Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (31 page)

For some time Jantrou had been hatching a few new ideas about publicity. First he had the notion of writing a brochure of twenty pages or so on the great enterprises being launched by the Universal, giving them the appeal of a novelette, dramatized in a popular style; he would then flood the whole province with this publication, which would be distributed free even in the remotest depths of the countryside. Then he thought of setting up an agency which would create and litho-print a Bourse bulletin and send it to about a hundred of the best regional newspapers; this bulletin would either be given away or else would cost a derisory sum, and soon they would have in their hands a powerful weapon, a force with which all the rival banking houses would have to reckon. Knowing Saccard, he went on murmuring these ideas in his ear until he adopted them, made them his own, and enlarged them to such an extent that he was really re-creating them. The minutes slipped by, and the two men had dealt with the allocation of funds for publicity for the next three months, the subsidies to be paid to the main newspapers, the need to buy the silence of the terrible columnist of a hostile establishment, and what to do about the auctioning of page four of a very old and highly respected paper. And what emerged above all from their prodigality and all the money they were noisily throwing to the four winds in this way was their contempt for the public, the scorn they, as intelligent businessmen, felt for the dire ignorance of the masses, so ready to believe every tall tale, so ignorant of the complex operations of the stock exchange that even the most shameless of sales talks could excite passers-by and cause millions to rain down.

As Jordan was still trying to find another fifty lines to complete his two columns, he was interrupted by Dejoie calling him.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Monsieur Jantrou is alone now?’

‘No, Monsieur Jordan, not yet… but your wife is here, asking for you.’

Filled with anxiety, Jordan rushed out. For some months now, ever since the Méchain woman had discovered he was writing under his own name in
L’Espérance
, he was being pursued by Busch for the six fifty-franc promissory notes he had formerly signed over to a tailor. He would still have paid the sum of three hundred francs represented by the notes, but what exasperated him was the enormous amount of charges, the total of seven hundred and thirty francs and fifteen centimes, to which the debt had now risen. However, he had made an arrangement by which he would pay a hundred francs a month; and as he was now unable to do this, his young household having more immediate needs, the charges rose further every month and the intolerable harassment began again. At the moment he was going through another severe crisis.

‘What is it?’ he asked his wife when he saw her in the antechamber.

But she didn’t have time to reply before the door of the editor’s office was thrown open and Saccard appeared, shouting:

‘Ah! At last, Dejoie—Monsieur Huret?’

The office-boy began to stammer in bewilderment.

‘My word, Monsieur, he isn’t here—I can’t make him come any faster!’

The door was shut with an oath, and Jordan, who had taken his wife into one of the adjoining offices, was able to question her properly.

‘What is it then, darling?’

Marcelle, usually so cheerful and valiant, a plump little person with her dark hair, her bright face, laughing eyes, and pleasant mouth, always looking happy even in difficult times, now seemed thoroughly upset.

‘Oh, Paul, if you only knew, a man came, oh, a horrible ugly man who smelled awful and had been drinking, I think… Well, he told me it was all over and our furniture would be sold tomorrow… and he had a poster he insisted on sticking on the door downstairs…’

‘But that’s impossible!’ cried Jordan. ‘I’ve received nothing, there are other formalities.’

‘Oh yes, but you know less about it even than I do. When papers arrive you don’t even read them… So, to stop him putting up the poster I gave him two francs and ran to let you know straight away.’

They were in despair. Their poor little household in the Avenue de Clichy, their few little bits of furniture, in mahogany and blue rep, paid for with such difficulty month by month and of which they were so proud, even though they laughed about them sometimes, finding them to be in dreadful bourgeois taste! They loved it all because it had been a part of their happiness ever since their wedding-night in these two tiny rooms, so full of sunshine, looking out to the space outside stretching away to Mont Valérien;
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and he had knocked in so many nails and she had so cleverly arranged Turkey-red cotton
*
about the rooms to give them an artistic look! How was it possible that all of that would be sold, that they would be driven out of their happy nook, where even their poverty was delightful?

