Trifles Are What Matter

He knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate of his lodging-house, exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. The young man went up to a huge house which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements, and was inhabited by working people of all kinds. There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the two courtyards of the house. Three or four doorkeepers were employed on the building.