diffusing money like perspiration in all directions—a lake, an ocean of money, into the midst of which, all at once, with a frightful crash, the whole house would topple down. Ah! money, horrible money, that smirches and devours!
Madame Caroline rose up in angry haste. No, no, it was monstrous; it was all over; she could no longer remain near that man. She would have forgiven him his betrayal; but loathing seized upon her at thought of all that old-time filth; terror distracted her at thought of the crimes which were possible in the future. There was nothing left for her but to start off at once if she did not wish to be splashed with mud herself, crushed beneath the ruins. And a pressing desire came to her to go far, far away, to join her brother in the distant East, less to warn him than to disappear herself. Yes, she must start, start at once! It was not yet six o'clock; she could take the rapide for Marseilles at seven fifty-five; for it seemed to her that to see Saccard again would be beyond her strength. She would make whatever purchases were necessary at Marseilles before embarking. A little linen in a trunk, one spare dress, and she would be off. In a quarter of an hour she could be ready.
Then the sight of her work on the table, the memoir which she had begun writing, made her pause for a moment. But what would be the use of taking that with her, since the whole thing was rotten at the foundation and was bound to fall? Nevertheless she began carefully arranging the documents and memoranda, like a good housewife who never likes to leave things in disorder. And the task occupied her for some moments, calming the first fever of her decision. She was again fully mistress of herself, when she gave a last glance round the room before leaving it. But just then the valet came in again, bringing a number of papers and letters.
In a mechanical kind of way Madame Caroline looked at the superscriptions, and perceived in the pile a letter from her brother addressed to herself. It came from Damascus, where Hamelin was then staying, making arrangements for the proposed branch line from that city to Beyrout. At first she began to glance over the letter, standing near the lamp, and resolving that she would read it more carefully later on in the train. But each sentence held her attention, she was unable to skip a word; and she finally sat down again at the table, and gave herself up to the absorbing perusal of this long letter, which filled twelve pages.
Hamelin happened to be in one of his gayest moods. He thanked his sister for the last good news which she had sent him from Paris, and sent her still better news in return, for everything, said he, was going to his liking. The first balance-sheet of the United Steam Navigation Company promised well; the new steamships were realising large receipts, thanks to their perfect equipment and superior speed. He jokingly said that folks travelled in them for pleasure, and pointed to the sea-ports invaded by tourists from the Western world, and declared that he could not make a journey by highway or byway without coming face to face with some Parisian of the Boulevards. As he had foreseen, it was really the East opened up to France. Cities, said he, would before long spring up on the fertile slopes of the Lebanon range. But particularly did he give a vivid picture of the lonely Carmel gorge, where the silver mine was now being actively worked. The savage site was being humanised; springs had been discovered amidst the gigantic pile of fallen rocks which barred the valley on the north; and fields were being formed, wheat was replacing the mastic-trees, whilst a whole village had sprung up near the mines, at first merely some wooden cabins, huts to shelter the workmen, but now little stone-built houses with gardens—the beginning of a city which would continue growing so long as the veins were not exhausted. There were now nearly five hundred inhabitants on the spot, and a road had just been finished connecting the village with Saint Jean d'Acre. From morning till night the extraction machines were roaring, waggons set out amid the loud cracking of whips, women sang, and children played and cried where formerly there had been a desert and death-like silence, which only the eagles had broken with the sound of their slowly beating pinions. And myrtle and broom still perfumed the atmosphere, which was so delightfully pure.
On the subject of the first railway which he had to lay, the line from Broussa to Beyrout by way of Angora and Aleppo, Hamelin wrote at great length. All the formalities had been concluded at Constantinople. He was delighted with certain happy alterations which he had made in the line of route, so as to overcome the difficult passage through the Taurus passes; and of these passes and of the plains that stretched away at the foot of the mountains he wrote with the rapture of a man of science who had found new coal deposits there, and expected to see the country covered with factories. He had located his guiding points, and chosen the sites of his stations, some in the midst of the wild solitudes—one here, another farther on. Cities would spring up around those stations at the intersection of the natural highways. The seed was already sown for the crop of men and grand things of the future; everything was already germinating; within a few years there would here be a new world. And he concluded with a loving kiss for his dear sister, happy at being able to associate her in this resurrection of a people, telling her that much of it would be due to her, to her who had so long helped him, buoyed him up by her fine bravery and health.
Madame Caroline had finished her perusal, the letter lay open on the table, and she remained there thinking, her eyes once more fixed upon the lamp. Then her glances involuntarily rose and strayed round the walls, lingering for a moment on each of the plans, each of the water-colour drawings she saw there. The pavilion for the manager of the United Steam Navigation Company was now built at Beyrout, and was surrounded by vast store-houses. That deep, wild gorge of Mount Carmel, blocked up with brambles and stones, was now being peopled; the huge nest, as it were, of some new-born race. Those levellings in the Taurus range were changing the aspect of the horizon, opening the way for free commerce. And from all those geometrically outlined designs, secured to the walls by a few tacks, there sprang up before her a complete vision of the far-off country where she had formerly travelled, and which she had loved so dearly for its beautiful sky of unchanging blue and its ever fertile soil.
Again she beheld the gardens of Beyrout rising up in tiers, the valleys of Mount Lebanon with their great forests of olive and mulberry trees, the plains of Antioch and Aleppo with their immense orchards of delightful fruits. Again she beheld herself with her brother continually journeying through that marvellous country, whose incalculable wealth was lost, ignored, or misapplied, which had had no roads, no industry, no agriculture, no schools, but had been solely the abode of idleness and ignorance. Now, however, all was springing to life again, thanks to an extraordinary flow of fresh sap. This vision of the East of to-morrow already set prosperous cities, cultivated fields, happy people before her eyes. And she saw them, and heard the busy hum of the workshops; and realised that this old soil, so long asleep, was reawakened at last, and was entering upon the work of parturition.
