REVELATIONS
Two months later, one grey, mild November afternoon, Madame Caroline
went up to the room where her brother's plans were kept, immediately
after breakfast, in order to set to work. Her brother, when at
Constantinople, busy with his great scheme of the Oriental railways,
had asked her to go through all the notes he had made at the time when
they had travelled through Asia Minor together, and to draw up a kind
of memoir, which would be an historical _résumé_ of the question.
During two long weeks already she had been trying to give her whole
mind to this task. It was so warm that day that she let the fire go out
and opened the window, whence, before sitting down, she gazed for a
moment at the tall bare trees of the Beauvilliers garden, which had a
violet hue against the pale grey sky.
She had been writing for nearly half an hour when the need of some
document forced her to engage in a long search among the portfolios
heaped upon her table. She rose, stirred up some other papers, and sat
down again with her hands full; and whilst she was classifying various
loose documents she came upon some religious pictures, an illuminated
view of the Holy Sepulchre, and a prayer surrounded by emblems of the
Passion, guaranteed to ensure salvation in those distressful moments
when the soul is in peril. She then remembered that her brother, like
the pious fellow he was, had bought the pictures at Jerusalem. Emotion
suddenly overcame her, and tears moistened her cheeks. Ah! that brother
of hers, so intelligent, so long unappreciated, how happy he was in
being able to believe, in being able to refrain from smiling at
that _naïf_ view of the Holy Sepulchre, executed in the style of the
pictures which are used to decorate sweetmeat boxes! And how happy he
was, too, in being able to derive a serene strength from his faith in
the efficacy of that rhymed prayer, which, poetically, was on a par
with the verses found in Christmas crackers! She again beheld him,
ever trustful, too easily imposed upon perhaps, but so upright and
tranquil, never revolting, never struggling even. And she, who had
been struggling and suffering for two months past, she who no longer
believed, whose mind was scorched by reading, worn out by reasoning,
how ardently in her hours of weakness did she not wish that she had
remained simple and ingenuous like him, so that she might lull her
bleeding heart to sleep by thrice repeating, morn and eve alike, that
childlike prayer, around which were depicted the nails and the lance,
the crown and the sponge of the Passion!
On the morrow of the day when chance had so brutally made her
acquainted with the truth concerning Saccard and the Baroness Sandorff
she had exerted all her will power to resist her desire to watch them.
She was not this man's wife, and did not wish to carry jealousy to the
point of scandal. She was no longer twenty, but six and thirty, and the
terrible experience of her married life had made her tolerant. Still
it was in vain that she practised abnegation; her nature revolted, and
she experienced intense suffering. There were times when she longed
to sever the ties which bound her to Saccard, to provoke a violent
scene and hurl in his face the wrong that he had done her. However,
she succeeded in mastering herself, in forcing herself to remain not
only silent, but calm and smiling; and never indeed in her existence,
hitherto so hard, had she been in greater need of strength than now.
Still holding the religious pictures, she bent her eyes upon them
for a moment longer, smiling the sorrowful smile of one who cannot
believe, and her heart melting with affection for her brother. But a
moment later she no longer beheld them. Her mind had wandered away,
as it always did directly she ceased to occupy it, and she was
again thinking of Saccard, of what he had done the day before, of
what he might that day be doing. He seemed to be leading his usual
life, devoting his mornings to his worrying duties at the Bank, his
afternoons to the Bourse, his evenings to the invitations to dinner
which he received, to the first performances given at the theatres, to
the society of actresses whom she was not jealous of, to everything,
in fact, which is supposed to make up a life of pleasure. And yet she
felt that some new interest absorbed him, an interest, no doubt, in
that woman, whom he met somewhere. No doubt she had prohibited herself
from trying to ascertain where and when it was that they met; yet it
all made her distrustful and suspicious, and, as her brother laughingly
expressed it, she had begun playing the gendarme again, even with
regard to the affairs of the Bank, which she had previously ceased
watching, so great at one moment had her confidence become. At the
present time, however, she was struck and grieved by certain irregular
practices; and then was quite surprised to find that she really cared
nothing about the matter at bottom, lacking the strength alike to speak
and act, so completely did a single anguish fill her heart--anguish
for that betrayal, which she would have condoned, but the thought of
which stifled her, despite all her efforts. And now, ashamed at last to
find her tears flowing again, she went and hid the religious pictures,
deeply regretting that she, who had no faith, could not go and kneel in
some church, and find relief by weeping and praying.
