Part 3 Book 5 Chapter 6 The Substitute
It chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Theodule belonged came to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired Aunt Gillenormand with a second idea. She had, on the first occasion, hit upon the plan of having Marius spied upon by Theodule; now she plotted to have Theodule take Marius' place.
At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the vague need of a young face in the house,--these rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to ruin,--it was expedient to find another Marius. "Take it as a simple erratum," she thought, "such as one sees in books. For Marius, read Theodule."
A grandnephew is almost the same as a grandson; in default of a lawyer one takes a lancer.
One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the Quotidienne, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest voice; for the question concerned her favorite:--
"Father, Theodule is coming to present his respects to you this morning."
"Who's Theodule?"
"Your grandnephew."
"Ah!" said the grandfather.
Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his grandnephew, who was merely some Theodule or other, and soon flew into a rage, which almost always happened when he read. The "sheet" which he held, although Royalist, of course, announced for the following day, without any softening phrases, one of these little events which were
of daily occurrence at that date in Paris: "That the students of the schools of law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du Pantheon, at midday,--to deliberate." The discussion concerned one of the questions of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict between the Minister of War and "the citizen's militia," on the subject of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre.The students were to "deliberate" over this. It did not take much more than this to swell M. Gillenormand's rage.
He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with the rest, to "deliberate, at midday, on the Place du Pantheon."
As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant Theodule entered clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which was clever of him, and was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The lancer had reasoned as follows: "The old druid has not sunk all his money in a life pension. It is well to disguise one's self as a civilian from time to time."
Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:--
"Theodule, your grandnephew."
And in a low voice to the lieutenant:--
"Approve of everything."
And she withdrew.
The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable encounters, stammered with some timidity: "Good day, uncle,"-- and made a salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute.
"Ah! so it's you; that is well, sit down," said the old gentleman.
That said, he totally forgot the lancer.
Theodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose.
M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets, talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two watches which he wore in his two fobs.
"That pack of brats! They convene on the Place du Pantheon! By my life! Urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to squeeze their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that we are making for the abyss. That is what the descamisados have brought us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery! To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the National Guard! And with whom are they to meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but returned convicts and released galley-slaves. The Republicans and the galley-slaves,--they form but one nose and one handkerchief. Carnot used to say:`Where would you have me go, traitor?' Fouche replied:Wherever you please, imbecile!' That's what the Republicans are like."
"That is true," said Theodule.
M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Theodule, and went on:--
"When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn carbonaro! Why did you leave my house? To go and become a Republican! Pssst! In the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common sense, they know well that there always have been kings, and that there always will be; they know well that the people are only the people, after all, they make sport of it, of your republic-- do you understand, idiot?Is it not a horrible caprice?To fall in love with Pere Duchesne, to make sheep's-eyes at the guillotine, to sing romances, and play on the guitar under the balcony of '93--it's enough to make one spit on all these young fellows,such fools are they! They are all alike. Not one escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air which blows through the street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The first scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's,
thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his old relatives. He's a Republican, he's a romantic. What does that mean, romantic? Do me the favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies. A year ago, they ran to Hernani. Now, I just ask you, Hernani! Antitheses! Abominations which are not even written in French! And then, they have cannons in the courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!"
"You are right, uncle," said Theodule.
