Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (46 page)

Once out in the street Marcelle had walked along like one unaware of her surroundings, looking at the ground as if she might find money there. Then she had suddenly thought she might appeal to Uncle Chave, and immediately called in at the ground-floor apartment in the Rue Nollet, before the opening of the Bourse, so as not to miss him. She could hear some whisperings and some girlish laughter. However, once the door was opened, she had found the captain alone, smoking his pipe, and he was terribly sorry, even angry with himself, as he exclaimed that he never had a hundred francs to hand, since he always, day by day used up, pig that he was, the little that he won on the Bourse. Then, after hearing of the refusal of the Maugendres, he thundered against them, the wretched scoundrels, he didn’t even see them any more, now the rise of their shares had driven them mad. Just the other week, hadn’t his sister called him a penny-pincher, ridiculing his caution as a speculator just because, in a friendly spirit, he had been advising her to sell? That was one person he wouldn’t be weeping over, when she came a cropper!

Marcelle, out in the street once more with empty hands, had to resign herself to going to the newspaper office to tell her husband what had happened that morning. Busch absolutely had to be paid. Jordan, whose book had not yet been accepted by any publisher, had at once launched himself into a hunt for money, all through the muddy Paris of that rainy day, with no idea of where to seek help—from friends, the newspapers for which he wrote, or from some chance meeting. Although he had begged her to go back home, Marcelle was so anxious that she had preferred to stay there on that bench and wait for him.

After his daughter had gone, Dejoie, seeing Marcelle by herself, brought her a paper.

‘Perhaps Madame would care to read this, to pass the time.’

But she refused with a wave, and as Saccard was just arriving, put on a brave face and gaily explained that she had just sent her husband off on an errand in the neighbourhood, a tiresome errand she had unloaded on him. Saccard, who had kindly feelings for this ‘little household’, as he called them, absolutely insisted that she come into his office to wait more comfortably. Marcelle refused, saying she was fine where she was. He ceased to insist when, to his surprise, he found himself suddenly face to face with Baroness Sandorff, coming out of Jantrou’s office,. They just smiled at each other, with an air of amiable understanding, in the manner of people who greet each other formally to avoid displaying their relationship.

Jantrou, in the course of their conversation, had just told the Baroness that he no longer dared advise her. He was growing more and more perplexed at the solidity of the Universal, in spite of the efforts of the ‘bears’; Gundermann would no doubt win, but Saccard could last quite a while yet, and there might still be much to gain by staying with him. He had persuaded her to play for time and stay on good terms with both. The best plan was to try always to be amiable enough to learn the secrets of the one, either keeping them to herself and profiting by them, or else selling them to the other, according to which was more profitable. And all this without any dark plotting, presented as if in jest, while the Baroness, with a laugh, promised to cut him in on the deal.

‘So she’s forever closeted with you now, it’s your turn, is it?’ said Saccard with his usual brutality, as he went into Jantrou’s office. Jantrou affected astonishment.

‘Who do you mean?… Ah, the Baroness!… But my dear sir, she adores you. She was just saying so.’

With the gesture of a man who is nobody’s fool, the old pirate stopped him there. And he gazed at Jantrou, wrecked as he was by vile debauchery, and thought that if the Baroness had yielded to her curiosity about Sabatani’s physique she might well have also wanted a taste of the vice of this old ruin.

‘Don’t defend yourself, my dear chap. When a woman starts playing the market, she would go for the doorman round the corner, if he could bring her an order.’

Jantrou was very hurt, and merely laughed, while still insisting on explaining the presence of the Baroness, who had come, he said, about a publicity matter.

Anyway, with a shrug of his shoulders, Saccard had already dropped the subject of the woman, of no interest as far as he was concerned. Remaining standing, walking back and forth, then planting himself at the window to watch the grey rain endlessly falling, he vented his joy and agitation. Yes, the Universal had again gone up twenty francs the day before! But how the devil was it that sellers were still persisting? For the rise would have gone up to thirty francs, without a whole package of shares that had fallen on the market as soon as the Bourse opened. What he didn’t know was that Madame Caroline had again sold a thousand of her shares, herself now struggling against the unreasonable rise, as her brother had ordered her to do. Saccard could hardly complain about the ever-increasing success, and yet he was agitated that day, trembling inwardly with ill-defined fear and anger. He exclaimed that the dirty Jews had sworn to defeat him, and that scoundrel Gundermann had just placed himself at the head of a syndicate of short-sellers to bring him down. He had been told of it at the Bourse, there was talk of a sum of three hundred million, intended by the syndicate to cover the short selling. Ah, the robbers! And what he did not repeat aloud were the other rumours going around, growing clearer day by day, rumours that questioned the solidity of the Universal, and already alleged some facts, some signs of approaching difficulties; without yet, it’s true, having at all shaken the blind confidence of the public.