Having at last calmed herself, she set to work on the memoir again,
and had been writing for some ten minutes or so when the valet came to
inform her that Charles, Saccard's coachman who had been dismissed on
the previous day, absolutely insisted upon speaking to her. Saccard
himself had detected the fellow stealing the horses' oats. She
hesitated for a moment, and then consented to see him.
Tall, good-looking, with shaven face and confident, conceited gait,
Charles came into the room and insolently exclaimed: 'I've come,
madame, about the two shirts of mine which the laundress has lost, and
won't make an allowance for. Madame surely doesn't suppose that I can
put up with such a loss. And, as Madame is responsible, I wish Madame
to pay me for my shirts. Yes, I want fifteen francs.'
She was very severe in all these household matters. Perhaps she would
have paid the fifteen francs to avoid any discussion. But she was
disgusted by the effrontery of this man, who had been caught thieving
only the day before.
'I owe you nothing, and I shall give you nothing,' said she; 'besides,
Monsieur warned me, and absolutely forbade me to do anything for you.'
Charles took a step forward with a threatening air. 'Oh, Monsieur said
that, did he? I suspected as much, and Monsieur made a great mistake,
for now we shall have some fun. For I know all about Monsieur and his
goings on. Yes, indeed, I know all about them!'
Madame Caroline had risen to her feet, intending to order him out of
the room; but before she could do so he had forced the whole horrid
story upon her unwilling ears. She tried to get rid of him by handing
him the fifteen francs that he had asked for, and he took them and even
became polite; but nothing could stop his venomous tongue. And thus
she learnt everything; the meetings of Saccard and the Baroness, and a
horribly scandalous scene in which Delcambre, the Public Prosecutor,
long the woman's lover, had taken part.
But at last the coachman went off, and after remaining for a few
moments motionless Madame Caroline sank with a prolonged wail on to a
chair beside her work-table, giving free course to the tears which had
so long been stifling her. For a long while she wept in silent agony,
but the time came when amidst all her grief for self, her grief for the
wrong which had been done her, she felt the many suspicions, the many
fears respecting other matters that she had sought to bury, reviving.
She had forced herself to tranquillity and hope in the affairs of
the Universal, becoming in her loving blindness an accomplice in all
that was not told her and that she did not seek to learn. And now,
in a fit of violent remorse, she reproached herself for writing that
reassuring letter to her brother at the time of the last shareholders'
meeting. For, since jealousy had again opened her eyes and ears, she
had known that the irregular practices were continuing, ever growing
worse and worse. The Sabatani account had increased to a yet higher
figure, the Bank was speculating more and more extensively under cover
of Sabatani's name, to say nothing of the monstrous lying puffs which
were being disseminated, the foundations of sand and mud on which had
been reared that colossal edifice, whose rise, so rapid that it seemed
miraculous, inspired her with far more terror than delight. And it was
especially the terrible pace which distressed her--the continual gallop
at which the Universal was driven along, like some engine stuffed full
of coals and set upon diabolical rails that it might rush on until a
final great shock should make everything burst and smash.
She was not a simpleton, a booby, who could be deceived; albeit
ignorant of the technicalities of banking, she fully understood the
reasons of this overdriving, this feverishness destined to intoxicate
the mob and plunge it into epidemical madness. Each morning must bring
its rise; it was necessary to keep on inspiring a belief in fresh
successes, in streamlets of gold converted into great rivers, oceans of
the precious metal. Her poor brother, so credulous, fascinated, carried
away--did she mean to betray him, to abandon him to the mercy of that
flood which threatened to drown them all some day? At thought of her
inaction, her powerlessness, she was once more filled with despair.
