Chapter II (1)

Aristide Rougon swooped down upon Paris on the morrow of the Coup d'État, with that scent of birds of prey which sniff the field of carnage from afar. He came from Plassans, a sub-prefecture of the South, where his father had at length netted in the troubled waters of events an office of tax collector for which he had long been angling. As for himself, still young, and having compromised his position like a fool, with neither glory nor profit, he could only feel very fortunate in issuing safe and sound from the squabble. He came, with a rush, enraged at his mistake, cursing the country, speaking of Paris with a wolf-like greed, and swearing "that he would never be caught napping again;" and the keen smile with which he accompanied these words assumed a terrible significance on his thin lips.

He arrived in the early days of 1852. He was accompanied by his wife Angèle, a fair and insignificant creature, whom he placed in a small lodging in the Rue Saint-Jacques, like some awkward piece of furniture he was anxious to be rid of. The young woman had been unwilling to be separated from her daughter, little Clotilde, a child four years old, whom the father would willingly have left behind to be taken care of by his relations. But he had only yielded to his wife's wish on condition that the college at Plassans should retain their son Maxime, a youngster of eleven, who would be looked after by the grandmother. Aristide wished to have his hands free; a woman and a child already seemed to him a crushing weight to encumber a man decided to overcome all obstacles, though he grovelled in the mud or perished in the attempt.

The very evening of his arrival, whilst Angèle was unpacking, he felt an eager longing to explore Paris, to hear his heavy countryman's boots striking that burning pavement from which he hoped to cause millions to spring forth. It was a regular taking of possession. He walked for the sake of walking, following the footpaths, just as though in a conquered country. He had a very clear conception of the battle he was about to offer, and it was not in the least repugnant to his feelings to compare himself to a skilful picklock who, by artifice or violence, was about to take his share of the common wealth which had been wickedly refused him until then. Had he felt the need of an excuse, he would have invoked his every desire denied him for ten years, his wretched country existence, his faults especially, for which he held society at large responsible. But at this moment, in that emotion of a gambler who at last places his eager hands on the green baize of the gaming-table, he was filled with joy, a joy of his own, in which blended the gratification of covetousness and the expectation of an unpunished rogue. The atmosphere of Paris intoxicated him, he fancied he could hear, in the rumbling of the vehicles, the voices from "Macbeth" calling to him: "You will be rich!" During close upon two hours he wandered thus from street to street, enjoying the voluptuousness of a man roaming amidst his own vice. He had not been back in Paris since the happy year he had passed there as a student. Night was falling; his dream grew in the bright lights which the shops and the cafés cast on the pavement; he lost himself.

When he raised his eyes, he found himself towards the middle of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. One of his brothers, Eugène Rougon, lived in a street close by, the Rue de Penthièvre. In coming to Paris, Aristide had especially counted upon Eugène who, after having been one of the most active agents of the Coup d'État, had now become an occult power, a lawyer of no particular standing but who was shortly to blossom into a great political personage. But, superstitious as a gambler, he was unwilling to knock at his brother's door on that evening. He slowly retraced his steps to the Rue Saint-Jacques, inwardly envying Eugène's lot, glancing down at his own shabby clothes still covered with the dust of the journey, and seeking to console himself by resuming his dream of riches. Even this dream had become bitter to him. Having started out through a necessity for expansion, joyfully enlivened by the busy activity of Paris trade, he returned home irritated at the happiness which seemed to him to be rampant in the streets, feeling more ferocious than ever, imagining all kinds of desperate struggles in which he would take pleasure in defeating and duping that crowd which had jostled him on the pavement. Never before had he felt so keen and vast an appetite, so immediate and ardent a necessity for enjoying.

On the morrow he was at his brother's, almost at daybreak. Eugène occupied two large cold rooms, very barely furnished, and which quite chilled Aristide. He had expected to find his brother sprawling in the lap of luxury. The latter was seated working at a little black table. He merely said in his slow voice, accompanying his words with a smile:

"Ah! it's you, I was expecting your visit."

Aristide was very bitter. He accused Eugène of having left him to vegetate, of not even having bestowed upon him so much as a word of advice during the time he had been dabbling about in his native province. He would never be able to forgive himself for having remained Republican up to the very day of the Coup d'État; it caused him the most poignant regret, and filled him with eternal confusion. Eugène had quietly taken up his pen again. When the other had finished speaking, he observed:

"Bah! all mistakes can be rectified. You have a fine future before you."

He uttered these words in so clear a tone of voice, and with so penetrating a glance, that Aristide bowed his head, feeling that his brother was descending into the innermost depths of his being. The latter continued with a sort of friendly bluntness:

"You've come to me to get you something to do, have you not? I've already thought of you, but I've found nothing as yet. You see, I can't put you into the first position that offers. You need an occupation that will enable you to carry on your little game without danger either to yourself or to me. Don't protest, we're alone here, and can say anything to each other."

Aristide thought it best to laugh.

