新建成的博物馆造价1500万欧元（约合2100万美元）。一堵色彩鲜艳的弯曲墙构成了正厅，连接有金属的人行天桥。正厅中央有一个漆成棋盘图案的室内电梯井，让人不禁想起畅销的丁丁历险记里的登月火箭。博物馆位于公园内，架在几根立柱上。游客通过一条长长的木制人行桥进入馆内，感觉就像是登上一艘临时停靠在新鲁汶的飞船。整个建筑像是单调红的色楼宇中的一支交响乐。

Within is a landscape of the imagination, brightly lit and coloured, as outside a steady drizzle falls against the windows from leaden skies. If that sounds like a memory of childhood reading indoors, it is no accident. Since Tintin’s first appearance in a Belgian Catholic newspaper 80 years ago, generations have roamed the world vicariously through his comic-book adventures as a trouble-prone (if unusually clean-living) foreign reporter.

馆外铅灰色的天空飘着绵绵的细雨，打在窗上噼啪作响。馆内则是幻想的世界，灯光明亮、色彩绚丽。如果这听起来像是小时候在屋里看书的情景，可不是巧合啊。自从80年前丁丁首次在比利时天主教报纸亮相，一代又一代的人们跟随着漫画中爱惹麻烦（但却非常正直）的驻外记者周游世界。

In much of Europe, especially in Belgium and France, the stories have gained a devoted following, generating books, academic papers and conferences at which grown men (and it is usually men) debate arcana like the real-world location of Tintin’s Brussels home, or the ancestry of Captain Haddock, his best friend and drunken, comic foil. For less obsessive fans, the books are still an important memory. Some 200m albums have been sold in all, giving children their first taste of the exotic as Tintin fights bullies and solves mysteries from the jungles of Latin America to the mountains of Tibet: a sort of cartoon National Geographic, with the added appeal of car crashes and fist-fights.

在欧洲的许多地方，特别是在比利时和法国，丁丁的故事掀起了一股热潮。成年人们（通常是男人）出版书籍、撰写论文、召开研讨会，讨论丁丁的一些秘密，像是：丁丁在布鲁塞尔的家在现实世界的什么地方，丁丁的好朋友、嗜酒如命又滑稽的阿道克船长的祖先是谁。漫画对不那么狂热的“丁丁迷”也是一个重要的回忆，其销量达到了一亿册。丁丁深入拉美丛林、登上西藏高原，惩治流氓恶霸、解决各种谜题，让孩子们第一次体验到了异国风情。就像是漫画版的《国家地理杂志》，还附加了撞车、斗殴等吸引人的元素。

Both groups of fans will find much to please them in the new museum. The brainchild of Hergé’s second wife, Fanny Rodwell, who set up the Hergé Foundation in 1987, the museum shows off a rotating collection of original artwork and source materials, laying bare the hard work that Hergé put into his comics, with each speeding car, cityscape or policeman’s uniform inspired by archived photographs and research trips in the field. Back in his Brussels studios, Hergé would spend long hours posing as each character while assistants sketched him as a reference guide for the final drawings.

不论是什么程度的“丁丁迷”都能在新的博物馆里得到许多乐趣。埃尔热的第二任妻子芬尼·罗德韦尔（Fanny Rodwell）于1987年建立了埃尔热基金会，也是她提出了建造博物馆的想法。博物馆将循环展出漫画原稿和各种素材，向人们展现埃尔热创作漫画时付出的努力。每辆飞驰的汽车、每一处城市风光、每一件警察制服都根据档案照片绘制或者经过实地考证。在布鲁塞尔的画室内，埃尔热会摆出每个漫画人物的姿态，让助手先画出草图，作为最终画稿的参考，整个过程往往要花上数个小时。

Mr de Portzamparc—a past winner of the Pritzker prize, one of architecture’s highest awards—confesses that as an adult he rarely thought about Tintin. But the museum commission awoke memories of sketching Captain Haddock when he was a small boy and of doodling the ocean-going ships that fill the Tintin albums. “It was very easy to open the door and plunge back in,” he says.

设计师德·波特赞姆巴克曾经获得过建筑领域的最高奖项——普利兹克建筑奖。他承认自己长大后就很少想着丁丁了，但设计博物馆的工作又唤起了他小时候的记忆：随手画着阿道克船长和丁丁漫画里经常出现的远洋轮。他说：“这很容易让人回想起过去的日子。”

Yet the museum has another ambition: to cement the claim that Hergé, who died in 1983, was an important artist in his own right, whose talents as a graphic designer, painter and typographer were “somewhat eclipsed by the runaway success of ‘The Adventures of Tintin’,” to quote one oddly grudging sign on display. The reverential tone of such captions, allied to a general lack of larkishness, make clear this is a serious Hergé museum, not merely a Tintin exhibition. It seems fair to predict that many child visitors will be left decidedly fidgety.

建造博物馆还有另一个目的：让公众知道1983年逝世的埃尔热本身还是一位重量级的艺术家，他在设计、绘画和排版上也很有天赋，但正如一块展览牌上颇不情愿地写的：“被《丁丁历险记》的大获成功掩盖了”。文字说明充满了敬意，展馆庄重严肃，都向人们表明这是正经的埃尔热博物馆，而不单单是丁丁画展。可以预言，许多小观众在里面甚至会觉得无聊。

At times, the museum seems to be straining to make its argument. One display highlights Hergé’s love of modern art and his friendships in that world (his private collection included works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Alexander Calder). A sign high on a wall quotes Balthus, a Polish-French modern artist, recalling a happy evening with a sculptor friend, Alberto Giacometti, marvelling at the quality and depth of Hergé’s work. Yet the work that the two artists were admiring was a stack of Tintin albums. Quite right too: the Tintin books are by far Hergé’s finest achievement, admired by children and famous artists alike. You would think that would be enough.

博物馆有时像是在竭力说明自己的观点。其中一个展区着重介绍了埃尔热对现代艺术的热爱和他与圈内人的友谊（他收藏了安迪·沃霍尔、罗伊·里奇特斯坦、亚历山大·卡德等人的作品）。墙上高高挂着一块展板，记录了法籍波兰现代艺术家巴尔蒂斯（Balthus）一段回忆：在一个愉快的夜晚，他和雕塑家朋友阿尔贝托·贾科梅蒂（Alberto Giacometti）一起品评埃尔热的作品，为其质量和内涵所折服。但是这两位艺术家所欣赏的却是一摞丁丁的漫画。这也没什么错：丁丁历险记显然是埃尔热最出色的作品，不论是小朋友还是知名艺术家都爱不释手。