At last Madame Caroline went out to visit Mazaud; and while she walked down towards the Rue de la Banque, she thought of the repeated blows that had been hitting the broker over the last fortnight. There was Fayeux, who had robbed him of three hundred thousand francs; Sabatani, who had left an unpaid account of almost double that sum; the Marquis de Bohain and Baroness Sandorff, who had refused to pay, between the two of them, more than a million francs’ worth of differences; and Sédille, whose bankruptcy carried away about the same amount, not to mention the eight million owed him by the Universal, the eight million carried over for Saccard, that dreadful loss, the abyss into which the anxious Bourse hourly expected to see him sink. Twice already Mazaud’s downfall had been rumoured. And with fate’s relentlessness, a further misfortune had just occurred, one that was going to be the last straw; the clerk Flory had been arrested two days before, convicted of having embezzled a hundred and eighty thousand francs. Little by little the demands of Mademoiselle Chuchu, the former variety artiste, the skinny grasshopper from the Paris streets, had grown: first it was jolly parties, of no great expense; then the apartment in the Rue Condorcet; then jewels and lace; and what had led the unfortunate and tender lad astray was his first winnings of ten thousand francs after Sadowa, that special luxury, money so quickly gained, so quickly spent, those winnings that had called for more, and then still more, in his feverish passion for the woman so dearly bought. But the extraordinary thing about this story was that Flory had robbed his employer simply to pay the gambling debt he owed another broker; a singular piece of honesty, due to fright at the prospect of immediate ‘posting’, and hoping, no doubt, to hide the theft and replace the money by some miraculous means. In prison he had wept a great deal, in an awful reawakening of shame and despair, and it was said that his mother, who had arrived that morning from Saintes to see him, had had to take to her bed at the home of the friends with whom she was staying.
What a strange thing is luck, thought Madame Caroline, as she crossed the Place de la Bourse. The extraordinary success of the Universal, that rapid rise into triumph, conquest and domination in less than four years, then the sudden crumbling, and that colossal edifice that took less than a month to be reduced to dust—all this she still found stupefying. And wasn’t that also the story of Mazaud? Surely no man had ever seen destiny smile on him to such an extent. A stockbroker at thirty-two, already very rich through his uncle’s death, the happy husband of a charming wife who adored him, and had given him two lovely children, he was also a good-looking man, occupying a place on the trading-floor that every day grew in importance thanks to his connections, his energy, his really surprising flair, and even his shrill voice, that piping voice, that had become as famous as the thundering bass of Jacoby. And suddenly, the whole situation had started to crack, and he had found himself on the edge of the abyss, into which a mere breath was now enough to hurl him. And yet he had not gambled, still protected by his ardour for work and his youthful anxiety. While still battling faithfully, he had been struck down through inexperience, passion, and having too much faith in others. Anyway, there was a great deal of sympathy for him, and it was claimed that if he could keep his nerve, he might yet be able to survive.
When Madame Caroline had gone up to the main office, she clearly smelled the scent of ruin, and felt the shudder of secret anguish in the now bleak offices. As she went through the cash office, she saw about twenty people, quite a crowd, waiting there, while the money-cashier and the shares-cashier still honoured the establishment’s commitments, but with slower hands, like men emptying the last drawers. The settlement office, seen through a half-open door, looked asleep, with its seven clerks reading their newspapers, having only a very few transactions to deal with since the Bourse was now idle. Only the cash office showed some signs of life. It was Berthier, the authorized clerk, who received her, himself looking very upset and pale, amid the misfortunes of the house.
‘I don’t know whether Monsieur Mazaud will be able to receive you, Madame… He isn’t very well, he caught a chill, insisting on working all through the night with no fire, and he has just gone down to his home on the first floor, to rest a while.’
Then Madame Caroline insisted.
‘Please, Monsieur, arrange for me to have a few words with him… It may be vital for saving my brother. Monsieur Mazaud knows that my brother never took part in the operations in the Bourse, and his testimony could be of great importance… In addition, I have to ask him about some figures, only he can give me information about certain documents.’
Berthier, still very hesitant, at last asked her to go into the broker’s office.
‘Wait there a moment, Madame, I’ll go and see.’
