Complete Works of Emile Zola (1132 page)

All at once, on January 3, on the very morrow of the day when the accounts of the last settlement had been balanced, there was a drop of fifty francs in Universals. This caused great excitement. In truth, everything had gone down; the market, so long over-taxed, inflated beyond measure, was giving way in every direction; two or three rotten enterprises had collapsed with a bang, and, moreover, people ought to have been accustomed to these violent fluctuations, since prices sometimes varied several hundred francs in the same day’s Bourse, shifting wildly like the needle of the compass in the midst of a storm. In the great quiver which passed, however, all felt the beginning of the crash. Universals were going down; the cry rose and spread with a clamour, made up of astonishment, hope, and fear.

The next day Saccard, firm and smiling at his post, sent the price up thirty francs by means of large purchases. But on the 5th, despite his efforts, the fall was forty francs. Universals stood merely at three thousand. And from that time each day brought its battle. On the 6th Universals went up again; on the 7th and 8th they again dropped. An irresistible movement was dragging them, little by little, into a slow fall. The Bank was about to be made the scapegoat, offered up in atonement for the folly of all, for the misdeeds of less prominent ventures, all that swarm of shady enterprises, ripened by puffery, raised like monstrous mushrooms in the fermenting compost of the reign. But Saccard, who no longer slept, who every afternoon took up his post of combat, near his pillar, lived in the hallucination of always possible victory. Like the commander of an army who is convinced of the excellence of his plans, he yielded his ground only step by step, sacrificing his last soldiers, emptying the Bank’s coffers of their last sacks of money, to obstruct the progress of the assailants.

On the 9th he again won a signal advantage, and the ‘bears’ trembled and recoiled. Would the settlement of the 15th, like so many before it, be effected at their expense? And he, already without resources, reduced to launching paper into circulation, now dared, like those starving wretches who, in the delirium of their hunger, see immense feasts spread out before them, dared confess to himself the prodigious and impossible object towards which he was tending, the giant idea of repurchasing all the Bank’s shares in order to hold all vendors bound hand and foot at his mercy. This had just been done in the case of a little railway company; the Bank which had issued its stock having cleared the market, so that vendors, being unable to deliver, had been forced to surrender as slaves and humbly offer their fortunes and their persons. Ah! if he could only have hunted down Gundermann to such a point as to hold him powerless, unable to sell since he could not deliver! If he could only have seen the Jew bringing him his milliard one morning, and begging him not to take the whole of it, but to leave him enough to buy the half franc’s worth of milk which constituted his daily nourishment. But from seven to eight hundred millions would be necessary for such a feat as that. He had already cast two hundred into the abyss; and if he was to succeed, five or six hundred more must be marshalled in battle array. Yes, with six hundred millions he would sweep away the Jews, become the gold king, the master of the world. What a dream! And it seemed so simple; his fever had reached such a degree of intensity that it all appeared a mere question of moving some pawns on a chess-board. During his sleepless nights he raised this army of six hundred millions, and, after sending it forth to fight and be destroyed for his glory, at last found himself victorious, environed by general disaster, and erect upon the ruins of everything.

Unfortunately, on the 10th, Saccard had a terrible day. He was always superbly gay and calm at the Bourse; and yet never had there been such a war of silent ferocity, of hourly slaughter, of ambuscades upon every side. In these secret, cowardly money battles, in which the weak are ripped up in silence, the combatants are influenced by no ties, whether of relationship or friendship. The atrocious law of might prevails, and men devour those around them for fear lest they should themselves be devoured. And thus Saccard felt that he was absolutely alone, with no other support than that of his insatiable appetite, which still kept him erect and ever ravenous.

