Page 984 - les-miserables

CHAPTER IV

HE MAY BE OF USE

Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street
Arab, two beings of which no other city is capable; the pas-
sive acceptance, which contents itself with gazing, and the
inexhaustible initiative; Prudhomme and Fouillou. Paris
alone has this in its natural history. The whole of the mon-
archy is contained in the lounger; the whole of anarchy in
the gamin.
This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and devel-
ops, makes connections, ‘grows supple’ in suffering, in the
presence of social realities and of human things, a thought-
ful witness. He thinks himself heedless; and he is not. He
looks and is on the verge of laughter; he is on the verge of
something else also. Whoever you may be, if your name is
Prejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despo-
tism, Injustice, Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the gaping
gamin.
The little fellow will grow up.
Of what clay is he made? Of the first mud that comes
to hand. A handful of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam.
It suffices for a God to pass by. A God has always passed

984 Les Miserables