SOSPEL: THE OLD BRIDGE.
After the glory of Rome had passed away Sospel still remained a commanding city and, throughout the Middle Ages and for century after century, it held its place as a most influential14 town in this domain15 of France. It became the seat of a bishop16 as early as 1337 and Alberti, the historian of Sospel,[54] tells of its high clerics, of its consuls18, of its judges and of its other exalted19 men. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was a city with many thousands of inhabitants. It was surrounded by high walls, had five gates and many strong towers. It could boast of no fewer than one hundred and sixty-two shops and two monti di pietà. It had a cathedral and as many as twenty churches and chapels20, fifteen squares, many convents and monasteries21, an academy and a college for lawyers.[55] A great fair was held every year on St. Luke’s Day in October in the Piazza22 di San Michele, for Sospel was a centre of commerce and of industry for miles around.
The town has seen much trouble and has endured periods of stress and times of calamity23. Indeed so sad have been some phases of its history that, although it can boast of years of flamboyant24 glory, it is probable that its happiest days are now, when it has become a village of no account. About the end of the eighth century Sospel was almost entirely25 destroyed by fire. In 1516 it was ravaged26 by the Gascons and reduced, for the time, to a smouldering waste. In the sixteenth century the town became prominent as a place of horror by reason of the wholesale27 burning of heretics in the Piazza di San Michele.
Possibly the most terrible calamity that befell Sospel was through the visitations of the plague. The most disastrous28 of these visits was in the year 1688. The people died as if the very air were poisoned. The streets were deserted29; the shops were closed. Those who knelt in the church to pray could hear above their cries to heaven the thud of the mattock and the spade in the graveyard30 near at hand. It seemed as if Sospel was to be left desolate31 and that in a few dire32 weeks the river would be babbling33 seawards through a lifeless town.
The elders of the city met and resolved that all the inhabitants of the place, those whom the Terror as yet had spared, should make a pilgrimage to Laghet to confess their sins and implore34 the Madonna to intercede35 with heaven on their behalf. At sunrise one pleasant day in July the procession formed up outside the walls and started on its penitential march. It was a hard journey and very pitiable. The distance was great; for even as the bird flies it is no less than ten miles from Sospel to Laghet.
There was no road to follow, only a rough path that struggled over hills and vales, over rocks and stony36 slopes. The poor distracted company would climb first to Castillon, thence probably to Gorbio, then on to La Turbie and so to Laghet. It would be an arduous37 journey for a sturdy man, but for these panic-stricken folk it was as cruel a passage as the most relentless39 could devise.
In front of the column would walk the priests clad in white and bearing a cross. Then would come the great officers of the city with the nobles of Sospel, then the soldiers and after them the people of the town. Along the length of the column would break forth40, again and again, the cry, “In the name of God on to Laghet!”
SOSPEL: THE RIVER FRONT.
There would be old and young in the crowd, boys clinging to their mothers’ gowns, girls perched on their fathers’ shoulders and pleased for a while with the unwonted ride. The buxom41 maid would give an arm to her grandfather, the young husband a hand to his faltering42 wife. There would be some on mules43 and some on donkeys and at the wavering end of the procession would stumble the stragglers who were failing with every step.
Not a few would be smitten44 with death as they walked, would drop out of the throng45 and roll among the brambles by the way. None could linger behind to bear them company, for still the cry would ring forth along the line, “In the name of God on to Laghet!”
Think then of the town left behind! Silent but for the heartless chatter1 of the stream, empty save for the very old, the very weak, the dying and the dead.
Sospel, when viewed from a height, appears (as already stated) as a splash of chocolate-brown on the floor of a grey valley, chocolate-brown being the colour of its roofs. It is a small place of 3,500 inhabitants languidly busy in the construction of a railway which seems disinclined to develop and still more feebly concerned in a golf course which declines to “open.”
The town is divided into two parts by the Bevera river. The quarter on the north bank is poor and resigned to a damp and musty squalor; while the south side of the town contains all that Sospel can boast of in the matter of present prosperity and departed greatness. Two bridges—one old and one new—connect the towns. The old bridge is picturesque46, being composed of two very ancient arches which have never come to an agreement as to what should be their common level. In the centre of the bridge is a little, old, surly tower which forms an arch over the road after the manner of a village Temple Bar. The tower has been converted, with marked unsuccess, into a dwelling47 house with a bow window and balcony on its less dejected front and with gaudy48 advertisements on its other sides. Since no one appears to have the courage to live in this impossible dwelling it is empty. As a tower to defend the ford49 it is a monument of incompetence50 and as a house on a bridge of the type of those on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence it is a sorry thing. It is indeed neither a tower nor a house. It is merely a failure.
The north town is made up of old buildings and narrow lanes which are filled with gloom and with a smell so pressing that it can almost be felt with the hand. The main lane, and the most pungent51, is called the Rue38 de la République. If it be intended by its title to flatter the Republic of France the compliment is doubtful.
The fronts of the houses that look into the lane are of great antiquity52, but the backs that look on to the river are unreasonably53 modern. This river front of Sospel is one of its most curious sights. The houses are of four stories and each floor of each house is provided with a balcony. Except that they all look fragile and unsafe and the work of a rash amateur builder, no two balconies are quite alike. One may pertain54 to a kitchen, another to a sitting-room55 and a third to a bedroom and each balcony will contain the paraphernalia56 proper to its particular apartment. The united display of utensils57 shows how complex and exacting58 human life has become since the days of the cave man. I never before realised that so many buckets are required to satisfy the needs of a modern community.
