BOOK FIRST.--PARIS STUDIED
       IN ITS ATOM

 
  CHAPTER I PARVULUS

    Paris has a child,
           and the forest
            has a bird;
        the bird
            is called the sparrow;
        the child
            is called the gamin.

    Couple these two ideas
          which contain,
           the one all the furnace,
         the other all the dawn;
        strike these two sparks together,
           Paris,
         childhood;
        there leaps
               out from
                   them a little being.

    Homuncio,
           Plautus would say.

    This little being is joyous.

    He has
           not food every day,
         and he
            goes to the play
                   every evening,
         if he sees good.

    He has no shirt
           on his body,
         no shoes on his feet,
         no roof over his head;
        he is
              like the flies of heaven,
           who have
               none of these things.

    He is
           from seven
               to thirteen years of age,
           he lives in bands,
         roams the streets,
           lodges in the open air,
         wears an old pair
               of trousers
             of his father's,
           which descend below his heels,
         an old hat of
               some other father,
           which descends below his ears,
         a single suspender
               of yellow listing;
        he runs,
           lies in wait,
         rummages about,
           wastes time,
         blackens pipes,
           swears like a convict,
         haunts the wine-shop,
           knows thieves,
         calls gay women thou,
           talks slang,
         sings obscene songs,
           and has no evil
               in his heart.

    This is
         because he
            has in
                   his heart
                 a pearl,
           innocence;
        and pearls
            are not
                  to be dissolved in mud.

    So long as man
        is in his childhood,
           God wills
             that he shall be innocent.

    If one were to ask
         that enormous city:
           "What is this?"

    she would reply:
         "It is my little one."

 
  CHAPTER II SOME OF HIS
       PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS

    The gamin
         --the street Arab--
           of Paris
            is the dwarf
                   of the giant.

    Let us not exaggerate,
           this cherub
               of the gutter sometimes
            has a shirt,
         but,
           in that case,
         he owns but one;
        he sometimes has shoes,
           but then
             they have no soles;
        he sometimes has a lodging,
           and he loves it,
         for he finds
               his mother there;
        but he prefers the street,
           because there he finds liberty.

    He has his own games,
           his own bits of mischief,
         whose foundation
            consists of hatred
                   for the bourgeois;
        his peculiar metaphors:
            to be dead
            is to eat dandelions
                   by the root;
        his own occupations,
           calling hackney-coaches,
         letting down carriage-steps,
           establishing means of transit
               between the two sides
                   of a street
                 in heavy rains,
         which he calls
               making the bridge of arts,
           crying discourses
              pronounced by the authorities
                   in favor
                       of the French people,
         cleaning out the cracks
               in the pavement;
        he has his own coinage,
           which is
              composed of
                   all the little morsels
                       of worked copper
              which are
                  found on the public streets.

    This curious money,
           which receives
               the name of loques
         --rags--
           has an invariable
               and well-regulated currency
          in this little Bohemia
                  of children.

    Lastly,
           he has his own fauna,
         which he
            observes attentively in the corners;
        the lady-bird,
           the death's-head plant-louse,
         the daddy-long-legs,
           "the devil,"
            a black insect,
         which menaces
               by twisting
             about its tail
               armed with two horns.

    He has his fabulous monster,
           which has scales
               under its belly,
         but is not a lizard,
           which has pustules
               on its back,
         but is not a toad,
           which inhabits the nooks
               of old lime-kilns
             and wells
             that have run dry,
         which is black,