Pigritia is a terrible word.
It engenders a whole world, la pegre, for which read theft, and a hell, la pegrenne, for which read hunger.
Thus, idleness is the mother.
She has a son, theft, and a daughter, hunger.
Where are we at this moment? In the land of slang.
What is slang? It is at one and the same time, a nation and a dialect; it is theft in its two kinds; people and language.
When, four and thirty years ago, the narrator of this grave and sombre history introduced into a work written with the same aim as this[39] a thief who talked argot, there arose amazement and clamor.--"What! How! Argot! Why, argot is horrible! It is the language of prisons, galleys, convicts, of everything that is most abominable in society!" etc., etc.
[39] The Last Day of a Condemned Man.
We have never understood this sort of objections.
Since that time, two powerful romancers, one of whom is a profound observer of the human heart, the other an intrepid friend of the people, Balzac and Eugene Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking their natural language, as the author of The Last Day of a Condemned Man did in 1828, the same objections have been raised. People repeated: "What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious! Slang makes one shudder!"
Who denies that? Of course it does.
When it is a question of probing a wound, a gulf, a society, since when has it been considered wrong to go too far? to go to the bottom? We have always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a simple and useful deed, worthy of the sympathetic attention which duty accepted and fulfilled merits. Why should one not explore everything, and study everything? Why should one halt on the way? The halt is a matter depending on the sounding-line, and not on the leadsman.
Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to undertake an investigation into the lowest depths of the social order, where terra firma comes to an end and where mud begins, to rummage in those vague, murky waves, to follow up, to seize and to fling, still quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with filth when thus brought to the light, that pustulous vocabulary each word of which seems an unclean ring from a monster of the mire and the shadows. Nothing is more lugubrious than the contemplation thus in its nudity, in the broad light of thought, of the horrible swarming of slang. It seems, in fact, to be a sort of horrible beast made for the night which has just been torn from its cesspool.
One thinks one beholds a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, wavers, returns to shadow, threatens and glares. One word resembles a claw, another an extinguished and bleeding eye, such and such a phrase seems to move like the claw of a crab. All this is alive with the hideous vitality of things which have been organized out of disorganization.
Now, when has horror ever excluded study? Since when has malady banished medicine? Can one imagine a naturalist refusing to study the viper, the bat, the scorpion, the centipede, the tarantula, and one who would cast them back into their darkness, saying: "Oh! How ugly that is!" The thinker who should turn aside from slang would resemble a surgeon who should avert his face from an ulcer or a wart. He would be like a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity. For, it must be stated to those who are ignorant of the case, that argot is both a literary phenomenon and a social result. What is slang, properly speaking? It is the language of wretchedness.
We may be stopped; the fact may be put to us in general terms, which is one way of attenuating it; we may be told, that all trades, professions, it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says: "Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality," the broker on 'change who says: "Assets at end of current month," the gambler who says: "Tiers et tout, refait de pique," the sheriff of the Norman Isles who says: The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot claim the fruits of that estate during the hereditary seizure of the real estate by the mortgagor," the playwright who says: "The piece was hissed," the comedian who says: "I've made a hit," the philosopher who says: "Phenomenal triplicity," the huntsman who says: "Voileci allais, Voileci fuyant," the phrenologist who says:"Amativeness, combativeness, secretiveness," the infantry soldier who says: "My shooting-iron," the cavalry-man who says: "My turkey-cock," the fencing-master who says: "Tierce, quarte, break,"the printer who says: "My shooting-stick and galley,"--all, printer, fencing-master, cavalry dragoon, infantry-man, phrenologist, huntsman, philosopher, comedian, playwright, sheriff, gambler, stock-broker, and