THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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СКАЧАТЬ forgeries he had committed. His mind was undoubtedly disordered. The man was ill, the fever of speculation which devoured him had brought him little by little to look upon crime as an excellent medium, provided the crime remained concealed and unpunished. He had said it himself: though he had forged, he still considered himself an honest man, so long as he caused no one to lose anything. After a pause, Douglas went on, shaking his head the while:

      “Systems are always splendid, practice alone opens your eyes to their defects. In theory, I should have won an immense fortune. I don’t know how it has happened, but I am now overwhelmed with debt, and I can see very well that all hope is gone. My unfortunate operations have swallowed up over a million, and my clients are ruined.”

      The notary’s voice had grown feebler, and emotion was filling his eyes with tears. He walked feverishly up and down, and, as he did so, continued:

      “You’ve no idea what a frightful life I’ve been leading these past two years. Every one of my operations failed, and I found myself face to face with terrible exigencies. To preserve my credit, to conceal my forgeries, I have been daily obliged to commit others. I no longer dreamed of making money, I only thought of defending myself and escaping the galleys. I take heaven to witness that had I been able to get back the money that was lost, I would have reimbursed everyone, and then lived as a law-abiding citizen. But the enormous amount of interest I had to pay crushed me; I resold at a loss the properties I had acquired; in spite of my struggles, ill-luck has clung to me and weighed me down to the very depths of ruin. Today my liabilities are considerable, I cannot meet this fortnight’s bills, and, for me, a suspension of payment means penal servitude. If the authorities were ever to examine my papers, I should be at once arrested and put in prison.”

      Marius almost felt disposed to pity the wretch. Douglas sat down again and resumed dejectedly:

      “After all, though, this is the end. I’ve confessed to you and I know that you’re about to hand me over to justice. Let it be so, for my position is no longer bearable. You’re right, I’m a scoundrel and I ought to be punished.”

      Marius did not stir. He was reflecting, uncertain how to act. One fear stayed him, he did not wish to be mixed up in the matter in case he should be called as a witness, and thus lose precious time which belonged to his mission. Moreover, it was not his business to denounce the notary. There was no escape now for the man, he was fatally on the road to his punishment, and would fall of his own accord into his judges’ hands.

      “Well! why do you hesitate?” asked Douglas. “You know all. I’ll await here the police officers you are going for.”

      The young man rose from his chair, and tore up the documents containing his name.

      “You are a wretch,” he replied, “my judgment has not changed. But there is no need for me to assist justice, which will know how to punish you without my help. Your chastisement will come of itself.”

      And he walked out of the office.

      Here is the end of this episode: On the morrow, Douglas, unable to meet his engagements, took to flight. Marseille was panic-stricken at the news. Several fortunes were compromised, and it was impossible at first to gauge the full extent of the disaster. It was a kind of public misfortune. With the dismay of those concerned was mingled the astonishment of all honest persons; they could not forgive the notary the hypocrisy with which he had deceived a whole city during several years.

      Douglas was caught and tried at Aix, in the midst of a terrible feeling of irritation. He accepted his position with rare coolness. Without his assistance the authorities would never have succeeded in unravelling such an intricate affair. The court had to pronounce on more than nine hundred deeds infected with every kind of forgery, varied in so many ways that the human mind could not have conceived any combination of which the forger had not made use. The misdeeds laid to his charge were so numerous, were complicated with so many details, and affected so great a number of victims, that it would have been impossible to have seen clearly amidst the chaos without the assistance of him who, after imagining and putting his crimes into execution, could alone unravel the skein of them. Douglas set to work with indefatigable zeal and surprising truthfulness to clear up the disorder of his affairs, and to fix his own position, as well as those of his creditors and debtors.

      He continued to energetically defend himself against the accusation of theft. He repeated that he was an unfortunate speculator, and if justice and circumstances had permitted him, he would have retrieved his affairs as well as those of his clients. He seemed to be accusing the court of binding his hands, of preventing him repairing the harm he had done.

      He was condemned to penal servitude for life and to be publicly exhibited in the pillory at Marseille.

      CHAPTER IX

      HOW AN UGLY MAN MAY BECOME HANDSOME

      IT was now more than two months since Marius and Fine had returned to Marseille.

      On leaving the notary’s office, the young man had to own to himself that up till then he had been wasting his time, and that so far he had not obtained the first franc of the fifteen thousand he required for Philippe’s safety. After all, he knew only how to show his love and devotion; he felt he had a soul too upright, a mind too loyal and too generously artless for him to be able to procure in a few weeks the large sum he was so despairingly seeking. He had always acted like a child. The deplorable incidents with which he had recently found himself mixed up, the loves of Armande and Sauvaire, Douglas’ hypocrisy and forgeries, had shown him life under a terrifying aspect which discouraged him. He retreated instead of advancing, he feared, in making another attempt, to fail and even compromise himself, by falling again into the hands of rogues who would take advantage of him. In his suspicious state, he saw nothing but snares around him. Such tender hearts, ignorant of evil and desirous of good, are predestined to be wounded and made to bleed at every hour of the day.

      Yet the month of December was drawing nigh, and it was necessary to make haste if Philippe was to be saved. No further mercy would be shown, and the condemned man would be undoubtedly fastened to the infamous pillory. At that thought, Marius shed tears of impotence and weariness. He would he could have freed his brother by some Herculean task; if he had been put to the proof, he would have undertaken to pierce the prison wall with his nails, to have scraped and crumbled the stone away beneath his fingers. That laborious exploit would not have appeared to him a hard one and he would have succeeded in it although he wore his fingers to the bone. But the thought of the fifteen thousand francs terrified him; once it was a question of money, of taking humiliating steps or of engaging in more or less equivocal dealings, he went off his head and felt incapable of conducting the least enterprise to a successful conclusion. This explained the artless confidence which had taken him to Armande and Douglas.

      All hope, however, was not yet dead within him. Thanks to those same qualities which were his weakness, to his kindly heart and upright mind, he always returned to thoughts of self-reliance and hope. The lessons which the ignominies of life had taught him, could not prevent him still believing in the helpful sympathy of others.

      “I have more than six weeks before me yet,” he thought. “It’s impossible that I shall not find some true friend by then. There’s no reason for despair.”

      He would certainly have fallen ill with the anguish, the hopes and disappointments of his task, if he had not had a comforter at hand who smiled at him when most depressed. A strong friendship had grown up between him and the Cougourdans. He went nearly every day to see Fine and spent long evenings in her society. At the beginning they talked together of Philippe; then, whilst not forgetting the poor prisoner, they conversed about themselves, about their childhood and future. СКАЧАТЬ