Complete Works of Emile Zola (51 page)

“Can you tell me, sir,” inquired the young man, “if M. Charles Blétry is at the factory?”

Daste exchanged a rapid glance with one of the persons present, a stout, pale, and severe-looking man.

“M. Charles Blétry will return presently,” he replied. “Please wait for him. Are you a friend of his?”

“Yes,” replied Marius, simply. “He resides in the same house as I do. I have known him for about three years.”

There was a pause. The young man, thinking he was in the way, added, with a bow, and walking towards the door:

“I am much obliged to you. I will wait for him outside.”

Then the stout gentleman leant forward and said a few words to the manufacturer in a low voice. M. Daste signed to Marius to stay.

“Have the goodness to wait here,” he exclaimed. “Your presence may be useful to us. You must know something of M. Blétry’s mode of living, and can no doubt give us some information about him.”

Marius, greatly astonished, and not understanding, hesitated.

“Excuse me,” resumed M. Daste with great politeness, “I see that my words surprise you.” And indicating the stout man, he went on: “That gentleman is the police commissary of the district, and I have sent for him to arrest Charles Blétry who has robbed us of sixty thousand francs in two years.”

On hearing Charles accused of theft, Marius understood everything. He accounted for the young fellow’s lavish expenditure, and shuddered at the thought that he had been on the point of accepting his offers of service. He would never have believed that his neighbour could have been guilty of a mean action. He knew very well that there existed at Marseille, as in all great centres of industry, clerks who robbed their employers in order to satisfy their vices and their love of luxury; he had often heard of clerks earning a hundred or a hundred and fifty francs a month, and who managed to lose immense sums in gambling in the clubs, to throw gold to loose women, and to idle away their time in restaurants and cafés. But Charles seemed so pious, so modest, so honest, he had played the hypocrite so artfully, that Marius had been taken in by these appearances of probity, and he even now entertained doubts despite M. Daste’s formal accusation.

He seated himself and awaited the development of the drama. As a matter of fact he could not very well have done otherwise. During half-an-hour a mournful silence reigned in the office. The manufacturer was writing, whilst the police commissary and the two officers, mute and looking half asleep, gazed vaguely before them with terrible patience. Such a sight was calculated to make Marius honest had he been disposed to be otherwise. A step was heard outside, and the door slowly opened.

“Here’s our man,” said M. Daste, rising from his seat.

Charles Blétry entered quite unsuspiciously, without even noticing the persons who were there.

“You wish to see me, sir?” he asked, in that drawling voice peculiar to clerks when addressing their employers.

As M. Daste was looking him straight in the face, he turned round and beheld the police commissary, whom he knew by sight. He became ghastly pale, understanding that he was lost, and his whole body trembled. He had just walked into the meshes of the law with his eyes shut. Seeing that his frightened looks were accusing him, he tried to pull himself together and to recover a little coolness and audacity.

“Yes, I wish to see you!” M. Daste exclaimed, violently. “And you know why, don’t you? Ah! scoundrel, you’ll never rob me again!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” stammered Blétry. “I’ve never robbed you. What is it you accuse me of?”

The police commissary had seated himself at the manufacturer’s desk, ready to draw up his report, whilst the two officers were guarding the door.

“Kindly tell me, sir,” said the police commissary to M. Daste, “how you discovered that M. Blétry had been guilty of embezzling your money.”

Then M. Daste told the story of the crime. He noticed that occasionally his collector was an extremely long time in getting in certain monies. But as he had unlimited confidence in the young man, he attributed these delays to the dilatoriness of his customers. The first embezzlement must have occurred quite eighteen months back. Anyhow, the day before, one of his customers being on the verge of bankruptcy, he had gone personally to demand payment of an account amounting to five thousand francs, and had thereupon learnt that Blétry had collected it some weeks previously. Much alarmed, he had hurried back to the factory, and, by going through the cashier’s books, had convinced himself that about sixty thousand francs were missing.

The police commissary then proceeded to question Blétry. The latter, taken unawares and unable to deny the facts, concocted a ridiculous story.