merchant, speak slang. The painter who says: "My grinder," the notary who says: "My Skip-the-Gutter," the hairdresser who says: "My mealyback," the cobbler who says: "My cub," talks slang. Strictly speaking, if one absolutely insists on the point, all the different fashions of saying the right and the left, the sailor's port and starboard, the scene-shifter's court-side, and garden-side, the beadle's Gospel-side and Epistle-side, are slang. There is the slang of the affected lady as well as of the precieuses. The Hotel Rambouillet nearly adjoins the Cour des Miracles. There is a slang of duchesses, witness this phrase contained in a love-letter from a very great lady and a very pretty woman of the Restoration: "You will find in this gossip a fultitude of reasons why I should libertize."[40] Diplomatic ciphers are slang; the pontifical chancellery by using 26 for Rome, grkztntgzyal for despatch, and abfxustgrnogrkzu tu XI. for the Due de Modena, speaks slang. The physicians of the Middle Ages who, for carrot, radish, and turnip,said Opoponach, perfroschinum, reptitalmus, dracatholicum, angelorum,postmegorum, talked slang. The sugar-manufacturer who says: "Loaf, clarified, lumps, bastard, common, burnt,"--this honest manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of criticism twenty years ago, which used to say: "Half of the works of Shakespeare consists of plays upon words and puns,"--talked slang. The poet, and the artist who, with profound understanding, would designate M.de Montmorency as "a bourgeois," if he were not a judge of verses and statues, speak slang. The classic Academician who calls flowers "Flora," fruits, "Pomona," the sea, "Neptune," love, "fires," beauty, "charms," a horse, "a courser," the white or tricolored cockade, "the rose of Bellona," the three-cornered hat, "Mars' triangle,"--that classical Academician talks slang. Algebra, medicine, botany, have each their slang. The tongue which is employed on board ship, that wonderful language of the sea, which is so complete and so picturesque, which was spoken by Jean Bart, Duquesne, Suffren, and Duperre, which mingles with the whistling of the rigging, the sound of the speaking-trumpets, the shock of the boarding-irons, the roll of the sea, the wind, the gale, the cannon, is wholly a heroic and dazzling slang, which is to the fierce slang of the thieves what the lion is to the jackal.
[40] "Vous trouverez dans ces potains-la, une foultitude de raisons pour que je me libertise."
No doubt. But say what we will, this manner of understanding the word slang is an extension which every one will not admit. For our part, we reserve to the word its ancient and precise, circumscribed and determined significance, and we restrict slang to slang. The veritable slang and the slang that is pre-eminently slang, if the two words can be coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom, is nothing else, we repeat, than the homely, uneasy, crafty, treacherous, venomous, cruel, equivocal, vile, profound, fatal tongue of wretchedness. There exists, at the extremity of all abasement and all misfortunes, a last misery which revolts and makes up its mind to enter into conflict with the whole mass of fortunate facts and reigning rights; a fearful conflict, where, now cunning, now violent, unhealthy and ferocious at one and the same time,it attacks the social order with pin-pricks through vice, and with club-blows through crime. To meet the needs of this conflict, wretchedness has invented a language of combat, which is slang.
To keep afloat and to rescue from oblivion, to hold above the gulf, were it but a fragment of some language which man has spoken and which would, otherwise, be lost, that is to say, one of the elements, good or bad, of which civilization is composed, or by which it is complicated, to extend the records of social observation; is to serve civilization itself. This service Plautus rendered, consciously or unconsciously, by making two Carthaginian soldiers talk Phoenician; that service Moliere rendered, by making so many of his characters talk Levantine and all sorts of dialects. Here objections spring up afresh. Phoenician, very good! Levantine, quite right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues which have belonged to nations or provinces; but slang! What is the use of preserving slang? What is the good of assisting slang "to survive"?
To this we reply in one word, only. Assuredly, if the tongue which a nation or a province has spoken is worthy of interest, the language which has been spoken by a misery is still more worthy of attention and study.
It is the language which has been spoken, in France, for example, for more than four centuries, not only by a misery, but by every possible human misery.
