Cardillac and Eva fell out, and that robbed the man of his last
support. The danger with which he was so rashly playing ensnared him;
the abysses lured him on.
The external impetus to his downfall was furnished by a young engineer
who had invented a hydraulic device. Cardillac had persuaded him with
magnificent promises to let him engage in the practical exploitation of
the invention. It was not long before the engineer discovered that he
had been cheated of the profits of his labour. Quietly he accumulated
evidence against the speculator, unveiled his dishonest dealings, and
presented to the courts a series of annihilating charges. Although
Cardillac finally offered him five hundred thousand francs if he would
withdraw his charges, the outraged accuser remained firm.
Other untoward circumstances occurred. The catastrophe became
inevitable. On a single forenoon the shares he had issued dropped
to almost nothing. In forty-eight hours three hundred millions of
francs had been lost. Innumerable well-established fortunes plunged
like avalanches into nothingness, eighteen hundred mechanics and
shop-keepers lost all they had in the world, twenty-seven great firms
went into bankruptcy, senators and deputies of the Republic were sucked
down in the whirlpool, and under the attacks of the opposition the very
administration shook.
Felix Imhof hurried to Paris to save whatever was possible out of the
crash. Although he had suffered painful losses, he was ecstatic over
the grandiose spectacle which Cardillac’s downfall presented to the
world.
Crammon laughed and rubbed his hands in satisfaction, and pointed to
Imhof. “He wanted to seduce me, but I was as chaste as Joseph.”
On the following evening Imhof went with his friends to visit Eva
Sorel. She had left the palace which Cardillac had furnished for her,
and had rented a handsome house in the Chaussée d’Antin.
Imhof spoke of the curious tragedy of these modern careers. As an
example he related how three days before his collapse Cardillac had
appeared at the headquarters of his bitterest enemies, the Bank of
Paris. The directors were having a meeting. None was absent. With
folded hands and tear-stained face the sorely beset man begged for a
loan of twelve millions. It was a drastic symptom of his naïveté that
he asked help of those whom he had fleeced on the exchange year in and
year out, whose losses had glutted his wealth, and whom he wanted to
fight with the very loan for which he begged.
Christian scarcely listened. He stood with Crammon beside a Chinese
screen. Opposite them sat Eva in a curiously dreamy mood, and not far
from her was Denis Lay. Others were present too, but Christian gave
them no attention.
Suddenly there was a commotion near the door. “Cardillac,” some one
whispered. All glances sought him.
It was indeed Cardillac who had entered. His boots were muddy, his
collar and cravat in disorder. He seemed not to have changed his
garments for a week. His fists were clenched; his restless eyes
wandered from face to face.
Eva and Denis remained calmly as they were. Eva pressed her foot
against the edge of a copper jar filled with white lilies. No one
moved. Only Christian, quite involuntarily, approached Cardillac by a
few paces.
Cardillac became aware of him, and drew him by the sleeve toward the
door of the adjoining room. They had scarcely crossed the threshold
when Cardillac whispered in an intense but subdued tone: “I must have
two thousand francs or I’m done for! Advance me that much, monsieur,
and save me. I have a wife and a child.”
Christian was astonished. No one dreamed that the man had a family. And
why turn precisely to him? Wiguniewski, d’Autichamps, many others knew
him far better.
“I must be at the station in half an hour,” he heard the man say, and
his hand sought his purse.
Wife and child! The words flitted through his head, and there arose in
him the violent aversion he always felt in the presence of beggars.
What had he to do with it all? He took out the bank notes. Two
thousand francs, he thought, and remembered the huge sums which one
was accustomed to name in connection with the man who stood before him
begging.
“I thank you.” Cardillac’s voice came to him as through a wall.
Then Cardillac passed him with bent head. But two men had in the
meantime appeared in the other room. At the open folding-door the
lackeys stood behind them with an embarrassed expression, for the men
were police officials who were seeking Cardillac and had followed him
here.
Cardillac, seeing them and guessing their errand, recoiled with a
gurgling noise in his throat. His right hand disappeared in his
coat-pocket, but instantly the two men leaped on him and pinioned his
arms. There was a brief, silent struggle. Suddenly he was made fast.
Eva had arisen. Her guests crowded about her. She leaned against
Susan’s shoulder and turned her head a little aside, as though a touch
of uncanny terror brushed her. But she still smiled, though now with
pallid cheeks.
“He’s magnificent, magnificent, even at this moment,” Imhof whispered
to Crammon.
Christian stared at Cardillac’s huge back. It was, he couldn’t help
thinking, like the back of an ox dragged to slaughter. The two men
between whom he stood hand-cuffed had greasy necks, and the hair on the
back of their heads was dirty and ill-trimmed.
An unpleasant taste on his palate tormented Christian. He asked a
servant for a glass of champagne.
Cardillac’s words, “I have a wife and a child,” would not leave his
mind. On the contrary, they sounded ever more stridently within him.
And suddenly a second, foolish, curious voice in him asked: How do you
suppose they look--this wife, this child? Where are they? What will
become of them?
It was as annoying and as painful as a toothache.