Hugo's birthplace is particularly visited / Feel African love at "Karen Manor"

Once the most beautiful city in France, there have been many world-class masters

Zheng YuanYuan

At the beginning of the year, in order to participate in the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Hugo's birth, the reporter visited the city of Besançon in eastern France, thus getting to know this ancient city with rich historical and cultural connotations.

Besançon is the capital of the Franche-Comte region in eastern France, and the Duber River bends here, as if the symbol of the resistance unit Ohm Ω, forming a geographical pattern of the ancient city surrounded by the river on three sides and the mountains on one side. Besançon is bordered by Switzerland to the east and Italy to the south, guarding the eastern gate of France.

Walking the streets of Besançon is like walking in the long river of history – there are monuments and history everywhere. On the edge of the city, the "Black Gate", built in 175 AD to celebrate the triumph of King Mark Oles, is still standing after two thousand years of wind and dust; the moss-covered stone staircase is a remnant of the ancient Roman era - an amphitheater that can accommodate 20,000 people; on the hill, the Fort Vupon, built in the era of Louis XIV in 1674, is still the most famous fortification in France; the old-style buildings in the city are made of gray-blue or white-ochre limestone. They shine beautifully in the sun, showing a very different look than in the industrial age.

Besançon, history has passed through here, creating an extraordinary ancient city. Stendhal's novel The Red and the Black is set in Besançon. When the protagonist of the novel crosses the suspension bridge of Besançon and enters the city, he admires the beauty of the city and thinks motionlessly. Jullien thought to himself: "Besançon is not only one of the most beautiful cities in France, but it also has so many enthusiastic and thoughtful people. "The 19th and 20th centuries were a time when ideas of French society were intertwined and artistic activities were extremely active, and Besançon was famous. Thinkers, writers, painters, scientists, and later world-class masters who were born or lived in this land, Chinese readers are familiar with: Fourier, the founder of utopian socialism, The economist, founder of anarchism, and the founder of social reformist theory, Proudhon, the painter Courbet, the poet Maramé, the genius scientist Pasteur of the 19th century, and the Lumière brothers who spent their teenage years in Besançon, the inventor of cinema and the Lumiere brothers who spent their youth in Besançon...

Of all the celebrities, the one who brought the greatest glory to Besançon was undoubtedly the great writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885). As the birthplace of the literary hero, the 2002 event to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Hugo's birth was full of scenery and even aroused the envy of other cities. They questioned Besançon's right to dominate Hugo, as the man of letter spent only 6 weeks in Besançon during his lifetime. But the city of Besançon paid no attention to these doubts, because they had a fake ironclad proof of Hugo's birth in 1802 preserved in the Besançon City Museum.

It turned out that Hugo's ancestors were not Besançon, or even from the Franche-Comté region, and on February 26, 1802, Hugo was born in a small 3-story building at 140 Tongqu Street in Besançon City. His birth in Besançon was purely accidental. Hugo's father was a general under Napoleon, and when he was stationed in Besançon, the little Hugo came to earth. Six weeks after Hugo's birth, his father was transferred to Marseille, where he left the city with his parents and two older brothers. Hugo lived to be 83 years old and never returned to his birthplace. However, he mentioned Besançon more than once in his poetry collections, novels, and plays.

Besançon, the celebrity walked by here, and the brilliance of the great man shone on it. Today you stroll through Besançon, where memorials associated with Hugo abound, but more than 100 years ago, Besançon did not welcome the master to "go home", and there were many storms around whether to erect a statue of Hugo.

In November 1901, in preparation for the centenary of Hugo's birth, the city council decided to call for a nationwide design proposal to erect a statue of Hugo, but a force opposed to Hugo did not agree with the plan at all. One city councilor, citing objections, said the collector Gygou had given all of his paintings to Besançon, but Hugo had given nothing to his hometown. This shallow statement was naturally opposed by many. From the perspective of material gifts, Hugo, Pasteur, Proudhon and others have not left a legacy for Besançon, but they have left glory and left an incomparable spiritual wealth!

After the news of the statue incident broke, many French writers, led by Zola, wrote to the mayor of Besançon, expressing their willingness to do their part in honor of the immortal Hugo. The Norwegian playwright Ibsen also wrote a letter in French from Oslo saying that he sincerely paid tribute to Besançon's glorious son. Besançon finally defeated the short sight and held a groundbreaking ceremony for the statue of Hugo on the occasion of Hugo's centenary, and the small square in front of Hugo's former home was officially renamed "Hugo Square".

Since then, the white marble Hugo statue has become a scene in Besançon, and Hugo scholars and Hugo admirers from all over the world have traveled thousands of miles to Besançon to see. Like a brilliant star, Hugo shines on Besançon, and together with Pasteur, Courbet and many other celebrities, he makes Besançon's starry sky more dazzling.

