Melmoth Reconciled

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Title, Author or Keyword. This product is known as the Cashier, an anthropomorphous growth, watered by religious doctrine, trained up in fear of the guillotine, pruned by vice, to flourish on a third floor with an estimable wife by his side and an uninteresting family. The number of cashiers in Paris must always be a problem for the physiologist. Has any one as yet been able to state correctly the terms of the proportion sum wherein the cashier figures as the unknown x?

Where will you find the man who shall live with wealth, like a cat with a caged mouse? This man, for further qualification, shall be capable of sitting boxed in behind an iron grating for seven or eight hours a day during seven eighths of the year, perched upon a cane seated chair in a space as narrow as a lieutenant's cabin on board a man of war. Such a man must be able to defy anchylosis of the knee and thigh joints; he must have a soul above meanness, in order to live meanly; must lose all relish for money by dint of handling it.

Demand this peculiar specimen of any creed, educational system, school, or institution you please, and select Paris, that city of fiery ordeals and branch establishment of hell, as the soil in which to plant the said cashier. Creeds, schools, institutions and moral systems, all human rules and regulations, great and small, will, one after another, present much the same face that an intimate friend turns upon you when you ask him to lend you a thousand francs.

With a dolorous dropping of the jaw, they indicate the guillotine, much as your friend aforesaid will furnish you with the address of the money lender, pointing you to one of the hundred gates by which a man comes to the last refuge of the destitute. Yet nature has her freaks in the making of a man's mind; she indulges herself and makes a few honest folk now and again, and now and then a cashier.

The sickening sensation of heat that he had felt when he took back the pen returned in greater intensity. I have a couple of passports and two different disguises; is not that enough to throw the cleverest detective off the scent? On Tuesday morning I shall draw a million francs in London before the slightest suspicion has been aroused.

Think of an old campaigner like me infatuated enough to tie myself to a petticoat tail!

I must leave her behind. Yes, I could make up my mind to it; but — I know myself — I should be ass enough to go back to her. Still, nobody knows Aquilina. Shall I take her or leave her? He turned sharply, and saw the Englishman. When he resumed his walk he fell once more into that fever of irresolution which besets those who are so carried away by passion that they are ready to commit a crime, but have not sufficient strength of character to keep it to themselves without suffering terribly in the process. So, although Castanier had made up his mind to reap the fruits of a crime which was already half executed, he hesitated to carry out his designs.

For him, as for many men of mixed character in whom weakness and strength are equally blended, the least trifling consideration determines whether they shall continue to lead blameless lives or become actively criminal. The letter of credit was drafted in such terms that immediately on his arrival he might draw twenty-five thousand pounds on the firm of Watschildine, the London correspondents of the house of Nucingen.

The London house had already been advised of the draft about to be made upon them, he had written to them himself. He had instructed an agent chosen at random to take his passage in a vessel which was to leave Portsmouth with a wealthy English family on board, who were going to Italy, and the passage-money had been paid in the name of the Conte Ferraro. The smallest details of the scheme had been thought out. He had arranged matters so as to divert the search that would be made for him into Belgium and Switzerland, while he himself was at sea in the English vessel.

Then, by the time that Nucingen might flatter himself that he was on the track of his late cashier, the said cashier, as the Conte Ferraro, hoped to be safe in Naples. He had determined to disfigure his face in order to disguise himself the more completely, and by means of an acid to imitate the scars of smallpox. Yet, in spite of all these precautions, which surely seemed as if they must secure him complete immunity, his conscience tormented him; he was afraid.

The even and peaceful life that he had led for so long had modified the morality of the camp. His life was stainless as yet; he could not sully it without a pang. So for the last time he abandoned himself to all the influences of the better self that strenuously resisted. He would keep my secret even if a dozen men were standing ready to shoot him down. The chances are all in my favor, so far as I see; so I shall take my little Naqui with me, and I will go. Suppose that the devil and the police should let me go on as I please, so as to nab me in the nick of time?

Did any one ever see the like! But there, this is folly. Castanier went along the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, slackening his pace as he neared the Rue Richer. No one, not even Castanier, knew her real name. She was one of those young girls, who are driven by dire misery, by inability to earn a living, or by fear of starvation, to have recourse to a trade which most of them loathe, many regard with indifference, and some few follow in obedience to the laws of their constitution.

But on the brink of the gulf of prostitution in Paris, the young girl of sixteen, beautiful and pure as the Madonna, had met with Castanier. The old dragoon was too rough and homely to make his way in society, and he was tired of tramping the boulevard at night and of the kind of conquests made there by gold. For some time past he had desired to bring a certain regularity into an irregular life. He was struck by the beauty of the poor child who had drifted by chance into his arms, and his determination to rescue her from the life of the streets was half benevolent, half selfish, as some of the thoughts of the best of men are apt to be.

