talisman upon it, and shuddered involuntarily at the sight
of a slight difference between the present size of the skin and the
outline traced upon the linen.

"Why, what is the matter with him?" Taillefer cried. "He comes by his
fortune very cheaply."

"_Soutiens-le Chatillon_!" said Bixiou to Emile. "The joy will kill
him."

A ghastly white hue overspread every line of the wan features of the
heir-at-law. His face was drawn, every outline grew haggard; the hollows
in his livid countenance grew deeper, and his eyes were fixed and
staring. He was facing Death.

The opulent banker, surrounded by faded women, and faces with satiety
written on them, the enjoyment that had reached the pitch of agony, was
a living illustration of his own life.

Raphael looked thrice at the talisman, which lay passively within the
merciless outlines on the table-napkin; he tried not to believe it,
but his incredulity vanished utterly before the light of an inner
presentiment. The whole world was his; he could have all things, but the
will to possess them was utterly extinct. Like a traveler in the midst
of the desert, with but a little water left to quench his thirst, he
must measure his life by the draughts he took of it. He saw what every
desire of his must cost him in the days of his life. He believed in the
powers of the Magic Skin at last, he listened to every breath he drew;
he felt ill already; he asked himself:

"Am I not consumptive? Did not my mother die of a lung complaint?"

"Aha, Raphael! what fun you will have! What will you give me?" asked
Aquilina.

"Here's to the death of his uncle, Major O'Flaharty! There is a man for
you."

"He will be a peer of France."

"Pooh! what is a peer of France since July?" said the amateur critic.

"Are you going to take a box at the Bouffons?"

"You are going to treat us all, I hope?" put in Bixiou.

"A man of his sort will be sure to do things in style," said Emile.

The hurrah set up by the jovial assembly rang in Valentin's ears, but he
could not grasp the sense of a single word. Vague thoughts crossed him
of the Breton peasant's life of mechanical labor, without a wish of any
kind; he pictured him burdened with a family, tilling the soil, living
on buckwheat meal, drinking cider out of a pitcher, believing in the
Virgin and the King, taking the sacrament at Easter, dancing of a Sunday
on the green sward, and understanding never a word of the rector's
sermon. The actual scene