Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal.
The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of "our much dread lord, monsieur the king," nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century, of some plumed and bedizened embassy.
It was barely two days since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into Paris, to the great annoyance of M. le Cardinal de Bourbon, who, for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish burgomasters, and to regale them at his H?tel de Bourbon, with a very ”pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door.
What put the "whole population of Paris in commotion," as Jehan de Troyes expresses it, on the sixth of January, was the double solemnity, united from time immemorial, of the Epiphany and the Feast of Fools.
On that day, there was to be a bonfire on the Place de Grève, a maypole at the Chapelle de Braque, and a mystery at the Palais de Justice. It had been cried, to the sound of the trumpet, the preceding evening at all the cross roads, by the provost’s men, clad in handsome, short, sleeveless coats of violet camelot, with large white crosses upon their breasts.
So the crowd of citizens, male and female, having closed their houses and shops, thronged from every direction, at early morn, towards some one of the three spots designated.Each had made his choice; one, the bonfire; another, the maypole; another, the mystery play. It must be stated, in honor of the good sense of the loungers of Paris, that the greater part of this crowd directed their steps towards the bonfire, which was quite in season, or towards the mystery play, which was to be presented in the grand hall of the Palais de Justice (the courts of law), which was well roofed and walled; and that the curious left the poor, scantily flowered maypole to shiver all alone beneath the sky of January, in the cemetery of the Chapel of Braque.
The populace thronged the avenues of the law courts in particular, because they knew that the Flemish ambassadors, who had arrived two days previously, intended to be present at the representation of the mystery, and at the election of the Pope of the Fools, which was also to take place in the grand hall.
It was no easy matter on that day, to force one’s way into that grand hall, although it was then reputed to be the largest covered enclosure in the world (it is true that Sauval had not yet measured the grand hall of the Chateau of Montargis). The palace place, encumbered with people, offered to the curious gazers at the windows the aspect of a sea; into which five or six streets, like so many mouths of rivers, discharged every moment fresh floods of heads. The waves of this crowd, augmented incessantly, dashed against the angles of the houses which projected here and there, like so many promontories, into the irregular basin of the place.
In the centre of the lofty Gothic fa?ade of the palace, the grand staircase, incessantly ascended and descended by a double current, which, after parting on the intermediate landing-place, flowed in broad waves along its lateral slopes,--the grand staircase, I say, trickled incessantly into the place, like a cascade into a lake.
The cries, the laughter, the trampling of those thousands of feet, produced a great noise and a great clamor. From time to time, this noise and clamor redoubled; the current which drove the crowd towards the grand staircase flowed backwards, became troubled, formed whirlpools. This was produced by the buffet of an archer, or the horse of one of the provost’s sergeants, which kicked to restore order; an admirable tradition which the provostship has bequeathed to the constablery, the constablery to the ~maréchaussée~, the ~maréchaussée~ to our ~gendarmeri~ of Paris.
Thousands of good, calm, bourgeois faces thronged the windows, the doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace, gazing at the populace, and asking nothing more; for many Parisians content themselves with the spectacle of the spectators, and a wall behind which something is going on becomes at once, for us, a very curious thing indeed.
If it could be granted to us, the men of 1830, to mingle in thought with those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to enter with them, jostled, elbowed, pulled about, into that immense hall of the palace, which was so cramped on that sixth of January, 1482, the spectacle would not be devoid of either interest or charm, and we should have about us only things that were so old that they would seem new.
With the reader’s consent, we will endeavor to retrace in thought, the impression which he would have experienced in company with us on crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in the midst of that tumultuous crowd in surcoats, short, sleeveless jackets, and doublets.
And, first of all, there is a buzzing in the ears, a dazzlement in the eyes. Above our heads is a double ogive vault, panelled with wood carving, painted azure, and sown with golden fleurs-de-lis; beneath our feet a pavement of black and white marble, alternating. A few paces distant, an enormous pillar, then another, then another; seven pillars in all, down the length of the hall, sustaining the spring of the arches of the double vault, in the centre of its width.
Around four of the pillars, stalls of merchants, all sparkling with glass and tinsel; around the last three, benches of oak, worn and polished by the trunk hose of the litigants, and the robes of the attorneys. Around the hall, along the lofty wall, between the doors, between the windows, between the pillars, the interminable row of all the kings of France, from Pharamond down: the lazy kings, with pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and combative kings, with heads and arms raised boldly heavenward.
