屋顶间的哲学家_CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV

LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER

April 9th

The fine evenings are come back; the trees begin to put forth theirshoots; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and lilacs perfume the baskets ofthe flower-girls--all the world have begun their walks again on the quaysand boulevards. After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to breathethe evening air.

It is the hour when Paris is seen in all its beauty. During the day theplaster fronts of the houses weary the eye by their monotonous whiteness;heavily laden carts make the streets shake under their huge wheels; theeager crowd, taken up by the one fear of losing a moment from business,cross and jostle one another; the aspect of the city altogether hassomething harsh, restless, and flurried about it. But, as soon as thestars appear, everything is changed; the glare of the white houses isquenched in the gathering shades; you hear no more any rolling but thatof the carriages on their way to some party of pleasure; you see only thelounger or the light-hearted passing by; work has given place to leisure.

Now each one may breathe after the fierce race through the business ofthe day, and whatever strength remains to him he gives to pleasure! Seethe ballrooms lighted up, the theatres open, the eating-shops along thewalks set out with dainties, and the twinkling lanterns of the newspapercriers. Decidedly Paris has laid aside the pen, the ruler, and theapron; after the day spent in work, it must have the evening forenjoyment; like the masters of Thebes, it has put off all serious mattertill tomorrow.

I love to take part in this happy hour; not to mix in the general gayety,but to contemplate it. If the enjoyments of others embitter jealousminds, they strengthen the humble spirit; they are the beams of sunshine,which open the two beautiful flowers called trust and hope.

Although alone in the midst of the smiling multitude, I do not feelmyself isolated from it, for its gayety is reflected upon me: it is myown kind, my own family, who are enjoying life, and I take a brothersshare in their happiness. We are all fellow-soldiers in this earthlybattle, and what does it matter on whom the honors of the victory fall?

If Fortune passes by without seeing us, and pours her favors on others,let us console ourselves, like the friend of Parmenio, by saying, "Those,too, are Alexanders."

While making these reflections, I was going on as chance took me. Icrossed from one pavement to another, I retraced my steps, I stoppedbefore the shops or to read the handbills. How many things there are tolearn in the streets of Paris! What a museum it is! Unknown fruits,foreign arms, furniture of old times or other lands, animals of allclimates, statues of great men, costumes of distant nations! It is theworld seen in samples!

Let us then look at this people, whose knowledge is gained from the shop-windows and the tradesmans display of goods. Nothing has been taughtthem, but they have a rude notion of everything. They have seenpineapples at Chevets, a palm-tree in the Jardin des Plantes, sugar-canes selling on the Pont-Neuf. The Redskins, exhibited in the ValentineHall, have taught them to mimic the dance of the bison, and to smoke thecalumet of peace; they have seen Carters lions fed; they know theprincipal national costumes contained in Babins collection; Goupilsdisplay of prints has placed the tiger-hunts of Africa and the sittingsof the English Parliament before their eyes; they have become acquaintedwith Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, and Kossuth, at the office-door of the Illustrated News. We can certainly instruct them, but notastonish them; for nothing is completely new to them. You may take theParis ragamuffin through the five quarters of the world, and at everywonder with which you think to surprise him, he will settle the matterwith that favorite and conclusive answer of his class--"I know."

But this variety of exhibitions, which makes Paris the fair of the world,does not offer merely a means of instruction to him who walks through it;it is a continual spur for rousing the imagination, a first step of theladder always set up before us in a vision. When we see them, how manyvoyages do we take in imagination, what adventures do we dream of, whatpictures do we sketch! I never look at that shop near the Chinese baths,with its tapestry hangings of Florida jessamine, and filled withmagnolias, without seeing the forest glades of the New World, describedby the author of Atala, opening themselves out before me.

Then, when this study of things and this discourse of reason begin totire you, look around you! What contrasts of figures and faces you seein the crowd! What a vast field for the exercise of meditation! A half-seen glance, or a few words caught as the speaker passes by, open athousand vistas to your imagination. You wish to comprehend what theseimperfect disclosures mean, and, as the antiquary endeavors to decipherthe mutilated inscription on some old monument, you build up a history ona gesture or on a word! These are the stirring sports of the mind, whichfinds in fiction a relief from the wearisome dullness of the actual.

Alas! as I was just now passing by the carriage-entrance of a greathouse, I noticed a sad subject for one of these histories. A man wassitting in the darkest corner, with his head bare, and holding out hishat for the charity of those who passed. His threadbare coat had thatlook of neatness which marks that destitution has been met by a longstruggle. He had carefully buttoned it up to hide the want of a shirt.

His face was half hid under his gray hair, and his eyes were closed, asif he wished to escape the sight of his own humiliation, and he remainedmute and motionless. Those who passed him took no notice of the beggar,who sat in silence and darkness! They had been so lucky as to escapecomplaints and importunities, and were glad to turn away their eyes too.