He especially dreaded the afternoon of the 14th, when the answers on the options would come in. However, he still found money enough for the three preceding days, and instead of bringing a smash-up the 14th strengthened Universals, so that on the morrow, the 15th, which was settling day, they were quoted at two thousand nine hundred and sixty francs, or only a hundred francs below the quotation of December 31. Saccard had feared a perfect disaster, and he pretended to construe this as a victory. In reality, success for the first time rested with the ‘bears,’ who now received differences after paying them during several months; and, the situation being reversed, Saccard had to get Mazaud to carry him over. From that time the broker found himself heavily involved. The second fortnight of January threatened to prove decisive. Since he had been struggling in this way amid these daily ups and downs, now falling into the abyss and again rising from it, Saccard had every evening felt an uncontrollable desire for diversion, something which should enable him to shake off his worries, forget the precarious nature of his position. He could not remain alone, but dined out and showed himself everywhere, making the round of the theatres and swell supper-rooms, and affecting the extravagance of a man who has more money than he can spend. He avoided Madame Caroline, whose remonstrances embarrassed him, and who, besides always speaking of the anxious letters which she received from her brother, was herself in despair at the game he was playing, thinking it frightfully dangerous. And he now more frequently saw the Baroness Sandorff at a little place he had taken in the Rue Caumartin, in this wise obtaining the hour of forgetfulness which was necessary for the relaxation of his tired, overworked brain. Sometimes, also, he took refuge there to examine certain papers and reflect upon certain affairs, happy in the thought that no one would come to disturb him. And then sleep would overtake him there; he would doze off for an hour or two, and then the Baroness would not scruple to search his pockets and read the letters in his pocket-book; for he had become completely dumb, she could no longer extract the smallest piece of useful information from him, and, moreover, even when she did contrive to wring a word or two from him, she felt so convinced that he was lying to her that she did not dare to play in accordance with his indications. And while thus stealing his secrets she discovered the pecuniary embarrassment in which the Universal was now beginning to struggle — a vast system of kite-flying, of raising the wind by means of accommodation paper, which it was cautiously getting discounted abroad. One evening, however, Saccard, waking up too soon, had caught her in the act of searching his pocket-book, and had then and there boxed her ears. And subsequently in his moments of worry he took to beating her, by way of relieving his feelings.

However, after the settlement of January 15, in which she had lost ten thousand francs, the Baroness began to nurse a project of treachery. It grew upon her, and at last she went to consult Jantrou about it.

‘Well,’ the latter answered, ‘I believe that you are right; it is time to pass over to Gundermann. So go and see him, and tell him of the matter, since he promised that, on the day when you should bring him some good counsel, he would give you some in exchange.’

On the morning when the Baroness presented herself in the Rue de Provence, Gundermann was as surly as a bear. Only the day before Universals had gone up again. Would he never end, then, with that voracious beast, which had devoured so much of his gold and so obstinately clung to life? That wretched Bank was capable of recovering its position, and its shares would perhaps be on the rise again at the end of the month. He growled at himself for having entered upon this disastrous rivalry, when perhaps he would have done better to have taken a share in the new establishment at the start. Shaken in his ordinary tactics, losing his faith in the inevitable triumph of logic, he would at that moment have resigned himself to a retreat, if he could have effected it without loss. These moments of discouragement, which even the greatest captains at times experience on the very eve of victory, when men and things are really plotting their success, were very rare with Gundermann. If his powerful perceptive powers, usually so clear, were thus disturbed, it was due to the fog that at times envelopes the mysterious operations of the Bourse, which one can never with absolute certainty ascribe to any particular person. Certainly Saccard was buying, gambling; but was he acting for serious customers or for the Bank itself? Upon this point Gundermann could not make up his mind amid all the contradictory gossip which was brought to him. So he was in a rage, and that morning the doors of his spacious office kept slamming, all his employees trembled, and he received the remisiers so brutally that their customary procession was turned into a galloping rout.

‘Ah! it is you!’ he said to the Baroness, without any pretence at politeness. ‘I have no time to lose with women to-day.’

She was so disconcerted that she dropped all the preliminaries which she had devised, and then and there blurted out the news she had to impart. ‘And if I could prove to you,’ said she, ‘that the Universal is at the end of its cash, after all the large purchases which it has made, and that it is reduced to the point of getting accommodation paper discounted abroad in order to continue the campaign?’