But the door was pushed open and Huret appeared, with his simple, straightforward air.

‘Ah! There you are, you Judas!’ said Saccard.

Having learned that Rougon was definitely going to abandon his brother, Huret had joined up again with the minister; for he was convinced that once Saccard had Rougon against him, catastrophe was inevitable. To obtain his pardon, he had re-entered the household of the great man, once more running errands for him and exposing himself in his service to insults and kicks on the backside.

‘Judas,’ Huret repeated, with the sly smile that sometimes lit up his crude peasant features, ‘well, at any rate, a good-natured Judas, who comes to give a disinterested piece of advice to the master he betrayed.’

But Saccard, as if refusing to understand, shouted, simply to confirm his trumph:

‘Eh? Two thousand five hundred and twenty yesterday, two thousand five hundred and twenty-five today.’

‘I know, I just sold.’

Immediately, the anger Saccard had been hiding beneath his jesting manner exploded.

‘What? You sold?… Ah, well, that’s it then! You leave me for Rougon, and you join up with Gundermann!’

The Deputy gazed at him in bewilderment.

‘Why with Gundermann?… I’m simply looking after my own interests! You know I’m not a reckless fellow. No, I don’t have the stomach for it, I prefer to realize as soon as there’s a nice profit. And perhaps that’s why I have never lost.’

He was smiling again, like a prudent and sensible Norman who simply, unhurriedly, gathers in his harvest.

‘One of the directors of the company!’ Saccard expostulated. ‘So who can be expected to have faith in us? What must people think, seeing you selling like that while the price is still rising? Good Lord! I’m not surprised now if people claim our prosperity is artificial and that the day of our downfall draws nigh… These gentlemen are selling, so let’s all sell! It’s a panic!’

Huret, without a word, made a vague gesture. Basically he didn’t care, he had seen to his own business. His only concern now was to carry out the mission with which Rougon had entrusted him, as decently as possible, with not too much bother for himself.

‘As I was saying, my dear chap, I came to give you a disinterested piece of advice… Here it is. Be sensible, your brother is furious, he will totally abandon you if you allow yourself to be defeated.’

Holding back his anger, Saccard didn’t move a muscle.

‘It was he who sent you to tell me that?’

After a brief hesitation, the Deputy thought it best to admit the fact.

‘Ah well, yes, it was he… Oh, don’t go thinking the attacks in
L’Espérance
played a part in his irritation. He is above such matters of wounded vanity. No! But truly, just think how much your newspaper’s Catholic campaign must be hampering his current policies. Ever since those unfortunate complications with Rome he has had the whole of the clergy on his back, and he has just been forced to have a
bishop condemned for abuse of his position… And you choose to attack him just at the moment when he’s struggling to avoid being overwhelmed by the liberal movement arising from the 19 January reforms,
*
which he agreed to apply, as one might say, simply in order to keep them prudently under control… Come now, you’re his brother, do you think he’s likely to be pleased?’

‘Indeed,’ Saccard mockingly replied, ‘it’s really nasty of me… There’s that poor brother of mine who, in his rage to remain a minister, goes on governing in the name of the very principles he formerly fought against, and takes it out on me because he can no longer keep his balance between the Right, annoyed at having been betrayed, and the Third Party, hungry for power. Only a short time ago, to calm the Catholics, he uttered his famous ‘Never!’—swearing that never would France allow Italy to take Rome from the Pope. And now, in his terror of the liberals, he would like to give them a pledge too, and deigns to think of cutting my throat just to please them… Just a week or so ago Émile Ollivier gave him a real shaking in the House…’

‘Oh!’ Huret interrupted, ‘he still has the confidence of the Tuileries, the Emperor has sent him a diamond medallion.’
*

But with a violent gesture, Saccard responded that he was not fooled.

