Читать книгу Les Misérables, v. 3 - Victor Hugo, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 5

The gamin loves the town, but he loves solitude as well, for there is something of the sage in him: he is urbis amator like Fuscus, and ruris amator like Flaccus. To wander about dreamily, that is, to lounge, is an excellent employment of time for the philosopher, particularly in that slightly bastard sort of country, ugly enough, but strange and composed of two natures, that surrounds certain large cities, and notably Paris. Observing the suburbs is looking at an amphibious scene; it is the end of the trees and the beginning of the roofs, the end of the grass and the beginning of the pavement, the end of the furrows and the beginning of the shops, the end of the beaten paths and the beginning of passions, the end of the divine murmur and the beginning of human reason, and all this produces an extraordinary interest; and such is the motive of the apparently objectless walks of the dreamer in those unattractive parts which the passer-by at once brands with the title of "dull."

The author of these lines was for a long time a prowler about the suburbs of Paris, and it is a source of profound recollection for him. The worn grass, the stony path, the chalk, the marl, the plaster, the rough monotony of ploughed and fallow land, the young market-garden plants suddenly noticed in a hollow, the mixture of the wild and the tame, the vast deserted nooks in which the garrison drummers hold their noisy school, these Thebaïds by day and cut-throat dens by night, the tottering mill turning in the wind, the drawing-wheels of the quarries, the wine-shops at the corners of the cemeteries, the mysterious charm of the tall dark walls cutting at right angles immense open fields bathed in sunshine and full of butterflies, – all this attracted him.

Hardly any one knows those singular spots, – la Glacière, la Cimette, the hideous wall of Grenelle pock-marked with bullets, the Mont Parnasse, the Fosse aux Loups, the Tombe Issoire, or the Pierre Plate de Chatillon, where there is an old exhausted quarry, which is now only employed to grow mushrooms, and is closed by a heap of rotten boards flush with the ground. The Campagna of Rome is an idea, and the banlieue of Paris is another: to see in what an horizon offers us nought but fields, houses, or trees, is to remain on the surface; for all the aspects of things are the thoughts of God. The spot where a plain forms its junction with a town is always imprinted with a species of penetrating melancholy; for nature and humanity address you simultaneously, and local peculiarities make their appearance there.

Any one who has wandered as we have in those solitudes contiguous to our suburbs which might be called the Limbos of Paris has seen here and there, at the most deserted spot, and at the most unexpected moment, behind a scrubby hedge, or in the corner of some melancholy wall, children grouped tumultuously, fetid, muddy, dusty, unkempt, and ragged, playing together, wreathed with corn-flowers. They are the little runagates of poor families: this external boulevard is their breathing medium, and the banlieue belongs to them, and they eternally play truant in it. They ingenuously sing there their repertory of unclean songs. They are there, or, to speak more correctly, they dwell there, far from any eye, in the gentle warmth of May or June. Circling round a hole in the ground and snapping marbles, like irresponsible, freed, and happy beings, so soon as they perceive you they remember that they have a trade and must gain their livelihood, and they offer to sell you an old wool stocking full of may-bugs, or a spray of lilac. Such a meeting with chance children is one of the charming and yet poignant graces of the environs of Paris.

Sometimes there are girls among the heap of boys, – are they their sisters? – almost grown up, thin, feverish, sunburnt and freckled, crowned with wheat-ears and poppies, gay, haggard, and barefooted. You may see them eating cherries among the wheat, and at night hear them laugh. These groups, warmly illumined by the bright light of mid-day, or seen in the twilight, for a long time occupy the dreamer, and these visions are mingled with his dreams.

Paris is the centre, the banlieue is the circumference, – that is, the whole earth, for these children. They never venture beyond it, and can no more leave the Parisian atmosphere than fish can live out of water. With them there is nothing beyond two leagues from the barrière; Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Ménilmontant, Choisy le Roi, Bellancourt, Meudon, Issy, Vauvres, Sèvres, Puteaux, Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chalon, Asnières, Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy, and Gonesse, – at these places their universe ends.