Complete Works of Emile Zola (1137 page)

Madame Caroline looked at Dejoie in stupefaction. What! not a word of anger, not a reproach? This was the ardent faith of a believer. What powerful influence, then, could Saccard have had upon the flock, in order to place it under such a yoke of credulity?

‘In fact, madame, that was the only thing I came to tell you,’ Dejoie resumed; ‘and you must excuse me for having spoken to you of my own sorrow. I only did so because I couldn’t control myself. However, when you see Monsieur Saccard, be sure to tell him that we are still on his side.’

He then went off with his faltering step, and she, left to herself, for a moment felt horrified with existence. That poor man had broken her heart; against the other, the man whom she did not name, she felt increased anger, and had to put forth a great effort in order to restrain an outburst. However, other visitors had arrived, and it was necessary she should see them. She had not a moment to herself that morning.

Among the number the Jordans particularly distressed her. They came together, Paul and Marcelle, like a loving husband and wife who act conjointly in all serious matters, to ask her if there were really no hope of their parents the Maugendres, getting something more from their Universal shares. In this direction, too, there had been an irreparable disaster. Prior to the great battles of the last two settlements, the old awning manufacturer had already possessed seventy-five shares, which had cost him about eighty thousand francs; a superb affair, since these shares at one time, when quoted at the price of three thousand francs apiece, had represented two hundred and twenty-five thousand francs. But the terrible part was that, in the passion of the struggle, Maugendre had played without depositing any cover, believing in Saccard’s genius and buying incessantly, so that the frightful differences which now had to be paid — more than two hundred thousand francs — had just swallowed up the rest of his fortune, that income of fifteen thousand francs accumulated by thirty years of hard work. He had nothing left; in fact, he would be barely freed from debt, after selling that little residence in the Rue Legendre of which he was so proud. And in this disaster Madame Maugendre was certainly guiltier than he.

‘Ah! madame,’ explained Marcelle, whose charming face remained fresh and gay even in the midst of catastrophes, ‘you cannot imagine how mamma had changed! She, so prudent, so economical, the terror of her servants, always at their heels, always checking their accounts, had reached such a point that she talked of nothing but hundreds of thousands of francs. She urged on papa — oh! he was not nearly so brave as she was, but would willingly have listened to Uncle Chave if she had not made him crazy with her dream of gaining the big prize, the million. They caught the fever through reading those horrid, lying financial papers; and papa was the first to get it, and tried to hide it in the beginning; however, when mamma caught it, she who had so long professed a hatred of all gambling, everything blazed up and it wasn’t long before they were ruined. To think that the rage for gain can so change honest folks!’

Jordan thereupon intervened, amused by a recollection of Uncle Chave which his wife’s words had just brought to his mind. ‘And if you had seen Uncle Chave’s calmness amid these catastrophes!’ said he. ‘He had prophesied it all and was quite triumphant. He had not once failed to attend the Bourse, he had not once ceased to play his petty cash game, content with carrying his fifteen or twenty francs away every evening, like a good employee who has faithfully done his day’s work. Millions were falling around him on all sides, giant fortunes were being made and unmade in a couple of hours, gold was raining down by the bucketful amid the thunderclaps; and all the while he calmly continued making his little living.’

Then Madame Caroline replied to their questions. ‘Alas, no!’ she said. ‘I do not think that your parents can hope to get anything from their shares. All seems to me ended. The shares are now at thirty francs, they will fall to twenty francs, to a hundred sous apiece. Ah, mon Dieu! what will become of those poor people, at their age, accustomed to comforts as they are?’

‘Why,’ answered Jordan, simply, ‘we shall have to look after them. We are not very rich yet, but things are taking a better turn, and we shan’t leave them in the street.’

He had just had a piece of luck. After so many years of thankless toil, his first novel, issued at first as a newspaper serial, and then in book form by a publisher, had suddenly proved a big success; and he now found himself in possession of several thousand francs with all doors henceforth open before him. And he was all eagerness to set to work again, certain of attaining to fortune and glory.

‘If we cannot take them to live with us,’ he resumed, ‘we will secure a little lodging for them. We shall arrange matters in some way.’

A slight trembling came over Marcelle, who was looking at him with bewildered tenderness. ‘Oh! Paul, Paul, how good you are!’

