"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, ****** 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.