M. Gillenormand resumed:--
"Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum! For what purpose? Do you want to fire grape-shot at the Apollo Belvedere? What have those cartridges to do with the Venus de Medici? Oh! The young men of the present day are all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they can to make themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women, in the presence of petticoats they have a mendicant air which sets the girls into fits of laughter; on my word of honor, one would say the poor creatures were ashamed of love. They are deformed, and they complete themselves by being stupid;they repeat the puns of Tiercelin and Potier, they have sack coats, stablemen's waistcoats, shirts of coarse linen, trousers of coarse cloth, boots of coarse leather, and their rigmarole resembles their plumage. One might make use of their jargon to put new soles on their old shoes. And all this awkward batch of brats has political opinions, if you please. Political opinions should be strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth, they put the attic in the cellar's place and my porter in the place of the King, they turn Europe topsy-turvy, they reconstruct the world, and all their love affairs consist in staring slily at the ankles of the laundresses as these women climb into their carts. Ah! Marius! Ah! You blackguard! To go and vociferate on the public place! To discuss, to debate, to take measures! They call that measures, just God! Disorder humbles itself and becomes silly. I have seen chaos,I now see a mess. Students deliberating on the National Guard,--such a thing could not be seen among the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked, with their noddles dressed like a shuttlecock,with a club in their paws, are less of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The four-penny monkeys!And they set up for judges! Those creatures deliberate and ratiocinate! The end of the world is come! This is plainly the end of this miserable terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go and read the newspapers under the arcades of the Odeon. That costs them a sou, and their good sense, and their intelligence,and their heart and their soul, and their wits. They emerge thence,and decamp from their families. All newspapers are pests; all, even the Drapeau Blanc! At bottom, Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! Just Heaven! You may boast of having driven your grandfather to despair,that you may!"
