“Lastly,” she went on, “I wish to make a gift to Renée. I have no child, my fortune will one day pass to my nieces, and I am not about to cut one of them off because she happens at present to be reduced to tears. Marriage gifts had already been decided for both of them. Renée’s consists of extensive holdings in land in the area of Charonne, to which I would conservatively attach a value of 200,000 francs. However—”
At the mention of “holdings in land,” Saccard gave a slight start. Still feigning indifference, he was now all ears. Aunt Elisabeth became flustered and seemed to have difficulty finding the right words. Turning red, she went on: “However, my wish is that the title to this land should pass to Renée’s first child. You will surely understand my intention: I do not want this child to be a burden to you someday. If the child should die, Renée would remain sole owner of the property.”
He took this without flinching, but his taut eyebrows hinted at the depth of his preoccupation. The mention of the Charonne properties had set off a whole new train of thought. Mme Aubertot, thinking she had hurt him by alluding to Renée’s child, was too flustered to go on with the conversation.
He broke the silence by reverting to the smiling, genial tone he had affected earlier. “You didn’t say what street the building valued at 200,000 francs is located on.”
“Rue de la Pépinière,” she replied, “near the corner of the rue d’Astorg.”
This simple sentence had a pronounced effect on him. He could no longer conceal his pleasure. He pulled his chair closer to the lady and spoke warmly to her with the volubility of his native Provence: “Dear lady, haven’t we said enough? Must we go on talking about all these wretched matters of money? . . . Hear me out. I shall be perfectly frank, because I should feel desperate if I failed to merit your esteem. Recently I lost my wife. I have two children on my hands. I’m a practical and reasonable man. By marrying your niece I shall be doing us all a favor. If you have anything against me now, you’ll forgive me once I’ve wiped away everyone’s tears and amassed enough wealth to ensure that even my great-grandchildren will be comfortable. Success is a golden flame that burns away any taint of impurity. I hope that one day M. Béraud himself will shake my hand and thank me.”
Carried away, he went on talking in this vein for quite some time, occasionally allowing a mocking cynicism to show beneath his cheerful air. He boasted of his brother the deputy and his father the tax collector in Plassans. In the end he won over Aunt Elisabeth, who could not suppress a feeling of joy that the drama through which she had been suffering for the past month was about to come to an almost happy conclusion thanks to this clever man’s skillful intervention. It was agreed that they would see the notary the following day.
After Mme Aubertot departed, Saccard went immediately to the Hôtel de Ville and spent the day there examining certain documents that had come to his attention. At the notary’s office, he raised a difficulty. Since all of Renée’s dowry was in real estate, he was afraid that it would cause her no end of trouble and therefore proposed that it might be best to sell at least the building on the rue de la Pépinière and invest the proceeds in her name in a government bond. Mme Aubertot wanted to refer this proposal to M. Béraud Du Châtel, who remained in seclusion. In the meantime, Saccard resumed his rounds into the evening hours. He went to the rue de la Pépinière and scurried about Paris with the pensive air of a general on the eve of a decisive battle. The next day, Mme Aubertot announced that M. Béraud Du Châtel had authorized her to make all necessary decisions. The contract was drawn up along the lines already discussed. Saccard was to contribute 200,000 francs to the household; for dowry Renée would receive the Sologne property and the building on the rue de la Pépinière, which she agreed to sell; and, furthermore, if her first child died, she was to remain sole owner of the Charonne properties that her aunt was giving her. The estates of the spouses were to be kept separate, with husband and wife each retaining full rights to administer their respective fortunes. Aunt Elisabeth listened attentively to the notary’s explanations and seemed satisfied that these arrangements would protect her niece’s independence by placing her property beyond the reach of any attempt to get hold of it. Saccard smiled vaguely each time he saw the good lady nod approval of another clause. The marriage was to take place at the earliest possible date.
When everything was settled, Saccard paid a ceremonial visit to his brother Eugène to announce his engagement to Mlle Renée Béraud Du Châtel. This masterstroke took the deputy by surprise. Since he made no effort to conceal his astonishment, the clerk said, “You told me to look around. I did as I was told and found what I was looking for.”
