Free Money (Oxford World’s Classics) by Émile Zola Page B

no one knows where it came from… I ask you, war! Who can possibly have invented that? Unless it just invented itself… Honestly, a bolt from the blue!’
    Jantrou gave a wink.
    ‘The lady’s still at it?’
    ‘Oh! like a madwoman! I’m taking her orders over to Nathansohn.’
    Saccard, who was listening, reflected aloud:
    ‘Oh yes! indeed, I’d been told that Nathansohn had entered the kerb market.’
    ‘A very nice young chap, Nathansohn,’ said Jantrou, ‘he deserves to be successful. We were together at the Crédit Mobilier… But he’ll get on all right, since he’s a Jew. His father is an Austrian, living in Besançon, a watchmaker I believe… You know, one day, there at the Crédit, seeing how it all worked, he got the idea. He decided it wasn’t all that clever; all you needed was a room with a railed-off counter such as bank-cashiers have, so he opened a counter… And you, Massias, are you doing well?’
    ‘Doing well? Oh, you’ve been through it, you’re right to say you have to be a Jew; without that, no good trying to understand, one doesn’t have the flair, it’s just filthy luck… What a rotten job! But once in it, one stays in it. Besides, I still have good strong legs, so I keep hoping.’
    And off he ran with a laugh. He was said to be the son of a disgraced magistrate from Lyons, who, after his father disappeared, decided not to go on with his law studies and ended up in the Bourse.
    Saccard and Jantrou, walking slowly, came back towards the Rue Brongniart; there they again saw the coupé of the Baroness; but the windows were raised and the mysterious vehicle seemed quite empty, while the coachman seemed even more still than before, in his long wait that often lasted until the close of the market.
    ‘She is devilishly exciting,’ Saccard brusquely remarked, ‘I can understand the old Baron.’
    Jantrou gave an odd smile.
    ‘Oh! The Baron had enough some time ago, I believe. And he’s very miserly, they say… So do you know who she’s taken up with, to pay her bills—since she never makes enough on the market?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Delcambre.’
    ‘Delcambre, the Public Prosecutor, that dry stick of a man, so jaundiced and stiff!… Oh, I’d really like to see those two together!’
    At this the two men, highly amused and titillated, went their separate ways with a vigorous handshake, one reminding the other that he would take the liberty of calling on him shortly.
    As soon as he was alone again Saccard was once more overtaken by the loud voice of the Bourse, breaking over his head with the insistence of a flood-tide on the turn. He had gone round the corner now, and was walking back towards the Rue Vivienne, along that side of the square which, lacking any cafés, looks rather severe. He carried on past the Chamber of Commerce, the post-office, and the large advertising agencies, getting more and more deafened and feverish as he came back in front of the main façade; and when he managed to cast a sideways glance over the portico he paused anew, as if not yet ready to complete the tour of the colonnade and end this sort of passionate siege in which he was enfolding it. Here, on this wider part of the pavement, life was in full swing, even bursting out: a flood of customers filled the cafés, the patisserie was permanently crowded; the window displays were bringing the crowds flocking, especially the goldsmith’s, ablaze with large pieces of silverware. And at the four corners, the four intersections, the flow of cabs and pedestrians grew ever more intense, in an inextricable tangle, while the omnibus office added to the congestion and the jobbers’ carriages stood in line, blocking the pavement from one end of the railings to the other. But Saccard’s eyes were glued to the top of the steps, where the frock-coats followed one another in the sunshine. Then his gaze went back up towards the columns, into the compact mass, a swarming blackness brightened only by the pale patches of