Читать книгу The Begum's Millions - Jules Verne - Страница 13

2 Two Friends

The doctor’s son, Octave Sarrasin, was not exactly what one would call lazy. He was neither stupid nor of superior intelligence, neither handsome nor ugly, neither tall nor short, neither brown- nor blond-haired. The latter was a kind of chestnut color, and Octave was in every way an average young man born into the middle class. In school he generally earned a second prize and two or three runners-up. At the baccalauréat, he was given a passing grade. Rejected the first time at the competitive exam for the Ecole Centrale, he was admitted on the second try with a rating of 127. His character was somewhat indecisive, one of those minds that is content with uncertainty, that seems to live perpetually in the “approximate,” and that walks through life in semi-obscurity. The destiny of such people is often what a bottle cork is to the crest of a wave. Depending on whether the wind is blowing from the north or the south, they are carried off to either the equator or the pole. Chance alone decides the course of their lives. If Dr. Sarrasin had clearly understood his son’s character, perhaps he would have hesitated in writing him the above letter. But even the most brilliant minds sometimes exhibit a little paternal blindness.¹

During the early years of his education, Octave had the good fortune to come under the spell of an energetic individual whose somewhat exacting but benevolent influence had imposed itself by sheer strength upon him. In the Lycée Charlemagne where his father had sent him to do his studies,² Octave had become best friends with one of his classmates, an Alsatian named Marcel Bruckmann, who was younger than he by a year, but much his superior in terms of physical, intellectual, and moral vigor.

Marcel and Octave

Orphaned at the age of twelve, Marcel Bruckmann had inherited a small income which was just enough to pay for his schooling.³ Without Octave, who always brought him along to his parents’ home during vacations, he would probably never have ventured outside the school walls.

As a consequence, the family of Dr. Sarrasin soon became the young Alsatian’s family as well. Warm and sensitive beneath his apparently cold exterior, he understood that he owed his life to these worthy people who became both father and mother to him. So it is no surprise that he adored Dr. Sarrasin, his wife, and their kind and already serious-minded daughter Jeanne, who had all opened their hearts to him. But it was by facts, not words, that he proved his gratitude. Indeed, he had taken on the agreeable task of helping Jeanne, who loved learning, to become an upright young woman with a firm and judicious mind, and, at the same time, of making Octave a son worthy of his father. This latter task, one must say, proved to be a bit more difficult than in regard to the sister who was, for her age, already superior to her brother. But Marcel had promised himself to reach his double goal.

Marcel Bruckmann was one of those outstanding young champions, both spirited and discerning, that Alsace sends forth every year to fight in the great battlefield of Paris. As a child he had already distinguished himself by the toughness and flexibility of his muscles as well as by the sharpness of his mind. Strong on the outside, he was all purpose and courage on the inside.

Since his early school days, he felt a driving urge to excel in everything, on the horizontal bars as on the ball field, in the gymnasium as in the laboratory. If he missed a prize in his annual harvest, he felt the year was lost. At twenty he was tall in stature, robust, filled with zest and action, an organic machine at the peak of its performance.⁴ His intellect had already attracted the attention of thoughtful minds. Having entered the Ecole Centrale the same year as Octave as the second-ranked student, he was determined to finish as number one.

Moreover, it was due to Marcel’s persistent and overflowing energy — which was more than enough for two men — that Octave was eventually admitted to the university. For a whole year Marcel had mentored him, pushed him to work, and ultimately forced him to succeed. He felt a kind of friendly compassion for that vacillating and feeble character, like a lion might feel for a puppy. He enjoyed strengthening with his own energy that anemic plant and having it bear fruit before his eyes.⁵

The war of 1870 had broken out, surprising the two friends at a time when they were taking their exams. On the day after the last exam, Marcel, full of patriotic grief at the fate that was threatening Strasbourg and Alsace, had gone to enlist in the 31st Infantry Battalion. Octave had immediately followed his example.

Side by side as outposts, they had waged the difficult campaign of the siege of Paris. At Champigny, Marcel had received a bullet in his right arm; at Buzenval, a stripe on his left arm.⁶ Octave had neither stripes nor wound. In truth, it was not his fault, for he had always followed his friend under fire. He had been scarcely six meters behind — but those six meters had made all the difference.

