第一百五十九章 十三章 小伽弗洛什
第十三章 小伽弗洛什
在本故事第二部分所述事件发生八九年后的某段时期，人们在神庙大道和水堡一带注意到一个十一二岁的小男孩。这孩子若嘴边不是挂着与他年龄相称的嬉笑，却怀着一颗绝对阴郁空虚的心，便足以相当精准地实现前面勾勒出的那种流浪儿的理想形象。这孩子裹着一条男人的裤子，但那裤子并非来自父亲；穿着件女人的衬衣，也非来自母亲。是某些善心人出于怜悯，用破布条给他拼凑了这身行头。然而他确实有父亲有母亲。但父亲从不惦记他，母亲也不爱他。
他是那种最值得怜悯的孩子——明明有父有母，却如同孤儿一般。
这孩子在街上时比在任何地方都自在。对他而言，路面比他母亲的心肠还要柔软些。
他的父母一脚将他踹进了生活。
他索性逃离了。
他是个吵吵闹闹、面色苍白、身手敏捷、机警伶俐、爱嘲弄人的孩子，带着活泼却病恹恹的神气。他来去自如，唱歌，跳房子，掏阴沟，偶尔偷点东西，但像猫和麻雀一样快活——被人骂作无赖时哈哈大笑，被叫作小偷时却会发火。他没有住所，没有面包，没有炉火，没有爱；但他快活，因为他自由。
这些可怜的小东西长大成人时，社会秩序的磨盘便会迎头碾碎他们；但只要他们还是孩子，便能因身形矮小而逃脱。最小的窟窿也能救他们。
然而，尽管这孩子被遗弃，每隔两三个月，他偶尔会说：“得了，我得去看妈妈了！”于是他离开林荫大道、马戏场、圣马丁门，走下河岸，跨过桥，抵达郊区，来到萨尔佩特里埃医院附近，然后停住脚步——停在何处？恰恰是读者熟悉的那个双号门牌50-52号——戈尔博老屋。
在那个时期，这栋通常空置、永远挂着“房屋出租”牌子的50-52号老屋，恰巧——这在巴黎实属罕见——住着不少人，但他们彼此素无往来，这在巴黎是常有的事。他们都属于那个贫苦阶层——这个阶层始于刚刚脱离困境的小资产阶级底层，沿着苦难的轨迹一路下坠，直至社会最深处那两个文明物质尽头的存在：清扫污泥的阴沟工和捡拾碎布头的拾荒者。
冉阿让时代的“主要房客”已经过世，接替她的是一位与她如出一辙的老妇人。我不知道哪位哲学家说过：“老女人永远不会缺。”
这位新来的老妇人名叫布尔贡太太，她的一生乏善可陈，唯有三只依次统治她灵魂的鹦鹉值得一提。
这栋破房子里最悲惨的住户是一家四口：父亲、母亲和两个已经长大成人的女儿。四人挤在同一间顶楼里——正是我们先前提到的那种斗室。
乍一看，这家人除了极度贫困外并无特别之处；父亲租下房间时报的姓名是容德雷特。他搬进来后不久——那情形与其说是搬家，用主要房客那句令人难忘的话来说，不如说“简直像什么也没搬进来”——容德雷特对那位像前任一样兼做门房和扫楼梯的妇人说：“某某大妈，要是碰巧有人来打听一个波兰人或意大利人，甚至西班牙人，那可能就是我。”
这家人就是那个赤脚快活男孩的家。他回到那里，看到的只有贫困，更可悲的是，连一丝微笑也没有；冰冷的炉膛，冰冷的心。他进门时，他们问：“你从哪儿来？”他回答：“从街上来。”他离开时，他们问：“你要去哪儿？”他回答：“上街去。”他母亲对他说：“你来这儿干什么？”
这孩子就在这种亲情的缺失中活着，像地窖里长出的苍白植物。他并不觉得痛苦，也不责怪任何人。他甚至不清楚父亲母亲应该是怎样的。
不过他母亲倒是爱他的姐姐们。
我们忘了提及，在神庙大道上，这孩子被叫作小伽弗洛什。为什么叫他小伽弗洛什？
大概因为他父亲姓容德雷特。
某些悲惨家庭似乎有掐断亲情脉络的本能。
容德雷特一家在戈尔博老屋居住的房间，是走廊尽头最后一间。隔壁的陋室住着一个非常贫穷的年轻人，人称马吕斯先生。
现在让我们来说明这位马吕斯先生是谁。
Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the second part of
this story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the
regions of the Château-d’Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years of
age, who would have realized with tolerable accuracy that ideal of the
gamin sketched out above, if, with the laugh of his age on his lips, he
had not had a heart absolutely sombre and empty. This child was well
muffled up in a pair of man’s trousers, but he did not get them from
his father, and a woman’s chemise, but he did not get it from his
mother. Some people or other had clothed him in rags out of charity.
