Chapter 181 The back room of Simu Shang Café

Marius was now and then a part of the conversations of the young men, and sometimes a few words, a conversation which caused a real shock to his spirits. It happened in the back room of the Café Meuchan. The "Friends of ABC" were almost all there that night.Everyone talked about this and that, but the interest was not high, and the voice was loud.Except for Enjolras and Marius who did not speak, everyone said a few words.Conversations among schoolmates sometimes have this kind of peaceful tumult.It was a game, a bullshit, and a conversation.Everyone threw some words and sentences around.They talked at the four corners.

No woman is allowed in that back room, except Louison, the cup-washing woman, who from time to time walks across the hall from the scullery to the "laboratory." Grantaire, already too drunk, was deafening people in the corner he occupied.He yelled and babbled.he roared: "I'm thirsty. I'm dreaming, stinkers. I dreamed that the big wine barrel in Heidelberg suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. People put twelve leeches on it. I was one of them. I want to drink. I want to forget life. Life, I don't know who made it, is a very bad invention. It's over in a flash, and it's worthless. To live, to make a person's back ache. Life is an ornament that is of little use. Happiness An old wooden frame painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity' and I agree with the man who may never have existed. Zero, it would not walk naked, And put on the cloak of vanity. Oh vanity! You gold everything with beautiful words! The kitchen is called a laboratory, the dancer is called a professor, the one who does art is called an athlete, the boxer is called a samurai, the one who sells medicine is called a chemist, and the one who cuts hair is called a chemist. They are called artists, those who paint walls are called architects, those who race horses are called athletes, and those who do woodcutters are called rat women. Vanity has a reverse and a positive. One cries and the other laughs. What people call honor and honor, even if it is honor and honor, is generally fake gold. Emperors play with human pride. Caligula named his steed Consul, Charles II knighted a sirloin. Now go and boast yourselves among the consuls of Insitatus and the little barons of steak. As for the value of man, that is not necessarily more respectable. , the difference is limited. Listen to how the neighbor compliments the neighbor. White to white is cruel and ruthless. If the lily can talk, I don’t know how it will ruin the white dove. A pious woman talks about a religious woman who comes to Shekou The scorpion tail is also vicious. It's a pity I'm an ignorant person, otherwise I would tell you a lot of such things, but I don't know anything. Strange to say, I have always been a little clever. I was a student in Gero's studio. When I was young, I didn't much like to pick up a pen and daub, but spent my time stealing apples. Artist, trickster, just a word difference. I am like this, and you people, it may not be. Brilliant. I don’t think much of your perfection, magnificence, or advantages. Any advantage tends to a disadvantage. Thrift is close to stinginess, generosity is like profligacy, bravery is not far from rude, very reverent and obedient is a bit like a hypocrite. Virtue is full of It's a scandal, like Diogenes's toga is full of holes. Who do you admire, the slain or the murderer, Caesar or Brutus? Generally speaking, people are always on the side of the murderer .Long live Brutus! He's done it. That's virtue. Virtue? If it is, it's madness. There's a strange stain in these great men. Brutus who killed Caesar loved a little A statue of a boy. This statue is the work of the Greek sculptor Stronchirion, who also sculpted a horse-riding woman, Ecknamus, also known as the Woman with Beautiful Legs. This statue was often taken with Nero when he traveled. This Stronchirion left only two statues, uniting Brutus and Nero, Brutus loving the one and Nero the other. The whole historyHistory is an endless repetition.A century is a reprint of another century.The Battle of Marengo was a copy of the Battle of Bidna, Clovis I's Tolbiak and Napoleon's Austerlitz are as similar as two drops of blood.I'm not very interested in winning.There is nothing so foolish as to conquer; the true glory lies in persuasion.Come out with some facts to prove it.You are content with success, so vulgar!What a pity to be content with conquering!Alas, vanity and indecency are everywhere.Everything is subject to success, even linguistics is no exception.Horace said: 'If he values ​​custom. ' Therefore I despise human beings.Shall we come down and talk about the country too?Do you want me to admire certain peoples?What kind of nationality is it?Greece?The Athenians, the ancient Parisians, slew Phocion, just as the Parisians slew Corini, and flattered the tyrant to such an extent that Annecyphre said that the urine of Pisistratus attracts bees.The most important figure in Greece for fifty years was only the grammarian Feletas, but he was so short and so small that he had to put lead on his shoes to keep them from being blown away by the wind.In the largest square of Corinth there is a statue of Siranion, cataloged by Pliny, of Epistatus.What did Epistatus do?He created a kind of whirlwind foot.These are enough to sum up the honor of Greece.Let's talk aside.Do I admire Britain?Do I admire France?France?Why?For Paris?I have just told you my opinion of Athens.UK?Why?For London?I hate Carthage.And, London, the metropolis of luxury, is the headquarters of poverty.In the parish of Charing-Clos alone, a hundred people die of starvation every year.Albion is like this.Let me add this, for the sake of full illustration: I have seen an English woman dance with a crown of roses and blue glasses.So, UK, fuck it.If I don't admire John Bull, do I admire Jonathan?This slave-buyer brother isn't much to my liking.Take away 'time is money' and what's left of the UK?Take out 'cotton is king' and what's left of America?In Germany, it is lymph, in Italy, it is bile.Shall we revel in Russia?Voltaire admired it.He also admires China.I agree that Russia has its beauty, especially its solid despotism, but I pity those despots.Their health was delicate, one Alexei lost his head, one Peter was stabbed to death with a knife, one Paul was strangled, another Paul was crushed under the heel of a boot, several Ivans were strangled, several Nicholas and Vasily were poisoned to death, all this shows that the Russian imperial palace is in an unsanitary condition that is obvious to all.Every civilized people has made the thinker appreciate this detail: war, or war, civilized war, exhausted and summed up every mode of banditry, from the plunder of the Jaksha gorge by the trumpet squadrons to the suspicious Looting of living things by defiles.Pooh!You may say to me: 'Is Europe better than Asia? 'I admit that Asia is a joke, but I can't see that you Westerners rub all kinds of filth mixed with princes and nobles, from Queen Isabel's dirty shirts to princes' pails, with your fashionable clothes How can people who are together laugh at that great lama.Gentlemen of the human language, I tell you, it is not that simple.People consume the most beer in Brussels, the most alcohol in Stockholm, the most gin in Amsterdam, the most wine in London, the most coffee in Constantinople and the most absinthe in Paris ; All useful knowledge is here.At the end of the day, Paris is second to none.In Paris, even the seller of rags is a drunk.Diogenes, the sage in Piraeus, might have been just as willing to sell his rags in Mobile Place.You should also learn this: the place where the ragmen sell wine is called a wine vat, the most famous being 'Choshi' and 'Slaughterhouse'.So, oh, suburban taverns, carnival taverns, leafy taverns, booze shops, a cappella taverns, retail taverns, kegs, taverns, vats, camel gang taverns, I'll prove to you it's all good places, and I'm a Carpe diem, I often eat forty sous a meal at Richard's, and I want a Persian rug to wrap naked Cleopatra in!Where is Cleopatra?what!It's you, Louison.Hi. "

