by Emile Zola
She interrupted him in her grave voice:
‘If he’s holding Universals, he’s quite right to sell.’
‘What? He’s quite right to sell?’
‘Yes indeed. My brother told you, a market price over two thousand is absolutely crazy.’
At this he looked at her and exploded, quite beside himself:
‘Well, sell then, just dare to sell your own shares!… Yes, play against me, since you want me to be defeated.’
She reddened slightly, for just the day before she had indeed sold a thousand of her shares in obedience to her brother’s orders, and with a certain feeling of relief herself, as if this sale were an act of tardy honesty. Since he did not question her directly she did not admit what she had done, and was all the more embarrassed when he added:
‘In fact I’m sure there were some defections yesterday. A whole parcel of shares came on to the market, and the price would surely have faltered if I hadn’t intervened. That’s not how Gundermann operates. His methods are slower, but more devastating in the long run… Ah! My dear, I am quite confident, but I can’t help trembling a little, for defending one’s life is nothing, the worst thing is defending one’s money and the money of others.’
Indeed, from that moment on Saccard was no longer his own man. He belonged to the millions he was making, still triumphant but always on the verge of being beaten. He no longer had time to go and see Baroness Sandorff in the little apartment on the Rue Caumartin. The truth was that she had wearied him, with the deception of her ardent eyes, and that coldness which even his most perverse endeavours had failed to overcome. Besides, a misadventure had befallen him, the same that he had inflicted on Delcambre: one evening, thanks this time to the stupidity of a chambermaid, he had entered just at the moment when the Baroness lay in the arms of Sabatani. In the stormy discussion that followed, he calmed down only after a total confession, in which she admitted to mere curiosity, culpable of course but so understandable. That Sabatani, all the women talked about him as if he were such a phenomenon, they whispered about this enormous thing of his, and she had not been able to resist the desire to see for herself. And Saccard forgave her when, in answer to a brutal question from him, she had replied—My word! It wasn’t that astonishing after all. He now rarely saw her more than once a week, not because he felt any rancour but simply because he was finding her boring.
Baroness Sandorff, sensing that he was breaking away from her, returned to her former doubts and uncertainties. Ever since she had been sharing his secrets in their hours of intimacy, she had been gambling almost on certainties and winning a great deal, sharing in his good luck. Now she could see he was no longer willing to answer her questions, and she even feared he might lie to her; and whether it was that her luck had changed, or whether he had indeed deliberately sent her off on a false track, it happened that she lost one day, while following his advice. Her confidence was badly shaken. If he could mislead her like that, who was now going to be her guide? And the worst of it was that the signs of hostility to the Universal at the Bourse, so slight at first, were now growing day by day. As yet it was only rumours, nothing specific was being said and no actual fact was damaging the soundness of the bank. But it was being suggested that there must be something wrong, that there was a worm in the fruit. None of this, however, prevented the increasingly amazing rise of the stock.
After an unsuccessful deal in Italians, the Baroness grew decidedly anxious, and decided to visit the offices of L’Ésperance to try to get Jantrou to talk.
‘Come on, what’s going on? You of all people must know… Universals have just gone up again by twenty francs, yet there was a rumour—no one could tell me exactly what, but certainly something not good.’
But Jantrou was equally puzzled. Placed as he was at the very source of rumours, starting them himself when necessary, he jokingly compared himself to a clockmaker living in the midst of hundreds of clocks, but never knowing the right time. Thanks to his advertising agency he was in everybody’s confidence, but had no single, solid opinion he could rely on, for the various pieces of information he received were so contradictory they cancelled each other out.
‘I know nothing, nothing at all.’
‘Oh, you just won’t tell me.’
‘No, on my word of honour, I know nothing! In fact I was thinking of coming to see you to ask you about it! So Saccard isn’t being nice to you any more?’
She made a gesture which confirmed what he had suspected: an end to an affair of which they had both grown weary, the sulking woman and the cooled-off lover no longer talking to each other. For a moment he regretted not having played the role of the well-informed man in order to have her at last, as a treat for himself as he put it, this little Ladricourt, whose father had so enjoyed kicking him. But he felt that his time was not yet come, and he went on looking at her and thinking aloud.
‘Yes, it’s annoying, I was counting on you… Because, don’t you think? If there’s going to be some disaster, we need to know in good time to be able to cope with it… Oh, I don’t think it’s urgent, things are still very solid. But, one sees such odd things…’
Even as he gazed at her, a plan was taking shape in his head.
‘Look,’ he suddenly went on, ‘since Saccard is leaving you, you should get friendly with Gundermann.’
She was startled for a moment.
Then: ‘Why Gundermann?… I know him a little, I’ve met him at the Roivilles and at the Kellers.’
‘All the better if you know him already… Go and see him on some pretext, chat with him, try to become his girlfriend… Just imagine that—be the girlfriend of Gundermann and rule the world!’
He sniggered at the licentious images he conjured up with a gesture, for the Jew was well known for his coldness, and nothing could be more complicated or more difficult than trying to seduce him. The Baroness, taking his meaning, smiled silently without showing any annoyance.
‘But’, she repeated, ‘why Gundermann?’
