House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  In the fifth, by pure innocence, he reached one of the directors of a bank that had suffered greatly through the German default. The young man knew little of oil but cordially explained to Adam a possible technique for German repayments.

  ‘Unless I get back to Paris soon,’ thought Adam in despair, ‘I will look upon myself as a ninny and have to get another job at once or take ship to Shanghai: this is no longer endurable.’

  He therefore telegraphed Alphendéry that he was returning and was surprised to receive his telegram in reply:

  RETURN WHENEVER YOU FEEL YOUR MISSION IS ACCOMPLISHED. LETTER FOLLOWS.

  The letter said he was to find out how the Bank of England was regarded and for that he was to visit such and such financial journalists, brokers, and bankers, again, if necessary representing himself as a student at the London School of Economics. Likewise he was to ask what bonds were particularly recommended by bankers, for long-term investment; and he was to go to the Financial News and Financial Times and discover what a quarter-page advertisement of a new company (he supposed the investment trust) would cost and whether any guarantees were required.

  He bit his lip and set out once more on the weary lope, upstairs and downstairs, into all sorts of little offices, and grand upper stories of banks, to face surprised kindly little men, who treated him with a coddling air as if he were a rather advanced five-year-old and they had to amuse him till the policeman arrived to take him home.

  If they invented nothing else, he would get home the day after tomorrow. He sent a firmer telegram to Alphendéry, received no further instructions, and, with a sigh of relief, felt the Channel airs on his face. The sea was blue, the crossing smooth and sweet: a raft on a duck-pond. The shores of England faded away in their usual ambiguities of haze. Behind the haze was the mire, thickness, and filthiness of London, the trodden, thin, tall dark ways, the old buildings, himself wandering anxiously about seeking he hardly knew what; behind there was a miserable evening in a cinema, where he sat with burning heart and saw nothing of the film, sick with the vacuity of his job. On the boat again he felt his head swiveling round and round: what a useless week; he felt the City must be holding its sides laughing, getting together whispering, ‘Bertillon, ha, ha, his clerk-envoy, ha, ha: they’re both cracked, ha, ha; but you’ve got to humor their moneybags: he, he.’ Disheartening. He would ask for the post at Singapore or Shanghai—they hadn’t decided yet—as soon as he got back.

  France: he hardly looked out of the windows, so glad was he to snuggle back into the contentment of being at home. When he came home and spoke of making a report to Mr. Bertillon, Alphendéry held him back: ‘Not yet, in a day or two: he isn’t interested in that now.’ The days went on: he made no report. The Ledgers had been writing letters all along, though, and had kept Alphendéry au courant, and now Quidd, Soleck, and Company sent in a grand, suave letter.

  Jules met Adam in the corridor, the day after he came back: he shook hands with him gladly and said, ‘You must go to London again for us soon!’ How strange! As if going to London was a profitable business in itself.

  Adam Constant had lunch with Alphendéry for several days in succession and started to tell him all that had happened in London, but Alphendéry was displeased: he wanted to talk philosophy, Marxism, poetry; he wanted to hear Adam’s poems and ask about their publication, but he did not really want to know what conversations Adam had had with the bankers—at least, any more than Adam had already incorporated in his daily letters. Once he even said, with a paternal air, ‘These things are not so serious as they seem. It was just a trial balloon we were sending up. But Jules was delighted, delighted: he wants you to go again soon. We learned a lot from your surface impressions: they were so original; it is even much better that you know nothing about the business and are a stranger in London; your impressions are the truer and believe me, we were greatly guided by your ingenuous remarks.’ He laughed kindly.

  Well, even so, thought Adam, no more of that. And he began to ask about the Shanghai office.

  ‘That’s coming along. Are you so anxious to leave us?’

  ‘No, no: but if someone must go, why not me?’

  William came in one day when they were having a long tête-à-tête. ‘Glad to see you back,’ said William. ‘Hope you didn’t get too bored with all that phony business … ’ He explained to Alphendéry, apparently ignoring Constant, ‘You see, the fact that he has a bank agitates him; he sends Constant to London because he has a bank. What can Constant do in London that you can’t do over the telephone? But no. He has a bank and he has to justify it. Good. The bank has paid for a first-class return ticket to London. It’s justified. Now he’ll go to sleep again until next time he wants to dream he’s an international banker … Who would believe we were so cockeyed? No one. Thank God!’

