第二〇五章 五 天赐的窥孔
五 天赐的窥孔
马吕斯生活在贫困、匮乏，甚至困苦中已有五年，但此刻他才意识到自己从未真正体会过什么是苦难。真正的苦难，他刚刚才得以一瞥。那是苦难的幽灵刚刚从他眼前掠过。事实上，只见过男人的苦难算不得什么；必须见到女人的苦难；而只见过女人的苦难仍算不得什么；还必须见到孩子的苦难。
当一个人走到山穷水尽之时，他的资源也已同时耗尽。祸哉，那些围绕在他身边、无力自卫的人！工作、工钱、面包、炉火、勇气、善意，一切同时离他而去。外在的光明似乎熄灭，内在的道德之光也随之黯淡；在这黑暗中，男人遇上女人和孩子的软弱，便粗暴地将他们推向耻辱。
于是，一切恐怖都变得可能。绝望四周尽是脆弱的隔板，每块隔板都通向恶习或罪行。
健康、青春、声誉、年轻身体所有的羞怯娇嫩、心灵、童贞、腼腆——这灵魂的表皮——都被那双在黑暗中摸索的手以险恶的方式摆弄着。这双手寻找着出路，却遭遇了耻辱，并最终与之妥协。父亲、母亲、孩子、兄弟、姐妹、男人、女人、女儿，他们紧贴在一起，几乎像矿物结晶一般，融入了那男女、亲缘、年龄、丑行与无辜混杂的昏暗之中。他们背靠着背，蜷缩在某种命运的陋室里。他们交换着愁苦的目光。哦，这些不幸的人！多么苍白！多么寒冷！仿佛他们居住在一颗比我们的星球离太阳远得多的行星上。
这个年轻姑娘对马吕斯来说，仿佛是来自悲惨阴影王国的一位信使。她向他揭示了黑夜中可怖的一面。
马吕斯几乎责备自己，因为沉溺于梦想与激情，竟直到今天都未曾留意过他的邻居们。付房租只是机械的动作，任何人都能做到；而他，马吕斯，本应做得更好。什么！仅仅一墙之隔，便是那些被遗弃的人，他们在黑暗的边界摸索着生活，与世隔绝；他与他们肘臂相依，在某种意义上，他是他们所能触及的人类链条的最后一环；他听见他们活着——不如说，在他身旁垂死挣扎——却毫不在意！每一天，每一刻，他听见墙那边他们走动的声音，来去与说话的声音，却甚至不曾侧耳倾听！那些话语中藏着呻吟，他却充耳不闻，他的心思另在他处，沉迷于幻梦，沉迷于不可能的辉光，沉迷于虚无缥缈的恋爱与痴狂；而与此同时，人类同胞——他在耶稣基督里的兄弟，他在人民中的兄弟——正在他身边徒然地垂死挣扎！他甚至成了他们不幸的一部分，加剧了他们的不幸。因为，如果他们有一个不那么耽于幻想、更善留意的邻居，一个普普通通、心怀慈悲的人，显然他们的贫困会被注意到，他们发出的求救信号会被察觉，他们就会被抓住并得救！他们显得如此腐化堕落，无疑，如此卑劣，甚至可憎；但坠落而不堕落的人实属罕见；况且，不幸与卑鄙在某个点上汇合，融为一体，凝聚成一个字眼，一个致命的字眼——‘悲惨之人’；这又是谁的过错？而且，坠落越深，慈悲岂不也该越深吗？
在对自己进行这番道德训诫时——因为有些时候，马吕斯像所有真正正直的人一样，是自己严苛的老师，责备自己远超过应得的程度——他凝视着那堵将他与容德雷特一家隔开的墙壁，仿佛他能让那充满怜悯的目光穿透这隔层，温暖这些可怜的人们。这墙是由木板和木条支撑的一层薄薄的灰泥，正如读者刚才所知，它能让声音和话语清晰地分辨出来。只有像马吕斯这样善于做梦的人，才会长久以来对此毫无察觉。墙上没有糊纸，无论是容德雷特那边还是马吕斯这边，粗糙的结构都裸露在外。马吕斯几乎是无意识地审视着这隔板；有时，遐想会像思想一样审视、观察、细察。蓦地，他跳了起来：他刚发现，靠近顶部，紧挨着天花板，有一个三角形的洞，是由三根木条之间的空隙形成的。本应填满这个洞的灰泥不见了，只要爬上五斗柜，就能通过这个孔洞看到容德雷特家阁楼里的情形。怜悯之心有，也应该有它的好奇心。这个孔洞形成了一种窥孔。窥视不幸者，如同窥视叛徒，是为了拯救他们，这是允许的。²⁷
“让我们稍微了解一下这些人是什么样子吧，”马吕斯心想，“看看他们处于什么状况。”他爬上五斗柜，把眼睛凑到裂缝处，望了进去。
Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitution, even in
distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True
misery he had but just had a view of. It was its spectre which had just
passed before his eyes. In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of
man has seen nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who
has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing; he must see the
misery of the child.
