welcome anywhere, now. It's unbearable being blind at
meal times.... Do pass me the bread, please.... Oh, those thieves! They
will make me pay through the nose for this damned tobacconist's shop.
I've been wandering through all the ministries clutching my petition,
for the last six months. I go in the morning at the time they light the
stoves and take His Excellence's horse around the sanded courtyard, and
I don't leave until night when they bring in the big lights and the
kitchens begin to smell really good....

"All my life is spent sitting on the wooden chests in the antechambers.
The ushers know who I am, as well--enough said. Inside the court they
call me _That kind man!_ So, to get them on my side, to amuse them, I
practise my wit, or, in a corner of their blotters, I draw rough
caricatures without taking the pen off the page.... See what I've come
to after twenty years of outstanding success; look at just what an
artist's life amounts to!... And to think there are forty thousand
rascals in France who slobber over our work! To think that throughout
Paris, every day, locomotives make steam to bring us loads of idiots
thirsting for waffle and printed gossip!... Oh, what a world of
fantasists. If only Bixiou's suffering could teach them a lesson."

With that, and without another word, he pushed his face towards the
plate and began to scoff the food.... It was pitiful to look at. He was
losing his bread, and his fork, and groping for his glass all the
time.... Poor soul! He just hadn't had the time to get used to it all
yet.

* * * * *

After a short time, he spoke again:

"Do you know what's even worse? It's not being able to read the damned
newspapers. You have to be in the trade to understand that....
Sometimes at night, when I am coming home, I buy one just for the smell
of the fresh, moist paper, and newsprint.... It's so good! But there's
not a soul willing to read it to me! My wife could, but she doesn't
want to. She makes out that there are indecent things in the news
items. Ah-ha! these old mistresses, once they marry you, there's no one
more prudish. That Madame Bixiou has turned herself into a right little
bigot--but only as far as it suits her!... It was she who wanted to me
rub my eyes in Salette water. And then there was the blessed bread, the
pilgrimages, the Holy Child, the Chinese herbal remedies, and God knows
what else.... We're up to our necks in good works. And yet, it wo