The Golden Rock

by Theo Varlet

  I told her everything: the voyage of the Erebus II, the exploitation of Île Féréor; the mutiny; my flight from Paris to Cherbourg in company with the magnates...

  An anxious expression invaded her features. “Lower your voice, my dear,” she ordered.

  And, drawing her armchair closer, she leaned her elbow on the arm of mine, her ear extended toward my mouth. The perfume of her hair came to me in waves. The satiny beach of her bare shoulder gave me vertigo. I closed my eyes momentarily.

  “And you were sworn to secrecy!” she murmured, in a voice that was almost inaudible. “And you’re an honest man! With what confidence you honor me, my friend!” All of a sudden, she added: “But what if I were a spy?”

  She looked me in full in the face, at such close range that I could feel the pure warm current of her breath. She had such a strange expression that I fell silent, shivering, anguished by the memory of Rivier’s insinuations on the subject of Kohbuler.

  But confidence flooded back within me, greater still, and submerged me like a tidal wave. “Even if you were what you say, Frédérique, I sense that you would not betray me.”

  She smiled, both dolorously an ecstatically. “Oh! You sense that! Thank you.” And in the nudity of her words, simple but spoken with an emphatic gravity, there was the most perfect declaration of love, the absolute and definitive gift of her life.

  The muffled shock of a door closing in the next room caused her to start anxiously. “My father’s back! Don’t let him see you, Antoine! Go away, quickly.”

  “I’ll do as you say, without seeking to understand, Frédérique. When will I see you again?”

  “Tomorrow evening, if you wish, after dinner, at nine o’clock. I’ll try to be alone.”

  And in the shadow of the vestibule, we exchanged our first hasty and anxious kiss.

  XIV. The Triumph of the Franc

  I had not been in Paris—for good reasons—in November 1918, when the Armistice was agreed, but I have some slight mistrust of the current assertion that those who were not lucky enough to be in Paris on the historic day when the franc reached Paris could only form an approximate idea of it by recalling the day of the Armistice.

  The scale of human emotions does not vary much, of course, and they only have a limited series of words and actions, always the same, for their expression. The triumphant joy was analogous in both cases, but there were essential differences between the end of the war and the victory of the franc, for which reason there were more than nuances between the kinds of delight manifested on the two occasions. The second celebrated a bland victory, which put an end to years of malaise, not years of slaughter. Moreover, it lacked something of the clarity and conclusiveness of the armistice—the signing of the treaty between the German and allied plenipotentiaries. It lacked soldiers to be embraced and carried in triumph. The franc triumphed, but without its enemies having capitulated; a counter-offensive remained possible.

  In sum, the price of things, which remained immovable, contributed to leaving opinion, at first, slightly surprised, as if wrong-footed, without knowing where to pin its future certainty.

  It was in that state in which I found the capital as I came out of Claridge’s, but in the course of the following hours, which I spent wandering around Paris on my own—because Jen-Paul Rivier was dining with Monsieur Germain-Lucas, and I did not care, effervescent as I was after by conversation with Frédérique, to dine alone beneath the “gilded paneling” of the house in the Avenue de Villiers, served by flunkeys as grave and severe as judges—the kind of dissatisfaction that underlay that victory faded away to the point of disappearing.

  The great news, repeated by everyone, cried out to anyone—the pound finally at parity at the close of the Bourse—filled Paris with a clucking of joyful voices and was inscribed in the headlines of the newspapers. On store-fronts, strings of white or colored light-bulbs added to the habitual luxury of illumination as bright as daylight; on the terraces of the cafés, which were overflowing, orchestras played the Marseillaise and the Madelon, and street-hawkers sang new songs, composed by some unknown bard, celebrating the victory of the franc...

  On the Boulevard de la Madeleine, I saw the traffic gradually easing, and I had not yet arrived at the Opéra when it had ceased almost completely; the buses were going back to the depot, the taxis to the garage. It was a general strike of rejoicing that Paris granted itself that evening, and the boulevards were soon surrendered to pedestrians alone, whose flood filled them, their feet kicking up the dust of fine holiday evenings, in the odor of fireworks that were being let off here and there. Then there were the open-air dances, which I found in full swing all the way from the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle to the Place de la République, where an entire brass band, perched on the pedestal of the giant statue, was projecting the rhythmic gaiety of its instruments all around.

