When Maxime was sounded out on this subject, he found himself in a quandary. Louise amused him, and the dowry tempted him even more. He said yes and agreed to all the dates Saccard proposed so as to avoid the vexation of further discussion. Inwardly, however, he acknowledged that unfortunately things were unlikely to work themselves out quite so easily. Renée would never go along. She would weep, she would make scenes, she was capable of causing a scandal big enough to set Paris on its ear. It was quite unpleasant. Lately she frightened him. She doted on him with such anxious eyes, she possessed him so despotically, that he could almost feel her claws digging into his skin each time she placed her white hand on his shoulder. Her restlessness became impetuousness, and there was a new staccato note in her laughter. He truly feared that some night she might go mad in his arms. In her, the remorse, the fear of being caught, and the cruel pleasures of adultery expressed themselves, not as with other women in the form of tears and misery, but as a more unfettered extravagance and a more irresistible need to kick up a fuss. As her terror increased, a rattle began to make itself heard, a sound that signaled a breakdown of this lovely and astonishing machine, which was falling to pieces.
Maxime passively waited for an occasion that would allow him to get rid of this troublesome mistress. He said again that they had done something foolish. Although their camaraderie had initially added a novel pleasure to their amours, it now prevented him from breaking off the relationship, as he certainly would have done with another woman. He simply wouldn’t have returned: that was his way of ending his affairs, so as to avoid all effort and any possibility of a quarrel. But he felt incapable of any grand gesture and was indeed still glad to abandon himself to Renée’s caresses. She was motherly, she paid his way, she rescued him from difficulty when a creditor lost patience with him. The idea of Louise came back to him, the idea of the million-franc dowry, and this made him think, even as Renée showered him with kisses, “that all this is fine and dandy, but it isn’t serious, and it’s high time to end it.”
One night, Maxime went to play cards at the home of a lady where the game often continued until dawn, and he was wiped out so quickly that he fell prey to the kind of silent rage that often afflicts gamblers whose pockets are empty. He would have given anything in the world for a few more louis to lay on the table. He took his hat, and with the mechanical step of a man driven by an unalterable idea, he went to the Parc Monceau, opened the side gate, and found himself in the conservatory. It was past midnight. Renée had forbidden him to come that night. Now, when she shut her door to him, she no longer even tried to fob him off with an explanation, and he could think of nothing but taking advantage of his day off. He didn’t clearly remember the young woman’s warning to stay away until he was standing in front of the glass door to the small salon, which he found locked. On nights when he was expected, Renée normally left the door unlatched.
“Bah!” he thought on seeing a light in her dressing room. “I’ll whistle, and she’ll come down. I won’t disturb her. If she has a few louis, I’ll be off immediately.”
And he whistled softly. He often signaled his arrival that way. On this night, however, he repeated his whistle several times to no avail. He persisted, whistling still more loudly, unwilling to give up his idea of an instant loan. At last he saw the door open with the utmost precaution; until then he hadn’t heard the slightest noise. Renée emerged into the obscurity of the conservatory, her hair undone, barely dressed, as if she had been on the point of going to bed. Her feet were bare. She pushed him toward one of the arbors, proceeding down the stairs and along one of the sandy walkways, apparently undeterred by the cold or the roughness underfoot.
“It’s stupid to whistle that loudly,” she whispered, holding back her anger. “I told you not to come. What do you want from me?”
“Let’s go upstairs,” said Maxime, taken aback by this welcome. “I’ll tell you there. You’ll catch cold.”
He went to take a step, but she held him back, and he saw then that she was dreadfully pale. An unspoken terror curved her spine. Her most intimate garments, her laciest underthings, were draped over her shivering flesh like a tragic heroine’s rags.
He examined her with growing astonishment.
“What’s the matter with you? Are you sick?”
Instinctively, he looked up and saw through the glass of the conservatory the window of the dressing room in which he had previously glimpsed a light.
“But there’s a man in your apartment,” he said suddenly.
“No, no, there isn’t,” she stammered in a pleading voice, ceding to panic.
“Now see here, my dear, I can see his shadow.”
