On the day following that on which these events took place in the house on the Boulevard de l'Hopital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the direction of the bridge of Austerlitz, was ascending the side-alley on the right in the direction of the Barriere de Fontainebleau.
Night had fully come.
This lad was pale, thin, clad in rags, with linen trousers in the month of February, and was singing at the top of his voice.
At the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, a bent old woman was rummaging in a heap of refuse by the light of a street lantern; the child jostled her as he passed, then recoiled, exclaiming:--
"Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!"
He pronounced the word enormous the second time with a jeering swell of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals: "an enormous, ENORMOUS dog."
The old woman straightened herself up in a fury.
"Nasty brat!" she grumbled. "If I hadn't been bending over, I know well where I would have planted my foot on you."
The boy was already far away.
"Kisss! kisss!" he cried. "After that, I don't think I was mistaken!"
The old woman, choking with indignation, now rose completely upright,and the red gleam of the lantern fully lighted up her livid face,all hollowed into angles and wrinkles, with crow's-feet meeting the corners of her mouth.
Her body was lost in the darkness, and only her head was visible. One would have pronounced her a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light from the night.
The boy surveyed her.
"Madame," said he, "does not possess that style of beauty which pleases me."
He then pursued his road, and resumed his song:--
"Le roi Coupdesabot S'en allait a la chasse,A la chasse aux corbeaux--"
At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived in front of No. 50-52, and finding the door fastened, he began to assault it with resounding and heroic kicks, which betrayed rather the man's shoes that he was wearing than the child's feet which he owned.
In the meanwhile, the very old woman whom he had encountered at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier hastened up behind him, uttering clamorous cries and indulging in lavish and exaggerated gestures.
"What's this? What's this? Lord God! He's battering the door down! He's knocking the house down."
The kicks continued.
The old woman strained her lungs.
"Is that the way buildings are treated nowadays?"
All at once she paused.
She had recognized the gamin.
"What! so it's that imp!"
"Why, it's the old lady," said the lad. "Good day, Bougonmuche. I have come to see my ancestors."
The old woman retorted with a composite grimace, and a wonderful improvisation of hatred taking advantage of feebleness and ugliness,which was, unfortunately, wasted in the dark:--
"There's no one here."
"Bah!" retorted the boy, "where's my father?"
"At La Force."
"Come, now! And my mother?"
"At Saint-Lazare."
"Well! And my sisters?"
"At the Madelonettes."
The lad scratched his head behind his ear, stared at Ma'am Bougon,and said:--
"Ah!"
Then he executed a pirouette on his heel; a moment later, the old woman, who had remained on the door-step, heard him singing in his clear,young voice, as he plunged under the black elm-trees, in the wintry wind:--
"Le roi Coupdesabot[31]S'en allait a la chasse, A la chasse aux corbeaux,Monte sur deux echasses.Quand on passait dessous,On lui payait deux sous."
[31] King Bootkick went a-hunting after crows, mounted on two stilts. When one passed beneath them, one paid him two sous.
[The end of Volume III. "Marius"]
①本书法文版初版时共分十册。此处所说的第三册，即指汉译本第二部第三卷第一章《孟费郿的用水问题》的最后一段。
在医院路那所房子里发生这些事的次日，有一个男孩，仿佛来自奥斯特里茨桥的那面，顺着大路右边的平行小道走向枫丹白露便门。当时天已全黑。这孩子，脸色苍白，一身瘦骨，穿着撕条挂缕的衣服，二月里还穿一条布裤，却声嘶力竭地唱着歌。
在小银行家街的转角处，一个老婆子正弯着腰在回光灯下掏垃圾堆，孩子走过时，撞了她一下，随即后退，一面喊道：
“哟！我还以为是只非常大的，非常大的狗呢！”
他的第二个“非常大的”是用那种恶意的刻薄声调说出来的，只有用大号字才稍稍可以把那味道表达出来：是个非常大的，非常大的狗呢！
老婆子伸直了腰，怒容满面。
“戴铁枷的小鬼！”她嘟囔着，“要是我没有弯着腰，让你瞧瞧我脚尖会踢在你的什么地方！”
那孩子早已走远了。
“我的乖！我的乖！”他说，“看来也许我并没有搞错。”
老婆子恨得喉咙也梗塞了，完全挺直了腰板，路灯的带红色的光照在她那土灰色的脸上，显出满脸的骨头影子和皱纹，眼角上的鹅掌纹一条条直绕到嘴角。她身体隐在黑影中，只现出一个头，好象是黑夜中被一道微光切削下来的一个耄龄老妇人的脸壳子。那孩子向她仔细望去，说道：
“在下没福气消受这样美丽的娘子。”
他仍旧赶他的路，放开嗓子唱着：
大王“踢木鞋”
出门去打猎，
出门打老鸦……
唱了这三句，他便停下来了。他已到了五○一五二号门前，发现那门是关着的，便用脚去踢，踢得又响又猛，那股劲儿来自他脚上穿的那双大人鞋，并非完全由于他的小人脚。
这时，他在小银行家街转角处遇见的那个老妇人跟在他后面赶来了，嘴里不断叫嚷，手也乱挥乱舞。
“什么事？什么事？上帝救世主！门要被踢穿了！房子要被捅垮了！”
孩子照旧踢门。
“难道今天人们是这样照料房子的吗！”
她忽然停下来，认出了那孩子。
“怎么！原来是这个魔鬼！”
“哟，原来是姥姥，”孩子说，“您好，毕尔贡妈。我来看我的祖先。”
老妇人作了个表情复杂的鬼脸，那是厌恶、衰龄和丑态的巧妙结合，只可惜在黑暗中没人看见。她回答说：
“家里一个人也没有，小牛魔王！”
“去他的！”孩子接着说，“我父亲在哪儿？”
“在拉弗尔斯。”
“哟！我妈呢？”
“在圣辣匝禄。”
“好吧！我的两个姐呢？”
“在玛德栾内特。”①那孩子抓抓自己的耳朵背后，望着毕尔贡妈说：
“啊！”
①以上三处都是监狱的名称。
接着他旋起脚跟，来了个向后转，过一会儿，老妇人站在门外的台阶上，还听见他清脆年轻的嗓子在唱歌，一直唱到在寒风中瑟缩的那些榆树下面去了：
大王“踢木鞋”
出门去打猎，
出门打老鸦，
踩在高跷上。
谁打他的下面过，
还得给他两文钱。