Meantime the twilight was darkening the workroom; there was not even
a reflection from the fireplace to illumine it, for she had let the
fire go out; and in the increasing gloom Madame Caroline wept more and
more bitterly. It was cowardly to weep in this fashion, for she was
perfectly conscious that all these tears were not due to her anxiety
about the affairs of the Universal. Assuredly it was Saccard alone
who was forcing that terrible gallop, lashing the monster on and on
with extraordinary ferocity and moral unconsciousness, careless as
to whether he killed it or not. He was the only guilty one, and she
shuddered as she tried to read him, to read that murky financier's
soul, of which even he himself was ignorant, a miry Infinite of all
degradations, hidden one from another by the darkness in which they
were enveloped. Though there were things which she did not yet clearly
distinguish, she suspected them and trembled at them. But the mere
discovery of so many sores, the fear of a possible catastrophe, would
not have sufficed to bow her in this fashion over that table, weeping
and strengthless; it would, on the contrary, have set her erect, eager
for struggle and cure. She knew herself; she was a warrior. No, if
she sobbed so bitterly, like a weak child, it was because she loved
Saccard, and because Saccard at that very moment was betraying her. And
this avowal which she was obliged to make to herself filled her with
shame, redoubled her tears until she almost choked. 'To think that I
have no pride left, my God!' she stammered aloud; 'to be so weak and
miserable! to be unable when I would!'
But just then she was astonished to hear a voice address her in the
darkness. It was the voice of Maxime, who had just entered, like one at
home. 'What! you in the dark and crying?' said he.
Confused at being thus surprised, she strove to master her sobs, while
he added: 'I beg your pardon, but I thought that my father had come
back from the Bourse. A lady asked me to bring him to dinner at her
house.'
However, the valet now brought a lamp, and, after placing it on the
table, withdrew. The whole of the spacious room was illumined by the
soft light that fell from the shade.
'It is nothing,' Madame Caroline tried to explain--'merely a woman's
fretting, and yet I seldom give way to my nerves.'
Her eyes dry and her figure erect, she was already smiling with the
brave mien of a fighter. For a moment the young man looked at her, as
she thus proudly drew herself up with her large clear eyes, her thick
lips, her expression of virile kindness, which her thick crown of
hair softened and endowed with a great charm; and he found her still
young, white-haired though she was, her teeth also very white--indeed
an adorable woman, who had become beautiful. And then he thought of
his father and shrugged his shoulders with contemptuous pity. 'It is
on account of him, is it not,' said he; 'that you have put yourself in
this fearful state?'
She wished to deny it, but she was choking, tears were again coming to
her eyelids.
'Ah! my poor lady,' resumed Maxime; 'I told you, you will remember,
that you entertained illusions about papa, and that you would be ill
rewarded. It was inevitable.'
Thereupon she remembered the day when she had gone to borrow those
two thousand francs of the young man in order to pay part of Victor's
ransom. Had he not then promised to have a chat with her whenever she
might desire to know the truth? Was not this an opportunity to learn
all the past by questioning him? And an irresistible need of knowing
urged her on. Now that she had commenced the descent she must go to the
bottom. That course alone would be brave, worthy of her, useful to all.
Still the inquiry was repugnant to her, and, instead of boldly starting
upon it, she took a circuitous course, as though with the object of
changing the conversation. 'I still owe you two thousand francs,' said
she; 'I hope you are not too angry with me for keeping you waiting.'
He made a gesture as though to imply that she might take all the time
she needed, and then abruptly said: 'By the way, and my little brother,
that monster?'
'I am greatly grieved about him. I have so far said nothing about him
to your father. I should so much like to cleanse the poor boy a little,
so that it might be possible for your father to love him.'
