Kabanata Kabanata 34 · VIII. Tarascon again!

. VIII. Tarascon again!

MID-DAY has come.

The Zouave had her steam up, ready to go. Upon the balcony of the

Valentin Cafe, high above, the officers were levelling telescopes, and,

with the colonel at their head, looking at the lucky little craft that

was going back to France. This is the main distraction of the staff. On

the lower level, the roads glittered. The old Turkish cannon breaches,

stuck up along the waterside, blazed in the sun. The passengers hurried,

Biskris and Mahonnais piled their luggage up in the wherries.

Tartarin of Tarascon had no luggage. Here he comes down the Rue de

la Marine through the little market, full of bananas and melons,

accompanied by his friend Barbassou. The hapless Tarasconian left on the

Moorish strand his gun-cases and his illusions, and now he had to sail

for Tarascon with his hands in his otherwise empty pockets. He had

barely leaped into the captain’s cutter before a breathless beast slid

down from the heights of the square and galloped towards him. It was the

faithful camel, who had been hunting after his master in Algiers during

the last four-and-twenty hours.

On seeing him, Tartarin changed countenance, and feigned not to know

him, but the camel was not going to be put off. He scampered along the

quay; he whinnied for his friend, and regarded him with affection.

“Take me away,” his sad eyes seemed to say, “take me away in your ship,

far, far from this sham Arabia, this ridiculous Land of the East, full

of locomotives and stage coaches, where a camel is so sorely out of

keeping that I do not know what will become of me. You are the last real

Turk, and I am the last camel. Do not let us part, O my Tartarin!”

“Is that camel yours?” the captain inquired.

“Not a bit of it!” replied Tartarin, who shuddered at the idea of

entering Tarascon with that ridiculous escort; and, impudently denying

the companion of his misfortunes, he spurned the Algerian soil with his

foot, and gave the cutter the shoving-off start. The camel sniffed of

the water, extended its neck, cracked its joints, and, jumping in behind

the row-boat at haphazard, he swam towards the Zouave with his humpback

floating like a bladder, and his long neck projecting over the wave like

the beak of a galley.

Cutter and camel came alongside the mail steamer together.

“This dromedary regularly cuts me up,” observed Captain Barbassou, quite

affected. “I have a good mind to take him aboard and make a present of

him to the Zoological Gardens at Marseilles.”

And so they hauled up the camel with many blocks and tackles upon the

deck, being increased in weight by the brine, and the Zouave started.

Tartarin spent the two days of the crossing by himself in his stateroom,

not because the sea was rough, or that the red fez had too much to

suffer, but because the deuced camel, as soon as his master appeared

above decks, showed him the most preposterous attentions. You never did

see a camel make such an exhibition of a man as this.

From hour to hour, through the cabin portholes, where he stuck out his

nose now and then, Tartarin saw the Algerian blue sky pale away; until

one morning, in a silvery fog, he heard with delight Marseilles bells

ringing out. The Zouave had arrived and cast anchor.

Our man, having no luggage, got off without saying anything, hastily

slipped through Marseilles for fear he was still pursued by the camel,

and never breathed till he was in a third-class carriage making for

Tarascon.

Deceptive security!

Hardly were they two leagues from the city before every head was stuck

out of window. There were outcries and astonishment. Tartarin looked

in his turn, and what did he descry! the camel, reader, the inevitable

camel, racing along the line behind the train, and keeping up with it!

The dismayed Tartarin drew back and shut his eyes.

After this disastrous expedition of his he had reckoned on slipping

into his house incognito. But the presence of this burdensome quadruped

rendered the thing impossible. What kind of a triumphal entry would he

make? Good heavens! not a sou, not a lion, nothing to show for it save a

camel!

“Tarascon! Tarascon!”

He was obliged to get down.

O amazement!

Scarce had the hero’s red fez popped out of the doorway before a loud

shout of “Tartarin for ever!” made the glazed roof of the railway

station tremble. “Long life to Tartarin, the lion-slayer!” And out burst

the windings of horns and the choruses of the local musical societies.

Tartarin felt death had come: he believed in a hoax. But, no! all

Tarascon was there, waving their hats, all of the same way of thinking.

Behold the brave Commandant Bravida, Costecalde the armourer, the

Chief Judge, the chemist, and the whole noble corps of cap-poppers, who

pressed around their leader, and carried him in triumph out through the

passages.

Singular effects of the mirage!--the hide of the blind lion sent to

Bravida was the cause of all this riot. With that humble fur exhibited

in the club-room, the Tarasconians, and, at the back of them, the whole

South of France, had grown exalted. The Semaphore newspaper had spoken

of it. A drama had been invented. It was not merely a solitary lion

which Tartarin had slain, but ten, nay, twenty--pooh! a herd of lions

had been made marmalade of. Hence, on disembarking at Marseilles,

Tartarin was already celebrated without being aware of it, and an

enthusiastic telegram had gone on before him by two hours to his native

place.

But what capped the climax of the popular gladness was to see a

fancifully shaped animal, covered with foam and dust, appear behind the

hero, and stumble down the station stairs.

Tarascon for an instant believed that its dragon was come again.

Tartarin set his fellow-citizens at ease.

“This is my camel,” he said.

Already feeling the influence of the splendid sun of Tarascon, which

makes people tell “bouncers” unwittingly, he added, as he fondled the

camel’s hump:

“It is a noble beast! It saw me kill all my lions!”

Whereupon he familiarly took the arm of the commandant, who was red

with pleasure; and followed by his camel, surrounded by the cap-hunters,

acclaimed by all the population, he placidly proceeded towards the

Baobab Villa; and, on the march, thus commenced the account of his

mighty hunting:

“Once upon an evening, you are to imagine that, out in the depths of the

Sahara”--

APPENDIX

Obituary of Alphonse Daudet.

17th December 1897

DEATH OF A FRENCH NOVELIST.

ALPHONSE DAUDET.

M. Alphonse Daudet, the eminent French novelist and playwright, died

suddenly yesterday evening while at dinner The cause of death was

syncope due to failure of the heart.

Alphonse Daudet was born of poor parents at Nimes in 1840. He studied in

the Lyons Lyceum, and then became usher in a school at Alais. Going

to Paris to seek his fortune in literature in 1858, he succeeded in

publishing a book of verses entitled Les Amoreuses, which led to his

employment by several newspapers. He published many novels and tales,

and about half a dozen plays. His most popular work is “Les Morticoles.”

His son, Leon Daudet, is a litterateur of promise.