"Oh! I know that you're intelligent," continued Eugène, "and that you're not likely to do anything foolish again without you reap some benefit from it. So soon as a good opportunity offers, I will do something for you. Meanwhile, if you should happen to be in want of a twenty-franc piece, come to me for it."

They talked for a few minutes about the insurrection in the South, through which their father had gained his appointment of tax collector. Eugène dressed himself while talking. Just as he was parting from his brother outside in the street, he detained him a moment longer to say in a lower tone of voice:

"By-the-way, you'll oblige me by not loafing about, but by quietly waiting at home for the berth I promise you. It would annoy me to see my brother dancing attendance on any one."

Aristide had a high respect for Eugène, who seemed to him a wonderfully smart fellow. He did not however forgive him his mistrust, nor his rather rough frankness; nevertheless he obediently went and shut himself up in the Rue Saint-Jacques. He had arrived with five hundred francs which his wife's father had lent him. After paying the expenses of the journey, he made the three hundred francs that remained to him last a month. Angèle was a hearty eater; moreover she thought it necessary to retrim her best dress with some mauve ribbons. This month of waiting appeared interminable to Aristide. He was burning with impatience. Each time he leaned out of his window and felt the gigantic labour of Paris beneath him, he experienced a mad longing to throw himself into the furnace with one bound, so as to mould the gold with his quivering fingers, as though it had been wax. He inhaled those still vague vapours which rose from the great city, that breath of the nascent Empire, laden already with the odours of alcoves and financial hells, with the warm effluvia of every kind of enjoyment. The faint fumes that reached him seemed to tell him that he was on the right scent, that the quarry was scudding along before him, that the grand imperial hunt, the pursuit of adventures, of women, and of millions, was about to begin. His nostrils quivered, his instinct of a famished beast caught in a marvellous manner as they passed the slightest signs of that fierce division of spoil of which the city was to be the scene.

Twice he called on his brother to urge him to be more expeditious. Eugène received him rather ungraciously, repeating that he was not forgetting him, but that it was necessary to wait patiently. At length Aristide received a letter requesting him to call in the Rue de Penthièvre. He hastened thither, his heart beating violently, as though he were on his way to a lovers' meeting. He found Eugène seated before the same little black table, in the large cold room which he used as a study. On his appearance the lawyer held a document towards him, saying:

"There, I settled your matter yesterday. You are appointed deputy trustee of roads at the Hôtel de Ville. You will be in receipt of a salary of two thousand four hundred francs."

Aristide had remained standing. He turned ghastly pale, and did not take the document, thinking that his brother was poking fun at him. He had at least expected an appointment worth six thousand francs a year. Eugène, guessing what was passing within him, wheeled his chair round and folded his arms.

"Are you a fool after all?" he asked angrily. "You've been building castles in the air like a girl, have you not? You would wish to have a grand establishment with footmen, to live on the fat of the land, sleep in silk, gratify your desires at once in no matter whose arms, in a boudoir furnished in a couple of hours. You and those like you, if we allowed you to have your way, would empty the coffers even before they were full. Now, in the name of all that's good! do have a little patience! See how I live, and do at least take the trouble to stoop to pick up a fortune."

He spoke with profound contempt of his brother's schoolboy impatience. One could feel, in his rough speech, a loftier ambition, a longing for untarnished power; that naive appetite for money no doubt appeared to him both paltry and puerile. He continued in a gentler voice and with a crafty smile:

"No doubt your propensities are excellent, and I have not the least desire to thwart them. Men like you are precious. We have every intention of choosing our friends from among the most hungry. You may be quite easy, we shall keep open house, and the greatest appetites will be satisfied. And this is after all the easiest way of reigning. But, for goodness sake, wait till the cloth is laid, and, if you'll accept my advice, just go yourself and fetch your knife and fork from the kitchen."

Aristide continued to look very glum. His brother's pleasant comparisons were unable to bring a smile to his countenance. Then the latter again gave way to anger.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "my first opinion was the right one: you're a fool! What on earth did you expect, whatever did you imagine I was going to do with your illustrious person? You didn't even have the courage to finish your reading for the bar, you went and buried yourself for ten years in the wretched berth of clerk at a sub-prefecture, and you come to me with the detestable reputation of a Republican whom the Coup d'État was alone able to convert. Do you think that with such a past there is the making of a cabinet minister in you? Oh! I know that you have in your favour a ferocious desire to reach the goal by any means possible. That is a great virtue, I admit, and it was precisely on that account that I obtained your admittance into the Hôtel de Ville."

And rising from his seat he placed the document containing the appointment in Aristide's hands.

"Take it," continued he, "you'll thank me some day. It's I who chose the berth, I know what you'll be able to get out of it. All you'll have to do will be to look about you and keep your ears open. If you are intelligent, you'll soon understand and know how to act. Now pay particular attention to what I am about to say to you. Make piles of money, I permit it; only do nothing foolish, no noisy scandal, otherwise I shall suppress you instantly."

