Chương Chương 152 · HIS FRONTIERS

The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has

something of the sage in him. _Urbis amator_, like Fuscus; _ruris

amator_, like Flaccus.

To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine

employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher; particularly in that

rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but

odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities,

notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal.

End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning

of the pavements; end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of

the wheel-ruts, beginning of the passions; end of the divine murmur,

beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest.

Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by the

passing stroller with the epithet: _melancholy_, the apparently

objectless promenades of the dreamer.

He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers of

Paris, and it is for him a source of profound souvenirs. That

close-shaven turf, those pebbly paths, that chalk, those pools, those

harsh monotonies of waste and fallow lands, the plants of early

market-garden suddenly springing into sight in a bottom, that mixture

of the savage and the citizen, those vast desert nooks where the

garrison drums practise noisily, and produce a sort of lisping of

battle, those hermits by day and cut-throats by night, that clumsy mill

which turns in the wind, the hoisting-wheels of the quarries, the

tea-gardens at the corners of the cemeteries; the mysterious charm of

great, sombre walls squarely intersecting immense, vague stretches of

land inundated with sunshine and full of butterflies,—all this

attracted him.

There is hardly any one on earth who is not acquainted with those

singular spots, the Glacière, the Cunette, the hideous wall of Grenelle

all speckled with balls, Mont-Parnasse, the Fosse-aux-Loups, Aubiers on

the bank of the Marne, Mont-Souris, the Tombe-Issoire, the Pierre-Plate

de Châtillon, where there is an old, exhausted quarry which no longer

serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a

level with the ground, by a trap-door of rotten planks. The campagna of

Rome is one idea, the banlieue of Paris is another; to behold nothing

but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is

to remain on the surface; all aspects of things are thoughts of God.

The spot where a plain effects its junction with a city is always

stamped with a certain piercing melancholy. Nature and humanity both

appeal to you at the same time there. Local originalities there make

their appearance.

Any one who, like ourselves, has wandered about in these solitudes

contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of

Paris, has seen here and there, in the most desert spot, at the most

unexpected moment, behind a meagre hedge, or in the corner of a

lugubrious wall, children grouped tumultuously, fetid, muddy, dusty,

ragged, dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with

corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape

from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the

suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There

they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or

rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May

or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with

their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, volatile,

free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they

recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their

living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled with

cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange

children are one of the charming and at the same time poignant graces

of the environs of Paris.

Sometimes there are little girls among the throng of boys,—are they

their sisters?—who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with

sunburnt hands, covered with freckles, crowned with poppies and ears of

rye, gay, haggard, barefooted. They can be seen devouring cherries

among the wheat. In the evening they can be heard laughing. These

groups, warmly illuminated by the full glow of midday, or indistinctly

seen in the twilight, occupy the thoughtful man for a very long time,

and these visions mingle with his dreams.

Paris, centre, banlieue, circumference; this constitutes all the earth

to those children. They never venture beyond this. They can no more

escape from the Parisian atmosphere than fish can escape from the

water. For them, nothing exists two leagues beyond the barriers: Ivry,

Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Ménilmontant,

Choisy-le-Roi, Billancourt, Meudon, Issy, Vanvre, Sèvres, Puteaux,

Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnières,

Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy,

Gonesse; the universe ends there.