Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (35 page)

In December the share-price rose to more than a thousand francs. Then, in the face of this triumph of the Universal, the big banks began to be concerned, Gundermann was seen on the Place de la Bourse, walking as if absent-mindedly, and rather automatically, into the sweetshop to buy sweets. He had paid up his eight million loss without a murmur, and not one of his friends or family had heard a word of anger or resentment pass his lips. When he lost like this—a rare event—he would usually say that it served him right and would teach him to be less careless; and everyone smiled, for carelessness from Gundermann was scarcely imaginable. But this time the hard lesson must have lain heavy on his heart; the idea that he, so cold, so much the master of facts and men, should have been beaten by Saccard, that reckless and passionate madman, must certainly have been unbearable. So from that time on he began to watch Saccard closely, certain of getting his revenge. At once, given the widespread infatuation with the Universal, he had taken up a position as an observer convinced that over-rapid successes and dishonest prosperity always led to the worst disasters. However, the thousand-franc rate was still reasonable, and he was waiting to start to bring it down. His theory was that one could not provoke events on the Bourse, the most one could do was foresee them and profit by them once they occurred. Logic was the sole master of events, and truth, in speculation as everywhere else, was an all-powerful force. As soon as the share-prices became too inflated they would collapse: a fall was then a mathematical certainty, and he would simply be there, ready to see his calculation fulfilled and to pocket his profit. Already he had fixed
on the rate of fifteen hundred francs to begin the war. So, when the share-price reached fifteen hundred he began to sell Universals, just a little at first, but slightly more at each settlement day, following a predetermined plan. There was no need for a syndicate of bear dealers; he alone would be sufficient; sensible people would clearly perceive the truth and follow his lead. That rowdy Universal, that Universal which was so rapidly taking up so much room in the market and rising up threateningly against the big Jewish banks, he would coolly wait for it to crack all by itself, then, with a shove of his shoulder, cast it to the ground.

It was said later that it was Gundermann who secretly facilitated Saccard’s purchase of an ancient building in the Rue de Londres, which he intended to demolish and replace with the mansion of his dreams, the palace which would provide sumptuous accommodation for his bank. He had managed to persuade the board of directors, and the work began in mid-October.

On the very day when the first stone was laid, with great ceremony, Saccard was at the newspaper office at about four o’clock waiting for Jantrou, who had gone to take reports of the ceremony to some friendly papers, when he received a visit from Baroness Sandorff. She had first asked for the editor and then, as if by chance, had come upon the manager of the Universal, who had gallantly offered his services for whatever information she required, leading her into his own room at the end of the corridor. And there, at the first brutal attack, she surrendered like a prostitute, on the divan, resigned in advance to the event.

But a complication arose, for Madame Caroline, out shopping in Montmartre, called in at the newspaper. She sometimes dropped in like this to answer some query of Saccard’s or just to get the news. Besides she knew Dejoie, having got him his job, and always stopped for a minute to chat, happy in the gratitude he showed her. That day, not having found Dejoie in the antechamber, she entered the corridor and bumped into him just as he was getting back from listening at the door. This had now become a real malady; he trembled feverishly and pressed his ear at every keyhole, trying to surprise the secrets of the Bourse. But this time what he overheard and understood had rather embarrassed him, and he smiled vaguely.

‘He is here, isn’t he?’ said Madame Caroline, wishing to get past. Dejoie stopped her and, not having time to invent a lie, stammered:

‘Yes he’s there, but you can’t go in.’

‘What do you mean, I can’t go in?’

‘No, he is with a lady.’

She had turned quite white, and Dejoie, knowing nothing of the situation, with multiple winks and nods and expressive mimicry, indicated what was happening.

‘Who is this lady?’ she asked curtly.

He had no reason to hide the name from his benefactress, so he leaned over to whisper in her ear:

‘Baroness Sandorff… Oh! She’s been hanging round him for some time.’

