Complete Works of Emile Zola (1143 page)

‘It is very kind of you to have come,’ he said at last, ‘and you must promise me you will come again, because you are a good counsellor, and I wish to submit my projects to you. Ah, if I only had some money!’

She quickly interrupted him, seizing this opportunity to enlighten herself upon a question which had haunted and tormented her for months. What had he done with the millions which he must possess for his own share? Had he sent them abroad, buried them under some tree known to himself alone?’ But you have plenty of money!’ she exclaimed. ‘The two millions you made after Sadowa and the nine millions which your three thousand shares represented, if you sold them at the rate of three thousand francs apiece!’

‘I, my dear,’ he cried, ‘I haven’t a copper!’

And he spoke these words in so frank and despairing a voice, he looked at her with such an air of surprise, that she was convinced he said the truth. ‘Never have I had a sou when my enterprises have turned out badly,’ he continued. ‘Don’t you understand that I ruin myself with the rest? Certainly, yes, I sold my shares, but I bought others also; and where my nine millions, together with two other millions, have gone, I should be greatly embarrassed to explain to you. I really believe that my account with poor Mazaud left me thirty or forty thousand francs in his debt. No, I haven’t a sou left; it has been the clean sweep, as usual.’

She was so relieved, so elated, by this answer that she began to jest about the ruin of herself and her brother. ‘We too, shall have nothing left when all is over,’ she said, ‘I do not know even whether we shall have enough to feed us for a month. Ah, that money, those nine millions you promised us, you remember how they frightened me! Never had I lived in such a state of uneasiness, and what a relief it was on the evening of the day when I had surrendered everything in favour of the assets! Even the three hundred thousand francs which we had inherited from our aunt went with the rest. That is not very just. But, as I once told you, one sets little store by money found, money that one has not earned. And you can see for yourself that, despite everything, I am now gay and can laugh.’

He stopped her with a feverish gesture; he had taken the papers from the table, and was waving them in the air. ‘Nonsense!’ he said, ‘we shall be very rich.’

‘How?’

‘What! do you suppose that I abandon my ideas? Why, for six months past I have been working here, sitting up at nights and reconstructing everything. The imbeciles look upon that advance balance-sheet as a crime, pretending that, of the three great enterprises, the United Steam Navigation Company, the Carmel mine, and the Turkish National Bank, only the first has yielded the expected profits! But if the two others are in peril, it is because I have not been there to see to things. When they let me out, however — yes, when I have become the master again, you will see, you will see—’

With supplicating gestures she tried to keep him from continuing. But he had risen, and straightening himself up on his short legs, cried out in his shrill voice: ‘The calculations are made; there are the figures, look! The Carmel mine and the Turkish National Bank are mere playthings! We must have the vast network of the Oriental railways; we must have all the rest, Jerusalem, Bagdad, the whole of Asia Minor conquered. What Napoleon was unable to do with his sword, we shall do with our pickaxes and our gold! How could you believe that I had thrown up the game? Napoleon came back from Elba, remember. I, also, shall only have to show myself, and all the money of Paris will rise to follow me: and this time there will be no Waterloo, I assure you, because my plan is a rigorously mathematical one, foreseen to the very last centime. So at last, then, we shall strike down that wretched Gundermann! I only ask four hundred millions, perhaps five hundred millions of francs, and the world will be mine!’

She had succeeded in taking his hands, and pressed herself against him. ‘No, no!’ she exclaimed. ‘Be silent, you frighten me.’

And yet, in spite of herself and of her fright, a feeling of admiration rose within her. In this bare, wretched cell, bolted in, separated from the living, she had suddenly become conscious of an overflowing force, a resplendency of life: the eternal illusion of hope, the stubborn obstinacy of the man who does not wish to perish. She sought for her anger, her execration, and could no longer find them within her. Had she not condemned him, however, after the irreparable misfortunes which he had caused? Had she not called down chastisement upon him, solitary death amidst universal contempt? But of all that she now only retained her hatred of evil and her pity for sorrow. Again did she succumb to that conscienceless, active power, as to some violence of nature, necessary no doubt. And although this was but a woman’s weakness, she yielded to it with delight, swayed by her maternal nature, that infinite need of affection which had made her love him even while not esteeming him.