That's how the dazed Grantaire babbled nonsense to the cup-washing girl in the corner of Mussamp's back hall. Bossuet held out his hand to calm him down, but Grantaire shouted louder: "Eagle of Meau, put away your talons. Your shoddy gesture of Hippocrates rejecting Artaxerxes does nothing for me. Please don't bother trying to quiet me. Besides, I'm frowning. What do you want me to say? Man is bad, man is deformed, butterfly succeeds, man fails. God didn't make the animal. The crowd is a collection of ugly things. Any It's a rogue to pick one. Women are a disaster. Yeah, I'm suffering from depression, and I'm sad, and I'm homesick, and I'm angry, so I worry, so I go crazy, so I yawn, so I'm depressed, so I am angry, and I am bored! God to his devil!"

"Stop it, capital 'R'!" Bossuet went on, discussing a legal issue with a group of people who were not very talkative. Is such that: "... As for me, although I am not quite enough to be called a jurist, and at best an amateur prosecutor, I support this: According to the customary law of Normandy, every year on the feast day of Saint-Michel, all Man and every person, whether proprietor or heir, is obliged, among other duties, to pay to the lord a kind of equivalent tax, and this applies to all long-term leases, land leases, free land titles, religious deeds , Mortgage contract..."

"Echo, melancholy fairies." Grantaire moaned in a low voice. Next to Grantaire was an almost deserted table, a piece of paper, a bottle of ink and a pen, placed between two small wine glasses, announcing that a farce script was brewing.This great event is carried on in lowly conversation, where two working heads meet. "Let's nail down the character's name first. With the name comes the theme." "Yes. You speak, I write." "Monsieur Dolimont?" "The rich man?" "certainly." "His daughter, Celestine." "...Ding. What else?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Serval." "Serval is too old-fashioned, call him Valser." Beside the two new slapstick writers, another party was talking with a cacophony of voices about a duel.A thirty-year-old veteran is calling an eighteen-year-old boy, explaining to him what kind of opponent he has to deal with: "Damn! You have to be careful. That's an excellent swordsman. His technique is unambiguous. He strikes fiercely, without unnecessary feints, with flexible wrists, strong firepower, quick movements, steady parry, and accurate counterattack. Great! And left-handed."

