Money (Oxford World’s Classics) by Émile Zola Read Free Book Online Page A

Levantine with a long, brown face, lit up by magnificent, dark eyes and marred only by a poor and rather disturbing mouth. The friendliness of this young man further exasperated Saccard: he was a defaulter from some foreign Stock Exchange, one of those mysterious fellows that women love. He hadmade an appearance on the market the previous autumn, and Saccard had already seen him acting as frontman in some banking disaster, but he was gradually winning the trust of both the trading-floor and the kerb market * by his studied correctness and untiring graciousness even towards the most disreputable.
    A waiter was now standing over Saccard:
    ‘What can I get for Monsieur?’
    ‘Ah, yes… Whatever’s going, a cutlet, some asparagus.’
    Then he called the waiter back:
    ‘You’re quite sure Monsieur Huret didn’t come in before me, and then leave?’
    ‘Oh, absolutely sure.’
    So that’s how things now stood, since the disaster last October when he had once again been forced into liquidation and had to sell his mansion in the Parc Monceau * and rent an apartment. Now only people like Sabatani would greet him; his arrival in a restaurant where he had once ruled the roost no longer made every head turn and every hand stretch out towards him. He was a good loser and felt no resentment over that last scandalous and disastrous land-deal, * in which he had only just managed to save his skin, but a fever of revenge was awakening within him. The absence of Huret, who had solemnly promised to be there at eleven to let him know the result of the approach he’d undertaken to make on Saccard’s behalf to his brother Rougon, now the powerful government minister, * made him furious above all with the latter. Huret, a docile member of Parliament, * a mere creature of the great man, was but an emissary. But Rougon, with all that power, could he really just abandon him? He had never been a good brother. It was quite understandable that he’d been angry over the disaster, and had broken with him to avoid being compromised himself; but after six months shouldn’t he secretly have come to his aid? And would he now have the heart to refuse this last bit of support that he was having to seek through an intermediary, not daring to see him in person for fear of an explosion of rage? Rougon had only to say the word and he could set him back on his feet again, with the whole of great, cowardly Paris under his heel.
    ‘What wine for Monsieur?’ asked the wine-waiter.
    ‘The house Bordeaux.’
    Lost in thought, and not at all hungry, Saccard was letting his cutlet get cold, but he looked up when a shadow fell across the table.It was Massias, a big, ruddy-faced chap, a jobber, * who when Saccard first met him had been poor and needy; he was sliding around the tables with his list of share-prices in his hand. Saccard felt sickened to see him glide past without stopping, then go on to show the list to Pillerault and Moser. Involved in their discussion, they paid no attention to him and scarcely glanced at the list. No, they had no orders for him, perhaps some other time. Massias, not daring to approach the celebrated Amadieu, who was bent over his lobster salad and talking quietly to Mazaud, went back to Salmon, who took the list and studied it at length before handing it back without a word. The dining-room was getting busier as more jobbers came in, keeping the doors constantly swinging. Shouts were being exchanged across the room, and business was growing more and more feverish as the hour advanced. Saccard, with his eyes constantly returning to look outside, could see the Place de la Bourse gradually filling up as carriages and pedestrians flowed in; on the steps of the Bourse, now dazzlingly bright in the sun, men were already appearing one by one, like so many black specks.
    ‘I tell you again,’ said Moser in his lugubrious voice, ‘these March by-elections are an extremely worrying sign… Indeed, it means the whole of Paris gained for