More literary allusions, echoes, and foreshadowings in The Sleepwalkers

Onto the 2nd part, really second novella, in Hermann Broch's The Sleepwalkers, this section called The Anarchist (another title I wish I could scarf) - at least from the first few chapters it does seem more conventional than part 1, in this novella there so far don't seem to be the fevered interior perceptions of the (disturbed) protagonist (Joachim, in part 1) and there are not, yet, any of the odd descriptions of characters such as the opening section in part 1 in which Brach spends several pages describing the "three-legged" walk of Joachim's imperious father. So, yes, it's less like Musil - but it does recall other writers of Broch's time or before: the main character, Esch (great name!) is a young man just fired from some clerk-like job because of a dispute with his boss, but he does manage to cadge a good recommendation and, on a tip from a friend who's some kind of organizer or social activist, he takes a similar job in another city in Germany; there he, lodges with a fellow worker and his unwed sister, and it's oddly and generally assumed that Esch will court and marry the sister, though he seems completely uninterested, at least until Esch treats the threesome with comped tickets to a magic show, and there's a little flirtation between Esch and sister. Episode ends with Esch sending a picture postcard to the friend who got him the job and to others at the working man's cafe/bar where they used to (or he used to) hang out and drink. So what's this about? To me, it recalls the many stories of Dostoyevsky about workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries becoming automatons in offices - also recalls Melville, though I'm sure Broch would not have read Bartelby; and, because of Esch's general alienation and dissatisfaction with his job and his station, and his brushing shoulders with the labor organizer (and of course the title itself), this novella is another example of the radical fiction of the early 20th century, a brief flourishing of the polical novel: Conrad's Secret Agent for one; the magic show recalls Mann's Mario of course (an obvious homage), and the alienation Esch is a foretelling of the alienated existential heros of Camus, especially in L'etranger. I'm also interested in seeing the connections between the sections of Sleepwalkers; this novella set in 1903, and The Romantic (part 1) in the 1870s I think - there's a hint that Esch's boss, whom we have not seen yet, may be Joachim's friend from part 1, the businessman, now a prosperous member of the bourgeoisie.