In the corner opposite Grantaire, Jolie and Bahore are playing dominoes and talking about love. "How happy you are, you," said Joly, "that you have a mistress who loves to laugh." "That's her fault," replied Bahoret. "It's always better for a mistress to smile less. If you smile more, it's easy to make people think of abandoning her. When you see her happy, you won't be condemned in your heart." , Seeing her sullen will make you feel uneasy." "You don't know good from bad! What a woman who is always smiling! And you never quarrel!"

"This is because we have such a stipulation that when we organized our little holy alliance, we drew boundaries and did not invade each other. The river does not interfere with the well water, and the well water does not interfere with the river water. Only in this way can we live in harmony." "How happy it is to live in harmony." "What about you, Ruo Li, your quarrel with that girl, you know who I'm referring to, what's going on now?" "She was patient, and she was ruthlessly angry with me." "You can be regarded as a young man who is willing to haggard for love."

"No!" "If I were in your position, I would have dumped her long ago." "It's easy to say." "It's easy to do. Isn't her name Mishishta?" "Yes. Oh! My poor Bahorey, what a lovely girl she is, very literary, with small feet and hands, who knows how to dress, is fair and plump, and has the eyes of a woman who draws cards and tells fortunes. I going crazy over her." "In that case, my dear, you ought to please her, dress nicely, and visit her often. Go to Stober's and buy a pair of fine suede trousers. They are available for rent."

"How much is it?" Grantaire asked aloud. In the third corner, everyone is talking about poetry.Secular and Christian myths are entangled.The topic concerns Mount Olympus, out of Romanticism Jean Prouvaire is endorsing it.Jean Prouvel was timid only at rest.Explosive when provoked, exuberance bursting from enthusiasm, he is both witty and lyrical. "Don't blaspheme the gods," said he, "the gods may not have left. Jupiter, it seems to me, is not dead. The gods are but illusions according to you. But even in nature , in actual nature we can still find all those great old secular gods after the gods have disappeared. Those mountains with castle-like outlines, such as the Venemar, are still for me Cybele's invention. There is nothing to prove to me that Pan will not come to blow the empty trunk of the willow tree at night, pressing the holes in the trunk alternately with his fingers; I still think that Io has something to do with the cow drowning waterfall."

In the last corner, people are talking about politics.Everyone is attacking the charter of that gift.Combeferre feebly supported it.Courfeyrac lashed out at it.Unfortunately, there was a copy of the famous Duquet charter on the table.Courfeyrac held it in his hand, and while discussing it, he shook the paper. "First of all, I don't want a king. I don't even want it from an economic point of view. The king is a parasite. There are no free kings. Please listen to this: the price of the king. After the death of Francis I, France's The public debt is thirty thousand livres a year; after the death of Louis XIV, it was two and a half billion, twenty-eight livres to one mark, that is to say, in 1760, according to Desmaret's calculations, the sum was Four and a half billion, today, is equal to 12 billion. Secondly, don't be unhappy when you hear it. The so-called charter of gifts is just a bad way of civilization. What avoids changes, moderates excesses, and eliminates shocks, All this, using constitutional vain to convert this monarchy into a democracy unconsciously, is all despicable arguments! Don't! Don't! Never deceive the people with this false light. Doctrine will wither In your constitutional black cellars. No mutations. No counterfeits. No bounties from kings to the people. In the clauses of all these boons, there's a fourteenth. Beside the hand that gives. I simply reject your charter. The charter is a mask, and what lies underneath is a lie. Accepting the charter is an abdication. Only complete human rights are human rights. No! No charter!" It was winter, and two logs were crackling in the fireplace.This is attractive, and Courfeyrac does not hesitate.He crumpled the ill-fated Duquet Charter in his palm and threw it into the fire.The paper lit up immediately.Combeferre stared blankly at the burning masterpiece of Louis XVIII, and said only one sentence: "The charter turned into a puff of smoke." Bitter sarcasm, quips, sharp jokes, the so-called vitality of the French, the so-called humor of the English, good and bad tastes, good and bad arguments, all kinds of unrestrained eloquence, in There was a simultaneous volley in that hall, intertwined from all sides, forming a joyous bombardment over the heads of the people.