breathless chases as a petitioner, his attempts to win over fools; the
schemes laid only to fail through the influence of some frivolous
woman; the meetings with men of business who expected their capital to
bring them places and a peerage, as well as large interest. Then the
hopes rising in a towering wave only to break in foam on the shoal;
the wonders wrought in reconciling adverse interests which, after
working together for a week, fell asunder; the annoyance, a thousand
times repeated, of seeing a dunce decorated with the Legion of Honor,
and preferred, though as ignorant as a shop-boy, to a man of talent.
Then, what Marcas called the stratagems of stupidity--you strike a
man, and he seems convinced, he nods his head--everything is settled;
next day, this india-rubber ball, flattened for a moment, has
recovered itself in the course of the night; it is as full of wind as
ever; you must begin all over again; and you go on till you understand
that you are not dealing with a man, but with a lump of gum that loses
shape in the sunshine.

These thousand annoyances, this vast waste of human energy on barren
spots, the difficulty of achieving any good, the incredible facility
of doing mischief; two strong games played out, twice won, and then
twice lost; the hatred of a statesman--a blockhead with a painted face
and a wig, but in whom the world believed--all these things, great and
small, had not crushed, but for the moment had dashed Marcas. In the
days when money had come into his hands, his fingers had not clutched
it; he had allowed himself the exquisite pleasure of sending it all to
his family--to his sisters, his brothers, his old father. Like
Napoleon in his fall, he asked for no more than thirty sous a day, and
any man of energy can earn thirty sous for a day's work in Paris.

When Marcas had finished the story of his life, intermingled with