That same evening Madame Caroline, in her fright, telegraphed to her brother, who was to have remained at Rome another week; and three days later, hastening to the scene of danger, Hamelin arrived in Paris.
There was a violent explanation between Saccard and the engineer in that work-room in the Rue Saint-Lazare, where, in other days, the enterprise had been discussed and decided upon with so much enthusiasm. During the three days which had just elapsed the smash-up at the Bourse had become more and more complete. Fall following fall in rapid succession, Universals had now dropped to four hundred and thirty francs—seventy francs below par; and the decline was continuing; the whole fabric was fast cracking and crumbling away.
Whilst her brother and Saccard talked, Madame Caroline listened in silence, resolved not to intervene. She was full of remorse, for she accused herself of complicity, since it was she who, after promising to watch, had let everything go on. Instead of contenting herself with simply selling her shares in order to combat the rise, ought she not to have taken some other course—warned people, acted energetically? Worshipping her brother as she did, her heart bled at seeing him compromised in this fashion, with all his great enterprises shaken, the whole work of his life again in question; and she suffered the more since she did not feel herself free to judge Saccard; for had she not loved him, was she not his, linked to him by that secret bond, the shame of which she now felt more than ever? Placed between these two men, a combat[Pg 356] raged within her and rent her heart. On the evening of the catastrophe, in a fine outburst of frankness, she had heaped her wrath upon Saccard, emptying her heart of all the reproaches and fears which had so long been swelling it. However, on seeing him smile, still tenacious, still unconquered despite everything, she had reflected that, after her own weakness with him, she had no right to finish him off, to strike him now that he was down. She thought, too, of the strength which he would need to set himself erect again, and so, taking refuge in silence, her demeanour alone giving expression to her blame, she resolved that she would henceforward be nothing but a witness.
However, Hamelin this time became angry, he who was usually so conciliatory, without interest in anything that was not part of his work. He attacked gambling with extreme violence; \'the Universal,\' said he, \'had succumbed to the mania for gambling—gambling carried to the point of absolute madness.\' Undoubtedly he was not one of those who pretended that a bank could allow its stock to fall in price, like a railway company, for instance. The railway company has its immense plant, which brings in its receipts, whereas the real plant of a bank is its credit; so it finds itself at death\'s door as soon as its credit totters. Only there was a question of moderation in all this. Though it might have been necessary and even wise to maintain the quotation at two thousand francs, it was madness and utter criminality to push it further, to try to raise it to three thousand and more. Immediately on his arrival, Hamelin had demanded the truth, the whole truth. They could no longer lie to him now, and declare to him, as he had allowed them to declare in his presence at the last shareholders\' meeting, that the Bank did not possess a single one of its shares. The books were there and he easily penetrated the lies they contained. He knew, for instance, that the Sabatani account concealed operations carried on by the Bank itself; and in this account, month by month, over a period of two years, he could trace the progress of Saccard\'s fatal fever. At first things had been done in a timid way, prudence had been displayed in the purchases, but at last these had[Pg 357] become larger and larger, till they had finally reached the enormous figure of twenty-seven thousand shares costing nearly forty-eight millions of francs. Was it not madness, impudent, derisive folly, that transactions of such magnitude should be entered to the account of a Sabatani? And this Sabatani was not the only one; there were other men of straw—employees of the Bank, directors even—whose purchases, entered as carried over, exceeded twenty thousand shares, also representing nearly forty-eight millions of francs. And, moreover, all these were only the completed purchases, to which must be added the time bargains, effected during the last fortnight of January; sixty-seven millions of francs expended on more than twenty thousand shares, delivery of which the Universal had to accept; to say nothing of ten thousand other shares bought at the Lyons Bourse, making another twenty-four millions. And, adding everything together, it was seen that the Bank now had in hand nearly one-fourth of the shares which it had issued, and that it had paid for these shares the frightful sum of two hundred millions. There was the abyss in which it had been swallowed up.