They stood there for an instant face-to-face, not knowing what to say. Renée’s teeth were chattering in terror, and she felt as though buckets of ice water were being poured over her bare feet. Maxime felt more irritated than he would have expected, yet he remained detached enough to reflect on the situation, to tell himself that the moment was ripe to break off the relationship.
“You’re not going to make me believe that it’s Céleste wearing a topcoat,” he went on. “If the conservatory windows weren’t so thick, I might even recognize the gentleman.”
She pushed him farther into the darkness of the foliage, clasping her hands and pleading with growing terror, “I beg you, Maxime . . .”
But all the young man’s instincts for needling were aroused, ferocious instincts in search of vengeance. He was too fragile to find relief in anger. Spite pinched his lips, and rather than hit her, which had been his initial impulse, he took a sharper tone and went on. “You should have told me, I wouldn’t have disturbed you. . . . These things happen all the time. People stop loving each other. I had almost had my fill myself. . . . Don’t be impatient now. I’ll let you go back up, but not until you’ve told me the gentleman’s name.”
“Never! Never!” the young woman whispered, choking back tears.
“I have no intention of challenging him to a duel. I just want to know. . . . The name, quick, tell me the name, and I’ll go.”
He had seized her by the wrists and was staring at her, laughing wickedly. She struggled desperately, unwilling to open her mouth lest the name she was being asked to reveal somehow escape her lips.
“If we go on this way, we’re going to make noise, which won’t help matters. What are you afraid of? Aren’t we good friends? . . . I want to know who’s taking my place. I’m entitled to that. . . . Wait, I’ll help you. It’s M. de Mussy, whose suffering touched you.”
She did not answer but bowed her head at being questioned in such a manner.
“It’s not M. de Mussy? . . . The duc de Rozan, perhaps? No, not him either? . . . Perhaps the comte de Chibray? Wrong again?”
He stopped and searched his mind.
“Damned if I can think of anyone else. . . . It’s not my father, after what you told me.”
Renée jumped as if seared with a hot poker and in a muffled voice said, “No, you know quite well that he doesn’t come anymore. I wouldn’t allow it. It would be vile.”
“Who then?”
And he squeezed her wrists even tighter. The poor woman struggled a while longer.
“Oh, Maxime, if only you knew! . . . But I can’t tell you.”
Then, vanquished, overwhelmed, staring in terror at the illuminated window, in a voice barely above a whisper, she stammered, “It’s M. de Saffré.”
Maxime, until then amused by his cruel game, turned quite livid at this confession, which he had insisted on having. He was vexed that the man’s name should have caused him such unexpected pain. Violently he pushed Renée away, then moved close to her, right in her face, and through clenched teeth said, “You know what you are? You’re a—”
He pronounced the word. He turned to leave but she ran after him, sobbing, taking him in her arms, whispering tender words, begging forgiveness, swearing that she still adored him and would explain everything the next day. But he pulled away and slamm
ed the door of the conservatory, saying, “No, it’s over. I’ve had it,” on his way out.
Crushed, she watched him cross the garden. The trees in the conservatory seemed to whirl around. Then, slowly, she dragged her bare feet down the sandy path and climbed back up the porch stairs. The cold made her skin look like marble, and her lacy negligee being in disarray only added to her tragic appearance. Upstairs, where her husband was waiting, she responded to his questions by saying that she thought she’d remembered where she’d dropped a small notebook that had been missing since morning. No sooner was she in bed than she felt a deep sense of despair at the thought that she should have told Maxime that his father, having accompanied her home, had followed her into her bedroom to discuss some question of money with her.
The next day, Saccard decided to force the Charonne business to a conclusion. His wife was now his. He had just held her in his hands and felt her softness, her inertness—an object that has ceased to resist. What is more, the route of the boulevard du Prince-Eugène was about to be announced, and it was essential that Renée be stripped of her title before word of the upcoming expropriation leaked out. Throughout this business, Saccard proceeded with an artist’s love of his work. He watched his plan ripen with rapt devotion and set traps with the cunning of a hunter who prides himself on his sporting approach to his prey. With him there was a simple satisfaction in playing the game well, a particular pleasure in ill-gotten gains. If he could have the land for a crust of bread, he would gladly give his wife jewels worth a hundred thousand francs in the joy of triumph. The simplest operations grew complex, turned into dark dramas, whenever he became involved. Passion took hold of him, and he would have beaten his own father to lay hands on a hundred sous. And afterwards he would have strewn the gold about with royal largesse.
