Once again, John Augustus Sutter is all alone.
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He paces to and fro beneath the trees or stands for hours in contemplation before a newly-blossomed rose. He never speaks to anyone. Sometimes, he will stop without ceremony in front of one of the gardeners, make a gesture as if to ask him something, then turn his back and walk away without opening his lips. The wind stirs the skirts of his frock-coat. He seeks the most secluded alley-ways to walk in. In the distance, the boom of the Pacific surf can be heard.
Twice a week, Judge Thompson comes out to see the General.
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In all the vast territories of the United States, Judge Thompson alone understands and feels compassion for the plight of the General. Thompson is an enlightened man with a broad and well-balanced outlook; he fulfils his duties with the utmost integrity. Having made a thorough study of Greek in his youth, he has preserved a love for the humanities, a lofty system of reasoning and a taste for logical, unbiased deduction that he is capable of carrying to its ultimate conclusion. His mind is naturally inclined towards the contemplative mode. Thus he grasps the tragic aspect of John Augustus Sutter's life.
He has taken all the General's interests into his own hands, reviewed the whole affair and spent entire nights bent over the dossiers of the case. He has nothing with which to reproach himself. His verdict was arrived at in a full knowledge of the facts, according to the dictates of his conscience as a man and as a high court magistrate; in all equity, he pronounced in accordance with the letter and the spirit of the law. But, but . . . today, he understands that it is not so much a question of law as of saving a man, an old man, and he listens to the counsels of his heart. And when he comes to see the General, he makes a point of preaching reason to him.
Meanwhile, he offers him a refuge and sees to it that he gets all the care and attention his condition requires.
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'Listen, General, you've suffered enough, don't persist with this business that has brought you nothing but misery. This is what I suggest you do, I've been thinking about it for a long time. Renounce all claims against individual persons. Give up all your proprietorial rights to those plots of land that passed long ago into other hands and are now registered in new names; give up once and for all any idea of getting your hands on your percentage of the gold extracted, or to be extracted in future - believe me, neither the State legislature nor the Federal government itself will ever succeed in collecting one red cent of it. Declare yourself ready to come to terms for, let us say . . . one million dollars' indemnity, payable in cash, and I will do everything in my power to obtain the money for you. If you're absolutely determined to work, you could very well demand new territory and you will get it easily; you know perfectly well the one thing we're not short of hereabouts is land, and, thank God, there's plenty of room still for newcomers. But don't go on with this futile business that will get you nowhere. You know as well as I do that there are too many vested interests, and everyone is intriguing against you in Washington. Trust me, and give up the game, it's not worth the candle.'
'Judge Thompson,' the General invariably replies, 'Judge Thompson, you judged the case and pronounced a verdict according to your conscience. And today you talk to me about money! Tell me, what am I suing for? I am suing for justice, nothing else. The highest court in this land must declare whether you were right or wrong. And it will pronounce. Besides, I am not appealing to mere man, but to God. I must carry this matter to the bitter end, for if I do not obtain justice in this world, it is a consolation to me to think that I will obtain it in heaven, and that one day I shall sit upon the right hand of the Lord.'
'But think of your children, think of Mina who is soon to be married. One day, she'll make you a grandfather.'
'Judge Thompson, a man like myself is damned and has no children. That is surely the sole error of my life. Arthur was killed, Emile committed suicide, and you told me yourself that we must consider Victor as lost, since he disappeared when the Golden Gate was shipwrecked in the open sea at the exit from the Magellan Straits. And, since I no longer possess anything, and cannot give her anything, I shall not be harming Mina by taking this matter to its conclusion; on the contrary, if I win, I shall have provided for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and for seven times seven generations.'
'But what are you going to live on?'
'God, who has stripped me of everything, will provide for me as he nourishes the birds and the beasts.'
'I implore you not to leave here, you can stay as long as you like.'
'Yes, yes, I will go to Washington, at Christmas, after Mina's wedding. Then, we shall see whether there are any honest judges in Washington.'
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Mina marries her dentist and the General departs for Washington, at Christmas, just as he has always said. He is armed with a recommendation from the Mayor of San Francisco, and, in his pocket, Judge Thompson's verdict keeps company with the little volume of the Book of Revelation. Thompson has also managed to persuade the State legislature to pay the old General a pension, a pension for life of three thousand dollars a year.
* * *
FIFTEENTH CHAPTER
* * *
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The years pass. In Washington, the General has become a familiar figure; everyone knows that big, flabby body, those feet dragging along in down-at-heel boots, that old frock-coat, stained and sprinkled with dandruff, and that large bald head that wobbles beneath a battered felt hat. All Washington knows him, and every government bureau.
