Complete Works of Emile Zola (1099 page)

‘Ah! so it’s you, my friend,’ he said. ‘Be seated a moment, if you have anything to say to me. I will be at your disposal directly.’

Then he pretended to forget him. Saccard, however, was not impatient, for he felt interested in the procession of remisiers, who, at each other’s heels, entered the room with the same profound bow, drawing from their irreproachable frock coats the same little cards setting forth the same Bourse quotations, which they presented to the banker with the same suppliant and respectful gestures. Ten of them, twenty of them, passed by; the banker each time took the list, glanced at it and then returned it; and nothing equalled the patience he displayed beneath this avalanche of offers, unless indeed it were his absolute indifference.

At last Massias appeared, with the gay yet anxious air of a good dog who is often whipped. At times folks received him so badly that he could have cried. That day, undoubtedly, his stock of humility was exhausted, for he ventured to insist in the most unexpected fashion.

‘See! monsieur, Mobiliers are very low. How much shall I buy for you?’

Without taking the proffered list, Gundermann raised his sea-green eyes upon this young man, who was so familiar, and roughly answered: ‘I say, my friend, do you think it amuses me to receive you?’

‘Well, monsieur,’ retorted Massias, turning pale, ‘it amuses me still less to come every morning for nothing, as I have done for three months past.’

‘Then don’t come again.’

The remisier bowed and withdrew, after exchanging with Saccard the furious, distressful glance of one who has suddenly become conscious that he will never make his fortune.

Saccard meantime was asking himself what interest Gundermann could have in receiving all these people. Evidently he had a special power of isolating himself; he remained absorbed, continued thinking. Moreover, in all this there must be some question of discipline, a habit of passing the market in review every morning, which invariably conduced to some little profit or other. In a greedy fashion Gundermann deducted eighty francs from the amount claimed by some jobber to whom he had given an order the day before, and who, it should be said, was certainly robbing him. Then a dealer in curiosities arrived, bringing an enamelled gold box of the last century, which had been considerably restored, a trick which the banker immediately scented. Next came two ladies, an old one with the beak of a night-bird, and a young one, a very beautiful brunette; they wished to show him at their house a Louis XV. commode, which he promptly refused to go and see. Then came a jeweller with some rubies, a couple of inventors, some Englishmen, Germans, and Italians, folks of both sexes and every language. And meantime the procession of remisiers went on just the same, between the other visits, endless to all appearance, with an incessant repetition of one and the same gesture — the mechanical presentation of the list; while, as the hour for the opening of the Bourse approached, the clerks crossed the room in greater numbers than ever, bringing telegrams, or coming to ask for signatures.

But the tumult reached a climax when a little boy of five or six, riding astride a stick, burst into the office, playing a trumpet and followed by two other children — little girls, one three years old, and the other eight — who besieged their grandfather’s arm-chair, tugged at his arms, and hung upon his neck; to all which he placidly submitted, kissing them with all the Jewish passion for one’s offspring — the numerous progeny which yields strength, and which one defends.

Suddenly, however, he seemed to remember Saccard: ‘Ah! my good friend, you must excuse me; you see that I haven’t a minute to myself. Come now, explain your business to me.’

And he was beginning to listen to him, when an employee, who had introduced a tall, fair gentleman, came to whisper a name in his ear. He rose promptly, yet without haste, and went to confer with the gentleman in question at another window, while one of his sons continued receiving the remisiers and coulissiers in his stead.