Before getting Renée to relinquish her share of the property, however, he took the precaution of sounding out Larsonneau about the extortion he suspected him of plotting. Saccard’s instinct saved him in this instance, for the expropriation agent had meanwhile come to the conclusion that the fruit was ripe for the picking. When Saccard walked into Larsonneau’s office on the rue de Rivoli, he found his colleague in a bad way, showing signs of the most violent desperation.
“Oh, my friend!” Larsonneau murmured, taking Saccard by the hand. “We’re done for. . . . I was about to run over to your place to figure a way out of this awful mess.”
While Larsonneau wrung his hands and attempted to force out a sob, Saccard noticed that he had been signing letters a moment before and that the signatures looked remarkably precise. He stared at him calmly and said, “Bah! So what’s happened to us?”
The other man did not answer immediately, however. He had flung himself down in a chair behind his desk, and there, with his elbows resting on the blotter, his forehead in his hands, he furiously shook his head. Finally, in a choking voice, he said, “Someone stole the ledger, you see. . . .”
The story he told was this: one of his clerks, a scoundrel worthy of the penitentiary, had made off with a large number of files, including the notorious ledger. Worse, the thief had realized what the document was worth and was asking for 100,000 francs in exchange for its return.
Saccard pondered the matter. The story struck him as a crude fabrication. Obviously Larsonneau didn’t much care whether or not he was believed. He was simply looking for a pretext to let it be known that he wanted 100,000 francs out of the Charonne deal and, indeed, that for that amount of money he would hand over the compromising papers in his possession. To Saccard the price seemed too steep. He would willingly have given his former partner a share in the spoils, but this attempt to spring a trap and this presumptuousness in taking him for a fool he found irritating. Yet he was not without worries. He knew the man he was dealing with and knew that he was quite capable of taking the papers to his brother the minister, who would certainly pay to hush up any scandal.
“Damn!” Saccard muttered, now taking a seat himself. “That’s a nasty story. . . . Would it be possible to see the scoundrel in question?”
“I’ll send for him,” Larsonneau replied. “He lives close by, on rue Jean Lantier.”
Before ten minutes had passed, a short, shifty-eyed fellow with light-colored hair and red blotches all over his face quietly entered the room, carefully making sure that the door made no sound. He was wearing a shabby black frock coat that was too large for him and shockingly threadbare. Standing at a respectful distance from Saccard, he calmly examined the financier out of the corner of his eye. Larsonneau, who addressed this man as Baptistin, subjected him to an interrogation, to which he responded in monosyllables, showing no sign of becoming rattled. He withstood this grilling without flinching even though his employer felt compelled to accompany each of his questions with epithets such as thief, crook, and scoundrel.
Saccard admired the wretched fellow’s sangfroid. At one point, the expropriation agent leapt from his chair as if to strike him, and he merely retreated a step and narrowed his eyes a bit more in a gesture of humility.
“That’s enough, leave him alone,” the financier said. “So then, sir, you’re asking 100,000 francs to return the papers?”
“Yes, 100,000 francs,” the young man answered.
With that he left the room. Larsonneau seemed unable to get a grip on himself. “The gall! What a scoundrel!” he sputtered. “Did you see his shifty eyes? . . . Fellows like that look timid, but for twenty francs they’d kill a man for you.”
Saccard, however, interrupted him: “Bah! He’s nothing to be afraid of. I think we’ll be able to make a deal with him. . . . I came about something far more worrisome. . . . You were right to distrust my wife, my good friend. She’s selling her share of the property to M. Haffner. She says she needs money. Her friend Suzanne must have put her up to it.”
Larsonneau abruptly quit sighing. He listened, the color having drained from his face, and adjusted his starched collar, which had curled in his wrath.
“This sale,” Saccard went on, “will ruin our hopes. If M. Haffner becomes your partner, not only will our profits be compromised, but I’m awfully afraid we may find ourselves in a very unpleasant situation, as the gentleman is quite meticulous and may insist on going over the accounts.”
