It was too much for Elias. He lost his sleep, and one day, after meeting the Graffs, who were being escorted to the station by all their friends, he returned home, and was taken suddenly ill. Old Moses, terrified, put his son to bed, summoned the doctor, and learnt that the new convert was at the point of death. A furious delirium had taken possession of him; during its course he negotiated fabulous bargains with imaginary buyers and sellers. A semblance of reason returned only when he poured forth floods of insults and threats against the Baradiers and the Graffs, whilst his father calmed him by saying— “Yes, Elias, you shall have your revenge on these rascals! You shall ruin them! You shall crush them under your heel!” Then a happy smile came over the patient’s lips; he slept a few hours, and awoke feeling much better. One may affirm that it was the intensity of his hatred that kept him from dying. Plans of revenge haunted his fevered brain, and when the doctor, in astonishment, declared that the young man was convalescent, the first words Elias uttered were, “All the better! Had I died, the Baradiers and Graff’s would have been too glad!” To tell the truth, the latter paid not the slightest heed to the feelings of rancour they had so violently aroused. They had assumed the direction of the firm, had extended the business, and founded additional woollen factories. Marcel Baradier and his sister Amélie were born. Complete harmony seemed to exist in this happy family, when Elias Lichtenbach, his father having died, came to establish himself in Paris. A singular metamorphosis had been wrought in him. The first time Baradier and his rival met at the Bourse the banker did not recognize Lichtenbach. He saw before him a thin, stooping man, almost bald, with cold, passionless eyes, hidden behind gold spectacles. His very voice had changed. M. Lichtenbach spoke little, said only what was absolutely essential, and remained impassive before the most important news. A contraction of the jaws alone betrayed his emotion, giving to his countenance a character of singular ferocity. Lichtenbach’s connection with the firm of Baradier and Graff was full of meaning. He caused them to lose three hundred thousand francs in a single morning on a contract for wool, concluded at the Bourse of Troyes. Elias sold wool from Hungary at so low a rate that Baradier and Graff, who had speculated on a rise, were obliged to sell out rapidly to limit their risks. It was the first clear flash from the cloud. Henceforward an enemy, always on the watch, was ever ready to strike the Baradier firm in its most vulnerable part. Lichtenbach’s evil intentions, though concealed, were none the less certain.