Gobseck | Page 6

the
man Gobseck. When I did business for him later, I came to know that
he was about seventy-six years old at the time when we became
acquainted. He was born about 1740, in some outlying suburb of
Antwerp, of a Dutch father and a Jewish mother, and his name was
Jean-Esther Van Gobseck. You remember how all Paris took an interest
in that murder case, a woman named La belle Hollandaise? I happened
to mention it to my old neighbor, and he answered without the slightest
symptom of interest or surprise, 'She is my grandniece.'
"That was the only remark drawn from him by the death of his sole
surviving next of kin, his sister's granddaughter. From reports of the
case I found that La belle Hollandaise was in fact named Sara Van
Gobseck. When I asked by what curious chance his grandniece came to
bear his surname, he smiled:
" 'The women never marry in our family.'
"Singular creature, he had never cared to find out a single relative
among four generations counted on the female side. The thought of his
heirs was abhorrent to him; and the idea that his wealth could pass into
other hands after his death simply inconceivable.
"He was a child, ten years old, when his mother shipped him off as a
cabin boy on a voyage to the Dutch Straits Settlements, and there he
knocked about for twenty years. The inscrutable lines on that sallow
forehead kept the secret of horrible adventures, sudden panic,
unhoped-for luck, romantic cross events, joys that knew no limit,
hunger endured and love trampled under foot, fortunes risked, lost, and
recovered, life endangered time and time again, and saved, it may be,
by one of the rapid, ruthless decisions absolved by necessity. He had
known Admiral Simeuse, M. de Lally, M. de Kergarouet, M. d'Estaing,

le Bailli de Suffren, M. de Portenduere, Lord Cornwallis, Lord
Hastings, Tippoo Sahib's father, Tippoo Sahib himself. The bully who
served Mahadaji Sindhia, King of Delhi, and did so much to found the
power of the Mahrattas, had had dealings with Gobseck. Long
residence at St. Thomas brought him in contact with Victor Hughes and
other notorious pirates. In his quest of fortune he had left no stone
unturned; witness an attempt to discover the treasure of that tribe of
savages so famous in Buenos Ayres and its neighborhood. He had a
personal knowledge of the events of the American War of
Independence. But if he spoke of the Indies or of America, as he did
very rarely with me, and never with anyone else, he seemed to regard it
as an indiscretion and to repent of it afterwards. If humanity and
sociability are in some sort a religion, Gobseck might be ranked as an
infidel; but though I set myself to study him, I must confess, to my
shame, that his real nature was impenetrable up to the very last. I even
felt doubts at times as to his sex. If all usurers are like this one, I
maintain that they belong to the neuter gender.
"Did he adhere to his mother's religion? Did he look on Gentiles as his
legitimate prey? Had he turned Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Mahometan,
Brahmin, or what not? I never knew anything whatsoever about his
religious opinions, and so far as I could see, he was indifferent rather
than incredulous.
"One evening I went in to see this man who had turned himself to gold;
the usurer, whom his victims (his clients, as he styled them) were wont
to call Daddy Gobseck, perhaps ironically, perhaps by way of
antiphrasis. He was sitting in his armchair, motionless as a statue,
staring fixedly at the mantel-shelf, where he seemed to read the figures
of his statements. A lamp, with a pedestal that had once been green,
was burning in the room; but so far from taking color from its smoky
light, his face seemed to stand out positively paler against the
background. He pointed to a chair set for me, but not a word did he say.
" 'What thoughts can this being have in his mind?' said I to myself.
'Does he know that a God exists; does he know there are such things as
feeling, woman, happiness?' I pitied him as I might have pitied a

diseased creature. But, at the same time, I knew quite well that while he
had millions of francs at his command, he possessed the world no less
in idea--that world which he had explored, ransacked, weighed,
appraised, and exploited.
" 'Good day, Daddy Gobseck,' I began.
"He turned his face towards me with a slight contraction of his bushy,
black eyebrows; this characteristic shade of expression in him meant as
much as the most jubilant smile on a Southern face.
" 'You