第 2 节
作者:雨霖铃      更新:2022-11-28 19:13      字数:9322
  was a novelty; an event。 He lived the life of a sovereign; or; better
  still; of a journalist; in fact; he was the perambulating 〃feuilleton〃
  of Parisian commerce。
  His name was Gaudissart; and his renown; his vogue; the flatteries
  showered upon him; were such as to win for him the surname of
  Illustrious。 Wherever the fellow went;behind a counter or before a
  bar; into a salon or to the top of a stage…coach; up to a garret or to
  dine with a banker;every one said; the moment they saw him; 〃Ah!
  here comes the illustrious Gaudissart!〃'*' No name was ever so in
  keeping with the style; the manners; the countenance; the voice; the
  language; of any man。 All things smiled upon our traveller; and the
  traveller smiled back in return。 〃Similia similibus;〃he believed in
  homoeopathy。 Puns; horse…laugh; monkish face; skin of a friar; true
  Rabelaisian exterior; clothing; body; mind; and features; all pulled
  together to put a devil…may…care jollity into every inch of his
  person。 Free…handed and easy…going; he might be recognized at once as
  the favorite of grisettes; the man who jumps lightly to the top of a
  stage…coach; gives a hand to the timid lady who fears to step down;
  jokes with the postillion about his neckerchief and contrives to sell
  him a cap; smiles at the maid and catches her round the waist or by
  the heart; gurgles at dinner like a bottle of wine and pretends to
  draw the cork by sounding a filip on his distended cheek; plays a tune
  with his knife on the champagne glasses without breaking them; and
  says to the company; 〃Let me see you do THAT〃; chaffs the timid
  traveller; contradicts the knowing one; lords it over a dinner…table
  and manages to get the titbits for himself。 A strong fellow;
  nevertheless; he can throw aside all this nonsense and mean business
  when he flings away the stump of his cigar and says; with a glance at
  some town; 〃I'll go and see what those people have got in their
  stomachs。〃
  '*' 〃Se gaudir;〃 to enjoy; to make fun。 〃Gaudriole;〃 gay discourse;
  rather free。Littre。
  When buckled down to his work he became the slyest and cleverest of
  diplomats。 All things to all men; he knew how to accost a banker like
  a capitalist; a magistrate like a functionary; a royalist with pious
  and monarchical sentiments; a bourgeois as one of themselves。 In
  short; wherever he was he was just what he ought to be; he left
  Gaudissart at the door when he went in; and picked him up when he came
  out。
  Until 1830 the illustrious Gaudissart was faithful to the article
  Paris。 In his close relation to the caprices of humanity; the varied
  paths of commerce had enabled him to observe the windings of the heart
  of man。 He had learned the secret of persuasive eloquence; the knack
  of loosening the tightest purse…strings; the art of rousing desire in
  the souls of husbands; wives; children; and servants; and what is
  more; he knew how to satisfy it。 No one had greater faculty than he
  for inveigling a merchant by the charms of a bargain; and disappearing
  at the instant when desire had reached its crisis。 Full of gratitude
  to the hat…making trade; he always declared that it was his efforts in
  behalf of the exterior of the human head which had enabled him to
  understand its interior: he had capped and crowned so many people; he
  was always flinging himself at their heads; etc。 His jokes about hats
  and heads were irrepressible; though perhaps not dazzling。
  Nevertheless; after August and October; 1830; he abandoned the hat
  trade and the article Paris; and tore himself from things mechanical
  and visible to mount into the higher spheres of Parisian speculation。
  〃He forsook;〃 to use his own words; 〃matter for mind; manufactured
  products for the infinitely purer elaborations of human intelligence。〃
  This requires some explanation。
  The general upset of 1830 brought to birth; as everybody knows; a
  number of old ideas which clever speculators tried to pass off in new
  bodies。 After 1830 ideas became property。 A writer; too wise to
  publish his writings; once remarked that 〃more ideas are stolen than
  pocket…handkerchiefs。〃 Perhaps in course of time we may have an
  Exchange for thought; in fact; even now ideas; good or bad; have their
  consols; are bought up; imported; exported; sold; and quoted like
  stocks。 If ideas are not on hand ready for sale; speculators try to
  pass off words in their stead; and actually live upon them as a bird
  lives on the seeds of his millet。 Pray do not laugh; a word is worth
