Complete Works of Emile Zola (58 page)

The old woman, in a rage, with inflamed countenance, approached the two men and began speaking to them with passionate verbosity. From time to time she broke off to turn round and shake her fist at Armande, who was so upset by despair, which made her tremble all over her body, that she did not hear her.

“You saw it, did you not?” repeated the old woman. “She wanted to beat me. She had her arm in the air. Ah! the wretch! Just fancy, my good gentlemen, I have given that woman all my money. I like to be of service. Besides, I thought she was honest. She has made me discount acceptances signed by honourable persons; I thought I had good security. Now I learn that the bills are false and that I have been shamefully robbed. What would you have done in my place? I reproached her with her abominable conduct and then she threatened to strike me.”

Sauvaire opened his eyes in astonishment, gazing first of all at Armande’s dejection and then at Madame Mercier’s anger. He approached the young woman and exclaimed:

“Come, my dear, defend yourself. This women lies, doesn’t she? You have not done anything so stupid. Come, speak!”

Armande did not move, but continued sobbing.

“Oh! She’ll not speak, she’ll not defend herself,” continued the woman usurer, in triumph. “She knows very well that I am in possession of the proofs. I shall write tomorrow morning to the crown attorney.”

Marius, painfully surprised, cast a look of pity on Armande. Chance had brought him face to face with another shame, another human misery. He remembered the sad scene when Charles Blétry was arrested in his presence and a feeling of mercy overcame him in face of this woman whom vice had brought to infamy. He half guessed the circumstances that had urged her on to crime, he understood how necessity, from fall to fall, had brought her to the gutter. He would have liked to have saved her, to have brought her back to a life of honesty, to have given her the means of extricating herself from the sewer.

“Why do you wish to ruin her?” he quietly inquired of the old woman. “You will not be paid any the quicker. Don’t overwhelm her. On the contrary, give her a chance to recover herself and pay you back.”

“No, no!” mercilessly answered the old woman, “I want her to go to prison. I have waited too long already. Yesterday, again, she failed to meet a bill of a thousand francs which she had made payable here. She signed that bill ‘Sauvaire,’ the name of one of her admirers, no doubt.”

The master-stevedore, on hearing himself referred to, started. The sum of a thousand alarmed him.

“You say you have an acceptance of a thousand francs signed ‘Sauvaire’?” he inquired, with an appearance of something very much like terror.

“Yes, sir,” answered the old woman. “I brought it with me, it is in my basket.”

“Show it me, if you please.”

Sauvaire turned the bill over in his fingers, studying the handwriting very closely, and was confounded.

“By Jupiter,” he exclaimed, “it’s perfectly imitated!”

He leant over towards Armande, who was doubled up with grief, and continued in a dry tone of voice:

“Look here, my dear, no nonsense! I will never pay that, you know. The deuce! I’d willingly give you a hundred francs; but a thousand! It’s too much.”

He no longer spoke familiarly to her, he even began to regret his excursion into the demi-monde of Marseille.

“Oh! That’s not the only one I’ve got,” continued Madame Mercier; “I’ve many others in my possession bearing different names. However, if this one were paid, I would agree not to say anything. I would continue to wait.”

Marius’ sensible remarks had made her understand that it would be better not to lodge a complaint, and as she had Sauvaire beside her she was in hopes he would pay. She became quite tender, changed her plans and began to excuse Armande.

“After all,” she said, “I don’t know that the other bills are false. The poor little woman has had a rough time. You must not be angry with her, sir. She is a very good person at heart.” And she began to shed warm tears.

Marius could not restrain a smile. Sauvaire walked up and down, excited, grumbling angrily. He cared very little about Armande’s infamous conduct, he was simply irritated at the struggle between egotism and generosity that was taking place within him.

“No, decidedly!” he exclaimed at last, “I can do nothing.”

Armande, buried in her arm-chair, continued sobbing in a low, broken-hearted manner. This woman who had known all the delight of luxury and adoration, suffered bitterly at having fallen so low. There she was, degraded, with her misery and shame brought home to her, and she was seized with despair when her thoughts went back to her elegance and wealth of former times. She would never rise again; she would fall still lower, become the last of creatures. And she was all the more upset at the thought that her disgrace would be public. The presence of Sauvaire and Marius gave her additional pain.

