Money (L'Argent)

She openly opposed him, however. 'You had neither justice nor logic on your side,' said she; 'you could not succeed.'

He had stopped short in front of her, and became angry. 'Not succeed, nonsense! Money was lacking, that was all. If Napoleon, on the day of Waterloo, had had another hundred thousand men to send to the butchery, he would have triumphed, and the face of the world would have been changed. And if I had had the necessary few hundred millions to throw into the gulf, I should now be the master of the world.'

'But it is frightful!' she cried, revolting. 'What! Do you think there have not been ruins enough, not tears enough, not blood enough as it is? You would have more disasters still, more families stripped, more unfortunates reduced to begging in the streets!'

He began tramping to and fro again, and with a gesture of supreme indifference shouted: 'Does life concern itself about that? At every step we take we stamp out thousands of existences.'

Silence fell; she watched him with a freezing heart as he marched up and down. Was he a knave? Was he a hero? She trembled as she asked herself what thoughts he could have revolved, like a great captain, conquered and reduced to powerlessness, during the six months that he had been confined in that cell; and then only did she glance about her and espy the four bare walls, the little iron bedstead, the deal table, and the two straw-bottomed chairs. To think of it! He who had lived amid lavish, dazzling luxury!

But suddenly he sat down again, as if his legs were weary; and then he began talking at length in an undertone, as though making a kind of involuntary confession.

'Gundermann was right,' he said; 'fever is worth nothing at the Bourse. Ah, the rascal, how happy he is in having no blood or nerves left him! I believe, however, that he has always been like that, his veins flowing with ice instead of blood. I am too passionate, that is evident. There is no other reason for my defeat; that is why my back has been so often broken. And it must be added that, if my passion kills me, it is also my passion that gives me life. Yes, it bears me on, it lifts me up on high, and then strikes me down and suddenly destroys all its work. Enjoyment is, after all, perhaps only the devouring of self.'

Then he was stirred by a fit of anger against his conqueror. 'Ah! that Gundermann, that dirty Jew, who triumphs because he has no desires! The whole race is summed up in him, frigid, stubborn conqueror that he is, on the march towards sovereign sway over the whole world, amid the nations whom he buys up one by one by means of his omnipotent gold. For centuries past his race has been invading us and triumphing over us, no matter how much it may have been cuffed and kicked. He already has one milliard: he will have two, he will have ten, he will eventually have a hundred, he will some day be the master of the earth. I have been shouting this from the housetops for years past, but no one seems to listen to me. Everybody thinks it the mere spite of a jealous speculator, when it is the very cry of my blood. Yes, hatred of the Jew, I have it in me—oh! very deep, in the very roots of my being!'

'What a singular thing!' quietly murmured Madame Caroline, who, with her vast knowledge, practised universal toleration. 'To me the Jews are men like any others. If they are apart, it is because they have been put apart.'

But Saccard, who had not even heard her, continued with increasing violence: 'And what exasperates me is that I see governments the accomplices of these rascals, governments at their very feet! Thus the Empire has sold itself to Gundermann! As if it were impossible to reign without Gundermann's money! Certainly, Rougon, that great man my brother, has behaved in a very disgusting manner towards me; for I have not told you of it before, but I was cowardly enough to seek a reconciliation before the catastrophe, and, if I am here, it is because it pleased him. But no matter; since I embarrass him, let him get rid of me; I shall feel no anger against him, except with regard to his alliance with those dirty Jews. Have you thought of that? the Universal strangled in order that Gundermann may continue his commerce; every Catholic bank that grows too powerful crushed, as a social danger, in order to ensure the definitive triumph of the children of Israel, who will devour us, and that soon. Ah, Rougon should be careful! He will be the first to be eaten, swept away from the post of power to which he clings, and for which he betrays everything. His game of see-saw is very cunning, with its guarantees given one day to the Liberals and the next day to the Reactionaries; but it is a game at which one always ends by breaking one's neck. And, since everything is cracking and falling, let Gundermann's desires be accomplished, he who predicted that France would be beaten, if we should ever have a war with Germany! We are ready; the Prussians have only to cross the frontier, and take our provinces!'

