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.
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