This threat produced the effect his promises had been unable to obtain. All Aristide's ardour was rekindled at the thought of the fortune to which his brother alluded. It seemed to him that he was at last let loose in the thick of the fray, authorised to slaughter right and left, but legally, and without causing too much commotion. Eugène gave him two hundred francs to enable him to wait till the end of the month. Then he remained wrapt in thought.

"I'm thinking of changing my name," said he at length; "you ought to do the same. We should interfere with each other less."

"As you like," answered Aristide quietly.

"You need not trouble yourself about anything. I will attend to the necessary formalities. How would you like to call yourself by your wife's name Sicardot?"

Aristide glanced up at the ceiling, repeating the name, and listening to the sound of the syllables.

"Sicardot--Aristide Sicardot--no, on my word, it's clownish and has a suggestion of bankruptcy about it."

"Think of something better then," said Eugène.

"I would prefer Sicard without the ot," resumed the other after a pause; "Aristide Sicard--that isn't bad, is it? perhaps a bit jaunty--"

He stood thinking a few moments longer, and then triumphantly exclaimed:

"I've got it, I've found it at last! Saccard, Aristide Saccard! with a double c. Eh! there's money in such a name as that; it has a sound like the counting out of five franc pieces."

Eugène was rather brutal in his jokes. He dismissed his brother, saying to him with a smile:

"Yes, a name that will make you a convict or a millionaire."

A few days later Aristide Saccard found himself at the Hôtel de Ville. He there learnt that his brother must have commanded considerable influence to get him appointed without the customary examinations.

Then the couple began the monotonous life of the underpaid clerk. Aristide and his wife resumed their old Plassans ways. Only they fell from a dream of sudden fortune, and their poverty-stricken existence weighed heavier upon them, now that they looked upon it as a time of probation, the duration of which they were unable to fix. To be poor in Paris, is to be doubly poor. Angèle accepted the wretchedness of their position with all the listlessness of a chlorotic woman. She spent days in her kitchen, or else lying on the floor, playing with her daughter, and never lamenting except when she reached her last twenty-sou piece. But Aristide quivered with rage in the midst of this poverty, of this narrow existence, out of which he sought an issue like some caged beast. To him it was a period of ineffable suffering; his pride was wounded, his unsated cravings goaded him furiously. And he suffered all the more on learning that his brother had been elected to represent Plassans in Parliament. He felt too much Eugène's superiority to be foolishly jealous; but he accused him of not doing all that he might have done for him. On several occasions, absolute necessity forced him to knock at his door for the purpose of borrowing a trifle. Eugène lent the money, but at the same time roughly reproached him with being destitute of both courage and will. Then Aristide took the bull indeed by the horns. He swore to himself that he would never again borrow so much as a sou from any one, and he kept his oath. The last eight days of each month, Angèle would eat dry bread and sigh. This apprenticeship completed Saccard's terrible education. His thin lips became narrower still; he was no longer so stupid as to dream of millions out loud; his scraggy person became dumb, and no longer expressed but one will, one fixed idea nursed at every hour of the day. When he hurried along from the Rue Saint-Jacques to the Hôtel de Ville, his boots worn down at heel resounded harshly on the pavement, and he buttoned himself up in his shabby old overcoat as though in an asylum of hatred, while his weasel-like snout sniffed the air of the streets. He was an angular figure of the jealous misery that one sees roaming along the Paris side-walks, carrying with him his plan for conquering a fortune, and the dream of the eventual gratification of his appetite.

Early in 1853, Aristide Saccard was appointed trustee of roads. He now received a salary of four thousand five hundred francs. This rise came at an opportune moment; Angèle was slowly wasting away; little Clotilde was looking quite pale. He retained his small lodging of two rooms, the dining-room furnished in walnut, and the bedroom in mahogany, continuing to lead an austere life, carefully avoiding getting into debt, unwilling to touch other people's money until he could bury his arms into it to the elbows. He thus belied his instincts, disdaining the few extra sous he received, preferring to remain on the watch. Angèle felt completely happy. She bought herself some new clothes, and had a joint to roast every day of the week. She could no longer understand the reason of her husband's suppressed passion, his gloomy ways of a man working out the solution of some formidable problem.

Acting on Eugène's advice, Aristide was keeping his eyes and ears open. When he went to thank his brother for his promotion, the latter understood the revolution that had taken place within him; he complimented him on what he called his good appearance. The clerk, whom envy was inwardly rendering inflexible, had outwardly become pliant and insinuating. In a few months he was transformed into a marvellous comedian. All his southern animation had awakened, and he carried the art so far that his comrades at the Hôtel de Ville looked upon him as a jolly good fellow, whose near relationship to a deputy designed beforehand for some grand appointment. This relationship also secured him the good will of his chiefs. He thus enjoyed a kind of authority superior to his position, which enabled him to open certain doors, and to poke his nose into certain portfolios, without his indiscretion appearing in the least culpable. For two years he was seen roaming about all the passages, lingering in all the rooms, getting up from his seat twenty times a day to talk to a comrade, carry an order, or take a stroll through the different departments, endless wanderings which caused his colleagues to say:

"That devil of a Southerner! he can't keep still a minute; he must indeed have quicksilver in his legs."

