Usually the lovers lay down beneath the tanghin from Madagascar, the poisonous shrub whose leaf Renée had bitten into. All around them, white statues laughed at the sight of such quantities of greenery engaged in the act of love. The moon, as it revolved, moved groups of plants about and animated the drama with its changing light. And they were a thousand leagues from Paris, far from the facile life of the Bois and official receptions, somewhere in the jungles of India or in some monstrous temple, where the black marble sphinx was god. They were aware of tumbling helplessly into crime, forbidden love, and bestial caresses. All the lushness that surrounded them, all the hidden tangle of the pool, all the naked shamelessness of the greenery plunged them into a Dantean inferno of passion. Then it was, in the depths of this glass cage seething with summer heat astray in that clear December chill, that they tasted incest, the criminal fruit of that overheated patch of earth, that terrifying bed that filled their hearts with unspoken fear.

Renée’s body seemed whiter as she crouched in the center of that black bearskin like a huge cat, its back arched and paws tense beneath supple, sinewy hocks. She was completely swollen with sensuality, and the clean outline of her shoulders and waist stood out with feline sharpness against the ink spot the black fur left on the yellow sand of the path. She eyed Maxime, her prey, lying on his back beneath her in a posture of utter surrender, completely in her possession. At intervals she would lean forward suddenly and kiss him with aching lips—lips that parted at those moments with the eager, sanguinary splendor of the Chinese hibiscus that covered the side of the house. In those instants she was nothing but a fiery child of the conservatory. Her kisses bloomed and faded like the red flowers of the great mallow, which last only a few hours and are continually reborn—the bruised, insatiable lips of a gigantic Messalina.

5

The kiss he had planted on his wife’s neck preoccupied Saccard. He had long since ceased to avail himself of his marital prerogatives. The rupture had come about naturally, as neither he nor his wife cared to maintain a relationship that both found inconvenient. He never thought of entering Renée’s bedroom unless there was a juicy piece of business to justify his conjugal attentions.

The Charonne deal was proving to be a stroke of fortune, though how it would turn out in the end still worried him. Larsonneau, for all his dazzling linen, smiled in a way he found unpleasant. The expropriation agent was only a go-between, a front whose complicity he bought with a commission of ten percent of all future profits. Yet even though his associate had not invested a penny in the deal, and Saccard, after providing him with the funds to build the music hall, had taken every possible precaution—options, undated letters, antedated receipts—he nevertheless felt an obscure foreboding, a presentiment of treachery. He suspected his accomplice of intending to blackmail him with the fake inventory that remained in his possession, which was the only reason Saccard had cut him in on the deal.

The two confederates therefore exchanged a hearty handshake. Larsonneau addressed Saccard as “chief.” Deep down, he admired his associate’s high-wire exploits as a speculator and followed his performances avidly. The idea of cheating such a partner appealed to him as a rare and piquant pleasure. He was toying with a plan that remained vague because he was still unsure of how to use the weapon he had in his possession without injuring himself. In any case, he sensed that he was at the mercy of his former colleague. Carefully prepared inventories listed land and buildings already estimated at nearly two million francs but in fact worth only a quarter that much, yet all these assets would be swallowed up in a colossal bankruptcy unless the expropriation fairy touched them with her magic wand. According to preliminary plans that the two confederates had been able to consult, the new boulevard—which was intended to link the artillery range at Vincennes ¹ to the Prince Eugène Barracks and thus grant the gunners access to central Paris without obliging them to move through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—would claim part of their land. Yet there was still a danger that the route would only skirt their property and that the ingenious music-hall speculation would fail on account of its very impudence. In that case Larsonneau would be left with a delicate situation on his hands. Despite his necessarily secondary role, the risk did nothing to alleviate his distress at the thought of collecting a paltry ten percent on such a colossal theft, which would run into millions. At such times he felt a desperate itch to reach out and lop off a slice for himself.

Saccard had not even wanted Larsonneau to lend money to his wife, preferring to amuse himself by staging an elaborate melodrama that appealed to his weakness for complicated chicanery.

“No, no, my friend,” he had said with his Provençal accent, which he exaggerated whenever he wanted to add zest to a joke, “let’s not mix up your accounts with mine. . . . You’re the only man in Paris to whom I’ve sworn never to owe anything.”

Larsonneau contented himself with hinting to Saccard that his wife was a bottomless pit. He advised him never to give her another cent so that she would be forced to sell them her share of the property at once. He would have preferred to deal with Saccard alone. From time to time he tested the waters, going so far as to say, with the weary, indifferent air of a man of the world, “You know, I really need to put my files in order. . . . Your wife scares me, old man. I wouldn’t want the authorities to get hold of certain documents I have in my office.”

Saccard was not a man to put up with such insinuations patiently, especially when he was well acquainted with the cold and meticulous order that Larsonneau maintained in his office. Cunning and energetic, the little man reacted with every fiber of his being against the fears that the smooth-talking usurer in the yellow gloves sought to arouse in him. The worst of it was that the thought of a scandal sent shivers up his spine. He imagined his brother angrily sending him into exile in Belgium and forcing him to earn his living in some shabby trade. One day he became so enraged that he forgot himself and addressed Larsonneau more familiarly than was his wont: “Listen, my boy, you’re a nice fellow, but you’d be doing yourself a favor if you gave me back that document—you know the one I mean. Otherwise we’ll end up fighting over it.”

Larsonneau feigned astonishment, grasped the hands of “the chief,” and assured him of his devotion. Saccard regretted his momentary impatience. It was at this point that he gave serious thought to a closer relationship with his wife. He might need her against his confederate, and not for the first time he mused to himself that the bed was a wonderful place in which to do business. Little by little the kiss on the neck grew into a revelation, opening up a whole new realm of tactics.

In any case he was in no hurry, for he was husbanding his resources. He allowed his plan to ripen throughout the winter, distracted as he was by a hundred other schemes, each murkier than the last. For him it was a dreadful winter, which saw him buffeted by one blow after another as each day he moved heaven and earth to avoid bankruptcy. Rather than curtail his lavish lifestyle, he threw gala after gala. Yet while he coped with every difficulty, he inevitably neglected Renée, whom he was holding in reserve for his triumphal stroke, when the time was ripe for a move in Charonne. He contented himself with preparing the dénouement by ceasing to provide her with any money except through Larsonneau. Whenever he found himself with a few thousand francs to spare and she pleaded poverty, he supplied the cash she needed but told her that Larsonneau’s creditors insisted on a note for double the amount. This farce amused him no end. The whole business of the notes delighted him by introducing an element of intrigue into the affair. Even in the days when his profits had been most unequivocal, he had paid out his wife’s allowance in a highly irregular way, at times giving her princely gifts and handing over fistfuls of banknotes only to leave her begging for weeks for a paltry sum. Now that he was seriously hard up for cash, he alluded to the expenses of the household and treated her as a creditor to whom it was impossible to confess his bankruptcy and who had to be put off with excuses. She barely listened, signing whatever he asked her to; her only complaint was that she wasn’t allowed to sign more.