‘That’s mad!’ he cried. ‘The Porte* won’t give up Jerusalem.’
‘Oh, why not?’ Hamelin tranquilly continued. ‘It is in such urgent need of money! Jerusalem is a bother, they’d be glad to get rid of it. They often don’t know which side to take between the diverse faiths fighting for possession of the sanctuaries. Besides, the Pope would have real support in Syria from the Maronites, for, as you know, he has established a College in Rome for their priests… In short, I’ve really thought it out, I’ve seen how it would all work, and it will be the new era, the triumphant era of Catholicism. Some may say this is going too far, that the Pope would find himself isolated, cut off from European affairs. But what glory and authority he will have when he reigns over the sacred places, speaking in the name of Christ, from the Holy Land where Christ himself once spoke! That is where his patrimony lies, that must be his kingdom. And rest assured, we shall make it powerful and solid, that kingdom; we shall put it beyond the reach of political disturbance by basing its budget, guaranteed by the resources of the country, upon a vast bank in which Catholics the world over will fight to have shares.’
Saccard, who had begun to smile, already delighted if not entirely convinced by the hugeness of the project, could not help baptizing this bank, with a joyful cry of discovery:
‘The Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre, eh? Superb! Just what we need!’
But he then met the sensible gaze of Madame Caroline, also smiling but sceptical, even slightly irritated; and he felt ashamed of his enthusiasm.
‘No matter, my dear Hamelin, we had best keep secret that crowning of the edifice, as you call it. We’d be laughed at. And besides, our programme is already very heavily loaded, it’s a good idea to reserve for the initiate the final consequences, the glorious end.’
‘Undoubtedly, that has always been my intention,’ said the engineer. That will be the mystery.’
And it was with that word, on that day, that the exploitation of the portfolio, the putting into operation of the whole enormous series of projects, was definitively decided. They would begin by creating a modest lending-house to launch the first deals; then, with success helping them along, they would gradually become masters of the market and conquer the world.
The next day, as Saccard had gone up to see the Princess d’Orviedo to get her orders on the subject of the Work Foundation, he remembered the dream he had briefly cherished of becoming the prince consort of this queen of charity, a mere distributor and administrator of the fortune of the poor. And he smiled, for all that now seemed to him rather silly. He was built to create life, not to treat the wounds that life has made. Now at last he was going to get back to his own work, in the thick of the battles of finance, in that race for happiness which has always been the very march of humanity through the centuries, always moving toward more joy and more light.
That same day he came upon Madame Caroline alone in the study. She was standing at one of the windows, held there by the appearance of the Countess de Beauvilliers and her daughter in the next-door garden at an unaccustomed hour. The two women were reading a letter with an air of great sadness, no doubt a letter from the son Ferdinand, whose position in Rome was probably far from brilliant.
‘Look,’ said Madame Caroline when she saw Saccard. ‘Yet more trouble for those unfortunate women. Beggar-women in the street cause me less pain.’
‘Bah!’ he cried gaily, ‘you must ask them to come and see me. We’ll make them rich too, since we’re going to make everybody’s fortune!’
And in the fervour of his happiness he tried to kiss her on the lips. But she had moved her head away, suddenly grave and pale with some involuntary malaise.
‘No, please don’t.’
It was the first time he had tried to approach her again since she had abandoned herself to him in a moment when she had lost all self-awareness. Now that the serious business matters were arranged, he was able to think about his good fortune as a lover, and wanted to settle matters on this side of things too. Her sharp movement of withdrawal astonished him.
‘Really? Would that truly displease you?’
‘Yes, really. Very much so.’
She was calmer now, and she in turn was smiling.
‘Besides, admit it, it doesn’t matter that much to you either.’
‘Oh, but I adore you.’
‘No, don’t say that, you’re going to be so busy! Besides, I assure you that I’m ready to have a real friendship with you, if you are the man of action I take you to be and if you do all the great things you say you’ll do… Anyway, friendship is better!’
