Black Diamonds Part 41

The Bondavara Railway was begun. Prince Waldemar and his followers, the bears, were crushed--there _are_ always people who die of hunger in the midst of a plenteous harvest.

Prince Waldemar met his n.o.ble relative, Prince Theobald, at the Jockey Club. Their encounter was hardly a friendly one, considering their close relationship.

Said Prince Waldemar: "You have chosen to put yourself at the head of my enemies. You have done your utmost to trump my best card. You have allied yourself with that man Kaulmann, with whom I am on bad terms. I sought your granddaughter in marriage; you promised she should be my wife, and then you sent her away from Vienna. You have invented all manner of pretexts to keep her at Pesth, and now the secret is out--she is betrothed to Salista. I had a fancy for a pretty little woman, and just to prevent my having her you invite her to your palace and forbid her to receive my visits. Worse than all, you have given over your only unmortgaged property, Bondavara, to a swindling company, who want to set themselves over me; and you have become their president. You have schemed and jockeyed the government into giving the guarantee for a railway that won't pay two per cent. You haven't an idea how you are implicated in these transactions. I pity you--for I have always felt esteem for you--and I intend to set myself the task of regulating _your_ affairs some day. Meantime take care, for if I succeed in upsetting the human pyramid upon whose shoulders you stand the greatest _fall_ will be yours."

Of all this long harangue Prince Theobald only gathered the fact that Angela had chosen the Marquis Salista for her husband, and had never written to tell him. She let him hear it from another.

The Bondavara Railway was being pressed forward; it was nearly finished. There was no further need for a woman's black-diamond eyes.

They had done their work. One day Eveline visited her husband. Felix received her with apparent satisfaction.

"I have come," she said, "to ask you a question. Prince Theobald has been for some days so sad; it is melancholy to see his distress. Have you any idea of its cause?"

"I have. His granddaughter, the Countess Angela, is married, and her husband, the Marquis Salista, is taking steps to put the prince under restraint, on account of the foolish manner in which he is squandering his fortune."

"And much of this foolish extravagance is spent on me."

"You are really wonderfully sharp, Eveline."

"I shall put an end to his spending his money on me. I shall tell the prince that I must leave his palace. I shall be always grateful to him; he has been a benefactor to me--and so have you. I ought to have mentioned you first. You have had me educated; you have taught me a great deal. I have to thank you for being what I am. I can earn my own living, thanks to you. I mean to become a real artist. But I must leave Vienna; I do not care to remain here any longer."

"I think, Eveline, you have decided well, and our minds have really a wonderful sympathy. I was about to advise the very course to you. By all means, leave Vienna; by all means, make use of your talents, and take up work seriously. I shall continue to do my duty as your husband. I shall take you to Paris; I shall settle myself in my house there on purpose to be of a.s.sistance to you. You will make a hit there, I know, and we shall be always good friends."

In spite of her previous experience of this man's character, Eveline was weak enough to be touched by his words and to blame herself for having done him injustice, for it was a great sacrifice on his part to leave Vienna for her sake. She could never have supposed that this sacrifice was part of his well-considered plan for ridding himself of her. She had played _her_ part in making his fortune, and now she could go where she chose--to her native coal-pit if she liked. Once in Paris, he would be able to say, "Madam, you are here under the French law, and as no _civil ceremony_ has pa.s.sed between us, you are not my wife; you are at liberty to call yourself unmarried."

Felix had another reason for settling himself in Paris. It was here he counted on carrying out the second part of his programme. Now that the Bondavara Railway was nearly finished, the castles in the air of the Abbe Samuel were beginning to take shape; the next step should be a gigantic loan in the interest of the Church. This loan would be another means of aggrandizing the house of Kaulmann; its reputation would be world-wide. Already Kaulmann's name was of European celebrity; he belonged to the stars of the first order in the financial world. From being a _baron_ of the stock-exchange he had become a prince. If he succeeded in effecting this loan he would be a _king_ of the money-market, before whose name even that of Rothschild would pale.

A halo was also beginning to surround the name of the Abbe Samuel. The government had begun to see that this popular orator held the people in his hand, and could lead them as he chose. The people looked upon him as their benefactor, a man whose influence could get them benefits. Was not the Bondavara Railway a proof of this? The twelve Halinacoats were firmly persuaded that the abbe had carried back in his pocket the government grant. The clerical party acknowledged him as a new light. In Rome he was lauded for his zeal in the papal cause.

If he was made bishop, which was almost a certainty, he would be the first Hungarian prelate who had taken his seat in the Austrian House of Lords. The minister would stare when he found his scheme for the secularization of Hungarian Church property met by another scheme from the new bishop, which, while proposing a gigantic loan upon these same Church lands, had for its object the elevation of the Holy See by these very means. The money-markets of France, Belgium, and the Roman States would vie with one another in promoting the loan, and the pontiff would look upon the man who had conceived such a project as the saviour of the pontificate; his name should be written in letters of gold. In Hungary, also, the scheme would be favorably received as a means of saving the church property already threatened, for the government dared not refuse this alternative.