Eugène, who at first didn’t know what to think, slowly began to grasp the truth. He managed to strike the right tone to express his pleasure. “Well, now, aren’t you a clever fellow? . . . You’ve come to ask me to be your best man, haven’t you? You may count on me. . . . If necessary, I shall bring the whole right wing of the legislature to your wedding. That should get you off to a nice start.”
Then, as he opened the door, he lowered his voice and added, “Tell me, I wouldn’t want to stick my neck out too far just now, we’ve got a very tough bill to get through. . . . The girl isn’t showing too much, I trust?”
Saccard shot him a look so cutting that Eugène, as he closed the door behind him, mused to himself that “that little pleasantry would no doubt cost me dearly if I weren’t a Rougon.”
The marriage was celebrated in the church of Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile. Saccard and Renée did not meet until the eve of the great day. The scene unfolded at dusk in a downstairs parlor of the Béraud mansion. The two studied each other with curiosity. Once her marriage had been negotiated, Renée had gone back to her wild and heedless ways. She was a tall girl of exquisite and irrepressible beauty who had indulged her every whim at boarding school. She found Saccard short and ugly, but his ugliness was of a tormented and intelligent kind that did not displease her. In any case, his tone and manners were impeccable. He winced slightly at his first glimpse of her. She no doubt seemed too tall, taller at any rate than he. Without apparent embarrassment they exchanged a few words. Had the girl’s father been present, he might actually have come away thinking that they had known each other for some time and been partners in past sin. Aunt Elisabeth, who was present for the interview, blushed for both of them.
On the day after the wedding—which counted as a major event on the Ile Saint-Louis owing to the presence of Eugène Rougon, a deputy thrust into the limelight by a recent speech—the two newlyweds were at last granted an audience with M. Béraud Du Châtel. Renée cried at the sight of her father looking older, graver, and sadder than she remembered him. Saccard, who had thus far retained his composure through it all, was frozen by the chill and gloom of the apartment and the lugubrious severity of the old man, whose penetrating eye seemed to plumb the depths of his conscience. The former magistrate slowly kissed his daughter on the forehead, as if to say that he forgave her. Then he turned to his son-in-law and said simply, “Monsieur, we have suffered greatly. I am counting on you to make us forget your wrongs.”
He extended his hand, but Saccard stood on the spot trembling. He believed that if the judge had not buckled under the tragic burden of grief at Renée’s disgrace, he would have thwarted Mme Sidonie’s machinations with a glance or a gesture. After putting the clerk in touch with Aunt Elisabeth, his sister had prudently stepped aside. She had not even come to the wedding. He took a very straightforward line with the old man, having read in his eyes a look of surprise at discovering that his daughter had been seduced by a man who was short, ugly, and forty years old. The newlyweds were obliged to spend their first nights together in the Hôtel Béraud. Christine, a child of fourteen, had been sent away two months earlier in order to make sure that she would not get wind of the drama unfolding in the house, as calm and serene as a convent. When she returned, she was aghast at the sight of her sister’s husband, whom she also found old and ugly. Only René
e seemed to take relatively little notice of her husband’s age or the slyness of his countenance. She showed him neither contempt nor affection and dealt with him in absolute tranquillity, through which a hint of ironic disdain manifested itself from time to time. Saccard settled in, made himself at home, and with his verve and frankness gradually won the genuine friendship of everyone involved. By the time the couple left to take up residence in a superb apartment in a new house on the rue de Rivoli, there was no longer any amazement in M. Béraud Du Châtel’s gaze, and little Christine had made a playmate of her brother-in-law. Renée was then four months pregnant. Her husband was about to send her to the country in order to be able to lie about the child’s age later on when, as Mme Sidonie had predicted, she miscarried. She had laced herself up so tightly to hide her condition, which in any case was concealed by the fullness of her skirts, that she was obliged to take to her bed for several weeks. Saccard was delighted by the outcome. Fortune had kept faith with him. He had made a fabulous bargain: a superb dowry, a wife beautiful enough to earn him a decoration six months hence, and no obligations whatsoever. They had paid him 200,000 francs for his name on behalf of a fetus the mother did not even wish to see. Already the Charonne properties had become the object of his fondest dreams, but for the time being he devoted all his attention to a speculative venture that was to become the basis of his fortune.