Castanier had just cleverness enough to be very shrewd where his own interests were concerned. So he concluded to be a philanthropist on either count, and at first made her his mistress.

Melmoth Reconciled by Honoré de Balzac

This irregular union gave the Piedmontese a status the most nearly approaching respectability among those which the world declines to recognize. During the first year she took the nom de guerre of Aquilina, one of the characters in Venice Preserved which she had chanced to read. She fancied that she resembled the courtesan in face and general appearance, and in a certain precocity of heart and brain of which she was conscious.

When Castanier found that her life was as well regulated and virtuous as was possible for a social outlaw, he manifested a desire that they should live as husband and wife. So she took the name of Mme. As a matter of fact, many of these unfortunate girls have one fixed idea, to be looked upon as respectable middle-class women, who lead humdrum lives of faithfulness to their husbands; women who would make excellent mothers, keepers of household accounts, and menders of household linen.

This longing springs from a sentiment so laudable, that society should take it into consideration. But society, incorrigible as ever, will assuredly persist in regarding the married woman as a corvette duly authorized by her flag and papers to go on her own course, while the woman who is a wife in all but name is a pirate and an outlaw for lack of a document. A day came when Mme. Castanier did not answer; he was absorbed by his thoughts. The poor girl resigned herself to her fate. The ex-dragoon was in despair. When Naqui made up her mind to know the secret, although she never asked him a question, the cashier dolefully confessed to the existence of a Mme.

This lawful wife, a thousand times accursed, was living in a humble way in Strasbourg on a small property there; he wrote to her twice a year, and kept the secret of her existence so well, that no one suspected that he was married. The reason of this reticence? If it is familiar to many military men who may chance to be in a like predicament, it is perhaps worth while to give the story.

Your genuine trooper if it is allowable here to employ the word which in the army signifies a man who is destined to die as a captain is a sort of serf, a part and parcel of his regiment, an essentially simple creature, and Castanier was marked out by nature as a victim to the wiles of mothers with grown-up daughters left too long on their hands.

It was at Nancy, during one of those brief intervals of repose when the Imperial armies were not on active service abroad, that Castanier was so unlucky as to pay some attention to a young lady with whom he danced at a ridotto , the provincial name for the entertainments often given by the military to the townsfolk, or vice versa, in garrison towns.

A scheme for inveigling the gallant captain into matrimony was immediately set on foot, one of those schemes by which mothers secure accomplices in a human heart by touching all its motive springs, while they convert all their friends into fellow-conspirators. Like all people possessed by one idea, these ladies press everything into the service of their great project, slowly elaborating their toils, much as the ant-lion excavates its funnel in the sand and lies in wait at the bottom for its victim.

Suppose that no one strays, after all, into that carefully constructed labyrinth?

Suppose that the ant-lion dies of hunger and thirst in her pit? Such things may be, but if any heedless creature once enters in, it never comes out. Unluckily, he had praised the daughter to her mother when he brought her back after a waltz, a little chat followed, and then an invitation in the most natural way in the world. Once introduced into the house, the dragoon was dazzled by the hospitality of a family who appeared to conceal their real wealth beneath a show of careful economy.

He was skilfully flattered on all sides, and every one extolled for his benefit the various treasures there displayed. The dragoon received fifteen thousand francs with the lady, who after two years of marriage, became the ugliest and consequently the most peevish woman on earth. Luckily they had no children. The fair complexion maintained by a Spartan regimen , the fresh, bright color in her face, which spoke of an engaging modesty, became overspread with blotches and pimples; her figure, which had seemed so straight, grew crooked, the angel became a suspicious and shrewish creature who drove Castanier frantic.

Then the fortune took to itself wings. At length the dragoon, no longer recognizing the woman whom he had wedded, left her to live on a little property at Strasbourg, until the time when it should please God to remove her to adorn Paradise. She was one of those virtuous women who, for want of other occupation, would weary the life out of an angel with complainings, who pray till if their prayers are heard in heaven they must exhaust the patience of the Almighty, and say everything that is bad of their husbands in dovelike murmurs over a game of boston with their neighbors.

Like many women who seem by nature destined to sound all the depths of love, Mme. She asked neither for gold nor for jewelry, gave no thought to the future, lived entirely for the present and for the pleasures of the present. She accepted expensive ornaments and dresses, the carriage so eagerly coveted by women of her class, as one harmony the more in the picture of life. There was absolutely no vanity in her desire not to appear at a better advantage but to look the fairer, and moreover, no woman could live without luxuries more cheerfully.