‘It is finished,’ she repeated several times, without ceasing to press his hands in hers; ‘can you not calm yourself and rest at last?’

Then, as he raised himself to press his lips on her white hair, the locks of which fell over her temples with the tenacious abundance of youth, she held him back, and added, with an air of absolute resolution and profound sadness, giving the words their full significance: ‘No, no! it is finished — finished for ever. I am glad to have seen you a last time, that there may remain no anger between us. Farewell!’

As she started off, she saw him standing by the table, really moved by the separation, but already instinctively rearranging the papers which he had mingled in his fever; and the little bouquet of roses having shed its petals among the pages, he shook these one by one, and, with a touch of the fingers, swept the remnants of the flowers away.

Not until three months later, towards the middle of December, did the affair of the Universal Bank at last come into court. It occupied five sittings of the Tribunal of Correctional Police,1 and excited lively curiosity. The Press had made an enormous sensation of the catastrophe, and most extraordinary stories had been circulated with regard to the delay in the trial. The indictment drawn up by the officials of the Public Prosecution Office was much remarked. It was a masterpiece of ferocious logic, the smallest details being grouped, utilised, and interpreted with pitiless clearness. Moreover, it was said on all sides that condemnation had been predetermined on. And, in fact, the evident good faith of Hamelin, the heroic demeanour of Saccard, who fought his accusers step by step throughout the five days, the magnificent and sensational speeches for the defence, did not prevent the judges from sentencing both defendants to five years’ imprisonment and three thousand francs fine. However, having been temporarily set at liberty on bail, a month before the trial, and having thus appeared before the court as defendants still at liberty, they were able to lodge an appeal and to leave France in twenty-four hours. It was Rougon who had insisted on this dénouement, not wishing to be burdened with a brother in prison. The police themselves watched over the departure of Saccard, who fled to Belgium by a night train. The same day Hamelin had started for Rome.

And then three more months rolled away, and in the early days of April Madame Caroline still found herself in Paris, where she had been detained by the settlement of their intricate affairs. She still occupied the little suite of rooms at the Orviedo mansion, which posters still advertised for sale. However, she had just overcome the last difficulties, and was in a position to depart, certainly without a sou in her pockets, but without leaving any debts behind her, and so she was to start the next day for Rome, in order to join her brother, who had been fortunate enough to secure an insignificant situation as an engineer there. He had written to her saying that pupils awaited her. It was a re-beginning of their lives.

On rising on the morning of this the last day which she would spend in Paris, she was seized with a desire not to quit the city without making some attempt to obtain news of Victor. So far all search had been vain. But, remembering the promises of La Méchain, she said to herself that perhaps this woman might now know something; and that it would be easy to question her by going to Busch’s office at about four o’clock. At first she rejected the idea; for what was the use of taking this step? Was not all this the dead past? Then she really suffered, her heart overflowed with grief, as for a child whom she had lost and whose grave she had failed to strew with flowers on going away. So at four o’clock she made her appearance in the Rue Feydeau.

Both doors on the landing were open, some water was boiling violently in the dark kitchen, while, on the other side, in the little office, La Méchain, who occupied Busch’s armchair, seemed submerged by a heap of papers, which she was taking in enormous packages from her old black leather bag.

‘Ah, it is you, my good madame!’ she said. ‘You come at a very bad moment. Monsieur Sigismond is dying. And poor Monsieur Busch is positively losing his head over it, so much does he love his brother. He does nothing but run about like a crazy man; he has just gone out again to get a doctor. I am obliged to attend to his business, you see, for he has not bought a share or even looked into a claim for a week past. Fortunately, I made a good stroke just now — oh! a real stroke, which will console him a little for his sorrow, the dear man, when he recovers his senses.’