And then, we insist upon it, the study of social deformities and infirmities, and the task of pointing them out with a view to remedy, is not a business in which choice is permitted. The historian of manners and ideas has no less austere a mission than the historian of events. The latter has the surface of civilization, the conflicts of crowns, the births of princes, the marriages of kings, battles, assemblages, great public men, revolutions in the daylight, everything on the exterior; the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, suffer, wait, the oppressed woman,the agonizing child, the secret war between man and man, obscure ferocities, prejudices, plotted iniquities, the subterranean, the indistinct tremors of multitudes, the die-of-hunger, the counter-blows of the law, the secret evolution of souls, the go-bare-foot, the bare-armed, the disinherited, the orphans, the unhappy, and the infamous, all the forms which roam through the darkness. He must descend with his heart full of charity, and severity at the same time, as a brother and as a judge, to those impenetrable casemates where crawl, pell-mell, those who bleed and those who deal the blow, those who weep and those who curse, those who fast and those who devour, those who endure evil and those who inflict it. Have these historians of hearts and souls duties at all inferior to the historians of external facts? Does any one think that Alighieri has any fewer things to say than Machiavelli? Is the under side of civilization any less important than the upper side merely because it is deeper and more sombre? Do we really know the mountain well when we are not acquainted with the cavern?
Let us say, moreover, parenthetically, that from a few words of what precedes a marked separation might be inferred between the two classes of historians which does not exist in our mind. No one is a good historian of the patent, visible, striking, and public life of peoples, if he is not, at the same time, in a certain measure, the historian of their deep and hidden life; and no one is a good historian of the interior unless he understands how, at need, to be the historian of the exterior also. The history of manners and ideas permeates the history of events, and this is true reciprocally. They constitute two different orders of facts which correspond to each other, which are always interlaced, and which often bring forth results. All the lineaments which providence traces on the surface of a nation have their parallels, sombre but distinct, in their depths, and all convulsions of the depths produce ebullitions on the surface. True history being a mixture of all things, the true historian mingles in everything.
Man is not a circle with a single centre; he is an ellipse with a double focus. Facts form one of these, and ideas the other.
Slang is nothing but a dressing-room where the tongue having some bad action to perform, disguises itself. There it clothes itself in word-masks, in metaphor-rags. In this guise it becomes horrible.
One finds it difficult to recognize. Is it really the French tongue, the great human tongue? Behold it ready to step upon the stage and to retort upon crime, and prepared for all the employments of the repertory of evil. It no longer walks, it hobbles; it limps on the crutch of the Court of Miracles, a crutch metamorphosable into a club; it is called vagrancy; every sort of spectre,its dressers, have painted its face, it crawls and rears, the double gait of the reptile. Henceforth, it is apt at all roles, it is made suspicious by the counterfeiter, covered with verdigris by the forger, blacked by the soot of the incendiary; and the murderer applies its rouge.
When one listens, by the side of honest men, at the portals of society, one overhears the dialogues of those who are on the outside. One distinguishes questions and replies. One perceives, without understanding it, a hideous murmur, sounding almost like human accents, but more nearly resembling a howl than an articulate word. It is slang. The words are misshapen and stamped with an indescribable and fantastic bestiality. One thinks one hears hydras talking.
It is unintelligible in the dark. It gnashes and whispers,completing the gloom with mystery. It is black in misfortune, it is blacker still in crime; these two blacknesses amalgamated, compose slang. Obscurity in the atmosphere, obscurity in acts, obscurity in voices. Terrible, toad-like tongue which goes and comes, leaps, crawls, slobbers, and stirs about in monstrous wise in that immense gray fog composed of rain and night, of hunger, of vice, of falsehood, of injustice, of nudity, of suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable.
Let us have compassion on the chastised. Alas! Who are we ourselves? Who am I who now address you? Who are you who are listening to me? And are you very sure that we have done nothing before we were born? The earth is not devoid of resemblance to a jail. Who knows whether man is not a recaptured offender against divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so made, that everywhere we feel the sense of punishment.
Are you what is called a happy man? Well! you are sad every day. Each day has its own great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were trembling for a health that is dear to you, to-day you fear for your own; to-morrow it will be anxiety about money, the day after to-morrow the diatribe of a slanderer, the day after that, the misfortune of some friend; then the prevailing weather, then something that has been broken or lost, then a pleasure with which your conscience and your vertebral column reproach you; again, the course of public affairs. This without reckoning in the pains of the heart. And so it goes on. One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day out of a hundred which is wholly joyous and sunny. And you belong to that small class who are happy! As for the rest of mankind, stagnating night rests upon them.