With a terrified, supplicating gesture, she begged him not to talk like that. It was as though he were calling down the thunder of heaven. 'No, no! do not say such things. You have no right to say them. Moreover, your brother had nothing to do with your arrest. I know from a certain source that it was Delcambre, the Keeper of the Seals, who did it all.'

On hearing this Saccard's wrath fell, and he smiled. 'Oh, the fellow is taking his revenge!' he said. She gave him a questioning look, and he added: 'Yes, an old affair between us—I know in advance that I shall be condemned.'

She doubtless suspected the truth, for she did not insist. A brief silence prevailed, during which he again took up the papers on the table, absorbed in his fixed idea.

'It is very kind of you to have come,' he said at last, 'and you must promise me you will come again, because you are a good counsellor, and I wish to submit my projects to you. Ah, if I only had some money!'

She quickly interrupted him, seizing this opportunity to enlighten herself upon a question which had haunted and tormented her for months. What had he done with the millions which he must possess for his own share? Had he sent them abroad, buried them under some tree known to himself alone? 'But you have plenty of money!' she exclaimed. 'The two millions you made after Sadowa and the nine millions which your three thousand shares represented, if you sold them at the rate of three thousand francs apiece!'

'I, my dear,' he cried, 'I haven't a copper!'

And he spoke these words in so frank and despairing a voice, he looked at her with such an air of surprise, that she was convinced he said the truth. 'Never have I had a sou when my enterprises have turned out badly,' he continued. 'Don't you understand that I ruin myself with the rest? Certainly, yes, I sold my shares, but I bought others also; and where my nine millions, together with two other millions, have gone, I should be greatly embarrassed to explain to you. I really believe that my account with poor Mazaud left me thirty or forty thousand francs in his debt. No, I haven't a sou left; it has been the clean sweep, as usual.'

She was so relieved, so elated, by this answer that she began to jest about the ruin of herself and her brother. 'We too, shall have nothing left when all is over,' she said, 'I do not know even whether we shall have enough to feed us for a month. Ah, that money, those nine millions you promised us, you remember how they frightened me! Never had I lived in such a state of uneasiness, and what a relief it was on the evening of the day when I had surrendered everything in favour of the assets! Even the three hundred thousand francs which we had inherited from our aunt went with the rest. That is not very just. But, as I once told you, one sets little store by money found, money that one has not earned. And you can see for yourself that, despite everything, I am now gay and can laugh.'

He stopped her with a feverish gesture; he had taken the papers from the table, and was waving them in the air. 'Nonsense!' he said, 'we shall be very rich.'

'How?'

'What! do you suppose that I abandon my ideas? Why, for six months past I have been working here, sitting up at nights and reconstructing everything. The imbeciles look upon that advance balance-sheet as a crime, pretending that, of the three great enterprises, the United Steam Navigation Company, the Carmel mine, and the Turkish National Bank, only the first has yielded the expected profits! But if the two others are in peril, it is because I have not been there to see to things. When they let me out, however—yes, when I have become the master again, you will see, you will see——'

With supplicating gestures she tried to keep him from continuing. But he had risen, and straightening himself up on his short legs, cried out in his shrill voice: 'The calculations are made; there are the figures, look! The Carmel mine and the Turkish National Bank are mere playthings! We must have the vast network of the Oriental railways; we must have all the rest, Jerusalem, Bagdad, the whole of Asia Minor conquered. What Napoleon was unable to do with his sword, we shall do with our pickaxes and our gold! How could you believe that I had thrown up the game? Napoleon came back from Elba, remember. I, also, shall only have to show myself, and all the money of Paris will rise to follow me: and this time there will be no Waterloo, I assure you, because my plan is a rigorously mathematical one, foreseen to the very last centime. So at last, then, we shall strike down that wretched Gundermann! I only ask four hundred millions, perhaps five hundred millions of francs, and the world will be mine!'

She had succeeded in taking his hands, and pressed herself against him. 'No, no!' she exclaimed. 'Be silent, you frighten me.'

