第二卷 第四章 团伙的组成
这四个匪徒像一条蛇一样在警察面前游走，千方百计避开维多克那双不审慎的眼睛，“以各种形态出现，树木、火焰、泉水”，互相借用姓名和诡计，躲在自己的影子里，互相提供藏身之处和秘密隔板，像在化装舞会上摘掉假鼻子一样摘掉自己的特征，有时简化为一个人，有时又膨胀到连可可拉图尔都以为他们是一大群人。
这四个人不是四个人，而是一个有四个脑袋的神秘大盗，在巴黎搞大动作；他们是寄居在社会地下的那个巨型邪恶水螅。
由于他们的分支和关系网，巴伯、格勒梅尔、克拉克苏和蒙帕纳斯负责塞纳省所有伏击行动的总策划。那些想出这类点子的人，那些夜间想象力丰富的人，都来找他们执行计划。他们为四个流氓提供画布，由后者负责布景。他们做舞台布置工作。他们总能提供与那些需要肩膀帮忙、又足够有利可图的罪行相称和合适的武力。当一桩罪行需要武器时，他们就把同伙租出去。他们拥有一批暗影演员，随时准备为所有地下悲剧服务。
他们习惯在夜幕降临时聚集，那是他们醒来的时候，地点是萨尔佩特里埃附近的平原。他们在那里开会。他们有十二个黑色的钟点要打发，于是相应安排活动。
“猫老板”——这是这四个人的团伙在地下流通领域获得的称号。在正在一天天消失的、奇异古老的民间语言里，“猫老板”指的是清晨，就像“在狗与狼之间”指的是黄昏。这个“猫老板”的称号，大概来自他们收工的时间——拂晓正是幽灵消失、流氓散伙的时刻。这四个家伙就以这个称号闻名。当重罪法庭庭长去监狱探望拉瑟奈，就一桩拉瑟奈否认的罪行审问他时，庭长问：“是谁干的？”拉瑟奈的回答对法官来说是谜语，对警察来说却很明白：“大概是猫老板搞的。”
有时可以通过列出角色来推断一出戏；同样，几乎可以通过列出组成一个团伙的流氓名单来判断这个团伙。以下是“猫老板”主要成员使用的外号——这些名字在一些特别的回忆录中保留了下来：
胖肖，又名春人，又名大个子。
布吕容。[有一个布吕容王朝；我们忍不住插一句。]
布拉特吕埃勒，前面提到过的修路工。
拉维厄。
菲尼斯泰尔。
荷马-奥居，一个黑人。
星期二晚。
快件。
方特洛伊，又名花姑娘。
光荣者，一个刑满释放犯。
停车老爷，又称杜邦先生。
南平台。
普萨克利沃。
卡马尼奥莱。
克鲁伊德尼尔斯，又称比扎罗。
吃花边。
两脚朝天。
半文钱，又称二十亿。
等等，等等。
我们略过了一些，而且还不是最差的。这些名字都有一张脸孔相对应。它们不只代表个人，还代表物种。每个名字都对应一种文明底层发育畸形的真菌。
那些不太露脸的人，不是那些你会在街上看到的人。他们被疯狂的夜晚搞得筋疲力尽，白天就去睡觉，有时在石灰窑里，有时在蒙马特或蒙鲁日的废弃采石场里，有时在下水道里。他们钻入地下。
这些人后来怎么样了？他们还存在。他们一直存在。贺拉斯就谈到过他们：“吹笛女、卖药人、乞丐、丑角”的行会；只要社会还是这个样子，他们就会是这个样子。在他们洞穴那幽暗的屋顶下，他们不断从社会渣滓中重新诞生。他们作为幽灵归来，但总是一样的；只是不再同名，也不再披着同样的皮囊。个体被铲除了，部落却留存下来。
他们始终具备同样的本事。从流浪汉到乞丐，那个种族保持着它的纯粹。他们能闻出钱包里的钱，能嗅出表袋里的表。金银对他们来说有气味。有些天真的市民，可以说长着一副“可偷”的模样。这些人耐心地追踪这些市民。几个陌生人或乡下人经过，他们就感到像蜘蛛一样战栗。
当你在午夜时分，在冷清的大街上碰到或瞥见这些人时，他们很可怕。他们不像人，倒像是活生生的雾气构成的东西；可以说他们惯常与黑暗融为一体，与之毫无区别，除了黑暗没有别的灵魂，只是为了活上几分钟噩梦般的生命，才暂时从黑夜中分离出来。
怎样才能让这些幽灵消失呢？光明。大量的光明。没有一只蝙蝠能抵抗黎明。照亮社会的底层吧。
These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent
among the police, and striving to escape Vidocq’s indiscreet glances
“under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain,” lending each other their
names and their traps, hiding in their own shadows, boxes with secret
compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off their
personalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball,
sometimes simplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one
individual, sometimes multiplying themselves to such a point that
Coco-Latour himself took them for a whole throng.
