it should suddenly occur to one of these people while he sat on the office stool that twice two is five! and that he consequently has been multiplying wrongly all his life, and so wasted that life in an awful error. All at once a foolish delirium seized me, and, as I regarded the passers-by more nearly, it seemed to me as if they were themselves nothing but ciphers or Arabic numerals. There went a crook-footed Two by a fatal Three, his full-bosomed, enceinte spouse; behind them came Mr. Four on crutches, waddling along came a fatal Five, then with round belly and a little hood a well-known little Six, and the still better known Evil Seven; but as I looked more closely at the wretched Eight as it tottered past I recognised in it the insurance agent who once went adorned like a carnival ox, but who now looked like the leanest of Pharoah's lean kine—pale, hollow cheeks, like an empty soup-plate; a cold, red nose, like a winter rose; a shabby black coat, which had a pitiful white shine; a hat into which Saturn with the scythe had cut air-holes; but his boots polished like looking-glasses, and he no longer seemed to think about devouring Heloise and Minka for breakfast and supper, but to be longing very much more for a good dinner of common beef. And I recognised many an old friend among the mere ciphers who rolled along.[1]
- ↑ This conceit of representing a procession of human beings as numerals had been previously more fully worked out, if I am