"That is evident," said Theodule.
And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking breath, the lancer added in a magisterial manner:--
"There should be no other newspaper than the Moniteur, and no other book than the Annuaire Militaire."
M. Gillenormand continued:--
"It is like their Sieyes! A regicide ending in a senator; for that is the way they always end. They give themselves a scar with the address of thou as citizens, in order to get themselves called, eventually, Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of September. The philosopher Sieyes! I will do myself the justice to say, that I have never had any better opinion of the philosophies of all those philosophers, than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli! One day I saw the Senators cross the Quai Malplaquet in mantles of violet velvet sown with bees, with hats a la Henri IV. They were hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger's court. Citizens, I declare to you, that your progress is madness, that your humanity is a dream, that your revolution is a crime, that your republic is a monster, that your young and virgin France comes from the brothel, and I maintain it against all, whoever you may be, whether journalists, economists, legists, or even were you better judges of liberty, of equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine! And that I announce to you, my flne fellows!"
"Parbleu!" cried the lieutenant, "that is wonderfully true."
M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun, wheeled round, stared Lancer Theodule intently in the eyes, and said to him:--
"You are a fool."
恰巧，那位忒阿杜勒中尉所属的团队调来巴黎驻防了。这事为吉诺曼姑奶奶提供了进行第二个计谋的机会。第一次，她曾想到让忒阿杜勒去监视马吕斯，现在，她暗中策划要让忒阿杜勒接替马吕斯。
不管怎么样，老人也很可能多少会感到家里需要一张年轻人的脸，正如曙光有时能给古迹以温暖的感觉。另找一个马吕斯确是个好主意。“就这样，”她想道，“简单得很，这好象是我在好些书里看见的那种勘误表；马吕斯应改为忒阿杜勒。”
侄孙和外孙，区别不大，丢了个律师，来个长矛兵。
一天早晨，吉诺曼先生正在念着《每日新闻》这一类的东西，他的女儿走了进来，用她最柔和的声音对他说，因为这里涉及到她心疼的人儿：
“我的父亲，今天早晨忒阿杜勒要来向您请安。”
“谁呀，忒阿杜勒？”
“您的侄孙。”
“啊！”老头说。
他随即又开始读报，不再去想那侄孙，一个什么不相干的忒阿杜勒，并且他心里已经上了火，这几乎是他每次读报必定会发生的事。他手里拿着的那张纸，不用说，是保王派的刊物，那上面报导在明天，风雨无阻，又将发生一件在当时的巴黎天天发生的那种小事，说是中午十二点，法学院和医学院的学生们将在先贤祠广场聚集，举行讨论会。内容涉及时事问题之一：国民自卫军的炮队问题以及军政部与民兵队因卢浮宫庭院里大炮的排列而发生的争执。学生们将在这上面进行“讨论”。不用更多的消息已够使吉诺曼先生气胀肚子了。
他想到了马吕斯，他正是个大学生，很可能，他会和大家一道，“中午十二点，在先贤祠广场，开会讨论”。
正当他想着这痛心的事时，忒阿杜勒中尉进来了，穿着绅士服装棗这一着大有讲究棗由吉诺曼姑娘引导着。这位长矛兵作过这样的考虑：这老祖宗也许不曾把全部财产变作终身年金。常常穿件老百姓的衣服是值得的。
吉诺曼姑娘对她父亲大声说：
“忒阿杜勒，您的侄孙。”
又低声对中尉说：
“顺着他说。”
接着便退出去了。
中尉对这么庄严的会见还不大习惯，怯头怯脑地嘟囔着：“您好，我的叔公。”同时无意中机械地行了个以军礼开头却以鞠躬结尾的综合礼。
“啊！是你，好，坐吧。”那老祖宗说。
说完这话，他把那长矛兵完全丢在脑后了。