These four men were not four men; they were a sort of mysterious robber
with four heads, operating on a grand scale on Paris; they were that
monstrous polyp of evil, which inhabits the crypt of society.
Thanks to their ramifications, and to the network underlying their
relations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were charged
with the general enterprise of the ambushes of the department of the
Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnal
imaginations, applied to them to have their ideas executed. They
furnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook the
preparation of the scenery. They labored at the stage setting. They
were always in a condition to lend a force proportioned and suitable to
all crimes which demanded a lift of the shoulder, and which were
sufficiently lucrative. When a crime was in quest of arms, they
under-let their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the
shadows at the disposition of all underground tragedies.
They were in the habit of assembling at nightfall, the hour when they
woke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salpêtrière. There they held
their conferences. They had twelve black hours before them; they
regulated their employment accordingly.
_Patron-Minette_,—such was the name which was bestowed in the
subterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In the
fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day,
_Patron-Minette_ signifies the morning, the same as _entre chien et
loup_—between dog and wolf—signifies the evening. This appellation,
_Patron-Minette_, was probably derived from the hour at which their
work ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for
the separation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title.
When the President of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, and
questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, “Who did
it?” demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical
so far as the magistrate was concerned, but clear to the police:
“Perhaps it was Patron-Minette.”
A piece can sometimes be divined on the enunciation of the personages;
in the same manner a band can almost be judged from the list of
ruffians composing it. Here are the appellations to which the principal
members of Patron-Minette answered,—for the names have survived in
special memoirs.
Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille.
Brujon. [There was a Brujon dynasty; we cannot refrain from
interpolating this word.]
Boulatruelle, the road-mender already introduced.
Laveuve.
Finistère.
Homère-Hogu, a negro.
Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.)
Dépêche. (Make haste.)
Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetière (the Flower Girl).
Glorieux, a discharged convict.
Barrecarrosse (Stop-carriage), called Monsieur Dupont.
L’Esplanade-du-Sud.
Poussagrive.
Carmagnolet.
Kruideniers, called Bizarro.
Mangedentelle. (Lace-eater.)
Les-pieds-en-l’Air. (Feet in the air.)
Demi-Liard, called Deux-Milliards.
Etc., etc.
We pass over some, and not the worst of them. These names have faces
attached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one of
these names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from the
under side of civilization.
Those beings, who were not very lavish with their countenances, were
not among the men whom one sees passing along the streets. Fatigued by
the wild nights which they passed, they went off by day to sleep,
sometimes in the lime-kilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of
Montmatre or Montrouge, sometimes in the sewers. They ran to earth.
What became of these men? They still exist. They have always existed.
Horace speaks of them: _Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolæ, mendici,
mimæ_; and so long as society remains what it is, they will remain what
they are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are
continually born again from the social ooze. They return, spectres, but
always identical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they are
no longer in the same skins. The individuals extirpated, the tribe
subsists.
They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, the
race is maintained in its purity. They divine purses in pockets, they
scent out watches in fobs. Gold and silver possess an odor for them.
There exist ingenuous bourgeois, of whom it might be said, that they
have a “stealable” air. These men patiently pursue these bourgeois.
They experience the quivers of a spider at the passage of a stranger or
of a man from the country.
These men are terrible, when one encounters them, or catches a glimpse
of them, towards midnight, on a deserted boulevard. They do not seem to
be men but forms composed of living mists; one would say that they
habitually constitute one mass with the shadows, that they are in no
wise distinct from them, that they possess no other soul than the
darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living
for a few minutes a monstrous life, that they have separated from the
night.
What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light in
floods. Not a single bat can resist the dawn. Light up society from
below.
