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Modeste Mignon-Part1_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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the heart Love-without-Hope, the sublime and arid steppes of Desire.



Modeste had christened this grotesque little being her "Black Dwarf."

The nickname sent him to the pages of Walter Scott's novel, and he one



day said to Modeste: "Will you accept a rose against the evil day from

your mysterious dwarf?" Modeste instantly sent the soul of her adorer



to its humble mud-cabin with a terrible glance, such as young girls

bestow on the men who cannot please them. Butscha's conception of



himself was lowly, and, like the wife of his master, he had never been

out of Havre.



Perhaps it will be well, for the sake of those who have never seen

that city, to say a few words as to the present destination of the



Latournelle family,--the head clerk being included in the latter term.

Ingouville is to Havre what Montmartre is to Paris,--a high hill at



the foot of which the city lies; with this difference, that the hill

and the city are surrounded by the sea and the Seine, that Havre is



helplessly circumscribed by enclosing fortifications, and, in short,

that the mouth of the river, the harbor, and the docks present a very



different aspect from the fifty thousand houses of Paris. At the foot

of Montmartre an ocean of slate roofs lies in motionless blue billows;



at Ingouville the sea is like the same roofs stirred by the wind. This

eminence, or line of hills, which coasts the Seine from Rouen to the



seashore, leaving a margin of valley land more or less narrow between

itself and the river, and containing in its cities, its ravines, its



vales, its meadows, veritable treasures of the picturesque, became of

enormous value in and about Ingouville, after the year 1816, the



period at which the prosperity of Havre began. This township has

become since that time the Auteuil, the Ville-d'Avray, the



Montmorency, in short, the suburban" target="_blank" title="a.郊区的 n.郊区居民">suburbanresidence of the merchants of

Havre. Here they build their houses on terraces around its ampitheatre



of hills, and breathe the sea air laden with the fragrance of their

splendid gardens. Here these bold speculators cast off the burden of



their counting-rooms and the atmosphere of their city houses, which

are built closely together without open spaces, often without court-



yards,--a vice of construction with the increasing population of

Havre, the inflexible line of the fortifications, and the enlargement



of the docks has forced upon them. The result is, weariness of heart

in Havre, cheerfulness and joy at Ingouville. The law of social



development has forced up the suburb of Graville like a mushroom. It

is to-day more extensive than Havre itself, which lies at the foot of



its slopes like a serpent.

At the crest of the hill Ingouville has but one street, and (as in all



such situations) the houses which overlook the river have an immense

advantage over those on the other side of the road, whose view they



obstruct, and which present the effect of standing on tip-toe to look

over the opposing roofs. However, there exist here, as elsewhere,



certain servitudes. Some houses standing at the summit have a finer

position or possess legal rights of view which compel their opposite



neighbors to keep their buildings down to a required height. Moreover,

the openings cut in the capricious rock by roads which follow its



declensions and make the ampitheatre habitable, give vistas through

which some estates can see the city, or the river, or the sea. Instead



of rising to an actual peak, the hill ends abruptly in a cliff. At the

end of the street which follows the line of the summit, ravines appear



in which a few villages are clustered (Sainte-Adresse and two or three

other Saint-somethings) together with several creeks which murmur and



flow with the tides of the sea. These half-deserted slopes of

Ingouville form a strikingcontrast to the terraces of fine villas



which overlook the valley of the Seine. Is the wind on this side too

strong for vegetation? Do the merchants shrink from the cost of



terracing it? However this may be, the traveller approaching Havre on

a steamer is surprised to find a barren coast and tangled gorges to



the west of Ingouville, like a beggar in rags beside a perfumed and

sumptuously apparelled rich man.



In 1829 one of the last houses looking toward the sea, and which in

all probability stands about the centre of the Ingouville to-day, was



called, and perhaps is still called, "the Chalet." Originally it was a

porter's lodge with a trim little garden in front of it. The owner of



the villa to which it belonged,--a mansion with park, gardens,

aviaries, hot-houses, and lawns--took a fancy to put the little






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