Madame Caroline stood quite still for a moment. In the gloom of the corridor the livid pallor of her face remained invisible. She had just felt a sharp and cruel pain in her heart, of a sort she could not remember ever having felt before; and it was stupefaction at this appalling wound that rooted her to the spot. And now what would she do, break into the room? Fall upon that woman? Hit them both with a scandal?

She was still standing there, indecisive and dazed, when Marcelle, who had come to get her husband, approached her gaily. The young woman had only recently made her acquaintance.

‘Ah, it’s you, dear lady… Just imagine, we’re going to the theatre this evening! Oh! it’s quite a business, it has to be very cheap… But Paul has discovered a little restaurant where we can eat for thirty-five sous each…’

Jordan arrived and interrupted his wife with a laugh.

‘Two courses, a carafe of wine, and as much bread as you like!’

‘And’, Marcelle went on, ‘we’re not taking a cab; it’s such fun to walk home when it’s very late!… And since we’re rich this evening, we’ll get an almond cake for twenty sous to take home… Such a celebration! A fantastic treat!’

She went away full of delight, on her husband’s arm. And Madame Caroline, who came back with them to the antechamber, had now recovered enough strength to smile.

‘Have a lovely time,’ she murmured in a tremulous voice.

Then she also left. She loved Saccard, and this caused her both astonishment and pain, as if it were a shameful wound she was unwilling to reveal.

T
WO
months later, on a mild, grey November day, Madame Caroline went up to the workroom straight after lunch to get to work. Her brother, now in Constantinople, and busy with his grand Oriental railways project, had asked her to look up the notes he had made on their first trip, and then to draw up a sort of report, to serve as a historical record; and for a good two weeks now, she had been trying to get totally absorbed in this task. It was so warm that day that she let the fire go out and opened the window, and before sitting down again, she gazed for a moment at the tall, bare trees in the garden of the hotel Beauvilliers, purplish against the pale sky.

She had been writing for almost half-an-hour when the need for a particular document took her off on a long search among the files piled up on the table. She got up and rummaged among some other papers, then went back with her hands full, and sat down again. And as she sorted through a few loose pages, she came upon some religious pictures, an illustrated view of the Holy Sepulchre
*
and a prayer framed by the instruments of the Passion,
*
a sovereign guarantee of salvation in those moments of distress when the soul is in peril. Then she remembered that her brother, like the pious grown-up child that he was, had bought these images in Jerusalem. Her feelings suddenly overcame her, and her cheeks became wet with tears. Ah, that brother of hers, so intelligent, so unappreciated for so long, how lucky he was to have his faith, and not want to smile at this naive, chocolate-box picture of the Holy Sepulchre, how fortunate to be able to find serene strength in his belief in the efficacy of this prayer with its sugary verses. She could see him now, too trusting, too easily taken in perhaps, but so upright, so steady, so free from rebellion or conflict. She, on the other hand, no longer a believer, had endured two months of suffering and struggle, her mind burned by reading and battered by arguments, and how passionately she had wished in her hours of weakness, that she had remained simple and ingenuous like him, able to soothe her bleeding heart by repeating three times, morning and evening, that childish prayer framed by the nails, the lance, the crown, and the sponge of the Passion!