Thoughtful minds make but little use of the phrase: the fortunate and the unfortunate. In this world, evidently the vestibule of another, there are no fortunate.
The real human division is this: the luminous and the shady. To diminish the number of the shady, to augment the number of the luminous,--that is the object. That is why we cry: Education! science! To teach reading, means to light the fire; every syllable spelled out sparkles.
However, he who says light does not, necessarily, say joy. People suffer in the light; excess burns. The flame is the enemy of the wing. To burn without ceasing to fly,--therein lies the marvel of genius.
When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness.
Pigritia①是个可怕的字。
它生出一个世界，lapègre，意思是“盗窃”，和一个地狱，lapégrenne，意思是“饥饿”。
因此，懒惰是母亲。
她有一个儿子，叫盗窃，和一个女儿，叫饥饿。
我们现在在谈什么？谈黑话问题。
黑话是什么？它是民族同时又是土语，它是人民和语言这两个方面的盗窃行为。
三十四年前，这个阴惨故事的叙述者在另一本和本书同一目的的著作中②，谈到过一个说黑话的强盗，在当时曾使舆论哗然。“什么！怎么！黑话！黑话终究是太丑了！这话终究是那些囚犯、苦役牢里的人、监狱里的人、社会上最恶的人说的！”等等，等等，等等。
①拉丁文，懒惰。
②指《一个死囚的末日》。
我们从来就没有听懂过这类反对意见。
从那时起，两个伟大的小说家，一个是人心的深刻的观察者，一个是人民的勇敢的朋友，巴尔扎克和欧仁·苏，都象《一个死囚的末日》的作者在一八二八年所作的那样，让一些匪徒们用他们本来的语言来谈话，这也引起了同样的反对。人们一再说道：“这些作家写出了这种令人作呕的俗话，他们究竟想要我们怎么样？黑话太丑了！黑话使人听了毛骨悚然！”
谁会否认这些呢？肯定不会。
当我们要深入观察一个伤口、一个深渊或一个社会时，从几时起，又有谁说过：“下得太深，下到底里去是种错误呢？”我们倒一向认为深入观察有时是一种勇敢的行为，至少也是一种朴素有益的行动，这和接受并完成任务是同样值得加以注意并寄予同情的。不全部探测，不全部研究，中途停止，为什么要这样呢？条件的限制可使探测工作中止，但探测者却不应该中止工作。
当然，深入到社会结构的底层，在土壤告罄污泥开始的地方去寻找，到那粘糊糊的浊流中去搜寻，抓起来并把那种鄙俗不堪、泥浆滴答的语言，那种脓血模糊、每个字都象秽土中幽暗处那些怪虫异豸身上的一个肮脏环节，活生生地丢在阳光下和众人前，这并不是种吸引人的工作，也并不是种轻而易举的工作。在思想的光辉下正视着公然大说特说着的骇人的大量的黑话，再没有什么比这更凄惨的了。它确实象一种见不得太阳刚从污池里捞出来的怪兽。人们仿佛见到一片活生生的长满了刺的怪可怕的荆棘在抽搐、匍匐、跳动，钻向黑处，瞪眼唬人。这个字象只爪子，另一个字象只流血的瞎眼，某句话象个开合着的蟹螯。这一切都是活着的，以某种杂乱而有秩序的事物的那种奇丑的生命力活动着。
