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

the Opposition.’ *
    Pillerault just shrugged. Carnot and Garnier-Pagès added to the benches of the Left, what did it matter?
    ‘It’s like the Duchies question,’ * Moser went on, ‘it’s really fraught with complications… No, really, it’s no laughing matter. I’m not saying we had to go to war with Prussia to stop it getting fat at Denmark’s expense; but there were some possibilities for action… Yes, indeed, when big fish start eating the little fish you can’t tell where it will all end * … And as for Mexico…’ *
    Pillerault, who was enjoying one of his days of total contentment, interrupted him with a roar of laughter:
    ‘Oh, no, my dear chap, don’t bother us any more with your terrors over Mexico; that will be the most glorious page in the history of the reign… * Where the devil do you get the idea that the Empire is sick? Didn’t the three hundred million loan get covered more than fifteen times over, back in January? * An overwhelming success!… Anyway, let’s talk again in ’67, yes, in three years’ time, when they’ll be opening the Universal Exhibition the Emperor has just announced.’
    ‘Things are really bad, I tell you,’ Moser insisted in desperation.
    ‘Oh, give it a rest, everything’s fine.’
    Salmon looked from one to the other, smiling with his air of profundity. And Saccard, who had been listening to them, began to connect the difficulties of his own personal situation with the crisis the Empire seemed to be heading for. He had been brought down once again: and this Empire that had created him, was that too going to tumble, suddenly crumbling from the highest down to the most wretched of destinies? Ah, for twelve years now he had loved and defended this regime, feeling himself living and growing, and swelling with sap, like a tree with its roots plunged deep in the nourishing earth. But if his brother intended to uproot him, if he was to be cut off from those who enjoyed the fruits of that rich soil, then let it all be swept away in the final grand debacle that marks the end of nights of festivity.
    Now he was just waiting for his asparagus, quite detached from this room with its ever-increasing bustle, lost in his memories. In a big mirror on the opposite wall he had just seen his reflection, and it had surprised him. Age didn’t seem to have made any impression on his slight figure; at fifty he looked no more than thirty-eight, still as slim and lively as any young man. Indeed, with the years his dark and hollowed marionette face, with its pointed nose and narrow, gleaming eyes, seemed to have taken on the charm of this persistent youthfulness, so supple, so active, his hair still thick, with no trace of grey. And inevitably he recalled his arrival in Paris, immediately after the
coup d’état
, * that winter evening when he had found himself out on the street, with empty pockets, ravenously hungry, and tormented by all sorts of raging appetites. Oh! that first race through the streets when, even before unpacking his trunk, he had had to launch himself upon the city, in his worn-out boots and greasy overcoat, eager to conquer it! Since that evening he had risen in the world many times, and a river of millions of francs had flowed through his hands, but he had never been able to make fortune his slave, like a personal possession, at his disposal, alive, real, and kept under lock and key. His coffers had always been full of lies and fictions, with mysterious holes that seemed to drain away their gold. And now here he was back on the street again, just as he started out long ago, just as young, just as hungry, never satisfied, and still tortured by the same need for pleasures and conquests. He had tasted everything without ever satisfying his appetite, never, he thought, having had the time and opportunity to bite deeply enough into people and things. Now he felt quite wretched, agood deal worse off than a mere beginner, who would have hope and illusion to sustain