“One day,” he said, “I lost my pocket-book containing forty thousand francs. I had not the courage to tell M. Daste of this great misfortune, so I embezzled some money to gamble on the stock exchange, hoping to win and so reimburse the firm.”

The police commissary asked him for particulars, confused him by his questions, and forced him to contradict himself. Blétry then tried another falsehood.

“You are right,” he resumed, “I did not lose the pocket-book. I prefer to tell you everything. The truth is I was robbed myself. I gave shelter to a young man who was hard-up. One night he went off with my collector’s bag, and it contained a considerable sum of money.”

“Come, don’t make your crime worse by lying,” said the commissary, with that terrifying patience of police officials. “You know very well that we can’t believe you. It’s no use inventing such rigmaroles.” He then turned to Marius and continued: “I asked M. Daste to detain you, sir, thinking you might be useful to us in our inquiry. The accused is, you said, your neighbour. Do you know anything about his mode of life. Will you not beseech him with us to tell the truth?”

Marius felt dreadfully embarrassed. He pitied Blétry, who was reeling like a drunken man and looking at him imploringly. The man was not a hardened scoundrel; no doubt he had given way to temptation, to a weak mind and heart. But Marius’s conscience would not be stilled, and commanded him to say what he knew. He did not reply to the police commissary directly, but preferred to address himself to Blétry.

“Listen, Charles,” he said, “I do not know whether you are guilty. I have always found you good and quiet. I am aware that you support your mother and that you are beloved by all who know you. If you have been guilty of wrong, admit your folly: you will cause less suffering to those who love and esteem you by frankly owning your guilt and showing sincere repentance.”

Marius spoke in a gentle and convincing voice. Blétry, whom the curt words of the police commissary had left dumb and inwardly irritated, gave way before his friend’s kindness. He thought of his mother, he thought of the esteem and the friendships he was about to lose, and his emotion nearly choked him. He burst into sobs, weeping hot tears in his closed hands; and for some minutes no sound was heard but the heartrending cry of his despair. It was a complete avowal. The spectators of the scene remained silent.

“Well! yes,” Blétry exclaimed at last, amidst his tears. “I have robbed, I’m a scoundrel — I didn’t know what I was about — I commenced by taking a few hundred francs, then I required a thousand, two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand francs at a time — It seemed as if someone was behind me, urging me on — And my needs, my appetites were ever increasing.”

“But what did you do with all that money?” asked the police commissary.

“I don’t know — I gave it away, lost it at play, devoured it somehow — You don’t know the life — I was happy enough in my poverty and troubled with nothing, I loved to go to church and to live worthily like an honest man. But then I had a taste of luxury and vice, I got to know women, I bought expensive things — I was mad.”

“Can you give me the names of the women with whom you squandered the money you were embezzling?”

“As if I knew their names! I met them here, there, everywhere, in the streets and at public balls. They came because I had my pockets full of gold, and they went off when they were empty — Then I lost a lot playing baccarat at the clubs — What turned me into a thief was seeing certain well-born young men throwing their money out of window and revelling in wealth and idleness. I wanted to know women as they did, to have noisy joys, nights spent in gambling and debauchery — I required thirty thousand francs a year, and I was only earning eighteen hundred — so I ended by stealing.”

The poor wretch, suffocating, overcome by grief, dropped on to a chair. Marius went up to M. Daste who was also much affected, and beseeched him to be merciful. He then hastened to withdraw from a scene which made his heart bleed. He left Blétry quite prostrated by a kind of nervous stupor.

Some months later he learnt that the young man had been condemned to five years’ imprisonment.

Once outside, Marius experienced a great feeling of relief. He understood that by assisting at Charles’s arrest he had received a lesson. A few hours before, when down at the port, he had indulged in some evil ideas of fortune. He had just seen where such thoughts might lead him. And suddenly he remembered why he had gone to the soap-works. He had only another hour left in which to find the fifteen thousand francs which were to save his brother.

CHAPTER XV

PHILIPPE REFUSES TO SAVE HIMSELF

MARIUS had to admit to himself how powerless he was. He knew not at what door to knock.