When a man of generous nature and military men are mostly of this stamp meets with such a woman, he feels a sort of exasperation at finding himself her debtor in generosity. He feels that he could stop a mail coach to obtain money for her if he has not sufficient for her whims.

He will commit a crime if so he may be great and noble in the eyes of some woman or of his special public; such is the nature of the man. Such a lover is like a gambler who would be dishonored in his own eyes if he did not repay the sum he borrowed from a waiter in a gaming-house; but will shrink from no crime, will leave his wife and children without a penny, and rob and murder, if so he may come to the gaming-table with a full purse, and his honor remain untarnished among the frequenters of that fatal abode.

So it was with Castanier. He had begun by installing Aquiline is a modest fourth-floor dwelling, the furniture being of the simplest kind. A pretty woman must have everything pretty about her; the unity of charm in the woman and her surroundings singles her out from among her sex. This sentiment of homogeneity indeed, though it has frequently escaped the attention of observers, is instinctive in human nature; and the same prompting leads elderly spinsters to surround themselves with dreary relics of the past.

But the lovely Piedmontese must have the newest and latest fashions, and all that was daintiest and prettiest in stuffs for hangings, in silks or jewelry, in fine china and other brittle and fragile wares. When once the standard had been set up, there was nothing for it but everything in the household must be in conformity, from the linen, plate, and crystal through a thousand and one items of expenditure down to the pots and pans in the kitchen.

One expense entailed another. The clock called for candle sconces. Fires must be lighted in the ornamental grates, but the curtains and hangings were too fresh and delicate to be soiled by smuts, so they must be replaced by patent and elaborate fireplaces, warranted to give out no smoke, recent inventions of the people who are so clever at drawing up a prospectus. Then Aquilina found it so nice to run about barefooted on the carpet in her room, that Castanier must have soft carpets laid everywhere for the pleasure of playing with Naqui.

A bathroom, too, was built for her, everything to the end that she might be more comfortable. They cannot give the price of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate of cost. The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the purchaser with furniture till his head spins.

Everything is so pretty, so charming; and every one is satisfied. A few months later the obliging furniture dealers are metamorphosed, and reappear in the shape of alarming totals on invoices that fill the soul with their horrid clamor; they are in urgent want of the money; they are, as you may say on the brink of bankruptcy, their tears flow, it is heartrending to hear them!

And then —— the gulf yawns, and gives up serried columns of figures marching four deep, when as a matter of fact they should have issued innocently three by three. Before Castanier had any idea of how much he had spent, he had arranged for Aquilina to have a carriage from a livery stable when she went out, instead of a cab. Castanier was a gourmand; he engaged an excellent cook; and Aquilina, to please him, had herself made the purchases of early fruit and vegetables, rare delicacies, and exquisite wines.

The ex-dragoon was compelled to resort to various shifts for obtaining money, for he could not bring himself to renounce this delightful life. He loved the woman too well to cross the freaks of the mistress. He was one of those men who, through self-love or through weakness of character, can refuse nothing to a woman; false shame overpowers them, and they rather face ruin than make the admissions: When, therefore, Castanier saw that if he meant to emerge from the abyss of debt into which he had plunged, he must part with Aquilina and live upon bread and water, he was so unable to do without her or to change his habits of life, that daily he put off his plans of reform until the morrow.

The debts were pressing, and he began by borrowing money. His position and previous character inspired confidence, and of this he took advantage to devise a system of borrowing money as he required it. Then, as the total amount of debt rapidly increased, he had recourse to those commercial inventions known as accommodation bills. This form of bill does not represent goods or other value received, and the first endorser pays the amount named for the obliging person who accepts it.

This species of fraud is tolerated because it is impossible to detect it, and, moreover, it is an imaginary fraud which only becomes real if payment is ultimately refused. When at length it was evidently impossible to borrow any longer, whether because the amount of the debt was now so greatly increased, or because Castanier was unable to pay the large amount of interest on the aforesaid sums of money, the cashier saw bankruptcy before him.

On making this discovery, he decided for a fraudulent bankruptcy rather than an ordinary failure, and preferred a crime to a misdemeanor. He determined, after the fashion of the celebrated cashier of the Royal Treasury, to abuse the trust deservedly won, and to increase the number of his creditors by making a final loan of the sum sufficient to keep him in comfort in a foreign country for the rest of his days. All this, as has been seen, he had prepared to do. While Castanier was enduring the torture of the strain, and his thoughts were full of the deed that should change his whole life, Aquilina was lying luxuriously back in a great armchair by the fireside, beguiling the time by chatting with her waiting-maid.