现在我们要问，丑恶的事物，从几时起被排斥不研究呢？疾病又从几时起驱逐了医生呢？一个人，拒绝研究毒蛇、蝙蝠、蝎子、蜈蚣、蜘蛛，见了这些便把它们打回到它们的洞里去，同时还说：“啊！这太难看了！”这样还能设想他是个生物学家吗？掉头不顾黑话的思想家有如掉头不顾痈疽的外科医师。这也好比是一个不大想根究语言的实际问题的语言学家，一个不大想钻研人类的实际问题的哲学家。因此，必须向不明真相的人说清楚，黑话是文学范畴中的一种奇迹，也是人类社会的一种产物。所谓的黑话究竟是什么呢？黑话是穷苦人的语言。
到此，人们可以止住我们，人们可以把这一事理广泛运用到其他范畴，虽然广泛运用有时能起冲淡的作用，人们可以对我们说，所有的手艺，一切职业，也不妨加上等级社会中的所有一切阶层，各种各样的知识都有它们的黑话。商人说“蒙培利埃可发售”，“优质马赛”；兑换商说“延期交割，本月底的手续贴补费”；玩纸牌的人说“通行无阻，黑桃完啦”；诺曼底群岛的法庭执达吏说“在租户有禁令的地段，在宣布对拒绝者的不动产有继承权时，不能从这地段要求收益”；闹剧作家说“喝了倒彩”；喜剧作家说“我垮了”；哲学家说“三重性”；猎人说“红野禽，食用野禽”；骨相家说“友善，好战，热中于秘密”；步兵说“我的黑管”；骑兵说“我的小火鸡”；剑术师说“三度，四度，冲刺”；印刷工人说“加铅条”；所有这些印刷工人、剑术师、骑兵、步兵、骨相家、猎人、哲学家、喜剧作家，闹剧作家、法庭执达吏、玩纸牌的人、兑换商、商人，全是在说黑话。画家说“我的刷子”；公证人说“我的跳来跳去的人”；理发师说“我的助手”；鞋匠说“我的帮手”，也是在说黑话。严格地说，假使我们一定要那么看，所有那些表达右边和左边的种种方式，如海员们所说的“船右舷”和“左舷”，舞台布景人员所说的“庭院”和“花园”，教堂勤杂人员所说的“圣徒的”和“福音的”，也还都是黑话。从前有过女才子的黑话，今天也有娇娘子的黑话。朗布耶的府第和圣迹区相去不远。还有公爵夫人的黑话，王朝复辟时期的一个极高贵又极美丽的夫人在一封情书里写的这句话便可以证明：“你从所有这些诽谤中可以找到大量根据，我是不得不逃出来的啊。”外交界的数字和密码也是黑话，教廷的国务院以26作为罗马的代号，以grkztntgzyal为使臣的代号，以abfxustgrnogrkzu tu XI为摩德纳公爵的代号，便是黑话。中世纪的医生称胡萝卜、小红萝卜和白萝卜为opoponach，perfroschinum，reptitalmus，dracatholicum
angelorum，
postmegorum，也是在说黑话。糖厂主人说“沙糖、大糖块、净化糖、精制块糖、热糖酒、黄糖砂、块糖、方块糖”，这位诚实的厂主是在说黑话。二十年前评论界里的某一派人常说“莎士比亚的一半是来自文字游戏和双关的俏皮话”，他们是在说黑话。有两个诗人和艺术家意味深长地说，如果德·蒙莫朗西先生对韵文和雕塑不是行家的话，他们便要称他为“布尔乔亚”，这也是在说黑话。古典的科学院院士称花为“福罗拉”，果为“波莫那”，海为“尼普顿”，爱情为“血中火”，美貌为“迷人”，马为“善跑”，白帽徽或三色帽徽为“柏洛娜①的玫瑰”，三角帽为“玛斯的三角”，这位古典院士是在说黑话。代数、医学、植物学也都有它们的黑话。人在船上所用的语言，让·巴尔、杜肯、絮弗朗和杜佩雷等人在帆、桅、绳索迎风呼啸，传声筒发布命令，舷边刀斧搏击，船身滚荡，狂风怒吼，大炮轰鸣中所用的那种极其完整、极其别致、令人赞赏的海上语言也完全是一种黑话，不过这种具有英雄豪迈气概的黑话和流行于鬼蜮世界的那种粗野的黑话比起来，确有雄狮与豺狗之分。
