第一百四十九章 第三卷 他讨人喜欢
第三卷 他讨人喜欢
晚上，靠着总能弄到手的几个苏，这个小人儿走进剧院。跨过那道神奇的门槛，他便脱胎换骨；方才还是流浪儿，这会儿就成了小淘气。剧院就像一艘底朝天倒扣的船，龙骨朝天。小淘气们就挤在这龙骨里。小淘气之于流浪儿，犹如飞蛾之于幼虫：同样是会飞的生灵，展翅翱翔。他只需待在那里，带着他那幸福的光芒、他那热情和欢乐的力量、他那拍手——像翅膀的拍打——就能把那狭窄、黑暗、污浊、肮脏、不健康、丑陋、可憎的龙骨，称作天堂。
你给一个人无用的东西，却剥夺他必需的东西，你就得到了流浪儿。
流浪儿并非没有文学直觉。他的倾向——我们这么说，还带着几分遗憾——可不是古典趣味。他生性不那么学究气。举个例子：玛尔斯小姐在那群吵闹的小观众中的声望，就带着一丝讽刺的意味。流浪儿管她叫“穆什小姐”——意思是“躲起来吧”。
这家伙嚷嚷、嘲弄、挖苦、打架，像婴儿一样衣衫褴褛，像哲人一样破衣烂衫，在阴沟里钓鱼，在粪池里打猎，从污秽中提炼欢乐，用他的机智搅动广场，龇牙咧嘴又咬人，吹口哨又唱歌，喊叫又尖叫，用调皮的歌谣调和哈利路亚，从《深渊呼求》到小丑戏哼遍各种曲调，不找自得，知道自己无知，是斯巴达人般的小偷，疯狂到智慧，肮脏到诗意，会蜷缩在奥林匹斯山上，在粪堆里打滚，出来时却满身星辰。巴黎的流浪儿，就是年轻时的拉伯雷。
他的裤子要是没个表袋，他就绝不满足。
他不轻易吃惊，更不轻易害怕，他拿迷信编歌谣，他戳穿夸张，他嘲笑神秘，他对着鬼魂吐舌头，他从装腔作势的东西里剔除诗意，他把漫画塞进史诗般的浮夸里。这倒不是说他平庸；远非如此；不过他用滑稽的幻景取代了庄严的幻象。倘若亚当马斯托出现在他面前，这流浪儿准会说：“嘿！那鬼东西！”
In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means to
procure, the _homuncio_ enters a theatre. On crossing that magic
threshold, he becomes transfigured; he was the street Arab, he becomes
the titi.18 Theatres are a sort of ship turned upside down with the
keel in the air. It is in that keel that the titi huddle together. The
titi is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva; the same being
endowed with wings and soaring. It suffices for him to be there, with
his radiance of happiness, with his power of enthusiasm and joy, with
his hand-clapping, which resembles a clapping of wings, to confer on
that narrow, dark, fetid, sordid, unhealthy, hideous, abominable keel,
the name of Paradise.
Bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary,
and you have the gamin.
The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say
it with the proper amount of regret, would not constitute classic
taste. He is not very academic by nature. Thus, to give an example, the
popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy
children was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her
_Mademoiselle Muche_—“hide yourself.”
This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has rags like a
baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in the
cesspool, extracts mirth from foulness, whips up the squares with his
wit, grins and bites, whistles and sings, shouts, and shrieks, tempers
Alleluia with Matanturlurette, chants every rhythm from the De
Profundis to the Jack-pudding, finds without seeking, knows what he is
ignorant of, is a Spartan to the point of thieving, is mad to wisdom,
is lyrical to filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the
dunghill and emerges from it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is
Rabelais in this youth.
He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch-pocket.
He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified, he
makes songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations,
he twits mysteries, he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts, he takes the
poetry out of stilted things, he introduces caricature into epic
extravaganzas. It is not that he is prosaic; far from that; but he
replaces the solemn vision by the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor
were to appear to him, the street Arab would say: “Hi there! The
bugaboo!”
