Nasenberg looked hard at the engineer. “This is very serious, and you astonish me.”
“Oh, I was so sure of myself, of the realization of my idea! I’ve gone too far to stop…and the goal is there, in front of me! I can see it, touch it! And it makes me despair to think that perhaps I shall never arrive at it!”
Rozal had sat down in an armchair, seemingly utterly discouraged. Nasenberg considered him with a passionate but pitiless interest. The engineer would also suffer the difficulty and prejudice that he would cause his devoted and modest collaborators—but that anguish did not move the Franco-German banker. He was merely astonished by the ardent faith and stubborn courage of the inventor, and the determination with which, for four years, without allowing himself to be put off by continual checks, he had continued the struggle. No one knew better than Nasenberg what heroism the engineer had sometimes shown.
On an experimental field in the plain of Picardy, far from curious and indiscreet witnesses, Rozal had attempted improbable feats to find a solution to the automatic equilibrium of aircraft. He had suffered serious accidents, which, instead of discouraging him, seemed to have exacerbated his desire to vanquish the mystery. Very rapidly, Rozal had realized that all the engines currently in use were too weak in proportion to their weight. Only speed, the sign of power, would give airplanes mastery over the winds—and it was for that reason that he had resolutely tackled the question of the engine, working in obscurity, while so many of his peers were crowning themselves with renown by lifting trophies sweetened by considerable amounts of money and various decorations.
That incredible tenacity, physical endurance and disdain for honors had astonished the banker. In spite of himself, forgetting what Rozal had cost him, he still admired it—but even so, seriously and logically, he could not help him any longer. What he had done already was by virtue of calculation. He had thought—with the flair of his Germanic name, which meant “mountainous nose”—that he had discovered a genius. Immediately, he had put at his disposal the useful lever of money. In acting thus, he thought he was launching someone, as he was accustomed to do, in order to harvest, subsequently, a profit on the money he had risked, which he thus considered an investment. Now, the man had not yet returned anything—and he had proved very costly.
Others, undoubtedly, had tried to deceive him—one had even turned him over! A pretended manufacturer of artificial diamonds had led a life of pleasure at his expense for more than a year, on the pretext of conducting experiments. On the other hand, Nasenberg had launched adventurers who had paid his investment back a hundredfold; among that number was Pierre Biscot, the director of the Casino at Juvisy-sur-Orge. In six years, the enterprise created by that daredevil had already brought in more than thirty million! And his own launch of the private beach and casino at Deauville had succeeded as well.
He was lying, therefore, when he told Rozal that he had no money. He had simply resolved to give up on him, for lack of any result. The engineer’s confession, however, touched him. What—out of the 600,000 francs that he had placed in the worthy fellow’s hands, the aviator had kept nothing for himself? He was, then, a pure poet, or prodigiously stupid.
Nasenberg reflected. No, Henri Rozal was a fighter, who would not surrender while he still had the means to do battle. That was why he had gone so far—to the brink of bankruptcy.
It’s impossible for such energy not to produce results, the banker thought. If he hasn’t worked marvels yet, it’s because the objective remains too distant, inaccessible. Perhaps, one day, Rozal will be famous. Perhaps he’ll end tragically, in an obscure crash in some desolate field. No one knows the future. The poor devil’s interesting, at any rate—but personally, I’m cutting my losses. What if he got money from somewhere else, though…?
Suddenly, the banker fixed his eyes upon the engineer and muttered: “Why not him…?”
What bizarre thought-processes were going on in his head? Associations of ideas, no doubt, were coming together or sorting themselves out, confusedly at first, then with clarity. Now he was looking at Rozal with extreme attention—but it was not the gaze of a little while before, seeming to scrutinize the brain, the enigma of the future that the young man bore within him. It was the stare of a horse-trader watching a stallion walk.
Annoyed by this physical examination, Rozal said: “Are you thinking of selling me?”
Bizarrely, Nasenberg smiled. “Perhaps, my dear friend,” he said.
The banker advanced toward him affectionately, and explained, in a low voice. “I have the best of intentions toward you, and I’ll give you proof of it. I want to save you, but there’s only one means: to marry you.”
“Get away!”
“What? You refuse?”
“Energetically. I’d be a poor husband. What would an unfortunate little wife, whom I would have to abandon all the time to devote myself to my research, do with me? Can you see me, in the course of a trial, falling out of the clouds before her frightened eyes?”
Everything depends on the woman you marry. There are some who would be very proud to share your quest, to wear the halo of your celebrity, and—this is the reality that it’s necessary to bring about—to offer you the means of continuing and conclusively accomplishing what you have begun.”
“Have you then to hand, ready and waiting, a young woman animated by those intentions? A widow? A divorcee?”
“No—but I can find you one.”
“All business is good business, I suppose, if it makes a profit,” said Rozal, with a contemptuous smile.
“You can dispense with the gibes, my boy,” Nasenberg replied, a trifle vexed. “They ceased to have any effect on me a long time ago. Let’s speak frankly. You’re on the rocks. Bankruptcy is lying in wait for you. Before long, you’ll be sunk. I try to save you, and you reward me by hurling a nasty remark at me that isn’t even funny.”