Then in the long, pointed windows, glass of a thousand hues; at the wide entrances to the hall, rich doors, finely sculptured; and all, the vaults, pillars, walls, jambs, panelling, doors, statues, covered from top to bottom with a splendid blue and gold illumination, which, a trifle tarnished at the epoch when we behold it, had almost entirely disappeared beneath dust and spiders in the year of grace, 1549, when du Breul still admired it from tradition.
Let the reader picture to himself now, this immense, oblong hall, illuminated by the pallid light of a January day, invaded by a motley and noisy throng which drifts along the walls, and eddies round the seven pillars, and he will have a confused idea of the whole effect of the picture, whose curious details we shall make an effort to indicate with more precision.
It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV., there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the clerk’s office of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in causing the said documents to disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better means, to burn the clerk’s office in order to burn the documents, and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk’s office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old Palais would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I should be able to say to the reader, "Go and look at it," and we should thus both escape the necessity,--I of making, and he of reading, a description of it, such as it is. Which demonstrates a new truth: that great events have incalculable results.
It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place, that Ravaillac had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he had any, they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618. Two other very plausible explanations exist: First, the great flaming star, a foot broad, and a cubit high, which fell from heaven, as every one knows, upon the law courts, after midnight on the seventh of March; second, Théophile’s quatrain,--"Sure, ’twas but a sorry game When at Paris, Dame Justice, Through having eaten too much spice, Set the palace all aflame."
Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation, political, physical, and poetical, of the burning of the law courts in 1618, the unfortunate fact of the fire is certain. Very little to-day remains, thanks to this catastrophe,--thanks, above all, to the successive restorations which have completed what it spared,--very little remains of that first dwelling of the kings of France,--of that elder palace of the Louvre, already so old in the time of Philip the Handsome, that they sought there for the traces of the magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared.
What has become of the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis consummated his marriage? the garden where he administered justice, ”clad in a coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves, and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with Joinville?” Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and that of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless?
Where is the staircase, from which Charles VI. promulgated his edict of pardon? the slab where Marcel cut the throats of Robert de Clermont and the Marshal of Champagne, in the presence of the dauphin? the wicket where the bulls of Pope Benedict were torn, and whence those who had brought them departed decked out, in derision, in copes and mitres, and making an apology through all Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all fretted with carvings? and the gilded chamber? and the stone lion, which stood at the door, with lowered head and tail between his legs, like the lions on the throne of Solomon, in the humiliated attitude which befits force in the presence of justice? and the beautiful doors? and the stained glass? and the chased ironwork, which drove Biscornette to despair? and the delicate woodwork of Hancy?
What has time, what have men done with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still ringing with the tattle of the Patru.
It is not much. Let us return to the veritable grand hall of the veritable old palace. The two extremities of this giganticparallelogram were occupied, the one by the famous marble table, so long, so broad, and so thick that, as the ancient land rolls--in a style that would have given Gargantua an appetite--say, "such a slice of marble as was never beheld in the world"; the other by the chapel where Louis XI. had himself sculptured on his knees before the Virgin, and whither he caused to be brought, without heeding the two gaps thus made in the row of royal statues, the statues of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis, two saints whom he supposed to be great in favor in heaven, as kings of France.
This chapel, quite new, having been built only six years, was entirely in that charming taste of delicate architecture, of marvellous sculpture, of fine and deep chasing, which marks with us the end of the Gothic era, and which is perpetuated to about the middle of the sixteenth century in the fairylike fancies of the Renaissance. The little open-work rose window, pierced above the portal, was, in particular, a masterpiece of lightness and grace; one would have pronounced it a star of lace.
In the middle of the hall, opposite the great door, a platform of gold brocade, placed against the wall, a special entrance to which had been effected through a window in the corridor of the gold chamber, had been erected for the Flemish emissaries and the other great personages invited to the presentation of the mystery play.
It was upon the marble table that the mystery was to be enacted, as usual. It had been arranged for the purpose, early in the morning; its rich slabs of marble, all scratched by the heels of law clerks, supported a cage of carpenter’s work of considerable height, the upper surface of which, within view of the whole hall, was to serve as the theatre, and whose interior, masked by tapestries, was to take the place of dressing-rooms for the personages of the piece. A ladder, naively placed on the outside, was to serve as means of communication between the dressing-room and the stage, and lend its rude rungs to entrances as well as to exits. There was no personage, however unexpected, no sudden change, no theatrical effect, which was not obliged to mount that ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of art and contrivances!
