by Emile Zola
Busch smiled the smile of a man well used to fishing about in ruins of this sort.
‘Oh, ladies like you always have some resources. If you look hard enough, you’ll find something.’
For a moment or so, he had been looking with interest at an old jewel-box the Countess had left on the mantelpiece that morning while emptying a trunk; and he could scent jewels, with the sureness of instinct. His eyes blazed with such fire that she saw where he was looking, and understood.
‘No! No!’ she cried. ‘Not the jewels!’
And she seized the casket, as if to defend it. These last jewels, which had been in her family for so long, these few jewels she had kept as her daughter’s sole dowry, even through times of greatest hardship, and which now remained her last resource!
‘Never! I’d rather give my flesh.’
But at that moment there was an interruption, when Madame Caroline knocked the door and entered. Arriving already very upset, she was astonished at the scene she encountered. With a brief word, she begged the Countess not to disturb herself, and she would have left, but for a supplicatory gesture from the Countess, which she thought she understood. So she stood aside, quite still, at the far end of the room.
Busch had put his hat back on, while Léonide, more and more uncomfortable, made for the door.
‘So, Madame, it only remains for us to make our departure…’
However, he did not depart. He went over the whole story in even more shameful terms, as if he wanted to humiliate the Countess in front of the newcomer, that lady he affected not to recognize, as was his habit, when he was engaged in business.
‘Goodbye, Madame, we are going straight to the Prosecutor’s office. A detailed account of the matter will be in the newspapers three days from now. And you will have only yourself to blame.’
In the newspapers! This horrible scandal falling even on the ruins of her house! So it wasn’t enough just to see the ancient fortune disappear into dust, everything had to crumble in the mud! Ah, but the honour of the name should at least be saved! And with an instinctive movement, she opened the casket. The earrings, the bracelet, and three rings appeared, diamonds and rubies in antique settings.
Busch eagerly approached. His eyes softened into a gentle caress.
‘Oh, there’s not ten thousand francs’ worth here… Let me see.’
He was already picking up the jewels one by one, turning them over, holding them up in the air, his fat fingers trembling with love, with his sensual passion for precious stones. The purity of the rubies seemed particularly to throw him into ecstasies. And these antique diamonds, even with their sometimes imperfect cutting, what wonderful limpidity!
‘Six thousand francs,’ he said in the voice of an auctioneer, hiding his emotion under this global estimate. I’m only counting the stones; the settings are only fit to be melted down. Well, we’ll settle for six thousand.’
But the sacrifice was too hard for the Countess. Her violent feelings reawakened, she took back the jewels and clasped them in her agitated hands. No! No! This was too much, to ask her now to throw into the abyss these few jewels her mother had worn, and that her daughter was meant to wear on her wedding-day. Hot tears sprang to her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, in such tragic grief that Léonide, touched to the heart, and distraught with pity, began to tug at Busch’s coat to make him leave. She wanted to get away, this was beginning to upset her, giving so much pain to the poor old lady who seemed so good. Busch very coldly surveyed the scene, sure now that he would get the whole lot, knowing from long experience that bursting into tears, in women, precedes the collapse of the will; so he waited.
Perhaps the frightful scene would have gone on longer, if at that moment, a distant muffled voice had not burst into sobs. It was Alice crying out from beyond the alcove:
‘Oh Mama, they’re killing me! Give them everything, let them take it all!… Oh Mama, make them go away, they’re killing me, killing me!’
At this, the Countess made a gesture of desperate abandon, a gesture with which she would have given her whole life away. Her daughter had heard. Her daughter was dying of shame. And she threw the jewels at Busch, leaving him barely enough time to place the Count’s promissory note on the table in exchange, and pushed him out after Léonide, who had already disappeared. Then she reopened the doors of the alcove and went and cast herself down on Alice’s pillow, where, destroyed and utterly exhausted, the two women mingled their tears.
Madame Caroline, appalled, had been briefly tempted to intervene. Would she simply allow this wretch to rob these poor women like this? But she had now heard the whole shameful story, and what could be done to avoid the scandal? For she knew that Busch would not hesitate to carry out his threat. She herself felt ashamed in his presence, in the complicity of the secrets they shared. Ah, such suffering, such filth! A wave of embarrassment swept over her: what had she run over here for, since she could find no word to speak, nor help to offer? All the phrases that rose to her lips, the questions or mere allusions to yesterday’s drama, seemed wounding, unclean, and impossible to utter before this still-bewildered victim, agonizing over her defilement. And what help could she offer that would not seem a derisory piece of charity? For she too was ruined, and already in difficulties, pending the result of the trial. At last she moved forward, her eyes full of tears, arms outstretched in infinite pity, with a desperate tenderness with which her whole body trembled.