Aquilina, nowise disconcerted, crumpled up the letter, took it with the tongs, and held it in the flames. Besides, fire should go to fire, as water makes for the river. There was a carelessness in her manner that would have told any man less blind than Castanier that it was only a piece of conjugal duty, as it were, to give this joy to the cashier, but use and wont had brought Castanier to the point where clear-sightedness is no longer possible for love.

I am tired of plays. I do not know what is the matter with me this evening; I would rather stay here by the fire. Yes, Quiqui, I am going to start to-night, and it will be some time before I come back again. I am leaving everything in your charge. Will you keep your heart for me too? To begin with, you are fifty years old. Then you have just the sort of face to put on a fruit stall; if the woman tried to see you for a pumpkin, no one would contradict her. It is pretty plain that you served in the dragoons; you are a very ugly-looking old man. Do you take me for a fool, telling me that you are going away?

Would you talk like that if you were really going from your Naqui? You would cry, like the booby that you are! A pleasant journey to you, my boy! I will wait till you come back. I shall have given you all the treasures a young girl can give, and something that not every drop in your veins and mine can ever give me back. If, by any means whatever, by selling my hopes of eternity, for instance, I could recover my past self, body and soul for I have, perhaps, redeemed my soul , and be pure as a lily for my lover, I would not hesitate a moment!

What sort of devotion has rewarded mine? You have housed and fed me, just as you give a dog food and a kennel because he is a protection to the house, and he may take kicks when we are out of humor, and lick our hands as soon as we are pleased to call him. And which of us two will have been the more generous? But come with me to the Gymnase; I shall start just before midnight, after I have had time to say good-bye to you. She put her arms round his neck, and drew down his head against her bodice. If you do not find him, and he comes here during the leave-taking, keep him in your room.

I will go to the theatre with you this evening? But all in good time; let us have dinner! There is a nice little dinner for you — just what you like. If I were to begin to begin to explain the reasons why, I must tell you things that would prove to you that I love you almost to madness. Come, now, promise it at once, and give us your fist upon it. They sat down to the dinner table, and went thence to the Gymnase. When the first part of the performance was over, it occurred to Castanier to show himself to some of his acquaintances in the house, so as to turn away any suspicion of his departure.

Melmoth Reconciled

He had not gone many paces before he saw the Englishman, and with a sudden return of the sickening sensation of heat that once before had vibrated through him, and of the terror that he had felt already, he stood face to face with Melmoth. At the word, Castanier glanced round at the people who were moving about them. He fancied that he could see astonishment and curiosity in their eyes, and wishing to be rid of this Englishman at once, he raised his hand to strike him — and felt his arm paralyzed by some invisible power that sapped his strength and nailed him to the spot.

He allowed the stranger to take him by the arm, and they walked together to the green-room like two friends. I am here, and I can be elsewhere also. Time and space and distance are nothing to me. The whole world is at my beck and call. I have the power of continual enjoyment and of giving joy.

I can see through walls, discover hidden treasures, and fill my hands with them. Palaces arise at my nod, and my architect makes no mistakes. I can make all lands break forth into blossom, heap up their gold and precious stones, and surround myself with fair women and ever new faces; everything is yielded up to my will. I could gamble on the Stock Exchange, and my speculations would be infallible; but a man who can find the hoards that misers have hidden in the earth need not trouble himself about stocks.

Feel the strength of the hand that grasps you; poor wretch, doomed to shame! Try to bend the arm of iron! Fly from me if you dare! You would hear my voice in the depths of the caves that lie under the Seine; you might hide in the Catacombs, but would you not see me there? My voice could be heard through the sound of thunder, my eyes shine as brightly as the sun, for I am the peer of Lucifer! Castanier heard the terrible words, and felt no protest nor contradiction within himself.

He walked side by side with the Englishman, and had no power to leave him. I have found at last the mate whom I have sought. Have you a mind to learn your destiny? Present me to Mme. Am I not your last hope of escape? Castanier, followed by the stranger, returned to his box; and in accordance with the order he had just received, he hastened to introduce Melmoth to Mme.

Aquilina seemed to be not in the least surprised. The last piece was about to begin, for, at that time, small theatres gave only three pieces. When the curtain rose, the stranger stretched out his hand over the crowded house. The information was put in writing; the document signed and duly despatched to the Public Prosecutor.

Nay, the man himself was the nightmare; his presence weighed heavily on his victim like a poisoned atmosphere. Castanier looked at the stage. The scene had been changed.