After peace was declared and normalcy returned, the two students decided to live together in two adjacent rooms of a modest hotel near the school. The misfortunes of France and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine had developed a certain maturity and manliness in Marcel.

“It is up to the French youth,” he would say, “to repair the mistakes of their fathers, and this can only be achieved by hard work.”

Rising at five o’clock, Marcel obliged Octave to do the same. He dragged him to his courses and, after class, kept a close eye on him. Returning home, they continued their studies, interrupting them periodically with a pipe and a cup of coffee. At ten o’clock, they went to bed, their hearts satisfied and their brains filled. A game of billiards from time to time, a carefully selected play, a concert at the National Conservatory every now and then, a horseback ride to Verrières, a walk in the woods, twice-a-week lessons in boxing or dueling, such were their diversions. Octave certainly showed an inclination to rebel sometimes, and he cast an envious eye on less praiseworthy distractions. He would talk about going to see Aristide Leroux, who was “reading for the bar” at the Saint-Michel tavern. But Marcel treated these fantasies with such contempt that they most often faded away.

On October 29, 1871, around seven o’clock in the evening, the two friends were seated as usual side by side at the same table under a common lamp they shared. Marcel had thrown himself body and soul into a fascinating problem of descriptive geometry as it applied to the cutting of precious stones. With similar zeal, Octave was devoting himself to an activity that, unfortunately, seemed just as important to him — the brewing of a liter of coffee. It was one of those rare skills in which he was proud to excel — perhaps because he found a daily chance to escape the dreadful necessity of balancing equations, in which, it seemed to him, Marcel spent altogether too much time. So he was pouring his boiling water drop by drop through a thick layer of powdered mocha, and this peaceful contentedness should have satisfied him. But Marcel’s industriousness was weighing upon his conscience, and he felt the irresistible need of troubling him with some small talk.

“We’d do well to buy a percolator,” he said all of a sudden. “This old, slow method of filtering is no longer in step with our modern civilization.”

“Then buy a percolator! Maybe that’ll keep you from wasting an hour every evening on your kitchen work,” Marcel responded.

And he returned to his problem.

“An arch has an ellipsoid of three unequal axes for its intrados. Let ABDE be the ellipse at its base which encloses the maximum axis oA = a, and the central axis oB = b, whereas the minimal axis (o, o'c') is vertical and equal to c, which makes the rise of the arch less than a half of its span …”

At that moment someone knocked at the door.

“A letter for Mr. Octave Sarrasin,” said the hotel employee.

One can imagine how this fortunate diversion was welcomed by the young student.

“It’s my father,” said Octave. “I recognize the writing … This is what is called a real missive!” he added, weighing the sheaf of papers in his hand.

Marcel knew, as did his friend, that the doctor had been in England. Passing through Paris on his way there the week before, he had offered the two young men a lavish gourmet dinner in a restaurant in the Palais-Royal well known in days gone by, now out of fashion, but which Dr. Sarrasin continued to consider the last word in Parisian refinement.

“You’ll let me know if your father mentions his Hygiene Conference to you,” said Marcel. “It’s a good idea he had to go there. French scientists are too inclined to isolate themselves.”

And Marcel returned to his problem:

“… The extrados will be formed by an ellipsoid similar to the first, having its center below o' on the vertical o. After having marked the foci F₁, F₂, F of the three principal ellipses, we trace the ellipse and the auxiliary hyperbola, whose common axes …”

A cry from Octave caused him to look up.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked, a bit worried by seeing his friend so pale.

“Read this!” said the other, overwhelmed by the news he had just received.

Marcel took the letter, read it through, reread it a second time, cast a glance at the printed documents which accompanied it, and said:

“That’s strange!”

Then he filled his pipe and lit it methodically. Octave waited anxiously for his opinion.

“Do you think it’s true?” he asked him in a strangled voice.

“True? — obviously. Your father has too much good sense and scientific spirit to accept such a conviction blindly. Besides, the proofs are there, and basically it’s quite simple.”

The pipe was well and properly lit; Marcel went back to work. Octave remained, his arms dangling, unable to even finish his coffee, let alone assemble any logical ideas. Yet he had to speak out, to be sure he was not dreaming.

“But … if that’s true, it’s absolutely mind-boggling! … You know, a half billion, that’s an enormous fortune!”