These two wretched, utterly ruined creatures in this dreary lodging-house alcove, this was all that remained of the ancient race of the Beauvilliers, formerly such powerful rulers. They had owned lands the size of a kingdom, twenty leagues of the Loire had belonged to them, with their castles, meadows, farmland, and forests. Then this immense landed fortune had gradually dwindled away with the passing of centuries, and the Countess had just swallowed up the last remnants in one of these storms of modern speculation, that she did not understand at all; first her twenty thousand francs of savings, collected sou by sou for her daughter, then the sixty thousand francs borrowed on the farm at Les Aublets, then the farm itself. The house in the Rue Saint-Lazare would not be enough to pay her creditors. Her son had died far away, ingloriously. Her injured daughter had been brought to her, soiled by a scoundrel, like a child picked up in the road, bleeding and muddy after being knocked down by a cab. And the Countess, formerly so noble, so tall and slim and pale, with her grand air of a previous age, was now no more than a ruined old woman, broken by all this devastation; while Alice, with neither beauty nor youth, untidily clad in her nightdress that showed all too clearly her overlong neck, had the eyes of a madwoman, eyes that revealed the mortal grief of her last vestige of pride, her virginity now violated. And the two women went on weeping, weeping on and on.
Madame Caroline didn’t utter a word; she just gathered them both up and clasped them tightly to her bosom. She could not think of anything else to do; she wept with them. And the two unhappy women understood, their tears flowing even more freely and more gently. Even if there was no possible consolation, it was still necessary to go on living, wasn’t it? To go on living in spite of everything?
When Madame Caroline was once again out on the street, she saw Busch deep in conversation with La Méchain. He had hailed a cab, into which he pushed Léonide, and disappeared from sight. But as Madame Caroline hurried along, La Méchain walked straight up to her. She had doubtless been waiting for her, for she immediately spoke of Victor, already informed of what had happened the day before at the Work Foundation. Ever since Saccard had refused to pay the four thousand francs, she had gone on raging, striving to find some way of getting something out of the affair; and she had just learned the story, there on the Boulevard Bineau, where she often went, hoping for something profitable to turn up. She must have already made her plan, and told Madame Caroline that she was immediately going in search of Victor. That unfortunate child, it was too terrible that he should have been abandoned like that to his evil instincts; they must take h
im back if they didn’t want to see him one fine morning in the Assize Court. And while she was talking, her little eyes, lost in the flabby flesh of her face, were exploring this good lady, delighted to see how upset she was, and telling herself that as soon as she found the lad again she would once more be able to get the odd hundred-sou coin out of her.
‘So, Madame, it’s agreed—I’m going to take care of it… If you need news, don’t bother to rush all the way to the Rue Marcadet, just go up to Busch’s office in the Rue Feydeau, where you can be sure to find me every day around four o’clock.’
Madame Caroline returned to the Rue Saint-Lazare, tormented by a new anxiety. It was true, as Victor wandered about, hunted, and abandoned by everyone, what evil heredity would that monster need to satisfy, moving through the world like a voracious wolf? She ate a quick lunch and took a cab, with time enough to call at the Boulevard Bineau before going to the Conciergerie, burning with desire to get some information immediately. On the way, in her feverish agitation, an idea took hold of her, even took possession of her; it was to go first of all to see Maxime, take him to the Work Foundation, and force him to concern himself with Victor, who was, after all, his brother. He was the only one who was still rich, he alone could intervene and deal with the matter effectively.
But once in the hallway of the luxurious little dwelling in the Avenue de l’Impératrice, Madame Caroline felt suddenly chilled. Upholsterers were removing the hangings and carpets, servants were putting covers on the chairs and chandeliers, while from the disturbance of all these pretty things there arose, over the furniture, over the bookshelves, a faded scent like that of a bouquet thrown away the day after a ball. And at the far end of the bedroom she found Maxime, standing between two enormous trunks which his valet was just finishing packing with a wonderful trousseau of clothes, rich and delicate, fit for a bride.
When he saw her, it was he who spoke first, in a very cold, dry voice.