He listened to her, still smiling but embarrassed and put out by her rejection all the same. She was refusing him, it was ridiculous to have possessed her only once and then by surprise. But it was only his vanity that suffered.
‘So… Just friends?’
‘Yes, I’ll be your friend, and I’ll help you… Friends, great friends!’
She held out her face to him, and he, quite won over, deciding she was right, planted two big kisses upon each cheek.
CHAPTER III
THE letter from the Russian banker in Constantinople, that Sigismond had translated, was the favourable reply Saccard had been waiting for to get things started in Paris; and two days later, as soon as he woke up, Saccard had the sudden conviction that he must act that very day, that he must before nightfall have formed the syndicate he wanted to secure, in order to pre-place the fifty thousand shares at five hundred francs in his new company, to be launched with a capital of twenty-five million.
As he leapt out of bed he had at last found a name for his company, the name for which he had long been searching. The words ‘Universal Bank’ had suddenly flared up before him as if in letters of fire, in the darkness of his bedroom.
‘Universal Bank,’ he said over and over again as he got dressed. ‘Universal Bank, it’s simple, it’s big, it includes everything, it covers the world… Yes, yes, excellent! The Universal Bank!’*
Until half-past nine he paced through the vast rooms, absorbed in his thoughts, not knowing where in Paris to begin the hunt for the millions he needed. It was still possible to find twenty-five million without going far afield; indeed, it was having too much choice that gave him pause, for he wanted to set about things methodically. He drank a cup of milk, and didn’t get angry when the coachman came to tell him that the horse was sick, probably a chill, and it would be wiser to call in the vet.
‘Fine, take care of it… I’ll get a cab.’
But out on the pavement he was surprised at the bitter wind blowing, as if with a sudden return to winter in this month of May, so mild just the day before. Still, it wasn’t raining, though large yellow clouds were looming on the horizon. So he didn’t take a cab, deciding to walk to keep warm. He thought he’d first go on foot to drop in on Mazaud the stockbroker in the Rue de la Banque; it had occurred to him to sound out Mazaud about Daigremont, the well-known speculator, the lucky man in every syndicate. However, on the Rue Vivienne, from a sky now laden with livid clouds, such a downpour of rain and hail came bursting down that he took shelter under the carriage entrance of a house.
Saccard had been standing there for a minute, watching the rain falling, when over and above the rumble of the water the bright tinkling of gold coins made him prick up his ears. It seemed to be emerging from the very bowels of the earth, continuous, light and musical, like something out of a tale in the Arabian Nights. He turned his head and realized where he was, saw that he was standing in the doorway of a banker, Kolb, who dealt mostly in gold arbitrage, buying coinage in states where the value of gold was low then melting it down and selling the ingots to countries where the price of gold was high; so from morning to night, on smelting days, there rose from the basement the crystalline sound of gold coins being stirred, shovelled out of crates, and flung into the crucible. Passers-by on the pavement could hear it ringing in their ears from one year’s end to the other. Saccard smiled with contentment at this music, w
hich seemed like the subterranean voice of the neighbourhood of the Bourse. It struck him as a good omen.
The rain had stopped now, so he crossed the square and was at once at Mazaud’s office. Unusually, the young stockbroker had made his private home on the first floor of the same building as his business offices, which occupied the whole of the second floor. He had simply taken over his uncle’s apartment, when, after the latter’s death, he made an agreement with his co-inheritors to buy out the business.
The clock was striking ten and Saccard went straight up to the offices, encountering Gustave Sédille at the door.
‘Is Monsieur Mazaud in?’
‘I don’t know, Monsieur, I’ve just got here.’
The young man was smiling, he was always late, not taking seriously his unpaid, purely amateur post, but resigned to spending a year or two there just to please his father, the silk manufacturer in the Rue des Jeûneurs.
Saccard walked through the payments office, where the cashier and the securities clerk greeted him, then entered the office of the stockbroker’s two managers, where he found only Berthier, the manager in charge of client dealings, the one who accompanied his employer to the Bourse.