At first, thanks to the intrigues hatched by his enemies, he met with a rather frosty reception, but nowadays. . . well, so much water has flowed under the bridge, many of his adversaries have long been laid to rest and many of the officials transferred. Today, nobody is exactly sure what he wants - this mad old man, you know the one, the old General who fought in the war with Mexico and drivels on about gold-mines. He's certainly got a bee in his bonnet, a whole hive of them. And in the government offices it is a favourite sport to send him on from one department to another, knocking at endless doors. The General knows every nook and cranny of the law courts and all the staircases of the various Departments of the Administration; he comes and goes, climbs up, climbs down, knocking, rapping, waiting patiently outside closed doors; he walks thousands of miles, covers the same ground over and over again, retracing his steps, caught like a squirrel in a cage.
But he never abandons hope.
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Throughout these long years, John Augustus Sutter has lived on his general's pension. 'Lived' is something of a euphemism, for, in reality, his pension has been gobbled up every year by shyster lawyers, shady business men and petty officials in the Administration who, one after the other, have promised to win his case for him.
In 1863, a young Danish swindler, just arrived from New York, meets Sutter at a religious assembly, takes his documents from him and, next day, introduces him to an accomplice who passes himself off as secretary to the Attorney-General. These two sharks get the old man completely into their clutches. Sutter writes to Judge Thompson, telling him his business is in the hands of God, and that the Attorney-General himself is to plead his cause. He asks for ten thousand dollars to pay the Attorney-General. Mina, to whom he has also written, sends him a thousand dollars. He manages to obtain probate and have his deceased wife's meagre dowry sent to him from Switzerland. All the money he collects is handed over to the two crooks, until one fine morning, seeing that there is nothing more to be got out of the old man, they disappear.
And still he receives frequent visits from lawyers, genuine as well as false, who get him to explain his affairs to them and then make him sign mountains of papers in which Sutter waives all claim to a quarter, a half, three-quarters or even the whole sum in case of success, for what does he care about money, gold, lands? It is justice he wants, a judgement, a verdict.
Years pass. Years of poverty and wretchedness. He works at all sorts of menial tasks in order to survi
ve: he shines shoes, runs errands, delivers messages and washes dishes in a cheap eating-house for soldiers, where his title of general and his horror of whisky have made him popular. Nowadays, Mina sends him a hundred dollars a month and this money goes to every kind of tout and go-between, anyone who knows how to wheedle it out of him. He gives away every last dollar to set his lawsuit in motion.
In 1866, Sutter presents himself before Congress and claims one million dollars in cash and the restitution of his estates. He has been put up to this by a Polish Jew.
In 1868, Sutter sends an appeal to the Senate. He sets out the facts at great length and declares he will be satisfied with five hundred thousand dollars and his lands. This request is the brain-child of a sergeant of infantry.
In 1870, in a new appeal addressed to the Senate (which has been drawn up by a man named Bujard, a photographer from the Swiss canton of Vaud), Sutter claims no more than one hundred thousand dollars, renounces all other indemnities, gives up all rights to his lands and undertakes to leave the soil of the United States and return to Switzerland, where he will settle in the canton of Vaud, 'since I cannot,' he says, 'having once been the richest man in the world, return in poverty to my own canton and become a charge upon the parish of my forefathers'.
In 1873, he joins the sect of the Herrenhütter, entrusts his case to the Council of the Seven Johannite Elders and signs an act by which he donates all his eventual fortune and all his Californian possessions to the fraternity 'in order that the corrupting stain of gold may be washed away from these beautiful valleys by Adamite purity'. And the case starts up again, directed this time by a barrister who is both founder and spiritual director of this German-American communist phalanstery.
Sutter leaves Washington and settles down in Lititz, Pennsylvania, in order to be baptised and purified according to the great Babylonian rite. He is now an immaculate soul and lives in intimacy with Our Lord.
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The Herrenhütter of Lititz are established on large estates where an immense acreage of corn is grown and communally exploited. They also possess an oil-well. Sacks of corn and barrels of oil are sent down to the coast; by way of a trade-mark, they are stamped with the paschal Lamb couchant, holding a banner between its feet. On this banner, standing out in bold black type, are the initials J.C., which stand not for Jesus Christ, but for Johannes Christitsch, the founder, director and grand master of the sect. This man, a Serbian, contrives to function at the same time as a shyster lawyer and as a formidable, shrewd and enterprising business man; he is in the process of building up one of the largest industrial fortunes, on the backs of some four hundred 'enlightened ones', almost all of whom are of German origin.
The principal articles of faith in this phalanstery are: communal ownership of women and chattels, the regenerative sanctity of labour, certain rules of Adamite life and a belief in visions and states of possession. The only gospel is the Book of Revelation. That is why Sutter soon becomes famous in the little parish for his profound knowledge of this book, and for the personal interpretations he puts upon it.