The play seemed to be over, and Castanier beheld himself stepping from the carriage with Aquilina; but as he entered the courtyard of the house on the Rue Richer, the scene again was suddenly changed, and he saw his own house. I love Aquilina too well to allow her to belong to that old toad! I, myself, am going to marry Mme. She wept with one side of her face, and laughed with the other.

The audience called for an encore. Every one else in the house is laughing. Melmoth burst out laughing, and the unhappy cashier shuddered. He did not see the prim English lady whom Perlet was acting with such ludicrous effect, nor hear the English-French that had filled the house with roars of laughter; instead of all this, he beheld himself hurrying from the Rue Richer, hailing a cab on the Boulevard, bargaining with the man to take him to Versailles.

Then once more the scene changed. Castanier saw that he had his bills and his passports, stepped into the carriage, and set out. But at the barrier he saw two gendarmes lying in wait for the carriage.

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A cry of horror burst from him but Melmoth gave him a glance, and again the sound died in his throat. Again a cry broke from him. He was exposed upon the Place du Palais-de-Justice, and the executioner branded him with a red-hot iron. Then came the last scene of all; among some sixty convicts in the prison yard of the Bicetre, he was awaiting his turn to have the irons riveted on his limbs.

I cannot laugh any more! The gentleman has gone. Castanier longed for the power to utter some word that should blot him out from among living men and hide him in the lowest depths of hell. Moreover, you would have gold in torrents. You hardly believe in anything perhaps? Well, if all this comes to pass, you will believe at least in the Devil.

Melmoth, Castanier, and Mme. A drizzling rain was falling, the streets were muddy, the air was close, there was thick darkness overhead; but in a moment, as the arm was outstretched, Paris was filled with sunlight; it was high noon on a bright July day. The trees were covered with leaves; a double stream of joyous holiday makers strolled beneath them. Sellers of liquorice water shouted their cool drinks. Splendid carriages rolled past along the streets. A cry of terror broke from the cashier, and at that cry rain and darkness once more settled down upon the Boulevard.

Do you want anything that I can give you, dear? You have always refused to give me a box at the Italiens because you could not abide music, and are you turning music-mad at this time of day? Mad — that you are! The music is inside your own noddle, old addle-pate! If the angels make music for God Almighty, it must be such music as this that I am drinking in at every pore, rather than hearing.

I do no know how to tell you about it; it is as sweet as honey-water! He is mad, upon my word! They reached the house. Castanier, absorbed by the thought of all that he had just heard and seen, knew not whether to believe it or not; he was like a drunken man, and utterly unable to think connectedly. Jenny heard the bell as he spoke, and admitted the Englishman. He looked at the porter — the porter went; he looked at Jenny — and Jenny went likewise. It had all happened exactly as in the drama that Melmoth had displayed for his victim.

Presently the house-door was slammed violently, and Castanier reappeared. A strange pallor overspread his once rubicund countenance; it wore the peculiarly sinister and stony look of the mysterious visitor. The sullen glare of his eyes was intolerable, the fierce light in them seemed to scorch. The man who had looked so good-humored and good-natured had suddenly grown tyrannical and proud. The courtesan thought that Castanier had grown thinner; there was a terrible majesty in his brow; it was as if a dragon breathed forth a malignant influence that weighed upon the others like a close, heavy atmosphere.

For a moment Aquilina knew not what to do. I feel it; I am no longer the same. He has taken my self , and given me his soul in exchange. I see everything and know all things. Aquilina turned cold with terror. Castanier lighted a candle and went into the dressing-room. The unhappy girl followed him with dazed bewilderment, and great was her astonishment when Castanier drew the dresses that hung there aside and disclosed the sergeant.

The Piedmontese, haggard and desperate, had flung herself into her easy-chair. I could kill you by a look if I had any mind to do it. I will tell you what it is, youngster; why should I kill you?

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I can see a red line round your neck — the guillotine is waiting for you. Yes, you will end in the Place de Greve. You belong to a vendita, of the Carbonari. You are plotting against the Government. You have been betrayed. They are busy drawing up the indictment at this moment. I will love you, I will adore you, I will be your slave and not your mistress. I will obey your wildest whims; you shall do as you will with me.

After all, however violent my passions may be, I shall be yours for ever! What should I say to persuade you? I will invent pleasures. I would bear any torture, any pain of body or soul, anything you might inflict upon me! Castanier heard her with indifference. For an answer, he indicated Leon to her with a fiendish laugh. He shall not leave this house. I will save him! Why will you not save him?

Reading La Comedie Humaine

Doing evil is my trade! She sprang up and snatched a stiletto from a basket that stood on the chest of drawers and went to Castanier, who now began to laugh. He held out three hundred thousand francs.

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