In the days that followed the brutal accident through which she
had learned of Saccard’s affair with Baroness Sandorff, she had steeled herself, by a great effort of will, to resist the urge to keep watch on them and find out more. She was not the wife of this man, nor did she wish to be the passionate mistress, jealous enough to provoke a scandal; and the worst of it was that she still could not bring herself to refuse him, in the intimacy of their everyday life. This was because of the quiet, simply affectionate way in which she had at first viewed their affair: a friendship that had inevitably led to her giving herself, as often happens between a man and a woman. She was no longer twenty, and she had acquired a great deal of tolerance after the harsh experience of her marriage. At thirty-six, as she was so sensible, and believed herself to be quite without illusions, couldn’t she just shut her eyes to things and behave more like a mother than a lover toward this friend, to whom she had surrendered herself late in life, in a momentary moral lapse, this friend, who was himself well past the age of romantic heroes? She had frequently remarked that people often attached too much importance to these sexual relations, sometimes mere encounters, which were then allowed to complicate their entire lives. But then she was the first to smile at the immorality of her remark, for didn’t that mean that all sins were permitted, and every woman could belong to every man? And yet so many women are sensible enough to accept sharing with a rival, that the good-natured character of current practice seems better than the jealous demand for sole and total possession! But these were all just theoretical ways of making life bearable; and although she forced herself into abnegation, continuing to be the devoted housekeeper, the unusually intelligent servant, willing to offer her body when she had already given her heart and mind, it was all in vain, for her body and her passion rose in revolt, and she suffered dreadfully from not knowing everything, not violently breaking with Saccard, and flinging in his face the terrible wrong he had done her. She had, however, mastered herself sufficiently to be able to hold her tongue, remaining calm and continuing to smile, and never in her whole existence, harsh as it had been, had she felt the need of so much strength.

For a moment longer, with the smile, sad but full of tenderness, of a non-believer, she gazed at the sacred images she still held in her hands. But she was no longer seeing them, she was trying to work out what Saccard might have been doing the day before, and what he was doing this very day, in an endless and irresistible churning of her
mind, which instinctively returned to this inquisition, once she allowed it to be less than fully occupied. He seemed anyway to be leading his usual life, his mornings spent dealing with his managerial responsibilities, his afternoons at the Bourse, and in the evening dinner engagements, first-nights, a life of pleasure, and a few theatre girls, about whom she felt no jealousy. But she had the feeling that he had some new interest, something that occupied the hours he had previously spent in other ways—it was that woman, no doubt, and meetings with her somewhere she would not allow herself to know about. All this made her suspicious and distrustful, and she began once more, in spite of herself, to ‘act the policeman’, as her brother had laughingly called it, even about the affairs of the Universal, that she had quite ceased to keep an eye on, so great for a time had been her confidence in Saccard. Certain irregularities now struck her forcibly and upset her. Then she found to her surprise that she didn’t really care, and didn’t have the strength to speak up or act, so totally gripped was she by the one anguish, that betrayal she had tried to accept, but which was choking her. Ashamed to feel tears overcoming her again, she hid the pictures away, mortally regretting that she could not get on her knees to find comfort in a church, and weep for hours until she had no more tears to shed.

After ten minutes, Madame Caroline had calmed down and was working on the report again when the valet came in to tell her that Charles, a coachman who had been dismissed the day before, was insisting on speaking to her. Saccard himself had engaged him but had caught him stealing from the oat store. She hesitated, then agreed to see him. Tall, good-looking, clean-shaven, and swaying his hips with the confident, conceited air of a man that women spend money on, Charles came in, full of insolence.

‘Madame, I’ve come about my two shirts that the laundress has lost and refuses to account for. Madame surely can’t imagine that I can simply accept such a loss… and since Madame is the person in charge, I want Madame to reimburse me for my shirts… Yes, I want fifteen francs.’

Madame Caroline was very strict on such household matters. She would perhaps have given him the fifteen francs, just to avoid an argument. But the effrontery of the man, caught red-handed the day before, quite revolted her.

‘I owe you nothing, and shan’t give you a sou… Besides, Monsieur
warned me about you and absolutely forbade me to do anything for you.’

At this, Charles took a step forward, threateningly.

‘Ah, so that’s what Monsieur said! I thought as much, and Monsieur was wrong, because now we’ll have some fun… I’m not so stupid as not to have seen that Madame is his mistress…’

Flushing, Madame Caroline stood up to send him away. But he didn’t give her the chance, and went on:

‘And perhaps Madame will be happy to know where Monsieur goes from four o’clock to six, two or three times a week, when he’s sure of finding a certain person alone…’

She had suddenly turned very pale, as if all her blood was flowing back to her heart. She made a violent gesture, as if to force back into his throat this information she had been avoiding for the last two months.

‘I absolutely forbid you…’

But he shouted over her.