A burst of laughter from Maxime disturbed her, and as she gave him a
questioning look he exclaimed: 'Well, I think that you are wasting time
and trouble in that respect also! Papa will hardly understand your
taking all this trouble. He has experienced so many family annoyances.'
She was still looking at him, so demurely egotistical in his enjoyment
of life, so disengaged from all human ties, even from those which a
life of pleasure creates. He had smiled, alone enjoying the covert
maliciousness of his last words. And she was conscious that she was at
last about to discover the secret of these two men.
'You lost your mother at an early age?' she said.
'Yes, I scarcely knew her. I was still at Plassans, at school, when
she died here in Paris. Our uncle, Doctor Pascal, has kept my sister
Clotilde with him there; I have only once seen her since.'
'But your father married again?'
He hesitated. A kind of ruddy vapour seemed to dim his empty eyes,
usually so clear.
'Oh! yes, yes; he married again, the daughter of a magistrate, one
Béraud du Châtel--Renée her name was; she was not a mother to me, but
a good friend.' Then, sitting down beside her in a familiar way, he
went on: 'You see, one must understand papa. _Mon Dieu_! he isn't worse
than others. Only children, wives--in short, all around him--hold in
his mind a second place to money. Oh! let us understand each other; he
doesn't love money like a miser, for the sake of having a huge pile
of it and hiding it in his cellar. No; if he wishes to make it gush
forth on every side, if he draws it from no matter what sources, it
is to see it flow around him in torrents; it is for the sake of all
the enjoyments he derives from it--luxury, pleasure, power. What can
you expect? It is in his blood. He would sell us--you, me, no matter
whom--if we were a part of some bargain. And he would do it as an
unconscious and superior man; for he is really the poet of the million,
so mad and rascally does money make him--oh! rascally on a very grand
scale!'
This was just what Madame Caroline had understood, and while listening
to Maxime she nodded her head in token of assent. Ah! money, that
all-corrupting poisonous money, which withered souls and drove from
them all kindness, tenderness, and love for others! Money alone was
the great culprit, the agent of all human cruelties and abominations.
At that moment she cursed it, execrated it, in the indignant revolt of
her woman's nobility and uprightness. Ah! if she had had the power,
she would with a gesture have annihilated all the money in the world,
even as one would crush disease with a stamp of the heel in order to
preserve the world in health.
'And your father married again,' she slowly repeated after a pause,
with a tinge of embarrassment in her voice as vague memories began
awaking within her. Who was it that had alluded to the story in her
presence? She could not have told. But doubtless it had been some
woman, some friend, in the early days of her residence in the Rue Saint
Lazare, when Saccard had rented the first floor of the mansion. Had
there not been some question of a marriage which he had contracted,
some marriage for money, some shameful bargain? And later on had not
crime quietly taken its seat at the hearth, abominable depravity,
tolerated, suffered to abide there without let or hindrance?
'Renée,' replied Maxime in a very low tone, and as though despite
himself, 'was only a few years older than me.'
He raised his head and looked at Madame Caroline. And then, suddenly
throwing off all self-restraint, with unreasoning confidence in this
woman, who seemed to him so healthy and so sensible, he told the
story of the shameful past, not in consecutive phrases, it is true,
but in shreds--involuntary, imperfect confessions which it was for
her to connect together. So, in this wise, Madame Caroline learnt the
frightful story: Saccard selling his name, marrying a girl in trouble
for money's sake; completing the unhinging of the poor child's ailing
mind by means of this same money, by the mad, prodigal, dazzling
life he led; and then, because he was in need of money and required
her signature, closing his eyes to whatever she might do. Ah! money,
money the King, money the deity, beside which tears and blood were as
nothing! Money adored for its infinite power far above all vain human
scruples! And in proportion as the might of money increased in her
eyes, and Saccard stood revealed to her in all his diabolical grandeur,
Madame Caroline was seized with real terror, frozen, distracted by the
thought that she too had become this monster's prey, after so many
others.
