My porter, with the cunning sagacity of his profession, imagines he has discovered some scandalous romance, because he brings me every day a letter in the handwriting of my valet.  You may imagine the complication of my torment.  I am afraid of my porter, therefore I go myself to the post-office, that receptacle of all the secrets of Paris.

Usually the waiting-room is full of wretched men, each an epistolary Tantalus, who, with eyes fixed on the wooden grating, implore the clerk for a post-marked deception.  ’Tis a sad spectacle, and I am sure that there is a post-office in purgatory, where tortured souls go to inquire if their deliverance has been signed in heaven.

The clerks in the post-office never seem to be aware of the impatient murmurs around them.  What administrative calmness beams on the fresh faces of these distributors of consolation and of despair!  In the agony of waiting, minutes lose their mathematical value, and the hands of the clock become motionless on the dial like impaled serpents.  The operations of the office proceed with a slowness that seems like a miniature eternity.  This anxious crowd stand in single file, forming a living chain of eager notes of interrogation, and, as fate always reserves the last link for me, I have to witness the filing-off of these troubled souls.  This office brings men close together, and obliterates all social distinctions; in default of letters one always receives lessons of equality gratis.

Here you see handsome young men whose dishevelled locks and pale faces bear traces of sleepless nights—­the Damocles of the Bourse, who feels the sword of bankruptcy hanging over his head—­forsaken sweethearts, whose hopes wander with beating drums upon African shores—­timid women veiled in black, weeping and mourning for the dead, so as to smile more effectively upon the living.

If each person were to call out the secret of his letter, the clerks themselves would veil their faces and forget the postal alphabet.  A painful silence reigns over this scene of anxious waiting; at long intervals a hoarse voice calls out his Christian name, and woe to its owner if his ancestors have not bequeathed him a short or easily pronounced one.

The other day I was present at a strange scene caused by the association of seven syllables.  An unhappy-looking wretch went up to the railing and gave out his name—­Sidoine Tarboriech—­these two words inflicted on us the following dialogue:—­“Is it all one name?” asked the clerk, without deigning to glance at the unfortunate owner of these syllables.  “Two names,” said the man, timidly, as if he were fully aware of the disgrace inflicted upon him at the baptismal font.  “Did you say Antoine?” said the clerk.  “Sidoine, Monsieur.”  “Is it your Christian name?” “’Tis the name of my godfather, Saint Sidoine, 23 of August.”  “Ah! there is a Saint Sidoine, is there?  Well, Sidoine ...  Sidoine—­what else?” “Tarboriech.”  “Are you a German?” “From Toulon, opposite the Arsenal.”