  The police had disappeared, or were taking part in the rejoicing; a few agitators waving placards demanding “death to the monopolists” were surrounded, merrily manhandled and forced to join the farandole that had already swept up an English family getting out of an autocar, who were squealing, thinking that the Great Day had come...

  For a few hours, Paris was a Utopia, on a planet of merriment and amiable ease, where everyone had he facile generosity of opulence…

  Which is what it would have been, if it had been possible to reveal to the public the existence of the gold of the Erebus II and Île Féréor!

  Not for an instant, all evening, did my conscience reproach me for my indiscretion. Caught up in the currents of the tramping crowd, or carried away by the chain of the dance, I wanted to raise my arms and shout: “Oh, brave people, if you only knew what I know! What I can’t tell you, today or tomorrow, but which you’ll doubtless be told the day after tomorrow, if the convention is signed tomorrow in Geneva attributing island N to us. If you only knew!”

  I contained myself, not always without difficulty. I was slightly intoxicated…like all of Paris…like all of France.

  I got up late the next day; Rivier had already left for the bank. I had breakfast on my own, and went to Jolliot’s, making the last part of the journey on foot, from the Place Saint-Michel to the Avenue de l’Observatoire.

  A gay Paris, luminous beneath a blue October sky—a matinal Paris—was mocking itself for its enthusiasm of the previous evening, as if to spare itself too cruel a disillusionment if the future Cockayne were to draw away once again...

  As it was too soon to go up to Jolliot’s, I sat down for half an hour in the Jardin du Petit-Luxembourg, irritated in advance by all the hours that still separated me from the one in which I would see Frédérique again.

  I found Lucienne Jolliot alone in the drawing room; her husband was late, as usual. It was necessary for me to suffer the star’s conversation—an exceedingly boring experience, for the marvelous cinema actress had the least photogenic vocabulary. I didn’t know what further details to invent with regard to the Erebus II and the Azores, when the door of the vestibule opened violently and slammed shut, and the director burst into the room like a blast of wind.

  Without saying hello, he threw a Paris-Midi on to the table, wide open. “Great gods! They’ve had us, the Boches! I’ve said so before, that it can’t go on! They need to be reined in! Island N…Île Féréor? They’ve put one over on us! Right under our noses!”

  Without paying any heed to these incoherent exclamations, I swiftly scanned the headlines, which gave me gooseflesh.

  GERMAN REVELATIONS. ISLAND N IS A GOLDEN ROCK. DECISION SUSPENDED IN GENEVA.

  And I read:

  This morning’s Berlin newspapers have published information that, if true, will have the gravest consequences for us. It is the story told by an ex-sailor on the Erebus II, who was, it seems, a German journalist, a correspondent of the Berliner Zeitung. According to this account, the premature return of Commander Barcot’s ship is connected in the closest possible fashion with the revaluation of the franc and the insistence of the Fre
nch government on being attributed the famous island N. In other words, the Erebus II set a course on leaving Marseilles, not toward the South Pole, but to toward the North Atlantic, where it made a landing on island N.

  Contrary to generally-admitted opinion, apparently corroborated by the testimony of the captain of the Seeland, island N, far from being volcanic in origin, is an enormous bolide, a giant aerolith, whose fall on September fifth caused the meteorological upheavals and damage that are well-known. The geologists of the Barcot expedition ascertained that the bolide is partly constituted of iron and partly is an exceedingly rich gold mineral, including numerous nuggets of pure gold—hence the name Île Féréor. An agent of the French government, clandestinely embarked at Marseilles on the Erebus II, took possession of the bolide-island in the name of our country.