  * * *

  Scene Sixty-three: Trouble Brews

  The time for paying Carrière’s fourth draft approached. After long conferences and much jibbing on the part of Jules, they decided to send him a message, by Guipatin, a friend of both parties, and ask him to compound the debt, which might run into Heaven knew how much, and make a reasonable settlement. De Ville de-Ré, Jules’s secret go-between, Raccamond, and William came in every day with the news that Carrière, although a multimillionaire, was strapped, and needed money badly and that doubtless he would be glad to have a cash settlement. On alternate days, William agreed to a lump sum and to nothing at all: it was either ‘settle it outright’ or ‘don’t give the bastard a cent, let him sue for it,’ with him. And as he had not yet seen any document of any legality referring to the debt, he had concluded that the reported letter between Jules and Carrière referring to the ‘debt of honor’ did not exist and that Carrière had no claim, or only a shadow of a claim, on Jules. Guipatin, an old intimate of Carrière, found Carrière not at home. Carrière demeaned himself stagily, threatened, clamored magnificently that he would ‘bring down Bertillon.’ Raccamond was present when this was recounted, for Bertillon was a strange fellow who sometimes dared publicity and open scandal; and Raccamond’s cloudy eyes lighted with understanding and ardor when he heard the challenge. The next day, bowed with the weight of his body, gloomy, he brought into Jules a paragraph which had appeared in one of the papers owned by Sournois, the deputy.

  Certain small independent private banks, badly hit by the fall of the pound, are obliged to pay off exchange contracts in installments and are even disputing these payments; these are for the most part concerned with payments on commercial drafts on sales of long standing and not, as was said by an interested press abroad, with rank speculative deals. Such arrangements, of course, occur daily and are essential safeguards to the buyer and seller in international deals. Let us take, for example, a hat factory or a brewery which would have been sold in England by a French citizen some months before the English gold embargo …

  Carrière had sent it to Raccamond, marked with a blue pencil.

  ‘Bad publicity,’ said Raccamond, and trembled in a blue fit of fear.

  ‘He won’t get anywhere with that,’ drawled Jules.

  ‘He’s threatening a suit,’ said Alphendéry. ‘You’d better settle with him quick!’

  ‘Let him sue me—on what?’ said Jules. ‘He’s a baby, he pulls faces.’

  ‘Bluff,’ said William.

  ‘The Comtesse de Voigrand is his closest friend,’ murmured Raccamond.

  Everyone saw the paragraph and it got about like wildfire that it referred to Jules and Jacques Carrière: Willem-Cornelis Brouwer wrote in from Brussels; their chiefs and customers’ men wrote in from each of their branches, and this came with the mail:

  Dear Jules,

  Please forgive the intimate line—the reason is that I am in distress and have two major enemies in your bank, A and W. But it is not my purpose to disturb your equanimity. Since your happy return in August last, when I found that antipathy ousted con
valescent sympathy, and I came to Oslo, pride impelled a patient canvassing of the job market and this to the point of exhaustion. The outlook, now, is hopeless, at least for the next sixty days and my first northern Christmas looks black: my days are spent in weariness, my nights in disquiet. Likewise since that time my earnings—due to the antagonism, I would not say sabotage of Tramp-Dannevig, as well as mental conflict and my economic inferiority complex since being sent from the center of things—my earnings have been next to zero and obligations accumulating to a point where I am numb. In this situation, friend (I say instinctively, though I have how little right!), I turn to you. It is no dilemma when I want aid—there is but one place and but one man. Every so-called friend (perhaps self-deluding so-called friends) and every possible refuge out of the past exists no more: the world marasmus has seen to that: broke, or concealing the fact, and if still rich, timid and with timidity, callous. Dannevig sees my distress and although he owns a row of houses (as I find, despite denials and complaints of poverty), he denies my application … Whether or no, friend Jules, you can stretch out a helping hand—and speed, here, is soul and body—I am persuaded you will enclose this matter in your breast. Always be in no doubt that any money sent from you to me is my first care and that any advances will be made good. If I am to do work for it, why, be assured I prefer that. I am not sitting here giving way to the wretchedness which is now part of my life: while waiting for the postman who is (humble Mercury) to bring me salvation, I am unceasingly conscious of your hopes in me and of my duties as a man and pursue other work here with a smiling front (and, as we all know at our age, men take that for the heart: it’s better that way). Perhaps you wish it: you have had blows. Deepest, sincerest friendship, whatever your attitude,