His own particular friends took him for a lazy fellow, and the worthy man laughed when they accused him of seeking to rob the service of a few minutes. He never committed the mistake of listening at key-holes; but he had a bold way of opening doors, and crossing rooms, apparently deeply intent upon some document or other in his hand, and with so slow and regular a walk that he never lost a word of whatever was being said. They were the tactics of a genius; people ended by no longer interrupting their conversation when this energetic clerk passed by, gliding so to say in the shadow of the offices, and seemingly so wrapt in his own business. He had yet another method; he was extremely obliging, and would offer to assist his comrades, whenever they were behindhand with their work; and then he would study the registers and the documents that passed through his hands with quite a meditative tenderness. But one of his favourite peccadilloes was to form acquaintance with the messengers. He would even shake hands with them. For hours together he would keep them talking in doorways, stifling little bursts of laughter, telling them stories, and drawing them out. These worthy fellows quite worshipped him, and were in the habit of saying:

"There's a gentleman who isn't a bit proud!"

The moment there was the least scandal, he knew of it before any one. It was thus that at the end of two years the Hôtel de Ville held no mysteries for him. He knew everybody employed there, even to the lamp cleaners, and was acquainted with every paper the place contained, not omitting the washing books.

At this time, Paris formed, for a man like Aristide Saccard, a most interesting spectacle. The Empire had just been proclaimed, after that famous journey during which the Prince President had succeeded in arousing the enthusiasm of some Bonapartist departments. Silence reigned both at the tribune and in the press. Society, saved once more, was congratulating itself and indolently resting, now that a strong government was protecting it and relieving it even of the trouble of thinking and of attending to its own business. The great preoccupation of society was to know in what way it should kill time. As Eugène Rougon so happily expressed it, Paris was dining and anticipating no end of pleasure at dessert. Politics produced an universal scare, like some dangerous drug. The wearied minds turned to pleasure and money-making. Those who had any of the latter brought it out, and those who had none sought in all the out-of-the-way places for forgotten treasures. A secret quiver seemed to run through the multitude, accompanied by a nascent jingling of five-franc pieces, by the rippling laughter of women, and the yet faint clatter of crockery and murmur of kisses. Amidst the great silence of the reign of order, the profound peacefulness brought by the change of government, there arose all sorts of pleasant rumours, gilded and voluptuous promises. It was as though one were passing in front of one of those little houses, the carefully drawn curtains of which reveal no more than the shadows of women, and where one can overhear the jingling of gold on the marble mantelpieces. The Empire was about to turn Paris into the bagnio of Europe. The handful of adventurers who had just stolen a throne needed a reign of adventure, of shadowy business transactions, of consciences sold, of women bought, of furious and universal intoxication. And, in the city where the blood of December was scarcely wiped away, there slowly uprose, timidly as yet, that mad desire for enjoyment which was destined to bring the country to the lowest dregs of corrupt and dishonoured nations.

From the very first days Aristide Saccard had felt the approach of this rising tide of speculation, the foam of which was soon to envelop the whole of Paris. He watched its progress with profound attention. He found himself right in the very midst of the warm downpour of silver crowns falling thick and fast on to the roofs of the city. In his constant wanderings through the Hôtel de Ville, he had obtained an inkling of the vast project for the transformation of Paris, of the plan of the demolitions and of the new thoroughfares and the altered districts, of the formidable jobbery with respect to the sale of the land and the buildings, which was kindling all over the town the battle of interests and the flare-up of unbridled luxury. From that moment his activity had an object. It was at this epoch that he became quite a jolly good fellow. He even grew a trifle stout, he no longer hurried about the streets like a half starved cat in search of something to devour. At his office he was more talkative, more obliging than ever. His brother, to whom he paid occasional visits, in some measure official, congratulated him on so happily putting his counsels into practice. In the early days of 1854, Saccard confided to him that he had several affairs in view, but that he would require some rather large advances in the way of money.

"You should look about," said Eugène.

"You are right, I will look about," he replied without the least trace of ill-humour, and without appearing to notice that his brother declined to furnish him with the necessary funds.

How to procure this money had now become his constant thought. His plan was formed; it grew maturer every day. But he was as far as ever from obtaining the first few thousands of francs he required. His faculties became keener; he began to look at people in a profound and nervous manner, as though he were seeking a lender in every passer-by. Angèle continued to lead at home her secluded and happy existence. He was for ever watching for an opportunity, and his laugh of a jolly good fellow became more bitter as this opportunity delayed in presenting itself.

