446 THE FRENCH CONVULSIVKS. 



talisman. I dissolved away my life in thought and study, but they have not 

 given me bread. I do not wish to be the dupe of a lecture worthy of Swe- 

 denberg, and of your Oriental amulet, or rather, sir, of the charitable efforts 

 which you make to retain me in a world where it is impossible to exist. Let 

 us see,' added he, grasping the talisman with a convulsive hand, while he 

 gazed upon the old man, ' I wish for a royally splendid banquet a baccha- 

 nal feast, worthy of the age in which every thing is, as they tell us, brought 

 to perfection. Let my companions be young, sprightly, and unprejudiced 



joyous even unto folly, &c. &c/ A loud laugh burst from the old man, 



and resounded like a shout from hell. The young man was confounded, and 

 paused. ' Think you/ said the merchant, ' that all this is to appear on a 

 sudden? No, no, young fool. You have signed the compact. All is said. 

 As it is, your wishes shall be scrupulously satisfied but at the expense of 

 your life. The circle of your days will be narrowed according to the force 



and number of your wishes, from the lightest to the strongest. Your first 



wish is vulgar I have it in my power to realize it but I leave it to the 

 events of your new life. After all, you wished to die ! Well your sui- 

 cide is only retarded/ 



" The stranger, surprized and irritated at seeing himself an object of 

 mockery to this singular old man, whose equivocally philanthropic intentions 

 were clearly demonstrated by this last sally, cried out, ' I shall see if my 

 fortune will change during the time occupied in crossing the Quai Vol- 

 taire or rather to know, at once, that you are not mocking a wretched 

 being : I wish that you may fall in love with an opera-dancer, and that for 

 her you may squander all the riches that you have so philosophically 

 amassed/ With this, he sought the door, without listening to a heavy sigh, 

 heaved perchance by the old man, and fled with the precipitation of a robber 

 caught in the damning act. Blinded by a sort of delirium, he did not even 

 perceive the incredible ductility of the talisman, which became supple as a 

 glove, yielded to the pressure of his frenzied hand, and might be put into his 

 pocket ; where he thrust it mechanically." 



He has scarce stepped beyond the precincts of the repository, when 

 he finds himself lost in surprise at the simple and natural manner in 

 which his first wish is destined to be fulfilled, and though still incre- 

 dulous in the existence of a magic influence, he is amazed at the 

 chances of human destiny. He is forcibly laid hold of by a band of 

 young journalists, who had long been in search of him, and led off in 

 triumph to a magnificent entertainment given by the founders of a 

 new opposition journal. 



The banquet to which he is thus suddenly transported by the ac- 

 cidental intervention of his old associates in pleasure, answers in every 

 particular of sumptuousness of decoration, luxurious costliness of ap- 

 pointment, brilliant corruscations of wit and fancy, and wild and 

 reckless licentiousness and debauchery, to the demands of his over- 

 excited imagination. There were collected the most renowned wits 

 of the day; and all the inventions of modern luxury were exhausted in 

 their entertainment. The orgy proceeds through all its stages, from 

 refined and rational festivity to intoxication ; and from intoxication 

 to unrestrained sensuality, and thence to ribaldry and uproar. In a 

 a fit of wild exultation, Raphael, drawing forth the mysterious skin, 

 wishes for a fortune of two hundred thousand a-year, and carefully 

 marks its dimensions, by circumscribing them upon a napkin. On 

 the following morning, as some of the guests are sitting at breakfast, 

 a notary, who had been of the party the preceding evening, and who 