The expropriation agent began pacing the room in an agitated manner, his patent-leather boots creaking on the carpet. “You see what predicaments you get yourself into by doing favors for people,” he muttered. “But if I were you, my friend, I’d do everything in my power to prevent my wife from making such a foolish move. I’d beat her before I’d allow such a thing to happen.”
“Really?” the financier said with a sly smile. “I have no more influence over my wife than you seem to have over this scoundrel Baptistin.”
Larsonneau stopped short in front of Saccard, who had not stopped smiling, and appraised him carefully. Then he resumed his pacing, but with a slower, more measured step. He went over to a mirror, tightened the knot of his necktie, and continued walking, having regained his customary elegance. Suddenly he blurted out, “Baptistin!”
The short, shifty-eyed fellow reentered the room, but this time through a different door. He no longer had his hat and was rolling a quill pen between two fingers.
“Go get the ledger,” Larsonneau ordered.
When he had left, Larsonneau discussed the sum he was to be paid. In the end he said bluntly, “Do this for me.”
Saccard then agreed to pay 30,000 francs out of the future profits on the Charonne affair. He reckoned that even at that price he would still be escaping the usurer’s gloved clutches relatively cheaply. Larsonneau, continuing the charade to the end, insisted that the promissory note be made out in his name, saying that he would be accountable to the young man for the 30,000 francs. Saccard chuckled with relief as he burned the ledger in the fireplace, one page at a time. When he was done, he vigorously shook Larsonneau’s hand and left with these parting words: “You’ll be at Laure’s tonight, won’t you? . . .
Wait for me. I’ll work things out with my wife, and we’ll make our final decisions.”
Laure d’Aurigny, who moved frequently, was at that time living in a large apartment on boulevard Haussmann opposite the Chapelle Expiatoire. 11 She had only recently decided to open her apartment to visitors one day a week, just like any other society hostess. These gatherings assembled in one place the men who saw her one at a time during the week. Aristide Saccard reigned in triumph on these Tuesday evenings. He was the incumbent lover, and he laughed vaguely and looked the other way whenever the mistress of the house betrayed him by dragging one of the other gentlemen off to a private place and granting him an assignation for later that same night. When he was left alone at the end of the evening, the last of the crowd of visitors, he would light yet another cigar, talk business for a while, and tease Laure about the fellow cooling his heels outside waiting for him to leave. Then, after calling Laure his “dear child” and giving her a little pat on the cheek, he would leave quietly through one door as the waiting gentleman entered through another. Both he and his “mistress” continued to take pleasure in the secret alliance that had consolidated Saccard’s credit and earned Mlle d’Aurigny two sets of furniture in one month. But Laure wanted this comedy to end. The finale, worked out ahead of time, was to take the form of a public breakup, the beneficiary of which was to be some poor imbecile who would pay dearly for the right of being Laure’s official, publicly acknowledged keeper. That imbecile had been found. The duc de Rozan, tired of importuning the women of his own set to no avail, dreamed of acquiring a reputation as a debauchee to lend a little relief to his colorless personality. He was an assiduous guest at Laure’s Tuesdays and had managed to conquer her with his absolute naïveté. Unfortunately, he was still, at the age of thirty-five, dependent on his mother to the point where he never had more than ten louis spending money in his pocket at any given time. On nights when Laure deigned to take those ten louis from him, feeling sorry for herself and letting it be known that 100,000 francs was what she needed, he promised her that as soon as he had the final say in the matter, that sum would be hers. It was then that it occurred to her to put him in touch with Larsonneau, a faithful friend of the establishment. The two men had lunch together at Tortoni’s, and over dessert Larsonneau, while recounting his amours with a delectable Spaniard, let it be known that he was in touch with some people who were in a position to lend money, though he sternly warned Rozan never to fall into their clutches. This revelation drove the duke wild, and in the end he succeeded in extracting from his good friend a promise to take care of “this little matter.” Larsonneau took such good care of it that he had come prepared to deliver the money on the very evening that Saccard proposed they meet at Laure’s.