Jantrou then explained that Gundermann must certainly be directing the group of short-sellers who were beginning to manoeuvre against the Universal. That he knew; he had proof. Since Saccard was not being helpful, didn’t simple prudence suggest making friends with his adversary, without, however, actually breaking with him? With a foot in each camp one could be sure of being on the side of the victor on the day of battle. He proposed this act of treachery in a kindly way, simply as a man offering good advice. If he had a woman working for him, he would sleep better.
‘Eh? What do you say? Let’s work together… We’ll keep each other informed, and share everything we get to know.’
As he then took hold of her hand, she drew it away with an instinctive movement, misreading his intentions.
‘No, no, that’s not what I meant, for we shall now be comrades… Later you’ll be wanting to reward me.’
With a laugh, she now abandoned her hand to him and he kissed it. She had already lost her contempt for him, forgetting the lackey he had been, and no longer seeing on him the marks of the vile debauchery into which he had sunk, with his ravaged face, his handsome beard reeking of absinthe, his new frock-coat covered with stains, and his shiny hat scratched by the plaster of some foul staircase.*
The Baroness went to see Gundermann the very next day. Ever since Universal shares had reached two thousand francs, he had indeed been conducting a short-selling campaign, though with the utmost discretion, never going to the Bourse, not even having an official agent there. His reasoning was that a share is worth, first of all, its issue value, then the interest it can bring, which depends on the prosperity of the company and the success of its undertakings. So there is a maximum value that it should not reasonably go beyond, and if it does go beyond that, because of public infatuation, then the rise is artificial and the wise course is to bet on a fall, with the certainty that it will happen. Despite his conviction, and his absolute faith in logic, he was still surprised by Saccard’s rapid achievement
s and his suddenly increased power, which was beginning to alarm the big Jewish banks. This dangerous rival had to be cut down as soon as possible, not only to recoup the eight million lost after Sadowa, but above all, to avoid having to share the sovereignty of the market with this terrible adventurer, whose reckless actions seemed to be successful against all good sense, as if by miracle. And Gundermann, full of contempt for passion, exaggerated even further his phlegmatic attitude as a mathematical gambler, with the cold obstinacy of a numbers man, still selling in spite of the continuing rise, and losing ever greater sums at each settlement, but always with the serenity of a wise man simply putting his money in the savings bank.
When the Baroness was at last able to get in to see him, in the midst of all the turbulence of the clerks and jobbers, the showers of papers to sign and telegrams to read, she found the banker suffering from a horrible cold, which was tearing at his throat. However, he had been there since six o’clock that morning, coughing and spluttering, utterly exhausted but still standing firm. That day, on the eve of a foreign loan, the huge room was invaded by a flood of visitors even more impatient than usual, who were being very hastily received by two of his sons and one of his sons-in-law. Meanwhile, on the floor near the narrow table he had kept for himself, well back in the embrasure of a window, three of his grandchildren, two girls and a boy, were fighting with shrill cries over a doll whose one arm and one leg lay beside them, already torn off.
The Baroness at once announced her pretext:
‘Monsieur, I have taken it upon myself to see you personally with my request… It’s a lottery for charity…’*
He didn’t let her go on, for he was very charitable and always bought two tickets, especially when ladies he had met in society took the trouble to bring them to him. But he had to ask her to wait a moment, as a clerk had brought him the papers of some deal or other. Enormous numbers were rapidly exchanged.
‘Fifty-two million, you were saying? And the credit was how much?’
‘Sixty million, Sir.’
‘Ah well, take it up to seventy-five million.’
He was just getting back to the Baroness, when a word he overheard in a conversation his son-in-law was having with a jobber made him rush over to him.
‘But not at all! At the rate of five hundred and eighty-seven fifty, that makes ten sous less per share.’
‘Oh, Monsieur,’ said the jobber, humbly, ‘it would only make forty-three francs less.’
‘What! Forty-three francs! But that’s enormous! Do you think I steal money? Everyone should get what’s due. That’s all I know!’
At last, to be able to talk in peace, he decided to take the Baroness into the dining-room, where the table was already laid. He was not fooled by the pretext of the charity lottery, for he knew of her affair, thanks to a whole police-force of obsequious informers, and he easily guessed that she had come on some serious matter. So he came straight to the point.
‘Come now; tell me what you have to say to me.’
She affected surprise. She had nothing to say, she only wanted to thank him for his kindness.
‘So you haven’t been given some message for me?’
And he seemed disappointed, as if he had thought for a moment that she had come on a secret mission from Saccard, about some scheme or other from that madman.
Now that they were alone, she looked at him with a smile and that falsely ardent air of hers, by which men were so futilely excited.
‘No, no, I have nothing to say to you, and since you are so kind, I might rather perhaps have something to ask of you.’
She leant over towards him, brushing against his knee with her delicate gloved hands. She told him about herself, spoke of her deplorable marriage to a foreigner who had never understood either her nature or her needs. And she explained how she had taken to gambling in order to maintain her position in society. And finally she told of her solitude, and her need for advice and guidance on the frightening terrain of the Bourse, where any false step can cost one dear.
‘But’, he interrupted, ‘I thought you already had someone.’