  Believe me,

  Ever at your service, private and public,

  Theodor Bomba

  ‘That’s good,’ said Jules throwing the letter to Claire-Josèphe, ‘then Dannevig wasn’t ruined: he still has some property. Write him a letter, Claire, and ask him to come and stay with us for Christmas. I always liked that egg. He doesn’t work but he knows everyone up there: friend of the King, the Wallenbergs, all that … Obstinate, old-fashioned duck: lost a mint of money, though, when he wouldn’t go into the Swedish Match concern … However, if what Alphendéry says is true, he did better to stick to his houses … What does Bomba want? Some cash? How much shall we send him?’

  ‘A couple of thousand francs, for Christmas, I suppose; of course, it’s throwing money away: as soon as he gets it, he gives a big dinner and blows it. What does he mean ‘pride impelled’ him to look for a job? …’

  Jules said easily, ‘Oh, that’s just a howl about his salary: he doesn’t think he’s getting enough. He can’t live on it. He’s a nice fellow though, means no harm. Those boys, William and Michel, are against him, call him so much dead weight. I’ll send him five thousand francs off my private account so that he’ll be able to give his girl a Christmas present … Then,’ he darkened, ‘he’s got to show results.’

  “You have had blows,” quoted Claire-Josèphe. ‘Then he too has heard of the Carrière debt?’

  ‘I’ll shoot that fellow: it’s the only thing.’

  As soon as he got to the bank in the morning, he drew out five thousand francs and posted them to Bomba, with the note:

  Herewith five thousand. You’re mistaken: I have had no blows. Look up Swedish Match and find out if we can sell it short. If we can report here.

  J. Bertillon

  He went upstairs and, half coy, threw Bomba’s letter on Alphendéry’s table. ‘How do you like that?’ He was amused when he saw the contempt and annoyance in Michel’s and William’s faces. William said, ‘I hope you’re not going to send him anything?’

  ‘Oh, no, not a cent: he’s got to do some work first; he just sleeps in the office all day when he’s not out drinking akvavit, Danny tells me. I’m going to have Danny down for Christmas. Say, do you think Bomba would be any good running Carrière to earth?’

  William flushed. ‘I won’t have him, Jules: I warn you.’

  ‘He loves spite and vengeance,’ suggested Jules. ‘He’s just the fellow.’

  ‘If you want to be sold out,’ said Michel, with a shrug. ‘I wash my hands of it, Jules: you’re arch, you’re frolicsome, when Carrière is threatening your life. He has sworn, in all the salons of Paris, to ruin you and you can only think of watching Bomba at his tricks. You behave like a demigod watching men’s pettiness, not like a man likely to be crushed by fate. It’s insanity.’

  Jules laughed, ‘What if I am a demigod and never told you boys!’

  ‘Fool,’ said William and flung out of the room.

  From Bomba the next day Jules had a note:

  Dear Jules,

  The storm has been beating into my poor shelter these sixty days and many, many thanks for the stopgap: it will not be forgotten and I am bending every effort to retrace my steps and even go forward. Your instructions religiously followed and I will shortly bear you full details to Paris on the Krüger business. Will be more happy than I can say to reintegrate our circle again: your optimistic genius requires not only a curb, but an aspiration and what you have but chafes. I know your dislike of correspondence but write me soon even if on the back of an ‘order to self’! … The foul oil emitted by Jacques Carrière around the bank spreads and spreads with every tide. Be advised: he is a nuisance and should be drowned now. To be aide-drowner would be my only pleasure. Give Claire-Josèphe my best and sincerest and take the residue for yourself.

  As ever,

  Theodor

  P.S. Tramp-Dannevig says Kreuger must go under but I see rainbow horizons, the pot of gold having been found in the U.S.A. But whether to invest—another question!

