IT was two long weeks that the unfortunate Tartarin had been seeking his Algerian flame, and most likely he would have been seeking after her to this day if the little god kind to lovers had not come to his help under the shape of a Montenegrin nobleman.
It happened as follows.
Every Saturday night in winter there is a masked ball at the Grand Theatre of Algiers, just as at the Paris Opera-House. It is the undying and ever-tasteless county fancy dress ball — very few people on the floor, several castaways from the Parisian students’ ballrooms1 or midnight dance-houses, Joans of Arc following the army, faded characters out of the Java costume-book of 1840, and half-a-dozen laundress’s underlings who are aiming to make loftier conquests, but still preserve a faint perfume of their former life — garlic and saffron sauce. The real spectacle is not there, but in the green-room, transformed for the nonce into a hall of green cloth or gaming saloon.
An enfevered and motley mob hustle2 one another around the long green table-covers: Turcos out for the day and staking their double halfpence, Moorish3 traders from the native town, Negroes, Maltese, colonists5 from the inland, who have come forty leagues in order to risk on a turning card the price of a plough or of a yoke6 of oxen; all a-quivering, pale, clenching7 their teeth, and with that singular, wavering, sidelong look of the gamester, become a squint8 from always staring at the same card in the lay-out.
A little apart are the tribes of Algerian Jews, playing among acquaintances. The men are in the Oriental costume; hideously9 varied10 with blue stockings and velvet11 caps. The puffy and flabby women sit up stiffly in tight golden bodices. Grouped around the tables, the whole tribe wail12, squeal13, combine, reckon on the fingers, and play but little. Now and anon, however, after long conferences, some old patriarch, with a beard like those of saints by the Old Masters, detaches himself from the party and goes to risk the family duro. As long as the game lasted there would be a scintillation of Hebraic eyes directed on the board — dreadful black diamonds, which made the gold pieces shiver, and ended by gently attracting them, as if drawn14 by a thread. Then arose wrangles15, quarrels, battles, oaths of every land, mad outcries in all tongues, knives flashing out, the guard marching in, and the money disappearing.
It was into the thick of this saturnalia that the great Tartarin came straying one evening to find oblivion and heart’s ease.
He was roving alone through the gathering16, brooding about his Moorish beauty, when two angered voices arose suddenly from a gaming-table above all the clamour and chink of coin.
“I tell you, M’sieu, that I am twenty francs short!”
“Stuff, M’sieu!”
“Stuff yourself; M’sieu!”
“You shall learn whom you are addressing, M’sieu!”
“I am dying to do that, M’sieu!”
“I am Prince Gregory of Montenegro, M’sieu.”
Upon this title Tartarin, much excited, cleft17 the throng18 and placed himself in the foremost rank, proud and happy to find his prince again, the Montenegrin noble of such politeness whose acquaintance he had begun on board of the mail steamer. Unfortunately the title of Highness, which had so dazzled the worthy19 Tarasconian, did not produce the slightest impression upon the Chasseurs officer with whom the noble had his dispute.
“I am much the wiser!” observed the military gentleman sneeringly20; and turning to the bystanders he added: “‘Prince Gregory of Montenegro’— who knows any such a person? Nobody!”
The indignant Tartarin took one step forward.
“Allow me. I know the prince,” said he, in a very firm voice, and with his finest Tarasconian accent.
The light cavalry21 officer eyed him hard for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, returned:
“Come, that is good! Just you two share the twenty francs lacking between you, and let us talk no more on the score.”
Whereupon he turned his back upon them and mixed with the crowd. The stormy Tartarin was going to rush after him, but the prince prevented that.
“Let him go. I can manage my own affairs.”
Taking the interventionist by the arm, he drew him rapidly out of doors. When they were upon the square, Prince Gregory of Montenegro lifted his hat off; extended his hand to our hero, and as he but dimly remembered his name, he began in a vibrating voice:
“Monsieur Barbarin —”
“Tartarin!” prompted the other, timidly.
“Tartarin, Barbarin, no matter! Between us henceforward it is a league of life and death!”
The Montenegrin noble shook his hand with fierce energy. You may infer that the Tarasconian was proud.
“Prince, prince!” he repeated enthusiastically.
In a quarter of an hour subsequently the two gentlemen were installed in the Platanes Restaurant, an agreeable late supper-house, with terraces running out over the sea, where, before a hearty22 Russian salad, seconded by a nice Crescia wine, they renewed the friendship.
You cannot image any one more bewitching than this Montenegrin prince. Slender, fine, with crisp hair curled by the tongs23, shaved “a week under” and pumice-stoned on that, bestarred with out-of-the-way decorations, he had the wily eye, the fondling gestures, and vaguely24 the accent of an Italian, which gave him an air of Cardinal25 Mazarin without his chin-tuft and moustaches. He was deeply versed26 in the Latin tongues, and lugged27 in quotations28 from Tacitus, Horace, and Caesar’s Commentaries at every opening.
Of an old noble strain, it appeared that his brothers had had him exiled at the age of ten, on account of his liberal opinions, since which time he had roamed the world for pleasure and instruction as a philosophical29 noble. A singular coincidence! the prince had spent three years in Tarascon; and as Tartarin showed amazement30 at never having met him at the club or on the esplanade, His Highness evasively remarked that he never went about. Through delicacy31, the Tarasconian did not dare to question further. All great existences have such mysterious nooks.
To sum up, this Signor Gregory was a very genial32 aristocrat33. Whilst sipping34 the rosy35 Crescia juice he patiently listened to Tartarin’s expatiating36 on his lovely Moor4, and he even promised to find her speedily, as he had full knowledge of the native ladies.
They drank hard and lengthily37 in toasts to “The ladies of Algiers” and “The freedom of Montenegro!”
Outside, upon the terrace, heaved the sea, and its rollers slapped the strand38 in the darkness with much the sound of wet sails flapping. The air was warm, and the sky full of stars.
In the plane-trees a nightingale was piping.
It was Tartarin who paid the piper.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
ballrooms
|
|
| n.舞厅( ballroom的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
hustle
|
|
| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
moorish
|
|
| adj.沼地的，荒野的，生[住]在沼地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
moor
|
|
| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
colonists
|
|
| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
yoke
|
|
| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
clenching
|
|
| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
squint
|
|
| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
hideously
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
wail
|
|
| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
squeal
|
|
| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
wrangles
|
|
| n.（尤指长时间的）激烈争吵，口角，吵嘴( wrangle的名词复数 )v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
gathering
|
|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
cleft
|
|
| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
throng
|
|
| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
sneeringly
|
|
| 嘲笑地，轻蔑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
cavalry
|
|
| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
tongs
|
|
| n.钳；夹子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
cardinal
|
|
| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
versed
|
|
| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
lugged
|
|
| vt.用力拖拉（lug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
quotations
|
|
| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
delicacy
|
|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
genial
|
|
| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
aristocrat
|
|
| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
sipping
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
expatiating
|
|
| v.详述，细说( expatiate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
lengthily
|
|
| adv.长，冗长地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
strand
|
|
| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |