Page 983 - les-miserables

nature. Thus, to give an example, the popularity of Made-
moiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy children
was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her
Mademoiselle Muche—‘hide yourself.’
This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has
rags like a baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the
sewer, hunts in the cesspool, extracts mirth from foulness,
whips up the squares with his wit, grins and bites, whistles
and sings, shouts, and shrieks, tempers Alleluia with Ma-
tantur-lurette, chants every rhythm from the De Profundis
to the Jack-pudding, finds without seeking, knows what he
is ignorant of, is a Spartan to the point of thieving, is mad to
wisdom, is lyrical to filth, would crouch down on Olympus,
wallows in the dunghill and emerges from it covered with
stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais in this youth.
He is not content with his trousers unless they have a
watch-pocket.
He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified,
he makes songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of
exaggerations, he twits mysteries, he thrusts out his tongue
at ghosts, he takes the poetry out of stilted things, he intro-
duces caricature into epic extravaganzas. It is not that he is
prosaic; far from that; but he replaces the solemn vision by
the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor were to appear
to him, the street Arab would say: ‘Hi there! The bugaboo!’

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