His soul dried up within him, for he hungered and
thirsted after things that can neither be drunk nor eaten, but for
which he could not choose but crave. His lips, like Melmoth's, burned
with desire; he panted for the unknown, for he knew all things.
The mechanism and the scheme of the world was apparent to him, and its
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.
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