Complete Works of Emile Zola (1112 page)

Whilst Jordan was still striving to concoct fifty lines of ‘copy’ with which to complete his two columns, he was disturbed by Dejoie, who called him. ‘Ah!’ said the young fellow, ‘is Monsieur Jantrou alone now?’

‘No, monsieur, not yet. But your wife is here, and wants to see you.’

Very anxious, Jordan hurried out. For a few months past, since La Méchain had at last discovered that he was writing over his own name in ‘L’Espérance,’ he had been pursued by Busch for payment of the six notes of fifty francs each which he had formerly given to a tailor. He could have managed to pay the three hundred francs which the notes represented, but what exasperated him was the enormity of the costs, that total of seven hundred and thirty francs and fifteen centimes to which the debt had risen. He had entered into a compromise, however, and pledged himself to pay a hundred francs a month; and, as he could not manage it, his young household having more pressing needs, the costs rose higher yet every month, and the intolerable annoyances were ever beginning afresh.

Just then he was again passing through a serious crisis. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked his wife, whom he found in the anteroom.

But, before she could answer, the door of the director’s office was thrown open, and Saccard appeared, shouting: ‘I say, Dejoie — and Monsieur Huret?’

‘Why, monsieur, he isn’t here,’ stammered the bewildered attendant; ‘I cannot make him hurry.’

The door was closed again with an oath, and Jordan, having taken his wife into one of the adjoining offices, was there able to question her at his ease.

‘What’s the matter, darling?’ he again asked.

Marcelle, usually so gay and brave, whose little, plump, dark person and clear countenance, with laughing eyes and healthy mouth, expressed happiness even in trying times, now seemed utterly upset. ‘Oh, Paul, if you only knew!’ she replied. ‘A man came — oh! a frightful, ugly man — who smelt bad, and had been drinking, I think. Well, he told me that the matter was ended, that the sale of our furniture was fixed for to-morrow. And he had a placard, which he wanted to stick up at the street door.’

‘But it is impossible!’ cried Jordan. ‘I have received nothing; there are other formalities to be observed.’

‘Oh! you know still less about these matters than I do. When papers come, you do not even read them. Well, to keep him from putting up the placard I gave him forty sous, and hurried off to tell you.’

They were in despair. Their poor little home in the Avenue de Clichy! Those few little bits of furniture, of mahogany and blue rep, which they had purchased with such difficulty at so much a month, and of which they were so proud, although they sometimes laughed at them, finding them in execrable bourgeois taste! Still they loved them, because ever since their wedding night they had formed part of their happiness in those two little rooms over yonder, those little rooms which were so sunny, so open to space, with a view stretching away even to Mont Valérien. And he who had driven in so many nails, and she who had shown so much ingenuity to give the apartments an artistic appearance! Was it possible that all was going to be sold, that they were to be driven from that pretty nook, where even poverty was delightful to them?

‘Listen,’ said he, ‘I was thinking of asking for an advance; I will do what I can, but I haven’t much hope.’

Then, in a hesitating way, she confided her idea to him. ‘This is what I have been thinking of,’ said she. ‘Oh! I would not have done it without your consent, as you may judge from the fact that I have come here to talk with you about it. Yes, I desire to apply to my parents.’

He promptly refused. ‘No, no, never! You know very well that I don’t wish to be under any obligation to them.’

The Maugendres certainly behaved in a decorous fashion. But Jordan retained in his heart a recollection of the coldness which they had shown him after the suicide of his father, whose fortune had been swept away in speculation. He remembered that they had then only consented to the long-planned marriage of their daughter because she was determined on it, and that they had taken all sorts of offensive precautions against himself, among others that of not giving a sou of dowry, convinced as they were that a fellow who wrote for the newspapers would devour everything. Later on, said they, their daughter would inherit their property. And so the young couple, she as well as he, had taken a certain pride in starving without asking anything of her parents apart from the meal which they took with them once a week, on Sunday evenings.

‘I assure you,’ she replied, ‘our reserve is ridiculous, since I am their only child, since the whole must come to me some day! My father tells every one who will listen to him that he has acquired an income of fifteen thousand francs by his awning manufactory at La Villette; and then, too, there is their little residence, with its beautiful garden, to which they have retired. It is stupid for us to let ourselves be worried like this when they have a surfeit of everything. They have never been cruel to us, you know. I tell you that I am going to see them.’