'There!' said Maxime, concluding. 'It pains me to see you like this; it
is better that you should be warned. But don't let this make trouble
between you and my father. I should be very grieved if such were the
case, for you would be the one to weep over it, not he. And now do you
understand why I refuse to lend him a sou?'
As she did not answer, for her throat was contracted and a terrible
pang tortured her heart, he rose, and glanced at a mirror, with the
tranquil ease of a handsome man who is certain of his correctness in
life. Then, coming back, he stood before her.
'Such examples age you quickly, do they not?' he said. 'For my part, I
promptly settled down; I married a young girl who was ill and is now
dead; I swear to-day that no one shall ever induce me to act foolishly
again. No! But papa, you see, is incorrigible, because he has no moral
sense.'
He took her hand, and, holding it for a moment in his own, felt that it
was quite cold.
'I am going, since he doesn't come back. But pray don't grieve like
this. I thought you so strong! And you ought to thank me, for there is
only one thing that is stupid in life--to let oneself be duped.'
Finally he started off, but at the door he stopped to add, with a
laugh: 'I was forgetting; tell him that Madame de Jeumont expects him
to dinner.'
Left to herself, Madame Caroline did not stir. Bowed down on her chair
in the spacious room, which had sunk into an oppressive silence, she
gazed fixedly at the lamp with dilated eyes. It seemed to her that
the veil had been suddenly torn aside. All that she had hitherto been
unwilling to distinguish plainly, which she had only tremblingly
suspected, now appeared before her in its frightful crudity, so clear
that it would henceforth be impossible to doubt it, to gloss it over.
She beheld Saccard naked, with the ravaged, complicated soul of a
man of money, murky and rotting. For him there were neither bonds
nor barriers; he rushed on to the satisfaction of his appetites
with the unbridled instincts of a man who knows no other limit than
powerlessness. He had sold his son, his wife, all who had fallen into
his clutches; he had sold himself, and he would sell her too, and sell
her brother, dispose of their hearts and their brains for money. He
was nothing but a maker of money, one who threw beings and things
into the melting-pot to coin them into money. In a brief interval of
lucidity she saw the Universal diffusing money like perspiration in all
directions--a lake, an ocean of money, into the midst of which, all at
once, with a frightful crash, the whole house would topple down. Ah!
money, horrible money, that smirches and devours!
Madame Caroline rose up in angry haste. No, no, it was monstrous; it
was all over; she could no longer remain near that man. She would have
forgiven him his betrayal; but loathing seized upon her at thought of
all that old-time filth; terror distracted her at thought of the crimes
which were possible in the future. There was nothing left for her
but to start off at once if she did not wish to be splashed with mud
herself, crushed beneath the ruins. And a pressing desire came to her
to go far, far away, to join her brother in the distant East, less to
warn him than to disappear herself. Yes, she must start, start at once!
It was not yet six o'clock; she could take the _rapide_ for Marseilles
at seven fifty-five; for it seemed to her that to see Saccard again
would be beyond her strength. She would make whatever purchases were
necessary at Marseilles before embarking. A little linen in a trunk,
one spare dress, and she would be off. In a quarter of an hour she
could be ready.
Then the sight of her work on the table, the memoir which she had
begun writing, made her pause for a moment. But what would be the
use of taking that with her, since the whole thing was rotten at the
foundation and was bound to fall? Nevertheless she began carefully
arranging the documents and memoranda, like a good housewife who never
likes to leave things in disorder. And the task occupied her for some
moments, calming the first fever of her decision. She was again fully
mistress of herself, when she gave a last glance round the room before
leaving it. But just then the valet came in again, bringing a number of
papers and letters.
