第三十二章 第五章 在波隆巴酒家
俄罗斯山游戏玩腻了，就开始想到晚餐；最后，那容光焕发的八人团，多少有点疲倦了，便困顿在波隆巴酒家里，那家酒馆是著名的饭店老板波隆巴在香榭丽舍设的分店，当时在里沃利街近德洛姆巷的地方还可看见它的招牌。
一间宽大但丑陋的房间，尽头有一间小室和一张床（既然星期日人多拥挤，他们不得不将就这个住处）；两扇窗子，从那里可以凭眺榆树林外的河滨和塞纳河；八月的明媚阳光正轻抚着窗口；两张桌子，一张放着一束堆得高耸入云的花，掺杂着男女的帽子；另一张，由四对围坐着，欢快的杯盘交错，菜盘、碗碟、玻璃杯、酒瓶齐混杂；啤酒罐和葡萄酒瓶杂陈；桌上不太有秩序，桌下更是一片混乱。
“桌下踏着那种嘁喳喳的步声，实在是太可怕了，”莫里哀说过。
这就是从早上五点钟开始的田园牧歌在下午四点半钟时到达的情景。太阳下山了，大家也饱了。
香榭丽舍，充满阳光和人群，只是光与尘，构成荣耀的两样东西。马尔利马的群马，那些嘶鸣的马形云石，正在一片金色的云中奔驰。车辆往来不绝。一队威武的近卫骑兵，吹着号，从讷伊大街走下来；白色旗，在夕阳中微露红色，飘扬在杜伊勒里宫的圆顶上。协和广场（当时已恢复为路易十五广场）挤满了闲步的享乐者。许多人佩着银质百合花，挂在白波纹呢带上，1817年时他们还没有完全从纽扣上消失。成群的小姑娘，在过路人围成圈子鼓掌时，将当时著名的波旁舞曲投向空中，那曲子的目的本来是用电击似的一击打倒百日帝政，它的叠句是：
“从根特还我父，
还我父。”
穿着假日盛装的郊区人，有时还像小市民一样，佩着百合花，散布在大广场和马里尼广场上，玩着套环游戏，或坐在旋转木马上兜圈；另一些在喝酒；印刷工人是纸帽的，笑声可闻。一切都光辉灿烂。那是一个无可争议的和平时期和深沉的王权安宁的时期；那是警察总监昂格莱斯向国王做的一份特别报告的时代，报告的内容是关于郊区巴黎人，结束语是：
“综合各方面情况，陛下，对这些民众没什么好怕的。他们和猫一样漫不经心，一样懒散。外省的民众骚动不安，巴黎的却并不。这些人都是很可爱的人，陛下。要两个才抵得上您的一个近卫兵。对于首都巴黎的民众，完全没有可虑的。值得注意的是，近五十年来，民众的身材已缩矮了，而郊区的民众比革命时期更矮小了。他们不足为患。简而言之，这是一群可爱的贱民。”
警察总监认为猫不可能变成狮子，然而事实如此，而这是巴黎民众的奇迹。并且，昂格莱斯伯爵如此鄙视的猫，在古代共和国却享有尊崇，在它们看来，它就是自由之神；为了给比雷埃夫斯的无翼胜利女神作配，在科林斯广场上就有一只巨大的铜猫。复辟时期的警察太过“玫瑰色”地看待巴黎的民众；它并不像人们所想的那么“可爱的贱民”。巴黎人对法国人，正如雅典人对希腊人一样：没有人比他睡得更安稳，没有人比他更轻浮懒惰，没有人比他更能装出遗忘的样；但不要相信他；他随时准备做出任何冷静的行为；但只要有荣耀在尽头，他就有各种狂怒值得钦佩。给他一支长矛，他能制造八月十日；给他一支枪，你就有奥斯特里茨。他是拿破仑的支柱和丹东的后盾。是否涉及祖国，他志愿参军；是否涉及自由，他掀翻铺路石。当心！他那充满怒火的头发是史诗；他的罩袍像希腊短披风那样有褶皱。当心！他会把随便哪条格雷内塔街变成科迪牛轭。时辰一到，这个郊区的居民就会长大，这个小个子会站起来，他的目光可怕，他的呼吸会变成风暴，从那瘦弱的胸膛里能刮出足够扰乱阿尔卑斯山褶皱的风。正是多亏巴黎的郊区人，革命才混合着武器征服了欧洲。他唱歌，这是他的乐趣；按照他的本性来配他的歌，你就会看到！只要他唱的还是《卡马尼奥拉》的叠句，他就只推翻路易十六；让他唱《马赛曲》，他就能解放世界。
这笔记写在昂格莱斯报告的页边后，我们回到我们的四对情侣上来。我们说过，晚餐即将结束。
The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about
dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became
stranded in Bombarda’s public house, a branch establishment which had
been set up in the Champs-Élysées by that famous restaurant-keeper,
Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near
Delorme Alley.
A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had
been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday
crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay
and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the
panes; two tables; upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets,
mingled with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples
seated round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and
bottles; jugs of beer mingled with flasks of wine; very little order on
the table, some disorder beneath it;
“They made beneath the table
A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable,”
says Molière.
This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o’clock in
the morning, had reached at half-past four in the afternoon. The sun
was setting; their appetites were satisfied.
The Champs-Élysées, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing
but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The
horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud of
gold. Carriages were going and coming. A squadron of magnificent
body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the
Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting
sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde,
which had become the Place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy
promenaders. Many wore the silver fleur-de-lys suspended from the
white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from
button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls
threw to the winds, amid the passers-by, who formed into circles and
applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to
strike the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain:—
“Rendez-nous notre père de Gand,
Rendez-nous notre père.”
“Give us back our father from Ghent,
Give us back our father.”
Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even
decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the
large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and
revolving on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some
journeyman printers had on paper caps; their laughter was audible.
Everything was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound
royalist security; it was the epoch when a special and private report
of Chief of Police Anglès to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of
Paris, terminated with these lines:—
“Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be
feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats.
The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These
are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one
of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the
populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of
this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the
populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the
Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble.”
Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform
itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the
miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised
by Count Anglès possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their
eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to the
Minerva Aptera of the Piræus, there stood on the public square in
Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of
the Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too “rose-colored” a
light; it is not so much of “an amiable rabble” as it is thought. The
Parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek: no one
sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy
than he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not
be trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but
when there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in
every sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of
August; give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon’s stay
and Danton’s resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a
question of liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled
with wrath, is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a
chlamys. Take care! he will make of the first Rue Grenétat which comes
to hand Caudine Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs
will grow in stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be
terrible, and his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue
forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of
the Alps. It is, thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the
Revolution, mixed with arms, conquers Europe. He sings; it is his
delight. Proportion his song to his nature, and you will see! As long
as he has for refrain nothing but _la Carmagnole_, he only overthrows
Louis XVI.; make him sing the _Marseillaise_, and he will free the
world.
This note jotted down on the margin of Anglès’ report, we will return
to our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its
close.