Then Madame Caroline acquired the sudden conviction that money was the dung-heap in which grew the humanity of to-morrow. Some of Saccard's remarks, scraps of his theories respecting speculation, came back to her mind. She recalled that idea of his that without speculation there would be no great fruitful enterprises, just in the same way as without love, though love may have its horrid aspects, there would be no life. If life is to continue in the world, there must be passion. If her brother over yonder in the East was in such high spirits, shouting victory amidst the workshops and yards which were being got in order, and the buildings which were springing from the soil, it was because the passion for gambling was making money rain down and rot everything in Paris. Poisonous and destructive money became the ferment of all social vegetation, served as the necessary compost for the execution of the great works which would draw the nations nearer together and pacify the earth.
She had cursed money, and now she fell in awe-stricken admiration before it; for was not money the sole force that can level a mountain, fill up an arm of the sea—briefly, render the earth inhabitable by men, who, once relieved of labour, would become but the conductors of machines. From this force, which was the root of all evil, there also sprang everything that was good. And, shaken to the depths of her being, she no longer knew what to do, for although she had already decided that she would not go away, since success seemed complete in the East and it was at Paris that the battle raged, she was yet unable to calm herself, to heal her bleeding heart.
She rose, and with her forehead pressed against a pane of one of the windows commanding the garden of the Beauvilliers mansion, she looked out. It was now night; and she could only distinguish a faint gleam in the lonely little room in which the Countess and her daughter confined themselves, so that they might economise firing and avoid soiling the other apartments. Behind the thin muslin curtains she could vaguely distinguish the figure of the Countess, who was mending some linen, whilst Alice was busy with some water-colour sketches, which she painted hurriedly by the dozen and secretly sold. A misfortune had lately happened to them; their horse had contracted some illness, and for a fortnight they had been confined to the house, obstinately refusing to show themselves on foot in the streets, and reluctant to hire another horse from a livery stable. Nevertheless, amidst the poverty which they so heroically concealed, they were now buoyed up, inspirited by one hope—a hope that the rise in the value of Universal shares would continue, that their gain, already very considerable, would fall upon them in a golden rain when the day came for them to realise their shares at the highest possible figure. The Countess promised herself a really new dress, and dreamt of being able to give four dinners a month without having to live on bread and water for a fortnight in order to do so. Alice, too, no longer laughed with an affected air of indifference when her mother spoke to her of marriage, but listened with a slight trembling of the hands, beginning to believe that this dream would perhaps be realised, and that, like others, she might have a husband and children of her own.
As Madame Caroline stood looking at the little lamp which lighted them, she felt great calmness, a soft affectionate feeling, penetrating her, struck as she was by the circumstance that money, merely the hope of money, sufficed for the happiness of those poor creatures. If Saccard should enrich them, would they not bless him—would he not remain charitable and good in the estimation of both of them? So goodness was to be found everywhere, even in the worst, who are always good to someone, and who always, amidst the curses of a crowd, have humble, isolated voices thanking and adoring them. At this thought her mind turned towards the Institute of Work. On the day before she had, on Saccard's behalf, distributed some toys and sweetmeats there, in celebration of an anniversary; and she smiled involuntarily at the recollection of the children's noisy joy. For the last month Victor had given greater satisfaction; she had read some notes about him when calling on the Princess d'Orviedo, with whom, twice a week, she had a long chat respecting the institution. But as the image of Victor suddenly appeared to her, she felt astonished at having forgotten him in her crisis of despair, when she had made up her mind to flee from Paris. Could she have thus abandoned him—compromised the success of the good action which she had carried so far with so much trouble? A more and more penetrating feeling of gentle affection came upon her as she gazed into the obscurity of the tall trees, a flood of ineffable renunciation, of divine tolerance, which enlarged her heart; and it seemed to her that the common little lamp of the Beauvilliers ladies was now shining forth like a star.
When Madame Caroline came back to her table she was shivering a little. What! was she cold then? The idea amused her, she who boasted of passing the winter without fires. She felt, however, as though she had come from an icy bath, rejuvenated and strong, with her pulse very calm. It was thus with her on the mornings when she rose feeling particularly well. Then it occurred to her to put a log in the fire-place; and, seeing that the fire was out, she amused herself in lighting it again, without ringing for a servant. It was quite a job, for she had no small wood, but she at last managed to ignite the logs by means of some old newspapers, which she burned one after another. On her knees before the hearth she laughed all alone; and for a moment she remained there, feeling happy and surprised. She had again passed through one of her great crises, and now she again hoped. For what? She knew nothing of the eternal unknown that lay at the end of life, at the end of humanity. To live, that must suffice, in order that life might continually bring her the cure for the wounds which life inflicted. Once more did she remember the catastrophes of her existence—her frightful marriage, her poverty in Paris, her abandonment by the only man whom she had loved; and after every fall she had recovered that tenacious energy, that immortal joy which ever placed her on her feet again amid the ruins. Had not everything just collapsed again? She could no longer esteem Saccard, confronted as she had been by his frightful past, even as holy women are confronted by the unclean wounds which they go, morning and evening, to dress, not hoping ever to heal them. But, albeit she knew the truth, she was going to continue her wonted life. She was going to live in a fire, in the panting forge of speculation, under the incessant threat of a final catastrophe, in which her brother might lose his honour and his life. Nevertheless, there she stood, almost reckless, as on the morning of a fine day, tasting the joy of battle in confronting danger. Why? for nothing in reason, but for the sole pleasure of being! Her brother told her truly she was the incarnation of invincible hope.