Marcel raised his head and agreed.

“‘Enormous’ is the word. There is perhaps no equal in France, and only a few in the United States, scarcely a half-dozen in England, fifteen or twenty in the world.”

“And a noble title to boot!” continued Octave, “A title of baronet! It’s not that I’ve ever yearned to have one, but since it has happened, you can say anyway that it is more elegant than just calling yourself Sarrasin period.”

Marcel blew a puff of smoke and said nothing. This puff said clearly: “Puff! … Puff!”

“It’s certain,” replied Octave, “that I never would’ve liked to do as so many people do, stick a ‘de’ onto their name, or invent a marquisate out of paper. But having an authentic title, duly listed in the peerage of Great Britain and Ireland, where no doubt or confusion is possible, as can too often be seen …”

The pipe kept saying: “Puff! … Puff!”

“My dear friend, you can say or do what you like,” replied Octave with conviction, “but I can tell you that ‘blood counts,’ as the English say!”

He stopped short, seeing Marcel’s mocking look, and returned to the subject of his millions instead.

“Do you remember,” he continued, “that Mr. Binominal, our math teacher, rattled away every year in his first lesson on numeration that a half billion is too large a number for the strength of human intelligence to have a real concept of it if people did not have the resources of a graphic representation at their disposition? Imagine a man paying a franc a minute — it would take more than a thousand years to pay that sum! Ah! it is quite a … unique experience to consider oneself as heir to half a billion francs!”

“A half a billion francs!” exclaimed Marcel, shaken by the word more than he had been by the thing. “Do you know the best thing you could do with it? Give it to France to pay its ransom! Only it would take ten times as much! …”⁷

“Just don’t take it into your head to suggest such an idea to my father!” cried Octave with the voice of a frightened man. “He would be quite capable of doing it! I’ve already noticed that he’s ruminating some great project! It would be all right to make an investment in the State, but at least we should keep the revenue!”

“You were no doubt made to be a capitalist!” answered Marcel. “Something tells me, my dear Octave, that it would have been better for you, if not for your father who is an upright and sensible man, if this vast inheritance had been of more modest proportions. I would rather see you get a yearly income of twenty-five thousand pounds to share with your fine little sister than this great mountain of gold!”

And he went back to work again.

As for Octave, he was unable to do anything, and he fussed so much about the room that his friend, who was somewhat irritated, finally said to him:

“You’d better go out and get some fresh air! It’s obvious you’re not good for anything this evening.”

“You’re right,” replied Octave, seizing with joy this quasi-permission to abandon any further work.

And, grabbing his hat, he rushed down the stairs and out on the street. He had scarcely taken ten steps before he stopped under a gaslight to reread the letter from his father. He needed to assure himself once more that he had not been dreaming.

“A half a billion! … A half a billion! …” he repeated. “That produces a yearly income of at least twenty-five million! … If my father gave me only one million a year as an allowance — or half a million, or even quarter of a million — I’d be very happy indeed! You can do a lot of things with money! I’m sure that I could use it well! I’m no imbecile, right? I got into the Ecole Centrale, didn’t I? … And now I have a title as well! … And I’ll know how to bear it properly!”

“A half a billion!”

He glanced at himself, while passing in front of the windows of a shop.

“I’ll have a mansion, horses! There’ll be one for Marcel. From the moment I get rich, it’s quite clear, it’ll be as though he were, too. It has all worked out perfectly! … A half a billion! … And a baronet too! … It’s so strange; now that it’s happened, it seems to me that I was almost expecting it! Something told me that I wouldn’t always be grubbing along over books or drafting boards all my life! … Nevertheless, it’s an amazing dream come true!”

As he ruminated upon these ideas, Octave walked along the arcades of the rue de Rivoli. He arrived at the Champs-Elysées, turned the corner onto the rue Royale, and came out at the Boulevards. Formerly he had regarded these elegant shops with indifference, like useless things with no place in his life. Now he stopped and thought with a thrill of pleasure that all those treasures could belong to him whenever he wished.