‘Oh, someone,’ she murmured with a gesture of deep disdain. ‘No, no, there’s no one, I have no one… it’s your advice I’d like to have, you the master, the god. And really it wouldn’t cost you much just to be my friend and say a word to me, just a word from time to time. If you only knew how happy you’d make me, and how grateful I’d be—oh! with my whole being.’
She drew even closer, wrapping him in her warm breath, and the fine and powerful scent her whole body exhaled. But he remained very calm, not even drawing back, his flesh being quite dead, without a twinge of excitement to suppress. While she was speaking, he, whose digestion was also destroyed, and who lived on a milk diet, was taking some grapes, one by one, out of a fruit-bowl on the table and eating them mechanically, the only debauch he sometimes allowed himself, in his most sensual moments, knowing he would pay for it with days of suffering.
He gave the sardonic smile of a man who knows he is invincible, when the Baroness, as if forgetfully, in the ardour of her plea, at last laid on his knee her little seductive hand with its predatory fingers, supple as a nest of snakes. Smiling, he took that hand and removed it, nodding a thank-you as if refusing a useless gift. And without wasting any more time he went straight to the point:
‘Look, you are very charming. And I’d like to be helpful to you… So, my beautiful friend, on the day you bring me a piece of good advice, I promise to do the same for you. Come and tell me what’s going on, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do… That’s a bargain, right?’
He had got up, and she had to go back with him into the big room. She had perfectly well understood the bargain he was offering: espionage and treason. But she chose not to reply, and took it upon herself to talk once more about her charity lottery; while he, with a mocking nodding of his head, seemed to add that he didn’t really need any help, for the logical and inevitable outcome would happen anyway, even if perhaps a little later. And when at last she left, he was already caught up again in other matters, in the extraordinary tumult of this great money market, amid the procession of market people, the rushing about of the clerks, and the playing of the grandchildren, who had just torn the doll’s head off, with shouts of triumph. Gundermann sat down at his narrow table and, absorbed in the contemplation of a sudden new idea, became deaf to everything.
Baroness Sandorff twice went back to the offices of L’Ésperance to give Jantrou an account of her actions, but he was not there. At last Dejoie let her in one day, when his daughter Nathalie was chatting with Madame Jordan on a bench in the corridor. It had been raining torrents since the day before; and in this damp, grey weather the mezzanine of the old building, deep in the dark well of the courtyard, seemed dreadfully melancholy. The gas was lit in the murky twilight. Marcelle, waiting for Jordan, who was out hunting for money to pay a new instalment to Busch, was listening with a melancholy air to Nathalie, who was chattering away like a conceited magpie, with her harsh voice and the angular gestures of a girl grown up too fast in Paris.
‘You understand, Madame, Papa doesn’t want to sell. A certain person is urging him to sell, trying to frighten him into it. I shan’t name the person, for it’s hardly her role to go around frightening people… Now it’s I who am stopping Papa from selling… Sell? Not likely, when it’s still going up! You’d have to be really stupid, wouldn’t you?’
Marcelle simply answered: ‘No doubt.’
‘The shares, you know, are at two thousand five hundred,’ Nathalie went on. ‘I keep the accounts, for Papa can hardly write… So, with our eight shares, that already makes twenty thousand francs. Eh? Isn’t that nice!… At first, Papa wanted to stop at eighteen thousand, because that was the sum he wanted: six thousand francs for my dowry and twelve thousand for him, a little income of six hundred francs that he would really have earned, after all this excitement… But say, isn’t it lucky he didn’t sell? For now there are two thous
and francs more!… So now we want more, we want an income of at least a thousand francs. And we shall have it, Monsieur Saccard has said so… He is so nice, Monsieur Saccard!’
Marcelle could not help smiling.
‘So you’re not intending to get married any more?’
‘Oh yes, yes, as soon as the shares stop rising… We were in a hurry, especially Theodore’s father, because of his business. But after all, one can hardly block up the source when the money’s coming through. Oh, Theodore understands, especially since if Papa has a better income, there’s that much more capital to come our way in due course. My goodness! It’s worth considering… And there you are, we are all waiting. We’ve had the six thousand francs for months, so we could get married, but we prefer to let the francs multiply… Do you read the articles about the shares in the newspapers?’
And, without waiting for an answer, she added:
‘Myself, I read them in the evening. Papa brings me the newspapers… He has read them already and I have to reread them for him… We could go on and on reading them, it’s so lovely, the things they promise. When I go to bed my head is full of them, and I dream of them in the night. And Papa, too, tells me that he sees things that are very good omens. The day before yesterday we both had the same dream, about shovelling up five-franc coins in the street. It was very funny.’
Once again she stopped short to ask: ‘How many shares do you have?’
‘We don’t have any,’ Marcelle replied.
Nathalie’s little face, with her pale blonde hair flying around it, took on an expression of immense pity. Ah, the poor souls who had no shares! And when her father called her to ask her to deliver a package of proofs to a reporter on her way back up to the Batignolles, she took herself off with the amusing self-importance of a capitalist who, almost every day now, went down to the newspaper office to learn the stock-market prices as soon as possible.
