Complete Works of Emile Zola (65 page)

It was now Marius who took hold of Sauvaire’s arm, and they went a few steps in silence. Then the young man asked his companion in a stifled voice:

“Could you take me tonight to the Corneille Club?”

“Bravo!” exclaimed the master-stevedore. “We’ll have a laugh. I see you’re beginning to understand life. Look you, wine, love and cards, that’s the ticket for me. When I saw you looking so pale, I said to myself: ‘There’s a youngster I must take in hand!’ Try and win some money, be quick and get a sweetheart, and you’ll soon grow fat, or the devil take me! Certainly, I’ll conduct you tonight to the Corneille Club and I’ll introduce you to Clairon.”

Marius made a movement of impatience. He cared nothing for Clairon! A fixed idea was occupying his brain. Since it was possible to win sixteen thousand francs at play in a couple of nights, he wished to tempt fortune and obtain Philippe’s ransom from chance. And he said to himself that Providence would watch over him, that he would leave the club with his hands full of gold. Something had gone wrong in his healthy, upright mind. Beneath the repeated blows of disaster the good sense he possessed had become clouded. Everything was weighing him down. In bringing him the news of M. de Cazalis’ fresh proceedings, Abbé Chastanier had dealt him the first blow. Then Douglas in the pillory, that terrible sight, had completed his perturbation, driving him mad by spreading before his eyes the spectacle of the infamous punishment that awaited his brother. He was now quite losing his wits. Reduced to powerlessness, not knowing where to turn in his supreme anguish, he looked upon gambling as a providential means which would either help him out of his difficulty or plunge him more deeply into the abyss of his despair.

Besides, he was acting in a state of fever, no longer knowing what he was doing, obeying simply the instincts of the beast. He looked at Sauvaire, wondering whether it was virtue or crime which had placed this man across his path, at the moment when the thought of the steps the deputy was taking and of Philippe’s punishment was torturing him. At that instant, he would have accepted anything, he would have fought ill-luck with no matter what weapons.

“Well! that’s agreed,” resumed Sauvaire, as he took leave. “Where shall I meet you, this evening?”

“I’ll be here, on the Cannebière, at ten o’clock,” replied Marius.

He left the master-stevedore and went to his office. He had never before been in such a state of over-excitement. He passed a terrible day, shaking with fever, his brow heated, a vacant gaze in his eyes, and full of eager desire as he thought of the night that was coming. He was dreaming awake, and beheld the gold heaping up before him; he fancied himself already rich and imagined his brother was free. In the evening he went to see Fine, as usual, at about eight o’clock. The young woman noticed how heated his hands were.

“Whatever is the matter with you?” she asked him anxiously.

He stammered, and hurried away with the words:

“Don’t ask me anything. Philippe will be free and we shall all live happily.”

He called at his lodging to take a hundred francs which he had saved up one by one, and then went to meet Sauvaire. At ten o’clock, they both entered the Corneille Club.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GAMBLING-HOUSES OF MARSEILLE

BEFORE relating the next episode of this drama, before showing Marius a prey to all the anxieties of the gambler, it is necessary to explain the causes which led to the increase of gambling-houses in Marseille. The writer of these lines would like to display, in all its hideous nakedness, the festering sore which preyed upon one of the wealthiest and liveliest cities of France. The reader will pardon his short digression in consideration of its usefulness.

It is to be observed that the passion for gambling plays the most havoc in the great centres of commerce. When a whole population is given over to unbridled speculation, when all classes in a city are trafficking from morn to eve, it is almost impossible that this throng of dealers should not plunge into the keen emotions of gambling. Gaming then becomes an additional speculation to be added to the others; people speculate on chance, and continue during the night the occupation of the day; during the day-time they have been trying to increase their fortune by selling no matter what, and, at night-time, they seek to add to the profit by risking it at the gaming-table. If it is true that trade is often a game, the traders may believe that they are not going out of their element when they pass from their counters to the neighbouring gambling-houses.

