"I want to go to the Count Feliciani's," I replied.
"The Hôtel Feliciani?"
"Yes"
"Get in." He drove off. He knew the Hôtel Feliciani, did this driver. All Paris was ringing with the disgrace of the man who, from his throne in the kingdom of finance, had fallen to the gutter, involving a thousand others in his ruin. But I knew nothing of this; and from the man's unconcerned manner I began to hope that De Coigny had told me a lie.
The cabriolet drove in through the gates of a huge hôtel in the Faubourg St. Germain. The courtyard was crowded with people—and such people! Jews, porters, female furniture dealers with heavy earrings, silken skirts, and ungloved, unwashed hands—all the sharks that ruin attracts; and in the portico, on the steps, on the very gravel of the drive, furniture, crystal chandeliers, tables, mirrors, lying like the débris left by the wave of misfortune.
It was as if one were looking at a lee shore the morning after the wreck of some palatial ship: cabin-furniture, stores, the sailor's sea-chest and the passengers' baggage, tossed up on the sands in horrible incongruity, and speaking louder than a thousand trumpets of the fury of the storm.
There was a sale in progress at the Hôtel Feliciani. I knew nothing of sales, I knew nothing of finance, speculation, or commercial ruin, but I knew that what I saw was disaster.
Getting out of the cabriolet, and telling the driver to wait for me, I went up the steps and mixed with the throng in the hall. I wanted to find the Felicianis, and some instinct told me they were not here; also, that it was useless to ask any of these people their whereabouts. I looked about me for someone in authority; and, as I looked, a voice from the large salon adjoining the hall came:
"Thirty thousand francs! Thirty thousand francs! Any advance on thirty thousand francs? Gone!" Then followed the blow of a little hammer.