In Balzac’s Wrong Side of Paris, Népomucène the firewood-boy doesn’t worry about retirement planning:
“You hear that?” said Népomucène to Godefroid. “The old codger’s batty for sure … “
“And do you know how you will be at his age?...”
“Oh! Indeed I do,” answered Népomucène. “I’ll be in a sugar bowl.”
“In a sugar bowl? …”
“Yes, they’ll have used my bones to make bone black. I’ve seen the refiner’s carts often enough at the Catacombs, coming to fetch bone black for their factories. I hear they make it to use sugar.”
And with this philosophical response he went off for another load of wood.
—Honoré de Balzac, The Wrong Side of Paris 247
(Jordan Stump trans., Modern Library 2005)
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