Moreover, the primate was an old man; the pope was still older. All the wheels were in readiness; the machine could now be put in motion.

The day the first locomotive steamed out of the Bondavara station the Abbe Samuel might say to himself, "The way to Rome is clear." It would be also safe to prophesy that on this day Ivan Behrend's ruin would be complete.

This railroad would bring the goods of the Joint-Stock Company into the markets of the world, where they could compete with the coal of Prussia and the English coal. But, it will be said, Ivan had the same chance; his coals were equally good, and the giant with the seven-mile boots would carry his coal as well as his enemies'. But here was where the shoes pinched. What was of use to the company was destruction to him.

The railway was not to run through the valley where his mine was situated, although that line was the best and most natural course to take; instead of which mountains had to be made level, tunnels had to be bored through the hills, to avoid his colliery and to carry the rails close to the company's mine. In consequence of this, Ivan would be obliged to make a circuit of a half-day's journey to get to the railway, and so the freightage to the station made his goods five or six per cent. dearer than those of the company. For him, therefore, the railroad was a crushing blow.

In the meantime the end of the year drew near, the time when the miners were to receive their share from the profits. But profit there was none. Neither coal nor iron had any sale. The company's low prices had taken every customer from Ivan.

Any one who possesses ready money can always _say_, even if he loses, that he wins; the common people call this eating your own entrails.

Ivan had a sum by him, which he had carefully gathered in better days.

It amounted, all told, to several thousands, and he calculated he could hold his own against his giant rivals for at least ten years. He forgot that the giants were cunning as well as strong, and that they did not despise the smallest artifice.

When the railway directors issued their prospectus, inviting all contractors to send in contracts for iron rails, etc., Ivan thought to himself, "Now, I will have some fun. The shareholders of the Joint-Stock Company offer their iron six per cent. cheaper than it costs them. I will offer to the railway directors to deliver iron rails at ten per cent. cheaper than they cost _me_. I shall lose fifty thousand gulden, but I shall have the satisfaction of punishing my neighbors for their folly in lowering the price of the raw material."

Simple fool! Just as an honorable gentleman imagines that when a letter is sealed no one would venture to open it, so Ivan thought that all the offers were read together, and that the most advantageous to the company was accepted.

Good gracious! nothing of the kind.

It is always settled beforehand who is to have the contract. When the proposals come in it sometimes happens that some one makes a yet lower offer than that of the _protege_, and this last is then told to take pen and ink and write an offer proposing to give the goods half per cent. lower than the offer made by the outsider.

This is a well-known trick, and it is only men like Ivan, whose minds are occupied with petrifactions and the stars, who are in ignorance that such things are done.

The contract offered by the shareholders was half per cent. lower than the one offered by Ivan.

But even this rebuff didn't daunt him. Two and two make four, and those who sin against multiplication must come to ruin sooner or later.

Ivan continued making in his workshop iron bars and rails. He acc.u.mulated a store in his magazines. Some time they would be wanted.

The Bondavara Railroad was to be made.

Csanta wanted to sell his houses in X----; the whole street was for sale. He said he was going to live in Vienna, and to fill his office of one of the directors to the company. He was to receive a large salary, and to have little or nothing to do. He had changed all his gold into papers--there is no use nowadays for houses or land or cattle or mines; nothing is good but paper. _It_ wants neither groom nor manure nor pay nor machinery.

Therefore, he wished to sell the whole street. Fortunately, there was so little money in X---- that the inhabitants of the whole town put together couldn't produce enough money to buy a poor little street.

The Bondavara Railway was in progress. Along the line the navvies were working like a swarm of ants; they shoved wheelbarrows from morning until night; they dug the ground, blew up rocks, bored mountains, rammed plugs into water-sources, hewed stones, dammed rivers.

In the dark mouth of the Bondavara mine one man stood immovable. He was ever watching the work. His gloomy, threatening face was fixed steadily upon a windla.s.s.

This man was Peter Saffran. He held in his hand a lump of coal, and as he looked back from the noisy landscape to the remnant of trees his eyes seemed to say, "Thou art the cause of all this tumult, this wealth, this splendor; thou art a living power--thou!" And he hurled the coal against the wall.

CHAPTER XXV

THE POOR DEAR PRINCE

"You have something to tell me: what is it?" asked Prince Theobald, as he entered Eveline's drawing-room in answer to a letter from her, written after her interview with her husband.

"I wish to leave Vienna."

"Ah! this is sudden. And where are you going?"

"My husband is obliged to go to Paris. I am going with him."

The prince looked inquiringly at her. "Have you, then, grown tired of being under my care?"

"I am afraid I cannot deny it. I am like a slave in a gilded cage. I am a sort of prisoner, and I want to see life."

"You repent, then, of the promise you made me? Well, then, I release you; but stay with me."

"I should be too proud to receive benefits from any one to whom I am ungrateful. Besides, it would be enough for me to know that you are the master of the palace to take all sense of freedom from me. I don't want to receive any more favors."