The Rougon-Macquart: Complete 20 Book Collection. Эмиль Золя
was much worried about Worms’s bill, sought another way out of the difficulty.
“But,” she suddenly exclaimed, “my Charonne property is going on all right, is it not? You were telling me only the other day that the profit would be superb…. Perhaps Larsonneau would advance me a hundred and thirty-six thousand francs?”
Saccard had for a moment forgotten the tongs between his legs. He now hastily seized them again, leant forward, and almost disappeared in the fireplace, whence the young woman indistinctly heard his voice muttering:
“Yes, yes, Larsonneau might perhaps….”
She was at last coming of her own accord to the point to which he had been gently leading her since the beginning of the conversation. He had already for two years been preparing his masterstroke in the Charonne district. His wife had never consented to part with Aunt Elisabeth’s estate; she had promised her to keep it intact, so as to leave it to her child if she became a mother. In the presence of this obstinacy, the speculator’s imagination had set to work, and ended by building up quite a poem. It was a work of exquisite villainy, a colossal piece of cheating, of which the Municipality, the State, his wife, and even Larsonneau were to be the victims. He no longer spoke of selling the building-plots; only every day he deplored the folly of leaving them unproductive and contenting one’s self with a return of two per cent. Renée, who was always in urgent need of money, ended by entertaining the idea of a speculation of some kind. He based his operations on the certainty of an expropriation for the cutting of the Boulevard du Prince-Eugène, the direction of which was not yet clearly resolved upon. And it was then that he brought forward his old accomplice Larsonneau as a partner, who made an agreement with his wife on the following basis: she brought the building-plots, representing a value of five hundred thousand francs; Larsonneau on the other hand agreed to spend an equal sum on building upon this ground a music-hall with a large garden attached, where games of all kinds, swings, skittle-alleys and bowling-greens would be set up. The profits were naturally to be divided, as the losses would be borne in equal shares. In the event of one of the two partners wishing to withdraw, he could do so and claim his share, which would be fixed by a valuation. Renée seemed surprised at the large figure of five hundred thousand francs, when the ground was worth three hundred thousand at the utmost. But he explained to her that it was an ingenious plan for tying Larsonneau’s hands later on, as his buildings would never represent such an amount as that.
Larsonneau had developed into an elegant man-about-town, well-gloved, with dazzling linen and astounding cravats. To go on his errands he had a tilbury as light as a piece of clockwork, with a very high seat, which he drove himself. His offices in the Rue de Rivoli were a sumptuous suite of rooms in which there was not a bundle of papers, not a business document to be seen. His clerks worked at tables of stained pear-wood, inlaid with marquetry and adorned with chased brass. He called himself an expropriation-agent, a new calling which the works of Paris had brought into being. His connection with the Hotel de Ville caused him to receive early information of the cutting of any new thoroughfare. When he had succeeded in learning the line of route of a boulevard from one of the surveyors of roads, he went and offered his services to the threatened landlords. And he turned his little plan for increasing the compensation to account by acting before the decree of public utility was issued. So soon as a landlord accepted his proposals, he took all the expenses on himself, drew up a plan of the property, wrote out a memorandum, followed up the case before the court and paid an advocate, all for a percentage on the difference between the offer of the Municipality and the compensation awarded by the jury. But to this almost justifiable branch of business he added a number of others. He more especially lent out money at interest. He was not the usurer of the old school, ragged and dirty, with eyes pale and expressionless as five-franc pieces, and lips white and drawn together like the strings of a purse. He was a radiant person, had a charming way of ogling, got his clothes at Dusautoy’s, went and lunched at Brébant’s with his victim, whom he called “old man,” and offered him Havannahs at dessert. In reality, beneath his waistcoats tightly buckled round his waist, Larsonneau was a terrible gentleman, who would have insisted on the payment of a note of hand until he had driven the acceptor to suicide, and this without losing a grain of amiability.
Saccard would gladly have looked for another partner. But he was always anxious on the subject of the false inventory, which Larsonneau preciously preserved. He preferred to take him into the affair, hoping to avail himself of some circumstance to regain possession of that compromising document. Larsonneau built the music-hall, an edifice of planks and plaster surmounted by little tin turrets, which were painted bright red and yellow. The garden and the games proved successful in the populous district of Charonne. In two years the speculation looked prosperous, although the profits in reality were very slight. Saccard had so far always spoken enthusiastically to his wife of the prospects of this fine idea.
Renée, seeing that her husband would not make up his mind to come out of the fireplace, where his voice was becoming more and more inaudible, said:
“I will go and see Larsonneau to-day. It is my only chance.”
Then he let go the log with which he was struggling.
“The errand’s done, my dear,” he replied, smiling. “Don’t I forestall all your wishes?… I saw Larsonneau last night.”
“And he promised you the hundred and thirty-six thousand francs?” she enquired anxiously.
He was building up between the two flaming logs a little mountain of embers, picking up daintily with the tongs the smallest fragments of burnt wood, looking with a satisfied air at the progress of the eminence which he was constructing with infinite art.
“Oh! how you rattle on!…” he murmured. “A hundred and thirty-six thousand francs is a large sum…. Larsonneau is a good fellow, but his means are still limited. He is quite ready to oblige you….”
He paused, blinking his eyes and rebuilding a corner of the eminence which had fallen through. This pastime began to confuse Renée’s ideas. In spite of herself she followed the work of her husband, whose awkwardness increased. She felt tempted to advise him. Forgetting Worms, the bill, her need of money, she ended by saying:
“Put that big piece at the bottom; then the others will keep up.”
Her husband obeyed her submissively, and added:
“All he can find is fifty thousand francs. That will at least be a nice bit on account…. Only he does not want to mix this up with the Charonne affair. He is only a go-between, do you understand, my dear? The person who lends the money asks an enormous interest. He wants a note of hand for eighty thousand francs at six months’ date.”
And having crowned the edifice with a pointed cinder, he crossed his hands over the tongs and looked fixedly at his wife.
“Eighty thousand francs!” she cried. “But that’s sheer robbery!… Do you advise me to commit this folly?”
“No,” he replied shortly. “But if you absolutely want the money, I won’t forbid it.”
He rose as though to go. Renée, in a state of cruel indecision, looked at her husband and at the bill which he left on the mantel. At last she took her poor head between her hands, murmuring:
“Oh, these business matters!… My head is splitting this morning…. Well, I must sign this note for eighty thousand francs. If I didn’t I should become altogether ill. I know myself, I should spend the day in a frightful struggle…. I prefer to do something stupid at once. That relieves me.”
And she spoke of ringing to send for a bill-stamp. But he insisted on rendering her this service in person. No doubt he had the bill stamp in his pocket, for he was absent for hardly two minutes. While she was writing at a little table he had pushed towards the fire, he examined her with eyes in which arose an astonished light of desire. The room was still full of the warmth of the bed she had quitted and of the fragrance of her first toilet. While talking she had allowed the folds of the peignoir in which she was wrapped to slip down, and the eyes of her husband, as he stood before her, glided over her bent head, through the gold of her hair, and very low down, into the whiteness of her neck and bosom. He wore a curious smile;