THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
himself lost, seeking no doubt in his despair, a means of explaining matters satisfactorily.
“I then went to the Saint Just district,” resumed Marius pitilessly. “The property upon which you told me you had taken a mortgage on your client Mouttet’s behalf, happens to belong to one of my mother’s old friends, M. Giraud, who assured me that his property was quite free. I ask you again, what am I to think?”
And, as Douglas still remained silent, the young man went on in a louder tone of voice:
“Well! since you refuse to answer, I will tell you myself what I believe and what is indeed true. Your M. Authier never existed; he’s a puppet, whom you invented in order to accomplish some nefarious scheme more easily. In addition to this, you never took any mortgage, and you put Mouttet’s money into your own pocket. To arrive at this fine result you have committed several forgeries, and today you are quite prepared to commit others in order to procure a further supply of cash for your needs.”
It was as though Marius was speaking to an insensible and motionless statue. The notary’s calm increased the young man’s anger.
“I have not to judge your crimes,” he continued, louder still; “but I have to ask you for an explanation of your unworthy conduct towards myself. What! you intended lightheartedly to mix me up in your dirty business; you would have compromised me, while professing to be my friend and knowing my position as a humble worker. I have the right, have I not? to tell you that you are a scoundrel!”
The notary did not wince.
“And just now,” resumed Marius, “there were priests here blessing you. Ah! you played your part admirably. I alone in Marseille know what you are, and were I to state in public the enormity of your crime, I should very likely be stoned, you have so skilfully duped everyone. Who would believe that the notary Douglas, that man esteemed by all, that frugal, religious individual, is shamelessly working in the dark the ruin of his numerous clients! I, myself, would still doubt, if doubt were possible, at seeing you seated so calm before me, in your humble and pious attitude of a monk at prayer. But say something, defend yourself, if you can!”
Douglas had taken up a paper knife, and was playing with it, as though indifferent to all Marius was saying to him.
“What would you have me tell you?” he replied at last. “You judge me as a child. I’ve let you have your say. Perhaps now you’ll listen to me without interrupting.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE NOTARY’S SPECULATIONS
WHEN Marius heard Douglas accuse him of judging like a child, he was indignant, and opened his lips to tell him that he judged as an honest man would.
This forger thought it childish that he should be reproached with his forgeries, and he assumed the attitude of a misunderstood individual.
As the young man was on the point of protesting, the notary interrupted him with a movement of impatience.
“If you’re always talking,” he said, “you’ll always be in the right. I let you insult me to your heart’s content, so allow me to defend myself without interruption. I certainly would rather you had not become acquainted with my system. But as you have discovered a part of the truth, I prefer to tell you all. I know you are intelligent, and you will understand me better than any other. Moreover, I am wornout, I have not been successful in the application of my theory, and I know very well that I am a lost man. That’s why I consent to unbosom myself entirely to you. You will see that I never wished for anyone’s ruin, and that it was with good faith that I offered, as a friend, to put you in the way of earning a little money. Anyhow, you will judge me, and I trust that after hearing my explanation, you will simply look upon me as an unfortunate speculator. Please listen to what I have to say.”
Marius almost fancied he was dreaming. He looked at Douglas as one would look at a madman talking reason. The peaceful tone of the man, his want of remorse, his self-satisfied manner, made him resemble some honest inventor sadly explaining, without cause for shame, why his invention has not succeeded.
“There’s no need to go into details,” he resumed, “and let us put aside the Authier and Mouttet matters, which are but of slight importance. The thing to see and judge is the whole vast and complicated machine that I had succeeded in establishing. You are surprised at my complaisance. Well, I tell you again I am a lost man, I can speak without fear of compromising myself. In fact, I experience a sort of pleasure in explaining my invention to you.”
He took up the position, before Marius, of a man who has an interesting story to tell, and was still toying with the paper-knife.
“First of all,” he said, “I recognise, with you, that I have betrayed my trust and that I am a great criminal if considered as a notary. But I have always looked upon myself as a banker, a money-dealer. In a word, please behold in me nothing more than a speculator. When I succeeded my former employer the practice was a very small one.
“My first efforts were directed towards making that practice the medium of a vast business connection. I was obliged to satisfy all requirements, lend to whosoever needed money, borrow of those who wanted to invest, sell to those who wished to buy, purchase of those who desired to sell. I was like the bird-catchers who make use of decoy-birds to call the wild ones; I invented some forty imaginary persons, in whose names I was able to embark in all kinds of transactions. Authier, I admit, was one of them. I was thus enabled to purchase a large number of buildings which I paid for by means of loans contracted by the fictitious purchasers, and by granting mortgages on these buildings. By these means I created a capital, a considerable turnover, a much more extended practice, which served as a foundation to my credit.”
Douglas was speaking in a clear tone of voice. He continued after a short silence:
“You must know that when one speculates on money one is at times brought face to face with terrible exigencies. I should have been forced to stop at the very outset of my speculations, if, my buildings being mortgaged, I had not been able to procure, by some means, the funds necessary for the other operations I was contemplating. I did what seemed to me the simplest and most convenient thing to do. When the mortgages had reached the full value of the properties, I released the latter by false discharges and then offered them as security for fresh loans.”
“What you are telling me is infamous!” exclaimed Marius.
“I begged you not to interrupt me,” Douglas retorted abruptly. “I will defend myself later on, at present I am merely stating the facts. I soon had to enlarge my system. My forty personages no longer sufficed, so I then had recourse to extreme measures which from their very audacity, succeeded perfectly. I caused well-known landowners and merchants to contract loans, mortgaged their properties and forged their signatures; afterwards each fresh mortgage was wiped out by the aid of a false discharge, which shielded me from all uneasiness. You understand? it’s very simple.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” murmured Marius, who was beginning to think the notary was mad.
“Besides,” Douglas went on, “I raised money no matter how, when it was necessary. I wished to go straight to my goal, and I have ever marched steadily on without troubling myself about obstacles, and accepting freely the consequences of my theory. For instance, I sometimes created both the borrower and the building in the same transaction; I have taken mortgages on a property which did not exist or which did not belong to the pretended borrower. At other times, when I have been in urgent need of money to meet some unforeseen exigency, I have drawn bills payable to order and signed by the leading merchants of Marseille, and which I have put into circulation at a loss after accepting them in my own name. You see that I am hiding nothing from you and that I am accusing myself. I am laying myself bare before you, because I wish to justify myself, and also because, in future, I must give over applying my system.”
Marius was utterly terrified. He entered tremblingly the recesses of this man’s mind. He felt that he was in the presence of a moral phenomenon, and he submitted to this strange confession like one submits to a nightmare.