working interested him no longer; he did not long disguise the profound
scorn that makes of a man of extraordinary powers a sphinx who knows
everything and says nothing, and sees all things with an unmoved
countenance. He felt not the slightest wish to communicate his knowledge
to other men. He was rich with all the wealth of the world, with one
effort he could make the circle of the globe, and riches and power were
meaningless for him. He felt the awful melancholy of omnipotence, a
melancholy which Satan and God relieve by the exercise of infinite power
in mysterious ways known to them alone. Castanier had not, like his
Master, the inextinguishable energy of hate and malice; he felt that he
was a devil, but a devil whose time was not yet come, while Satan is a
devil through all eternity, and being damned beyond redemption, delights
to stir up the world, like a dung heap, with his triple fork and to
thwart therein the designs of God. But Castanier, for his misfortune,
had one hope left.
If in a moment he could move from one pole to the other as a bird
springs restlessly from side to side in its cage, when, like the bird,
he has crossed his prison, he saw the vast immensity of space beyond it.
That vision of the Infinite left him for ever unable to see humanity and
its affairs as other men saw them. The insensate fools who long for the
power of the Devil gauge its desirability from a human standpoint; they
do not see that with the Devil’s power they will likewise assume his
thoughts, and that they will be doomed to remain as men among creatures
who will no longer understand them. The Nero unknown to history who
dreams of setting Paris on fire for his private entertainment, like
an exhibition of a burning house on the boards of a theatre, does not
suspect that if he had the power, Paris would become for him as little
interesting as an ant-heap by the roadside to a hurrying passer-by. The
circle of the sciences was for Castanier something like a logogriph
for a man who does not know the key to it. Kings and Governments were
despicable in his eyes. His great debauch had been in some sort a
deplorable farewell to his life as a man. The earth had grown too
narrow for him, for the infernal gifts laid bare for him the secrets of
creation--he saw the cause and foresaw its end. He was shut out from
all that men call “heaven” in all languages under the sun; he could no
longer think of heaven.
Then he came to understand the look on his predecessor’s face and the
drying up of the life within; then he knew all that was meant by the
baffled hope that gleamed in Melmoth’s eyes; he, too, knew the thirst
that burned those red lips, and the agony of a continual struggle
between two natures grown to giant size. Even yet he might be an angel,
and he knew himself to be a fiend. His was the fate of a sweet and
gentle creature that a wizard’s malice has imprisoned in a mis-shapen
form, entrapping it by a pact, so that another’s will must set it free
from its detested envelope.
As a deception only increases the ardor with which a man of really
great nature explores the infinite of sentiment in a woman’s heart, so
Castanier awoke to find that one idea lay like a weight upon his soul,
an idea which was perhaps the key to loftier spheres. The very fact that
he had bartered away his eternal happiness led him to dwell in thought
upon the future of those who pray and believe. On the morrow of his
debauch, when he entered into the sober possession of his power, this
idea made him feel himself a prisoner; he knew the burden of the woe
that poets, and prophets, and great oracles of faith have set forth for
us in such mighty words; he felt the point of the Flaming Sword plunged
into his side, and hurried in search of Melmoth. What had become of his
predecessor?
The Englishman was living in a mansion in the Rue Ferou, near
Saint-Sulpice--a gloomy, dark, damp, and cold abode. The Rue Ferou
itself is one of the most dismal streets in Paris; it has a north aspect
like all the streets that lie at right angles to the left bank of the
Seine, and the houses are in keeping with the site. As Castanier stood
on the threshold he found that the door itself, like the vaulted roof,
was hung with black; rows of lighted tapers shone brilliantly as though
some king were lying in state; and a priest stood on either side of a
catafalque that had been raised there.
“There is no need to ask why you have come, sir,” the old hall porter
said to Castanier; “you are so like our poor dear master that is gone.
But if you are his brother, you have come too late to bid him good-bye.
The good gentleman died the night before last.”
“How did he die?” Castanier asked of one of the priests.
“Set your mind at rest,” said the old priest; he partly raised as he
spoke the black pall that covered the catafalque.
