'Oh, like a crazy woman! Whenever there is a crisis, she is to be seen there in her carriage, following the quotations, feverishly taking notes in her memorandum book, giving orders—and see! it was Massias whom she was waiting for: here he comes to join her.'
In fact, Massias, his quotations in his hand, was running up as fast as his short legs would carry him, and they saw him rest his elbows on the carriage door, and pop his head through the open window, in order to confer with the Baroness. Then Saccard and Jantrou stepped away a little, so that they might not be caught spying on the pair, and as the remisier came back, still on the run, they called him. He at first gave a glance back, to make sure that he was hidden by the street corner, and then he stopped short, out of breath, his florid face quite purple, but still gay, with big blue eyes as limpid as those of a child.
'But what is the matter with them all?' he cried. 'There's Suez all going to rack and ruin. There are rumours of a war with England, a piece of news that revolutionises them all, and that comes no one knows whence. War, indeed! who can have invented such a cram? Or did it invent itself all alone? At all events, there's a nice to-do!'
'Does the lady still bite?' asked Jantrou with a wink.
'Oh, madly! I am carrying her orders to Nathansohn.'
Saccard, who was listening, remarked: 'Ah, yes, so it's true, then; I had heard that Nathansohn had joined the coulisse.'
'A very nice fellow is Nathansohn,' repeated Jantrou, 'and one who deserves to succeed. We were at the Crédit Mobilier together. But he'll succeed, he will, for he is a Jew. His father, an Austrian, is in business at Besançon, as a watchmaker, I believe. The fever took him one day at the Crédit, you know, when he saw how things were managed. He said to himself that it wasn't such a trick, after all; that it was only necessary to get a room, put a wire grating across it, and open a wicket; and he has opened a wicket. And you, Massias, are you satisfied?'
'Oh, satisfied! You've been in the mill; you are right in saying that it is necessary to be a Jew; otherwise it is useless to try to understand. There's no such thing as a look in, nothing but cursed bad luck. What a filthy trade! But when a man is in it, he stays. And, besides, I have good legs still, and keep on hoping all the same.'
Thereupon he started off, running and laughing. He was said to be the son of a Lyons magistrate, removed from his post for unworthiness, and had stranded at the Bourse, after the disappearance of his father, not caring to continue his law studies.
With short, slow steps, Saccard and Jantrou retraced their way towards the Rue Brongniart, and there they again found the Baroness's brougham; but the windows were now raised, and the mysterious carriage appeared to be empty, while the coachman seemed more motionless than ever, still waiting—as he often had to do, until the very last quotations.