Kabanata Kabanata 6 · VI. The two Tartarins.

. VI. The two Tartarins.

ANSWER me, you will say, how the mischief is it that Tartarin of

Tarascon never left Tarascon with all this mania for adventure, need of

powerful sensations, and folly about travel, rides, and journeys from

the Pole to the Equator?

For that is a fact: up to the age of five-and-forty, the dreadless

Tarasconian had never once slept outside his own room. He had not even

taken that obligatory trip to Marseilles which every sound Provencal

makes upon coming of age. The most of his knowledge included Beaucaire,

and yet that’s not far from Tarascon, there being merely the bridge to

go over. Unfortunately, this rascally bridge has so often been blown

away by the gales, it is so long and frail, and the Rhone has such

a width at this spot that--well, faith! you understand! Tartarin of

Tarascon preferred terra firma.

We are afraid we must make a clean breast of it: in our hero there were

two very distinct characters. Some Father of the Church has said: “I

feel there are two men in me.” He would have spoken truly in saying this

about Tartarin, who carried in his frame the soul of Don Quixote, the

same chivalric impulses, heroic ideal, and crankiness for the grandiose

and romantic; but, worse is the luck! he had not the body of the

celebrated hidalgo, that thin and meagre apology for a body, on which

material life failed to take a hold; one that could get through twenty

nights without its breast-plate being unbuckled off, and forty-eight

hours on a handful of rice. On the contrary, Tartarin’s body was a stout

honest bully of a body, very fat, very weighty, most sensual and fond

of coddling, highly touchy, full of low-class appetite and homely

requirements--the short, paunchy body on stumps of the immortal Sancho

Panza.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the one same man! you will readily

comprehend what a cat-and-dog couple they made! what strife! what

clapper-clawing! Oh, the fine dialogue for Lucian or Saint-Evremond to

write, between the two Tartarins--Quixote-Tartarin and Sancho-Tartarin!

Quixote-Tartarin firing up on the stories of Gustave Aimard, and

shouting: “Up and at ‘em!” and Sancho-Tartarin thinking only of the

rheumatics ahead, and murmuring: “I mean to stay at home.”

THE DUET.

QUIXOTE-TARTARIN. SANCHO-TARTARIN.

(Highly excited.) (Quite calmly.)

Cover yourself with glory, Tartarin, cover yourself

Tartarin. with flannel.

(Still more excitedly.) (Still more calmly.)

O for the terrible double- O for the thick knitted

barrelled rifle! O for waistcoats! and warm

bowie-knives, lassoes, knee-caps! O for the

and moccasins! welcome padded caps

with ear-flaps!

(Above all self-control.) (Ringing up the maid.)

A battle-axe! fetch me a Now, then, Jeannette, do

battle-axe! bring up that chocolate!

Whereupon Jeannette would appear with an unusually good cup of

chocolate, just right in warmth, sweetly smelling, and with the play

of light on watered silk upon its unctuous surface, and with succulent

grilled steak flavoured with anise-seed, which would set Sancho-Tartarin

off on the broad grin, and into a laugh that drowned the shouts of

Quixote-Tartarin.

Thus it came about that Tartarin of Tarascon never had left Tarascon.