had become a galley-slave of pleasure,
and must accomplish my destiny of suicide. During the last days of my
prosperity, I spent every night in the most incredible excesses; but
every morning death cast me back upon life again. I would have taken
a conflagration with as little concern as any man with a life annuity.
However, I at last found myself alone with a twenty-franc piece; I
bethought me then of Rastignac's luck----

"Eh, eh!----" Raphael exclaimed, interrupting himself, as he remembered
the talisman and drew it from his pocket. Perhaps he was wearied by the
long day's strain, and had no more strength left wherewith to pilot his
head through the seas of wine and punch; or perhaps, exasperated by this
symbol of his own existence, the torrent of his own eloquence gradually
overwhelmed him. Raphael became excited and elated and like one
completely deprived of reason.

"The devil take death!" he shouted, brandishing the skin; "I mean to
live! I am rich, I have every virtue; nothing will withstand me. Who
would not be generous, when everything is in his power? Aha! Aha! I
wished for two hundred thousand livres a year, and I shall have them.
Bow down before me, all of you, wallowing on the carpets like swine in
the mire! You all belong to me--a precious property truly! I am rich; I
could buy you all, even the deputy snoring over there. Scum of society,
give me your benediction! I am the Pope."

Raphael's vociferations had been hitherto drowned by a thorough-bass
of snores, but now they became suddenly audible. Most of the sleepers
started up with a cry, saw the cause of the disturbance on his feet,
tottering uncertainly, and cursed him in concert for a drunken brawler.

"Silence!" shouted Raphael. "Back to your kennels, you dogs! Emile, I
have riches, I will give you Havana cigars!"

"I am listening," the poet replied. "Death or Foedora! On with you! That
silky Foedora deceived you. Women are all daughters of Eve. There is
nothing dramatic about that rigmarole of yours."

"Ah, but you were sleeping, slyboots."

"No--'Death or Foedora!'--I have it!"

"Wake up!" Raphael shouted, beating Emile with the piece of shagreen as
if he meant to draw electric fluid out of it.

"_Tonnerre_!" said Emile, springing up and flinging his arms round
Raphael; "my friend, remember the sort of women you are with."

"I am a millionaire!"

"If you are not a millionaire, you are most certainly drunk."

"Drunk with power. I can