Castanier, looking at him, saw one of those faces that faith has made
sublime; the soul seemed to shine forth from every line of it, bringing
light and warmth for other men, kindled by the unfailing charity within.
This was Sir John Melmoth’s confessor.
“Your brother made an end that men may envy, and that must rejoice
the angels. Do you know what joy there is in heaven over a sinner
that repents? His tears of penitence, excited by grace, flowed without
ceasing; death alone checked them. The Holy Spirit dwelt in him. His
burning words, full of lively faith, were worthy of the Prophet-King.
If, in the course of my life, I have never heard a more dreadful
confession than from the lips of this Irish gentleman, I have likewise
never heard such fervent and passionate prayers. However great the
measures of his sins may have been, his repentance has filled the abyss
to overflowing. The hand of God was visibly stretched out above him, for
he was completely changed, there was such heavenly beauty in his face.
The hard eyes were softened by tears; the resonant voice that struck
terror into those who heard it took the tender and compassionate tones
of those who themselves have passed through deep humiliation. He so
edified those who heard his words, that some who had felt drawn to see
the spectacle of a Christian’s death fell on their knees as he spoke of
heavenly things, and of the infinite glory of God, and gave thanks and
praise to Him. If he is leaving no worldly wealth to his family, no
family can possess a greater blessing than this that he surely gained
for them, a soul among the blessed, who will watch over you all and
direct you in the path to heaven.”
These words made such a vivid impression upon Castanier that he
instantly hurried from the house to the Church of Saint-Sulpice,
obeying what might be called a decree of fate. Melmoth’s repentance had
stupefied him.
At that time, on certain mornings in the week, a preacher, famed for
his eloquence, was wont to hold conferences, in the course of which
he demonstrated the truths of the Catholic faith for the youth of a
generation proclaimed to be indifferent in matters of belief by another
voice no less eloquent than his own. The conference had been put off to
a later hour on account of Melmoth’s funeral, so Castanier arrived just
as the great preacher was epitomizing the proofs of a future existence
of happiness with all the charm of eloquence and force of expression
which have made him famous. The seeds of divine doctrine fell into
a soil prepared for them in the old dragoon, into whom the Devil had
glided. Indeed, if there is a phenomenon well attested by experience,
is it not the spiritual phenomenon commonly called “the faith of the
peasant”? The strength of belief varies inversely with the amount of
use that a man has made of his reasoning faculties. Simple people and
soldiers belong to the unreasoning class. Those who have marched through
life beneath the banner of instinct are far more ready to receive the
light than minds and hearts overwearied with the world’s sophistries.
Castanier had the southern temperament; he had joined the army as a lad
of sixteen, and had followed the French flag till he was nearly forty
years old. As a common trooper, he had fought day and night, and day
after day, and, as in duty bound, had thought of his horse first, and
of himself afterwards. While he served his military apprenticeship,
therefore, he had but little leisure in which to reflect on the destiny
of man, and when he became an officer he had his men to think of. He had
been swept from battlefield to battlefield, but he had never thought of
what comes after death. A soldier’s life does not demand much thinking.
Those who cannot understand the lofty political ends involved and the
interests of nation and nation; who cannot grasp political schemes as
well as plans of campaign, and combine the science of the tactician with
that of the administrator, are bound to live in a state of ignorance;
the most boorish peasant in the most backward district in France is
scarcely in a worse case. Such men as these bear the brunt of war, yield
passive obedience to the brain that directs them, and strike down
the men opposed to them as the woodcutter fells timber in the forest.
Violent physical exertion is succeeded by times of inertia, when they
repair the waste. They fight and drink, fight and eat, fight and sleep,
that they may the better deal hard blows; the powers of the mind are
not greatly exercised in this turbulent round of existence, and the
character is as simple as heretofore.