Tears of grief and anger had risen to Hamelin\'s eyes. To think that this should have happened when he had just so auspiciously laid at Rome the foundations of his great Catholic bank, that Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre which, in the approaching days of persecution, would enable the Pope to be regally installed at Jerusalem, amid the legendary glory of the Holy Places—a bank destined to set the new Kingdom of Palestine beyond the reach of political disturbances, by basing its revenue, guaranteed by the resources of the country, on a series of issues which the Christians of the whole world would vie in taking up! And all this collapsed at one stroke through the imbecile madness of gambling! He had gone away leaving an admirable balance-sheet, coffers full of money, a Bank enjoying such great and speedy prosperity that it was the wonder of the world; and, less than a month afterwards, when he came back, the millions had melted away, the Bank was prostrate, reduced to dust, and there was nothing but a black hole, in which a conflagration seemed to have[Pg 358] raged. His stupefaction increased; he violently demanded explanations, wished to understand what mysterious force it was that had driven Saccard to wage this relentless warfare upon the colossal edifice which he had built so as to destroy it, stone by stone, on the one hand, while he pretended to finish it upon the other.
Saccard answered very frankly, and without anger. After the first hours of emotion and annihilation, he had recovered his self-possession, and was again erect and firm, buoyed up by his indomitable hopes. Treachery had rendered the catastrophe a terrible one, but nothing was lost; he was going to retrieve everything. And besides, if the Universal had enjoyed such swift and great prosperity, had it not owed it to the very methods with which they now reproached him—to the creation of the syndicate, the successive increases of the capital, the advance balance-sheet of the last shareholders\' meeting, the shares which the Bank retained in hand, and those which had been so wildly purchased en masse later on? All these things were connected. If they accepted the success, the risks must be accepted also. When a machine is overheated it bursts. For the rest, he would acknowledge no culpability; he had simply done, more intelligently and vigorously than another, that which every bank manager does; and he did not even abandon his idea of genius—his giant idea of repurchasing all the shares and dethroning Gundermann. Money had been lacking, that was all. And now they must begin over again. A special shareholders\' meeting had just been summoned for the following Monday; he was absolutely certain of his shareholders, he said; he would obtain from them the sacrifices that were indispensable, for he was convinced that, at a word from him, they would all bring their fortunes. In the meantime they could jog on, thanks to the small sums which the other financial houses, the great banks, advanced every morning for the pressing needs of the day, through fear of too sudden a crash, which would have shaken them also. The crisis over, all would be resumed, and the enterprise would again become as resplendent as ever.
[Pg 359]
\'But,\' objected Hamelin, whom this smiling tranquillity already calmed, \'do you not detect in this help supplied by our rivals a design of securing themselves first of all, and then rendering our fall more complete by delaying it? What worries me is to see Gundermann\'s hand in the business.\'
In fact, in order to avert an immediate declaration of bankruptcy, Gundermann had been one of the first to offer help, in this wise displaying the practical sense of a man who, after setting fire to his neighbour\'s house, hastens to bring buckets of water, so that the entire neighbourhood may not be destroyed. He was above resentment; he had no other glory than that of being the first money-merchant of the world, the richest and the most shrewd, through having succeeded in sacrificing all his passions to the continuous increase of his fortune.
Saccard made a gesture of impatience, exasperated as he was by this proof which the conqueror gave of his sagacity and intelligence. \'Oh, Gundermann,\' he said, \'is playing the high-minded man; he thinks that he stabs me with his generosity.\'
A silence ensued, and it was Madame Caroline, hitherto dumb, who at last broke it. \'My friend,\' said she, addressing Saccard, \'I have allowed my brother to speak to you, as he was bound to speak, in the legitimate grief which he felt on learning of all these deplorable things. But our situation, his and mine, seems to me clear; it seems impossible, does it not, that he should be compromised if the affair altogether turns out disastrously? You know at what price I sold our shares. People cannot say that my brother stimulated the rise in order to get a larger profit from his shares. And besides, if the catastrophe comes, we shall know our duty. I confess that I do not share your stubborn hopes. Nevertheless, you are right in contending that it is necessary to struggle on till the last moment, and it is not my brother who will discourage you, you may be sure of it.