And yet, in spite of herself and of her fright, a feeling of admiration rose within her. In this bare, wretched cell, bolted in, separated from the living, she had suddenly become conscious of an overflowing force, a resplendency of life: the eternal illusion of hope, the stubborn obstinacy of the man who does not wish to perish. She sought for her anger, her execration, and could no longer find them within her. Had she not condemned him, however, after the irreparable misfortunes which he had caused? Had she not called down chastisement upon him, solitary death amidst universal contempt? But of all that she now only retained her hatred of evil and her pity for sorrow. Again did she succumb to that conscienceless, active power, as to some violence of nature, necessary no doubt. And although this was but a woman's weakness, she yielded to it with delight, swayed by her maternal nature, that infinite need of affection which had made her love him even while not esteeming him.

'It is finished,' she repeated several times, without ceasing to press his hands in hers; 'can you not calm yourself and rest at last?'

Then, as he raised himself to press his lips on her white hair, the locks of which fell over her temples with the tenacious abundance of youth, she held him back, and added, with an air of absolute resolution and profound sadness, giving the words their full significance: 'No, no! it is finished—finished for ever. I am glad to have seen you a last time, that there may remain no anger between us. Farewell!'

As she started off, she saw him standing by the table, really moved by the separation, but already instinctively rearranging the papers which he had mingled in his fever; and the little bouquet of roses having shed its petals among the pages, he shook these one by one, and, with a touch of the fingers, swept the remnants of the flowers away.

Not until three months later, towards the middle of December, did the affair of the Universal Bank at last come into court. It occupied five sittings of the Tribunal of Correctional Police,[29] and excited lively curiosity. The Press had made an enormous sensation of the catastrophe, and most extraordinary stories had been circulated with regard to the delay in the trial. The indictment drawn up by the officials of the Public Prosecution Office was much remarked. It was a masterpiece of ferocious logic, the smallest details being grouped, utilised, and interpreted with pitiless clearness. Moreover, it was said on all sides that condemnation had been predetermined on. And, in fact, the evident good faith of Hamelin, the heroic demeanour of Saccard, who fought his accusers step by step throughout the five days, the magnificent and sensational speeches for the defence, did not prevent the judges from sentencing both defendants to five years' imprisonment and three thousand francs fine. However, having been temporarily set at liberty on bail, a month before the trial, and having thus appeared before the court as defendants still at liberty, they were able to lodge an appeal and to leave France in twenty-four hours. It was Rougon who had insisted on this dénouement, not wishing to be burdened with a brother in prison. The police themselves watched over the departure of Saccard, who fled to Belgium by a night train. The same day Hamelin had started for Rome.

And then three more months rolled away, and in the early days of April Madame Caroline still found herself in Paris, where she had been detained by the settlement of their intricate affairs. She still occupied the little suite of rooms at the Orviedo mansion, which posters still advertised for sale. However, she had just overcome the last difficulties, and was in a position to depart, certainly without a sou in her pockets, but without leaving any debts behind her, and so she was to start the next day for Rome, in order to join her brother, who had been fortunate enough to secure an insignificant situation as an engineer there. He had written to her saying that pupils awaited her. It was a re-beginning of their lives.

On rising on the morning of this the last day which she would spend in Paris, she was seized with a desire not to quit the city without making some attempt to obtain news of Victor. So far all search had been vain. But, remembering the promises of La Méchain, she said to herself that perhaps this woman might now know something; and that it would be easy to question her by going to Busch's office at about four o'clock. At first she rejected the idea; for what was the use of taking this step? Was not all this the dead past? Then she really suffered, her heart overflowed with grief, as for a child whom she had lost and whose grave she had failed to strew with flowers on going away. So at four o'clock she made her appearance in the Rue Feydeau.

Both doors on the landing were open, some water was boiling violently in the dark kitchen, while, on the other side, in the little office, La Méchain, who occupied Busch's arm-chair, seemed submerged by a heap of papers, which she was taking in enormous packages from her old black leather bag.

'Ah, it is you, my good madame!' she said. 'You come at a very bad moment. Monsieur Sigismond is dying. And poor Monsieur Busch is positively losing his head over it, so much does he love his brother. He does nothing but run about like a crazy man; he has just gone out again to get a doctor. I am obliged to attend to his business, you see, for he has not bought a share or even looked into a claim for a week past. Fortunately, I made a good stroke just now—oh! a real stroke, which will console him a little for his sorrow, the dear man, when he recovers his senses.'

