Could she possibly be sobbing again? No, she’s not the one who is crying. It’s the washerwoman’s son, the newsboy, in his hiding place on the roof of the building at the back of the courtyard. He too is evidently having a hard time, though like anyone he only wants what’s best for himself. The less significant someone is, the more unseemly their self-love appears to all those around them. But even the scrawny mongrel who slinks along by the wall and lives on scraps — even he brazenly wishes for the tastiest morsels for himself. He does not value his miserable life so very much as to hold back always in fear of the stick. Just an hour ago he managed to get hold of a loop of sausage and gulp it down on the spot. And if someone promptly let him have it with a walking stick, it wasn’t to rectify the damage, because it was too late for that, but rather out of the natural exasperation that second-rate figures can cause by the very fact of possessing their own will and their own desires.
Scuttling away with a yelp, the mongrel accidentally tripped the newsboy. The papers went flying in front of the entrance to the local government offices at the very moment when the clerks were stampeding out of the building. Nothing could have stopped them. They were not in the least afraid of their director, especially since he had been the first to abandon his duties — he hadn’t been seen in the office all morning. The washerwoman’s boy tumbled to the ground along with the newspapers. His cap fell off; a handful of coins and two or three battered cigarettes fell out of one pocket, a prized penknife and a large bolt for fastening streetcar rails out of the other. The cigarettes were trampled underfoot, and the penknife vanished instantly. The boldface news headline under the banner, ending in an exclamation point, immediately attracted attention. The government clerks picked up the soiled papers, some bearing heel marks. The newsboy’s knees were bruised and grazed. He took a long while getting up; during this time his newspapers disappeared just like his penknife, and his money went missing. While one coin rolled across the pavement and fell into a crack, another came to a stop under someone’s boot; there was no sign whatsoever of his wares. The passers-by were wrapped up in their own affairs and may not have noticed the newsboy’s fall, but they would not have ignored a coin without an owner; their very consciences would have made them bend down and pick it up. All this took place very quickly. Before the newsboy knew what was happening, he was out of business. A moment earlier he had been standing in the middle of the crowd, jostled on all sides, wiping his nose on his sleeve. If I am the policeman, there’s nothing more for me to do here, and I can simply stand at the street corner in my ill-fitting uniform and watch the incident with an absent stare. Yet if I am the newsboy, I’m going to have to pay for those newspapers — to hand over the last pennies that down in the basement of number eight my mother takes out of a worn purse which has seen better times. While he is still stunned by the accident, it’s hard to predict whether his dismay will spill like oil from an overturned lamp and explode in flames of anger, scattered embers of which are always aglow here and there. The newsboy, sore from his fall and robbed by those more respectable than himself, was still stifling his tears yet already in the throes of a powerless rage. He was still in possession of the large bolt from a streetcar rail and would gladly have made use of it, for instance hurling it at one of the windows of the government offices.
The policeman’s official diligence has its limits: it’s possible he would close an eye and pretend not to have seen such an act. In fact, considering the extent of the disturbances already alluded to, present here in the form of newspaper accounts, the sound of one smashed windowpane would be an inadequate finale. Even a dozen broken windows would have meant equally little. Then let’s say that the bolt hit the national emblem mounted over the entrance to the government offices. The sharp sound of a police whistle would confirm such a turn of events. As will become apparent at once, the emblem was not made of real metal; proof could be seen in the shards of gilded plaster strewn across the sidewalk, the crown knocked off along with the head, the beak elsewhere. Since it’s come to the destruction of a symbol, the same one for which the policeman once risked his neck in the trenches, the offense will prove to be a lot more serious. In such a case the boy would have to be dragged by the ear straight to his mother, the washerwoman at number eight. Let her sign the police report and pay a fine; if she doesn’t have the cash, let her borrow it from a neighbor. When the news-boy pulls free and runs away, the policeman will not give chase. He’ll promise himself through gritted teeth that he will not let this go unresolved. No kinder solution will be possible.
The clamor and confusion were nothing but a distant echo — and only one of many — of a catastrophic upheaval that was the start of all the troubles. Without it there would have been no political crisis, no crash or subsequent panic. Yet this upheaval could neither be seen nor heard; there was not a word about it in the papers. This is because it took place beyond the circle of the streetcar rails, beyond the ring of buildings that the eye could trace, in the marshaling yards used only by the workers in overalls. There the eardrums of the masters and apprentices were almost bursting.
AMID THE OMINOUS TURMOIL, which rings with nothing but false notes, I don’t need to listen intently, or even to guess, in order to know only too well what has happened. With eyes closed one could tell that the catastrophe was brought about by the machinations of those who have too much to hide. Without ever having seen those supposedly abandoned warehouses, the breeding ground of shady business, one could predict every element from the masonry to the roof tiles and not be wrong in a single detail. Hence the walls of blackened red brick and the permanently unwashed windows coated in gray industrial grime. Even if the occasional one is missing its glass, any pale ray of light will still be instantly swallowed up in the dust-clogged air. Electric bulbs glow dimly, powered by current that has been diverted here illegally; in the gloom they barely illuminate piles of cardboard boxes, wooden crates, and burlap sacks. Nor is there any need to open these packages to know what they contain: bars of brass for engraved nameplates, lengths of genuine mahogany veneer, real marble tops for café tables, and even window frames and copper plate for sills. Underneath are heavy cases with the familiar silver nails, unimaginable quantities of which keep being listed, though later on it’s impossible to find out what they have been used for. The scale of the undertaking has evidently warranted the surreptitious addition of a narrow-gauge rail line. The siding cuts among the filthy shops, making it easier for the men in overalls to transport the goods that have been put into a second, illicit circulation among stories. It’s thanks to the small freight cars that a feverish trade has arisen, the culminating success of which will be a pure profit distilled from the turnover — bottles of untaxed alcohol locked up somewhere in a storeroom. It is a certain thing that at the moment of the great crash, the shops too shook to their foundations. It’s even possible that the odd bottle broke; yet all the others survived, packed in cases in their dozens.