@P>his has to be the most erudite threadfuck in the History of Ladyboy Boards, but we may as well go all in:
I never read the seminal Diderot or Balzac sources you quote. What I read was the XIXth century Portuguese masterpiece "The Mandarin" by Eca de Queiros who elaborated on Diderot and Balzac's propositions. Here is the plot summary from the internet:
Teodoro, a poor Portuguese civil servant in Lisbon, receives a visit from the Devil in disguise who offers him the chance of inheriting unlimited riches if he rings a bell placed on a book by his side, which will lead to the death of a rich Mandarin, Ti Chin-fu, in distant China. This Teodoro duly does, resulting in his inheriting the Mandarin's fortune and starting to spend enormous sums. However, he finds that fabulous wealth brings with it unexpected problems. In time, remorse sends him to China to look for the dead Mandarin’s family. Failing to find them, he returns to Lisbon still haunted by the crime. His attempts to renounce the inheritance come to nothing. Sensing that he is dying he bequeaths his millions to the Devil, with the observation that “The only bread that tastes good is the bread we earn day by day with our own hands: never kill the Mandarin”.
Apologies to BMs perplexed by our neo-romanticist literary meanderings...
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