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The judge-Advocate continued: "The demons have been forced to declare their names by the mouths of their victims. Their names and deeds are deposited upon this table. They are called Astaroth, of the order of Seraphim; Eazas, Celsus, Acaos, Cedron, Asmodeus, of the order of Thrones; Alex, Zebulon, Cham, Uriel, and Achas, of the order of Principalities, and so on, for their number is infinite.
And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the roofs to our survey, namely, a brave, patient, earnest human being toiling his own arduous way, athwart the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is luminous with starry souls.
The same day it happed that Sara, daughter of Raguel in the city of Medes, that she was rebuked and heard reproof of one of the handmaidens of her father. For she had been given to seven men, and a devil named Asmodeus slew them as soon as they would have gone to her; therefore the maid reproved her saying: We shall never see son ne daughter of thee on the earth, thou slayer of thy husbands.
A man who loves his friend's wife, and devotes his energies to increase her happiness by concealing from her her husband's follies! Surely none but Balzac would have hit upon such a notion. "A man who loves his friend's wife." Asmodeus, I write no more! I have ceased to converse with thee for so long that I blush to confess all that I have in my heart. I will not confess it, so that shall suffice.
Marriage is sometimes made a matter of mere convenience; people enter into it with as much indifference as they would into any other speculation, and when one companion dies they take another. In the book of Tobit we have an account of Sara, the daughter of Raguel, who had been favored with seven husbands, whom "Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed."
The king had various adventures with a being more or less demoniac in character, who bears several names: Asmodeus, Saturn, Marcolf, or Morolf. That the model for Zabara's visitor was Solomon's interlocutor, is not open to doubt. No doubt, at first Marcolf filled a serious, respectable role; in course of time, his character degenerated into that of a clown or buffoon.
Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society talk of her as soon as the rococo became fashionable. Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence in all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame Rabourdin's home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus can be explained by a comparison.
She would cleave to the good God Lucifer, and she aspired to be the bride of Asmodeus. At length the long-suffering editor of the Revue Mensuelle, weary of his refractory protégé, would also have none of her, though he surrendered her with evident regret to be dealt with by the prayers of the faithful.
The sight of Asmodeus in all his forbidding ugliness had so terrified him that henceforth he surrounded his couch at night with all the valiant heroes among the people. As David had been surrounded by great scholars and heroes of repute, so the court of Solomon was the gathering-place of the great of his people.
It is my misfortune, Reader, to be rapidly bored. I cannot sit out a sermon, much less a play; amusement is the most tedious of human pursuits. "You are tired of this, surely," said I to the Devil; "let us go!" "Whither?" said Asmodeus. "Why, 'tis a starlit night, let us ride over to Paris, and sup, as you promised, at the Rocher de Cancale." "Volontiers."
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