I was continually looking at the clock, counting the
minutes, and when I came home I would feel so sore in body and
spirit that I could not sleep. Studying or reading was out of the
question
Moreover, as a peddler I seemed to have belonged to the world of
business, to the same class as the rich, the refined, while now,
behold! I was a workman, a laborer, one of the masses. I pitied
myself for a degraded wretch. And when some of my shopmates
indulged in coarse pleasantry in the hearing of the finisher girls it
would hurt me personally, as a confirmation of my disgrace. "And
this is the kind of people with whom I am doomed to associate!" I
would lament. In point of fact, there were only four or five fellows
of this kind in a shop of fifty. Nor were some of the peddlers or
music-teachers I had known more modest of speech than the worst
of these cloak-makers. What was more, I felt that some of my
fellow-employees were purer and better men than I. But that did
not matter. I abhorred the shop and everybody in it as a well-bred
convict abhors his jail and his fellow-inmates
When the men quarreled they would call one another, among other
things, "bundle-eaters.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249