In a mechanical kind of way Madame Caroline looked at the
superscriptions, and perceived in the pile a letter from her brother
addressed to herself. It came from Damascus, where Hamelin was then
staying, making arrangements for the proposed branch line from that
city to Beyrout. At first she began to glance over the letter, standing
near the lamp, and resolving that she would read it more carefully
later on in the train. But each sentence held her attention, she was
unable to skip a word; and she finally sat down again at the table, and
gave herself up to the absorbing perusal of this long letter, which
filled twelve pages.
Hamelin happened to be in one of his gayest moods. He thanked his
sister for the last good news which she had sent him from Paris, and
sent her still better news in return, for everything, said he, was
going to his liking. The first balance-sheet of the United Steam
Navigation Company promised well; the new steamships were realising
large receipts, thanks to their perfect equipment and superior speed.
He jokingly said that folks travelled in them for pleasure, and pointed
to the sea-ports invaded by tourists from the Western world, and
declared that he could not make a journey by highway or byway without
coming face to face with some Parisian of the Boulevards. As he had
foreseen, it was really the East opened up to France. Cities, said
he, would before long spring up on the fertile slopes of the Lebanon
range. But particularly did he give a vivid picture of the lonely
Carmel gorge, where the silver mine was now being actively worked. The
savage site was being humanised; springs had been discovered amidst the
gigantic pile of fallen rocks which barred the valley on the north; and
fields were being formed, wheat was replacing the mastic-trees, whilst
a whole village had sprung up near the mines, at first merely some
wooden cabins, huts to shelter the workmen, but now little stone-built
houses with gardens--the beginning of a city which would continue
growing so long as the veins were not exhausted. There were now nearly
five hundred inhabitants on the spot, and a road had just been finished
connecting the village with Saint Jean d'Acre. From morning till night
the extraction machines were roaring, waggons set out amid the loud
cracking of whips, women sang, and children played and cried where
formerly there had been a desert and death-like silence, which only
the eagles had broken with the sound of their slowly beating pinions.
And myrtle and broom still perfumed the atmosphere, which was so
delightfully pure.
On the subject of the first railway which he had to lay, the line from
Broussa to Beyrout by way of Angora and Aleppo, Hamelin wrote at great
length. All the formalities had been concluded at Constantinople. He
was delighted with certain happy alterations which he had made in the
line of route, so as to overcome the difficult passage through the
Taurus passes; and of these passes and of the plains that stretched
away at the foot of the mountains he wrote with the rapture of a man
of science who had found new coal deposits there, and expected to see
the country covered with factories. He had located his guiding points,
and chosen the sites of his stations, some in the midst of the wild
solitudes--one here, another farther on. Cities would spring up around
those stations at the intersection of the natural highways. The seed
was already sown for the crop of men and grand things of the future;
everything was already germinating; within a few years there would
here be a new world. And he concluded with a loving kiss for his dear
sister, happy at being able to associate her in this resurrection of a
people, telling her that much of it would be due to her, to her who had
so long helped him, buoyed him up by her fine bravery and health.
Madame Caroline had finished her perusal, the letter lay open on the
table, and she remained there thinking, her eyes once more fixed
upon the lamp. Then her glances involuntarily rose and strayed round
the walls, lingering for a moment on each of the plans, each of the
water-colour drawings she saw there. The pavilion for the manager of
the United Steam Navigation Company was now built at Beyrout, and
was surrounded by vast store-houses. That deep, wild gorge of Mount
Carmel, blocked up with brambles and stones, was now being peopled;
the huge nest, as it were, of some new-born race. Those levellings
in the Taurus range were changing the aspect of the horizon, opening
the way for free commerce. And from all those geometrically outlined
designs, secured to the walls by a few tacks, there sprang up before
her a complete vision of the far-off country where she had formerly
travelled, and which she had loved so dearly for its beautiful sky of
unchanging blue and its ever fertile soil.
