"
Then, while Valerie recapitulated her dream of wealth, the splendid flat
she would have, the receptions she would hold, and the two months which,
like the Beauchenes, she would spend at the seaside every summer, Mathieu
looked at her and her husband and pondered their position. Their case was
very different from that of old Moineaud, who knew that he would never be
a cabinet minister. Morange possibly dreamt that his wife would indeed
make him a minister some day. Every petty bourgeois in a democratic
community has a chance of rising and wishes to do so. Indeed, there is a
universal, ferocious rush, each seeking to push the others aside so that
he may the more speedily climb a rung of the social ladder. This general
ascent, this phenomenon akin to capillarity, is possible only in a
country where political equality and economic inequality prevail; for
each has the same right to fortune and has but to conquer it. There is,
however, a struggle of the vilest egotism, if one wishes to taste the
pleasures of the highly placed, pleasures which are displayed to the gaze
of all and are eagerly coveted by nearly everybody in the lower spheres.
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