GOLD
Other Books by Blaise Cendrars in English
The African Saga, translation by Margery Bianco of Anthologie nègre, New York, 1972.
The Astonished Man, translation by Nina Rootes, of L'Homme foudroyé', New York, 1970.
The Confessions of Dan Yack, translated by Nina Rootes, London, 1990.
Dan Yack, transaltion by Nina Rootes, of Le Plan de L'Aiguille, New York, 1887.
Gold, translated by Nina Rootes, New York, 1970.
Lice, translation by Nina Rootes of La Main coupée, London, 1973.
Morgavagine, translated by Alan Brown, New York, 1990.
Planus, translation by Nina Rootes of Bourlinguer, London, 1972.
Selected Writings, edited by Walter Albert, introduction by Henry Miller, New York, 1962.
Shadow, translation by Marcia Brown of La Féticheuse, New York, 1982.
First Marlowe & Company edition, 1996
Published by
Marlowe & Company
632 Broadway, Seventh Floor
New York, NY 10012
Copyright © 1960 by Editions Denoel
English Translation © 1982 by Nina Rootes
Translated from the French, L'or, or la marveilleuse histoire du General Johann August Sutter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publishers, unless by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cendrars, Blaise, 1887-1961.
[Or. English]
Gold : being the marvellous history of General John Augustus Sutter / Blaise Cendrars ; translated from the French by Nina Rootes.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-56924-807-9 1.
1. Sutter, John Augustus, 1803-1880—Fiction. 2. California—Gold discoveries—Fiction. 3. Pioneers—California—Fiction. I. Title.
PQ2605.E550713 1996 95-50035
843'.912—dc20 CIP
ISBN 1-56924-807-9
To Madame WOEHRINGEN
Citizeness of Hamburg,
Patroness of expeditions,
explorer, scholar, lover
of adventures and adventurers
IN MEMORY
of some delightful evenings
before the war in her
FOLLY at Sceaux.
B.C.
SAN FRANCISCO
It is there that you will read the history of General Sutter,
who conquered California for the United States.
And who, already a multi-millionaire, was ruined by the
discovery of gold on his estates.
You have long hunted in the Sacramento Valley, over that
same country where I worked to reclaim the land.
Blaise Cendrars: Le Panama ou
les Aventures de mes sept Oncles, 1914.
Another story is that of the 900 millions mentioned in
'Le Panama', as well as the history of General Sutter,
which I shall write one day, or which I shall take up here,
later on, if I have not already published it in the meantime.
Blaise Cendrars: Pro Domo, 1918.
* * *
FIRST CHAPTER
* * *
1
The working day had just ended. The country folk were coming home from the fields, some with hoes over their shoulders, others carrying baskets. Leading the procession were the young girls in their white bodices and pleated aprons. They had their arms entwined about each other's waists and were singing:
Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär
Und auch zwei Flüglein hält
Flog ich zu dir . . .
On the doorsteps of their cottages, old men were smoking long porcelain pipes, while the old women knitted long white stockings. In front of the inn, the 'Wild Man', they were drinking the local white wine, pouring it from earthenware jugs decorated with a curious motif: a bishop's crozier surrounded by seven red dots. People were conversing in small groups, decorously, without shouting or unnecessary gestures. The topic of every conversation was the heat, exceptionally intense for so early in the year, and the drought that already threatened the young crops.
It was the 6th of May, 1834.
A gang of ragamuffins were standing around a little Savoyard who was turning the handle of his Sainte-Croix organ, while his marmot terrorized the smaller children, for it was excited and had just bitten one of them. A black dog was pissing against one of the four bollards at the corners of the multi-coloured drinking -fountain. The last rays of the sun lit up the ornate façades of the houses. Smoke from the chimneys rose straight up into the pure evening air. A cart could be heard creaking across the distant plain.
Suddenly, these peaceable country folk were thrown into consternation by the arrival of a stranger. Even in broad daylight, a stranger is something of a rarity in this little village of Rünenberg in the canton of Basle, but what were they to make of a stranger who turned up at such an unheard-of hour, so late in the evening, just as the sun was going down? The black dog froze with one leg in the air and the old women dropped their knitting. The stranger had just emerged from the road that led to Soleure. At first, the children moved towards him, but then they halted, hesitant and dubious. As for the group of drinkers at the 'Wild Man Inn', they had stopped drinking and were furtively eyeing the unknown man. The latter had called at the first house in the village and asked if someone would kindly point out the Mayor of the Commune's house. Old Buser, whom he had addressed, turned his back on him and, catching hold of his grandson Hans by the ear, told him to conduct the stranger to the Mayor. Then he went on filling his pipe, but all the while keeping a surreptitious eye on the stranger, who was striding away in the wake of the trotting child.
They saw the man enter the Mayor's house.
The villagers had had time, as he passed amongst them, to get a good look at the stranger. He was tall, lean, with a prematurely lined face. Odd tow-coloured hair stuck out beneath a hat with a silver buckle. He was wearing hob-nailed boots and carried a stout blackthorn stick in one hand.