In spite of his secret irritation, Saccard was beginning to experience a feeling of respect. In the tall, fair gentleman he had recognised the ambassador of one of the Great Powers, full of arrogance at the Tuileries, but here standing with his head slightly inclined, smiling like one who solicits some favour. At other times officials of high rank in the public service, the Emperor’s ministers themselves, would be received standing in this way, in this room as public as a square, and resounding with the noisy mirth of children. And here was affirmed the universal sovereignty of this man, who had his own ambassadors in every court of the world, his consuls in every province, his agents in every city, and his vessels on every sea. He was not a speculator, a soldier of fortune manoeuvring with the millions of others, dreaming, like Saccard, of heroic combats in which he should prove conqueror and win colossal booty for himself, thanks to the aid of mercenary gold enlisted under his orders; he was, as he quietly said, a simple money merchant, but the most shrewd, most careful there could be. Nevertheless, to establish his power, it was essential that he should rule the Bourse; and so with each settlement there was a new battle, in which the victory infallibly remained with him, thanks to the decisive power of his big battalions. For a moment, Saccard, as he sat watching him, was overwhelmed by the thought that all the money which this man set in motion was his own, that he held in his cellars an inexhaustible supply, in which he trafficked like a shrewd and prudent merchant, like an absolute master, obeyed at a glance, bent on hearing everything, seeing everything, doing everything himself. A milliard of one’s own thus manipulated is an invincible force.

‘We shan’t have a minute, my good friend,’ said Gundermann, when he came back. ‘I am going to breakfast; come with me into the next room. Perhaps they will leave us in peace there.’

It was the little dining-room of the mansion, the one used for the morning meal, and where the entire family was never gathered together. That day there were only nineteen at table, eight of them children. The banker sat in the middle, and all he had in front of him was a bowl of milk.

He remained for a moment with his eyes closed, exhausted by fatigue, his face very pale and contracted; for he suffered from a complaint of the liver and the kidneys. Then, when with trembling hands he had lifted the bowl to his lips, and had drunk a mouthful, he sighed: ‘Ah! I am tired out to-day.’

‘Why do you not take a rest?’ asked Saccard.

Gundermann turned his eyes upon him in astonishment, and naively answered: ‘But I can’t.’

In fact, he was not allowed even to drink his milk in peace, for the reception of the remisiers had begun again; the gallop now went on across the dining-room, while the members of the family, men and women, accustomed to all this stir and bustle, laughed and ate heartily of the cold meats and pastries, and the children, excited by two thimblefuls of pure wine, raised a deafening din.

Meantime Saccard, who was still watching him, marvelled at seeing him slowly swallow his milk with such an effort that it seemed as if he would never manage to empty the bowl. He had been put on a milk diet; he was no longer allowed to touch even a bit of meat or pastry. And that being the case, thought Saccard, of what use was his milliard to him? Moreover, women had never tempted him; for forty years he had remained strictly faithful to his wife; and now virtue was compulsory on his part, irrevocably definitive. Why then should he rise at five o’clock, ply this awful trade, weigh himself down with such immense fatigue, lead a galley-slave’s life which no beggar would have accepted, with his memory crammed with figures, and his skull fairly bursting with a whole world of cares? Why, too, add so much useless gold to so much gold already possessed, when one may not buy and eat so much as a pound of cherries, or carry a passing girl off to some waterside wineshop, when one may not enjoy any of the things that are sold, nor even idleness and liberty? And Saccard, who despite his terrible appetites made due allowance for the disinterested love of money, simply for the power that it gives, felt seized with a sort of holy terror as he gazed upon that face, not that of the classical miser who hoards, but that of the blameless workman, without a fleshly instinct, who in his ailing old age had become as it were an abstract of himself, and obstinately continued building his tower of millions, with the sole dream of bequeathing it to his descendants, that they might raise it yet higher, until it should overshadow the entire earth.

At last Gundermann leaned over, and let him explain in an undertone the projected launching of the Universal Bank. Saccard, however, was sparing of details, simply alluding to the schemes in Hamelin’s portfolio, for from the first words he had felt that the banker was trying to draw him, with the predetermination to refuse him his support.

‘Another bank, my good friend, another bank!’ he repeated in his sneering way. But the affair into which I would sooner put my money would be a machine, yes, a guillotine, to cut off the heads of all the banks already established. ... A rake, eh? to clean out the Bourse. Your engineer hasn’t something of that sort among his papers, has he?’ Then, affecting a paternal air, he continued with tranquil cruelty: ‘Come, be reasonable; you know, what I told you. You are wrong to go into business again; I render you a real service in refusing to launch your syndicate; you will inevitably come to grief, it is mathematically certain, for you are much too enthusiastic, you have too much imagination; and besides, matters always end badly when one deals with other people’s money. Why doesn’t your brother find you a good post, eh? a prefecture, or else a financial receivership — no, not a receivership, that also is too dangerous. Beware, my good friend, beware.’