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四名卫士直挺挺地站在大理石台子的四角上。无论在节日或是行刑日,他们总要到场监视老百姓的娱乐活动。
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Four of the bailiff of the palace’s sergeants, perfunctory guardians of all the pleasures of the people, on days of festival as well as on days of execution, stood at the four corners of the marble table.
The piece was only to begin with the twelfth stroke of the great palace clock sounding midday. It was very late, no doubt, for a theatrical representation, but they had been obliged to fix the hour to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.
Now, this whole multitude had been waiting since morning. A goodly number of curious, good people had been shivering since daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace; some even affirmed that they had passed the night across the threshold of the great door, in order to make sure that they should be the first to pass in. The crowd grew more dense every moment, and, like water, which rises above its normal level, began to mount along the walls, to swell around the pillars, to spread out on the entablatures, on the cornices, on the window-sills, on all the salient points of the architecture, on all the reliefs of the sculpture.
Hence, discomfort, impatience, weariness, the liberty of a day of cynicism and folly, the quarrels which break forth for all sorts of causes--a pointed elbow, an iron-shod shoe, the fatigue of long waiting--had already, long before the hour appointed for the arrival of the ambassadors, imparted a harsh and bitter accent to the clamor of these people who were shut in, fitted into each other, pressed, trampled upon, stifled.
Nothing was to be heard but imprecations on the Flemish, the provost of the merchants, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the bailiff of the courts, Madame Marguerite of Austria, the sergeants with their rods, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the Bishop of Paris, the Pope of the Fools, the pillars, the statues, that closed door, that open window; all to the vast amusement of a band of scholars and lackeys scattered through the mass, who mingled with all this discontent their teasing remarks, and their malicious suggestions, and pricked the general bad temper with a pin, so to speak.
Among the rest there was a group of those merry imps, who, after smashing the glass in a window, had seated themselves hardily on the entablature, and from that point despatched their gaze and their railleries both within and without, upon the throng in the hall, and the throng upon the Place. It was easy to see, from their parodied gestures, their ringing laughter, the bantering appeals which they exchanged with their comrades, from one end of the hall to the other, that these young clerks did not share the weariness and fatigue of the rest of the spectators, and that they understood very well the art of extracting, for their own private diversion from that which they had under their eyes, a spectacle which made them await the other with patience.
"Upon my soul, so it’s you, ’Joannes Frollo de Molendino!’" cried one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a well-favored and maligncountenance, clinging to the acanthus leaves of a capital; "you are well named John of the Mill, for your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings fluttering on the breeze. How long have you been here?"
"By the mercy of the devil," retorted Joannes Frollo, "these four hours and more; and I hope that they will be reckoned to my credit in purgatory. I heard the eight singers of the King of Sicilyintone the first verse of seven o’clock mass in the Sainte-Chapelle."
"Fine singers!" replied the other, "with voices even more pointed than their caps! Before founding a mass for Monsieur Saint John, the king should have inquired whether Monsieur Saint John likes Latin droned out in a Proven?al accent."
"He did it for the sake of employing those accursed singers of the King of Sicily!" cried an old woman sharply from among the crowd beneath the window. "I just put it to you! A thousand ~livres parisi~ for a mass! and out of the tax on sea fish in the markets of Paris, to boot!"
"Peace, old crone," said a tall, grave person, stopping up his nose on the side towards the fishwife; "a mass had to be founded. Would you wish the king to fall ill again?"
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“说得好,吉尔·勒科尼阁下,王室皮货店老板!”盘踞在柱顶雕饰上的小个子学生喊道。
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"Bravely spoken, Sire Gilles Lecornu, master furrier of king’s robes!" cried the little student, clinging to the capital.
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学生们听见王室皮货店老板这个倒霉称呼,就哄堂大笑起来。
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A shout of laughter from all the students greeted the unlucky name of the poor furrier of the king’s robes.
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“勒科尼!吉尔·勒科尼!”有的喊道。
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"Lecornu! Gilles Lecornu!" said some.