There was a burst of criticism. 'These strangers don't even have the courtesy to bid one good-day,' said Buhri, the innkeeper, clasping his hands across his enormous paunch. 'Listen, I bet you he's from the city,' said old Siebenhaar who, at one time, had done military service in France, and he started to tell them, yet again, about the curious things and the outrageous people he had come across amongst those 'bloody foreigners'.
The young girls had particularly noticed the straight cut of his frock-coat and the detachable collar with high points that chafed the lobes of his ears; they were gossiping in low voices, blushing and flustered. As for the boys, they had formed a menacing group about the fountain; they were awaiting developments, ready for action if need be.
Before long, the stranger reappeared on the threshold. He seemed very weary and was carrying his hat in his hand. He wiped his forehead with one of those large yellow silk scarves woven in Alsace. All at once, the little boy, who had been waiting for him on the steps, stood up, very erect. The stranger patted his cheek, then he gave him a thaler and strode across the village square, spitting into the fountain as he passed. Now every eye in the village was on him. The drinkers were on their feet. But the stranger never so much as spared them a glance; he climbed back into the cart which had brought him and disappeared rapidly down the road planted with service-trees that leads to the chief town of the canton.
This sudden apparition
and precipitate departure caused havoc amongst the peaceful villagers. The little boy had started to cry. The silver coin the stranger had given him was passed round from hand to hand. Heated discussions broke out. The innkeeper was amongst the most vociferous. He was outraged that the stranger had not even deigned to stop for a moment at his inn to quaff a jug of wine. He suggested ringing the tocsin to warn the neighbouring villages and organizing a man-hunt. Word soon went around that the stranger claimed to be a native of the commune and that he had come to ask for a Certificate of Origin, together with a passport, in order to undertake a long voyage abroad, but that he had not been able toprove his citizenship and the Mayor, who did not know him from Adam and had never set eyes on him before, had refused him both certificate and passport. Everyone agreed, volubly, that the Mayor had been most prudent.
This is the dialogue that took place the following morning in the office of the Secretary of Police in Liestal, the chief town of the canton. It was just on eleven o'clock.
The old Clerk of the Court: Will you issue a passport for France in the name of Johann August Suter, native of Rünenberg?
Kloss, the Secretary of Police: Has he got a Certificate of Origin issued by the Mayor of his Commune?
Old Clerk: No, he hasn't, but his father was a friend of mine and I'll stand guarantor for him.
Kloss, the Secretary of Police: Then I'm not issuing a passport. The boss is away. He can do what he likes about this sort of thing, but unfortunately he's at Aarau, and I'm not going to issue a passport under these circumstances.
Old Clerk: Listen, old man, aren't you pushing it a bit? I've told you, his father was a friend of mine, what more do you need?
Kloss, the Secretary of Police: My dear Gabis, I'm only doing my duty. The rest does not concern me. I don't issue passports without a Certificate of Origin.
Late that evening, a warrant for his arrest arrived from Berne, but the stranger had already crossed the Swiss border.
2
Johann August Suter had just deserted his wife and four children.
He crossed the Swiss frontier below Mariastein; then, skirting the edge of the woods, he reached the mountains on the far side. The weather was still very hot and the sun scorching. That same evening, Suter reached Férette and, as a violent storm broke out, spent the night in a disused barn.
Next day, he set out again before dawn. He fell back towards the south, avoided Delle, crossed the Lomont and entered the district of the Doubs.
He had just walked more than twenty-five miles at a single stretch. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. He hadn't a farthing in his pocket. The thaler he had given to the urchin in Runenberg had been his last coin.
He wandered on for two more days in the high, deserted pastures of the Franches-Montagnes, at nights prowling around the farms until the barking of the dogs drove him back into the cover of the woods. One evening, however, he managed to milk a cow into his hat and greedily gulped down the warm, foaming milk. Up till then, he had had nothing but some tufts of wild sorrel and a few stalks of flowering gentian to suck on. He had found the first strawberry of the season and would carry the memory of it with him for many a long day.
Patches of snow were hardening in the shade of the fir-trees.
3
At this time, Johann August Suter was thirty-one years old.
He was born on the 15th of February, 1803, at Kandern in the Grand-Duchy of Baden.
His grandfather, Jakob Suter, founder of the dynasty of 'Suter, paper-manufacturers', as they are described in the register of the church at Kilchberg in Basle, had left the little commune of Rünenberg at the age of fifteen to take up his apprenticeship in the city. Some ten years later, he had become the largest manufacturer of paper in Basle and his dealings with the small university towns of Southern Germany had so greatly expanded that he set up new paper mills in Kandern. It was Hans Suter, father of Johann August, who managed this latter enterprise.