Such was Madame Caroline's astonishment that she forgot she had called about Victor. She had recognised the papers which La Méchain was taking by the handful from her bag. They were some of the shares of the Universal Bank. The old leather was fairly cracking, such a number of them had been packed into the bag; and the woman went on pulling out more and more, very talkative in her delight. 'I got all these for two hundred and fifty francs,' she said; 'there are certainly five thousand, which puts them at a sou apiece. A sou for shares that were quoted at three thousand francs! They have fallen almost to the price of waste-paper. But they are worth more than that; we shall sell them again for at least ten sous apiece, because they are wanted by bankrupts. You understand, they have had such a good reputation that they look very well in a list of assets. It is a great distinction to have been a victim of a catastrophe. In short, I had extraordinary luck; ever since the battle, I had scented the ditch where all this merchandise was sleeping, a whole lot of dead 'uns, which an imbecile who didn't know his business has let me have for nothing. And you can imagine whether I pounced upon them! Ah, it did not take long; I cleaned him out of them very speedily!'

Thus chattering, she displayed the glee of a bird of prey on some field of financial massacre. The unclean nutriment upon which she had fattened oozed forth in perspiration from her huge person; while, with her short, hooked hands, she stirred up the dead—those all but worthless shares, which were already yellow and emitted a rank smell.

But a low, ardent voice arose from the adjoining room, the door of which stood wide open, like the doors opening upon the landing. 'Ah!' she said, 'there is Monsieur Sigismond beginning to talk again. He has been doing nothing but that ever since this morning. Mon Dieu! and the boiling water! I was forgetting it. It is for some tisane. My good madame, since you are here, will you just see if he wants anything?'

La Méchain hurried into the kitchen, while Madame Caroline, whom suffering attracted, entered Sigismond's room. Its nudity was enlivened by a bright April sun, whose rays fell upon the little deal table, covered with memoranda, bulky portfolios, whence overflowed the labour of ten years; and there was nothing else except the two straw-bottomed chairs, the few volumes heaped upon the shelves, and the narrow bed in which Sigismond, propped up by three pillows, and clad to his waist in a short red flannel blouse, was talking, talking incessantly, under the influence of that singular cerebral excitement which sometimes precedes the death of consumptives. He was delirious, but had moments of extraordinary lucidity; and in his thin face, framed with long, curling hair, his dilated eyes seemed to be questioning the void.

When Madame Caroline appeared, he seemed to know her at once, although they had never met. 'Ah! it is you, madame,' he said; 'I had seen you, I was calling you with all my strength. Come, come nearer, that I may speak to you in a low voice.'

In spite of the little shudder of fear which had seized upon her, she approached, and sat down on a chair close to the bed.

'I did not know it, but I know it now,' continued Sigismond. 'My brother sells papers, and I have heard people weeping there, in his office. My brother, ah! it pierced my heart like a red-hot iron. Yes, it is that which has remained in my chest, it is always burning there because it is abominable, that money—the poor people who suffer. And by-and-by, when I am dead, my brother will sell my papers, and I do not wish it—no, I do not wish it!'

His voice gradually rose, assumed a tone of supplication. 'There, madame, there are my papers, on the table. Give them to me; we will make a parcel of them, and you shall carry them away, all of them. Oh, I was calling you, I was waiting for you! Think of it! My papers lost! all my life of study and effort annihilated!' And as she hesitated to give him what he asked, he clasped his hands: 'For pity's sake,' he said, 'give them to me, so that I may be sure that they are all there, before dying. My brother isn't here, so he won't say that I am killing myself. Come, I beg you.'

Upset by the ardour of his prayer, she yielded. 'But I do wrong,' said she, 'since your brother says that it does you harm.'

'Harm! Oh, no. And besides, what does it matter? Ah! I have at last succeeded in setting the society of the future on its feet, after so many nights of toil! Everything is foreseen, solved; there will be the utmost possible justice and happiness. How I regret not having had the time to write the work itself, with all the necessary developments! But here are my notes, complete and classified. And you will save them, won't you? so that another may some day give them the definitive form of a book, and launch it through the world.'

