THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
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and she offered him a first reward of fifteen thousand francs. This offer dazzled the gaoler, who from that moment belonged to her body and soul.
And that is how Fine had been able to say to Marius with her clever smile. “Follow me. Your brother is saved.”
She accompanied the young man to the prison. On the road she related to him all she had been doing, how she had little by little won over her uncle. Marius’ straightforward nature set him first of all against the plan. Then he remembered the intrigues to which M. de Cazalis had had recourse and reflected that, after all, he was only making use of the same weapons as his adversaries, and his mind was at ease.
He thanked Fine most touchingly, and was at a loss to know what proof to give her of his gratitude. The young girl, happy beyond measure, hardly listened to his protestations of devotedness.
They could only see Revertégat in the evening. The gaoler from the very first words of the conversation, pointed out his two little girls who were playing in a corner of the lodge, and simply said to Marius:
“Monsieur, they are my excuse: I would not ask a sou, if I had not these children to feed.”
This was a painful scene for Marius. He abridged it as much as possible. He was aware that the gaoler was giving way both to self-sacrifice and interest, and if he could not despise him, he none the less felt ill at ease at concluding such a bargain with him.
All was settled in a few minutes. Marius announced that he would leave the following morning for Marseille and would bring back with him the fifteen thousand francs promised by Fine. He would get them from his banker: his mother had left a sum of fifty thousand francs, which was deposited with M. Bérard, whose house was one of the most important and best known of the city. The flower-girl was to remain at Aix and there await the young man’s return.
He set out full of hope, with the idea that his brother was already free, but as he stepped out of the diligence at Marseille he learned a terrible piece of news, which completely staggered him. The banker Bérard had just been made a bankrupt.
CHAPTER XIII
A BANKRUPTCY, AS THERE ARE MANY
MARIUS hastened to the banker Bérard. He could not believe the bad news, he possessed all the confidence of a straightforward mind. On the road he said to himself that the rumours that were afloat were perhaps, after all, only calumnies, and so he clung to false hopes. The loss of his fortune at this moment amounted to his brother’s discomfiture. It seemed to him that chance would not be so cruel the public must be mistaken, Bérard would hand him his money.
When he entered the banking-house, he was seized with a pang of anguish. He saw the terrible reality. The offices were empty; and these spacious rooms, deserted and calm, with their closed wirework cages, appeared to him funeral-like.
It is difficult to conceive what mournful desolation a fortune that is breaking up leaves behind it. From the counting-house, ledgers, papers, escaped a vague odour of ruin. Seals were to be seen everywhere with their white bands and large blotches of red wax.
Marius crossed three rooms without meeting anyone. He at length discovered a clerk who had come to remove a few objects belonging to him from a desk, and who answered him sharply that M. Bérard was in his office.
The young man entered all of a tremble, forgetting to close the door. He perceived the banker quietly at work, writing letters, setting papers in order and balancing accounts. He was young, tall, had a handsome and intelligent face, was dressed with great care, wore rings on his fingers, and presented the appearance of a gallant and wealthy man. One would have said he had just had a brush-up to receive his customers and explain his disaster to them himself.
Moreover his attitude appeared courageous. This man was either a victim of circumstances, full of resignation, or else an arrant rascal brazening out his infamy.
On seeing Marius enter, he looked him in the face, and his countenance wore an expression of sad straightforwardness.
“I was awaiting you, dear sir,” he said, in an unsteady voice. “You see I am waiting for all those whose ruin I have brought about. I shall have courage to the end, I want each of them to assure himself that I have no cause to be ashamed.”
He took up a register from his writing-table and opened it with some affectation.
“Here are my accounts,” he continued. “My liabilities are a million, my assets one million five hundred thousand francs. The Court will adjudicate and I believe my creditors will lose nothing. I am the first to suffer, I have lost my fortune and credit, I have allowed insolvent debtors to rob me in a most barefaced way.”
Marius had not yet uttered a word. In face of Bérard’s broken-down serenity, in presence of this display of austere grief he could not find a single reproach, not one word of indignation. He almost pitied this man who was heading the storm.
“Sir,” he said to him at last, “why did you not warn me when you saw your affairs getting into a mess and turning to the bad? My mother was a friend of your mother’s. In remembrance of our former intimacy, you should have made me withdraw this money, which you were about to compromise, from your control. Your present ruin strips me of everything, and plunges me in despair.”
Bérard ran forward and grasped Marius’ hands.
“Do not say that!” he exclaimed, in a voice broken by tears, “do not overwhelm me. Ah! you have no idea of the regret that is tormenting me. When I saw the abyss I sought to catch hold of the branches; I struggled till the last moment, hoping to be able to save the amounts deposited in my hands. You cannot imagine what terrible risks are run by those who deal in money.”
Marius had nothing to answer. What could he say to a man who found his excuse in self-accusation? He had no proofs, he did not dare call Bérard a scamp, it only remained to him to withdraw. The banker spoke in such an aggrieved tone of voice, in such a convinced and straightforward manner that he hastened to go away and leave him to himself. He felt oppressed at his misfortune.
As he was crossing the empty offices again, the clerk who had at last gathered his things together, took his bundle and hat and followed him. This clerk was muttering between his teeth. At each step he looked in a strange way at Marius and shrugged his shoulders. Below, on the pavement, he suddenly approached him.
“Well!” said he, “what think you of M. Bérard? He’s a splendid actor, isn’t he? The door of his office was open and it made me laugh to see his distressed manner. He almost wept, the honest fellow! Permit me to tell you that you have just allowed yourself to be duped in the most beautiful way.”
“I don’t understand you,” answered Marius.
“So much the better. That is because you are an honest man. For my part, I have just left this shop with profound satisfaction. I long since expected a stroke of business like this: I foresaw the issue of this high comedy of theft. I possess a peculiar knack for ferreting out jobbery in a firm.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Oh! the story is simple. I’ll relate it to you in a few words. Ten years ago Bérard started a banking business. At the present day I have no doubt that he prepared his bankruptcy from the first moment. This was his reasoning: ‘I wish to be rich because I have many desires, and to be so as rapidly as possible, because I am in a hurry to satisfy them. But the straight road is rough and long, I prefer to follow the paths of cheating and get my million together in ten years. I will make myself a banker, I shall have a counting-house where I will take the people’s money as a bird-catcher snares the feathered songsters. Each year I will pilfer a round sum. That will last as long as is necessary, I will stop when my pockets are full. Then I shall quietly suspend payment; on two millions that will have been entrusted to me, I will generously return two or three hundred thousand francs to my creditors. The remainder, hidden away in a little corner I know of, will assist me to live as I desire, as an idler and a voluptuary.’ Do you understand, dear sir?”
Marius