Complete Works of Emile Zola (1103 page)

He did not even raise the question of payment, knowing that such services are priceless; and, as the other added that they would give him a franc per signature to compensate him for his loss of time, he acquiesced with a simple nod of the head. Then, with his familiar smile, he said: ‘I hope, too, dear master, that you won’t refuse me your advice. As you will be so well placed, I shall come to you for information.’

‘Quite so,’ concluded Saccard, who understood. ‘Till we meet again, be careful of yourself; don’t listen too readily to the ladies.’

Then, with a laugh, for Sabatani was reported to be for some mysterious reason a remarkable favourite with the fair sex, he dismissed him by a private exit, which enabled him to send people away without making them pass through the ante-room again.

Having gone to open the other door, he next called Jantrou, who, as he saw at a glance, was in sore straits, at the very end of his tether, clad in a frock-coat, the sleeves of which had been worn threadbare by long leaning on café tables during his endless ‘wait’ for a situation. The Bourse continued to be a hard-hearted mother to him, and yet he bore himself jauntily, with his fan-shaped beard, still cynical and lettered, at times dropping a flowery phrase, betokening the former university man.

‘I meant to write to you shortly,’ said Saccard. ‘We are drawing up a list of employees, upon which I have inscribed your name among the first, and I expect I shall place you in the issue office.’

Jantrou stopped him with a gesture. ‘You are very kind, and I thank you. But I have a proposal to make to you.’

He did not explain himself forthwith, but, starting with generalities, inquired what part the Press would play in the launching of the Universal Bank. The other took fire at the first words, declared that he was for advertising on the largest scale, and would devote all available money to it. Not a trumpet was to be disdained; not even the penny trumpets; for he laid it down as an axiom that every noise was good from the simple fact that it was a noise. The ideal would be to have every paper at one’s service; only that would cost too much.

‘Is it your idea, then, to organise our advertising?’ he at last inquired. ‘Perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad scheme. We will talk it over.’

‘Yes, later, if you like. But what would you say to a paper of your own, completely your own, and which I should manage for you? Every morning there would be a page reserved for you, articles that would sing your praises, or paragraphs reminding people of you, with allusions to you in contributions altogether foreign to financial matters — in short, a regular campaign, in which, à propos of everything and nothing, you would be incessantly exalted on the slaughtered bodies of your rivals. Does that tempt you?’

‘Why yes, if it doesn’t cost the devil.’

‘No, the price will be reasonable.’

And at last he named the paper he had in view—’L’Espérance,’ which had been founded two years previously by a little group of Catholic notabilities, the violent members of the party, who waged ferocious war upon the Empire. The success of their efforts was however absolutely null, and every week there circulated a fresh report of the paper’s disappearance.

‘Oh, it doesn’t print two thousand copies!’ cried Saccard.

‘But it will be our business to raise its circulation.’

‘And besides, it is impossible: it drags my brother in the mud; I cannot afford to offend him at the very outset.’

Jantrou gently shrugged his shoulders. ‘There is no need to offend anyone. You know as well as I do that, when a financial house has a paper of its own, it is of little consequence whether this paper supports or attacks the Government; if it is an officious journal, the house is certain to be included in all the syndicates organised by the Minister of Finance to insure the success of the State and Communal loans; while if it is an opposition print, the same minister is very considerate in his treatment of the bank which it represents, prompted by a desire to disarm it and win it over, which often finds expression in still more favours. So don’t trouble yourself as to the politics of “L’Espérance” Have a paper, it is a power.’

Silent for a moment, Saccard, with that alertness of intellect which in a trice enabled him to appropriate another’s idea, examine it, and adapt it to his needs, to the point of making it entirely his own, swiftly thought out a complete plan: he would buy ‘L’Espérance,’ silence its bitter attacks, lay it at the feet of his brother — who would be obliged to show his gratitude — but at the same time keep it Catholic, as a menace, a machine ever ready to resume its terrible campaign in the name of the interests of religion. And, if the folks in power were not amiable with him, he would brandish Rome in their faces, and risk the grand Jerusalem stroke. It would be a pretty trick to finish with.