She evinced a cheerful bravery, displayed a determined air, very practical in her desire to bring happiness to her dear husband, who worked so hard without yet having obtained anything from either the critics or the public, excepting a good deal of indifference and a few smacks. Ah! money, she would have liked to bring it to him by the bucketful, and he would be very stupid to be over particular about it, since she loved him and owed him everything. It was her fairy story, her ‘Cinderella,’ the treasures of her royal family, which with her little hands she deposited at the feet of her ruined prince, to keep him on in his march to glory and the conquest of the world.

‘Come,’ she gaily said, kissing him, ‘I really must be of some use to you; all the pain must not be yours.’

He yielded; it was agreed that she should go straightway to the Rue Legendre, at Batignolles, where her parents lived, and that she should bring the money back to the office, in order that he might try to pay it that very evening. And, as he accompanied her to the stairs, as much agitated as though she were starting on a very dangerous expedition, they had to step aside to make room for Huret, who had at last arrived. When Jordan returned to finish his article in the contributors’ room, he heard a violent hubbub of voices in Jantrou’s office.

Saccard, now grown powerful, the master once more, wished to be obeyed, knowing that he held them all by the hope of gain and the terror of loss in that colossal game of fortune which he was playing with them.

‘Ah! so here you are,’ he shouted on seeing Huret. ‘Did you stop at the Chamber to offer the great man your article in a gilt frame? I’ve had enough, you know, of this swinging of incense-burners under his nose, and I have been waiting for you to tell you that it must be stopped — that in future you must give us something else.’

Quite amazed, Huret looked at Jantrou. But the latter, thoroughly determined not to get himself into trouble by coming to the deputy’s succour, had begun to pass his fingers through his handsome beard, his eyes wandering away.

‘What! something else?’ finally asked Huret; ‘but I give you what you asked for. When you purchased “L’Espérance,” the organ of extreme Catholicism and Royalty, which was carrying on such a bitter campaign against Rougon, you yourself asked me to write a series of laudatory articles in order to show your brother that you did not intend to be hostile to him, and in this wise to indicate the new policy of the paper.’

‘The policy of the paper, precisely, ‘ replied Saccard with increased violence; ‘it is the policy of the paper that I accuse you of compromising. Do you think that I wish to be my brother’s vassal? Certainly I have never been sparing of grateful admiration and affection for the Emperor; I don’t forget what we all owe to him, what I in particular owe to him. But to point out the mistakes that are made is not the same thing as to attack the Empire; on the contrary, it is the duty imposed on every faithful subject. That, then, is the paper’s policy — devotion to the dynasty, but entire independence with regard to Ministers, to all the ambitious individuals over bestirring themselves and fighting together for the favour of the Tuileries!’

And then he launched into an examination of the political situation, in order to prove that the Emperor had bad advisers. He accused Rougon of having lost his authoritative energy, his former faith in absolute power, of compounding with liberal ideas for the sole purpose of retaining his ministerial portfolio. For his part, striking his chest with his fist, he declared himself to be unchangeable, a Bonapartist from the very first, a believer in the coup d’ état, with the conviction that the salvation of France lay, to-day as well as formerly, in the genius and strength of a single man. Yes, rather than assist the evolution of his brother, rather than allow the Emperor to commit suicide by new concessions, he would rally the uncompromising believers in dictatorship together, make common cause with the Catholic party, in order to prevent the rapid downfall which he foresaw. And let Rougon take care, for ‘L’Espérance’ might resume its campaign in favour of

Rome!

Huret and Jantrou listened to him, astonished at his wrath, never having suspected that he possessed such ardent political convic­tions. And it occurred to the former to try to defend the last acts of the Government.

‘Well, my dear fellow,’ said he, ‘if the Empire is moving towards liberty, it is because all France is pushing it firmly in that direction. The Emperor is borne along with the current, and Rougon is obliged to follow him.’

But Saccard was already passing to other grievances, without a thought of making his attacks in any degree logical.

