trucks. The spring sun has browned their faces; they wear heavy mufflers
around their necks, and their hands are sinewy and dirty. They are in such
a hurry to sell their wares that they even hail him, a youth of
twenty-four without a family, a lyric writer who is simply loitering at
random in order to divert himself.

The sun climbs higher. Now people begin to swarm in all directions; shrill
whistles are heard, now from the factories in the city suburbs, now from
the railway stations and docks; the traffic increases. Busy workers dart
hither and thither--some munching their breakfast from newspaper parcels.
A man pushes an enormous load of bundles on a push-cart, he is delivering
groceries; he strains like a horse and reads addresses from a note-book as
he hurries along. A child is distributing morning papers; she is a little
girl who has Saint Vitus's dance; she jerks her angular body in all
directions, twitches her shoulders, blinks, hustles from door to door,
climbs the stairs in the high-storied houses, presses bells, and hurries
on, leaving papers on every doorstep. A dog follows her and makes every
trip with her.

Traffic and noise increase and spread; beginning at the factories, the
wharves, the shipyards, and the sawmills, they mingle with wagon rumblings
and human voices; the air is rent by steam-whistles whose agonising wails
rise skyward, meeting and blending above the large squares in a booming
diapason, a deep-throated, throbbing roar that enwraps the entire city.
Telegraph messengers dart hither and yon, scattering orders and quotations
from distant markets. The powerful, vitalising chant of commerce booms
through the air; the wheat in India, the coffee in Java promise well; the
Spanish markets are crying for fish--enormous quantities of fish during
Lent.