Aristide had a sister living in Paris. Sidonie Rougon had married a solicitor's clerk at Plassans, who had come with her to the Rue Saint-Honoré to start business as a dealer in Southern commodities. When her brother came across her, the husband had disappeared, and the business had long ago gone to the dogs. She occupied in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, a small mezzanine floor consisting of three rooms. She also leased the shop beneath, a narrow and mysterious shop in which she pretended to carry on the business of a dealer in lace. True enough, there was a display of Valenciennes and Maltese lace suspended from gilt rods in the window; but inside, the place had more the look of an ante-room, with its polished wainscotting, and a total absence of goods of any description. Light curtains hung before the glazed door and the window, intercepting the glances of the passers-by, and helping to give the shop the veiled and discreet appearance of a waiting-room at the entrance to some strange temple. It was very seldom that any customer was seen to call at Madame Sidonie's; the handle was even generally removed from the door. She spread a report in the neighbourhood that she went personally to offer her wares to ladies of fortune. The convenient arrangement of the place, she would say, had alone caused her to rent the shop and the floor above which communicated by a staircase hidden in the wall. And indeed the lace-dealer was constantly out of doors; she might be seen hurrying in or out at least ten times a day.

The lace trade, however, was not her only business; she utilised her upper floor--cramming it full of merchandise of one sort or another, bought up no one knew where. At different times she had dealt there in gutta-percha goods, such as waterproof coats, shoes, braces, &c; then had followed a new oil to promote the growth of the hair, various orthopedic instruments, and an automatic coffee-pot, a patented invention, the working of which gave her a great deal of trouble. The first time her brother came to see her, she had gone in for pianos, to such an extent that her apartments were full of them; they were even in her bedroom, a very daintily decorated room, which contrasted violently with the commercial untidiness of the two others. She carried on her two businesses with perfect method; the customers who came for the goods on the mezzanine floor, entered and departed by means of a carriage entrance which gave admittance to the house from the Rue Papillon; only those acquainted with the mysterious little staircase were able to form an idea of the lace-dealer's underhand trading. Up in her apartments she was known as Madame Touche, which was the name of her husband, whilst she had had only her Christian name painted on the shop-door, which was the reason for her being generally addressed as Madame Sidonie.

Madame Sidonie was thirty-five years of age, but she dressed so carelessly, she had so little of the woman in her appearance, that one would have taken her to be much older. In truth, she was a person whose age it would have been difficult to tell. She was always seen in the same black dress, frayed at the edges, rumpled and discoloured by constant wear, reminding one of a lawyer's old gown become threadbare through years of daily attendance in court. With a black bonnet which came as low as her forehead and hid all her hair, and a pair of thick heavy shoes, she scurried along the streets, carrying on her arm a little basket the handles of which had been mended with pieces of string. This basket, which never left her, was quite a little world in itself. Whenever she raised the lid, samples of all sorts issued forth, diaries, pocket books, and especially bundles of stamped documents, the almost illegible writing of which she deciphered with extraordinary dexterity. She comprised in her person something of the broker and of the man of law. She lived amidst protests, writs, and orders of the court; when she had secured an order for ten francs' worth of pomatum or lace, she would insinuate herself into the good graces of her customer, and become her man of business, calling in her stead on solicitors, barristers and judges.

She would thus carry for weeks together at the bottom of her basket all the documents relating to a case, taking no end of trouble about it, going from one end of Paris to the other, with the same regular little trot-trot, never for a moment thinking of riding to save her legs. It would have been difficult to say what profit she obtained from such a business; in the first place she engaged in it through an instinctive taste for questionable matters, a love for cavilling; besides this, however, it enabled her to secure a host of little profits; invitations to dinner in every direction, innumerable franc pieces pocketed here and there. But her clearest gain was undoubtedly the numerous secrets confided to her wherever she went, which showed her where a good stroke of business was to be done or a handsome windfall to be obtained. Living in the homes of others and wrapt up in their affairs, she had become a veritable repertory existing on offers and demands. She knew where there was a daughter ready to be married at once, a family in need of three thousand francs, an old gentleman willing to lend the three thousand francs, but on substantial security and at a high rate of interest. She knew of matters more delicate still: the sadness of a fair lady whose husband did not understand her, and who longed to be understood; the secret desires of a good mother who dreamed of settling her daughter advantageously; the taste of a certain baron for little supper-parties and very young girls. And smiling faintly, she went about hawking these offers and these demands, she would walk a couple of leagues to bring her clients together; she sent the baron to the good mother, prevailed upon the old gentleman to lend the three thousand francs to the needy family, obtained the necessary consolation for the fair lady and a not over-scrupulous husband for the young girl in a hurry to marry.

She was also engaged in some very important business, business that there was no occasion to keep secret, and with which she pestered whoever went near her: an interminable law-suit that a noble but ruined family had intrusted her with, and a debt owing by the English to the French nation since the time of the Stuarts, and which amounted with the compound interest to nearly three milliards of francs. This debt of three milliards was her hobby-horse; she would explain the case with no end of particulars, launching out into quite a course of history, and a flush of enthusiasm would rush to her cheeks, usually yellow and flabby like wax. At times, between a call on a lawyer and a visit paid to a lady friend, she would secure an order for a coffee-pot, a mackintosh, a piece of lace, or a piano on hire. These were matters arranged in a moment. Then she would hurry back to her shop, where a lady customer had an appointment with her to see a piece of Chantilly. The customer arrived and glided like a shadow into the discreet and veiled shop. And it often happened that a gentleman, entering by way of the carriage entrance in the Rue Papillon, called at the same time to see Madame Touche's pianos on the floor above.