Despite the high position of his wife’s family, he did not immediately resign his position as surveyor of roads. He spoke of work to be finished and jobs to be done. In reality, he wanted to remain until the end on the battlefield where he was about to strike his first blow. As in a game of cards, it would be easier to cheat if he played at home with his own deck.
The clerk’s plan was simple and pragmatic. Now that he had more money than he had ever dreamed of with which to launch his operations, he was ready to think big. He knew Paris like the back of his hand. He knew that the shower of gold already beating down on the city’s walls would only intensify with each passing day. Clever people had only to open their pockets. He had joined the ranks of the clever by reading the future in the offices of city hall. In the course of his duties he had learned how much could be stolen in the purchase and sale of buildings and land. He was well versed in the usual ways of fraud: he knew how to sell for a million francs what had been bought for 500,000; he knew how to pay for the right to pick the locks of the state treasury, while the state shut its eyes and smiled; he knew how to juggle six-story buildings when a boulevard was cut through the heart of an old neighborhood while the dupes looked on and applauded. And in a time still beset by turmoil, before the canker of speculation had progressed beyond the incubation stage, what made him a gambler to be feared was that he saw more deeply than his own superiors into the future of granite and plaster that lay in store for the capital. He had dug up so much, collected such quantities of intelligence, that he could have told you what the city’s new quarters would look like in 1870. In the street sometimes, he looked at certain houses in a peculiar way, as if they were acquaintances whose fate, known to him alone, touched him deeply.
Two months before Angèle’s death, he had taken her one Sunday to the Buttes Montmartre.16 The poor woman loved to eat out in restaurants. She was happy when, at the end of a long walk, he led her to a table in some suburban cabaret. On that day they dined at the top of the hill, in a restaurant with a view of Paris, with windows that looked out over an ocean of blue-tinted roofs that filled the vast horizon with its surging swell. Their table stood in front of one of those windows. The sight of the roofs of Paris put Saccard in a good mood. He ordered a bottle of Burgundy to go with dessert. He smiled absentmindedly and was more attentive to his wife than usual. But his eyes, like a lover’s, kept being drawn back to the living, seething sea of rooftops and the deep rumble of the crowd beneath. It was autumn. The city, languishing under pale skies, was a soft and tender gray, pierced here and there by somber patches of green reminiscent of the broad leaves of water lilies floating on the surface of a lake. The sun was setting in a cloud of red, and as a light haze filled the background, a golden dust or dew fell on the city’s right bank over toward the Madeleine 17 and the Tuileries. It was like an enchanted spot in one of the cities of A Thousand and One Nights,18 with emerald trees, sapphire roofs, and ruby weathervanes. At one point a ray of sunlight slipped its way between two clouds and cast such a glorious light on the houses below that they seemed to flare up and melt like a bar of gold in a crucible.
“Oh, look!” Saccard exclaimed with a child’s laugh. “Twenty-franc gold pieces are raining down on Paris!”
Angèle, too, began to laugh, remarking that those particular gold pieces were not easy to pick up. But her husband had stood up and gone over to the window, where he leaned against the sill. “That’s the Vendôme column, isn’t it, gleaming down there? . . . And over there, farther to the right, that’s the Madeleine. . . . A beautiful neighborhood, where there’s plenty of work to be done. . . . Yes, this time, it’s all going to burn! Do you see? . . . It’s as if the neighborhood were being boiled down in some chemist’s retort.”