When the men who have shown such energy on the battlefield return to
ordinary civilization, most of those who have not risen to high rank
seem to have acquired no ideas, and to have no aptitude, no capacity,
for grasping new ideas. To the utter amazement of a younger generation,
those who made our armies so glorious and so terrible are as simple as
children, and as slow-witted as a clerk at his worst, and the captain of
a thundering squadron is scarcely fit to keep a merchant’s day-book. Old
soldiers of this stamp, therefore being innocent of any attempt to
use their reasoning faculties, act upon their strongest impulses.
Castanier’s crime was one of those matters that raise so many questions,
that, in order to debate about it, a moralist might call for its
“discussion by clauses,” to make use of a parliamentary expression.
Passion had counseled the crime; the cruelly irresistible power of
feminine witchery had driven him to commit it; no man can say of
himself, “I will never do that,” when a siren joins in the combat and
throws her spells over him.
So the word of life fell upon a conscience newly awakened to the truths
of religion which the French Revolution and a soldier’s career had
forced Castanier to neglect. The solemn words, “You will be happy or
miserable for all eternity!” made but the more terrible impression upon
him, because he had exhausted earth and shaken it like a barren tree;
because his desires could effect all things, so that it was enough that
any spot in earth or heaven should be forbidden him, and he forthwith
thought of nothing else. If it were allowable to compare such great
things with social follies, Castanier’s position was not unlike that of
a banker who, finding that his all-powerful millions cannot obtain for
him an entrance into the society of the noblesse, must set his heart
upon entering that circle, and all the social privileges that he has
already acquired are as nothing in his eyes from the moment when he
discovers that a single one is lacking.
Here is a man more powerful than all the kings on earth put together; a
man who, like Satan, could wrestle with God Himself; leaning against
one of the pillars in the Church of Saint-Sulpice, weighed down by the
feelings and thoughts that oppressed him, and absorbed in the thought of
a Future, the same thought that had engulfed Melmoth.
“He was very happy, was Melmoth!” cried Castanier. “He died in the
certain knowledge that he would go to heaven.”
In a moment the greatest possible change had been wrought in the
cashier’s ideas. For several days he had been a devil, now he was
nothing but a man; an image of the fallen Adam, of the sacred tradition
embodied in all cosmogonies. But while he had thus shrunk he retained
a germ of greatness, he had been steeped in the Infinite. The power of
hell had revealed the divine power. He thirsted for heaven as he had
never thirsted after the pleasures of earth, that are so soon exhausted.
The enjoyments which the fiend promises are but the enjoyments of earth
on a larger scale, but to the joys of heaven there is no limit. He
believed in God, and the spell that gave him the treasures of the world
was as nothing to him now; the treasures themselves seemed to him as
contemptible as pebbles to an admirer of diamonds; they were but gewgaws
compared with the eternal glories of the other life. A curse lay, he
thought, on all things that came to him from this source. He sounded
dark depths of painful thought as he listened to the service performed
for Melmoth. The _Dies irae_ filled him with awe; he felt all the
grandeur of that cry of a repentant soul trembling before the Throne of
God. The Holy Spirit, like a devouring flame, passed through him as fire
consumes straw.
The tears were falling from his eyes when--“Are you a relation of the
dead?” the beadle asked him.
“I am his heir,” Castanier answered.
“Give something for the expenses of the services!” cried the man.
“No,” said the cashier. (The Devil’s money should not go to the Church.)
“For the poor!”
“No.”
“For repairing the Church!”
“No.”
“The Lady Chapel!”
“No.”
“For the schools!”
“No.”
Castanier went, not caring to expose himself to the sour looks that the
irritated functionaries gave him.
Outside, in the street, he looked up at the Church of Saint-Sulpice.
“What made people build the giant cathedrals I have seen in every
country?” he asked himself. “The feeling shared so widely throughout all
time must surely be based upon something.”
“Something! Do you call God _something_?” cried his conscience. “God!
God! God!...”