If Madame Sidonie had not made a fortune, it was because she often worked for love of the thing. With a great hankering after legal business, forgetting her own affairs for those of others, she allowed herself to be fleeced by the lawyers, which procured her, however, an enjoyment unknown to any but litigious persons. There was scarcely anything womanly left about her; she had become nothing more nor less than a man of business, an agent ever bustling about the four corners of Paris, carrying in her legendary basket articles of the most equivocal description, selling every thing, dreaming of milliards, and even going to the court-house for a favourite client to plead in a case of a disputed ten francs. Short, skinny and pale, dressed in that thin black garment which looked as though it had been cut out of a barrister's gown, she seemed to have shrivelled up, and to see her scuttling along close to the houses, one would have taken her for an errand-boy disguised as a girl. Her complexion had the mournful wanness of stamped paper. Her lips parted in a dim smile, whilst her eyes seemed to be wandering amidst the hubbub of business, matters of every description with which she loaded her brain. Of discreet and timid ways, moreover, combined with a vague odour of the confessional and a midwife's sanctum, she always appeared as gentle and maternal as a nun who, having renounced all the affections of this world, takes pity on the sufferings of the heart. She never mentioned her husband, neither did she allude to her childhood, her family, or her affairs. There was only one thing she did not deal in, and that was herself; not that she had any scruples about the matter, but because the idea of such a bargain could never occur to her. She was as dry as an invoice, as cold as a protest, and at heart as brutal and indifferent as a bumbailiff.

Saccard, all fresh from his province, could not at first fathom the delicate depths of Madame Sidonie's numerous callings. As he had during twelve months studied for the bar, she one day spoke to him of the three milliards with a very grave air, which gave him but a poor opinion of her intelligence. She came and rummaged in all the corners of the lodging in the Rue Saint-Jacques, weighed Angèle at a glance, and never again put in an appearance excepting when her own affairs brought her into the neighbourhood, and when she felt a desire to again discuss the question of the three milliards. Angèle had swallowed the bait of the story of the English debt. The woman of business mounted her hobby, and made it rain gold for an hour or more. It was the crack in this shrewd intellect, the gentle myth with which she deluded her life wasted in a wretched traffic, the magical lure that intoxicated not only herself but the more credulous of her clients. Thoroughly convinced, moreover, she ended by speaking of the three milliards as of some private fortune, which the judges would have to restore to her sooner or later, and this shed a marvellous aureola around her shabby black bonnet on which hung a few faded violets attached to brass-wire stems bare of all covering. Angèle would open her eyes wide with amazement. On several occasions, she spoke to her husband of her sister-in-law with great respect, saying that Madame Sidonie would perhaps make them all rich one day. Saccard merely shrugged his shoulders; he had gone and inspected the shop and floor above in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, and the only impression he had taken away with him was that of an approaching bankruptcy. He wished to know Eugène's opinion of their sister; but his brother became grave and merely replied that he never saw her, that he knew she was very intelligent, though perhaps rather compromising.

However as Saccard was returning to the Rue de Penthièvre some little while afterwards, he fancied he saw Madame Sidonie's black dress leave his brother's abode and glide rapidly along the houses. He hastened forward, but lost all trace of the black garment. The woman of business had one of those spare figures which so easily lose themselves in a crowd. This set him thinking, and it was from this moment that he commenced to study his sister more attentively. It was not long before he began to understand the immense task performed by that pale and shadowy little body, whose entire face seemed to squint and melt away. He came to look upon her with respect. She had the true Rougon blood in her veins. He recognised that appetite for money, that longing for every kind of intrigue which was characteristic of the family; only, in her case, thanks to the surroundings amidst which she had grown old, thanks to that Paris where every morning she had been obliged to set forth to seek her evening meal, the common temperament had deviated from its usual course to produce this extraordinary hermaphrodism of a woman changed into a being without a gender, both man of business and procuress at the same time.

When Saccard, after having fixed upon his plan, was seeking for the means for putting it into execution, he naturally bethought him of his sister. She shook her head, and with a sigh alluded to the three milliards. But the civil servant would not humour her whim, he pulled her up rather roughly each time she mentioned the debt connected with the Stuarts; such a chimera seemed to him to dishonour so practical an intelligence. Madame Sidonie, who quietly swallowed the most cutting irony without in any way allowing her convictions to be shaken, next explained to him in a very lucid manner that he would never raise a sou, having no security to offer. This conversation took place opposite the Bourse, where she no doubt dabbled with her savings. Towards three o'clock one was sure to find her leaning against the railing to the left, near the post-office; it was there that she gave audience to individuals as fishy and shadowy as herself. Her brother was on the point of leaving her, when she murmured regretfully: "Ah! if only you were not married!" This reticence, the full and exact sense of which he was unwilling to ask, made Saccard singularly thoughtful.

