Read Things and A Man Asleep for Free Online Page B

decreed it; it was a social law, a fact of life, which advertising in general, magazines, window displays, the street scene and even, in a certain sense, all those productions which in common parlance constitute cultural life, expressed most authentically. That was why they were wrong to feel, on some occasions, that they were losing their dignity. For minor mortifications - having to ask the price of something, hesitantly; having to think twice; trying to haggle; window-shopping, not daring to go in; wanting; appearing mean and petty - are also what keep business going. They were proud of having got something cheap, of having spent nothing on it, hardly a penny. They were even prouder (but the pleasure of paying too much for something has its own price, which is always a bit too high) to have paid a great deal, the highest possible price, on an impulse, without questioning, almost in blind excitement, for something that could not fail to be the finest, uniquely fine, perfect. These moments of shame and pride both had the same function, brought identical disappointments, identical inner rages. And they grasped - since all around them, everywhere, everything made them grasp, since slogans, posters, neon-lit signs and floodlit shop windows drummed it into their heads from morning to night — that they were for ever one rung down on the ladder, always one rung too low; even though they were fortunate enough not to be, not by a long chalk, at the bottom of the pile.
    They were the "new generation", young executives who had not yet cut all their teeth, technocrats on the way, but only halfway, to success. Almost all of them came from the lower middle classes, whose values, they felt, were for them no longer adequate. They cast their eyes enviously, desperately, towards the visible comfort, luxury and perfection of the upper middle classes. They had no past, no tradition. There were no inheritances to wait for. Of all of Jérôme's and Sylvie's friends, only one came from a wealthy, well-established family: they were textile wholesalers in Lille, with a comfortable pile conveniently invested in property in Lille, in a portfolio, a country house near Beauvais, gold and silver plate, jewellery, and roomfuls of antique furniture. All the others had spent their childhoods in dining rooms and bedrooms with imitation Chippendale or imitation rustic furniture as such things were imagined initially at the dawn of the 1930s - full-size beds covered with puce taffeta, three-door wardrobes with mirrors and gilded mouldings, horribly square tables on turned-wood legs, imitation antler coat-stands. In such surroundings, in the evening, beneath the family lamp, they had done their homework. They had taken down the rubbish, they had gone "off with the pail" to fetch the milk, they had slammed doors behind them. Their memories of childhood were all similar, just as the paths they had followed, their slow departures from their family backgrounds, and the vistas they thought they had chosen for themselves, were identical.
    They were therefore of their own time. They were at ease with themselves. They were not, so they said, completely fooled. They could keep their distance. They were relaxed, or at least they tried to be. They had a sense of humour. They were by no means dim.
    A detailed analysis would have detected easily enough, within the group they constituted, divergent trends, stifled enmities. Any sociometrist with an eye for finicky detail would have easily discovered in their midst fault lines, reciprocal exclusions, latent hostilities amongst them. It sometimes happened that one or another of them, in response to some more or less fortuitous accident, or a camouflaged provocation, or a misunderstanding all in hints, would spread discord amongst them. Their fine friendship would then disintegrate. They would then realise, with simulated amazement, that X, whom they'd always thought a generous chap, was the very soul of stinginess, that Y