Then he went upstairs, continuing his inspection, talking and bestirring himself more and more, but without finding any respite. On the second floor, he entered the forwarding department, seeking quarrels and secretly exasperated with the perfect regularity of the machine which he had himself built up. This department was the one that was daily assuming a more considerable importance: it now occupied two hundred employees--some of whom opened, read, and classified the letters coming from the provinces and abroad, whilst others collected in compartments the goods ordered by customers. And the number of letters was increasing to such an extent that they no longer counted them; they weighed them, receiving as much as a hundredweight a day. He feverishly went through the three offices, questioning Levasseur, the chief, as to the weight of the correspondence; now it was eighty, now ninety, sometimes, on a Monday, a hundred pounds. The figure increased daily, he ought to have been delighted. But he stood quivering amid the noise made by a neighbouring squad of packers nailing down the cases. It was in vain that he roamed about the building: his fixed idea remained fast in his mind, and as his power unfolded itself before him, as the mechanism of the business and the army of employees passed before his gaze, he felt more deeply than ever the taunt of his powerlessness. Orders from all Europe were flowing in, a special post-office van was required for his correspondence; and yet she said no, always no. He returned downstairs and visited the central cashier's office, where four clerks guarded the two giant safes, through which eighty-eight million francs had passed during the previous year. He glanced at the clearing-house office which now occupied thirty-five clerks, chosen from amongst the most trustworthy. He went into the checking office, where twenty-five young men, junior clerks, checked the debit-notes and calculated the salesmen's commissions. He returned to the chief cashier's office, grew exasperated by the sight of the safes, wandered about amidst these millions, the uselessness of which was driving him mad. She said no, always no.