Again she beheld the gardens of Beyrout rising up in tiers, the
valleys of Mount Lebanon with their great forests of olive and
mulberry trees, the plains of Antioch and Aleppo with their immense
orchards of delightful fruits. Again she beheld herself with her
brother continually journeying through that marvellous country, whose
incalculable wealth was lost, ignored, or misapplied, which had had no
roads, no industry, no agriculture, no schools, but had been solely the
abode of idleness and ignorance. Now, however, all was springing to
life again, thanks to an extraordinary flow of fresh sap. This vision
of the East of to-morrow already set prosperous cities, cultivated
fields, happy people before her eyes. And she saw them, and heard the
busy hum of the workshops; and realised that this old soil, so long
asleep, was reawakened at last, and was entering upon the work of
parturition.
Then Madame Caroline acquired the sudden conviction that money was the
dungheap in which grew the humanity of to-morrow. Some of Saccard's
remarks, scraps of his theories respecting speculation, came back to
her mind. She recalled that idea of his that without speculation there
would be no great fruitful enterprises, just in the same way as without
love, though love may have its horrid aspects, there would be no life.
If life is to continue in the world, there _must_ be passion. If her
brother over yonder in the East was in such high spirits, shouting
victory amidst the workshops and yards which were being got in order,
and the buildings which were springing from the soil, it was because
the passion for gambling was making money rain down and rot everything
in Paris. Poisonous and destructive money became the ferment of all
social vegetation, served as the necessary compost for the execution of
the great works which would draw the nations nearer together and pacify
the earth.
She had cursed money, and now she fell in awe-stricken admiration
before it; for was not money the sole force that can level a mountain,
fill up an arm of the sea--briefly, render the earth inhabitable by
men, who, once relieved of labour, would become but the conductors
of machines. From this force, which was the root of all evil, there
also sprang everything that was good. And, shaken to the depths of her
being, she no longer knew what to do, for although she had already
decided that she would not go away, since success seemed complete in
the East and it was at Paris that the battle raged, she was yet unable
to calm herself, to heal her bleeding heart.
She rose, and with her forehead pressed against a pane of one of the
windows commanding the garden of the Beauvilliers mansion, she looked
out. It was now night; and she could only distinguish a faint gleam
in the lonely little room in which the Countess and her daughter
confined themselves, so that they might economise firing and avoid
soiling the other apartments. Behind the thin muslin curtains she could
vaguely distinguish the figure of the Countess, who was mending some
linen, whilst Alice was busy with some water-colour sketches, which
she painted hurriedly by the dozen and secretly sold. A misfortune
had lately happened to them; their horse had contracted some illness,
and for a fortnight they had been confined to the house, obstinately
refusing to show themselves on foot in the streets, and reluctant to
hire another horse from a livery stable. Nevertheless, amidst the
poverty which they so heroically concealed, they were now buoyed up,
inspirited by one hope--a hope that the rise in the value of Universal
shares would continue, that their gain, already very considerable,
would fall upon them in a golden rain when the day came for them to
realise their shares at the highest possible figure. The Countess
promised herself a really new dress, and dreamt of being able to give
four dinners a month without having to live on bread and water for a
fortnight in order to do so. Alice, too, no longer laughed with an
affected air of indifference when her mother spoke to her of marriage,
but listened with a slight trembling of the hands, beginning to believe
that this dream would perhaps be realised, and that, like others, she
might have a husband and children of her own.
As Madame Caroline stood looking at the little lamp which lighted them,
she felt great calmness, a soft affectionate feeling, penetrating her,
struck as she was by the circumstance that money, merely the hope of
money, sufficed for the happiness of those poor creatures. If Saccard
should enrich them, would they not bless him--would he not remain
charitable and good in the estimation of both of them? So goodness
was to be found everywhere, even in the worst, who are always good to
someone, and who always, amidst the curses of a crowd, have humble,
isolated voices thanking and adoring them. At this thought her mind
turned towards the Institute of Work. On the day before she had, on
Saccard's behalf, distributed some toys and sweetmeats there, in
celebration of an anniversary; and she smiled involuntarily at the
recollection of the children's noisy joy. For the last month Victor
had given greater satisfaction; she had read some notes about him when
calling on the Princess d'Orviedo, with whom, twice a week, she had
a long chat respecting the institution. But as the image of Victor
suddenly appeared to her, she felt astonished at having forgotten him
in her crisis of despair, when she had made up her mind to flee from
Paris. Could she have thus abandoned him--compromised the success of
the good action which she had carried so far with so much trouble? A
more and more penetrating feeling of gentle affection came upon her as
she gazed into the obscurity of the tall trees, a flood of ineffable
renunciation, of divine tolerance, which enlarged her heart; and it
seemed to her that the common little lamp of the Beauvilliers ladies
was now shining forth like a star.