Feel African love at "Karen Manor"

Unforgettable experience written on the century-old tree of "Out of Africa" to witness the fiery emotions

Fei Maohua

On the grass of Karen Manor, look up at the 100-year-old flame tree that has witnessed a world-famous, fiery love. Now the lovers are gone, but the bright red flowers on the top of the tree are still burning like flames. I looked in the direction of the wind, and in the house in the middle of the meadow, a curtain of window screens was gently blown into the room by the wind, as if it had opened a corner of the room, bringing out a bit of darkness and sadness.

Karen Manor is located in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, the original area of 600 acres, the current Karen Manor and Karen House Museum is only 1/30 of the original size, although the area is not large, but attract the attention of visitors to Kenya.

Karen Brixen, a famous Danish writer, married swedish baron BloBloxen Finneck in 1914 and came to Kenya with her husband to run a coffee farm. In 1918, Karen became acquainted with the British hunter Dennis Finch Hatton. In 1921, Karen separated from her husband and took over the management of the farm. In 1931, Dennis was killed in a plane crash. Karen then returned to Denmark and became a professional writer. In 1937, her autobiographical novel Out of Africa came out and won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

So I followed the wind that lifted the window screen into the house where Karen had lived for 17 years, looking for traces of the life that had inspired Karen's creation.

Karen's house is about 200 square meters and has 9 rooms. The 3 rooms at the entrance are occupied by the staff as offices and shops selling souvenirs. Walking along a narrow corridor to the end, we truly entered the world that Karen once lived in.

The room on the left at the end of the corridor displays photographs of Karen and her relatives and friends, most notably a photograph of Karen when she was young against the wall in the doorway. "This was taken when Karen first arrived in Kenya, when she was 29 years old," said Miss Rose, my tour guide. Karen in the photo is wrapped in a headscarf, the corners of her mouth are slightly cocked with youthful vitality, as if smiling, and a pair of deep eyes are full of hope and fantasy about life. However, karen soon arrived in Kenya and discovered that Bloe was a playboy, obsessed with women, and passed on syphilis to Karen a year after marriage, leaving Karen infertile.

In another photo in the bedroom, Karen's hairstyle has changed to the style of a mature woman, with her hands on her left cheek and her eyes hanging down, so she can't see the look in her eyes.

Dennis graduated from Oxford University in the United Kingdom and fell in love with Africa after visiting his family in South Africa in 1911. His personable and maverick style influenced many celebrities of the time, such as the famous American writer Hemingway, the son of US President Roosevelt and the Duke of Windsor in Britain. In 1925, after Karen divorced her husband, Dennis moved in with her. Thus, in Karen's 600-acre estate, under the fragrant frangipani tree, dennis could often be seen resting on Karen's legs, indulging in the fantasy Karen described. Today, the yellow and white frangipani are still hanging from the branches, and the wooden bench where Karen and Dennis were nestled against each other has decayed, leaving only a lonely shelf on the ground, with unspeakable loneliness and loneliness. Mount Engong, facing the bench, is where Dennis rests. "Between the soft and fertile land of England and the ridges of Africa is the path he has traveled all his life... On Eaton's bridge the arrow left the string, following its own track, hitting the stone tablet on Mount Ngong," Karen wrote in Out of Africa. The year Dennis died, Karen sold the estate and all her furniture and returned to Denmark alone, never to Africa.

After returning to Denmark for 6 years, everything karen encountered in Africa "from pupa butterfly" became the world's well-known work "Out of Africa".

Now, Dennis's picture of a melancholy smile is placed opposite the photo karen took when she was 29, two young faces facing each other, two pairs of life-hungry eyes looking at each other.

Outside the showroom, on the table in the dining room, the dishes were as fresh as ever, neatly arranged, as if the host and guest were seated and were about to open the table. "This table is the original from Karen's house, and the chair is a replica." Miss Rose said, "After Karen went bankrupt, she sold everything, and later established the Karen House Museum, and many people who bought things sent things back, but some of them still couldn't find them."

I saw a white porcelain plate on the high coffee table next to the dining table, which was very conspicuous. The center of the plate is painted with a green dragon with teeth and claws, and many visitors have judged that it is produced in China, but when they pick it up, the back of the plate reads "Made in Britain". In the living room opposite the dining room, a beautifully made leopard skin is spread on the floor, showing Karen's wealth and love of hunting. Miss Rose said: "This leopard skin is not the original, Karen gave the original to the Danish king, and the leopard skin is now a prop for the movie Out of Africa. ”

Standing in Karen's house, I thought, although she has named her work "Out of Africa", but she has left everything here, including her marriage, love, manor, and even the body of her lover, how can she really go out of Africa?