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“有角有毛的。”另一个说。
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"~Cornutus et hirsutus~, horned and hairy," another went on.
"He! of course," continued the small imp on the capital, "What are they laughing at? An honorable man is Gilles Lecornu, brother of Master Jehan Lecornu, provost of the king’s house, son of Master Mahiet Lecornu, first porter of the Bois de Vincennes,--all bourgeois of Paris, all married, from father to son."
The gayety redoubled. The big furrier, without uttering a word in reply, tried to escape all the eyes riveted upon him from all sides; but he perspired and panted in vain; like a wedge entering the wood, his efforts served only to bury still more deeply in the shoulders of his neighbors, his large, apoplectic face, purple with spite and rage.
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周围的人中有个同他一样又矮又胖、一样道貌岸然的人来给他帮忙了。
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At length one of these, as fat, short, and venerable as himself, came to his rescue.
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“大学生竟敢对一位市民这样讲话!在我们那时候,要是这样就得把他们先鞭打一顿再活活烧死!”
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"Abomination! scholars addressing a bourgeois in that fashion in my day would have been flogged with a fagot, which would have afterwards been used to burn them."
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大伙儿嚷嚷开了。
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The whole band burst into laughter.
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“哎呀,谁在唱这个调调?那不吉祥的猫头鹰是哪一个?”
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"Holà hé! who is scolding so? Who is that screech owl of evil fortune?"
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“瞧,我认得他,”一个说道,“那是安德里·米斯尼哀老板。”
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"Hold, I know him" said one of them; "’tis Master Andry Musnier."
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“因为他是大学区四个该骂的书店老板之一。”另一个说道。
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"Because he is one of the four sworn booksellers of the university!" said the other.
"Everything goes by fours in that shop," cried a third; "the four nations, the four faculties, the four feasts, the four procurators, the four electors, the four booksellers."
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"那就让“四’见鬼去吧!”若望·孚罗洛说。
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"Well," began Jean Frollo once more," we must play the devil with them."
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“米斯尼哀,我们要烧掉你那些书!”
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“Musnier, we’ll burn thy books.”
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“米斯尼哀,我们要揍你店里的那些伙计!”
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“Musnier, we’ll beat thy servants.”
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“米斯尼哀,我们要让你老婆伤心!”
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“Musnier, we’ll tickle thy wife.”
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“那好心肠的胖胖的乌达德女士啊。”
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“The good, plump Mlle. Oudarde.”
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“要是她成了寡妇,她也还是又鲜艳又快活的!”
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“Who is as buxom and merry as if she were already a widow.”
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“魔鬼把你们都抓去吧!”安德里·米斯尼哀老板嘀咕道。
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“The devil fly away with you all,” growled Ma?tre Andry Musnier.
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“住口,安德里老板!”依旧吊在柱顶雕饰上的若望说,“要不我就跌到你脑袋上来了!”
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“Ma?tre Andry,” said Jehan, still hanging fast to his capital,“hold thy tongue, or I fall plump on thy head.”
Ma?tre Andry looked up, appeared to calculate for a moment the height of the pillar and the weight of the little rascal,mentally multiplied that weight by the square of the velocity —and held his peace. Whereupon Jehan, left master of the field, added triumphantly, “And I’d do it too,though I am the brother of an archdeacon.”
“A fine set of gentlemen those of ours at the University,not even on a day like this do they see that we get our rights.There’s a may-pole and a bonfire in the town, a Fools’Pope and Flemish ambassadors in the city, but at the University, nothing!”
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“但是莫贝尔广场可够大的呢!”守在窗台上的学生里有一个说道。
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“And yet the Place Maubert is large enough,” observed one of the youngsters, ensconced in a corner of the window-ledge.
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“打倒校长!打倒选民们和医学家们!”若望嚷道。
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“Down with the Rector, the electors, and the procurators!” yelled Jehan.
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“安德里老板的那些书呀,”另一个接着说,“今晚上应该拿到加雅田野里去烧起一堆篝火!”
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“We’ll make a bonfire to-night in the Champs-Gaillard with Ma?tre Andry’s books!” added another.
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“还有书记们的桌子!”他旁边的人说。
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“And the desks of the scribes!” cried his neighbour.
“Down!” bellowed little Jehan in a roaring bass; “down with Ma?tre Andry, the beadles and the scribes; down with the theologians, the physicians, and the priests; down with the procurators, the electors, and the Rector!”