The Jew had suppressed a start of joy. His eyes remained lifeless, and he answered in the same grumbling voice: ‘It isn’t true.’

‘What! not true? Why, I have heard it with my own ears, seen it with my own eyes.’

And she sought to convince him by explaining that she had held in her hands the notes signed by men of straw. She named the latter, and also gave the names of the bankers who had discounted the paper at Vienna, Frankfort, and Berlin. His correspondents could enlighten him; he would see that it was no mere gossip which she was retailing. And she further asserted that the Bank had been buying and buying on its own account, for the sole purpose of keeping up the rise, and that two hundred millions of francs had already been swallowed up.

Whilst he listened to her with his dismal air Gundermann was already planning his campaign of the morrow, so quick at all mental work that in a few seconds he had distributed his orders and determined upon the amounts. He was now certain of victory, for he well knew from what miry depths this information had come to him, and felt full of contempt for that pleasure-loving Saccard, who was so stupid as to trust a woman and allow himself to be sold.

When she had finished, he raised his head, and, looking at her out of his large dim eyes, exclaimed: ‘Well, why should I be interested in what you say? How does it concern me?’

She was profoundly astonished, so unconcerned and calm did he appear. ‘But,’ said she, ‘it seems to me that your position as a “bear”–’

‘I! Who told you that I was a “bear”? I never go to the Bourse; I never speculate. All this is a matter of indifference to me.’

And there was such an innocent ring in his voice that the Baroness, doubting and frightened, would in the end have believed him but for certain inflections of too bantering a naïveté. He was evidently laughing at her, in his absolute disdain for woman, now that his blood was old and cold.

‘So, my good friend,’ he added, ‘as I am very busy, if you have nothing more interesting to say to me—’

He was evidently about to dismiss her; and she in her fury sought to rebel. ‘I have had confidence in you,’ she said. ‘I spoke first. It is a real trap. You promised me that, if I should be useful to you, you in your turn would be useful to me, and give me some good advice—’

Rising from his chair, he interrupted her. He, who never laughed, gave a slight chuckle, so amusing did he find it to dupe a young and pretty woman in this brutal way. ‘Good advice! Why, I do not refuse it, my good friend; listen to me. Don’t gamble, don’t ever gamble. It will spoil your face; a woman who gambles is not at all nice.’

However, when she had gone off quite beside herself, he shut himself up with his two sons and his son-in-law and distributed the roles, sending at once for Jacoby and other brokers to prepare the grand stroke of the morrow. His plan was simple: to do that which, in his ignorance of the real situation of the Universal, prudence had hitherto prevented him from risking — that is, to crush the market under the weight of enormous sales now that he knew the Universal to be at the end of its resources and incapable of sustaining the quotations. Like a general who wishes to end matters, and whose spies have fully acquainted him with the enemy’s weak point, he was going to bring the formidable reserves of his milliard into line. Logic would triumph; all securities which rise above the real value which they represent are doomed.

That very same day, towards five o’clock, Saccard, warned of the danger by his keen scent, called upon Daigremont, He was feverish; he felt that the hour had come to strike a blow at the ‘bears,’ if he did not wish to be definitively beaten by them. And his giant idea tormented him, that idea of the colossal army of six hundred millions, which must yet be raised in order to conquer the world. Daigremont received him with his usual amiability, in his princely mansion, amid his costly pictures and all the dazzling luxury which his fortnightly profits at the Bourse provided for; no one really knowing whether there was anything solid behind all this show, which seemed ever liable to be swept away by some caprice of chance. So far Daigremont had not betrayed the Universal, but had refused to sell, affecting absolute confidence, happy in thus comporting himself like a good gambler playing for a rise, from which by the way he reaped large profits; and it had even pleased him not to flinch after the unfavourable settlement of the 15th, feeling convinced, as he said everywhere, that the rise would begin afresh. Still he was constantly on the watch, and quite ready to pass over to the enemy at the first grave symptom.