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The Great Whore that sitteth upon many waters is Christopher Columbus discovering America.
The Angels and Stars of St John are in the American flag and, with the inclusion of California, a new star, the Star of Absinthe, has come to be inscribed upon the Star-Spangled Banner.
The Anti-Christ is Gold.
The Beasts and the Satans are the cannibalistic Indians, the Caribbean natives and the Kanakas. They are also the Negroes and the Chinese, the black and the yellow races.
The Three Horsemen are the three great Redskin tribes.
Already, one-third of the immigrants from Europe have been decimated in this country.
I am one of the twenty-four Elders, and it is because I heard the Voice that I have come here amongst you. I was once the richest man in the world, I was ruined by gold . . .
A Russian woman lies at Sutter's feet in a state of ecstasy while he comments on the visions of St John and narrates episodes of his life.
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But Sutter cannot even be left in peace to indulge this harmless folly.
Johannes Christitsch is his evil daemon, Johannes Christitsch, who has had the case reopened and is conducting the whole business, pushing ahead with it, determined to win no matter what the cost. Every week, Christitsch goes to Washington, where he intrigues, solicits, circulates officially-stamped documents, brandishes dossiers, rummages in the archives, brings new evidence to light and generally bestirs himself to set all this colossal procedure in motion once more. Very often, he brings Sutter with him, or sends him into town alone; he shows him off, puts him on exhibition and forces him to speak. He has appointed himself Sutter's manager. He has unearthed an old general's uniform and dressed Sutter up in it; he has even hung a few medals on his chest.
And the General's martyrdom begins again, as he goes from office to office, from one legal department to the next. Highly-placed officials take pity on the old man and his lamentable history, they take careful note of the case, promise to take steps on his behalf and see that he gets satisfaction. When he is on his own, all sorts of rogues stop him in the street and make him recount the tale of the discovery of gold, and Sutter becomes confused and mixes bits of the Apocalypse and Herren-hütter stories into the tale of his own life. He is completely unhinged; every urchin in Washington recognizes the General's madness and derives huge amusement from it.
The old madman.
The richest man in the world!
What a joke!
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In 1876, thanks to Johannes Christitsch's relentless intriguing, Sutter is named Honorary President of the Swiss section at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Christitsch takes advantage of this to establish relations with members of the Consulate; he dreams of instigating a diplomatic move to resolve Sutter's case.
In 1878, he and Sutter settle permanently in Washington. The affair is well under way, important political figures are concerning themselves with the case. Sutter has a kind of return to rationality, he is somewhat calmer and less prolix when he talks to people in the street.
At the end of January 1880, John Augustus Sutter is summoned to the Capitol and he learns that the Federal government is 'about to recognize your services forthwith'. In high places, they 'find your case interesting, your appeal just and your claims in no way exaggerated'. They are ready to award him a huge indemnity.
From this moment on, Sutter escapes completely from the clutches of Christitsch. He is once more very agitated and feverish. He cannot keep still for a moment, and wanders the streets night and day. He is constantly running to the Capitol. He besieges officials at all hours, asking if there is any news, if Congress has yet given its verdict. He is importunate, he badgers certain Congressmen, even in their own private homes, and is accompanied on these visits by a gang of ragamuffins who refuse to leave 'their' General's side, and who applaud whenever Sutter makes a scene, for nowadays he easily becomes violent and abusive and his little band delights in exciting him still further. The General is very proud of his popularity with the common people. In his mind, these children symbolize the Army of the Just.
'When I win my case, I shall give you all my gold,' he tells them, 'the gold that will be due to me, just gold, purified gold.'
God's gold.
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One day, in the street, he runs across three male nurses who are taking a man to the asylum. He is a tall old creature, filthy dirty and dressed in rags, he is waving his arms about furiously, gesticulating and shouting. He manages to break free from his guardians and throws himself on the ground, rolling in the mud, filling his mouth, his eyes and ears with it and avidly plunging his hands into mounds of rubbish and ordure. His pockets are full of unspeakable filth and his bundle of possessions contains nothing but pebbles.
While the nurses are strapping him up, the General watches this man closely and suddenly recognizes him: it is Marshall, the carpenter. M
arshall recognizes him too, and, as they are dragging him away, cries out to him: 'Boss, boss, I told you the truth - there is gold everywhere, everything is made of gold!'
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On a hot afternoon in June, the General is sitting on the bottom step of the monumental stairway that leads up to the Capitol. His head is as empty as the heads of a great many old men; it is a rare moment of well-being, he is doing nothing but warm his old carcase in the sun.
Gold: the marvellous history of General John Augustus Sutter Page 10