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“这真是世界的末日啦!”安德里喃喃说,一面把耳朵捂上。
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“ ’Tis the end of the world!” muttered Ma?tre Andry,stopping his ears.
“Is it in truth our venerable Rector, Ma?tre Thibaut? ”inquired Jehan Frollo du Moulin, who from his pillar in the interior of the Hall could see nothing of what went on outside.
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“对呀,对呀,”其余的人一齐回答,“就是他,真的是他,是校长蒂博大师。”
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“Yes, yes,” responded the others in chorus, “it is Ma?tre Thibaut, the Rector himself.”
It was in fact the Rector,accompanied by all the dignitaries of the University going in procession to receive the ambassadors, and in the act of crossing the Place du Palais. The scholars crowding at the window greeted them as they passed with gibes and ironical plaudits. The Rector marching at the head of his band received the first volley—it was a heavy one.
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“日安,校长先生,喂,日安呀!”
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“Good-day, Monsieur the Rector—Holá there! Good-day to you!”
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“他到这儿干吗,这个老赌棍?难道他不再掷骰子了吗?”
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“How comes it that the old gambler has managed to be here? Has he then actually left his dice?”
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“他骑在骡子上摇摆得多厉害!骡子的耳朵还没有他的耳朵长呢!”
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“Look at him jogging alone on his mule—its ears are not as long as his own!”
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“喂,日安,校长蒂博先生!幸运儿蒂博!老糊涂!老赌棍!”
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“Holá, good-day to you Monsieur the Rector Thibaut!Tybalde aleator!7 old numskull! old gamester!”
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“上帝保佑你!昨晚你照常去掷双六了么?”
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“God save you! How often did you throw double six last night?”
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“啊,这张脸是多么衰老!那是因为爱玩爱赌,给扭歪了,抓破了,打伤了的呀!”
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“Oh, just look at the lantern-jawed old face of him—all livid and drawn and battered from his love of dice and gaming!”
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“倒霉蛋蒂博,你这样背向大学区朝着市民区奔跑,想上哪儿去呀?”
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“Where are you off to like that, Thibaut, Tybalde ad dados, 8 turning your back on the University and trotting towards the town?”
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84
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“他准是要上蒂博多代街去找个住处!”磨坊的若望嚷道。
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84
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“Doubtless he is going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodè!”cried Jehan Frollo.
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85
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那群人全都重复这句嘲骂,一面雷鸣般地嚷叫,使劲地鼓掌。
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85
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The whole ribald crew repeated the pun in a voice of thunder and with furious clapping of hands.
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86
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“你要到蒂博多代街找住处,不是吗,校长先生,从魔鬼那里来的赌棍?”
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86
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“You are off to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodè, aren’t you, Monsieur the Rector, own partner to the devil!”
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87
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随后又轮到嘲笑那些要员们了。
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87
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Now came the turn of the other dignitaries.
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88
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“打倒教堂侍役们!打倒权杖手们!”
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88
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“Down with the beadles! Down with the mace-bearers!”
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89
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“你说说,罗班·普斯潘,那个家伙是什么人?”
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89
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“Tell me, Robin Poussepain, who is that one over there?”
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90
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“那是吉贝尔·德·许里,‘吉贝尔杜·德·索里亚科’,他是俄当学院的挂名校长。”
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90
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“It is Gilbert de Suilly, Gilbertus de Soliaco, the Chancellor of the College of Autun.”
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91
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“喂,这是我的鞋。你占的位置比我优越,把它朝他脸上扔去!”
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91
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“Here, take my shoe—you have a better place than I have—throw it in his face!”
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92
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“今天可会有烂苹果丢到头上哪!”
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92
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“Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces!”
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93
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“打倒那六个穿白袈裟的神学家!”
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93
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“Down with the six theologians in their white surplices!”
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94
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“那边的几个就是神学家吗?我还当是圣热纳维埃夫学院为了胡尼采邑送给市民区的六只白鹅呢。”
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94
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“Are those the theologians? I took them for the six white geese Sainte-Geneviéve pays to the Town as tribute for the fief of Roogny.”
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95
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“打倒医生们!”
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95
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“Down with the physicians!”
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96
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“打倒乱七八糟的争论和玩笑!”
