Melmoth Reconciled

the long version

When you sell your soul to the Devil, and later repent of the pact, the Devil is sometimes kind enough to allow you to exchange your damned soul to somebody who still has the chances of heaven open to him. There's only one catch: the exchange must be effected at a lesser value than you paid for yours... Balzac's humanism and irony are never greater than in this realistic study of realism and romanticism