And indeed, Madame Caroline felt the cold in that room very keenly. The fire must have gone out the day before, and no one had thought of relighting it. What struck her even more was the impeccable order, as if the whole night and all the morning had been spent emptying cupboards, destroying useless papers, and filing those that had to be kept. Nothing was lying about, not a file, not even a letter. On the desk, neatly arranged, were only the inkstand, the pen-rack, and a large blotter, and in the middle, a bundle of Mazaud’s slips, green slips, the colour of hope. In the bareness of the room an infinite sadness seemed to hang, along with the heavy silence.
After a few minutes, Berthier reappeared.
‘Oh dear, Madame, I rang twice and I don’t dare go on… As you go down, see whether you should ring yourself. But I advise you to come back another time.’
Madame Caroline had to give up. However, on the first-floor landing, she still paused, even stretched out her hand towards the doorbell. And she was at last about to go away, when cries, sobs, and a muffled commotion in the depths of the apartment stopped her. Suddenly the door was opened, and a frightened-looking servant rushed out and disappeared down the stairs, stammering:
‘Oh my God! My God! Monsieur…’
Madame Caroline had remained stock-still before that open door, from which emerged, quite distinctly now, a wail of dreadful grief. And she turned cold, as she guessed, and then clearly envisaged, what had happened here. At first she decided to take flight, but she couldn’t, overwhelmed with pity, and drawn on, feeling the need to see, and to bring her own tears to the scene. She went in, finding all the doors wide open, and reached the drawing-room.
Two servants, the cook and the chambermaid no doubt, were craning their necks into the room, with terrified faces, and stammering:
‘Oh, Monsieur! Oh my God! My God!’
The dying light of the grey winter day filtered weakly through a gap in the thick silk curtains. But it was very warm, and large logs, almost burnt through, were glowing in the fireplace, lighting up the walls with their red reflection. On one of the tables, a bunch of roses, a royal bouquet for that season, which the broker had brought his wife the day before was opening out in that hothouse warmth, its flowers filling the whole room with their scent. It seemed to be the very scent of the refined luxury of the apartment, the sweet smell of good luck, wealth, and happiness in love, which for four years had flourished in this place. And there, in the red reflection of the fire, lay Mazaud, stretched out on the edge of the sofa, his head shattered by a bullet, his clenched hand still gripping the revolver; while standing in front of him, his young wife, who had run to the scene, was making that wailing sound, that continuous wild scream that could be heard from the stairway. When the shot rang out, she had been holding her little boy of four-and-a-half in her arms, and his little hands had clung tightly to her neck in fright, and her little girl, already six years old, had followed her, clinging to her skirt, huddled against her; and the two children, hearing their mother’s desperate screams, were screaming too. Madame Caroline at once tried to lead them away.
‘Madame, I beg you, Madame… Don’t stay here…’
She herself was trembling, and feeling faint. She could see the blood still flowing from the hole in Mazaud’s head, and falling, drop by d
rop, on to the velvet of the sofa, then down on to the carpet. On the floor was a large and spreading stain. And she felt as if this blood was reaching her, bespattering her feet and hands.
‘Madame, I beg you, please follow me…’
But, with her son hanging round her neck, and her daughter pressed to her waist, the unhappy woman did not hear, did not move, standing rigid, fixed to the spot with such force that no power on earth could have uprooted her. All three were blond, with skin of milk-like freshness, the mother looking as delicate and innocent as the children. And in the stupor of this death of their happiness, in this sudden destruction of the joy which was meant to last for ever, they continued their great cry, the scream that seemed to carry all the fearsome sufferings of humankind.
Then Madame Caroline fell down on her knees. She was sobbing and stammering.
‘Oh, Madame, you’re tearing at my heart… Please, Madame, drag yourself away from this sight, come with me to the next room, let me try to spare you just a little of this pain…’
And still they stood there, a wild and pitiful group, the mother with the two little ones seeming almost a part of her, all three quite motionless, with their long, pale hair hanging loose. And still there came that frightful screaming, like the wailing his kin make in the forest when hunters kill the parent stag.