‘Is Monsieur Mazaud in?’
‘Well, I think so, I just came from his office… Oh! No, he’s not there now… He must be in the cash office.’
He pushed open a communicating door and cast his eye around a rather large room where five employees were working under the orders of the head clerk.
‘No, that’s odd… Take a look for yourself in accounts, there in the next room.’
Saccard walked into the accounts office. This was where the head of accounts, the linchpin of the practice, assisted by seven clerks, went through the notebook the stockbroker gave him each day after the close of the markets, then attributed to the clients the various transactions made on orders received, using for this purpose the cards which were kept to provide the names, for the notebook contains no names, just a brief indication of the purchase or sale of which shares, how many, at what price, and from which broker.
‘Have you seen Monsieur Mazaud?’ asked Saccard.
But no one even bothered to reply. As the head of accounts was out, three of the clerks were reading the newspaper, two others were gazing into space; but the arrival of Gustave Sédille had been of keen interest to young Flory, who in the morning made entries in the accounts and exchanged deals with other brokers, and in the afternoon went to the Bourse, where he was in charge of telegrams. Born in Saintes, of a registry-clerk father, he’d first worked as clerk for a banker in Bordeaux, then towards the end of the previous autumn ended up working for Mazaud in Paris, and had no prospects other than perhaps, in ten years, doubling his earnings there. Until now his conduct had been good, consistent and conscientious. However, ever since Gustave had joined the office a month ago he had been veering off course, led on by his new friend, who was very elegant and dashing, had plenty of money, and had introduced him to women. Beneath the beard which hid a good deal of his face Flory had a nose that suggested passion, a kindly mouth, and tender eyes; and he had now reached the stage of having little private parties, not too expensive, with Mademoiselle Chuchu, a performer at the Théâtre des Variétés,* a skinny grasshopper from the Paris streets, the runaway daughter of a Montmartre concierge; she was amusing, with her papier-mâché face and shining, beautiful, big brown eyes.
Gustave started telling Flory about his evening even before he took his coat off.
‘Yes, my dear chap, I really thought Germaine would kick me out, because Jacoby turned up. But it was he that she managed to get rid of, goodness only knows how! So I stayed.’
They both spluttered with laughter. They were talking about Germaine Coeur, a superb woman of twenty-five, rather indolent and languid, with her ample bosom; she was kept on a monthly basis by the Jew Jacoby, a colleague of Mazaud’s. She had always been with brokers, always on a monthly basis, which was convenient for very busy men with their heads stuffed with figures, who paid for love like everything else, never having time for any real passion. She had just one real worry in her little apartment on the Rue de la Michodière, and that was to avoid meetings between gentlemen who might know each other.
‘But I say,’ said Flory, ‘I thought you were saving yourself for the pretty stationer?’
This allusion to Madame Conin, however, made Gustave grow serious. She was someone to be respected: she was an honest woman; and when she had proved willing, no man had ever been known to chat about it, such good friends did they remain. So, not wishing to answer, Gustave asked a question of his own.
‘And Chuchu, did you take her to Mabille?’*
‘Goodness no! Too expensive. We went home and had some tea.’
Standing behind the young men, Saccard had overheard these hastily whispered women’s names. He smiled and spoke to Flory.
‘Have you not seen Monsieur Mazaud?’
‘Yes I have, Monsieur, he came to give me an order then went back down to his apartment… I believe his little boy is unwell, someone told him the doctor had arrived… You should ring downstairs, because he may well go straight out without coming back up.’