“It’s for me,” he said to himself, “that the spinners of Holland turn their spindles, that the factories of Elbeuf weave their softest cloth, that the watchmakers produce their timepieces, that the candelabra of the Opera shine their light, that violins play, that sopranos sing at the top of their voices! It’s for me that thoroughbreds are raised in their stables and that the Café Anglais is all lit up! … Paris is mine! … Everything is mine! … I’ll travel! … I’ll visit my barony in India! … I could afford a pagoda someday, including the monks and ivory idols! … I’ll have elephants! … I’ll hunt tigers! … and have splendid arms! … and a handsome boat! … A boat? No! A fine steam-yacht rather, to take me wherever I want, to put into port or to sail off, whatever I chose! … Speaking of steam, I really must let my mother know about this news. Suppose I left for Douai! … There’s school … Oh! school! I can get along without it! … But Marcel! He’ll have to be told. I’ll send him a message. He’ll fully understand that I’m eager to see my mother and my sister under such a circumstance!”

Octave entered a telegraph bureau, informed his friend that he was leaving and would return in two days. Then, he hailed a carriage to take him to the Gare du Nord.

Once on the train he continued to savor his dream.

At two o’clock in the morning, Octave chimed the night bell so noisily at the door of his parents that he stirred up the peaceful neighborhood of the Aubettes.

“Who do you suppose is ill?” the gossips asked from one window to another.

“The doctor isn’t in town!” shouted the old servant from the dormer window on the top floor.

“It’s me, Octave! … Come down and let me in, Francine!”

After a ten-minute wait, Octave succeeded in entering the house. His mother and his sister Jeanne, having hurriedly come downstairs in their dressing-gowns, were awaiting an explanation of this unexpected visit.

Read out loud, the letter from the doctor soon gave them the key to the mystery.

For a moment Mme Sarrasin was astounded. She embraced her son and her daughter, weeping for joy. It seemed to her that the universe was theirs from now on, and that no misfortune could ever befall young people who possessed several hundred million francs. Yet, women tend to adjust more quickly than men to such wondrous changes in fate. Mme Sarrasin reread the letter from her husband, said to herself that it was her husband who was the one to decide on her destiny and that of their children, and calm was restored to her heart. As for Jeanne, she was happy at her mother and brother’s joy, but her thirteen-year-old heart could not dream of any happiness exceeding that of the modest home where their life flowed by gently between the lessons of her teachers and the love of her parents. She did not quite see how a few bundles of banknotes could change her life very much, and this view did not trouble her for an instant.

Mme Sarrasin, married quite young to a man entirely absorbed by the quiet occupations of a devoted intellectual, respected the passion of her husband whom she loved tenderly, without, however, understanding him. Being unable to share the happiness that the doctor derived from his studies, she felt sometimes a bit lonely beside this relentless worker, and had as a result placed all her hope in her two children. She had always dreamed of a brilliant future for them, one that would make them happy. Octave, she was sure, was destined for great things. Since he had entered the Ecole Centrale, this unassuming and practical college for young engineers had been transformed in her mind into a breeding ground for illustrious men. Her sole concern had been that their modest fortune might eventually be an obstacle, a problem at least for the glorious career of her son, and might also harm the prospects of her daughter. Now, from what she had understood in her husband’s letter, her fears were no longer justified. Her satisfaction was complete.

The mother and the son spent a great part of the night talking and making plans, whereas Jeanne, very happy with the present, without any concern for the future, had fallen asleep in an armchair.

Then, before finally retiring, Mme Sarrasin said to her son:

“You haven’t talked to me about Marcel. Didn’t you let him know about this letter from your father? What did he say about it?”

“Oh,” replied Octave, “you know Marcel! He’s more than an intellectual, he’s a stoic! I think he was concerned by the enormity of this inheritance and its influence on us! I say ‘us,’ since his concern did not seem to extend to my father, whose good sense, he said, and scientific reasoning reassured him. But what else can I think? As far as you’re concerned, mother, and Jeanne as well, and especially me, he did not hide the fact that he would have preferred our receiving a modest inheritance, say twenty-five thousand pounds of annual income …”

“Marcel might have been right,” replied Mme Sarrasin, looking at her son. “Sudden wealth can pose a great danger for some people!”

Jeanne had just awoken. She had heard her mother’s last words:

“You know, mother,” she said to her, rubbing her eyes and heading for her little bedroom, “you know what you told me one day, that Marcel was always right! I, for one, always believe what our friend Marcel says!”

Octave’s mother and sister Jeanne

Then, kissing her mother, Jeanne retired for the night.