  quite as much as an idea in a land where the ticket on a sack is of
  more importance than the contents。 Have we not seen libraries working
  off the word 〃picturesque〃 when literature would have cut the throat
  of the word 〃fantastic〃? Fiscal genius has guessed the proper tax on
  intellect; it has accurately estimated the profits of advertising; it
  has registered a prospectus of the quantity and exact value of the
  property; weighing its thought at the intellectual Stamp Office in the
  Rue de la Paix。
  Having become an article of commerce; intellect and all its products
  must naturally obey the laws which bind other manufacturing interests。
  Thus it often happens that ideas; conceived in their cups by certain
  apparently idle Parisians;who nevertheless fight many a moral battle
  over their champagne and their pheasants;are handed down at their
  birth from the brain to the commercial travellers who are employed to
  spread them discreetly; 〃urbi et orbi;〃 through Paris and the
  provinces; seasoned with the fried pork of advertisement and
  prospectus; by means of which they catch in their rat…trap the
  departmental rodent commonly called subscriber; sometimes stockholder;
  occasionally corresponding member or patron; but invariably fool。
  〃I am a fool!〃 many a poor country proprietor has said when; caught by
  the prospect of being the first to launch a new idea; he finds that he
  has; in point of fact; launched his thousand or twelve hundred francs
  into a gulf。
  〃Subscribers are fools who never can be brought to understand that to
  go ahead in the intellectual world they must start with more money
  than they need for the tour of Europe;〃 say the speculators。
  Consequently there is endless warfare between the recalcitrant public
  which refuses to pay the Parisian imposts and the tax…gatherer who;
  living by his receipt of custom; lards the public with new ideas;
  turns it on the spit of lively projects; roasts it with prospectuses
  (basting all the while with flattery); and finally gobbles it up with
  some toothsome sauce in which it is caught and intoxicated like a fly
  with a black…lead。 Moreover; since 1830 what honors and emoluments
  have been scattered throughout France to stimulate the zeal and self…
  love of the 〃progressive and intelligent masses〃! Titles; medals;
  diplomas; a sort of legion of honor invented for the army of martyrs;
  have followed each other with marvellous rapidity。 Speculators in the
  manufactured products of the intellect have developed a spice; a
  ginger; all their own。 From this have come premiums; forestalled
  dividends; and that conscription of noted names which is levied
  without the knowledge of the unfortunate writers who bear them; and
  who thus find themselves actual co…operators in more enterprises than
  there are days in the year; for the law; we may remark; takes no
  account of the theft of a patronymic。 Worse than all is the rape of
  ideas which these caterers for the public mind; like the slave…
  merchants of Asia; tear from the paternal brain before they are well
  matured; and drag half…clothed before the eyes of their blockhead of a
  sultan; their Shahabaham; their terrible public; which; if they don't
  amuse it; will cut off their heads by curtailing the ingots and
  emptying their pockets。
  This madness of our epoch reacted upon the illustrious Gaudissart; and
  here follows the history of how it happened。 A life…insurance company
  having been told of his irresistible eloquence offered him an unheard…
  of commission; which he graciously accepted。 The bargain concluded and
  the treaty signed; our traveller was put in training; or we might say
  weaned; by the secretary…general of the enterprise; who freed his mind
  of its swaddling…clothes; showed him the dark holes of the business;
  taught him its dialect; took the mechanism apart bit by bit; dissected
  for his instruction the particular public he was expected to gull;
  crammed him with phrases; fed him with impromptu replies; provisioned
  him with unanswerable arguments; and; so to speak; sharpened the file
  of the tongue which was about to operate upon the life of France。
  The puppet amply rewarded the pains bestowed upon him。 The heads of
  the company boasted of the illustrious Gaudissart; showed him such
  attention and proclaimed the great talents of this perambulating
  prospectus so loudly in the sphere of exalted banking and commercial
  diplomacy; that the financial managers of two newspapers (celebrated
  at t