And she began to sob.

‘Come, my child, calm yourself, I beg of you,’ Madame Caroline repeated in bewilderment; ‘you must not grieve like this.’

‘Oh! let me be; it is not grief. But really, it is all so stupid! When I married Paul, ought not mamma and papa to have given me the dowry which they had always spoken about? Under the pretext, however, that Paul no longer had a copper, and that I was acting foolishly in keeping my promise to him, they did not give us a centime. Ah! they are well punished! If they had given me my dowry they could have had it back now. That would always have been something saved from the Bourse!’

Madame Caroline and Jordan could not help laughing; however, that did not console Marcelle, who only cried the more.

‘And then, it is not only that,’ she stammered. ‘But when Paul was poor, I had a dream. Yes! as in the fairy tales, I dreamed that I was a princess, and that some day I should bring my ruined prince ever so much money, to help him to become a great poet. And now he has no need of me, I have become nothing but a burden, I and my family! It is he who is to have all the trouble, who is to make all the presents. Ah! I stifle at the thought!’

Paul, however, had caught her in his arms. ‘What are you talking about, you big silly? Does the wife need to bring anything? Why, you brought yourself, your youth, your love, your good-humour, and there is not a princess in the world that can give more.’

These words at once pacified her. She felt happy at finding that she was loved so well, and realised indeed that it was very stupid of her to cry.

‘If your father and your mother are willing,’ continued Jordan, ‘we will get them a place at Clichy, where I have seen some ground floors, with gardens, at a very reasonable figure. Our little nest is very nice, but it is too small, and, besides, we shall be needing every inch of room.’ Then smiling again, and turning towards Madame Caroline, who was greatly touched by this family scene, he added: ‘Yes, there will soon be three of us; we may as well confess it, now that I am earning a living! So you see, madame, here she is about to make me a present — she who weeps at having brought me nothing!’

Madame Caroline, who to her incurable despair was condemned to remain childless, looked at Marcelle, who was blushing slightly. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Ah! my dear children, love each other well,’ she said; ‘you alone are reasonable, you alone are happy!’

Then, before they took their leave, Jordan gave some particulars concerning the newspaper ‘L’Espérance.’ With his instinctive horror of business matters, he spoke of the office as a most singular cavern, where, himself alone excepted, the entire staff, from the director to the door porter, had engaged in speculation; and he, because he had not gambled, had been looked upon with intense disfavour and treated with contempt by all. Moreover, the fall of the Universal, and especially the arrest of Saccard, had virtually killed the journal. There had been a general scattering of the contributors, and Jantrou alone obstinately clung to the waif, beggared but hoping to derive a livelihood from the remnants of the wreck. He was now quite done for; those three years of prosperity during which he had to a monstrous degree enjoyed everything that could be bought, had finished him off. It was a case similar to that of those starving people who die of indigestion on the day when they sit down to table. And the curious feature, though logical for that matter, was the final downfall of the Baroness Sandorff, who, driven to desperation, longing to recover her money, had, amid all the confusion of the catastrophe, become this scoundrel’s mistress.

Madame Caroline turned slightly pale on hearing the Baroness’s name; but Jordan, who did not know that the two women had been rivals, went on telling his story. It appeared that on returning to the newspaper office one day to endeavour to obtain some money due to him, he had actually caught Jantrou boxing the Baroness’s ears. Yet she had suffered it, clinging to him, perhaps, because she thought that he could give her ‘tips,’ thanks to his position as an advertising agent. And so she was now rolling lower and lower, carried along that downward course by her passion for gambling, that passion which corrodes and rots everything, which turns one of even the highest and proudest race into a human rag, a waste scrap swept into the gutter. To think of that drunkard, a prey to every vice, belabouring that lady of the aristocracy with all the brutality of a professional bully!

With a gesture of grievous pain, Madame Caroline made Jordan stop. It seemed to her as though she herself were bespattered by this excess of degradation. At the moment of leaving, Marcelle took hold of her hand in a caressing way. ‘Pray don’t think, dear madame,’ said she, ‘that we came here to annoy you. Paul, on the contrary, stoutly defends Monsieur Saccard.’