She was agitated, again harbouring a tolerant feeling towards this man who displayed such stubborn determination. However, she was unwilling that others should perceive her[Pg 360] weakness, for she could no longer blind herself to the hateful work which he would assuredly do over again should he have the chance, swayed as he was by the thieving passions of an unscrupulous corsair.
\'Certainly,\' declared Hamelin, in his turn weary and unable to resist any further. \'I am not going to paralyse you, when you are fighting to save us all. Rely on me, if I can be useful to you.\'
And once more, at this last hour, when threatened by the most frightful dangers, Saccard reassured them, reconquered them, taking leave of them with these words, full of promise and mystery: \'Sleep easy. I cannot say more, but I am absolutely certain of setting everything afloat again before another week is over.\'
This phrase, which he did not explain, he repeated to all the friends of the concern, to all the customers who, frightened, terrified, came to ask him for advice. For three days past there had been a continuous gallop through his office in the Rue de Londres. The Beauvilliers, the Maugendres, Sédille, Dejoie, all hastened to apply to him. He received them very calmly, with a military air, with ringing words which restored courage to their hearts; and when they talked of selling, of realising at a loss, he became angry, and shouted to them to do nothing so stupid, promising upon his honour that he would again secure the quotation of two thousand and even three thousand francs. In spite of the mistakes that had been made, they all retained a blind faith in him: if he were left to them, free to rob them again, he would clear up everything, and finally enrich them all, as he had sworn to do. If no accident should happen before Monday, if he were given time to hold the special shareholders\' meeting, no one doubted that he would bring the Universal safe and sound out of its ruins.
Saccard had thought of his brother Rougon, and this was the omnipotent aid of which he spoke, unwilling to be more explicit. Having met Daigremont, the traitor, face to face, and bitterly reproached him, he had merely obtained from him this reply: \'But, my dear fellow, it is not I who have[Pg 361] dropped you; it is your brother!\' Evidently this man was in his right; he had gone into the affair solely on condition that Rougon should be in it; they had formally promised him Rougon; so it was not astonishing that he should retire, since the Minister, far from being in it, was at open war with the Universal and its manager. This was at least an excuse to which there was no reply. Greatly struck by it, Saccard realised what a colossal mistake he had made in thus falling out with his brother, who alone could defend him, make him so far sacred that no one, knowing the great man to be behind him, would dare to complete his ruin. And never had his pride been so severely tried as when he had to make up his mind to ask Deputy Huret to intervene in his favour. For the rest, he maintained a threatening attitude, absolutely refused to abscond, and claimed as a right the help of Rougon, who had more interest than he in preventing a scandal. The next day, whilst awaiting Huret\'s promised visit on the matter, he simply received a note, in which he was told in vague terms not to be impatient, but to rely upon a satisfactory issue, if subsequent circumstances should not make it impossible. He contented himself with these few lines, which he regarded as a promise of neutrality.
The truth was, however, that Rougon had just taken the energetic resolution to get rid of this gangrened member of his family, who for years had been embarrassing him, keeping him in perpetual fear of some unclean misadventure, and whom he now preferred to cut off at a blow. If the catastrophe came, he was determined to let things take their course. Since Saccard would never voluntarily consent to go into exile, was not the simplest plan to force him to expatriate himself by facilitating his flight after some severe sentence? A sudden scandal, a sweep of the broom, and all would be ended. Moreover, the Minister\'s position was becoming difficult since he had declared to the Corps Législatif, in a memorable outburst of eloquence, that France would never allow Italy to take possession of Rome. Loudly applauded by the Catholics, severely attacked by the Third Estate, which was becoming more and more powerful, Rougon[Pg 362] saw the hour approaching when the latter, aided by the Liberal Bonapartists, would drive him from power if he did not give it a guarantee. And the guarantee, if circumstances required it, should be the abandonment of that Universal Bank which, under the patronage of Rome, had become a disturbing force. Finally, what clinched his decision was a secret communication from his colleague, the Minister of Finances, who, on the point of launching a loan, had found Gundermann and all the other Jew bankers very reserved, and disposed to refuse their capital so long as the market should remain uncertain, at the mercy of adventurers. Gundermann triumphed. Better the Jews, with their accepted sovereignty of gold, than the Ultramontane Catholics masters of the world as they would be should they become the kings of the Bourse.
