David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) by Irène Némirovsky Page B

“I’m on my own.”
    “If I can help in any way…” Golder automatically replied.
    She hesitated for a moment. “Well,” she said finally, “what would you advise me to do with the Houillere shares?”
    “I’ll buy them from you at what they cost,” said Golder. “You do know they’ll never be worth anything? The company went bankrupt. But I’ll also have to take some of these letters. I imagine you expected as much, didn’t you?” he added in a hostile, sarcastic way that she appeared not to notice. She simply nodded and stepped back a bit. Golder began sifting through the papers in the half-empty drawer. But he couldn’t manage to overcome a sudden feeling of sad, bitter indifference. My God, what’s the point of it all, in the end?
    “Why did he do it?” he asked abruptly.
    “I don’t know,” said Madame Marcus.
    “Was it over money? Just money?” He was thinking out loud. “It just isn’t possible. Didn’t he say anything at all before he died?”
    “No. When they brought him back here, he was already unconscious. The bullet was lodged in his lung.”
    “I see,” Golder said with a shudder, “I see.”
    “Later on, he tried to speak, but his mouth was full of foam and blood. He only said a few words, just before he died… He was almost peaceful, and I asked him, ‘Why? How could you do such a thing to me?’ He said something I could barely make out…Just one word that he kept repeating: ‘Tired… I was… tired…’ And then he died.”
    “Tired,” thought Golder, who suddenly felt his age bearing down on him, like a heavy weight. “Yes.”

    A VIOLENT STORM was beating down on Paris the day of Marcus’s funeral; everyone was in a hurry to bury the dead man deep within the wet earth and then leave.
    Golder was holding his umbrella in front of his face, but when the coffin went past, balanced on the shoulders of the pallbearers, he stared at it; the black fabric, embroidered with tear-shaped silver drops, had slipped away, revealing the cheap wood and tarnished metal handles. Golder turned sharply away.
    Next to him, two men were talking loudly. One of them pointed to the hole being filled in.
    “He came to see me,” Golder could hear one of them saying, “and offered to pay me with a cheque drawn on the French Bank of America in New York, and I was foolish enough to agree. It was the night before he died, Saturday. As soon as I’d heard he’d killed himself, I cabled and only got a reply the following morning. Naturally, he’d cheated me. Insufficient funds. But I’m not going to let it drop, his widow will have to make it good …”
    “Was it for a lot of money?” someone asked.
    “Not to you perhaps, Monsieur Weille, not to you,” the voice replied bitterly, “but to a poor man like me, it was an awful lot of money.”
    Golder looked at him. He was a small, hunched old man, rather shabbily dressed, who stood shaking in the wind, shivering and coughing. As no one said anything, he continued complaining in a low voice. Someone else started laughing.
    “You’d be better off asking the madam at the Rue Chabanais, she’s the one who’s got your money.”
    Behind Golder, two young men were whispering behind an open umbrella: “The thing’s a farce…You know they found him with some little girls? Only thirteen or fourteen years old… It’s absolutely true, and on top ofthat…” He lowered his voice.
    “Who would have guessed he had a taste for that…”
    “Maybe he was just trying to satisfy a secret desire before dying, what do you think?”
    “Trying to hide his predilections more likely …”
    “Do you know why he killed himself?”
    Golder automatically took a few steps forward, then stopped. He looked at the gleaming gravestones, the battered wreaths, whipped by the wind. He vaguely muttered something. The man next to him turned around.
    “What were you saying, Golder?”
    “What a mess, don’t you think?” Golder said, suddenly sounding angry