‘Why, certainly!’ the young man exclaimed. ‘He has always been very kind to me. I shall never forget the way in which he relieved us of that terrible Busch. And then, too, he is wonderfully clever and energetic. When you see him, madame, be sure to tell him that we are still deeply grateful to him.’

When the Jordans had gone, Madame Caroline made a gesture of silent wrath. Grateful? Why? For the ruin of the Maugendres? Those Jordans were like Dejoie; they went away repeating the same words of excuse, the same good wishes. And yet they knew; that writer who had passed through the world of finance, with such a fine contempt for money, was certainly not an ignorant man. However, her own revolt continued and grew. No, there was no pardon possible, there was too much mud. Jantrou might have boxed the Baroness’s ears, but that did not avenge her. It was Saccard who had rotted everything.

That same day Madame Caroline was to go to Mazaud’s with reference to certain documents which she desired to add to the brief of her brother’s case. She also wished to know what would be the broker’s attitude in case the defence should summon him as a witness. Her appointment with him was for four o’clock, after the Bourse; and, on finding herself alone, she spent more than an hour and a half in classifying the information which she had already obtained. She was beginning to see more clearly through the heap of ruins. She had first asked herself where the money could have gone. In this catastrophe, in which two hundred millions had been swallowed up, if some pockets had been emptied, others must have been filled. Moreover, it seemed certain that the bears’ rakes had not gathered in the whole sum; a frightful leakage had carried away a good third. On days of disaster at the Bourse, it is as though the soil absorbs some of the money — it wanders away, a little sticks to all fingers.

However, Gundermann alone must have pocketed fifty millions; and Daigremont, from twelve to fifteen. The Marquis de Bohain was also mentioned as a big winner. His classic stroke had once more succeeded: playing through Mazaud for a rise, he refused to pay his differences, though he was receiving nearly two millions from Jacoby, through whom he had played for a fall. This time, however, although well aware that the Marquis had transferred his property to his wife, like a vulgar sharper, Mazaud, quite bewildered by his heavy losses, talked of taking legal proceedings against him.

Almost all the directors of the Universal, moreover, had carved themselves large slices — some, like Huret and Kolb, realising at a high figure before the collapse; others, like the Marquis and Daigremont, adopting treacherous tactics and going over to the ‘bears;’ to say nothing of the fact that at one of the last meetings, when the Bank was already in difficulties, the board had credited each of its members with a bonus of a hundred and odd thousand francs. Finally, at the corbeille, Delarocque and Jacoby were reputed to have won large sums, while Nathansohn was said to have become one of the kings of the coulisse, thanks to a profit of three millions which he had realised by playing on his own account for a fall, while playing for Saccard for a rise. The extraordinary feature of his luck was that, having made very large purchases on behalf of the Universal which could no longer pay, he would certainly have failed, and have been ‘posted,’ if it had not been found necessary to pass the sponge over all the transactions of the coulisse, making it a present of the sums which it owed since it was undoubtedly insolvent. So little Nathansohn earned the reputation of being both very lucky and very adroit. And what a pretty and amusing adventure it was to be able to pocket one’s winnings without being called upon to pay what one has lost!

However, all the figures remained vague; Madame Caroline could not form an exact estimate of the gains, for the operations of the Bourse are carried on with great mystery, and professional secrecy is strictly observed by the brokers. Even their memorandum-books would have told her nothing, no names being inscribed on them. Thus she in vain tried to ascertain what amount Sabatani had carried off with him on disappearing after the last settlement. That was another ruin, and a hard blow for Mazaud. It was the old story: the shady client, at first received with distrust, depositing a small security of two or three thousand francs, playing cautiously until he had established friendly relations with the broker, and the insignificance of his cover had been forgotten; then launching out, and taking to flight after perpetrating some brigand’s trick. Mazaud talked of posting Sabatani, just as he had formerly posted Schlosser, a sharper of the same band, the eternal band which ‘works’ the market, in the same way as the robbers of olden time ‘worked’ a forest. And the Levantine, that half-Oriental, half-Italian, with velvet eyes, over whom all the women had grown crazy, had now gone to infest the Bourse of some foreign capital — Berlin, so it was said — pending the time when he should be forgotten at the Bourse of Paris, and could come back again, ready to repeat his stroke, amid general toleration.