CHAPTER V

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 Glaciere, 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 Chatillon, 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, Menilmontant, Choisy-le-Roi, Billancourt, Mendon,
Issy, Vanvre, Sevres, Puteaux, Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes,
Romainville, Chatou, Asnieres, Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien,
Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy, Gonesse; the universe ends there.