‘Should we be free to do as we chose?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Absolutely free. They have had enough of it; the paper has fallen into the hands of a needy fellow who will hand it over to us for ten thousand francs or so. We can then do what we like with it.’

Saccard reflected a minute longer. ‘Well, it is settled,’ he eventually said. ‘Make an appointment and bring your man here. You shall be director, and I will see to centralising all our advertising in your hands. I wish it to be something unheard of, enormous — oh! later on when we have the wherewithal to set the machine going properly.’

He had risen. Jantrou also rose, concealing the joy he felt at finding bread, beneath a bantering laugh, the laugh of one who has lost caste, and is weary of all the mire of Paris.

‘At last, then, I shall return to my element, my dear belles lettres!’

‘Don’t engage anybody as yet,’ said Saccard, as he escorted him to the door. ‘And while I think of it, just make a note of a protégé of mine, Paul Jordan, a young man whom I find remarkably talented, and in whom you will have an excellent literary contributor. I will write him a letter and tell him to call upon you.’

As Jantrou was going out by the private door, this happy arrangement of the two outlets struck him. ‘Why, this is convenient,’ said he, in his familiar style. ‘One can conjure people away. When beautiful ladies come, like the one I saluted just now in the ante-room, the Baroness Sandorff—’

Saccard did not know that she was there, and with a shrug of his shoulders he sought to express his indifference; but the other chuckled, refusing to believe in such disinterestedness. Then the two men exchanged a vigorous handshake, and Jantrou went off.

When he was alone, Saccard instinctively approached the mirror, and brushed back his hair, in which not a white thread as yet appeared. He had not, however, spoken falsely to Jantrou, for women scarcely entered his thoughts, now that business had again taken entire possession of him; and he merely yielded to the involuntary gallantry which makes it impossible for a Frenchman to find himself alone with a woman without fearing that she will look upon him as a blockhead if he does not conquer her. And so, as soon as he had ushered in the Baroness, he showed himself remarkably attentive.

‘Be seated, madame, I pray you.’

Never had he seen her so strangely seductive, with her red lips, and her burning eyes with bruised lids, set deeply under thick eyebrows. What could she want of him? And he was much surprised, almost mortified, when she had explained to him the motive of her visit.

‘Mon Dieu! monsieur, I beg your pardon for disturbing you without advantage to yourself; but between people who move in the same circle it is necessary one should render each other these little services. You lately had a cook, a chef, whom my husband is on the point of engaging. I have therefore simply come to inquire about him.’

Thereupon he allowed himself to be questioned, answering with the greatest obligingness, and at the same time never taking his eyes off her; for he fancied that all this was a mere pretext: in her heart she cared little or nothing about the cook, she evidently came for something else. And, in fact, by manoeuvring, she finally referred to a common friend, the Marquis de Bohain, who had spoken to her of the Universal Bank. So much trouble and worry were attached to investments, said she, it was so difficult to find reliable securities. And at last he understood that she would willingly take some shares, with the premium of ten per cent, given to the syndicators; and he understood still better that, if he should open an account with her, she would not pay.

‘I have my private fortune,’ she said, ‘my husband never meddles with it. It gives me a deal of worry, but supplies a little amusement also, I confess. People are astonished — are they not? — to see a woman busy herself with money matters, especially a young woman, and they are tempted to blame her. There are days when I am in mortal embarrassment, having no friends who are willing to advise me. Last fortnight, for want of proper information, I lost a considerable sum. Ah! now that you will be in such a good position to know things, if you would be obliging, if you would only—’

Through the woman of society pierced the gambler, the fierce mad gambler. Such was the passion of this daughter of the Ladricourts, one of whose ancestors had taken Antioch, this diplomat’s wife before whom the foreign colony of Paris bent almost double — a passion which led her, like some equivocal applicant, to the offices of everyone who dabbled in finance. Her lips bled, her eyes flamed more brightly, her desire shot forth, seemingly stirring all her ardent nature. And he was simple enough to believe that she was prepared for everything, provided that he admitted her into his great enterprise, and gave her some useful financial tips when opportunity offered.

