Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (49 page)

But he had angrily leapt to his feet.

‘I want the rate at three thousand… I have bought, and I shall go on buying, even if it kills me… Yes, let me be killed, and everything
along with me, if I don’t reach the rate of three thousand, and keep to it!’

After the settlement of 15 December the share price rose to two thousand eight hundred, two thousand nine hundred. It was on the 21st that the rate of three thousand and twenty francs was announced at the Bourse, amid the commotion of a demented throng. There was no more truth or logic, the very idea of value was corrupted to the point of losing any real meaning. It was rumoured that Gundermann, contrary to his normal habits of prudence, had embarked on fearful risks; for months he had been working towards a fall, and every fortnight, as the rise went on by leaps and bounds, his losses had grown in parallel; and people were beginning to say he might well come a real cropper. Brains were all turned upside-down, people were expecting wonders.

And at that supreme moment, when Saccard, at the summit, felt the earth tremble beneath him and secretly felt the dread of a fall, he was king. When his carriage arrived in the Rue de Londres, stopping outside the triumphant palace of the Universal, a valet came running out, spreading a carpet that rolled down from the steps of the vestibule to the pavement, and down to the very gutter; Saccard then deigned to alight from his coach, and made his entrance, like a sovereign spared from contact with the common paving of the streets.

A
T
the end of that year, on the day of the December settlement, the great hall of the Bourse was already full at half-past twelve, with an extraordinary commotion of voices and gestures. Excitement had been mounting for weeks, culminating now in this last day of conflict, with a feverish mob in which there were already rumblings of the decisive battle about to be fought. Outside it was freezing hard; but the slanting rays of a bright winter sun came in through the high windows, brightening up the whole of one side of the bare hall, with its stern pillars and sombre vaulting, all made even more chilly by the dreary allegorical pictures on the walls; heating-pipes along the whole length of the arcades puffed out their warm breath into the cold draughts coming from the continual opening of the reinforced doors.

The ‘bear’ Moser, even more anxious and jaundiced-looking than usual, bumped into the ‘bull’ Pillerault, standing arrogantly on his long, heron-like legs.

‘You know what they’re saying?’

But he had to raise his voice to make himself heard in the growing clatter of talk, a regular, monotonous rumble, like the clamour of floodwater endlessly pouring along.

‘They say we’ll have war in April… That’s how it’s bound to end, with all these massive armaments. Germany won’t want to give us time to apply the new army law
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the Chamber is about to vote on… and anyway, Bismarck…’

Pillerault burst out laughing.

‘Oh, do let up about your Bismarck!… I spent five minutes talking to him myself this summer when he was here. He seems a very decent chap… If you’re still not satisfied after the thundering success of the Exhibition, what more do you want? Eh? My dear fellow, the whole of Europe is ours!’

Moser shook his head in despair. Then, though he was continually interrupted by the jostling of the crowd, he continued to speak of his fears. The market was too prosperous, with an excessive prosperity, of no more real worth than the surplus fat of obesity. Thanks to the Exhibition, too many new businesses had sprung up, people had got too carried away, there was now a sheer mania for gambling on the
market. Universals, for instance, at three thousand and thirty, wasn’t that just crazy?

‘Ah, now we’re getting to it,’ cried Pillerault.

And moving closer, emphasizing each syllable, he said: ‘My dear chap, by this evening they’ll be up to three thousand and sixty… you’ll all be knocked sideways, I’m telling you…’

Moser, easily impressionable though he was, gave a little hiss of defiance. And he gazed into the air to underline his false tranquillity of soul, pausing for a moment to look intently at the heads of some women who were leaning over, up there in the telegraph gallery,
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astonished at the spectacle in this room that they were not allowed to enter. There were shields bearing the names of towns, while capitals and cornices stretched away up there in a colourless perspective, stained here and there with yellow where rain had leaked in.

‘Aha! It’s you!’ Moser went on, lowering his head as he recognized Salmon standing in front of him, smiling his eternal and profound smile. Then, somewhat disturbed, taking that smile as approval of Pillerault’s comments:

‘Well, if you know something, tell us. My own reasoning is simple. I’m with Gundermann, because, well, Gundermann is Gundermann, isn’t he?… With him things always turn out right.’

