about his religious opinions, and so far as I could see, he was
indifferent rather than incredulous.

"One evening I went in to see this man who had turned himself to gold;
the usurer, whom his victims (his clients, as he styled them) were
wont to call Daddy Gobseck, perhaps ironically, perhaps by way of
antiphrasis. He was sitting in his armchair, motionless as a statue,
staring fixedly at the mantel-shelf, where he seemed to read the
figures of his statements. A lamp, with a pedestal that had once been
green, was burning in the room; but so far from taking color from its
smoky light, his face seemed to stand out positively paler against the
background. He pointed to a chair set for me, but not a word did he
say.

"'What thoughts can this being have in his mind?' said I to myself.
'Does he know that a God exists; does he know there are such things as
feeling, woman, happiness?' I pitied him as I might have pitied a
diseased creature. But, at the same time, I knew quite well that while
he had millions of francs at his command, he possessed the world no
less in idea--that world which he had explored, ransacked, weighed,
appraised, and exploited.

"'Good day, Daddy Gobseck,' I began.

"He turned his face towards me with a slight contraction of his bushy,
black eyebrows; this characteristic shade of expression in him meant
as much as the most jubilant smile on a Southern face.

"'You look just as gloomy as you did that day when the news came of
the failure of that bookseller whose sharpness you admired so much,