穷人的财产.DOC

第一章 小 镇 Chapter 1 A Small Town 维里业是弗朗什-孔泰地区的一座小镇。市长德·雷纳先生拥有一个制钉厂，他有四十五岁，思想狭隘。只有他拖欠别人的钱，而别人欠他的钱是不能拖的。 市长用制钉厂的赢利造了一座全部用石头砌成的房子。一八一五年，他当上了维里业的市长，他家的美丽花园被分成了好几部分，还修了土墙支撑，因此市长得到了四邻的尊重。市长利用自己的声望在他大选获胜后将河流改道。 在维里业，修建护土墙可以得到大家的尊重，但不能用从巴黎来的工匠。因为共和制度下生活过的巴黎人，在这里是很难待下去的。 ut thousands together Less bad, But the cage less gay. HOBBES The small town of Verrières may be regarded as one of the most attractive in the Franche-Comte. Its white houses with their high pitched roofs of red tiles are spread over the slope of a hill, the slightest contours of which are indicated by clumps of sturdy chestnuts. The Doubs runs some hundreds of feet below its fortifications, built in times past by the Spaniards, and now in ruins. 市长家的花园修筑了土墙 Verrières is sheltered on the north by a high mountain, a spur of the Jura. The jagged peaks of the Verra put on a meintle of snow in the first cold days of October. A torrent which comes tearing down from the mountain passes through Verrières before emptying its waters into the Doubs, and supplies power to a great number of sawmills; this is an extremely simple industry, and procurés a certain degree of comfort for the majority of the inhabitants, who are of the peasant rather than of the burgess class. It is not, however, the sawmills that have made this little town rich. It is to the manufacture of printed calicoes, known as Mulhouse stuffs, that it owes the general prosperity which, since the fall of Napoleon, has led to the refacing of almost all the houses in Verrières. No sooner has one entered the town than one is startled by the din of a noisy machine of terrifying aspect. A score of weighty hammers, falling with a clang which makes the pavement tremble, are raised aloft by a wheel which the water of the torrent sets in motion. Each of these hammers turns out, daily, I cannot say how many thousands of nails. A bevy of fresh, pretty girls subject to the blows of these enormous hammers, the little scraps of iron which are rapidly transf