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96
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“Down with all the pompous and squabbling disputations!”
“Here goes my cap at thy head, Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviéve; I owe thee a grudge. He gave my place in the Nation of Normandy to little Ascaino Falzaspada, who as an Italian, belongs of right to the Province of Bourges.”
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98
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“这可不公平呀,”所有的学生一齐嚷道。“打倒圣热纳维埃夫学院的校长!”
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98
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“ ’Tis an injustice!” cried the scholars in chorus. “Down with the Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviéve!”
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99
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“喂!若相·德·拉朵大师!喂,路易·达于耶!喂,朗贝·阿克特芒!”
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99
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“Ho, there, Ma?tre Joachim de Ladehors! Ho, Louis Dahuille! Ho, Lambert Hoctement!”
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100
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“让魔鬼勒死那个德国医生吧!”
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100
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“The devil choke the Procurator of the Nation of Germany!”
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101
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“还有圣小教堂那些戴黑头巾的神甫!”
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101
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“And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle in their gray amices; cum tunicis grisis!”
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102
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“还有那些穿灰毛皮袈裟的!”
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102
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“Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis!”
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103
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“哎呀,艺术大师们!穿漂亮灰斗篷的人们!穿漂亮红斗篷的人们!”
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103
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“There go the Masters of Art! Oh, the fine red copes! and oh, the fine black ones!”
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104
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“这可就使校长有了一条漂亮尾巴啦!”
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104
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“That makes a fine tail for the Rector!”
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105
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“真象是一位去和大海举行婚礼的威尼斯公爵呀!”
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105
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“He might be the Doge of Venice going to espouse the sea.”
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106
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“喂,若望!圣热纳维埃夫司教会的会员们来啦!”
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106
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“Look, Jehan, the canons of Sainte-Geneviéve!”
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107
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“司教会会员们见鬼去吧!”
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107
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“The foul fiend take the whole lot of them!”
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108
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“克洛德·绍尔长老!克洛德·绍尔博士!你是在找玛丽·拉·日法尔德吗?”
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108
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“Abbè Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart, do you seek Marie la Giffarde?”
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109
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“她是格拉蒂尼的芸香。”
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109
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“You’ll find her in the Rue Glatigny.”
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110
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“她给流氓头儿铺床。”
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110
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“Bed-making for the King of the Bawdies!”
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111
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“她付出四个德尼埃。”
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111
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“She pays her fourpence—quatuor denarios.”
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112
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“或者光是嚷嚷。”
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112
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“Aut unum bombum.”
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113
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“你愿意她当面付给你吗?”
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113
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“Would you have her pay you with one on the nose?”
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114
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“同学们,那是庇卡底的选举人西蒙·尚甘先生,他让老婆坐在马屁股上哪!”
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114
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“Comrades! Ma?tre Simon Sanguin, the elector of the Nation of Picardy, with his wife on the saddle behind him.”
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115
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“骑士背后坐着黑色的悲伤。”
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115
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“Post equitem sedet atra cura.”
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116
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“日安呀,选举人先生!”
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116
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“Good-day to you, Monsieur the Elector!”
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117
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“晚安呀,选举人太太!”
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117
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“Good-night to you, Madame the Electress!”
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118
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“他们什么都看得见可快活啦!”若望·梅朗狄诺感叹道,他依旧高踞在柱顶的花叶形雕饰上。
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118
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“Lucky dogs to be able to see all that!” sighed Joannes de Molendino, still perched among the acanthus leaves of his capital.
Meanwhile the bookseller of the University, Ma?tre Andry Musnier, leaned over and whispered to the Court furrier, Ma?tre Gilles Lecornu:“I tell you, monsieur, ’tis the end of the world. Never has there been such unbridled license among the scholars. It all comes of these accursed inventions—they ruin everything—the artillery,the culverine, the blunderbuss, and above all, printing, that second pestilence brought us from Germany. No more manuscripts—no more books!Printing gives the death-blow to bookselling. It is the beginning of the end.”
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120
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“这个呀!我从天鹅绒衣料的风行上也看得出来。”皮货商说道。
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120
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“I, too, am well aware of it by the increasing preference for velvet stuffs,” said the furrier.
A long-drawn “Ah!” went up from the crowd.The scholars held their peace. There ensued a general stir and upheaval, a great ffling of feet and movement of heads, much coughing and blowing of noses; everyone resettled himself, rose on tip-toe, placed himself in the most favourable position obtainable.