Months passed by, the Crimean war had just been declared. Paris, quite unaffected by a war so far away, was launching with more ardour than ever into speculation and women; whilst Saccard stood by gnawing his fists as he assisted at this ever increasing mania which he had long before foreseen. The hammers in the gigantic forge beating the gold upon the anvil made him quiver with rage and impatience. His intelligence and his will were worked up to such a pitch that he lived as in a dream, like a somnambulist walking along the edge of a roof a prey to some fixed idea. He was therefore surprised and annoyed one evening to find Angèle ill and in bed. His home-life, regulated like a clock, was getting out of order, and this exasperated him like some intentional spitefulness of destiny. Poor Angèle complained in a gentle voice; she had taken a severe chill. When the doctor arrived, he appeared very anxious; he told the husband, outside on the landing, that his wife was suffering from inflammation of the lungs and that he could not answer for her life. From that moment the civil servant tended the invalid without a vestige of anger; he no longer went to his office, he remained beside her, watching her with an indefinable expression as she lay sleeping, flushed and panting with fever.

Madame Sidonie, in spite of the overwhelming business which claimed her attention, found time to call each evening to make diet drinks which she pretended were sovereign remedies. To all her other trades she could add that of a sick-nurse by vocation, taking an interest in suffering, in medicaments, and in the heart-rending conversations which go on at the bedsides of those about to depart this life. Besides this, she seemed to be full of a tender friendship for Angèle; she loved women of amorous natures, showing her affection by a thousand little caressing ways, no doubt because of the pleasure they gave mankind; she treated them with the delicate attentions which dealers show towards the more precious of their wares, calling them "My beauty, my darling," cooing and almost swooning before them, like a lover in the presence of his mistress. Though Angèle was one of those from whom she expected nothing, she petted her up like the others, just by way of principle. When the young woman took to her bed, Madame Sidonie's effusions became quite pathetic, she filled the silent chamber with demonstrations of her devotion. Her brother watched her moving about, his teeth tightly set, and looking as though utterly wrapt up in a silent grief.

The disease took a turn for the worse. One evening the doctor informed them that the patient would not live through the night. Madame Sidonie had called early, with a preoccupied air, and she kept looking at Aristide and Angèle out of her watery eyes, lighted up every now and then by sudden flashes of fire. When the doctor had taken his departure, she turned down the lamp, and a great silence enveloped all. Death was slowly entering into this warm and dampish room, where the irregular breathing of the dying woman resembled the spasmodic ticking of a clock about to stop. Madame Sidonie had given up the diet drinks, and now allowed the disease to go its course. She had seated herself before the fire-place, at the side of her brother, who was stirring the coals with a feverish hand, and casting now and again an involuntary glance at the bed. Then, as though enervated by the close atmosphere, and by the sad spectacle, he withdrew into the adjoining room. Little Clotilde had been shut in there, and was playing very quietly with her doll on the edge of the rug. His daughter was smiling up at him when Madame Sidonie, creeping to where he stood, drew him into a corner, and commenced to speak in a hushed voice. The door had remained ajar. One could hear the faint rattle in Angèle's throat.

"Your poor wife," sobbed the business woman. "I fear the end is at hand. You heard what the doctor said?"

For all answer Saccard mournfully bowed his head.

"She was a good creature," continued the other, speaking as though Angèle were already dead and buried. "You may find many richer women, and ones more used to the world, but you will never meet with another heart like hers."

And as she stopped, and set to mopping her eyes, as though seeking a means of bringing the conversation to the subject she was driving at.

"You have something to tell me?" asked Saccard, without any beating about the bush.

"Yes, I have been busying myself about you, in reference to the matter you spoke of, and I think I have found something--but at such a moment--you see, my heart is bursting."

She mopped her eyes again. Saccard let her have her way, and did not utter a word. Then she made up her mind to speak.

"It's a young girl, her relations wish to see her married at once," said she. "The dear child has met with a misfortune. There is an aunt who will be willing to make any sacrifice--"

She interrupted herself, she was continuing to moan, drawling out her words as though she were still pitying poor Angèle. She did this with a view of making her brother lose patience and forcing him to question her, so as not to have the whole responsibility of the offer she was about to make him. And, indeed, an inward feeling of irritation began to work upon the civil servant.

"Come, say what you have to say!" said he. "Why do they wish to see this young girl married?"

"She had just left school," resumed the woman of business in a doleful voice, "and a man seduced her, down in the country, at the home of one of her schoolfellows where she was staying. The father has just discovered her condition. He wished to kill her. The aunt, to save the dear child, made herself her accomplice, and they have both of them told the father a story, to the effect that the seducer was a worthy fellow who was longing to redeem his momentary error."

"Therefore," said Saccard in a tone of surprise and as though annoyed, "the man in the country is going to marry the young girl?"