The commercial fever, too, is contagious. In the face of certain great fortunes accumulated in a few years, there is not a young man at Marseille who does not dream of similar luck. Everyone wishes to go into business, the whole city is an enormous bank in which one lives merely for the sake of making money. Go down to the port, walk into all the places where the crowd is densest: you will find everyone talking of money, and will fancy yourself in some immense office where all conversations are about figures. The important business is, when one has ten francs in one’s pocket, to turn them into twenty, thirty, forty. Those with large capital gamble at the Stock Exchange, buying and selling. But folks who only possess a few francs, have recourse to gaming; not having sufficient to engage in vast enterprises, they satisfy their craving by tempting chance; it is a means of gaining fortune or meeting ruin which is within everyone’s grasp, a prompt and easy method, a new style of trade, full of keen emotions. The gambler is a speculator who lives a whole panting existence in a night, and experiences the hope, anxiety, and despair of a stock-jobber. In a city like Marseille, where money reigns as sovereign king, where the inhabitants are under the influence of a terrible commercial fever, gambling becomes a necessity, a sort of bank open to all, in which each one, both rich and poor, can risk his coppers or his gold.

Add to this the fact that the wealthy, those who shovel gold about, who gain enormous sums in a day, set little value on that gold they pile up so easily. A workman looks with reverence at the five-franc piece which is paid him in the evening; he has toiled and moiled to earn the coin, it represents to him an exhausting labour, long hours of fatigue; and he has to live on it. But a trader, a stock-jobber who, whilst remaining seated in his office, finds at evening that he has gained several hundreds of francs, does not fear, when pocketing his profit, to let a few twenty-franc pieces fall to the ground. He knows that on the morrow he will no doubt earn as many more; he is still young, and wishes to enjoy life; as he has been shut in during several hours, he requires, in the evening, some noisy pleasures and strong emotions. So he squanders his money in the restaurants and cafés, and at the gaming-table, spending it as easily as he earned it.

A commercial city is therefore forcibly dissolute and given to gambling. In this ebb and flow of fortunes, in this scorching breath of trade which penetrates throughout every house, there are hours of madness, imperious needs for enjoyment. At certain times, these people are blinded by the dazzle of the gold: they plunge into debauchery the same as they plunged into business. And the fever lays hold of the town from one end to the other, little and big, rich and poor, are agitated by the same emotion, the same need to lose or win gold, down to ruin or up to millions.

One can understand the existence of, I was almost saying the necessity for, gambling-houses at Marseille. At the time of this story there were more than a hundred of them, and the number was increasing daily. The police were vanquished by the passion of the gamblers. Whenever a gambling-house was discovered and closed, two others were opened in its immediate neighbourhood. To cut off the evil at the root, it was necessary to remove the fever that was agitating the whole population. But to my mind the evil was irremediable: one may kill man, but not his passions.

The police, who have a direct action on gambling-houses, close all those they discover. But their action is difficult to apply in the clubs which, at times, become changed into veritable houses for gaming. Gamblers are inventive when it is a question of satisfying their passion; they endeavour to have the law on their side. Understand well, however, what I mean to say; I have no idea of attacking certain honourable clubs at Marseille; I wish merely to be the historian of those scandalous clubs, frequented by sharpers and sometimes terribly stained by the blood of suicide.

This is how a club is founded. A few persons ask for an authorization to meet of an evening in a certain place, for the purposes of conversation and refreshment, and even to play at lawful games. Each member pays a subscription, and it is forbidden to admit strangers, that is to say to keep a gaming-table open to the public.

And now, this is what happens. After a few months, conversation and drinking cease, and whole nights are spent around the green baize; the stakes, at first very small, gradually increase in amount, so much so that it is easy to ruin oneself in a few nights. The management is no longer so strict, anyone is free to enter, there are more strangers in the club than members, even women are admitted, sharpers soon put in an appearance for the purpose of fleecing inexperienced players, and this state of things lasts until the police make a raid and close the premises. Two months later the club re-opens some distance off, the farce is played over again with the same ending.