  To tease his brother, Jules left this note on his desk, too. But the same afternoon, retribution visited him in the shape of a telegram from the irrepressible Bomba:

  ARRIVING PARIS IMMEDIATELY WITH DETAILS REQUIRED AND A FOLLOWING TELEGRAM: SOME HELICAL THINKING REQUIRED HERE.

  BOMBA

  Jules did not show this telegram to his brother and was himself rather disturbed, for William had threatened to resign if Bomba showed his nose in the bank again. Jules decided to make Bomba visit him only at his home. When he had a further telegram from Bomba telling the date and hour of his arrival at the North Station, Jules instructed his chauffeur to call for Bomba (whom he knew very well by sight) and lodge him in some middle-class hotel in the Place Malesherbes, out of the way of the bank’s superior employees and its clients.

  * * *

  Scene Sixty-four: Definitely Not Cricket

  According to his plans of some months before, Jules, Alphendéry, and Adam had set up in London a small business, the London Reinvestment Guarantee Banking Corporation, with one bank clerk who called himself ‘manager,’ Manrose Thew, Esq., one stenographer, with nothing to do and one office boy. Mr. Thew had spent the first two weeks of his employment (the first after two years of misery and hunger) having himself measured and fitted for six suits and two overcoats, the bill for which he immediately sent in to Jules Bertillon, on the ground that it was a ‘business investment.’ Jules paid for three suits and one overcoat and Mr. Thew therefore found that the bank had started off with the left foot, as regards himself at any rate, and showed evidences of a cheeseparing spirit. He next suggested that Mr. Bertillon, being a multimillionaire, as was generally known, should stand him at least a good secondhand car and running expenses as this would save taking the railway, changing to buses and indulging in other irksome and unnecessary expenses. Mr. Bertillon, however, refused this small request and Mr. Thew, in no good humor, set out by train (but first class, of course, to make a good impression) to sundry ‘large centers’ where he visited, according to his report, sundry family solicitors, heads of firms, small bankers, local managers of great banks, and other persons likely to put him
on the track of small rentiers needing immediate cash or solicitors willing to ‘advise’ their clients to discount or deposit their stocks and shares with the London Reinvestment (etc.) Corporation, an affiliate of the distinguished Paris bank, Bertillon Frères, which was (it was commonly said) backed by ‘high finance,’ possibly a great Alsatian bank. But this happy confidence, invented by Mr. Thew, had a dismal effect on the Midlands and the North which have little if any faith in Continental or American banking, although an unlimited belief in their own … After about five months of this, Mr. Thew explained to Adam that it was little use his soliciting this business, that there was a defect in the set-up which was that when people drew commercial reports on the London (etc.) Corporation, they found out that he, Thew, only drew six hundred pounds a year, a petty salary, and that therefore it appeared either that the London … Corporation was merely a booth, a stall, a pushcart, or that Thew was of no importance. The remedy he suggested was the raising of his salary to one thousand pounds a year. Commercial reports would then paint him as someone of consequence, and immense prestige would surround a bank which could pay one thousand pounds to a man from its very inception.

  Thew now wrote a very irate letter to Jules. He had found out about the proposed Bank Insurance Company. He had found out that though Adam Constant visited him, when in London, Adam had not confided in him the secret of the Bank Insurance Company; and that this was an indignity as he regarded himself ‘justly’ as the earliest and most important supervisor of the bank’s activities in London. He did not know of Caudal’s company or its connection with the Bertillons. ‘How,’ he asked Jules, ‘could he get business if he was ignorant of the bank’s activities? Persons asked him about the Bank Insurance Company just being formed, and he was completely in the dark: it made him look small, trivial; it made people look askance at his own institution. Did Bertillon (people asked) now intend to devote his energies to the Bank Insurance Company and not to the London Reinvestment Guarantee (etc.). This is the question that has to be faced. Not to mention,’ went on Thew, ‘that he was not told of the true position of Mr. Constant. In short,’ went on Mr. Thew, ‘let me explain myself this way: we English have a term taken from the realm of sport—cricket. It means, being sporting, fair play: this, Mr. Bertillon, was definitely not cricket. I understand that Mr. Constant advertised for and engaged a manager for the new (and even now inchoate) Bank Insurance Company. Surely I, with my knowledge of the city, would have been fitted to assist Mr. Constant in this task of selecting a trustworthy man from the numerous and possibly unknown English types which presented themselves.’