"No, he cannot, he is already married."

A pause ensued. The rattle in Angèle's throat resounded more painfully in the quivering atmosphere. Little Clotilde had ceased playing; she was now looking at Madame Sidonie and her father, with her great eyes of a thoughtful child, as though she had understood their words. Saccard began to put a few brief questions.

"How old is the young girl?"

"Nineteen."

"How long has she been in her present condition?"

"Three months. There will no doubt be a miscarriage."

"And the family is a wealthy and honourable one?"

"An old middle-class family. The father was a judge. A very handsome fortune."

"What is the aunt prepared to give?"

"A hundred thousand francs."

Another pause ensued. Madame Sidonie was no longer blubbering; she was on business, her voice assumed the metallic jingle of a second-hand dealer trying to drive a bargain. Her brother took a covert glance at her, and added with some slight hesitation:

"And you, what will you want?"

"We'll talk of that later on," replied she. "You can do me a service in your turn."

She waited a few seconds, and as he remained silent, she asked him plainly:

"Well, what have you decided? These poor women are in despair; they wish to prevent a scandal. They have promised the father to tell him to-morrow the name of the seducer. If you accept, I will send them one of your cards by a commissionaire."

Saccard seemed to awaken from a dream; he started, and turned with a frightened air towards the adjoining room, where he fancied he had heard a slight noise.

"But I cannot," said he with anguish; "you know very well that I cannot."

Madame Sidonie looked at him fixedly, with a cold and disdainful gaze. All the Rougon blood, all his ardent longings came rushing back to his throat. He took a card from his pocket-book and gave it to his sister, who, after carefully scratching out the address, placed it in an envelope. She then went out. It was barely nine o'clock.

Left alone, Saccard went and pressed his forehead against the icy cold window panes. He forgot himself so far as to beat the tattoo on the glass with the tips of his fingers. But the night was so black, the darkness outside hung about in such strange masses, that he could not help experiencing a feeling of uneasiness, and he mechanically returned to the room in which Angèle was dying. He had quite forgotten her, and received a terrible shock on finding her half raised up in bed on her pillows; her eyes were wide open, a flush of life seemed to have returned to her lips and cheeks. Little Clotilde, still holding her doll, was seated on the edge of the bed; the moment her father had turned his back she had quickly glided into that chamber from which she had so long been kept, and to which her gladsome childish curiosity attracted her. His head full of what his sister had been saying to him, Saccard suddenly beheld his dream dashed to pieces. A frightful thought must have glared from out his eyes. Seized with terror, Angèle tried to bury herself in the bedclothes right up against the wall; but death was nigh, this awakening in the midst of the last agony was the supreme flicker of the lamp going out. The dying woman was unable to move, and as her last remnant of strength left her, she continued to keep her wide open eyes fixed on her husband, as though to watch his every movement.

Saccard, who for a moment had believed in some diabolical resurrection, invented by destiny to keep him in poverty, became reassured on seeing that the wretched woman had scarcely another hour to live. His other feelings gave way to one of intolerable uneasiness. Angèle's eyes said plainly enough that she had overheard the conversation between her husband and Madame Sidonie, and that she feared he would strangle her if she did not die quick enough. And her eyes were also full of the horrible amazement of a gentle and inoffensive nature which learns at the last moment the infamies of this world, and shudders at the thought of having passed years side by side with a bandit. By degrees her look became more kind; she was no longer frightened, she no doubt found excuses for the wretch as she recollected the desperate struggle he had been maintaining so long against fate. Followed by the dying woman's gaze, in which he read such bitter reproach, Saccard clung to the furniture for support, and sought the darkest corner of the room. Then, feeling on the point of fainting, he tried to drive away this nightmare which was maddening him, and advanced into the light of the lamp. But Angèle motioned him not to speak, and she continued looking at him with that air of terror-stricken anguish, to which was now joined a promise of pardon. Then he stooped to take up Clotilde in his arms and carry her into the other room. She again forbade him with a movement of her lips. She insisted upon his remaining where he was. She slowly passed away, not once removing her gaze from him, and as he paled beneath it, this gaze grew more and more benign. She forgave with her last sigh. She died as she had lived, tamely; her diffidence in life attending her till death. Saccard stood shivering before the dead woman's eyes, which remained wide open, and transfixed him by their very immobility. Little Clotilde nursed her doll on the edge of the sheet, very gently though, so as not to wake her mother.

When Madame Sidonie got back it was all over. Like a woman in the habit of performing such operations, she deftly closed Angèle's eyes with a touch of her fingers, and this was an immense relief to Saccard. Then, after putting the little girl to bed, she quickly arranged the room as befits the chamber of death. When she had lighted two candles on the chest of drawers, and carefully drawn the sheet up to the chin of the corpse, she cast a satisfied glance around her, and ensconced herself in an easy-chair, where she dozed till daybreak. Saccard passed the night in the adjoining room, writing letters announcing his wife's death. He interrupted himself now and again, musing and adding up columns of figures on odd bits of paper.