①柏洛娜（Bellone），罗马神话中之女战神，战神玛斯之妻或姐妹，为玛斯准备战车。
这是无疑的。然而，不论人们说什么，这样去认识黑话这个词，总还是就广义而言，而且还不是人人都能接受的。至于我们，我们却要为这个词保存它旧时的那种确切、分明、固定的含义，把黑话限制在黑话的范围里。真正的黑话，精彩的黑话（假定这两个词可以连缀在一起的话），古老到无从稽考自成一个王国的黑话，我们再重复一次，只不过是穷苦社会里那种丑恶、使人惊疑、阴险、奸宄、狠毒、凶残、暧昧、卑鄙、隐秘、不祥的语言而已。在堕落和苦难的尽头，有一种极端穷苦的人在从事反抗，并决计投入对幸福的总体和居于统治地位的法律的斗争，这种可怕的斗争，有时狡猾，有时猛烈，既险恶又凶狠，它用针刺（通过邪恶手段），也用棍棒（通过犯罪行为），向社会秩序进行攻击。为了适应这种斗争的需要，穷人便发明了一种战斗的语言，这便是黑话。
把人类说过的任何一种语言，也就是说，由文明所构成或使文明更复杂的因素之一，不论好坏，也不论是否完整，去把它从遗忘和枯井中拯救出来，使它能幸存下去，免于泯没，这也就是对社会提供进行观察的资料，为文明本身作出了贡献。普劳图斯，在有意或无意中，让两个迦太基士兵用腓尼基语谈话，便作了这种贡献；莫里哀曾使他的许多角色用东方语言和各色各样的方言谈话，也作出了这种贡献。这儿又出现了反对意见：腓尼基语，妙极！东方语，也很好！甚至方言，也还说得过去！这些都是某国或某省的语言。可是这黑话？把黑话保留下来有什么好处呢？让黑话“幸存下去”有什么好处呢？
对此，我们只打算回答一句话。如果说一国或一省所说的语言是值得关怀的，那么，就还有比这更值得注意研究的东西，那就是一个穷苦层所说的语言。
这种语言，在法国，举例说，便说了四百多年，说这种语言的不仅是某一个穷苦层，而是整个穷苦层，在人类中可能存在的整个穷苦层。
并且，我们要强调，对社会的畸形和残疾进行研究，把它揭示出来以便加以医治，这种工作是绝不能单凭个人好恶而加以选择或放弃的。研究习俗和思想的历史学家的任务的严肃性决不在研究大事的历史学家之下。后者所研究的是文明的表层、王冠的争夺、王子的出生、国君的婚姻、战争、会议、著名的大人物、阳光下的兴衰变革，一切外表的东西；而另一种历史学家研究的是内容、实质、劳动、苦难、期待着的人民、被压迫的妇女、呻吟中的儿童、人与人的暗斗、隐秘的暴行、成见、公开的不平等待遇、法律的暗中反击、心灵的秘密演变、群众的隐微震颤、饿到快死的人、赤脚露臂的无依靠的人、孤儿孤女、穷愁潦倒蒙羞受辱的人和在黑暗中流浪的一切游魂野鬼。他应怀着满腔怜悯心，同时以严肃的态度下到那些进不去的坑窟里，象同胞兄弟和法官似的去接近那些在那里横七竖八搅作一团的人、流血的人和动武的人、哭泣的人和咒骂的人、挨饿的人和大嚼的人、吞声忍泪和为非作歹的人。难道这些观察人们心灵的历史学家的责任比不上那些研究外部事物的历史学家吗？谁能认为但丁要说的东西比马基雅弗利少些呢？文明的底蕴是不是因为比较深奥、比较幽暗便不及表相那么重要呢？在我们还没有认识山洞时，我们能说已经认清山了吗？