Her silent grief produced a strange effect on Marius, who was weak in the presence of tears. He would willingly have given the old woman her thousand francs if he had had them. After a painful silence he addressed Sauvaire who was taking great strides about the room, very much annoyed.

“Come, sir,” he said to him, “this woman must be saved. Her own sobs plead her cause better than I could do. You are fond of her and will not abandon her in her despair.”

“Eh! Yes, I was fond of her,” answered the master-stevedore sharply, “and I think I have shown it sufficiently, during the last three months. Do you know that I have already spent nearly five thousand francs with her. I’ll give no more. So much the worse! She must get out of it as she can. It would be a thousand francs thrown into the street. What enjoyment shall I have for this money if I give it her?”

“You will have done a good action. Her behaviour is scandalous, and I am not trying to excuse her; only, I think I can guess how it was she became a forger, and I could plead her cause.”

“Oh! all that has nothing to do with me. She did what she pleased. You see I am not angry. I am simply going to place myself beyond all this disagreeable business.”

Marius was getting discouraged, he remembered what Fine had related to him about the master-stevedore’s vanity, and he continued in a careless way:

“Let’s say no more about it. I spoke to you thus because I knew you were very rich and very generous. Sooner or later the account of your good action would have been mooted abroad, and you would have won, in this affair, more than a thousand francs worth of praise.”

“Do you think so?” asked Sauvaire hesitating.

“I am certain. Few men would be so generous, and for that reason it would be positively glorious to save this woman. But let us say no more about it.”

Sauvaire ceased walking about. He stopped in the centre of the room and began to think.

Madame Mercier, who saw him hesitating, and who was experiencing thrills of desire, at the idea of receiving a thousand francs, thought she had better intervene. She had resumed her tearful voice and her humble, gentle manner:

“Ah! sir,” she said to Sauvaire, “if you only knew how this poor little woman adores you! There are very wealthy men who have tried to take your place. She has refused all offers, and it is perhaps that which has placed her in straitened circumstances and prevented her repairing the faults she has committed. You cannot imagine how closely she clings to you.”

The master-stevedore felt very much flattered at these remarks. From the moment his self-esteem was in question the matter bore a different complexion.

“Very well! Be it so,” he said, “I’ll give the thousand francs. I’ll take them to you tomorrow evening. Now withdraw. Leave madame alone.”

The old woman bowed with servile humility and went quietly away, closing the doors without the least noise.

Armande had raised her head. Her face flushed with tears seemed to have grown older. All upset with fright and feverish with shame, she rose with difficulty and wanted to kneel down before Marius and Sauvaire.

The young man held her up whilst the master-stevedore said:

“Come! my dear, it’s all over. I accept your thanks, and trust my good action will be profitable to you.”

The truth was that Sauvaire no longer found any charm in Armande. He had just perceived that the poor creature was faded, and he had received too hard a lesson to forget himself any longer in the boudoirs of the demi-monde. He began to prefer the rosette.

The two men withdrew, and at the door Armande warmly kissed Marius’ hand. She saw that he felt real and profound pity for her, and she thanked him for having saved her.

The following night Sauvaire called to fetch Marius to accompany him to Madame Mercier’s. The female usurer occupied a filthy house in the Rue du Pavé d’Amour. The two visitors ascended three flights of stairs and knocked, without obtaining an answer, at a blackened, damp door. The noise they made brought out a neighbour who informed them that the “wicked old woman” had been arrested that morning.

“The police,” said this person, “had been on her track for some days. It seems a complaint had been lodged against her. All the tenants were delighted at her arrest. She only just had time to burn the papers likely to compromise her.”

Marius understood that Armande had been saved by Providence. He made inquiries of the people at the house and acquired the certitude that the old woman had burnt all the acceptances signed by the lorette, fearing that their possession might constitute other charges against her; for she guessed that if Armande found herself implicated, she would tell the truth and give the most overwhelming details. Besides, by destroying the securities she lost nothing, as she had long since recovered her advances.