‘The Universal is too powerful now, isn’t it? A Catholic bank that threatens to invade the whole world and conquer it with money, just as it was previously conquered by faith, can such a thing be tolerated? All the freethinkers and all the freemasons, striving to become ministers, feel the chill of it in their bones… Perhaps there is also some loan to be fixed up with Gundermann. What would happen to a government if it didn’t allow itself to fall prey to these dirty Jews?… And so my idiot of a brother, just to hang on to power for another six months, will throw me to the dirty Jews, to the liberals, and all the rest of the scum, in the hope that they’ll give him a bit of peace while they’re devouring me… Well, go back and tell him I don’t give a damn about him…’

He straightened up his short body, rage at last bursting through his irony like a warlike blast of trumpets.

‘Get this clear, I don’t give a damn about him. That’s my answer and I want him to know it.’

Huret had dropped his shoulders. When dealings became heated he just opted out. After all, in all this he was only a messenger.

‘All right, all right! He will be told… You are going to break your neck, but that’s your affair.’

There was a silence. Jantrou, who had remained absolutely silent, pretending to be wholly absorbed in the correction of a packet of proofs, raised his eyes in admiration at Saccard. How splendid he was, the bandit, in his passion! These scoundrels of genius sometimes triumph, at this level of recklessness, when the intoxication of success carries them away. And Jantrou, at this moment, was on Saccard’s side, convinced of his good fortune.

‘Ah, I was forgetting,’ Huret began again, ‘it seems that Delcambre, the Public Prosecutor, detests you… And one thing you don’t yet know is that the Emperor this morning appointed him Minister of Justice.’

Suddenly Saccard paused. With darkened face, he at last commented:

‘Another nice bit of goods! Ah! So they’ve made a minister of that object! And what’s that to me?’

‘Well,’ Huret went on, exaggerating his air of simplicity, ‘if a misfortune should befall you, as happens to everyone in the business world, your brother doesn’t want you counting on him to defend you against Delcambre.’

‘But damn it all!’ Saccard shouted. ‘When I tell you that I don’t give a damn for the whole mob of them, Rougon, Delcambre, and you too come to that!’

At that moment, fortunately, Daigremont came in. He never called at the newspaper office, so it was a surprise to everyone, which cut short the violent encounter. With perfect politeness he shook hands all round with a smile, and the flattering affability of the man of the world. His wife was giving an evening reception at which she would sing, and he had come simply to invite Jantrou in person, hoping for a good review. But the presence of Saccard seemed to delight him.

‘How are things, great man?’

Without answering, Saccard asked: ‘Tell me, you haven’t been selling, have you?’

‘Selling! Oh no, not yet!’—and his laugh was very sincere, he really was made of more solid stuff than that!

‘But one must never sell, in our position!’ cried Saccard.

‘Never! That’s what I meant. We are all in it together, you know you can count on me.’

Daigremont’s eyelids drooped, and he looked to one side while he
answered for the other directors, Sédille, Kolb, the Marquis de Bohain, as well as for himself. Everything was going so well, it was really a pleasure to be all in agreement, in the most extraordinary success the Bourse had seen for fifty years. And he had a charming remark for each of them, then went away repeating that he was counting on all three of them for the soirée. Mounier, the tenor from the Opéra, would be singing with his wife. Oh, it would be quite an event!

‘So,’ Huret asked, he too now preparing to leave, ‘is that all the answer you’re giving me?’

‘Indeed it is!’ Saccard curtly replied.

And he made a point of not going down with him, as he usually did. Then, when he was alone again with the editor of the newspaper:

‘This is war, my dear fellow! There is no more need for caution, just thump the whole bunch of crooks!… Ah, I’m now going to be able to fight the battle my way!’

‘All the same, it’s pretty rough,’ commented Jantrou, who was beginning to feel perplexed again.

Out in the corridor, on the bench, Marcelle was still waiting. It was hardly four o’clock and already Dejoie had lit the lamps; darkness was falling so early under the grey, relentless downpour of rain. Every time Dejoie went past he found something to say to try to cheer her up. Anyway the comings and goings of the contributors were now increasing, and the sound of voices burst out from the next room in all the mounting feverishness of creating the newspaper.