It was subsequently related that, when the Keeper of the Seals, Delcambre, relentless in his rancour against Saccard, had sounded Rougon as to the course to be pursued with regard to his brother should justice be obliged to intervene, he had by way of answer simply received this heartfelt cry: \'Ah! Rid me of him, and I shall owe you a debt of gratitude!\'
From that moment, Rougon having abandoned him, Saccard was lost. Delcambre, who had been watching him ever since attaining power, at last held him on the margin of the Code, on the very edge of the judicial net, and had only to find a pretext to set the gendarmes and judges upon him.
One morning, Busch, furious with himself at not having yet acted, repaired to the Palais de Justice. If he did not make haste, he would never get from Saccard the four thousand francs which were still due to La Méchain on little Victor\'s famous bill of expenses. Busch\'s plan was simply to raise an abominable scandal by accusing Saccard of sequestrating the child, which would permit him to spread the whole dirty story before the world. Such a prosecution instituted against the manager of the Universal, amid the excitement created by the crisis through which the Bank was[Pg 363] passing, would certainly stir all Paris; and Busch still hoped that Saccard would pay at the first threat. But the Deputy Public Prosecutor, who received him, a nephew of Delcambre, listened to his story with an impatient, wearied air. No! no! there was nothing to be accomplished with such gossip as that; it did not come under any clause of the Code. Disconcerted, Busch grew angry, and talked of his long patience, saying that he had even carried his good nature towards Saccard so far as to deposit funds en report with the Universal. Thereupon the other at once interrupted him. What! he had funds in that concern, which was certainly insolvent, and he did not act? Nothing was more simple; he had only to prefer a charge of swindling, for justice had been warned of the fraudulent transactions which were about to bring on bankruptcy. The great blow was to be dealt by means of this charge, not of the other story, that melodramatic affair of a girl who had died of alcoholism, and of a child who had grown up in the gutter. Busch listened with an attentive, serious face, turned into this new path, dragged into an act which he had not come to perform, but the decisive consequences of which he could clearly foresee, for Saccard would be arrested, and the Universal would receive its death-blow. The mere fear of losing his money would have at once made him make up his mind. Moreover, a disaster was in his line, for it would give him an opportunity to fish in troubled waters. Nevertheless he hesitated, said that he would reflect and would come back; and the Deputy Public Prosecutor actually had to force the pen into his hand, and then and there make him write down that charge of swindling, which, as soon as he had been dismissed, was carried by the zealous official to his uncle, the Keeper of the Seals. The affair was clinched.
The next day, at the office of the Bank in the Rue de Londres, Saccard had a long interview with the auditors and the judicially appointed manager, in order to draw up the balance-sheet which he desired to present to the shareholders\' meeting. In spite of the sums advanced by other financial establishments, they had had to suspend payment,[Pg 364] in view of the increasing demands made upon them. This bank, which, a month previously, had possessed nearly two hundred million francs in its coffers, had not been able to pay its distracted customers more than a few hundred thousand francs. Bankruptcy had been officially declared by a judgment of the Tribunal of Commerce, after a summary report rendered by an expert who had been charged with an examination of the books. In spite of everything, however, Saccard, seemingly unconscious, still promised to save the situation, evincing an extraordinary amount of blind hopefulness and obstinate bravery. And on that very day he was awaiting a reply from the stockbrokers\' association, with regard to the fixing of a rate of compensation, when his usher entered to tell him that three gentlemen wished to see him in an adjoining room. Perhaps this was salvation; he rushed out gaily, and found a commissary of police awaiting him, accompanied by two officers, by whom he was immediately arrested. The warrant had just been issued, partly on the strength of the expert\'s report, which pointed to irregularities in the accounts, but more particularly owing to the charge of abuse of confidence preferred by Busch, who pretended that the funds which he had entrusted to the Universal to be carried forward had been otherwise disposed of.
