第一百五十四章 第八章 读者将会读到一句俏皮话
夏天，他变成青蛙；黄昏时分，夜色降临，在奥斯特里茨桥和耶拿桥前，从煤车顶上，从洗衣妇的小船上，他一头扎进塞纳河，扎进一切可能违反礼仪和警察法规的行为中。不过，警察盯着他，结果就出现了极其戏剧性的场面，曾经引起一声兄弟般的、令人难忘的呼喊；那声呼喊大约在1830年很有名，是小淘气鬼之间发出的战略警告；它像荷马史诗的一句诗那样有节奏，其音调如同巴拿太奈节的依洛西斯颂歌一样难以言传，其中可以见到古老的"埃伏埃"。这就是："喂，小蒂蒂，喂喂！警察来了，警察来了，收起你的破烂滚蛋吧，从阴沟里溜走！"
有时这只小蚊子——他自己这样称呼自己——认得几个字，有时会写几个字；他永远会涂鸦。他通过谁也不知道的神秘互教互学，毫不迟疑地获得一切对公众有用的才能；从1815年到1830年，他学火鸡叫；从1830年到1848年，他在墙上画梨子。一个夏天的傍晚，路易-菲力浦步行回宫，看见一个小家伙，个子还不到他膝盖高，浑身是汗，爬上纳伊城门的一根柱脚，用炭画一个巨大的梨子；国王带着从亨利四世那里继承来的好性子，帮了小淘气一把，画完了梨子，还给了孩子一枚金路易，说："梨子也在那上面了。"小淘气爱热闹。某种粗暴的状态使他高兴。他憎恶"神甫"。有一天，在大学路上，有一个这样的小坏蛋对着69号大院的门在指手画脚。"你干吗要对着大门做这个动作？"一个过路人问他。孩子回答说："里面有个神甫。"那里确实住着教皇的使节。
不过，不管小淘气鬼对伏尔泰多么崇拜，如果碰上要当唱诗班儿童的机会，他多半也会接受，这时候他会斯斯文文地做弥撒。他像坦塔罗斯那样被两样东西折磨着，永远渴望却永远得不到：一个是推翻政府，另一个是让人把他的裤子补好。
完美的巴黎顽童认识巴黎所有的警察，遇到任何一个人他总是说得出名字。他能把他们的名字一一数出来。他研究他们的习惯，对每个人都有专门的评语。他像读一本摊开的书一样读警察的灵魂。他会流利地、毫不迟疑地告诉你："某某人是个叛徒；某某人很恶毒；某某人是个伟人；某某人很可笑。"（所有这些词：叛徒、恶毒、伟人、可笑，在他嘴里都有特殊的意义。）这个警察以为他拥有新桥，不让别人在桥栏杆外的飞檐上走；那个警察有揪人家耳朵的癖好，等等，等等。
LAST KING
In summer, he metamorphoses himself into a frog; and in the evening,
when night is falling, in front of the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena,
from the tops of coal wagons, and the washerwomen’s boats, he hurls
himself headlong into the Seine, and into all possible infractions of
the laws of modesty and of the police. Nevertheless the police keep an
eye on him, and the result is a highly dramatic situation which once
gave rise to a fraternal and memorable cry; that cry which was
celebrated about 1830, is a strategic warning from gamin to gamin; it
scans like a verse from Homer, with a notation as inexpressible as the
eleusiac chant of the Panathenæa, and in it one encounters again the
ancient Evohe. Here it is: “Ohé, Titi, ohééé! Here comes the bobby,
here comes the p’lice, pick up your duds and be off, through the sewer
with you!”
Sometimes this gnat—that is what he calls himself—knows how to read;
sometimes he knows how to write; he always knows how to daub. He does
not hesitate to acquire, by no one knows what mysterious mutual
instruction, all the talents which can be of use to the public; from
1815 to 1830, he imitated the cry of the turkey; from 1830 to 1848, he
scrawled pears on the walls. One summer evening, when Louis Philippe
was returning home on foot, he saw a little fellow, no higher than his
knee, perspiring and climbing up to draw a gigantic pear in charcoal on
one of the pillars of the gate of Neuilly; the King, with that
good-nature which came to him from Henry IV., helped the gamin,
finished the pear, and gave the child a louis, saying: “The pear is on
that also.”19 The gamin loves uproar. A certain state of violence
pleases him. He execrates “the curés.” One day, in the Rue de
l’Université, one of these scamps was putting his thumb to his nose at
the carriage gate of No. 69. “Why are you doing that at the gate?” a
passer-by asked. The boy replied: “There is a curé there.” It was
there, in fact, that the Papal Nuncio lived.
Nevertheless, whatever may be the Voltairianism of the small gamin, if
the occasion to become a chorister presents itself, it is quite
possible that he will accept, and in that case he serves the mass
civilly. There are two things to which he plays Tantalus, and which he
always desires without ever attaining them: to overthrow the
government, and to get his trousers sewed up again.
The gamin in his perfect state possesses all the policemen of Paris,
and can always put the name to the face of any one which he chances to
meet. He can tell them off on the tips of his fingers. He studies their
habits, and he has special notes on each one of them. He reads the
souls of the police like an open book. He will tell you fluently and
without flinching: “Such an one is a _traitor_; such another is very
_malicious_; such another is _great_; such another is _ridiculous_.”
(All these words: traitor, malicious, great, ridiculous, have a
particular meaning in his mouth.) That one imagines that he owns the
Pont-Neuf, and he prevents _people_ from walking on the cornice outside
the parapet; that other has a mania for pulling _person’s_ ears; etc.,
etc.