His voice turned grave and tremulous. The comparison he had hit upon seemed to make a great impression on him. He had drunk the Burgundy, and he forgot himself. Stretching out his arms to show Paris to Angèle, who was now also leaning against the windowsill by his side, he went on. “Yes, yes, as I was saying, more than one neighborhood is about to be melted down, and gold will stick to the fingers of everybody who stokes the furnace and stirs the boiling pot. Paris is so big and simpleminded! Look how huge the city is and how calmly it lies sleeping! These big cities are so stupid! This one has no idea that one fine day it will be set upon by an army of pickaxes. Some of those mansions on the rue d’Anjou wouldn’t gleam quite so brightly in the sunset if they knew that they had only three or four more years to live.”
Angèle thought her husband was joking. He had a taste at times for elaborate, nettlesome tomfoolery. She laughed, but with a vague disquiet, at the sight of this little man standing over the giant asleep at his feet and shaking his fist at it while pressing his lips together with an ironic twist.
“They’ve already begun,” he went on. “But it’s nothing to speak of yet. Look over there, toward Les Halles.19 They’ve cut Paris into four.”
With that, extending his open hand and wielding it like the sharp edge of a cutlass, he made as if to slice the city into four parts.
“You mean the rue de Rivoli and the new boulevard they’re putting through?” his wife asked.
“Yes, the ‘Great Crossing’ of Paris, as they’re calling it. They’re clearing out the area around the Louvre and the Hôtel de Ville. But that’s mere child’s play! Just enough to whet the public’s appetite. . . . When the first network of new streets is finished, the big dance will begin. The second network will cut through the city in all directions to link the suburbs to the first network. The buildings that need to be cleared away will collapse in clouds of plaster. . . . Look, follow my hand. From the boulevard du Temple to the Barrière du Trône, one cut; then, over this way, from the Madeleine to the Monceau plain, another cut; and a third cut in this direction, a fourth in that direction, a cut here, another farther out. Cuts everywhere. Paris slashed to pieces with a saber, its veins laid open to provide nourishment for a hundred thousand excavators and masons, and in the end you’ll have a city crisscrossed by fine strategic highways that will put fortresses right in the heart of the old neighborhoods.”
Night was coming on. Saccard’s wizened, muscular hand continued slashing away at the void. Angèle trembled slightly at the sight of this living blade, these iron fingers pitilessly hacking at the endless expanse of dark rooftops. The haze on the horizon had just begun to roll in from the heights, and in her imagination she heard distant cracking sounds from the darkening vales below, as if her husband’s hand really were making the cuts he was describing, slicing Paris up from one end to the other, smashing beams, crushing masonry,
and leaving behind long and hideous wounds where walls had collapsed. The smallness of the hand so implacably attacking its giant prey was ultimately frightening to behold, and as it effortlessly ripped the entrails of the enormous city to shreds, it seemed to take on a peculiar glint of steel in the twilight tinged with blue.
“There will be a third network,” Saccard continued after an interval of silence, as if talking to himself. “That one is still too far in the future. I can’t envision it very clearly. I’ve picked up few clues to where it will go. But it will be sheer madness, millions changing hands at a breakneck pace, Paris drunk and reeling!”
He lapsed again into silence, his eyes fixed ardently on the city, which darkness gathered in its folds. He must have been pondering that future so remote that even he could not yet grasp it. Then night fell, and the city dissolved into a blur and seemed to breathe heavily, like the sea when nothing can be seen but the pale crests of the waves. Here and there, the whiteness of a wall still stood out, and one by one the yellow flames of the gaslights pierced the shadows, like stars making their appearance in the blackness of a stormy night.
Angèle put aside her discomfort and returned to the joke her husband had made at dessert. “Well, then,” she said with a smile, “there’s been quite a shower of those twenty-franc pieces! The people of Paris are counting them now. Look at those nice piles they’re lining up down there!”
She pointed to the streets descending the Buttes Montmartre, whose gaslights seemed to form two golden rows. “And over there,” she shouted, pointing at a cluster of stars, “that has to be the Caisse Générale.”
This allusion to the state treasury made Saccard laugh. He and Angèle remained at the window a few moments longer, delighted by the shower of gold that eventually engulfed the entire city. On the way down from the heights of Montmartre the clerk had second thoughts about having talked so much. He blamed the wine and begged his wife not to repeat the “foolish things” he had said. He wanted, he said, to be taken for a sober head.