At the same hour, moreover, Hamelin also was arrested at his residence in the Rue Saint-Lazare. Every hatred and every mischance seemed to have combined, as though implacably bent upon securing the Bank\'s destruction, and at last the end had come. The specially convened meeting of shareholders could no longer be held; the Universal Bank had lived.
Madame Caroline was not at home at the time of the arrest of her brother, who could only leave a few hastily written lines for her. When she returned and learnt what had happened she was stupefied. She had never believed that they would for a moment even think of prosecuting him, for in her mind his long periods of absence showed that he could have taken no part in Saccard\'s shady transactions. On the day after the[Pg 365] bankruptcy, both he and she had stripped themselves of all that they possessed, in order to swell the assets, and to emerge from this adventure as naked as they had entered it. And the amount of money which they thus surrendered was a large one, nearly eight millions of francs, in which were swallowed up the three hundred thousand francs which they had inherited. Her brother arrested, Madame Caroline at once gave herself up to applications and solicitations, living only to soften the lot and prepare the defence of her poor George, and bursting into tears, in spite of her courage, whenever she thought of him, innocent, behind the prison bars, bespattered by this frightful scandal, his life wrecked and soiled for ever. To think of it! He so gentle and so weak, full of childlike piety, a \'perfect simpleton,\' as she said, outside his technical work! And, at first, she became wroth with Saccard, the sole cause of the disaster, the artisan of their misfortune, whose hateful work she traced and clearly judged, from the days of the beginning, when he had gaily derided her for reading the Code, to these days of the end, when, paying the severe penalty of failure, he was about to be called to account for all the irregular practices which she had foreseen and allowed to be committed. Then, tortured by this haunting remorse of complicity, she became silent, and tried not to openly concern herself with him, resolving to act indeed as if he were not in existence. Whenever she had to mention his name, it seemed as if she were speaking of a stranger, of an opponent whose interests were different from her own. She, who visited her brother at the Conciergerie almost every day, had not even asked for a permit to see Saccard. And she was very brave; she still occupied her apartments in the Rue Saint-Lazare, receiving all who presented themselves, even those who came with insults on their lips, thus transformed into a woman of business, determined to save what little she could of their honesty and happiness.
During the long days which she passed in this way, upstairs, in that work-room where she had spent such delightful hours of toil and hope, there was one spectacle[Pg 366] which particularly distressed her. Whenever she approached one of the windows, and cast a glance at the neighbouring mansion, she could not behold without a pang at the heart the pale profiles of the Countess de Beauvilliers and her slaughter Alice behind the window-panes of the little room in which they lived. Those February days were very mild; so that she also often noticed them walking, slowly and with drooping heads, along the paths of the moss-grown garden which the winter had ravaged. The results of the crash had been frightful for those poor creatures. They who a fortnight previously could have commanded eighteen hundred thousand francs with their six hundred shares could now only get an offer of eighteen thousand for them, since the price had fallen from three thousand to thirty francs. And their entire fortune had at one stroke melted away. All had vanished—the twenty thousand francs of the dowry, so painfully and thriftily saved by the Countess; the seventy thousand francs borrowed upon Les Aublets, and the two hundred and forty thousand francs which the farm had eventually fetched when it was in reality worth four hundred thousand. What was to become of them, since the mortgage upon their house in Paris alone consumed eight thousand francs a year, and they had never been able to reduce their style of living below seven thousand, in spite of all their niggardly practices, all the miracles of sordid economy which they accomplished, in order to save appearances and keep their station? Even if they were to sell their shares, how could they henceforth live, provide for their wants out of that paltry sum of eighteen thousand francs, the last waif of the shipwreck? The Countess had not yet been willing to look the imperious necessity in the face. The only course was to leave the mansion, and abandon it to the mortgagees, since it was impossible for her to continue paying the interest. Rather than wait for its sale to be advertised, she had better at once withdraw to some small apartments, there in concealment to eke out a straitened existence, down to the last morsel of bread. However, she resisted, because this meant severance from all that she had clung to, the annihilation of all that she had dreamt, the crumbling of the[Pg 367] edifice of her race which for years her trembling hands had sustained with heroic obstinacy. The Beauvilliers, tenants, no longer living under the ancestral roof, dwelling in the houses of others, in the confessed misery of the conquered: really, would that not be the crowning degradation? And so she struggled on.
