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for the load of newspapers which he has undertaken to distribute。 He
receives this political bread with eagerness; takes it; bears it away。
At nine o'clock he is in the bosom of his family; flings a jest to his
wife; snatches a loud kiss from her; gulps down a cup of coffee; or
scolds his children。 At a quarter to ten he puts in an appearance at
the /Mairie/。 There; stuck upon a stool; like a parrot on its perch;
warmed by Paris town; he registers until four o'clock; with never a
tear or a smile; the deaths and births of an entire district。 The
sorrow; the happiness; of the parish flow beneath his penas the
essence of the /Constitutionnel/ traveled before upon his shoulders。
Nothing weighs upon him! He goes always straight before him; takes his
patriotism ready made from the newspaper; contradicts no one; shouts
or applauds with the world; and lives like a bird。 Two yards from his
parish; in the event of an important ceremony; he can yield his place
to an assistant; and betake himself to chant a requiem from a stall in
the church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament; where his
is the most imposing voice; where he distorts his huge mouth with
energy to thunder out a joyous /Amen/。 So is he chorister。 At four
o'clock; freed from his official servitude; he reappears to shed joy
and gaiety upon the most famous shop in the city。 Happy is his wife;
he has no time to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of
sentiment。 His mere arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter;
their bright eyes storm the customers; he expands in the midst of all
the finery; the lace and muslin kerchiefs; that their cunning hands
have wrought。 Or; again; more often still; before his dinner he waits
on a client; copies the page of a newspaper; or carries to the
doorkeeper some goods that have been delayed。 Every other day; at six;
he is faithful to his post。 A permanent bass for the chorus; he
betakes himself to the opera; prepared to become a soldier or an arab;
prisoner; savage; peasant; spirit; camel's leg or lion; a devil or a
genie; a slave or a eunuch; black or white; always ready to feign joy
or sorrow; pity or astonishment; to utter cries that never vary; to
hold his tongue; to hunt; or fight for Rome or Egypt; but always at
hearta huckster still。

At midnight he returnsa man; the good husband; the tender father; he
slips into the conjugal bed; his imagination still afire with the
illusive forms of the operatic nymphs; and so turns to the profit of
conjugal love the world's depravities; the voluptuous curves of
Taglioni's leg。 And finally; if he sleeps; he sleeps apace; and
hurries through his slumber as he does his life。

This man sums up all thingshistory; literature; politics;
government; religion; military science。 Is he not a living
encyclopaedia; a grotesque Atlas; ceaselessly in motion; like Paris
itself; and knowing not repose? He is all legs。 No physiognomy could
preserve its purity amid such toils。 Perhaps the artisan who dies at
thirty; an old man; his stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy;
will be held; according to certain leisured philosophers; to be
happier than the huckster is。 The one perishes in a breath; and the
other by degrees。 From his eight industries; from the labor of his
shoulders; his throat; his hands; from his wife and his business; the
one derivesas from so many farmschildren; some thousands of
francs; and the most laborious happiness that has ever diverted the
heart of man。 This fortune and these children; or the children who sum
up everything for him; become the prey of the world above; to which he
brings his ducats and his daughter or his son; reared at college; who;
with more education than his father; raises higher his ambitious gaze。
Often the son of a retail tradesman would fain be something in the
State。