  Still according to the reporter of the Berliner Zeitung, half the crew remained behind to exploit the deposit, under the direction of specialist engineers; in the meantime, having embarked one or two tons of gold, as proof of the discovery. Commander Barcot returned to the port of Cherbourg. There, the fake sailor, initially interned with his companions in the prison of the arsenal by the authorities, desirous of keeping the secret of Île Féréor, finally succeeded in avoiding surveillance and reaching Germany.

  We reproduce this information with all reservations, which the newspaper from beyond the Rhine follows with indignant commentaries. They denounce the ‘duplicity’ of our government, which has kept the discovery of the gold deposit secret and taken possession of it, intending to proclaim it the day after the League of Nations attributed island N and it wealth to France...

  Joliot, leaning over my shoulder, read it aloud for his wife’s benefit, shouting at me from time to time: “Come on, Antoine, respond! Is it true? If it’s true, you must know!”

  I was horribly embarrassed. I replied with vague grunts, pretending to be absorbed in reading the next paragraph:

  A question will be asked in the Chambre this afternoon. Monsieur Zerbuco, the spokesman for the extreme socialist group, will demand a clear declaration from the government regarding the politics followed in this circumstance. In the meantime, we can only reserve our opinion with regard to the veracity of the German claim, although it must be said in support of the arguments invoked on the far side of the Rhine that they do not lack plausibility.

  First of all, the financial maneuver of the Banque de France, throwing all the gold in its cellars—previously considered intangible and sacred—into battle, out of the blue, cannot be explained unless the aforesaid bank knew that the unlimited deposits of the Golden Rock were behind it, which imminent arrivals would put at its disposal.

  Secondly, the haste and insistence of the French government, described beyond the Rhine as imperialist politics sustained by the vilest deceit, in claiming possession of island N would hardly be justified if the island were no more than a simple shelf of lava, useful at the most to serve as a refueling stop of the aerobuses of a Paris-New York service.

  The fury of the Teutonic journalists is somewhat overblown, but from the patriotic viewpoint, if this information is true—which, for our part, we are tempted to believe—it must be regretted that it has emerged at the last moment, to disturb the negotiations in Geneva, for it is all too evident that the convention attributing island N to France will not be signed today, as announced.

  We must also deplore the economic consequences of this premature revelation for our money. In fact, this island, this Golden Rock, which a fortunate hazard and the valiant initiative of our navy had given to France as a kind of material compensation for the evils of the recent war, will doubtless be taken off us by the League of Nations. In the case of it being internationalized, as is probable, the bold but reckless maneuver of the Banque will only have served to deprive us of our reserves. The massive influx of gold that it had the right to expect will not take place, and the franc, after a few days of recovery, will plunge lower than ever by virtue of the abolition of the metallic backing for our banknotes. Germany is triumphant at this prospect, and predicts for us all the evils suffered there by virtue of inflation.…

  I read, and kept reading, in order to have the time to master myself and conceal my disturbance. Distress gripped me by the throat. Frédérique! Could it be her? For I had not given credence for one minute to the fable of the seaman-reporter. There were certain details that a crewman could not know, and in the tenor of the story I recognized the exact terms that I had used myself with Frédérique. That so-called interview was nothing but my conversation of the previous day, copied down and scarcely disguised.

  I was a traitor, I spite of myself; by virtue of my indiscretion, I had caused France an irreparable injury. But what about Frédérique? The letters danced before my eyes; my attention had gaps, for it was necessary to multiply it, in order simultaneously to seize the meaning of what I was reading, drive away the problem of Frédérique—no! impossible! not her!—and, eventually, reply to Jolliot.

  He was harassing me: “Well, old man? Well? Answer me, damn it! Is it true? You know, since you’ve be there, since you’ve seen this island N—this Golden Rock. And you said nothing about it, the day before yesterday?”

  What could I say? Was the government going to deny it, try to dismiss it as a lie? What good would it do? It was impossible now to stifle the scandal. There was no way that Geneva would award the mandate for island N to France...

  I ended up admitting it, while invoking, to justify my silence two days before, the necessary secrecy...

  “Yes, obviously, you were forbidden to speak,” the film-director went on. “Professional secrecy. But even so, it’s not very polite. With an old friend—with me! You know me well enough to know that I’m as mute as the grave!”