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I was counting on asking for an advance, I shall do what I can, but I don’t have much hope.’

Then, hesitantly, she told him her idea.

‘This is what I had thought of… oh! I wouldn’t do it without your agreement, but yes, I would like to appeal to my parents.’

He vehemently refused.

‘No, no, never! You know I don’t want to be obliged to them for anything.’

Certainly the Maugendres continued to behave with every propriety. But Jordan could not forget the coldness they had shown when, after his father’s suicide and the crumbling of his fortune, they had consented to their daughter’s long-planned marriage only because she had insisted, and had taken all sorts of wounding precautions, including their decision not to give them a sou, convinced that a fellow who wrote for the newspapers would devour everything. Their daughter would later inherit. And the Jordans, she just as much as he, had even taken a certain pride in enduring hunger without asking anything of the parents, apart from the meal they had with them once a week on Sunday evenings.

‘Honestly,’ Marcelle went on, ‘it’s ridiculous, these scruples of ours. After all, I’m the only child they have and everything will come to me one day… My father goes around telling anyone who’ll listen that he’s earned an income of fifteen thousand francs from his tarpaulin business at La Villette, and as well as that there’s the little house they’ve retired to, with its lovely garden… It’s stupid to give ourselves so much trouble when they have more than enough of everything. They’ve never been really nasty. I tell you, I’m going to go and see them.’

She was smiling cheerfully, looking quite determined and very practical in her desire to bring happiness to her husband who worked so hard, without getting anything yet from critics or public save a lot of indifference and a few slaps in the face. Ah, money! She would like to have had loads of it to bring to him by the bucketful, and it would really be stupid to be so over-delicate about it when she loved him and owed everything to him. This was her fairy-tale, her own Cinderella story: the treasures of her royal family which, with her own little hands, she would lay at the feet of her ruined prince to help him in his march towards glory and the conquest of the world.

‘Look,’ she said gaily, with a kiss, ‘I really must be allowed to be of some use to you, you can’t keep all the trouble for yourself.’

He gave way, and it was agreed that she would straight away go back up to the Rue Legendre in the Batignolles, where her parents lived, and return with the money so that he could still try to pay that very evening. And just as he was accompanying her as far as the landing, as anxious as if he were seeing her off on a very dangerous mission, they had to move aside for Huret who had arrived at last. When Jordan returned to finish his column in the contributors’ room he heard a violent noise of voices coming from Jantrou’s office.

Saccard, powerful now and once again the master, expected to be obeyed, knowing he had a grip on all of them through their hope of gain and terror of loss in the colossal game of fortune he was playing with them.

‘Ah, so there you are!’ he cried on seeing Huret. ‘Was it to present the great man with a framed copy of your article that you stayed so late in the Chamber?… I’ve had enough, you know, of these puffs of incense you’re blowing in his face, and I’ve been waiting for you to tell you that that’s all over, in future you’ll have to give us something else.’

Stunned, Huret looked at Jantrou. But the latter, determined not to cause any trouble for himself by coming to his aid, was now running his fingers through his beautiful beard, his eyes far away.

‘What do you mean, something else?’ Huret finally asked. ‘I’ve been giving you what you asked for! When you took over
L’Espérance
, that established paper of Catholicism and royalty which was running such a brutal campaign against Rougon, it was you who asked me to write a series of laudatory articles to show your brother that you had no hostile intent against him, and also to indicate in this way the new policy of the paper.’

‘The policy of the paper, yes indeed,’ Saccard went on more vehemently, ‘it’s of compromising the policy of the paper that I’m accusing you… Do you think I want to become my brother’s vassal? Certainly I’ve never stinted my admiration and grateful affection for the Emperor, I never forget the debt we all owe him and what I, in particular, owe him. But it’s not attacking the Empire—on the contrary, it’s doing one’s duty as a loyal citizen—to point out the mistakes that are made… And that’s what the policy of the paper is, devotion to the dynasty but total independence with regard to the ministers, and the ambitious personages who bustle about and fight for the favours of the Tuileries.’

