Saccard nodded approvingly. And as they were now outside the railings, walking along the pavement up to the Rue Brongniart, the attention of both men was caught by a dark coupé,* very well turned-out, which was standing in that street with the horse facing the Rue Montmartre. They had noticed that while the back of the coachman, perched on his high seat, was as still as if made of stone, a woman’s head on two occasions appeared at the carriage door then quickly vanished. Suddenly the head leaned out and remained there, casting a long, impatient look back towards the Bourse.

‘Baroness Sandorff,’ murmured Saccard.

It was a very strange, dark head, with black eyes burning beneath bruised eyelids, a face of passion, with blood-red mouth, a face marred only by an overlong nose. She seemed very pretty, and unusually mature for her twenty-five years, with the look of a Bacchante,* dressed by the great dress-designers of the age.

‘Yes, the Baroness,’ echoed Jantrou, ‘I met her when she was a girl living with her father, Count de Ladricourt. Oh! a crazy speculator and a man of appalling brutality! I used to go to get his orders every morning, and one day he came close to beating me. I shed no tears for him when he died of apoplexy, ruined after a series of terrible losses on the market… So the girl had to resign herself to marrying Baron Sandorff, Counsellor at the Austrian Embassy, thirty-five years her senior, whom she had quite driven mad with her fiery eyes.’

Saccard just said: ‘I know.’

Once more the head of the Baroness had disappeared inside the coupé. But almost immediately it reappeared, her face more ardent and her neck straining to see over the square, in the distance.

‘She plays the market, doesn’t she?’

‘Oh, like one demented! Every time there’s a crisis you can see her here, in her carriage, watching the market quotations, feverishly taking notes in her notebook and placing orders… And look! It was Massias she was waiting for, and here he comes to join her.’

Indeed, Massias was running as fast as his short legs would carry him, his list of market-rates in his hand, and they saw him leaning over the carriage door, he too now plunging his head inside, deep in discussion with the Baroness. Then, as they were moving off a little to avoid being caught spying, and the broker had started back, still running, they called out to him. First he glanced sideways to make sure he was hidden by the corner of the street; then he stopped, breathless, his florid face all puffed up but still cheerful, and his big blue eyes as limpid as a child’s.

‘Whatever is the matter with them!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now it’s Suez collapsing. And they’re talking of a war with England. A piece of news that is totally upsetting everyone, and no one knows where it came from… I ask you, war! Who can possibly have invented that? Unless it just invented itself… Honestly, a bolt from the blue!’

Jantrou gave a wink.

‘The lady’s still at it?’

‘Oh! like a madwoman! I’m taking her orders over to Nathansohn.’

Saccard, who was listening, reflected aloud:

‘Oh yes! indeed, I’d been told that Nathansohn had entered the kerb market.’

‘A very nice young chap, Nathansohn,’ said Jantrou, ‘he deserves to be successful. We were together at the Crédit Mobilier… But he’ll get on all right, since he’s a Jew. His father is an Austrian, living in Besançon, a watchmaker I believe… You know, one day, there at the Crédit, seeing how it all worked, he got the idea. He decided it wasn’t all that clever; all you needed was a room with a railed-off counter such as bank-cashiers have, so he opened a counter… And you, Massias, are you doing well?’

‘Doing well? Oh, you’ve been through it, you’re right to say you have to be a Jew; without that, no good trying to understand, one doesn’t have the flair, it’s just filthy luck… What a rotten job! But once in it, one stays in it. Besides, I still have good strong legs, so I keep hoping.’

And off he ran with a laugh. He was said to be the son of a disgraced magistrate from Lyons, who, after his father disappeared, decided not to go on with his law studies and ended up in the Bourse.

Saccard and Jantrou, walking slowly, came back towards the Rue Brongniart; there they again saw the coupé of the Baroness; but the windows were raised and the mysterious vehicle seemed quite empty, while the coachman seemed even more still than before, in his long wait that often lasted until the close of the market.

‘She is devilishly exciting,’ Saccard brusquely remarked, ‘I can understand the old Baron.’

Jantrou gave an odd smile.

‘Oh! The Baron had enough some time ago, I believe. And he’s very miserly, they say… So do you know who she’s taken up with, to pay her bills—since she never makes enough on the market?’

‘No.’

‘Delcambre.’

‘Delcambre, the Public Prosecutor, that dry stick of a man, so jaundiced and stiff!… Oh, I’d really like to see those two together!’

At this the two men, highly amused and titillated, went their separate ways with a vigorous handshake, one reminding the other that he would take the liberty of calling on him shortly.

As soon as he was alone again Saccard was once more overtaken by the loud voice of the Bourse, breaking over his head with the insistence of a flood-tide on the turn. He had gone round the corner now, and was walking back towards the Rue Vivienne, along that side of the square which, lacking any cafés, looks rather severe. He carried on past the Chamber of Commerce, the post-office, and the large advertising agencies, getting more and more deafened and feverish as he came back in front of the main façade; and when he managed to cast a sideways glance over the portico he paused anew, as if not yet ready to complete the tour of the colonnade and end this sort of passionate siege in which he was enfolding it. Here, on this wider part of the pavement, life was in full swing, even bursting out: a flood of customers filled the cafés, the patisserie was permanently crowded; the window displays were bringing the crowds flocking, especially the goldsmith’s, ablaze with large pieces of silverware. And at the four corners, the four intersections, the flow of cabs and pedestrians grew ever more intense, in an inextricable tangle, while the omnibus office added to the congestion and the jobbers’ carriages stood in line, blocking the pavement from one end of the railings to the other. But Saccard’s eyes were glued to the top of the steps, where the frock-coats followed one another in the sunshine. Then his gaze went back up towards the columns, into the compact mass, a swarming blackness brightened only by the pale patches of faces. Everyone was standing, the chairs were not visible, and the circle of the kerb market, sitting under the clock, could only be guessed at from a sort of bubbling, a frenzy of words and gestures that had set the air a-tremble. Over on the left the group of bankers engaged in arbitrage, foreign-currency operations, and English cheques* was quieter than the rest, though a queue of people kept passing through to get to the telegraph office. Even the side galleries were crammed with a crush of speculators; and between the columns, leaning against the metal handrails, some were showing their backs or bellies, seeming quite at ease, as if leaning on the velvet of a box at the theatre. The vibration and rumbling, like an engine getting up steam, grew ever louder, making the whole of the Bourse shake like the flickering of a flame. Suddenly he saw the jobber Massias racing down the steps and leaping into his carriage, whereupon the coachman immediately set the horse off at a gallop.

Then Saccard felt his fists clenching.