‘But’, said Pillerault with a snigger, ‘how do you know Gundermann is short-selling?’

At this, Moser’s eyes widened with alarm. For some time everyone had been saying in the Bourse that Gundermann was out to get Saccard, and that he was promoting short-selling against the Universal, until he could finally cripple it at some month’s end, with a sudden effort, when the time was ripe for crushing the market with his millions; and if this session already looked so turbulent, it was because everyone thought, and kept repeating, that the battle was at last going to take place that very day, one of those merciless battles in which one of the two armies is left on the field, destroyed. But could you ever be sure, in this world of lies and trickery? Even the most certain things, the most firmly predicted, could, at the slightest breath, become subjects of anguished doubt.

‘You’re denying the evidence,’ Moser murmured. ‘Of course I haven’t seen the orders, and one can’t be certain of anything… eh? Salmon, what do you think? Gundermann really can’t give up, damn it!’

He didn’t know what to think, faced with Salmon’s silent smile that seemed to narrow with an extreme subtlety.

‘Ah!’ Moser went on, indicating with his chin a large man who was passing by, ‘if only that man chose to speak, I’d have no problem. He sees things clearly.’ It was the famous Amadieu, still living on his success with the Selsis mines, shares he had bought at fifteen francs in an idiotic fit of obstinacy, and later sold for a profit of about fifteen million, without his having foreseen or calculated anything at all, but just by chance. He was revered for his great financial abilities, he had a real court of followers who tried to catch his slightest word in order to place their money in the direction it seemed to indicate.

‘Bah!’ cried Pillerault, caught up in his favourite theory of reckless gambling. ‘The best thing is still to do whatever you fancy, come what may… It’s all just luck. Either one has luck or one doesn’t. So there’s no point in thinking about it. Every time I’ve actually thought about it I’ve almost lost my shirt… Look, as long as I can see that gentleman over there, firmly at his post, and looking ready to devour everything in sight, I shall go on buying.’

With a wave he had pointed out Saccard, who had just arrived and settled into his usual place beside the pillar of the first archway on the left. Like all the heads of important companies, he had his own recognized place, where employees and clients could be certain of finding him on the days when the Bourse was open. Only Gundermann made a point of never setting foot in the great hall; he didn’t even send an official representative; but one could tell he had his army there, and as an absent and sovereign master, he reigned through the vast legion of jobbers and brokers who carried his orders, not to mention the others he had working for him, so numerous that any man present might be one of his mysterious soldiers. And it was against this elusive, but everywhere active, army that Saccard was fighting, in person and out in the open. Behind him, on the corner of the pillar, was a bench, but he never sat on it, staying on his feet for the two hours of the market, as if disdainful of fatigue. Sometimes, relaxing a moment, he would lean his elbow against the stone, which long rubbing had darkened and polished up to the height of a man; and in the dull bareness of the monument, this was even a characteristic feature, this band of shiny dirt, on the doors, on the walls, on the stairs, in the hall, a filthy underlay of the accumulated sweat of generations of gamblers and thieves. Very elegant, very correctly dressed, like all the
market men, in his fine cloth and dazzling linen, Saccard, amid those walls with black borders, had the amiable and relaxed look of a man with no worries.

‘You know,’ said Moser, lowering his voice, ‘some say he’s supporting the rise by making large purchases. If the Universal is speculating on its own shares, it’s done for.’

But Pillerault protested:

‘Another bit of gossip!… How can you tell for sure who’s buying and who’s selling?… He’s here for the clients of his company, which is quite natural. And he’s also here on his own account, for he must be speculating too.’

Moser, anyway, did not insist. Nobody at the Bourse would yet have dared to state positively the terrible campaign conducted by Saccard, all the buying he had done on behalf of the bank under cover of frontmen like Sabatani, Jantrou, and others, especially his own employees. There was just a rumour going round, whispered from ear to ear, always denied but always springing up again, though without any possible proof. Saccard had at first been cautious in his support of the market price, reselling as soon as he could, to avoid tying up too much capital and loading the coffers with shares. But now he was being dragged along by the struggle; he had foreseen that he might need, that day, to make excessive purchases if he wanted to remain master of the battlefield. He had given his orders and now affected the smiling tranquillity of any ordinary day, despite his uncertainty about the final outcome and the worry he felt at thus proceeding further and further down a path he knew to be appallingly dangerous.