And he launched into a review of the political situation to prove that the Emperor was being ill-advised. He accused Rougon of having lost his authoritative energy, his former faith in absolute power, even of flirting with liberal ideas, with the sole aim of keeping his portfolio. For himself, beating his fist against his chest, he declared himself unchangeable, a Bonapartist from the very start,
*
believing in the
coup d’état
and convinced that the salvation of France lay now, as always, in the genius and strength of one man. Yes, rather than helping along his brother’s career, rather than letting the Emperor commit suicide by making new concessions, he would make common cause with the Catholics to halt the rapid fall he saw coming. And Rougon should take care, for
L’Espérance
could take up again its campaign in favour of Rome.

Huret and Jantrou listened, amazed at his anger, never having suspected him of such ardent political beliefs. Huret decided to try to defend the government’s most recent acts.

‘But look, my dear fellow, if the Empire is moving towards liberty it’s because all of France is pushing firmly in that direction… the Emperor is being carried along, and Rougon has no option but to follow.’

But Saccard had already moved on to other grievances, without bothering to bring any logic into his attacks.

‘And anyway, it’s the same with our external situation, it’s simply deplorable… Since the Treaty of Villafranca, after Solferino, Italy has borne us a grudge for not following through to the end of the campaign and not giving her the Veneto; so now she is allied with Prussia, in the conviction that the latter will help her to beat Austria… When war breaks out you’ll see what ructions there’ll be and what
trouble we’ll have; all the more so in that we made the great mistake of allowing Bismarck
*
and Kaiser Wilhelm
*
to seize the Duchies in the Denmark affair in contempt of a treaty signed by France: that was a slap in the face, there’s no denying it, and all we can do is turn the other cheek… Ah! War is certain, you remember the big drop in French and Italian securities last month, when it was thought we might possibly intervene in the affairs of Germany. Within a fortnight, perhaps, Europe will be ablaze.’

Huret, more and more surprised, grew quite passionate, which was rare for him.

‘You’re talking just like the Opposition newspapers, but you surely don’t want
L’Espérance
to fall in behind
Le Siècle
*
and the rest… All you need do now is insinuate, as those papers do, that if the Emperor allowed himself to be humiliated in the matter of the Duchies, and if he allows Prussia with impunity to grow ever larger it’s just because he had immobilized an entire army corps for many months in Mexico. Look here now, let’s be fair, Mexico is over and our troops are coming back… And really, I don’t understand you my dear fellow, if you want to keep Rome for the Pope why do you seem to find fault with the hasty peace of Villafranca? Giving the Veneto to Italy means having the Italians in Rome
*
within two years, you know it as well as I do, and Rougon knows it too, even if he swears to the contrary from the platform…’

‘Ah, you see how wily he is!’ cried Saccard triumphantly. ‘The Pope will never be touched, do you hear, without the whole of Catholic France rising up in his defence… We would take our money to him—yes, all the money of the Universal! I have my plans, this is very much our concern, and really, exasperating me like this you’d make me say things I’m not yet ready to say!’

Jantrou, very interested in all this, had quickly pricked up his ears, beginning to understand and trying to take full advantage of a word caught on the wing.

‘In the end,’ Huret resumed, ‘I want to know where I stand, personally, with regard to my articles, and we need to come to an agreement… Do you want an intervention or not? If we are in favour of the principle of nationhood, what right would we have to go meddling in the affairs of Italy and Germany?… Do you want us to run a campaign against Bismarck? Yes! In the name of the threat to our frontiers…’

But Saccard, beside himself and on his feet now, burst out:

‘What I want is for Rougon to stop treating me like a fool!… What? After all I’ve done! I buy a newspaper which was his worst enemy and make of it an organ devoted to his policies, allowing you to sing his praises month after month. And never once does the beggar give us a hand, I’m still waiting for the slightest favour from him!’

Timidly, Huret remarked that over there in the East the minister’s support had greatly helped the engineer Hamelin, opening doors for him and putting pressure on certain people.