3

HE IS AGREEABLE^cg

IN THE EVENING, by means of a few pennies which he always manages to scrape together, the homuncio goes to some theatre. By the act of passing that magic threshold, he becomes transfigured; he was a gamin, he becomes a titi. Theatres are a sort of vessel turned upside down with the hold at the top; in this hold the titi gather in crowds.^ch The titi is to the gamin what the butterfly is to the grub; the same creature on wings and sailing through the air. It is enough for him to be there with his radiance of delight, his fulness of enthusiasm and joy and his clapping of hands like the clapping of wings, to make that hold, close, dark, foetid, filthy, unwholesome, hideous, and detestable as it is, to be called the “Paradise.”^ci

Give to a being the useless, and deprive him of the needful, and you have the gamin.

The gamin is not without a certain inclination towards literature. His tendency, however—we say it with the befitting quantum of regret—would not be considered as towards the classic. He is, in his nature, but slightly academic. For instance, the popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among this little public of children was spiced with a touch of irony. The gamin called her Mademoiselle Muche.^cj

This being jeers, wrangles, sneers, jangles, has frippery like a baby and rags like a philosopher, fishes in the gutter, hunts in the sewer, extracts gaiety from filth, lashes the street corners with his wit, sneers and bites, hisses and sings, applauds and hoots, tempers Hallelujah with tralalas, chants all sorts of rhythms from De Profundis to the Shit-in-the-bed, finds without searching, knows what he does not know, is Spartan even to roguery, is witless even to wisdom, is lyric even to impurity, would squat upon Olympus, wallows in the dung-heap and comes out of it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais as a child.

He is never satisfied with his trousers unless they have a watch-fob.

He is seldom astonished, is frightened still less frequently, turns superstitions into doggerel verses and sings them, deflates exaggerations, makes light of mysteries, sticks out his tongue at ghosts, lowers everything that is on stilts, and introduces caricature into all epic pomposities. This is not because he is prosaic, far from it; but he substitutes the phantasmagoria of fun for solemn dreams. Were the giant Adamaster to appear to him, he would shout out: “Hallo, there, old Bug-a-boo!”^ck