He had taken the papers in his long thin hands, and was turning them over amorously, while a flame once more kindled in his large, fading eyes. He spoke very rapidly, in a curt monotonous tone, with the tic-tac of a clock-chain which the weight unwinds; and 'twas indeed the sound of the cerebral mechanism working without a pause whilst the death agony progressed.

'Ah! how I see it, how clearly it rises before me, the city of justice and happiness! There one and all labour, with a personal labour, obligatory, yet free. The nation is simply an immense co-operative society, the appliances become the property of all, the products are centralised in vast general warehouses. You have performed so much useful work; you have a right to so much social consumption. The hour's work is the common measure; an article is worth what it has cost in hours; there is nothing but exchange between all producers, by the aid of labour notes, and that under the management of the community, without any other deduction than the one tax to support the children and the aged, to renew the appliances and to defray the cost of gratuitous public services. No more money, and therefore no more speculation, no more robbery, no more abominable trafficking, no more of those crimes which cupidity prompts, girls married for their dowry's sake, aged parents strangled for their property, passers-by assassinated for their purses! No more hostile classes, employers and wage-workers, proletarians and bourgeois, and therefore no more restrictive laws or courts, no armed force protecting the iniquitous monopolies of the few against the mad hunger of the many! No more idlers of any sort, and therefore no more landlords living on rents, no more bondholders kept in sloth—in short, no more luxury and no more poverty! Ah! is not that the ideal equity, the sovereign wisdom, none privileged, none wretched, each by his own effort securing happiness, the average human happiness!'

He was becoming excited, and his voice grew soft and distant, as if travelling far away, ascending to a great height, into the very future whose coming he announced.

'Ah! if I entered into details. You see this separate sheet, with all these marginal notes: this is the organisation of the family, free contract, the education and support of children provided by the community. Yet this is not anarchy. Look at this other note; I desire that there should be a managing committee for each branch of production, so that by ascertaining the real wants of the community the output may be proportionate to the consumption. And here is another detail of the organisation: in the cities and the fields industrial and agricultural armies will manœuvre under the leadership of chiefs whom they will have elected, and obey regulations which they will have voted. Stay! I have also indicated here, by approximate calculations, how far the day's labour may be reduced twenty years hence. Thanks to the great number of new hands, thanks especially to machinery, men will work only four hours a day, perhaps only three; so you see how much time they will have left them to enjoy life! For this will not be a barracks, but a city of liberty and gaiety, in which each will be free to take his own pleasure, with plenty of time to satisfy his legitimate appetites, to taste the delights of love, strength, beauty and intelligence, and to take his share of inexhaustible nature.'

By the gesture he made, a gesture which swept round the miserable room, it seemed as though he possessed the whole world. In this nudity in which he had lived, in this poverty exempt from want in which he was dying, he made a fraternal distribution of the earth's goods. It was universal happiness, all that is good and that he had not enjoyed, which he thus distributed, knowing that he would never enjoy it. He had hastened his death that he might make this supreme gift to suffering humanity. And indeed his hands wandered, groping among the scattered notes, while his eyes, which could no longer see earthly things, filled as they were by the dazzling of death, seemed to espy infinite perfection, beyond life, in an ecstatic rapture which illumined his entire face.

'Ah! how much more activity there will be, entire humanity at work, the hands of all the living improving the world! No more moors, no more marshes, no more waste lands of any kind! Arms of the sea are filled up, obstructive mountains disappear, deserts change into fertile valleys, with waters flowing from every direction. No prodigy is unrealisable; the great works of the ancients cause a smile, so timid and childish do they seem. The earth is at last inhabitable. And man is completely developed, full-grown, in the enjoyment of his true appetites, the real master at last. Schools and workshops are open; the child freely chooses his trade, which his aptitude determines. Years go by, and the selection is made after severe examinations. It no longer suffices that one should be able to pay for education, it is necessary to profit by it. Each one thus finds himself classed, utilised according to his degree of intelligence, by which means public functions are equitably distributed, in accordance with the indications of Nature herself. Each for all, according to his powers! Ah! active and joyous city, ideal city of healthy human work, in which the old prejudice against manual labour no longer exists, in which one sees great poets who are carpenters, locksmiths who are great savants! Ah! city of the blest, triumphal city towards which mankind has been marching for so many centuries, city whose white walls I see shining yonder—yonder, in the realm of happiness, in the blinding sunlight.'

