By Nouran Maamoun
“Sous Les Tilleuls” was the first novel written by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, a French critic, journalist, and novelist. Karr wrote this autobiographical romantic novel in 1832.
Over 60 years later, Mustafa Lutfi El-Manfalouti translated it into Arabic under the name “Magdolin”.
“Magdolin” itself became another masterpiece, as El-Manfalouti’s translation, which can be better described as an Arabisation, was original, strong, and beautiful.
The novel is set in 19th Century, mainly rural, France, where values of beauty, honesty, modesty, simplicity and honour are most clear, and maybe this was the main thing attracting El-Manfalouti to “Sous Les Tilleuls”.
The story follows the epistolary style, and is composed mainly of letters and diary entries. The majority of the events are told to the readers through letters between Magdolin, Steven, Edward, and Suzan.
The love story between Magdolin and Steven starts in the countryside where Magdolin, a lonely child, lives with her father in his house, a comfortable and simple life that, as she describes it, is uneventful and uninteresting.
Steven, a poor young man who rents a room in Magdolina’s house, falls in love with her, a love which she returns. Their love, however, is met with the obstacle of money shortage on Steven’s life that, as she describes it, he will travel and work as hard as he can, and become rich enough to deserve her.
Things change when Magdolin visits her friend Suzan in the city and is introduced for the first time to the life of luxury and the advantages of wealth. She is also introduced to Edward, the wealthy and good-looking friend of Steven, who shows interest in her at first sight.
As Steven continues his struggle for wealth in vain, he suddenly inherits a large sum of money and keeps it a secret from his love, Magdolin, until he can tell her in person. But little does he know that she is already engaged to his wealthy friend.
Steven then goes into a state of shock and denial for a while, and then into a state of absolute misery, which he communicated to Magdolin in a number of very melancholy letters, but stops when she actually marries his friend.
He was led back to his passion for music, and little by little, the world is introduced to a phenomenal musician whose name becomes well known and his wealth grows by the day.
When Magdolin and Steven meet again, it is in very different circumstances as he becomes wealthy and famous and she starts to feel how mistaken she was in marrying Edward, who becomes very distant and carries the destructive habits of gambling and drinking.
Fate does not stop at that; Magdolin’s husband runs away from her, his debts, and their unborn child, leaving her to poverty and shame, from which she was saved by Steven who provided for her and her baby girl.
Magdolin falls back in love with Steven, and wishes to renew their relationship, which he refuses, not because he stopped loving her, but because he was still pained by her betrayal of his love.
Feeling that her life was now without hope or purpose, Magdolin decides to kill herself, and Steven is too late to her rescue. Her death leaves him in more sorrow than he ever knew, along with guilt for not forgiving her, and remorse for not taking her back when he had the chance, until love eventually kills him as well. Steven dies at his piano, after he played a masterpiece in honour of the love and loss of Magdolin.
El-Manfalouti’s version of the novel was met with even more appreciation than the original text, although some thought it too romantic and the idea was repeated in too many other novels. Another criticism was the over-detailed description of scenery, nature, houses, and plants which sometimes made the more shy readers bored. But the best thing about this novel remains the language and brilliance of Mustafa Lutfi El-Manfalouti.
This, however, was not El-Manfalouti’s only beautiful creation, as this Egyptian genius translated and novelised many other plays and novels from the French language.