All this was in the good old days of the trade-guilds. The master paper-maker still signed contracts and commitments with his clerks and his workmen for a hundred and one years, and each spring his wife, the patronne, boiled the depurative herb tea that her own family and those of the workers all drank together. The secrets of paper-manufacturing were passed down from father to son and, as business expanded, new enterprises, all connected with the manufacture and commercial use of paper - printing, fancy papers, wallpapers, books, bookselling, publishing - became the patrimony of new members of the family. Each new generation, by specializing, gave new impetus to the ancestor's paper business, already well-known and soon to become famous throughout Europe.
(For example, Friedrich Suter, an uncle of Johann August's, dealt in illegal revolutionary pamphlets and broadsheets, smuggling enormousquantities of printed matter from Switzerland into Alsace and distributing it all over the country between Altkirch and Strasbourg. This earned him the right, under the title of 'famous propagandist', to witness the Terror in Paris in 1793 and 1794, and he has left a memoir full of details not published elsewhere. Even today, one of the last descendants of the great paper-master, Gottlieb Suter by name, is an established bookbinder in Basle, in that ancient and peaceful square where the little schoolgirls circle round the statue of the peasant-poet of the canton, holding hands and singing:
Johann Peter Hebel
Hat zwischen den Bein' ein Knebel
Und dass man ihn besser fassen kann
Hat er zwei grosse Knollen drann
It is just a tiny workshop. Gottlieb, a little mad, is a devotee of religious sects and denominations, and he preaches to the convicts in prison. He changes his religion more frequently than his shirt and beats his children black and blue. Very often, he will spend hours in a public house, soliloquizing over his glass and forgetting to go home. Since the time of the General, all the Suters have been that way inclined.)
4
Some two miles from Besançon, Johann August Suter is soaking his bruised and blistered feet in a stream. He is sitting amongst the buttercups, thirty yards from the highroad.
Ten or eleven German youths come out of a small, purplish wood and pass along the road. They are cheerful young fellows making a tour of France. One of them is a goldsmith, one works in wrought iron, a third is a butcher's boy and another a footman. Presently, they all gather round Johann and introduce themselves. They are a jolly bunch of rascals, always ready for a booze-up or a tumble in the hay. They are in shirtsleeves and carry bundles tied to sticks. Johann joins their little band, passing himself off as a printer.
Suter arrives in Burgundy with these lads. One night, at Autun, while his companions are sleeping, overcome by wine, he ransacks the luggage of two or three of them and undresses one completely.
Next day, Suter is hot-foot on the road to Paris.
By the time he arrives there, he is once more penniless. He does not hesitate. He goes straight to a wholesale paper-merchant in the Marais district who is one of his father's best clients. He presents him with a forged letter-of-credit. Halfan hour after pocketing the proceeds, he is in the courtyard of the Messageries du Nord, where he boards the stage-coach to Beauvais. From there he travels, via Amiens, to Abbeville. The skipper of a fishing-boat agrees to take him aboard and carry him to Le Havre. Three days later, the cannon booms, the bells ring out, the whole population of Le Havre is on the quays: the Espérance, a square-rigged paddle-steamer, sails proudly out of port and crosses the harbour boom. It is her maiden voyage. Destination: New York.
On board is Johann August Suter, bankrupt, fugitive, vagabond, thief and swindler.
He holds his head high and uncorks a bottle of wine.
And it is at this point that he disappears into the mists of the Channel; it is drizzling and the sea is choppy. In his own country, no more is heard of him and it is fourteen years before his wife has news of him. And then, suddenly, his name is uttered in tones of astonishment throughout the entire world.
Here begins the marvellous history of
General John Augustus Sutter, as he is to be known in future.
It is a Sunday.
* * *
SECOND CHAPTER
* * *
5
The port.
The port of New York.
1834.
It is here that all the shipwrecked souls from the Old World disembark. The shipwrecked, the wretched, the discontented. Free men, men who refuse to submit. Those who have known the reverses of fortune, those who have risked all on the turn of a single card, those who have been ruined by a romantic passion. The first German socialists, the first Russian mystics. Ideologists wanted by the police in Europe; men hunted by the forces of reaction. Small tradesmen, the first victims of the early days of mass production. French phalansterians, Carbonari, the last disciples of Saint-Martin, the unknown philosopher, and Scotsmen. Generous souls and crackpots. Calabrian brigands, Hellenic patriots. Peasants from Ireland and Scandinavia. Individuals and nations, victims of the Napoleonic Wars, men sacrificed by Diplomatic Congresses. Carlists, Poles, Hungarian partisans. Visionaries from all the revolutions of 1830, and the last liberals, leaving their homelands to join the Great Republic; workers, soldiers, craftsmen, bankers of all nations, even South Americans, accomplices of Bolivar. Not since the French Revolution, not since the Declaration of Independence (and this is twenty-seven years before Lincoln's election to the Presidency) have the quays of New York seen such a continuous invasion: the city is in the full flower of her growth and expansion. Day and night the emigrants disembark, and on every boat, amongst each human cargo, there is at least one representative of the hardy race of adventurers.
Gold: the marvellous history of General John Augustus Sutter Page 1