The word was echoed and re-echoed by an inner voice, til it overwhelmed
him; but his feeling of terror subsided as he heard sweet distant sounds
of music that he had caught faintly before. They were singing in the
church, he thought, and his eyes scanned the great doorway. But as he
listened more closely, the sounds poured upon him from all sides; he
looked round the square, but there was no sign of any musicians. The
melody brought visions of a distant heaven and far-off gleams of hope;
but it also quickened the remorse that had set the lost soul in a
ferment. He went on his way through Paris, walking as men walk who
are crushed beneath the burden of their sorrow, seeing everything
with unseeing eyes, loitering like an idler, stopping without cause,
muttering to himself, careless of the traffic, making no effort to avoid
a blow from a plank of timber.
Imperceptibly repentance brought him under the influence of the divine
grace that soothes while it bruises the heart so terribly. His face came
to wear a look of Melmoth, something great, with a trace of madness in
the greatness--a look of dull and hopeless distress, mingled with the
excited eagerness of hope, and, beneath it all, a gnawing sense of
loathing for all that the world can give. The humblest of prayers lurked
in the eyes that saw with such dreadful clearness. His power was the
measure of his anguish. His body was bowed down by the fearful storm
that shook his soul, as the tall pines bend before the blast. Like his
predecessor, he could not refuse to bear the burden of life; he
was afraid to die while he bore the yoke of hell. The torment grew
intolerable.
At last, one morning, he bethought himself how that Melmoth (now among
the blessed) had made the proposal of an exchange, and how that he had
accepted it; others, doubtless, would follow his example; for in an age
proclaimed, by the inheritors of the eloquence of the Fathers of the
Church, to be fatally indifferent to religion, it should be easy to find
a man who would accept the conditions of the contract in order to prove
its advantages.
“There is one place where you can learn what kings will fetch in the
market; where nations are weighed in the balance and systems appraised;
where the value of a government is stated in terms of the five-franc
piece; where ideas and beliefs have their price, and everything is
discounted; where God Himself, in a manner, borrows on the security of
His revenue of souls, for the Pope has a running account there. Is it
not there that I should go to traffic in souls?”
Castanier went quite joyously on ‘Change, thinking that it would be as
easy to buy a soul as to invest money in the Funds. Any ordinary person
would have feared ridicule, but Castanier knew by experience that
a desperate man takes everything seriously. A prisoner lying under
sentence of death would listen to the madman who should tell him that
by pronouncing some gibberish he could escape through the keyhole; for
suffering is credulous, and clings to an idea until it fails, as the
swimmer borne along by the current clings to the branch that snaps in
his hand.
Towards four o’clock that afternoon Castanier appeared among the little
knots of men who were transacting private business after ‘Change. He was
personally known to some of the brokers; and while affecting to be in
search of an acquaintance, he managed to pick up the current gossip and
rumors of failure.
“Catch me negotiating bills for Claparon & Co., my boy. The bank
collector went round to return their acceptances to them this morning,”
said a fat banker in his outspoken way. “If you have any of their paper,
look out.”
Claparon was in the building, in deep consultation with a man well known
for the ruinous rate at which he lent money. Castanier went forthwith in
search of the said Claparon, a merchant who had a reputation for taking
heavy risks that meant wealth or utter ruin. The money-lender walked
away as Castanier came up. A gesture betrayed the speculator’s despair.
“Well, Claparon, the Bank wants a hundred thousand francs of you, and it
is four o’clock; the thing is known, and it is too late to arrange your
little failure comfortably,” said Castanier.
“Sir!”
“Speak lower,” the cashier went on. “How if I were to propose a piece of
business that would bring you in as much money as you require?”
“It would not discharge my liabilities; every business that I ever heard
of wants a little time to simmer in.”
“I know of something that will set you straight in a moment,” answered
Castanier; “but first you would have to----”
“Do what?”
“Sell your share of paradise. It is a matter of business like anything
else, isn’t it? We all hold shares in the great Speculation of
Eternity.”
“I tell you this,” said Claparon angrily, “that I am just the man to
lend you a slap in the face. When a man is in trouble, it is no time to
pay silly jokes on him.”
“I am talking seriously,” said Castanier, and he drew a bundle of notes
from his pocket.