Sauvaire was particularly delighted at their adventure. He carried off the thousand francs triumphantly. He had been enabled to give a proof of his generosity without spending a sou. It was all profit.

“You are a witness that I was going to give the money,” he said to Marius. “That is how I am. I like to be generous, I throw money out of the window. Oh! a gift of a thousand francs does not trouble me, when it’s a question of paying for my amusement.”

Marius allowed him to expatiate on his good qualities, and ran off to Armande to tell her the good news.

He found the young woman sad and troubled. She had passed an atrocious night, struggling mentally with her misfortunes, in search of a supreme means of extricating herself from the infamy in which she was plunged.

When she learned that the forged acceptances had been destroyed, that she had recovered her liberty, she was as if transformed. She kissed Marius passionately, and vowed to him that she would take advantage of the lesson and change her mode of life.

“I will work,” she said, “I will conduct myself like a respectable woman. Then only will I ask you to return me your friendship. Good-bye!”

Marius left her, quite moved by her decision and promises. When he was alone he reproached himself with his abnegation: for two days he had been living beyond himself, without giving a thought to his brother’s safety.

When Fine inquired the result of his errand, he did not dare relate to her the dramatic scenes at which he had been present; he limited himself to telling her that there was no hope of borrowing the money from Sauvaire, and that Armande was closing her drawing-room.

“Where will you go now, then?” inquired the flower-girl.

“I know not,” he answered, “However, I have a plan which I am going to put into execution.”

CHAPTER V

DOUGLAS, THE NOTARY

MARIUS had returned to M. Martelly’s and resumed his duties, finding a sort of peacefulness in his work. His thoughts ran freer amidst the silence and calm of his office. He told himself that he had four months in which to come to Philippe’s assistance, and he would reflect for hours together as to the best means to be employed.

M. Martelly continued to treat him as he would a son.

Sometimes the young man thought of telling him everything and of borrowing the fifteen thousand francs of him. But a fear, a timidity prevented him; he dreaded his employer’s republican sternness. So he resolved to continue the struggle, to exhaust all possible means before applying to the shipowner. Later on, when he had unsuccessfully tried everything else, he would make up his mind to tell him of his difficulty and implore his kind assistance.

Meanwhile, he determined he would not again behave like a simpleton and take any useless step. For a moment, he thought of earning the necessary amount himself. The high figure frightened him, and he saw very well that he could never put by such a sum in four months. Yet he felt bold enough to move mountains.

It recurred to him that Douglas, the notary whose aid M. Martelly had vainly asked for Philippe, had for some months past been offering to employ him as agent, acting under power of attorney for some of his clients. The notary and the ship-owner were connected in various business matters, and M. Martelly often sent Marius to settle different accounts with Douglas. One day, on calling there, the young man decided to accept the offer that had been made him: if the profits were small, he might, when he had become better known, succeed in obtaining a loan.

The notary lived in a house of simple and austere appearance. The offices occupied the entire first floor; there was quite a crowd of clerks seated along stained deal tables, in the large cold bare rooms. Luxury had never penetrated into those rooms full of prodigious activity and a kind of honest roughness. One felt oneself to be in the abode of a man who never forgot himself amid the joys of life.

About ten years before, Douglas had succeeded to the practice of a person named Imbert, whose clerk he had been for more than twelve years. He was then an intelligent and active young fellow, with a passion for business, and ever dreaming of monster speculations. The fever for trade and manufacture that was passing over France heated his blood and filled him with strong ambition; he wished to earn vast sums of money, not in order to live in opulence, but because he tasted a keen voluptuousness in unravelling all monetary matters, and in guiding the undertakings he embarked upon to success. At the outset he felt himself too restricted in his notary’s practice. He was a born banker, and his hands were formed for manipulating large sums of money. His profession, with its quiet dealings and almost sacred and paternal character, did not in the least suit his stock-jobbing nature. He felt out of his element, for all his instincts urged him to turn the money deposited with him to account. He could not reconcile himself to being a disinterested intermediary, and he launched into panting and feverish speculations, which later on turned him into a great criminal.