THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя

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      Fine was too smart a girl not to play her part with fondling prudence. She did not hasten events, she brought the gaoler little by little to feelings of compassion and kindness. Then she pitied Philippe before him, and obliged him to acknowledge that they were detaining him unjustly in prison.

      When she held her uncle in her power, off his guard and disposed to be obedient to her wishes, she asked him if she could not visit the poor young man’s cell. He dared not say no, but conducted her there, allowed her to enter, and remained watching at the door.

      Fine stood before Philippe like a silly thing. She gazed at him, confused and blushing, forgetting what she wanted to say to him. The young man recognised her, and hastened towards her with a movement full of tenderness and delight.

      “You here, my dear child?” he exclaimed. “Ah! how kind of you to have come to see me. Will you allow me to kiss your hand?”

      Philippe assuredly imagined himself in his little apartment in the Rue Sainte, and he was not perhaps far from dreaming of a fresh adventure. The flower-girl, surprised, almost wounded, withdrew her hand and gravely contemplated Blanche’s lover.

      “You must be mad, Monsieur Philippe,” she answered. “You know very well that you are married now, for me. Let us speak of serious things.”

      She lowered her voice and continued rapidly:

      “The gaoler is my uncle, and I have been working at your deliverance for the past week. I wanted to see you to tell you that your friends have not forgotten you. So hope.”

      Philippe, on hearing this good news, regretted his amorous welcome.

      “Give me your hand,” he said, in an unsteady voice, “It is a friend who asks you for it, to clasp it as an old comrade. Do you forgive me?”

      The flower-girl smiled without answering.

      “I think,” she resumed, “that I shall soon be able to throw the gate wide open to you. On what day would you like to run away?”

      “Run away! But I shall be acquitted. What is the use of running away? If I were to escape I should be acknowledging my guilt.”

      Fine had not thought of this reasoning. To her mind Philippe was condemned beforehand; but, as a matter of fact, he was right, he must await the judgment. As she preserved silence, pensive and irresolute, Revertégat gave two gentle knocks at the door to beg her to leave the cell.

      “Well!” she resumed, addressing the prisoner, “be ready all the same. If you are condemned, we will prepare your flight, your brother and me. Have faith.”

      She withdrew, leaving Philippe almost in love. She had now time before her to win over her uncle. She continued the same tactics, bewitching the worthy man with her goodness of heart and gracefulness, and exciting his pity on his prisoner’s lot. In the end she even drew her two little cousins into the conspiracy, and they at a word would have left their father to follow her.

      One evening, after having softened Revertégat’s heart by all the cajoling she was capable of, she ended by boldly asking him for Philippe’s liberty.

      “Of course,” exclaimed the gaoler, “if it only depended on me, I would open the door to him immediately.”

      “But it does only depend on you, uncle,” Fine innocently answered.

      “Ah! so you think. But the next morning they would turn me adrift and send me starving with my two daughters.”

      These words made the flower-girl look quite serious.

      “But,” she resumed, after a moment, “if I gave you money! Supposing I loved this youth? supposing I were to implore you with joined hands, to give him back to me?”

      “You, you!” exclaimed the astonished gaoler. He had risen, he gazed at his niece to see if she were not laughing at him. When he observed her grave and troubled manner he bent forward, vanquished, softened, consenting by a sign.

      “Faith,” he added, “I’ll do what you like. You are too good and pretty a girl for me to refuse.”

      Fine kissed him and spoke of something else. Henceforward she was sure of victory. On several occasions she returned to the conversation, accustoming Revertégat to the idea that he would allow Philippe to escape. She did not wish to throw her relative into poverty, and she offered him a first reward of fifteen thousand francs. This offer dazzled the gaoler, who from that moment belonged to her body and soul.

      And that is how Fine had been able to say to Marius with her clever smile. “Follow me. Your brother is saved.”

      She accompanied the young man to the prison. On the road she related to him all she had been doing, how she had little by little won over her uncle. Marius’ straightforward nature set him first of all against the plan. Then he remembered the intrigues to which M. de Cazalis had had recourse and reflected that, after all, he was only making use of the same weapons as his adversaries, and his mind was at ease.

      He thanked Fine most touchingly, and was at a loss to know what proof to give her of his gratitude. The young girl, happy beyond measure, hardly listened to his protestations of devotedness.

      They could only see Revertégat in the evening. The gaoler from the very first words of the conversation, pointed out his two little girls who were playing in a corner of the lodge, and simply said to Marius:

      “Monsieur, they are my excuse: I would not ask a sou, if I had not these children to feed.”

      This was a painful scene for Marius. He abridged it as much as possible. He was aware that the gaoler was giving way both to self-sacrifice and interest, and if he could not despise him, he none the less felt ill at ease at concluding such a bargain with him.

      All was settled in a few minutes. Marius announced that he would leave the following morning for Marseille and would bring back with him the fifteen thousand francs promised by Fine. He would get them from his banker: his mother had left a sum of fifty thousand francs, which was deposited with M. Bérard, whose house was one of the most important and best known of the city. The flower-girl was to remain at Aix and there await the young man’s return.

      He set out full of hope, with the idea that his brother was already free, but as he stepped out of the diligence at Marseille he learned a terrible piece of news, which completely staggered him. The banker Bérard had just been made a bankrupt.

      CHAPTER XIII

      A BANKRUPTCY, AS THERE ARE MANY

      MARIUS hastened to the banker Bérard. He could not believe the bad news, he possessed all the confidence of a straightforward mind. On the road he said to himself that the rumours that were afloat were perhaps, after all, only calumnies, and so he clung to false hopes. The loss of his fortune at this moment amounted to his brother’s discomfiture. It seemed to him that chance would not be so cruel the public must be mistaken, Bérard would hand him his money.

      When he entered the banking-house, he was seized with a pang of anguish. He saw the terrible reality. The offices were empty; and these spacious rooms, deserted and calm, with their closed wirework cages, appeared to him funeral-like.

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