SOSPEL: THE PLACE ST. MICHEL.
Each balcony gives a demonstration59 of some phase of domestic life, conducted without any prudish60 pretence61 at concealment62. Viewed as a whole they form a series of little stages upon which every episode of the home is being displayed in the open air. On a fourth floor balcony a woman will be cooking, while in the balcony below a young woman is “doing” her hair—a curious operation to watch since she tugs63 at her hair as if it belonged to a person she did not like. On a third balcony a woman may be stuffing a chair or mending a stocking; while on yet another may be witnessed in detail the whole tiresome64 process of dressing65 a child. One balcony has been turned into a fowl-house and another is devoted66 to the cultivation67 of a vine. On all these little galleries washing in some stage is in progress for washing among these people is like a familiar air running, with endless repetitions, through the music of a comedy of life.
The main town of Sospel is full of all the interest and charm that surrounds a relic68 of the Middle Ages. It is made up of unmanageable little streets that will run where they like, of lanes so dim that they suggest the light of a dying lamp and of gracious houses whose beauty is soiled by grimy hands and marred69 by the patchwork70 of poverty, like a fine piece of tapestry71 that has been darned as uncouthly72 as a labourer’s sock. There are black passages as well as brilliant little squares, unaccountable stairways and mysterious arcades73. Some of the streets are so narrow as to be mere cracks in a block of houses, while two at least, the Rue Pellegrini and the Rue du Chateau74, are no more than moist, obscure gutters75.
Many of the houses, although they stand now in mean streets, have evidently been public buildings of importance or palaces of the great people of Sospel. These houses are built of stone, have noble entries and fine windows, some of which still parade pointed76 arches and delicate columns. There is an old mansion77 of this type in the Rue St. Pierre which is still magnificent in spite of the humiliating indignities78 to which it has been subjected. Less ambitious houses show traces of light-hearted decoration in the form of arcading79 or other fanciful work in stone.
The centre of the town is the Place St. Michel, a small, irregular square with the church on one side and, elsewhere, a medley80 of houses built over arcades. This piazza is quite Italian in character, is rather dissolute-looking and bears many evidences of having come down in the world.
The church, which is approached by a flight of wide steps, belongs to the seventeenth century, has been judiciously81 restored and has a fa?ade of no little beauty. By its side is a very ancient campanile of dingy82 grey stone surmounted83 by a curious pyramidal steeple. It has stood in this square for hundreds of vivid years and if it could tell of all that it has seen it would recount a story tragic84 enough. Its bells have many times clanged forth the alarm. Its watchman has often screamed from the tower that armed men were swarming85 down the hill. It has seen the ladies of the town, in silks and satins, step daintily across the Place on their way to Mass through a crowd of cap-doffing citizens. It has heard the consul17 read out a proclamation to a sullen86 mob, while yells of dissent87 have belched88 forth from the dark arcades like a volley of musketry; and more lamentable89 than all it has seen a sinister90 column of smoke rise out of the square from the blaze of crackling faggots upon which shrieking91 heretics, bound hand and foot, were thrown like bundles of fuel.
A SQUARE IN SOSPEL.
SOSPEL: THE RUINS OF THE CONVENT.
Beyond the church, in an untidy garden, are the ruins of an old convent which still show the long colonnade92 of the cloisters93 and the windows of the upper rooms. Near by is one of the old square towers of the town, a mere shell of masonry94 that the sun of centuries has bleached95 as white as a bone. Alongside the tower runs a section of the city wall, pierced by a stone gateway96 with a pointed arch. This medi?val entry is very picturesque; for it serves to show how Sospel looked to the approaching traveller when it was a fortified city girt about by a great wall with many gates and many towers.
[54]
“Istoria della citta de Sospello,” by S. Alberti, Torino, 1728.
[55]
“Mentone,” by Dr. George Müller, London, 1910.
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1
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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garrisoned
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| 卫戍部队守备( garrison的过去式和过去分词 )； 派部队驻防 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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consuls
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| 领事( consul的名词复数 )； （古罗马共和国时期）执政官 （古罗马共和国及其军队的最高首长，同时共有两位，每年选举一次） | |
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19
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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23
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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24
flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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26
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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32
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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33
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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intercede
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| vi.仲裁，说情 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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40
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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41
buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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43
mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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49
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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50
incompetence
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| n.不胜任，不称职 | |
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51
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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54
pertain
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| v.(to)附属，从属；关于；有关；适合，相称 | |
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55
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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56
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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57
utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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59
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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prudish
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| adj.装淑女样子的，装规矩的，过分规矩的；adv.过分拘谨地 | |
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61
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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63
tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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64
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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71
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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uncouthly
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arcades
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| n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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75
gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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76
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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77
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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arcading
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| 连拱饰 | |
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80
medley
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| n.混合 | |
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81
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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82
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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85
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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86
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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87
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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88
belched
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| v.打嗝( belch的过去式和过去分词 )；喷出，吐出；打（嗝）；嗳（气） | |
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89
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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90
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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91
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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92
colonnade
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| n.柱廊 | |
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93
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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94
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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95
bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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96
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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