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Updated: June 4, 2025
Aquilina, nowise disconcerted, crumpled up the letter, took it with the tongs, and held it in the flames. "So that is what you do with your love-letters, is it?" asked Castanier. "Oh goodness, yes," said Aquilina; "is it not the best way of keeping them safe? Besides, fire should go to fire, as water makes for the river." "You are talking as if it were a real love-letter, Naqui "
Then Aquilina found it so nice to run about barefooted on the carpet in her room that Castanier must have soft carpets laid everywhere for the pleasure of playing with Naqui. A bathroom, too, was built for her, everything to the end that she might be more comfortable. Shopkeepers, workmen, and manufacturers in Paris have a mysterious knack of enlarging a hole in a man's purse.
When, therefore, Castanier saw that if he meant to emerge from the abyss of debt into which he had plunged, he must part with Aquilina and live upon bread and water, he was so unable to do without her or to change his habits of life, that daily he put off his plans of reform until the morrow. The debts were pressing, and he began by borrowing money.
The play seemed to be over, and Castanier beheld himself stepping from the carriage with Aquilina; but as he entered the courtyard of the house on the Rue Richer, the scene again was suddenly changed, and he saw his own house. Jenny was chatting by the fire in her mistress' room with a subaltern officer of a line regiment then stationed at Paris.
The gaze of those strange eyes had left Aquilina like one spellbound; she was helpless, unable to take any thought for her lover; moreover, she believed him to be safe in Jenny's room, whereas their early return had taken the waiting-woman by surprise, and she had hidden the officer in the dressing-room. It had all happened exactly as in the drama that Melmoth had displayed for his victim.
Here, Naqui," said Castanier, drawing a bundle of banknotes from his pocket; "you shall not go away like a pauper from a man who loves you still." He held out three hundred thousand francs. Aquilina took the notes, flung them on the floor, spat on them, and trampled upon them in a frenzy of despair. "We will leave this house on foot," she cried, "without a farthing of your money.
And then the gulf yawns, and gives up serried columns of figures marching four deep, when as a matter of fact they should have issued innocently three by three. Before Castanier had any idea of how much he had spent, he had arranged for Aquilina to have a carriage from a livery stable when she went out, instead of a cab.
But, as Aquilina had nothing of her own, these gifts of hers, so precious by reason of the thought and tact and graciousness that prompted them, were no less a drain upon Castanier's purse; he did not like his Naqui to be without money, and Naqui could not keep money in her pocket. So the table was a heavy item of expenditure for a man with Castanier's income.
"An alibi," sneered Dukovski; "and what an asinine alibi!" "Did you know Aquilina?" "Yes, your worship, I know her." "And the master cut you out with her?" "Not at all. HE cut me out Mr. Psyekoff there, Ivan Mikhailovitch; and the master cut Ivan Mikhailovitch out. That is how it was." Psyekoff grew confused and began to scratch his left eye.
The audience called for an encore. "Accursed creature!" cried Castanier from his box. Aquilina was laughing till the tears came into her eyes. "Goodness!" she cried, "how funny Perlet is as the Englishwoman!... Why don't you laugh? Every one else in the house is laughing. Laugh, dear!" she said to Castanier. Melmoth burst out laughing, and the unhappy cashier shuddered.
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