忒阿杜勒坐下去，吉诺曼先生却站了起来。
吉诺曼先生来回走着，两手插在衣袋里，高声说着话，继又用他那十个激动的老指头把放在两个背心口袋里的两只表乱抓乱捏。
“这堆流鼻涕的小鬼！居然要在先贤祠广场集会！我的婊子的贞操！一群小猢狲，昨天还吃着娘奶！你去捏捏他们的鼻子吧，准有奶水流出来！而这些家伙明天中午要开会讨论！成什么世界！还成什么世界！不用说，昏天黑地的世界！这是那些短衫党人带给我们的好榜样！公民炮队！讨论公民炮队问题！跑到广场上去对着国民自卫军的连珠屁胡说八道！他们和一些什么人混在一起呢？请你想想雅各宾主义要把我们带到什么地方去。随你要我打什么赌，我赌一百万，我赢了，不要你一文，明天到会的，肯定尽是些犯过法的坏种和服过刑的囚犯。共和党和苦役犯，就象鼻子和手绢是一伙。卡诺说：‘你要我往哪里走，叛徒？’富歇回答说：‘随你的便，蠢材！’这就是所谓共和党人。”
“这是正确的。”忒阿杜勒说。
吉诺曼先生把头转过一半，看见了忒阿杜勒，又继续说：
“当我想起这小把戏竟能狂妄到要去学烧炭党！你为什么要离开我的家？为了去当共和党。慢点，慢点！首先人民不赏识你那共和制，他们不赏识，他们懂道理，他们知道自古以来就有国王，将来也永远会有国王，他们知道，说来说去，人民还只不过是人民，他们瞧着不顺眼，你那共和制，你听见吗，傻蛋！够叫人恶心的了，你那种冲动！爱上杜善伯伯，和断头台眉来眼去，溜到九三号阳台下面去唱情歌，弹吉他，这些年轻人，真该朝他们每个人的脸上吐上一口唾沫，他们竟会蠢到这种地步！他们全是这样的，没有一个例外。只要嗅点街上的空气就已使你鬼迷心窍的了。十九世纪是种毒物。随便一个小鬼也要留上一撮山羊胡子，自以为的的确确象个人样了，却把年老的长辈丢下不管。这就是共和党人。这就是浪漫派。什么叫做浪漫派？请你赏个脸，告诉我什么叫做浪漫派吧。疯狂透顶。一年前，这些家伙使你跑去捧《艾那尼》①，我倒要问问你，《艾那尼》！对比的词句，丑恶不堪的东西，连法文也没有写通！而且，卢浮宫的院子里安上了大炮。这些全是我们这个时代的土匪行为。”
“您说得对，我的叔公。”忒阿杜勒说。
吉诺曼先生往下说：
“博物馆的院子里安上大炮！干什么？大炮，你要对我怎么样？你想轰贝尔韦德尔的《阿波罗》②吗？火药包和梅迪契的《维纳斯》③又有什么关系？呵！现在的这些年轻人，全是些无赖！他们的班加曼·贡斯当简直算不了什么东西！这些家伙不是坏蛋也是脓包！他们挖空心思要出丑，他们的衣服好难看，他们害怕女人，他们围着一群小姑娘，就象叫化子在乞讨，惹得那些女招待放声大笑，说句良心话，这些可怜虫，仿佛想到爱情便害臊似的。他们的样子很难看，加上傻头傻脑，真算得上是才貌双全，他们嘴上离不了蒂埃斯兰和博基埃的俏皮话，他们的衣服象个布口袋，穿着马夫的坎肩、粗布衬衫、粗呢长裤、粗皮靴子，衣料上的条纹象鸟毛。他们粗俗的语言只配拿来补他们的破鞋底。而所有这些莫名其妙的娃娃在政治问题上有他们的意见。应当严厉禁止发表政治意见。他们创立制度，他们改造社会，他们推翻君主制，他们把整套法律扔在地上，他们把顶楼放在地窖所在处，又把我的门房放在王位上，他们把欧洲搞得天翻地覆，他们重建世界，而他们的开心事是贼头贼脑地去偷看那些跨上车去的洗衣女人的大腿！啊！马吕斯！啊！淘气包！到公共广场上去鬼喊怪叫吧！讨论，争辩，决定办法！他们把这叫做办法，公正的老天爷！捣乱鬼缩小了身体，变成个笨蛋。我见过兵荒马乱的世界，今天又见到乱七八糟的局面。小学生居然讨论国民自卫军的问题，这种事在蛮子国里也不见得有吧！那些赤身露体、脑袋上顶着一个毽子似的发髻，爪子里抓着一根大头棒的野蛮人也赶不上这些学士们的野蛮劲儿！几个苏一个的猴崽子，也自以为了不起，要发号施令！要讨论，要开动脑袋瓜子！这是世界的末日。肯定是这个可怜的地球的末日。还得打个最后的嗝，法兰西正准备着。讨论吧，你们这些流氓！这些事总是要发生的，只要他们到奥德翁戏院的走廊下去读报纸。他们付出的代价是一个苏，加上他们的理性，再加上他们的智慧，再加上他们的心，再加上他们的灵魂，再加上他们的精神。从那地方出来的人也就不愿再回家了。一切报纸全是瘟神，一概如此，连《白旗报》也算在内！马尔坦维尔在骨子里也还是个雅各宾党人。啊！公正的天！你把你的外公折磨得好苦，你这总算得意了吧，你！”
“这当然。”忒阿杜勒说。
①《艾那尼》（Hernani），雨果所作戏剧。一八三○年首次公演，曾引起古典派与浪漫派之间的激烈斗争。
②③两尊有名的古代塑像。
趁着吉诺曼先生要松一口气时，那长矛兵又一本正经地补上一句：
“除了《通报》以外，就不应再有旁的报纸，除了军事年刊以外，也不应再有旁的书。”
吉诺曼先生继续说：
“就好象他们的那个西哀士①！从一个弑君贼做到元老院元老！因为他们最后总是要达到那地位的。起初，大家不怕丢人，用公民来你我相称，到后来，却要人家称他为伯爵先生，象手臂一样粗的伯爵先生，九月的屠夫②！哲学家西哀士！我敢夸句口：我从来没有把这批哲学家的哲学看得比蒂沃利的那个做丑脸的小丑的眼镜更重一些！有一次我看见几个元老院的元老打马拉盖河沿走过，披着紫红丝绒的斗篷，上面绣的是蜜蜂③，头上戴着亨利四世式的帽子。他们那模样真是丑态百出，就象老虎手底下的猴儿。公民们，我向你们宣告，你们的进步是一种疯癫病，你们的人道是一种空想，你们的革命是一种罪行，你们的共和是一种怪物，你们的年轻美丽的法兰西是臭婊子家里生出来的，并且我在你们中的每一个人面前坚持我的看法，不管你们是什么人，你们是政论家也好，是经济学家也好，是法学家也好，也不管你们在自由、平等、博爱方面是否比对断头台上的板斧有更深的体会！我告诉你们这些，我的傻小子们！”
“佩服，佩服，”中尉嚷着说，“这是千真万确的。”
①西哀士（Sieyès，1748?836），神甫，革命时期的制宪议会代表，国民公会代表，雅各宾派中大资产阶级的代表，元老院元老。
②九月的屠夫，即“九月暴徒”。
③拿破仑曾把蜜蜂定为勤劳的标志。
吉诺曼先生把一个已开始要作的手势停下来，转身瞪眼望着那长矛兵忒阿杜勒，对他说：
“你是个蠢材。”