It is not easy for a simple clerk to borrow fifteen thousand francs in the course of an hour. He walked slowly down the Rue d’Aix, straining his mind but finding nothing in his wearied brain. Money troubles are terrible; one would sooner battle with an assassin than fight against the imperceptible and crushing phantom of poverty. Nobody has ever yet been able to conjure up a five-franc piece.

When the young man, hopeless and at his wits’ end, reached the Cours Belzunce, he decided to return to Aix empty-handed. The coach was about to start, and there was only one vacant seat left, an outside one. He took it with delight, preferring to remain in the open air, for anxiety was stifling him, and he hoped that the vast horizon of the open country would calm his fever. It was a sad journey. In the morning, he had passed the same trees, the same hills, and hope, which brought a smile to his lips, then shed a joyous brightness over the fields and slopes. Now, as he again beheld the same country-side, he enveloped it in all the gloom that was weighing on his mind.

The heavy vehicle lumbered on; the cultivated land, the pine-woods, the little hamlets succeeded each other at either side of the road; and Marius found in each change of landscape a deeper air of mourning, a more poignant grief. Night fell, and it seemed to him that the entire country was covered by an immense pall.

On reaching Aix, he walked slowly towards the prison. He felt that he would always arrive too soon with his evil news. When he entered the gaol, it was nine o’clock. Revertégat and Fine were killing time by having a game at cards on a corner of the table. The flower-girl jumped up gleefully and ran to meet the young man.

“Well?” she asked him, with a bright smile, and throwing back her head coquettishly.

Marius had not the courage to reply. He sat down exhausted.

“Speak up!” cried Fine. “You’ve got the money?”

“No,” the young man answered, simply.

After a moment he told them of Bérard’s failure. Blétry’s arrest, all the misfortunes he had encountered at Marseille. He wound up by saying:

“I am now no more than a poverty-stricken wretch. My brother will remain a prisoner.”

The flower-girl remained painfully surprised. Her hands clasped, in that attitude of pity peculiar to Provençal women, she repeated in a rueful tone of voice:

“How sad, how sad!”

She looked at her uncle and seemed to be urging him to speak. Revertégat eyed the two young people compassionately. It was evident that a struggle was taking place within him. At length he seemed to make up his mind, and said to Marius:

“Listen to me, sir. My duties have not hardened me to such an extent as to render me insensible to the sufferings of worthy people. I have already said why I was willing to sell you your brother’s freedom. But I do not wish you to think that the love of money alone is prompting me. If unfortunate circumstances prevent your placing me at once out of the reach of poverty, I will nevertheless open the door to M. Philippe. You can come to my assistance later on, and pay me the fifteen thousand francs little by little when you are able to do so.”

Fine clapped her hands on hearing these words. She flung her arms round her uncle’s neck and embraced him heartily. Marius looked very grave as he replied:

“I cannot accept your sacrifice. I am already reproaching myself with having tempted you to disregard your duty, and I refuse to increase my responsibility by also casting you adrift without a crust of bread.”

The flower-girl turned to the young man almost angrily.

“Hold your tongue!” she cried. “M. Philippe must be saved. I intend that he shall be. Besides, we don’t need you to open the prison doors. Come, uncle. If M. Philippe is willing, his brother can have nothing to say.”

Marius followed the young woman and the gaoler who were going in the direction of the prisoner’s cell. They had taken a dark lantern, and were gliding softly along the passages in order not to excite remark. All three entered the cell and closed the door behind them. Philippe was asleep.

Revertégat, moved by his niece’s tears, had softened the prison regulations as much as possible for the young man: he brought him lunch and dinner which Fine herself prepared; he lent him books, and had even given him an additional rug. The cell had been made habitable, and Philippe was not too uncomfortable there. He knew, moreover, that they were working for his escape. He woke up and held out his hands effusively to his brother and the flower-girl.

“You have come for me?” he asked smiling.

“Yes,” answered Fine. “Dress yourself at once.”

Marius remained silent. His heart was beating quickly. He feared that a strong desire for liberty might lead his brother to accept the means of flight which he himself had thought right to decline.