Saccard thanked him and hurried down to the floor below. Mazaud was one of the youngest stockbrokers around, blessed by fate, having had the stroke of luck of his uncle’s death which had made him the holder of one of the biggest businesses in Paris at an age when most men are still learning their trade. Small in stature, he had pleasant features, with a small brown moustache and piercing black eyes; he seemed a very active person, with a very keen intelligence besides. On the trading-floor he was already well known for this mental and physical vigour, so essential in his profession, and which, combined with great flair and remarkable intuition, would carry him to the highest rank; in addition he had a piercing voice, first-hand information from foreign exchanges, contacts with all the big bankers, and even, so it was said, a distant cousin at the Havas agency.* His wife, whom he’d married for love, had brought him a dowry of twelve hundred thousand francs; she was a charming young woman who had already borne him two children, a little girl of three and a boy of eighteen months.
Mazaud was indeed just showing out the doctor, who was reassuring him and laughing.
‘Do come in,’ he said to Saccard. ‘It’s true, when it comes to these little beings we immediately start worrying; the slightest little thing and we think they’re at death’s door.’
And he led him into the sitting-room, where his wife was still holding the baby on her lap and the little girl, pleased to see her mother looking happy, was reaching up to give her a kiss. They were blond, all three of them, fresh as daisies, and the young mother looked as delicate and guileless as the children. Mazaud placed a kiss on the top of her head.
‘You see? We were being silly.’
‘Oh! It doesn’t matter, dearest, I’m so glad he’s been able to reassure us!’
Saccard stopped and bowed in the face of all this happiness. The room, luxuriously furnished, smelled sweetly of a joyful family life which nothing had yet come to fracture: in the four years since his marriage Mazaud was hardly suspected of anything more than a passing curiosity in a singer from the Opéra-Comique.* He remained a faithful husband, and similarly, in spite of the ardour of youth, was reputed, so far, not to be speculating overmuch on his own account. And the sweet smell of good luck and unclouded bliss was really present, in the discreet calm of the carpets and hangings, and in the scent with which a large bouquet of roses, spilling out of a Chinese vase, was filling the whole room.
Madame Mazaud, who knew Saccard slightly, said to him gaily:
‘Isn’t it true, Monsieur, that to be always happy one simply has to want to be so?’
‘I’m convinced of it, Madame,’ he replied. ‘And then, some people are so beautiful and so good that misfortune dare not touch them.’
She rose to her feet, radiant. She returned her husband’s kiss and off she went, carrying th
e little boy and followed by the little girl, who had been clinging round her father’s neck. The latter, trying to hide his feelings, turned to his visitor with a dash of Parisian humour:
‘As you see, there’s always something happening here.’
Then, briskly:
‘You have something to say to me?… Let’s go upstairs, shall we? We’ll be more comfortable.’
Back upstairs Saccard recognized Sabatani, standing at the cash desk to collect his profits; and he was surprised at the warmth of the handshake the broker exchanged with his client. Then, as soon as he was sitting in Mazaud’s office, he explained the reason for his visit, asking him about the formalities necessary for getting shares officially listed. Casually he told him about the business he was going to launch, the Universal Bank, with a capital of twenty-five million francs. Yes, a lending-bank, created primarily to sponsor some big enterprises to which he briefly referred. Mazaud listened calmly, and very kindly explained the necessary formalities. He was no fool, however, and did not think Saccard would have come all this way for so little. So when Saccard finally pronounced the name of Daigremont he smiled involuntarily. Of course, Daigremont had a colossal fortune behind him; some said he wasn’t entirely trustworthy; but then, who was, in business and in love? Nobody! In any case, Mazaud had scruples about telling him the truth about Daigremont, after their big quarrel which had been the talk of the Bourse. Daigremont now gave most of his orders to Jacoby, a Jew from Bordeaux, a strapping chap of sixty with a broad, cheerful face and a famously bellowing voice, but he was growing stout and developing a pot-belly; a sort of rivalry had grown up between the two brokers, the young man favoured by good luck, and the old man having attained seniority as a former manager, whose sponsors had finally allowed him to buy his employer’s business, a man of experience and extraordinary shrewdness, undermined, unfortunately, by his passion for speculation, so that he was always on the brink of disaster in spite of some considerable gains. Everything disappeared into settlements of debt. Germaine Coeur cost him only a few thousand-franc notes, and his wife was never seen.