“What are your conditions?”
“Five per cent of the dowry.”
“It must be a big one.”
“Big enough, my lad. Thirty million!”
In spite of his self-composure, Rozal started. “Eh?” he said. “You just told me that you didn’t have anyone in mind.”
“I wanted to see you take the bait. What would you say to an American lady, the daughter of Mr. Edgar Mackay, the machine-tool king? I’m not just offering you thirty million, but a pretty girl into the bargain!”
Henri Rozal got to his feet. “You’ve just pronounced the word that raises an obstacle to our project,” he said. “I’m not a man to strike bargains.”
“Come on! I’ve got to know you, since you’ve been causing me anxiety, and I’ve paid to know what you’re worth. Yes, you’re an extraordinary type—a sincere man! But what disgrace would there be, for you, in marrying the daughter of a man who has made himself famous on the proceeds of inventions of the same kind as yours? Because you’re poor? Well, do you think your genius counts for nothing? Edgar Mackay, it you don’t know, started from nothing. His daughter’s dowry is the consequence of his work, and his discoveries…and you were talking to me yourself, a little while ago, about selling your patents for millions. Well, if you weren’t bluffing, prove it—by having confidence in yourself, in your future, which will bring you closer to Miss Mackay.”
Shaken by these seductive arguments, and depressed in any case by his situation, Rozal weakened. “But I’ve never seen this young woman! And what makes you think, anyway, that she’d want me?”
“Obviously, I can’t promise anything. Nevertheless, I know her; a lad like you can’t leave her indifferent. Above worldly conventions, and the fascination with nobility that has long seduced her compatriots, she rates the individual value of an intelligent and exceedingly ambitious man more highly. Would you like me to proceed?”
“No,” Henri Rozal replied, grimly.
Nasenberg was amazed. This one, he thought, isn’t like the others. But he clung to his idea, and knew how to find a sensitive spot.
“Have you considered,” he said, “that you don’t have the right to refuse? You evoked, just now, the situation of your devoted collaborators, whose anticipated wages you don’t have enough in your cash-box to pay. What will you do at the end of the month? What will become of the workshop in Nanterre? What will become of all those that your unexpected ruination will precipitate into difficulty or poverty? Finally, what will become of your projects, your work, of all that you have already accomplished, and will no longer be good for anything?”
For a few minutes, Henri Rozal maintained an intimate combat. Abruptly, he came to a decision. “It’s not respectable, and I didn’t foresee such a pact. However, you’re correct. I don’t have the right to refuse. Five per cent of thirty million makes a million and a half for you. I’ll pay you that, of course, out of the profits of my invention.”
“You can pay me out of whatever you wish. The essential thing is that I get it, six months after your marriage.”
“And what if I refused to enter into your plan?”
“I’d permit myself to say two things to you: firstly, that you’d be less intelligent than I think, for no one but a fool wouldn’t accept such an offer enthusiastically; secondly, that you wouldn’t have do anything but rely on me.”
Rozal reflected briefly, and sighed. “I’m not free; I belong to my work.”
With an evident satisfaction, Nasenberg hastened to prepare the contract by which Henri Rozal promised to pay him, six months after his marriage to Miss Nelly Mackay, a commission of five per cent on the dowry that the young woman would bring him.
While the document was being drawn up, Henri Rozal forgot that the proposition had shocked him a little while before. Already, he was getting used to the idea of the compromise. It was necessary to admit that people occupied themselves honestly, in return for agreed remunerations, in directing others toward realizations that they could not bring to a conclusion themselves. It appeared less ugly that Nasenberg should indulge in such commerce once he had begun to draw up the agreement by which Rozal and he were linked.
Then again, truly, he had worked long enough in miserable deprivation, suffering the anguish of checks. The bad days appeared to him in miserable procession, and also the spectacle of his workers, his foremen, his humble family of laborers intent, like him, on capturing his chimera! Already, he could see himself in a beautiful modern factory, vast and admirable, fitted out with large rooms, the profiles of massive and elegant machine-tools in silhouette; the glare of polished steel and the gleam of nickel burst forth in his dream. He would sacrifice all the money necessary to attain that end.
Nasenberg had finished writing. “Would you care to sign?” he said, holding out a pen. “You no longer look like a man being led to sacrifice? Oh, I knew that you were an intelligent fellow. If I can make a success of it, then, you’ll be content?”
“Yes, because the marriage will be, for me, the lever with which I shall overturn the old theories and bring forth the miraculous invention out of chaos.”
Having signed the document, Rozal stood up. As he was about to leave, the banker called him back.
“What about your 20,000 for the end of the month? Do you think you’re already a millionaire? Wait—I’ll give you a check. The 600,000 francs that I’ve already given you, and the 30,000 more I’ll dispense, if necessary, for the success of this marriage, will, of course, be added on to my commission, because I don’t want to hear any more talk of airplanes and engines. I like you better as the handsome and intelligent lad you are, as a suitor for the hand of a rich American lady. I’m more confident of getting my expenses back. I’ll arrange an introduction soon. I’ll telephone you, my boy.”