Ambition of that sort carries on our thought to the second Parisian
sphere。 Go up one story; then; and descend to the /entresol/: or climb
down from the attic and remain on the fourth floor; in fine; penetrate
into the world which has possessions: the same result! Wholesale
merchants; and their menpeople with small banking accounts and much
integrityrogues and catspaws; clerks old and young; sheriffs'
clerks; barristers' clerks; solicitors' clerks; in fine; all the
working; thinking; and speculating members of that lower middle class
which honeycombs the interests of Paris and watches over its granary;
accumulates the coin; stores the products that the proletariat have
made; preserves the fruits of the South; the fishes; the wine from
every sun…favored hill; which stretches its hands over the Orient; and
takes from it the shawls that the Russ and the Turk despise; which
harvests even from the Indies; crouches down in expectation of a sale;
greedy of profit; which discounts bills; turns over and collects all
kinds of securities; holds all Paris in its hand; watches over the
fantasies of children; spies out the caprices and the vices of mature
age; sucks money out of disease。 Even so; if they drink no brandy;
like the artisan; nor wallow in the mire of debauch; all equally abuse
their strength; immeasurably strain their bodies and their minds
alike; are burned away with desires; devastated with the swiftness of
the pace。 In their case the physical distortion is accomplished
beneath the whip of interests; beneath the scourge of ambitions which
torture the educated portion of this monstrous city; just as in the
case of the proletariat it is brought about by the cruel see…saw of
the material elaborations perpetually required from the despotism of
the aristocratic 〃/I will/。〃 Here; too; then; in order to obey that
universal master; pleasure or gold; they must devour time; hasten
time; find more than four…and…twenty hours in the day and night; waste
themselves; slay themselves; and purchase two years of unhealthy
repose with thirty years of old age。 Only; the working…man dies in
hospital when the last term of his stunted growth expires; whereas the
man of the middle class is set upon living; and lives on; but in a
state of idiocy。 You will meet him; with his worn; flat old face; with
no light in his eyes; with no strength in his limbs; dragging himself
with a dazed air along the boulevardthe belt of his Venus; of his
beloved city。 What was his want? The sabre of the National Guard; a
permanent stock…pot; a decent plot in Pere Lachaise; and; for his old
age; a little gold honestly earned。 /HIS/ Monday is on Sunday; his
rest a drive in a hired carriagea country excursion during which his
wife and children glut themselves merrily with dust or bask in the
sun; his dissipation is at the restaurateur's; whose poisonous dinner
has won renown; or at some family ball; where he suffocates till
midnight。 Some fools are surprised at the phantasmagoria of the monads
which they see with the aid of the microscope in a drop of water; but
what would Rabelais' Gargantua;that misunderstood figure of an
audacity so sublime;what would that giant say; fallen from the
celestial spheres; if he amused himself by contemplating the motions
of this secondary life of Paris; of which here is one of the formulae?
Have you seen one of those little constructionscold in summer; and
with no other warmth than a small stove in winterplaced beneath the
vast copper dome which crowns the Halle…auble? Madame is there by
morning。 She is engaged at the markets; and makes by this occupation
twelve thousand francs a year; people say。 Monsieur; when Madame is
up; passes into a gloomy office; where he lends money till the week…
end to the tradesmen of his district。 By nine o'clock he is at the
passport office; of which he is one of the minor officials。 By evening
he is at the box…office of the Theatre Italien; or of any other
theatre you like。 The children are put out to nurse; and only return
to be sent to college or to boarding…school。 Monsieur and Madame live
on the third floor; have but one cook; give dances in a salon twelve
foot by eight; lit by argand lamps; but they give a hundred and fifty
thousand francs to their daughter; and retire at the age of fifty; an
age when they begin to show themselves on the balcony of the opera; in
a /fiacre/ at Longchamps; or; on sunny days; in faded clothes on the
boulevardsthe fruit of all this sowing。 Respected by their
neighbors; in good odor with the government; connected with the upper
middle classes; Monsieur obtains at sixty…five the Cross of the Legion
of Honor; and his daughter's father…in…law; a parochial mayor; invites
him to his evenings。 These life…long labors; then; are for the good of
the children; whom these lower middle classes are inevitably driven to
exalt。 Thus each sphere directs all its efforts towards the sphere
above it。 The son of the rich grocer becomes a notary; the son of the
timber merchant becomes a magistrate。 No link is wanting in the chain;
and everything stimulates the upward march of money。

Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell; which; perhaps;
will some day find its Dante。 In this third social circle; a sort of
Parisian belly; in which the interests of the town are digested; and
where they are condensed into the form known 

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