One morning Madame Caroline saw the mother and daughter washing their linen under the little shed in the garden. The old cook, now almost powerless, was no longer of much help to them; during the late cold weather they had had to nurse her; and it was the same with the husband, at once porter, coachman, and valet, who had great difficulty in sweeping the house and in keeping the old horse upon his legs, for both man and beast were fast growing halt, worn out. So the ladies had set resolutely about their housework, the daughter sometimes dropping her water-colours to prepare the meagre slops upon which all four scantily lived, the mother dusting the furniture and mending the garments and shoes, so enwrapped in her ideas of petty economy that she imagined they were effecting savings in dusters, needles, and thread now that she handled these herself. Only, as soon as a visitor called, it was a sight to see both of them run away, throw off their aprons, wash themselves, and reappear as mistresses with white and idle hands. On the side of the street their style of living had not changed, their honour was safe: the brougham still went out with the horse properly harnessed, taking the Countess and her daughter to make their calls; the guests of every winter still assembled at the fortnightly dinners; there was not a dish less upon the table, not a candle less in the candelabra. And it was necessary to command a view of the garden, as Madame Caroline did, to know what terrible to-morrows of fasting paid for all that show, the lying fa?ade of a vanished fortune. When she saw them promenading their mortal melancholy, under the greenish skeletons of the centenarian trees, in the depths of that damp pit, closely hemmed in by the neighbouring houses, she was filled with immense pity, and withdrew from the window, her heart rent by remorse, as if she felt[Pg 368] that she had been Saccard\'s accomplice in bringing about this misery.
Then, another morning, Madame Caroline experienced a yet more direct and grievous sorrow. She was informed that Dejoie had called, and she bravely resolved to see him.
\'Well, my poor Dejoie,\' she began, but on noticing the pallor of the old fellow\'s face she stopped short quite frightened. His eyes seemed lifeless, his features were distorted, and his very tall figure had become both shrunken and bowed.
\'Come,\' she added, \'you must not let the idea that all this money is lost prostrate you.\'
\'Oh, madame, it isn\'t that,\' he answered in a low voice. \'At the first moment, no doubt, it was a hard blow, because I had accustomed myself to believe that we were rich. When a man\'s winning the fever flies to his head, he feels as though he were drunk. But, mon Dieu! I was ready to go to work once more; I would have worked so hard that I should have succeeded in getting the sum together again. But you do not know——\' He paused; big tears were rolling down his cheeks. \'You do not know,\' he added. \'She is gone!\'
\'Gone! Who?\' asked Madame Caroline in surprise.
\'Nathalie, my daughter. Her marriage had fallen through; she was furious when Theodore\'s father came to tell us that his son had already waited too long, and that he was going to marry the daughter of a haberdasher, who would bring him nearly eight thousand francs. Oh, I can understand her anger at the thought of no longer having a copper, and remaining single! But I who loved her so well! Only last winter I used to get up at night to see if she were well covered. And I deprived myself of tobacco in order that she might have prettier hats, and I was her real mother; I had brought her up; I lived only for the pleasure of seeing her in our little rooms.\'
His tears choked him; he began to sob.