Suddenly Moser, who had been prowling about behind the back of the famous Amadieu, who was deep in conversation with a small, sly-looking man, came back very excited, stammering:

‘I heard him, heard him with my own ears… He said that Gundermann’s orders to sell were for more than ten million… Oh! I’m selling, I’m selling, I’d sell my very shirt!…’

‘Heavens! Ten million!’ muttered Pillerault, in a slightly changed tone. ‘The knives are really out.’

And in the ever growing clamour, intensified by all the individual conversations, there was now no other subject than the ferocious duel between Gundermann and Saccard. It was impossible to make out the words, but this was the very substance of the noise, this alone that
made so loud a roar; the calm and logical obstinacy of the one selling, and the feverish passion to keep on buying that was suspected in the other. Conflicting reports were circulating, at first murmured, but ending up as trumpet-blasts. As soon as they opened their mouths, some were shouting to make themselves heard above the din; while others, full of mystery, were bending close to the ears of their interlocutors, speaking very quietly, even when they had nothing to say.

‘Ah! I’m keeping to my position, going for a rise!’ said Pillerault, already reassured. ‘With such lovely sunshine, everything will go up again.’

‘Everything’s going to collapse,’ said Moser, stubbornly doleful. ‘Rain is not far off, I had a really bad night last night.’

But the smile of Salmon, who was listening to each of them in turn, became so narrowed that both became unhappy, without any possibility of certainty. Could that devil of a man, so extraordinarily able, so deep, and so discreet, have found a third way of playing the market, being neither bull nor bear?

Saccard, at his pillar, could see the throng of flatterers and clients growing around him. Hands continually stretched out towards him, and he shook them all with the same happy ease, putting a promise of triumph into each squeeze of his fingers. Some ran up to him, exchanged a word or two, and went off again, delighted. Many stayed on obstinately, refusing to leave him in their pride at being in his group. He would often show kindness towards people, even when he couldn’t remember the names of those who were speaking to him. He did not recognize Maugendre, for instance, until Captain Chave told him his name. The Captain, now reconciled with his brother-in-law, was urging him to sell, but Saccard’s handshake was enough to inflame Maugendre with unlimited hope. Then there was Sédille, the great silk-merchant and one of the directors of the bank, who wanted to consult him for a moment. His business was going downhill, and his entire fortune was so tied in with the Universal that if the price dropped it would mean ruin for him; anxious and consumed by his passion, and worried too about his son Gustave, who was not doing at all well at Mazaud’s, he was in need of reassurance and encouragement. With one tap on his shoulder, Saccard sent him away full of faith and ardour. Then there was quite a procession: Kolb the banker, who had taken his profits some time ago, but was trying to keep on the right side of fortune; the Marquis de Bohain, with his lordly air
of haughty condescension, who affected to go to the Bourse solely out of curiosity and through having nothing better to do; and even Huret, incapable of nursing a grudge, and supple enough to remain friends with people until the very day they were finally swallowed up, was there to see if there was anything left for him to pick up. But Daigremont appeared and everyone moved aside. He was very influential, and people noticed his affability and the confident and friendly way he joked with Saccard. The ‘bulls’ were radiant, for he had a reputation as a man who knew his way about, shrewd enough to get out of a business at the first sign of cracks in the floor; so it became certain that Universals were not cracking yet. Others too were walking about and simply exchanging glances with Saccard; these were his own men, the employees who were there to give his orders, and who were also buying for themselves in the mania for gambling, the epidemic that was decimating the staff in the Rue de Londres, always on the watch, with an ear at every keyhole in the hunt for tips. Sabatani passed by twice, with the soft grace of his mixed Italian and Oriental blood, affecting not even to see Saccard, while Jantrou, standing a few paces away with his back turned, seemed absorbed in reading the dispatches from the foreign stock-exchanges pinned up on wire-meshed frames. Massias the jobber, running as usual, bumped into the group and gave a little nod, doubtless a reply about some swiftly performed commission. As the opening-hour approached, the endless shuffling of feet, and the double movement of the crowd, back and forth across the room, filled it with the deep upheavals and roaring of a high tide.