His eyes paled: his last words came indistinctly, in a faint breath; and his head fell back, an ecstatic smile still playing about his lips. He was dead.

Overcome with pity and emotion, Madame Caroline was looking at him, when a whirlwind, as it were, suddenly swept into the room. It was Busch, coming back without a doctor, panting and worn out with anguish; while La Méchain, at his heels, explained that she had not yet been able to prepare the tisane, as the water had boiled over. But he had perceived his brother—his little child, as he called him—lying on his back, motionless, with his mouth open and his eyes fixed; and he understood, and gave vent to a shriek like that of a slaughtered animal. With a bound he threw himself upon the body and raised it in his two big arms, as if to infuse life into it again. That terrible devourer of gold, who would have killed a man for ten sous, who had so long preyed upon the filth of Paris, now shrieked aloud with abominable suffering. His little child, O God! he whom he put to bed, whom he fondled like a mother! He would never have his little child with him any more! And, in a fit of mad despair, he seized upon the papers scattered over the bed, tore them up and crushed them, as if wishing to annihilate all that imbecile labour which he had ever been jealous of, and which had killed his brother.

Then Madame Caroline felt her heart melt. The poor man! he now filled her with divine pity. But where, then, had she heard that shriek before? Once only had the cry of human grief brought her such a shudder. And she suddenly remembered, it was at Mazaud's—the shriek of the mother and her little ones at sight of the father's corpse. As if incapable of withdrawing from this scene of suffering, she remained a few minutes longer, and rendered some services. Then, at the moment of starting off, finding herself alone again with La Méchain in the little office, she remembered that she had come to inquire about Victor. And so she questioned her. Oh, Victor—well, he was far away by this time, if he were still running! She, La Méchain, had scoured Paris for three months, without discovering the slightest trace of him. So she had given it up; the bandit would be found, sure enough, some day, on the scaffold. Madame Caroline listened, frozen and dumb. Yes, it was finished; the monster had been let loose upon the world, had gone forth to the future, to the unknown, like a beast frothing with hereditary virus, and fated to spread the evil with every bite.

Outside, on the footway of the Rue Vivienne, Madame Caroline was surprised by the mildness of the air. It was five o'clock; the sun, setting in a soft, clear sky, was gilding the signboards of the distant boulevard houses. This springtide, so charming with its renewal of youth, seemed like a caress to her whole physical being—a caress which penetrated even to her heart. She took a deep breath and felt relieved, happier already, with a sensation of invincible hope returning and growing within her. It was doubtless the beautiful death of that dreamer, giving his last breath to his chimera of justice and love, which thus moved her, for she herself had dreamt of a humanity purged of the execrable evil of money; and it was also the shriek of that other one, the exasperated bleeding tenderness of that terrible lynx, whom she had supposed to be heartless, incapable of tears. Yet no, she had not gone away under the consoling impression of so much human kindness and so much sorrow; on the contrary, she had carried despair away with her—despair at the escape of that little monster, who was galloping along the roads and sowing the ferment of rottenness from which the earth could never be freed. Why, then, should she now feel renascent gaiety filling her whole being?

On reaching the boulevard she turned to the left and slackened her pace, amid the animation of the crowd. For a moment she stopped before a little hand-cart, full of bunches of lilac and gilliflowers, whose strong perfume enveloped her with a whiff of springtide. And within her, as she resumed her walk, she felt a flood of joy arising, as from a bubbling source, which she was fain to restrain, to press back with her hands. For she had understood, and did not wish it. No, no, the frightful catastrophes were too recent; she could not be gay, she could not surrender to that flow of eternal life which uplifted her. And she tried to continue mourning; she recalled herself to despair by recapitulating all the cruel memories. What! she would laugh again, after the downfall of everything, after such a frightful mass of miseries! Did she forget that she was an accomplice? And she recalled the facts, this one, that one, that other one, in weeping over which she ought to spend all her remaining days. But between her fingers pressed upon her heart the bubbling sap was growing more impetuous, the source of life was overflowing, thrusting obstacles aside in order to course more freely, throwing the flotsam against either bank, so that it might flow along clear and triumphant in the sunlight.