‘Ah! it’s you! You’ve come just in time to save me having to write to you… I’ve had enough, and I’m leaving.’
‘What do you mean, leaving?’
‘Yes. I’m leaving tonight. I’m going to Naples for the winter.’
Then, when he had dismissed the valet with a wave of his hand, he went on:
‘If you think it’s been fun for me having a father in the Conciergerie for the last six months! I’m certainly not going to wait here to see him in prison… I, who so detest travelling! Still, the weather is good there, and I’m taking with me just about all I need, so perhaps it won’t be too much of a bore.’
She gazed at him, so neat, so good-looking; and she looked at the overflowing trunks, into which no garment of wife or mistress had strayed; everything was devoted to his cult of himself; and yet she dared to risk speaking.
‘And I had come to ask a service of you…’
Then she related the story, Victor the scoundrel, raping and thieving, Victor in flight, capable of any and every crime.
‘We cannot abandon him. Come with me, let us join forces…’
He did not let her finish, he was livid, and trembling with fear, as if he had felt some dirty, murderous hand settle upon his shoulder.
‘Oh well! That’s all I needed!… A thief for a father and a murderer for a brother… I’ve delayed too long, I meant to leave last week. But it’s abominable, abominable, to put a man like me in such a situation!’
Then, when she insisted, he became insolent.
‘You just leave me alone! Since you seem to enjoy that life of grief, carry on with it! I did warn you, it’s your own fault if you’re weeping now… But as for me, you see, I’d sooner sweep the whole filthy lot into the gutter than do the slightest thing for them.’
She got up.
‘Goodbye then!’
‘Goodbye.’
And as she left, she saw him calling back the valet and attending to the careful packing of his toilet kit, in which every piece was most elegantly worked in silver, especially the basin, which was engraved with a ring of Cupids. While this man was going away to live a life of forgetfulness and idleness beneath the bright sun of Naples, she had a sudden vision of the other, prowling hungrily on some dark and dripping evening with a knife in his hand, in some remote lane in La Villette or Charonne. Didn’t this answer the question of whether education, health, and intelligence are not all, in fact, down to money? Since there is the same human mud underneath, does civilization amount to no more than the superiority of smelling good and living comfortably?
When she reached the Work Foundation, Madame Caroline felt an odd sense of revulsion at the enormous luxury of the establishment. What good were these two majestic wings, one for boys and one for girls, linked by the monumental administrative offices? What good were the courtyards large as parks, the ornate tiles of the kitchens, the marble of the dining-halls, the corridors vast enough for a palace? What good was all this grandiose charity if, in this large and salubrious environment, they could not straighten out one ill-begotten being and turn a perverted child into a decent man, endowed with healthy good sense? She went at once to see the director and pressed him with questions, wanting to know the slightest details. But what had happened remained obscure; he could only repeat what she had already heard from the Princess. Searches had continued since the day before, in the institution and the surrounding areas, without any result. Victor was already far away, galloping around the city, in the frightening depths of the unknown. He couldn’t have any money, for Alice’s purse, which he had emptied, only contained three francs and four sous. The director had, anyway, avoided bringing in the police in order to spare the poor Beauvilliers ladies the public scandal; and Madame Caroline thanked him for that, and promised that she would not contact the Prefecture either, in spite of her ardent desire to know where Victor was. Then, in despair at going away no wiser than when she had come, it occurred to her to go up to the infirmary and question the sisters. Again, she got no precise information, but up there, in the quiet little room that separated the girls’ dormitory from the boys’, she at least enjoyed a few profoundly calming moments. A happy, boisterous noise rose from below; it was playtime, and she felt she had been unjust about the successful cures that had been obtained through the open-air life, well-being and work. There were certainly some strong and healthy men growing up here. One scoundrel to four or five men of average honesty would already be very good, given all the hazards that aggravate or diminish hereditary defects!
Left on her own for a moment by the sister on duty, Madame Caroline had moved over to the window to watch the children playing down below, when the crystal-clear voices of some little girls in the next-door infirmary attracted her attention. The door was half open and she could observe the scene without being noticed. It was a very cheerful room, this white infirmary with white walls, and four beds draped with white curtains. A big patch of sunlight added gold to the whiteness, a flowering of lilies in the warm air. In the first bed on the left, she at once recognized Madeleine, the girl who had been there, eating bread and jam, on the day she brought Victor. Madeleine kept on falling ill, wrecked by the alcoholism of her family, and of such poor blood that despite her big eyes, like those of a grown woman, she was as thin and pale as a saint in a stained-glass window. She was thirteen, and alone in the world now, her mother having died one drunken evening, after being kicked in the stomach by a man who wouldn’t pay her the six sous they had agreed on. And Madeleine, kneeling in the middle of her bed in her long white nightdress, with her fair hair flowing about her shoulders, was teaching a prayer to the three little girls from the other three beds.
