Part 3 (1/2)

”Ah, Sorle! Sorle!” I exclaimed, ”for thirty years you have been my comfort. Yes, you have crowned me with all sorts of blessings, and I have said a hundred times, 'A good wife is a diamond of pure water, and without flaw. A good wife is a rich treasure for her husband.' I have repeated it a hundred times. But now I know still better what you are worth, and esteem you still more highly.”

The more I thought of it, the more I perceived the wisdom of this advice. At length I said:

”Sorle, meat and flour, and everything which can be kept, are already in the storehouses, and the soldiers will not need such things for a long time, because their officers will have provided them. But what will be wanted is brandy, which men must have to ma.s.sacre and exterminate each other in war, and brandy we will buy! We will have plenty of it in our cellar, we will sell it, and n.o.body else will have it. That is my idea!”

”It is a good idea, Moses!” said she; ”your reasons are good; I approve of them.”

”Then I will write,” said I, ”and we will invest everything in spirits of wine. We will add water ourselves, in proportion as people wish to pay for it. In this way the freight will be less than if it were brandy, for we shall not have to pay for the transportation of the water, which we have here.”

”That is well, Moses,” she said.

And so we agreed.

Then I said to Safel:

”You must not speak of this to any one.”

She answered for him:

”There's no need of telling him that, Moses. Safel knows very well that this is between ourselves, and that our well-being depends upon it.”

The child for a long time resented my words: ”You must not speak of this to any one.” He was already full of good sense, and said to himself:

”So my father thinks I am an idiot.”

This thought humiliated him. Some years afterward he told me of it, and I perceived that I had been wrong.

Everybody has his notions. Children should not be humiliated in theirs, but rather upheld by their parents.

III

A CIRc.u.mCISION FEAST

So I wrote to Pezenas. This is a southern city, rich in wools, wines, and brandies. The price of brandies at Pezenas controls that of all Europe. A trading man ought to know that, and I knew it, because I had always liked to read the list of prices in the newspapers. I sent to M. Quataya, at Pezenas, for a dozen pipes of spirits of wine. I calculated that, after paying the freight, a pipe would cost me a thousand francs, delivered in my cellar.

As I had sold no iron for a year, I disposed of my merchandise without asking anything for it; the payment of the twelve thousand francs did not trouble me. Only, Fritz, those twelve thousand francs were half my fortune, and you may suppose that it required some courage to risk in one venture the gains of fifteen years.

As soon as my letter was gone, I wished I could bring it back, but it was too late. I kept a good face before my wife, and said, ”It will all do well! We shall gain double, triple, etc.”

She, too, kept a good face, but we both had misgivings; and during the six weeks necessary for the receipt of the acknowledgment and acceptance of my order, and the arrival of the spirits of wine, every night I lay awake, thinking, ”Moses, you have lost everything! You are ruined from top to toe!”

The cold sweat would cover my body. Still, if any one had come to me and said, ”Be easy, Moses, I will relieve you of this business,” I should have refused, because my hope of gain was as great as my fear of loss. And by this you may know who are the true merchants, the true generals, and all who accomplish anything. Others are but machines for selling tobacco, or filling gla.s.ses, or firing guns.

It all comes to the same thing. One man's glory is as great as another's. This is why, when we speak of Austerlitz, Jena or Wagram, it is not a question of Jean Claude or Jean Nicholas, but of Napoleon alone; he alone risked everything, the others risked only being killed.

I do not say this to compare myself with Napoleon, but the buying of these twelve pipes of spirits of wine was my battle of Austerlitz.

And when I think that, on reaching Paris, Napoleon had demanded four hundred and forty millions of money, and _six hundred thousand men_!