我们还要顺便指出，根据上面所说的那几句话，我们可以推论出两类截然不同的历史学家，其中的区别并不存在于我们的思想里。一个研究各族人民公开的、可见的、明显的群众生活的历史学家如果他不同时也洞悉他们隐蔽的较深的生活，便不是一个优秀的历史学家；而一个人，如果不能在需要时成为外部事物的历史学家，也就不可能成为一个良好的内在事物的历史学家。习俗和思想的历史是渗透在大事的历史里的，反过来也是如此。这是两类互相影响、随时互相关连、经常互为因果的不同事物。上苍刻画在一个国家表面上的线条，必有暗淡而明显的平行线，在它的底里的任何骚乱也必然引起表面的震动。历史既然包罗一切，真正的历史学家便应过问一切。
人并不是只有一个圆心的圆圈，它是一个有两个焦点的椭圆。事物是一个点，思想是另一个点。
黑话只不过是语言在要干坏事时用来改头换面的化装室。它在这里换上面罩似的词句和破衣烂衫似的隐喻。
这样，它便成了面目可憎的。
人们几乎认不出它的真面目了。这确是法兰西语言，人类的伟大语言吗？它准备上台，替罪行打掩护，适合扮演整套坏戏中的任何角色。它不再好好走路，而是一瘸一拐的，它两腋支在圣迹区的拐杖上蹒跚前进，拐杖还可以一下变成大头棒，它自称是托钵行乞的，牛鬼蛇神把它装扮成种种怪模样，它爬行，也能昂头竖起，象蛇的动作。它从此能担任任何角色，作伪的人把它变成斜视眼，放毒的人使它生了铜锈，纵火犯替它涂上松烟，杀人犯替它抹上胭脂。
当我们在社会的门边，从诚实人这方面去听时，我们的耳朵会刮到一些门外人的对话。我们能分辨出一些问话和一些答话。我们听到一种可恶的声音在窃窃私语，不知道说些什么，好象是人在说话，但更象狗吠，不全象人话。这便是黑话了。那些字是畸形的，带一种不知是什么怪兽的味道。我们仿佛听见了七头蛇在说话。
这是黑暗中的鬼语。轧轧聒耳，翕张如风，仿佛黄昏时听人猜哑谜。人在苦难时眼前一片黑，犯罪时眼前更黑，这两种黑凝结在一起便构成黑话。天空中的黑，行动上的黑，语言里的黑。这是种可怕的癞虾蟆语言，它在茫茫一大片由雨、夜、饥饿、淫邪、欺诈、横暴、裸体、毒气、严冬（穷苦人的春秋佳日）所构成的昏黄迷雾中来往跳跃，匍匐，唾沫四溅，象魔怪似的扭曲着身体。
对于受到惩罚的人我们应当有同情心。唉！我们自己是些什么人？向你们谈话的我是什么人？听我谈话的你们又是什么人？我们是从什么地方来的？谁能肯定我们在出生以前什么也没有做过呢？地球和牢狱并非绝无相似之处。谁能说人不是天条下再次下狱的囚犯呢？
你们把眼睛凑近去细察人生吧。从各个方面去看，我们会感到人的一生处处是惩罚。
你是个被人称作幸福的人吗？好吧，可你没有一天不是忧心忡忡的。每天都有大的烦恼或小的操心。昨天你曾为一个亲人的健康发抖，今天你又为自己的健康担忧，明天将是银钱方面的麻烦，后天又将受到一个诽谤者的抨击，大后天，一个朋友的坏消息；随后又是天气问题，又是什么东西砸破了，丢失了，又是遇到一件什么开心事，但心里不安或使脊梁骨也不好受了；另一次又是什么公事进展问题。还不去算内心的种种痛苦，没完没了，散了一片乌云，又来一片乌云。一百天里难得有一天是充满欢乐和阳光的。还说什么你是属于这少数享福人里的！至于其余的人，他们却老待在那种终年不亮的沉沉黑夜里。
有思想的人很少用这样的短语：幸福的人和不幸的人。这个世界显然是另一个世界的前厅，这儿没有幸福的人。
人类的真正区分是这样的：光明中人和黑暗中人。
减少黑暗中人的人数，增加光明中人的人数，这就是目的。这也是为什么我们要大声疾呼：教育！科学！学会读书，便是点燃火炬，每个字的每个音节都发射火星。
可是光明不一定就是欢乐。人在光明中仍然有痛苦，过度的光能引起燃烧。火焰是翅膀的敌人。燃烧而不中止飞翔，那只是天仙的奇迹。
当你已有所悟并有所爱，你还是会痛苦的。曙光初现，遍地泪珠。光明中人想到了黑暗中的同类，能不垂泪欷歔。