‘Put your hands together like this, and open wide your heart…’
All three little girls were also kneeling among their sheets. Two were about eight or ten, and the third was under five. In their long white nightdresses, with their frail hands clasped and their serious, ecstatic faces, they looked like little angels.
‘And now repeat after me what I’m going to say
. Listen carefully: ‘O God, let Monsieur Saccard be rewarded for his goodness, and may he have a long and happy life.’
Then, with cherubic voices, and an adorable childish lisping, the four little girls repeated together, in a surge of faith to which they gave the whole of their pure little being:
‘O God, let Monsieur Saccard be rewarded for his goodness, and may he have a long and happy life.’
With an angry movement, Madame Caroline was about to go into the room to make the children stop, and forbid them to go on with what she regarded as a blasphemous and cruel game. No, no! Saccard had no right to be loved, it was a stain on their childhood that they should pray for his happiness! Then she stopped, with a great shudder, and tears rose to her eyes. Why should she draw into her quarrel, into the anger of her experience, these innocent beings who as yet knew nothing of life? And hadn’t Saccard been good to them, he who was part-creator of this establishment, and who every month sent them playthings? She felt deeply disturbed, she was once more finding proof that there is no man, however guilty, who, in the midst of all the evil he may have done, has not also done much good. And she left, while the little girls took up their prayer once more, and she carried away in her ears the sound of those angelic voices, calling down blessings on that man of recklessness and disaster, whose hands, in their folly, had just ruined a whole world.
As she was at last leaving her cab on the Boulevard du Palais, in front of the Conciergerie, she realized that, in all her emotion, she had left at home the bunch of carnations she had prepared that morning for her brother. There was a flower-seller there with little bouquets of roses for two sous, and she bought one, which made Hamelin, who loved flowers, smile when she told him of her forgetfulness. That day, however, he seemed truly sad. Initially, during the first weeks of his imprisonment, he had not been able to believe there were serious charges against him. His defence appeared so simple: he had been made president against his will, and had remained apart from all financial transactions, being almost always absent from Paris, and unable to exercise any control. But conversations with his lawyer, and the approaches made by Madame Caroline, which, she said, had been a useless waste of effort, had made him see at last the alarming responsibilities laid upon him. He was going to be involved in every illegality, however slight; it would never be accepted that he was ignorant of a single one; Saccard had drawn him into a dishonourable complicity. It was then that in his rather simple faith as a practising Catholic, he had found a resignation, a tranquillity of soul that astonished his sister. When she arrived from the outside world, from her anxious efforts, from all those human beings at liberty, so shifty and hard, she was astonished to find him peaceful and smiling in his bleak cell, in which, like the great pious child that he was, he had nailed up luridly coloured religious pictures around a little crucifix of black wood. Once one puts oneself in the hands of God there is no more rebellion, and undeserved suffering is a pledge of salvation. His only sadness came, at times, from the disastrous halting of his great enterprises. Who would take up his work again? Who would carry on with the resurrection of the East, so successfully started with the United Steamship Company and the Carmel Silver Mines Company? Who would build the network of railway lines from Broussa to Beirut and Damascus, from Smyrna to Trebizond, all that pumping of new young blood into the veins of the old world? In this too he still had faith; he said the work undertaken could not die, and he felt only the grief of no longer being the one chosen by Heaven to carry it out. His voice broke particularly when he wondered why, in punishment of what fault, God had not allowed him to create the great Catholic Bank, destined to transform modern society, that Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre, which would restore a kingdom to the Pope and in the end make all the peoples of the world into one single nation, taking the sovereign power of money away from the Jews. He also predicted the coming of that bank as inevitable and invincible; and he heralded the Just Man, with pure hands, who one day would found it. And if he seemed careworn that afternoon, it must simply have been because, in his serenity as an accused man who will be found guilty, he had realized that on getting out of prison, he would never have hands clean enough to take up again that great task.