Such was Madame Caroline’s astonishment that she forgot she had called about Victor. She had recognised the papers which La Méchain was taking by the handful from her bag. They were some of the shares of the Universal Bank. The old leather was fairly cracking, such a number of them had been packed into the bag; and the woman went on pulling out more and more, very talkative in her delight. ‘I got all these for two hundred and fifty francs,’ she said; ‘there are certainly five thousand, which puts them at a sou apiece. A sou for shares that were quoted at three thousand francs’! They have fallen almost to the price of waste-paper. But they are worth more than that; we shall sell them again for at least ten sous apiece, because they are wanted by bankrupts. You understand, they have had such a good reputation that they look very well in a list of assets. It is a great distinction to have been a victim of a catastrophe. In short, I had extraordinary luck; ever since the battle, I had scented the ditch where all this merchandise was sleeping, a whole lot of dead uns, which an imbecile who didn’t know his business has let me have for nothing. And you can imagine whether I pounced upon them! Ah, it did not take long; I cleaned him out of them very speedily!’

Thus chattering, she displayed the glee of a bird of prey on some field of financial massacre. The unclean nutriment upon which she had fattened oozed forth in perspiration from her huge person; while, with her short, hooked hands, she stirred up the dead — those all but worthless shares, which were already yellow and emitted a rank smell.

But a low, ardent voice arose from the adjoining room, the door of which stood wide open, like the doors opening upon the landing. ‘Ah!’ she said, ‘there is Monsieur Sigismond beginning to talk again. He has been doing nothing but that ever since this morning. Mon Dieu! and the boiling water! I was forgetting it. It is for some tisane. My good madame, since you are here, will you just see if he wants anything?’

La Méchain hurried into the kitchen, while Madame Caroline, whom suffering attracted, entered Sigismond’s room. Its nudity was enlivened by a bright April sun, whose rays fell upon the little deal table, covered with memoranda, bulky portfolios, whence overflowed the labour of ten years; and there was nothing else except the two straw-bottomed chairs, the few volumes heaped upon the shelves, and the narrow bed in which Sigismond, propped up by three pillows, and clad to his waist in a short red flannel blouse, was talking, talking incessantly, under the influence of that singular cerebral excitement which sometimes precedes the death of consumptives. He was delirious, but had moments of extraordinary lucidity; and in his thin face, framed with long, curling hair, his dilated eyes seemed to be questioning the void.

When Madame Caroline appeared, he seemed to know her at once, although they had never met. ‘Ah! it is you, madame,’ he said; ‘I had seen you, I was calling you with all my strength. Come, come nearer, that I may speak to you in a low voice.’

In spite of the little shudder of fear which had seized upon her, she approached, and sat down on a chair close to the bed.

‘I did not know it, but I know it now,’ continued Sigismond. ‘My brother sells papers, and I have heard people weeping there, in his office. My brother, ah! it pierced my heart like a red-hot iron. Yes, it is that which has remained in my chest, it is always burning there because it is abominable, that money — the poor people who suffer. And by-and-by, when I am dead, my brother will sell my papers, and I do not wish it — no, I do not wish it!’

His voice gradually rose, assumed a tone of supplication. ‘There, madame, there are my papers, on the table. Give them to me; we will make a parcel of them, and you shall carry them away, all of them. Oh, I was calling you! was waiting for you! Think of it! My papers lost! all my life of study and effort annihilated!’ And as she hesitated to give him what he asked, he clasped his hands: ‘For pity’s sake,’ he said, ‘give them to me, so that I may be sure that they are all there, before dying. My brother isn’t here, so he won’t say that I am killing myself. Come, I beg you.’

Upset by the ardour of his prayer, she yielded. ‘But I do wrong,’ said she, ‘since your brother says that it does you harm.’

‘Harm! Oh, no. And besides, what does it matter? Ah! I have at last succeeded in setting the society of the future on its feet, after so many nights of toil! Everything is foreseen, solved; there will be the utmost possible justice and happiness. How I regret not having had the time to write the work itself, with all the necessary developments! But here are my notes, complete and classified. And you will save them, won’t you? so that another may some day give them the definitive form of a book, and launch it through the world.’