Saccard had risen, quivering: ‘You have made up your mind, then; you won’t take any stock, you won’t be with us?’

‘With you? Never in my life. You will be cleared out within three years.’

There was a spell of silence, instinct with conflict; a sharp exchange of defiant glances.

‘Then, good afternoon. I have not breakfasted yet, and am very hungry. We shall see who will be cleared out.’

And thereupon Saccard left the great financier in the midst of his tribe; and whilst they finished noisily stuffing themselves with pastry, the master went on receiving the last belated brokers, wearily closing his eyes every now and then, and draining his bowl with little sips, his lips all white with milk.

Throwing himself into his cab, Saccard gave his own address, Rue Saint-Lazare. One o’clock was striking, the day was lost; he was going home to lunch quite beside himself. Ah! the dirty Jew! There indeed was a fellow whom he would have been pleased to crunch with his teeth as a dog crunches a bone! Certainly he was a terrible morsel, too big to eat. But could one ever tell? The greatest empires had crumbled, a time always comes when the powerful succumb.

And without eating him entirely at the first bite, might he not manage to get his teeth into him, tear from him some shreds of his milliard? That done, yes, he might afterwards eat him — why not? — and in the person of their undisputed king destroy those Jews who thought the feast to be entirely intended for themselves. These reflections, this wrath with which he had come away from Gundermann’s, filled Saccard with a furious hankering, an imperative desire for traffic, immediate success. He would have liked to found his banking-house, set it working, triumph and crush all rival houses at a wave of his hand. All at once, the thought of Daigremont came back to him; and without debating the matter, swayed by an irresistible impulse, he leaned forward and called to the driver to go up the Rue Larochefoucauld. If he wanted to see Daigremont, he must make haste and postpone lunch till later, for he knew that it was Daigremont’s habit to go out at about one o’clock. No doubt this Christian was worse than any two Jews, and passed for an ogre who devoured the young enterprises entrusted to his care. But at that moment Saccard would have negotiated with Cartouche1 himself in order to conquer, and even on condition of dividing the spoil. Later on, they would see, he himself would prove the stronger. Meanwhile the cab, after ascending the steep hill with some difficulty, stopped in front of the lofty monumental entrance of one of the last grand mansions of this neighbourhood, which once had some very fine ones. The detached buildings, at the rear of a vast paved courtyard, wore an air of royal grandeur; and the garden beyond, in which centenarian trees were still growing, remained a veritable park, isolated from the populous streets. All Paris knew that mansion for its splendid entertainments, and especially for the admirable collection of pictures assembled there, which not a grand-duke on his travels failed to visit. Married to a woman who was famous for her beauty, like his pictures were for theirs, and who had achieved a great success in society as a vocalist, the master of the house led a princely life, was as proud of his racing stable as of his gallery, belonged to one of the principal clubs, paraded the most costly women, and had a box at the Opera, a chair at the Hôtel Drouot,1 and a footstool at the questionable resorts most in vogue. And all this profuse life, this luxury coruscating in an apotheosis of caprice and art, was entirely paid for by speculation, by a fortune which was incessantly on the move, and which seemed infinite like the sea, though, like the sea, it had its ebb and flow — balances in one or the other sense of two and three hundred thousand francs at each fortnightly settlement.

When Saccard had climbed the majestic entrance steps, a valet announced him, and escorted him through three reception rooms filled with marvels, to a little smoking room where Daigremont was finishing a cigar before going out. Already forty-five years of age, and struggling against stoutness, he was of high stature and very elegant, with his hair carefully trimmed, and wearing only a moustache and imperial, like a fanatic of the Tuileries. He affected great amiability, having absolute confidence in himself, a firm conviction of conquering.

He at once darted forward. ‘Ah! my dear friend, what is becoming of you?’ said he. ‘Only the other day I was thinking about you. But are you not now my neighbour?’