When a man has reached his last extremity, he has reached his last
resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround
him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, good will, all fail him
simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral
light within; in these shadows man encounters the feebleness of the
woman and the child, and bends them violently to ignominy.
Then all horrors become possible. Despair is surrounded with fragile
partitions which all open on either vice or crime.
Health, youth, honor, all the shy delicacies of the young body, the
heart, virginity, modesty, that epidermis of the soul, are manipulated
in sinister wise by that fumbling which seeks resources, which
encounters opprobrium, and which accommodates itself to it. Fathers,
mothers, children, brothers, sisters, men, women, daughters, adhere and
become incorporated, almost like a mineral formation, in that dusky
promiscuousness of sexes, relationships, ages, infamies, and
innocences. They crouch, back to back, in a sort of hut of fate. They
exchange woe-begone glances. Oh, the unfortunate wretches! How pale
they are! How cold they are! It seems as though they dwelt in a planet
much further from the sun than ours.
This young girl was to Marius a sort of messenger from the realm of sad
shadows. She revealed to him a hideous side of the night.
Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of reverie and
passion which had prevented his bestowing a glance on his neighbors up
to that day. The payment of their rent had been a mechanical movement,
which any one would have yielded to; but he, Marius, should have done
better than that. What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned
beings who lived gropingly in the dark outside the pale of the rest of
the world, he was elbow to elbow with them, he was, in some sort, the
last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live, or
rather, rattle in the death agony beside him, and he paid no heed to
them! Every day, every instant, he heard them walking on the other side
of the wall, he heard them go, and come, and speak, and he did not even
lend an ear! And groans lay in those words, and he did not even listen
to them, his thoughts were elsewhere, given up to dreams, to impossible
radiances, to loves in the air, to follies; and all the while, human
creatures, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people,
were agonizing in vain beside him! He even formed a part of their
misfortune, and he aggravated it. For if they had had another neighbor
who was less chimerical and more attentive, any ordinary and charitable
man, evidently their indigence would have been noticed, their signals
of distress would have been perceived, and they would have been taken
hold of and rescued! They appeared very corrupt and very depraved, no
doubt, very vile, very odious even; but those who fall without becoming
degraded are rare; besides, there is a point where the unfortunate and
the infamous unite and are confounded in a single word, a fatal word,
_the miserable_; whose fault is this? And then should not the charity
be all the more profound, in proportion as the fall is great?
While reading himself this moral lesson, for there were occasions on
which Marius, like all truly honest hearts, was his own pedagogue and
scolded himself more than he deserved, he stared at the wall which
separated him from the Jondrettes, as though he were able to make his
gaze, full of pity, penetrate that partition and warm these wretched
people. The wall was a thin layer of plaster upheld by lathes and
beams, and, as the reader had just learned, it allowed the sound of
voices and words to be clearly distinguished. Only a man as dreamy as
Marius could have failed to perceive this long before. There was no
paper pasted on the wall, either on the side of the Jondrettes or on
that of Marius; the coarse construction was visible in its nakedness.
Marius examined the partition, almost unconsciously; sometimes reverie
examines, observes, and scrutinizes as thought would. All at once he
sprang up; he had just perceived, near the top, close to the ceiling, a
triangular hole, which resulted from the space between three lathes.
The plaster which should have filled this cavity was missing, and by
mounting on the commode, a view could be had through this aperture into
the Jondrettes’ attic. Commiseration has, and should have, its
curiosity. This aperture formed a sort of peep-hole. It is permissible
to gaze at misfortune like a traitor in order to succor it.27
“Let us get some little idea of what these people are like,” thought
Marius, “and in what condition they are.”
He climbed upon the commode, put his eye to the crevice, and looked.
