CHAPTER III--HE IS AGREEABLE

  In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds meansto procure, the _homuncio_ enters a theatre. On crossing that magicthreshold, he becomes transfigured; he was the street Arab, he becomesthe titi.18 Theatres are a sort of ship turned upside down with the keelin the air. It is in that keel that the titi huddle together. The titiis to the gamin what the moth is to the larva; the same being endowedwith wings and soaring. It suffices for him to be there, with hisradiance of happiness, with his power of enthusiasm and joy, with hishand-clapping, which resembles a clapping of wings, to confer on thatnarrow, dark, fetid, sordid, unhealthy, hideous, abominable keel, thename of Paradise.

  Bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary,and you have the gamin.

  The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we sayit with the proper amount of regret, would not constitute classictaste. He is not very academic by nature. Thus, to give an example, thepopularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormychildren was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her_Mademoiselle Muche_--"hide yourself."

  This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has rags like ababy and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in thecesspool, extracts mirth from foulness, whips up the squares with hiswit, grins and bites, whistles and sings, shouts, and shrieks, tempersAlleluia with Matanturlurette, chants every rhythm from the De Profundisto the Jack-pudding, finds without seeking, knows what he is ignorantof, is a Spartan to the point of thieving, is mad to wisdom, is lyricalto filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the dunghill andemerges from it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais inthis youth.

  He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch-pocket.

  He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified, he makessongs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations, he twitsmysteries, he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts, he takes the poetry outof stilted things, he introduces caricature into epic extravaganzas.It is not that he is prosaic; far from that; but he replaces the solemnvision by the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor were to appear tohim, the street Arab would say: "Hi there! The bugaboo!"