From that moment Madame Caroline was conquered, and had to surrender to the irresistible force of Nature's rejuvenescence. As she sometimes said with a laugh, she could not remain sad. The trial was over; she had just touched the very depths of despair, and here was hope reviving again—broken, bleeding, but as tenacious as ever, growing and spreading from minute to minute. Certainly she retained no illusions; life, like Nature, was undoubtedly unjust and ignoble. Why, then, should one be so irrational as to love it, desire it, relying—like a child to whom is promised a pleasure ever deferred—on the far-off unknown goal towards which it is ever leading us? However, when she turned into the Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, she no longer even reasoned; the philosopher, the savante, the woman of letters that she was, had abdicated, weary of the vain inquiry into causes; and she remained a mere human creature, whom the beautiful sky and balmy atmosphere filled with happiness, who savoured the simple enjoyment of health, of listening to the firm tread of her little feet upon the pavement. Ah! the joy of being, is there really any other? Life! Give us life—life such as it is, however abominable it may be—life with its strength and its eternal hope!

On returning to her apartments in the Rue Saint-Lazare, which she was to leave the next day, Madame Caroline finished packing her trunks; and, on making the circuit of the workroom, which was already empty, she saw upon the walls the plans and water-colours, which she had resolved to tie up in a single roll, at the last moment. But as she stopped in turn before each sheet to remove the tacks at the corners, a dreamy mood came over her. She was once more living those far-off days which she had spent in the East, in that country which she had so dearly loved, and whose dazzling light she seemed to have retained within her; she was again living, too, those five years which she had just spent in Paris, those five years of daily crisis and mad activity, full of the monstrous hurricane of millions which had traversed and ravaged her existence; and from all the ruins, still warm, she already felt a complete florescence germinating, budding in the sunlight. Although the Turkish National Bank had fallen after the collapse of the Universal, the Steam Navigation Company remained erect and prosperous. Again she beheld the enchanted coast of Beyrout, where, in the midst of huge warehouses, stood the managerial buildings, the plan of which she was just dusting. Marseilles had been brought close to Asia Minor, the Mediterranean was being conquered, nations were being drawn together, and possibly pacified. And in the Carmel gorge, that water-colour which she was taking down from the wall, did she not know, from a recent letter, that a whole people had grown up there? The village of five hundred inhabitants, at first nestling round the mine, had now become a city of several thousand souls, with roads, factories, schools, a complete civilisation, fertilising the wild, dead nook. Then there were the sketches and plans for the railway from Broussa to Beyrout, by way of Angora and Aleppo, a series of large sheets, which she rolled up one by one. Years would go by no doubt before the Taurus passes would be traversed by the iron horse; but life was already flowing in from every direction, the soil of the ancient cradle of humanity had just been sown with a new crop of men, the progress of to-morrow would sprout up there, with an extraordinary vigour of vegetation, in that marvellous climate, under the dazzling sun. And was not this the reawakening of a world, humanity enlarged and happier?

Madame Caroline tied up the bundle of plans with some strong twine. Her brother, who was waiting for her at Rome, where both were going to begin their lives anew, had earnestly urged her to pack them carefully; and, as she tied the knots, she thought of Saccard, whom she knew to be now in Holland, again busy with a colossal enterprise—the draining of some immense marshes, the conquest of a little kingdom from the sea, by means of a complicated system of canals. He was right: money has hitherto been the dung-heap in which the humanity of the morrow has grown; money, albeit the poisoner and destroyer, becomes the ferment of all social vegetation, the compost necessary for the great works which make life easier. Did she at last see clearly? Did her invincible hope come from her belief in the usefulness of effort? Above all the mud stirred up, above all the victims crushed to death, above all the abominable suffering which each forward step costs humanity, is there not an obscure, far-off goal, something superior, good, just, and final, whither we are going without knowing it, and which ever inflates our hearts with a stubborn need of life and hope?

And Madame Caroline, with her face still and ever young under its crown of snowy hair, remained gay in spite of everything, gay as though rejuvenescence came to her with each returning April of the world's old age. And at the shame-fraught recollection of her liaison with Saccard she began to think of the frightful filth with which love also has been soiled. Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy—love which creates life?

THE END

NOTES