“In the first place,” said Claparon, “I am not going to sell my soul
to the Devil for a trifle. I want five hundred thousand francs before I
strike----”
“Who talks of stinting you?” asked Castanier, cutting him short. “You
shall have more gold than you could stow in the cellars of the Bank of
France.”
He held out a handful of notes. That decided Claparon.
“Done,” he cried; “but how is the bargain to be make?”
“Let us go over yonder, no one is standing there,” said Castanier,
pointing to a corner of the court.
Claparon and his tempter exchanged a few words, with their faces turned
to the wall. None of the onlookers guessed the nature of this by-play,
though their curiosity was keenly excited by the strange gestures of
the two contracting parties. When Castanier returned, there was a sudden
outburst of amazed exclamation. As in the Assembly where the least event
immediately attracts attention, all faces were turned to the two men who
had caused the sensation, and a shiver passed through all beholders at
the change that had taken place in them.
The men who form the moving crowd that fills the Stock Exchange are soon
known to each other by sight. They watch each other like players round
a card-table. Some shrewd observers can tell how a man will play and
the condition of his exchequer from a survey of his face; and the Stock
Exchange is simply a vast card-table. Every one, therefore, had noticed
Claparon and Castanier. The latter (like the Irishman before him) had
been muscular and powerful, his eyes were full of light, his color high.
The dignity and power in his face had struck awe into them all; they
wondered how old Castanier had come by it; and now they beheld Castanier
divested of his power, shrunken, wrinkled, aged, and feeble. He had
drawn Claparon out of the crowd with the energy of a sick man in a
fever fit; he had looked like an opium-eater during the brief period of
excitement that the drug can give; now, on his return, he seemed to be
in the condition of utter exhaustion in which the patient dies after
the fever departs, or to be suffering from the horrible prostration
that follows on excessive indulgence in the delights of narcotics. The
infernal power that had upheld him through his debauches had left him,
and the body was left unaided and alone to endure the agony of remorse
and the heavy burden of sincere repentance. Claparon’s troubles every
one could guess; but Claparon reappeared, on the other hand, with
sparkling eyes, holding his head high with the pride of Lucifer. The
crisis had passed from the one man to the other.
“Now you can drop off with an easy mind, old man,” said Claparon to
Castanier.
“For pity’s sake, send for a cab and for a priest; send for the curate
of Saint-Sulpice!” answered the old dragoon, sinking down upon the
curbstone.
The words “a priest” reached the ears of several people, and produced
uproarious jeering among the stockbrokers, for faith with these
gentlemen means a belief that a scrap of paper called a mortgage
represents an estate, and the List of Fundholders is their Bible.
“Shall I have time to repent?” said Castanier to himself, in a piteous
voice, that impressed Claparon.
A cab carried away the dying man; the speculator went to the bank at
once to meet his bills; and the momentary sensation produced upon the
throng of business men by the sudden change on the two faces, vanished
like the furrow cut by a ship’s keel in the sea. News of the greatest
importance kept the attention of the world of commerce on the alert; and
when commercial interests are at stake, Moses might appear with his two
luminous horns, and his coming would scarcely receive the honors of
a pun, the gentlemen whose business it is to write the Market Reports
would ignore his existence.
When Claparon had made his payments, fear seized upon him. There was
no mistake about his power. He went on ‘Change again, and offered his
bargain to other men in embarrassed circumstances. The Devil’s bond,
“together with the rights, easements, and privileges appertaining
thereunto,”--to use the expression of the notary who succeeded Claparon,
changed hands for the sum of seven hundred thousand francs. The notary
in his turn parted with the agreement with the Devil for five hundred
thousand francs to a building contractor in difficulties, who likewise
was rid of it to an iron merchant in consideration of a hundred thousand
crowns. In fact, by five o’clock people had ceased to believe in the
strange contract, and purchasers were lacking for want of confidence.
At half-past five the holder of the bond was a house-painter, who was
lounging by the door of the building in the Rue Feydeau, where at that
time stockbrokers temporarily congregated. The house-painter, simple
fellow, could not think what was the matter with him. He “felt all
anyhow”; so he told his wife when he went home.