Then deep silence, every neck outstretched, every mouth agape, every eye fixed on the marble table. Nothing appeared; only the four sergeants were still at their posts, stiff and motionless as four painted statues. Next, all eyes turned towards the platform reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained closed and the platform empty. Since daybreak the multitude had been waiting for three things—the hour of noon,the Flemish ambassadors, and the Mystery-Play. Noon alone had kept the appointment. It was too bad.
They waited one, two, three, five minutes—a quarter of an hour—nothing happened. Then anger followed on the heels of impatience; indignant words flew hither and thither, though in suppressed tones as yet. “The Mystery, the Mystery!” they murmured sullenly. The temper of the crowd began to rise rapidly. The warning growls of the gathering storm rumbled overhead. It was Jehan du Moulin who struck out the first flash.
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125
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“开演圣迹剧!让弗朗德勒的使臣们见鬼去吧!”他象一条蛇似的绕着柱顶雕饰扭来扭去,使足劲大声喊道。
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125
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“Let’s have the Mystery, and the devil take the Flemings!” he cried at the pitch of his voice,coiling himself about his pillar like a serpent.
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126
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群众拍起手来。
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126
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The multitude clapped its approval.
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127
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“开演圣迹剧!”他们又嚷道:“让弗朗德勒人见鬼去吧!”
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127
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“The Mystery, the Mystery!” they repeated, “and to the devil with all Flanders!”
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128
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“得马上给我们开演圣迹剧,”若望说,“要不然我可敢把法官吊起来,这件事就算是喜剧和寓言剧了。”
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128
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“Give us the Mystery at once,” continued the scholar, “or it’s my advice we hang the provost of the Palais by way of both Comedy and Morality.”
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129
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“说得好,”人们嚷道,“咱们先把这几个卫士吊起来吧!”
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129
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“Well said!” shouted the crowd, “and let’s begin the hanging by stringing up his sergeants.”
A great roar of applause followed. The four poor devils grew pale and glanced apprehensively at one another. The multitude surged towards them, and they already saw the frail wooden balustrade that formed the only barrier between them and the crowd bulge and give way under the pressure from without.
At that instant the curtain of the dressing-room we have described was raised to give passage to a personage, the mere sight of whom suddenly arrested the crowd, and, as if by magic, transformed its anger into curiosity.
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134
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“肃静!肃静!”
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134
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“Silence! Silence!”
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135
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那个人相当不安,手脚颤抖,一直走到大理石台子边上连连鞠躬,走得离人们越近,那种鞠躬越发象是跪拜了。
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135
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But slightly reassured and trembling in every limb, the person in question advanced to the edge of the marble table with a profusion of bows which, the nearer he approached, assumed more and more the character of genuflections.
“Messieurs the bourgeois,” he began, “and Mesdemoiselles the bourgeoises, we shall have the honour of declaiming and performing before his Eminence Monsieur the Cardinal a very fine Morality entitled ’The Good Judgment of Our Lady the Virgin Mary.’ I play Jupiter. His Eminence accompanies at this moment the most honourable Embassy of the Duke of Austria, just now engaged in listening to the harangue of Monsieur the Rector of the University at the Porte Baudets.As soon as the Most Reverend the Cardinal arrives we will commence.”
Certainly nothing less than the direct intervention of Jupiter could have saved the four unhappy sergeants of the provost of the Palais from destruction. Were we so fortunate as to have invented this most veracious history and were therefore liable to be called to task for it by Our Lady of Criticism, not against us could the classical rule be cited, Nec deus intersit.
For the rest, the costume of Seigneur Jupiter was very fine, and had contributed not a little towards soothing the crowd by occupying its whole attention. Jupiter was arrayed in a “brigandine” or shirt of mail of black velvet thickly studded with gilt nails, on his head was a helmet embellished with silver-gilt buttons, and but for the rouge and the great beard which covered respectively the upper and lower half of his face, but for the roll of gilded pasteboard in his hand studded with iron spikes and bristling with jagged strips of tinsel, which experienced eyes at once recognised as the dread thunder-bolt, and were it not for his flesh-coloured feet, sandalled and beribboned á la Grecque,you would have been very apt to mistake him for one of M. de Berry’s company of Breton archers.