1132 Les Miserables
contradicting at the top of his lungs, and shouting:—
‘I am thirsty. Mortals, I am dreaming: that the tun of
Heidelberg has an attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of
the dozen leeches which will be applied to it. I want a drink.
I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of I know
not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is worth nothing. One
breaks one’s neck in living. Life is a theatre set in which there
are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique
reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: ‘All is
vanity.’ I agree with that good man, who never existed, per-
haps. Zero not wishing to go stark naked, clothed himself
in vanity. O vanity! The patching up of everything with big
words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a dancer is a professor, an
acrobat is a gymnast, a boxer is a pugilist, an apothecary is
a chemist, a wigmaker is an artist, a hodman is an architect,
a jockey is a sportsman, a wood-louse is a pterigybranche.
Vanity has a right and a wrong side; the right side is stupid,
it is the negro with his glass beads; the wrong side is foolish,
it is the philosopher with his rags. I weep over the one and I
laugh over the other. What are called honors and dignities,
and even dignity and honor, are generally of pinchbeck.
Kings make playthings of human pride. Caligula made a
horse a consul; Charles II. made a knight of a sirloin. Wrap
yourself up now, then, between Consul Incitatus and Bar-
onet Roastbeef. As for the intrinsic value of people, it is
no longer respectable in the least. Listen to the panegyric
which neighbor makes of neighbor. White on white is fero-
cious; if the lily could speak, what a setting down it would
give the dove! A bigoted woman prating of a devout woman