Other branch
Caroline Hamelin
Engineer's sister, banker's partner
The moral conscience of L'Argent, and one of the most fully realised women in the cycle. She accompanies her brother Georges Hamelin in his dealings with Saccard and watches the Universal Bank's rise with growing disquiet — she knows Saccard is not honest, she knows the stock price is manipulated, and yet she stays, partly out of genuine affection for him and partly because her brother's real projects (which are genuinely valuable) are bound up in the enterprise. She travels to the Orient with Hamelin as the bank's ostensible projects take shape there, observing the genuine work being done even as the speculation in Paris grows monstrous. When the crash comes she is not ruined; when Saccard is arrested she does not abandon him entirely. What distinguishes her is not innocence — she is never innocent — but a lucidity that somehow coexists with continued engagement. Zola uses her to explore the question of how a decent person relates to a corrupt world: whether watching is complicity, whether love for a scoundrel is a moral failure, whether dignity can be maintained in contact with dishonesty.
Conscience morale de L'Argent. Elle accompagne son frère Hamelin dans ses dealings avec Saccard, observe la montée frauduleuse de la Banque universelle avec un malaise lucide, reste malgré tout — par affection pour Saccard et attachement aux vrais projets de son frère. Elle survit au désastre sans être ruinée. Zola l'utilise pour explorer comment un être honnête se comporte dans un monde corrompu.
Dark, handsome, with the intelligent eyes of a woman who understands men well and has decided, after weighing the evidence, not to be destroyed by them.
Dark, handsome, with the intelligent eyes of a woman who understands men well and has decided, after weighing the evidence, not to be destroyed by them.
Engraving from the Vizetelly English translation of L'Argent (1894) — Public domain
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- IV