Rozal shrugged his shoulders, disdainfully took the check for which he had been pleading desperately a little while before, and stuffed it into his pocket like a rag—was he already getting used to his role as a plutocrat?—and, after shaking the hand that Nasenberg held out to him, he went out.
Left alone, the banker rubbed his hands together.
“Very good, very good!” he said, aloud, walking back and forth agitatedly.
This was the third champion that he had launched in Miss Mackay’s direction. First: the Duc de Créqui; second, a young and brilliant deputé, Maurice Lamentin, who, already an undersecretary to the Merchant Maine, was cut from the cloth of a future President of the Council; now, a wonderful engineer, an aviator of genius.
If Miss Mackay doesn’t choose one of that trio, he thought, she’s very difficult to satisfy. As for me, I have no preference; I’m sure of getting my commission in any event, since all three of them have signed agreements with me...
Nasenberg lit a cigar, and launched large clouds of blue smoke toward the ceiling of his office, with a satisfied expression.
II. The Wind Tunnel
The light and graceful constructions of the factory of Henri Rozal & Cie. were established on the bank of the Seine at Nanterre, opposite the Île Fleurie: one very long building made of bricks, preceded by a white lodge with green shutters, and followed by several hangars.
Rozal’s automobile stopped at the gate. The engineer had left Nasenberg’s office cheered up by the thought that soon, perhaps, he would have the powerful means of realization that he had so long desired. To be sure, he would not need so many millions to continue the work he had begun—a quarter of a million, after all the money spent thus far, whose anticipated results seemed to be clearly in prospect, would have been largely sufficient to reach the end—but such a fortune was truly too much. Even so, Henri Rozal was a little excited.
During the journey from Paris to Nanterre, he had let his dream run on, to the purr of the automobile’s engine. At the barrière he had asked himself, anxiously, how one might use the income from such a formidable sum. By the crossroads of the Défense, having made a few calculations, he had already found employment for his future income. By the time he arrived at the factory, he was accustomed to his good fortune, and no longer found anything extraordinary in the figure of thirty million.
As a result of this state of mind, when he perceived the modest building with its tiled roof, and the makeshift plasterboard hangars, he felt a construction in his heart—a sort of embarrassment, or shame, which caused him to find the constructions, with which he had been satisfied the day before, meager and shabby.
Leaping out of the car, he turned round and considered its twelve weary horse-power and its cracked and mud-spattered paint with a jaundiced eye. I’ll buy two big cars, he thought, while waiting for the time when I start manufacturing automobile engines myself.
Then he went into the lodge, bowing to the gateman as he went past. A big dog with long, slightly dirty hair, attempted to lavish signs of joy upon him, but he pushed it away casually. “You need a wash, Wilbur,” he said.
The book-keeper, on perceiving him, looked down-hearted.
“What are you puling faces for, my dear Toujat?”
“A setback, Monsieur Rozal…a setback. Schlachters refuses to make the delivery of chrome steel, inasmuch as the last invoice hasn’t been paid. We’ve even been threatened with our effects being seized by the bailiffs, if the account isn’t settled within a fortnight, and the matter being brought before the Tribunal de Commerce.”
Without seeming in the least trouble by this bad news, the engineer asked: “How much do we owe Schlachters?”
“Eight thousand seven hundred.”
Rozal opened his wallet.
“Deposit this check for 20,000 this afternoon, and you’ll be able to settle up, on sufferance. Phone immediately to tell them and demand that they deliver the steel I need without delay.”
At the sight of the check, the book-keeper became emotional. For three months, things had only been held together by luck, prodigies of balancing and ingenuity. He was owed 600 francs himself. He had not claimed them because he had some small savings that his wife had earned by sewing. Besides, all the factory’s employees were in the same situation. Rozal had not been exagg
erating when he had described the lamentable state of the enterprise to Nasenberg.
As the accountant turned the check over and over in his hands, confusedly, Henri Rozal guessed what he was thinking.
“My dear Toujat, tomorrow evening you can pay the workers, the foremen—all the factory personnel, in sum—and you can pay yourself too.”
He left the book-keeper, who was amazed in spite of the fact that he ought to have got used to the enchantments of Parisian life, and went into the central building, where his men, working to his plans, were constructing machines and engines for new experiments.
As soon as one entered, the spectacle contained in the space was striking, by virtue of it picturesque quality and the variety of detail: machines, the outlines of fuselages, half-stripped monoplane wings, cast-iron components, curiously-formed engines, and multiple winglets like toys. The entire center of the immense hall was occupied by a sort of platform about fifty centimeters high, on which two partly-constructed aircraft were posed. It was there that the final assembly and fitting took place. To the left, over almost the entire length, were forges and foundries separated from the workshop by a corrugated-iron partition extending all the way to the roof. Immediately adjacent to that partition, lathes, planning-machines, drills, polishing machines and mortising-machines were controlled by a unique rotating transmission three meters high. Further away in a file, were the fitters’ vices. On the right was the carpentry shop. There, skillful and meticulous workers were constructing slender, light frames with fibrous wood; and what they were fabricating with so much care—almost preciosity—looked as fragile as toys, curiously reminiscent of bird-traps.
The Human Arrow Page 4