‘And see,’ said he, ‘it is the same with our foreign situation; why, it is deplorable! Since the Treaty of Villafranca which followed upon Solferino, Italy has harboured resentment against us for not having finished the campaign and given her Venice; so that now she is allied with Prussia, in the certainty that the latter will help her to beat Austria. When war breaks out, you’ll see what a row there’ll be, and what a fix we shall be in; especially as we have made the great mistake of letting Bismarck and King William seize the Duchies in the Denmark affair, in contempt of a treaty which France herself had signed. It is a slap in the face, there’s no denying it, and there is nothing for us to do now but to turn the other cheek. Oh! war is certain; you remember how French and Italian securities fell last month, when there was some talk of a possible intervention on our part in German affairs. Within a fortnight, perhaps, Europe will be on fire.’

More and more surprised, Huret became excited, contrary to his habit. ‘You talk like the Opposition papers,’ said he; ‘but you certainly don’t want “L’Espérance” to follow the lead of the “Siècle” and the others. There is nothing left for you but to insinuate, like those rags do, that, if the Emperor allowed himself to be humiliated in the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and let Prussia grow with impunity, it is because he had for many months kept an entire army corps in Mexico. Come, be a little fair; the Mexican affair is over, our troops are coming back. And then I do not understand you, my dear fellow. If you wish to keep Rome for the Pope, why do you seem to blame the hasty peace of Villafranca? Venice given to Italy means the Italians in Rome within two years; you know that as well as I do, and Rougon knows it too, although he swears the contrary in the tribune.’

‘Ah! you see what a trickster he is!’ shouted Saccard superbly. ‘Never will they touch the Pope, do you hear me? without the whole of Catholic France rising up to defend him. We should carry him our money, yes! all the money of the Universal. I have my plan, our affair lies there, and really, if you keep on exasperating me, you will make me say things that I do not want to say as yet.’

Jantrou, very much interested, had suddenly pricked up his ears, beginning to understand, trying to profit by the remarks thus casually dropped.

‘Well,’ replied Huret, ‘I want to know what to depend upon with regard to my articles, and we must come to an understanding. Are you for intervention or against intervention? If we are for the principle of nationalities, by what right are we to meddle with the affairs of Italy and Germany? Do you wish us to carry on a campaign against Bismarck? Yes! in the name of our menaced frontiers.’

But Saccard, erect, beside himself, burst out: ‘What I want is that Rougon shall not make a fool of me any longer. What! after all that I have done! I buy a newspaper, the worst of his enemies; I make it an organ devoted to his policy; I allow you to sing his praises for months, and yet never has the beggar given us a single lift. I have still to receive the first service from him.’

Thereupon the deputy timidly remarked that the Minister’s support had singularly aided the engineer Hamelin in the East, opening all doors to him, and exercising pressure upon influential personages.

‘Oh, stuff and nonsense! He could not do otherwise. But has he ever sent me a word of warning the day before a rise or a fall, he who is so well placed to know everything? Remember, I have a score of times charged you to sound him, you who see him every day, and you have yet to bring me a useful bit of information. Yet it would not be such a serious matter — a simple word for you to repeat to me.’

‘Undoubtedly. But he doesn’t like that sort of thing; he says it is all jobbery, which a man always repents of.’

‘Nonsense! Has he any such scruples with Gundermann? He plays the honest man with me, and he gives tips to Gundermann.’

‘Oh, Gundermann, no doubt! They all need Gundermann; they could not float a loan without him.’

At this Saccard clapped his hands with a violent gesture of triumph. ‘There we are, then; you confess it! The empire is sold to the Jews — the dirty Jews! All our money is doomed to fall into their thieving paws. There is nothing left for the Universal but to collapse before their omnipotence.’

And then he exhaled his hereditary hatred, again brought forward his charges against that race of traffickers and usurers for centuries on the march through the nations, sucking their blood, like the parasites of scab and itch, and, although spat upon and beaten, yet marching on to the certain conquest of the world, which they would some day possess by the invincible power of gold. And he was especially furious against Gundermann, giving way to his old resentment, to his unrealisable mad desire to strike that Jew down; and this in spite of a presentiment that he was the limit against which he (Saccard) would fall should he ever engage in a struggle with him. Ah, that Gundermann! a Prussian in the house, albeit born in France; for his sympathies were evidently with Prussia; he would willingly have supported her with his money, perhaps he was secretly supporting her even now! Had he not dared to say one evening, in a salon, that, if war should ever break out between Prussia and France, the latter would be vanquished?