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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: the security of His revenue of souls, for the Pope has a running
account there. Is it not there that I should go to traffic in souls?"
Castanier went quite joyously on 'Change, thinking that it would be as
easy to buy a soul as to invest money in the Funds. Any ordinary
person would have feared ridicule, but Castanier knew by experience
that a desperate man takes everything seriously. A prisoner lying
under sentence of death would listen to the madman who should tell him
that by pronouncing some gibberish he could escape through the
keyhole; for suffering is credulous, and clings to an idea until it
fails, as the swimmer borne along by the current clings to the branch
that snaps in his hand.
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