‘Why, I ask nothing better, madame,’ said he, ‘than to lay my experience at your feet.’

He had drawn his chair nearer, and he took her hand. But at this she at once seemed sobered. Ah! no, she had not yet come to that point! And she rose up in a revolt of birth and breeding.

‘So you say, monsieur, that you were satisfied with your chef?’ she exclaimed.

Quite astonished, Saccard rose in his turn. Had she hoped that he would put her name on the list and give her information for nothing? However, he merely replied: ‘Very well satisfied, I assure you. It was only a change in my household arrangements which led me to part with him.’

The Baroness Sandorff hesitated, though scarcely for a second. Then she responded with a simple inclination of her head to the respectful bow with which he bade her good-day; and he was accompanying her to the little door when it was suddenly opened in a familiar manner. The intruder was Saccard’s son Maxime, who was to breakfast with him that morning. He stepped aside, likewise bowing, and allowed the Baroness to pass. When she had gone, however, he gave a slight laugh, followed by a few bantering words.

Then seating himself in a large arm-chair, and taking up a newspaper, he added: ‘Don’t mind me; finish your receiving, if I am not in the way. I have arrived too early, but the fact is I wanted to see my doctor, and I did not find him at home.’

Just then the valet came in to say that the Countess de Beauvilliers requested to be received. Saccard, a little surprised, although he had already met his ‘noble neighbour,’ as he called her, at the Institute of Work, gave orders for her immediate admittance; then, recalling the valet, he told him to send everybody else away, as he was tired and very hungry.

When the Countess entered, she did not even see Maxime, who was hidden by the back of the large arm-chair. And Saccard was still more astonished to find that she had brought her daughter Alice with her. This lent additional solemnity to the visit: these two women so sad and so pale, the mother slender, tall and very white, with a past-century air, and the daughter already ageing, with a neck elongated to the point of ugliness. He set chairs for them with a bustling politeness, the better to show his deference. ‘I am extremely honoured, madame,’ said he; ‘can I have the happiness to be of any use to you?’

With great timidity, which her haughty manners failed to conceal, the Countess finally explained the motive of her visit.

‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘it is in consequence of a conversation I lately had with my friend, the Princess d’Orviedo, that the idea occurred to me of calling on you. I confess to you that I hesitated at first, for at my age one cannot easily change one’s ideas, and I have always been very much afraid of certain things of nowadays which I do not understand. At last, however, I have talked matters over with my daughter, and I believe it is my duty to stifle my scruples, so that I may try to assure the happiness of my children.’

And she continued; saying how the Princess had spoken to her of the Universal Bank, certainly a financial establishment like the rest of them in the eyes of the profane, but endowed in the eyes of the initiated with an irreproachable excuse, an object so meritorious and lofty as to silence the most timorous consciences. She named neither the Pope nor Jerusalem; those were matters not to be spoken of, scarcely to be whispered among the faithful; therein lay the mystery destined to excite enthusiasm; but each of her words, allusions, and hints revealed a hope and faith which imparted a true religious flame to her belief in the success of the new bank.

Saccard himself was astonished at her suppressed emotion, at the trembling in her voice. As yet he had only spoken of Jerusalem in the poetical phases of his fever. In his heart he distrusted that mad project, scenting something ridiculous in it, and quite prepared to abandon it and laugh at it if it should be greeted with jests. And the emotional application of this pious woman who brought her daughter with her, the earnest way in which she gave him to understand that she and all her kindred, the entire French nobility, would believe and become infatuated with the scheme, struck him forcibly, gave substance to what had been purely a dream, and infinitely enlarged his field of evolution. Was it true, then, that he had a lever here, the employment of which would permit him to move the world? With his gift of rapid assimilation, he at once entered into the situation, talking in mysterious terms of this final triumph which he would pursue in silence; and his speech was full of fervour, for he had really just acquired faith — faith in the excellence of the instrument placed in his hands by the crisis through which the Papacy was passing. He indeed had the happy faculty of believing, as soon as the success of his plans required it.