  He was exasperating me. Even the star, contrary to her habit of playing a decorative and mute part, was putting her oar in. I was on the brink of exploding.

  Throughout the meal I was under torture. A fever of remorse was gnawing away at me, with a desire to run to Frédérique, to reassure my faith in her by the honesty of her face, to proclaim my certainty of her innocence, perhaps to discover the truth of the trap to which I had fallen victim…and in the meantime, my pitiless chatterbox of a director was bombarding me with his inept suppositions, insisting that the government ought to declare war on Germany...

  Invoking the necessity of offering my support to Rivier in the grave circumstances, I was finally able to escape. My mental torture seemed easier to bear once I was alone and in the midst of an anonymous crowd.

  Where should I go? To Frédérique? Now, though, I feared finding myself in her presence…because of the subconscious dread of finding that she was guilty? Because of the horror of encountering her father, the evident traitor? At any rate, I forbade myself to make my visit before the appointed hour.

  The splendor of the sun appeared to me to be a bitter irony, given my suffering. The horse-chestnut trees on the avenue and the trees of the Petit-Luxembourg were full of chirping sparrows, and blue sky reigned over the scene of the gardens.

  I went down the Boulevard Saint-Michel. There was anxiety in the air. Groups of foreign students at the street-corners were holding forth in guttural tongues and waving canes indignantly. I bent my back, as if they were meant for me, as if I were the object of their disapproval—the man who had perhaps ruined France, and had, at any rate, deprived her of an inestimable windfall...

  And yet, no! I was not running any risk of discovery. Neither Rivier nor anyone else would suspect me, since the story was attributed to a seaman-reporter. With what objective? In order to spread suspicion in France? As a bluff, to demonstrate the omniscience of German espionage?

  Persecuted by the gazes that took stock of me, but having a horror of being alone in a taxi, I took a bus to the Place de l’Opéra and went along the boulevards, heading east, mingling with the crowd in a desire to bolt out my personality, to disperse it, to lose it in the anonymous social atmosphere.

  O
n the terraces of the cafés, as crowded as in midsummer, there was nothing to be seen but anxious expressions and unfolded newspapers. On the sidewalks, the gaiety of previous days had disappeared. Even the prostitutes, parading their lamentable bodies in garish costumes, too new or over-decorated, were limiting themselves to exchanging news of the Bourse with one another. Since nine o’clock in the morning the franc had failed to maintain parity; the pound was gaining ground. It had reached 42.

  At the corner of the Rue Richelieu, I hesitated over heading toward the Bourse, and then continued straight ahead.

  People were crushed against the red façade of Le Matin to read the latest news. As on days of riot, a rumor of voices dominated the mechanical noise of automobile traffic.

  Suddenly, the great daily’s newly-installed loudspeaker projected these stentorian words over the crowd: “Ten minutes ago. In the Chambre, questioned by Monsieur Zerbuco regarding the allegations in the Berlin newspapers, Monsieur Germain-Lucas, the President of the Council, made a speech justifying the politics of the government. In a fine burst of eloquence, and with an unexpected audacity, he declared: ‘Yes, Île Féréor exists. Yes, it contains gold in immense quantities. Yes, the expedition of the Erebus II took possession of it in the name of our country a fortnight ago. And since then—something that the German newspapers did not report—the Erebus II has brought back its first cargo of gold to Cherbourg. It will be in Paris tomorrow...’”

  All along the boulevard a religious silence had fallen. The crowds on the sidewalks came to a standstill. Buses, taxis and cars had stopped, as far as the eye could see. Even the policemen with the white batons forgot to operate the sonorous and luminous signals at the crossroads.

  The loudspeaker continued: “Parisians, people of France, remain calm! The fate of the franc is assured. France does not intend any imperialism. If the League of Nations refuses France, in spite of its right of first occupancy, the mandate of the island, France will bow to its decision, but France considers herself justly authorized to continue its exploitation until then, and to reap the just fruits of its discovery, which will permit her to repair the financial damage inflicted by the war...