\'You see, it was the fault of my ambition,\' he continued. \'If I had sold out as soon as my eight shares had given me the dowry of six thousand francs, she would now have been married. But, you know, they were still going up, and I[Pg 369] thought of myself; I wanted first an income of six hundred francs, then one of eight hundred, then one of a thousand; especially as the little one would have inherited this money later on. To think that at one time, when the shares were worth three thousand francs apiece, I had twenty-four thousand francs before me, enough to give her a dowry of six thousand and retire, myself, on an income of nine hundred! But no! I wanted a thousand; how stupid! And now my shares don\'t represent as much as two hundred francs even. Oh! it was my fault; I should have done better to have thrown myself into the water!\'
Greatly distressed by his grief, Madame Caroline allowed him to relieve himself. Still she was desirous of knowing what had happened. \'Gone, my poor Dejoie!\' she said, \'how gone?\'
Then embarrassment came over him, and a slight flush rose to his pale face. \'Yes, gone, disappeared, three days ago. She had made the acquaintance of a gentleman who lived opposite us—oh! a very good-looking man, about forty years old. In short, she has run away.\'
And while he gave details, seeking for fitting words in his embarrassment, Madame Caroline in her mind\'s eye again beheld Nathalie, slender and blonde, with the frail grace of a pretty girl of the Parisian pavements. She again saw her large eyes, with their tranquil, cold expression reflecting egotism with such extraordinary clearness. She had suffered her father to adore her like an idol, conducting herself with all propriety so long as it was her interest to do so, so long as there remained any hope of a dowry, a marriage, a counter in some little shop where she would be enthroned. But to continue leading a penniless life, to live in rags with her good old father, to have to work again, oh! no, she had had enough of that kind of life, which henceforth had no prospect to offer. And so she had taken herself off, had coldly put on her hat and boots to go elsewhere.
\'Mon Dieu!\' Dejoie continued, stammering, \'there was little to amuse her at home, it\'s true; and when a girl is pretty, it is provoking for her to waste her youth in weary[Pg 370] waiting. But all the same she has been very hard. Just fancy, she did not even bid me good-bye, did not even leave a word of a letter, not the smallest promise to come to see me again from time to time. She shut the door behind her and it was all over. You see, my hands tremble, I have been like an idiot ever since. It is more than I can bear; I am always looking for her at home. After so many years, mon Dieu! is it possible that I have her no more, that I shall never have her any more, my poor little child?\'
He had ceased weeping, and his wild grief was so distressing that Madame Caroline caught hold of both his hands, unable to find any other words of consolation than: \'My poor Dejoie, my poor Dejoie.\'
At last, to divert his attention, she again spoke of the downfall of the Universal. She expressed her regret at having allowed him to take any shares; she judged Saccard severely without naming him. But the old fellow at once became animated again. The passion for gambling which had seized upon him was still alive in his heart. \'Monsieur Saccard?\' he said, \'oh! he did quite right to keep me from selling. It was a superb affair; we should have conquered them all, but for the traitors who abandoned us. Ah! madame, if Monsieur Saccard were here, things would go on differently. It was our death-blow when they threw him into prison. And only he can save us. I told the judge so: "Restore him to us, monsieur," I said, "and I\'ll confide my fortune to him again. I\'ll confide my life to him because you see he\'s like Providence itself. He does whatever he likes."\'
Madame Caroline looked at Dejoie in stupefaction. What! not a word of anger, not a reproach? This was the ardent faith of a believer. What powerful influence, then, could Saccard have had upon the flock, in order to place it under such a yoke of credulity?
\'In fact, madame, that was the only thing I came to tell you,\' Dejoie resumed; \'and you must excuse me for having spoken to you of my own sorrow. I only did so because I couldn\'t control myself. However, when you see Monsieur Saccard, be sure to tell him that we are still on his side.\'
[Pg 371]
He then went off with his faltering step, and she, left to herself, for a moment felt horrified with existence. That poor man had broken her heart; against the other, the man whom she did not name, she felt increased anger, and had to put forth a great effort in order to restrain an outburst. However, other visitors had arrived, and it was necessary she should see them. She had not a moment to herself that morning.
Among the number the Jordans particularly distressed her. They came together, Paul and Marcelle, like a loving husband and wife who act conjointly in all serious matters, to ask her if there were really no hope of their parents the Maugendres, getting something more from their Universal shares. In this direction, too, there had been an irreparable disaster. Prior to the great battles of the last two settlements, the old awning manufacturer had already possessed seventy-five shares, which had cost............