When Madame Caroline came back to her table she was shivering a
little. What! was she cold then? The idea amused her, she who boasted
of passing the winter without fires. She felt, however, as though she
had come from an icy bath, rejuvenated and strong, with her pulse
very calm. It was thus with her on the mornings when she rose feeling
particularly well. Then it occurred to her to put a log in the
fire-place; and, seeing that the fire was out, she amused herself in
lighting it again, without ringing for a servant. It was quite a job,
for she had no small wood, but she at last managed to ignite the logs
by means of some old newspapers, which she burned one after another.
On her knees before the hearth she laughed all alone; and for a moment
she remained there, feeling happy and surprised. She had again passed
through one of her great crises, and now she again hoped. For what? She
knew nothing of the eternal unknown that lay at the end of life, at the
end of humanity. To live, that must suffice, in order that life might
continually bring her the cure for the wounds which life inflicted.
Once more did she remember the catastrophes of her existence--her
frightful marriage, her poverty in Paris, her abandonment by the only
man whom she had loved; and after every fall she had recovered that
tenacious energy, that immortal joy which ever placed her on her feet
again amid the ruins. Had not everything just collapsed again? She
could no longer esteem Saccard, confronted as she had been by his
frightful past, even as holy women are confronted by the unclean wounds
which they go, morning and evening, to dress, not hoping ever to heal
them. But, albeit she knew the truth, she was going to continue her
wonted life. She was going to live in a fire, in the panting forge of
speculation, under the incessant threat of a final catastrophe, in
which her brother might lose his honour and his life. Nevertheless,
there she stood, almost reckless, as on the morning of a fine day,
tasting the joy of battle in confronting danger. Why? for nothing in
reason, but for the sole pleasure of being! Her brother told her truly
she was the incarnation of invincible hope.
When Saccard returned he found Madame Caroline buried in her work,
finishing in her firm handwriting a page of the memoir on the Oriental
railways. She raised her head and smiled at him peacefully, while his
lips lightly touched her beautiful, radiant, white hair.
'You have been very busy, my friend?'
'Oh, endless business! I saw the Minister of Public Works; I went to
meet Huret, then I had to return to the Ministry, where I only found a
secretary, but at last I have the promise they want over yonder.'
Having handed him Hamelin's letter, which delighted him, she watched
him as he exulted over the approaching triumph, and said to herself
that she would henceforth look after him more closely in order to
prevent the follies of which he would otherwise certainly be guilty.
However, she could not bring herself to treat him with severity.
'Your son came here to invite you to dinner,' she said, 'on behalf of
Madame de Jeumont.'
'Oh, she had already written to me!' he exclaimed. 'I forgot to tell
you that I am going there this evening. It bores me terribly, tired as
I am.'
Then he went off, after once more kissing her white hair. She returned
to her work again, with her wonted kindly, indulgent smile. She had
forced herself to subdue her feelings. Was she not, after all, but a
friend--a friend in all things? The thought of jealousy caused her
shame. She wished to rise superior to the pain it might bring her. For,
despite everything, she loved him with all her courageous, charitable
heart. It was the triumph of love--that fellow Saccard, that financial
bandit of the streets, loved so completely, so absolutely by that
adorable woman because she beheld him, brave and active, creating a
world, making life.