This is one of the open sores of Marseille, a festering sore which spreads every day. The clubs have always a tendency to become gambling-houses, abysses which swallow up the fortunes and honour of those imprudent enough to venture therein. And once one has tasted the keen delights of play, all other pleasures seem to cloy; the fever seizes hold of one’s whole being and the table claims the last coin in one’s purse. Not a week goes by without some fresh disaster or complaint to the authorities.

One time it is merchants who have been ruining themselves at the gaming-tables. They come there and jeopardize the money deposited with them, first dissipating their own profits, and then breaking into the funds that have been entrusted to their commercial probity; after that they are obliged to go into bankruptcy, and they drag down in their ruin those who have had faith in their honesty.

Another time it is small clerks with appetites for luxury and fast living, and whose modest salaries are insufficient for the gratification of their passions. They see around them wealthy people wallowing in the lap of luxury, surrounded by lovely women, reclining in carriages, in short tasting of all the dissolute joys of life; they are seized with jealousy, and feel a keen desire to lead a similar existence of pleasure and festivity. So they seek to obtain the necessary money at the gaming-table; they first of all risk their salaries; then, when luck is against them, they rob their employers, and enter upon a criminal career.

Then again there are young men, poor simple fellows fresh from college, who become the prey of skilful sharpers. If they win, they plunge into debauchery; if they lose, they fall into debt, give bills to usurers, and eat their corn in the ear.

The following characteristic story is told. A clerk, who had been given a few thousand francs by his employer to pay the duty on some merchandise, went that evening to a club and lost the money with which he had been entrusted, at baccara. It was a temporary madness, the clerk being an honest fellow who had succumbed to the gambling fever. The employer threatened to make a complaint to the authorities. On hearing this, the members of the club, met together and decided to restore to the employer, out of their own pockets, the sum which his clerk had misappropriated. When they had paid up, the clerk signed a bill to the order of the cashier of the club, and the cashier has never insisted on the payment of this bill which the poor clerk was unable to meet.

Is not this kind action on the gamblers’ part an admission? They understood that they were all jointly and severally guilty of the embezzlement, and they hushed up the affair so that the authorities should not come and disturb them in the gratification of their passion.

It was into this world stricken with madness, into this company of excited gamblers, that Sauvaire introduced Marius.

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH MARIUS WINS TEN THOUSAND FRANCS

THE Corneille Club was one of those authorized gambling hells that were referred to in the preceding chapter. In principle it should only have comprised members admitted by a majority of voices and paying a subscription of twenty-five francs; but, in reality, everyone could go there and gamble. At the commencement, to save appearances, they were in the habit of pasting a list of the newcomers up on the glass; or else strangers were obliged to give a card of introduction supplied by one of the members. Later on they had omitted to ask for the card and they had not taken the trouble to post up the names. Anyone could go there who liked.

Of course the master-stevedore was an upright man incapable of committing a base action; but his life of pleasure had caused him to make strange friendships. He naively said that he preferred the society of rogues to that of straightforward people, for while the latter worried him the former made him laugh. He sought low society by instinct, because he could there unbutton himself at his ease, and amuse himself as he pleased, that is to say by making a frightful riot. Besides, with his affected air of a simple, easy man, he concealed extraordinary cunning and prudence: he never compromised himself, gambled little, and withdrew as soon as he ran the least danger. He was aware of the shady reputation of the majority of the frequenters of the Corneille Club, and he went there because he met with ladies who were the reverse of being strait-laced, and was able to satisfy his inclinations of an upstart.

Sauvaire and Marias, after ascending a narrow staircase, reached a spacious apartment on the first floor where a score of marble-topped tables were set out. Against the walls were divans covered with red velvet and in the centre rush-seated chairs: you might have imagined yourself in a café. At the end was a large table covered with green cloth on which two squares were marked out with red braid, and between these was a well for the cards that had been used. This was the gaming-table. It was surrounded by chairs.