Still, he had a father and a mother. But his father did not think of
him, and his mother did not love him.
He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of
those who have father and mother, and who are orphans nevertheless.
This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The
pavements were less hard to him than his mother’s heart.
His parents had despatched him into life with a kick.
He simply took flight.
He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wide-awake, jeering, lad, with a
vivacious but sickly air. He went and came, sang, played at hopscotch,
scraped the gutters, stole a little, but, like cats and sparrows, gayly
laughed when he was called a rogue, and got angry when called a thief.
He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because
he was free.
When these poor creatures grow to be men, the millstones of the social
order meet them and crush them, but so long as they are children, they
escape because of their smallness. The tiniest hole saves them.
Nevertheless, abandoned as this child was, it sometimes happened, every
two or three months, that he said, “Come, I’ll go and see mamma!” Then
he quitted the boulevard, the Cirque, the Porte Saint-Martin, descended
to the quays, crossed the bridges, reached the suburbs, arrived at the
Salpêtrière, and came to a halt, where? Precisely at that double number
50-52 with which the reader is acquainted—at the Gorbeau hovel.
At that epoch, the hovel 50-52 generally deserted and eternally
decorated with the placard: “Chambers to let,” chanced to be, a rare
thing, inhabited by numerous individuals who, however, as is always the
case in Paris, had no connection with each other. All belonged to that
indigent class which begins to separate from the lowest of petty
bourgeoisie in straitened circumstances, and which extends from misery
to misery into the lowest depths of society down to those two beings in
whom all the material things of civilization end, the sewer-man who
sweeps up the mud, and the rag-picker who collects scraps.
The “principal lodger” of Jean Valjean’s day was dead and had been
replaced by another exactly like her. I know not what philosopher has
said: “Old women are never lacking.”
This new old woman was named Madame Bourgon, and had nothing remarkable
about her life except a dynasty of three paroquets, who had reigned in
succession over her soul.
The most miserable of those who inhabited the hovel were a family of
four persons, consisting of father, mother, and two daughters, already
well grown, all four of whom were lodged in the same attic, one of the
cells which we have already mentioned.
At first sight, this family presented no very special feature except
its extreme destitution; the father, when he hired the chamber, had
stated that his name was Jondrette. Some time after his moving in,
which had borne a singular resemblance to _the entrance of nothing at
all_, to borrow the memorable expression of the principal tenant, this
Jondrette had said to the woman, who, like her predecessor, was at the
same time portress and stair-sweeper: “Mother So-and-So, if any one
should chance to come and inquire for a Pole or an Italian, or even a
Spaniard, perchance, it is I.”
This family was that of the merry barefoot boy. He arrived there and
found distress, and, what is still sadder, no smile; a cold hearth and
cold hearts. When he entered, he was asked: “Whence come you?” He
replied: “From the street.” When he went away, they asked him: “Whither
are you going?” He replied: “Into the streets.” His mother said to him:
“What did you come here for?”
This child lived, in this absence of affection, like the pale plants
which spring up in cellars. It did not cause him suffering, and he
blamed no one. He did not know exactly how a father and mother should
be.
Nevertheless, his mother loved his sisters.
We have forgotten to mention, that on the Boulevard du Temple this
child was called Little Gavroche. Why was he called Little Gavroche?
Probably because his father’s name was Jondrette.
It seems to be the instinct of certain wretched families to break the
thread.
The chamber which the Jondrettes inhabited in the Gorbeau hovel was the
last at the end of the corridor. The cell next to it was occupied by a
very poor young man who was called M. Marius.
Let us explain who this M. Marius was.