Madame Caroline was now standing, her head whirling. There were footsteps, then voices, no doubt a doctor arriving to certify the death. And she could stay no longer; she fled, pursued by the awful, endless lament that even out on the street, with the cabs rumbling by, she still seemed to be hearing.
The sky was growing pale, it was cold, and she walked slowly, fearing her strange, disturbed appearance might lead to her being regarded as dangerous, and arrested. Everything surged back into her mind, the whole story of the monstrous collapse of two hundred million francs, that had piled up so many ruins and crushed so many victims. What mysterious power, after so rapidly building that tower of gold, had simply destroyed it in this way? The same hands that had constructed it seemed to have been seized by madness, and striven desperately to leave not a stone of it standing. Everywhere, cries of pain could be heard, fortunes were crumbling with a noise like demolition carts being emptied into the public dump. It was the last remnants of the Beauvilliers estate, Dejoie’s savings, scraped together sou by sou, the profits made by Sédille’s great industry, the pensions the Maugendres had gained in their trade, all together, pell-mell, hurled with a crash into the depths of a cesspit that nothing seemed to fill. And then there was Jantrou drowning in alcohol; Sandorff drowning in filth; Massias fallen back to his miserable life as an orders tout, chained to the Bourse for life by his debts; and Flory, now imprisoned as a thief, expiating the weaknesses of his tender heart; Sabatani and Fayeux, fugitives galloping away in fear of the police; and even more distressing and pitiful were the unknown victims, the great anonymous flock of all those the crash had impoverished, leaving them shivering and lost, crying with hunger. Then there was death, pistol-shots ringing out from the four corners of Paris, Mazaud’s shattered head, and Mazaud’s blood which, drop by drop, amid luxury and the scent of roses, bespattered his wife and his little ones, howling with grief.
And now, everything she had seen and heard over the last few weeks poured forth from Madame Caroline’s bruised heart in a cry of execration for Saccard. She could no longer keep silent, no longer push him aside as if he didn’t exist, to avoid having to judge and condemn him. He alone was guilty, this was clear in every one of the accumulated disasters, in their fearful and terrifying quantity. She cursed him, as her anger and indignation, held in for so long, now broke out in vengeful hatred, hatred of evil itself. Did she no longer love her brother, then, that she had waited so long to hate the terrible man who was sole cause of their misfortunes? Her brother, that great innocent, that great worker, so just and upright, soiled now by the indelible stain of prison, the victim she had been forgetting, the dear victim, even more painful than all the rest! Ah, might Saccard never find forgiveness! Nor anyone ever dare to plead his cause, not even those who continued to believe in him, those who had known only his kindness! And might he die one day, alone and despised!
Madame Caroline looked up. She had reached the square, and saw before her the Bourse. Twilight was falling, and the winter sky, laden with mist, had created, behind the monument, a cloud of dark and reddish smoke as if from a fire, as if made from the flames and dust of a city stormed. And the Bourse stood out, grey and bleak in the gloom of the crash, which for the last month had left it deserted, open to the four winds, like a marketplace cleared by famine. It was the fatal, periodic epidemic* that ravages the markets, sweeping through, every ten to fifteen years, the ‘black Fridays’ as they are called, that strew the ground with wreckage. It takes years for confidence to be restored, and for the great banking houses to be rebuilt, rebuilt until the day when the passion for gambling gradually reawakens, blazes up, and sets the whole process in motion again, bringing a new crisis, and sending everything crashing into a new disaster. But this time, behind that reddish smoke on the horizon, in the blurred and far-off parts of the city, could be heard a sort of muffled creaking, as of the imminent end of a world.
CHAPTER XII
PREPARATIONS for the trial were taking so long that seven months had already gone by since the arrest of Saccard and Hamelin, and the case had not yet been listed. It was now the middle of September, and that Monday, Madame Caroline, who went to see her brother twice a week, was to visit the Conciergerie at about three o’clock. She never spoke Saccard’s name, and she had, ten times over, answered his pressing requests to come and visit him with a formal refusal. For her, firmly resolved on justice as she was, he no longer existed. And she still hoped to save her brother; she was brightly cheerful on her visits, happy to tell him about her most recent efforts and to bring him a big bouquet of his favourite flowers.