A REGION more impressionable than Tarascon was never seen under the sun of any land. At times, of a fine festal Sunday, all the town out, tambourines1 a-going, the Promenade2 swarming3, tumultuous, enamelled with red and green petticoats, Arlesian neckerchiefs, and, on big multi-coloured posters, the announcement of wrestling-matches for men and lads, races of Camargue bulls, etc., it is all-sufficient for some wag to call out: “Mad dog!” or “Cattle loose!” and everybody runs, jostles, men and women fright themselves out of their wits, doors are locked and bolted, shutters4 clang as with a storm, and behold5 Tarascon, deserted6, mute, not a cat, not a sound, even the grasshoppers7 themselves lying low and attentive8.
This was its aspect on a certain morning, which, however, was neither a fête-day nor a Sunday; the shops closed, houses dead, squares and alleys9 seemingly enlarged by silence and solitude10. Vasta silentio, says Tacitus, describing Rome at the funeral of Germanicus; and that citation11 of his mourning Rome applies all the better to Tarascon, because a funeral service for the soul of Tartarin was being said at this moment in the cathedral, where the population en masse wept for its hero, its god, its invincible12 leader with double muscles, left lying among the glaciers13 of Mont Blanc.
Now, while the death-knell dropped its heavy notes along the silent streets, Mile. Tournatoire, the doctor’s sister, whose ailments15 kept her always at home, was sitting in her big armchair close to the window, looking out into the street and listening to the bells. The house of the Tournatoires was on the road to Avignon, very nearly opposite to that of Tartarin; and the sight of that illustrious home to which its master would return no more, that garden gate forever closed, all, even the boxes of the little shoe-blacks drawn16 up in line near the entrance, swelled17 the heart of the poor spinster, consumed for more than thirty years with a secret passion for the Tarasconese hero. Oh, mystery of the heart of an old maid! It was her joy to watch him pass at his regular hours and to ask herself: “Where is he going?..” to observe the permutations of his toilet, whether he was clothed as an Alpinist or dressed in his suit of serpent-green. And now! she would see him no more! even the consolation18 of praying for his soul with all the other ladies of the town was denied her.
Suddenly the long white horse head of Mile. Tournatoire coloured faintly; her faded eyes with a pink rim19 dilated20 in a remarkable21 manner, while her thin hand with its prominent veins22 made the sign of the cross.. He! it was he, slipping along by the wall on the other side of the paved road . . . At first she thought it an hallucinating apparition23 . . . No, Tartarin himself, in flesh and blood, only paler, pitiable, ragged24, was creeping along that wall like a beggar or a thief. But in order to explain his furtive25 presence in Tarascon, it is necessary to return to the Mont Blanc and the D?me du Go?ter at the precise instant when, the two friends being each on either side of the ridge26, Bompard felt the rope that bound them violently jerked as if by the fall of a body.
In reality, the rope was only caught in a cleft27 of the ice; but Tartarin, feeling the same jerk, believed, he too, that his companion was rolling down and dragging him with him. Then, at that supreme28 moment — good heavens! how shall I tell it? — in that agony of fear, both, at the same instant, forgetting their solemn vow29 at the H?tel Baltet, with the same impulse, the same instinctive30 action, cut the rope — Bompard with his knife, Tartarin with his axe31; then, horrified32 at their crime, convinced, each of them, that he had sacrificed his friend, they fled in opposite directions.
When the spectre of Bompard appeared at the Grands-Mulets, that of Tartarin was arriving at the tavern33 of the Avesailles. How, by what miracle? after what slips, what falls? Mont Blanc alone could tell. The poor P. C. A. remained for two days in a state of complete apathy34, unable to utter a single sound. As soon as he was fit to move they took him down to Courmayeur, the Italian Chamonix. At the hotel where he stopped to recover his strength, there was talk of nothing but the frightful35 catastrophe36 on Mont Blanc, a perfect pendant to that on the Matterhorn: another Alpinist engulfed37 by the breaking of the rope.
In his conviction that this meant Bompard, Tartarin, torn by remorse39, dared not rejoin the delegation40, or return to his own town. He saw, in advance, on every lip, in every eye, the question: “Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother?..” Nevertheless, the lack of money, deficiency of linen41, the frosts of September which were beginning to thin the hostelries, obliged him to set out for home. After all, no one had seen him commit the crime . . . Nothing hindered him from inventing some tale, no matter what . . . and so (the amusements of the journey lending their aid), he began to feel better. But when, on approaching Tarascon, he saw, iridescent42 beneath the azure43 heavens, the fine sky-line of the Alpines44, all, all grasped him once more; shame, remorse, the fear of justice, and, to avoid the notoriety of arriving at the station, he left the train at the preceding stopping-place.
Ah! that beautiful Tarasconese highroad, all white and creaking with dust, without other shade than the telegraph poles and their wires, erected45 along the triumphal way he had so often trod at the head of his Alpinists and the sportsmen of caps. Would they now have known him, he, the valiant46, the jauntily47 attired48, in his ragged and filthy49 clothes, with that furtive eye of a tramp looking out for gendarmes50? The atmosphere was burning, though the season was late, and the watermelon which he bought of a marketman seemed to him delicious as he ate it in the scanty51 shade of the barrow, while the peasant exhaled52 his wrath53 against the housekeepers54 of Tarascon, all of them absent from market that morning “on account of a black mass being sung for a man of the town who was lost in a hole, over there in the Swiss mountains . . . Té! how the bells rang . . . You can hear ’em from here . . . ”
No longer any doubt. For Bompard were those lugubrious55 chimes of death, which a warm breeze wafted56 through the country solitudes57.
What an accompaniment of the return of the great Tartarin to his native town!
For one moment, one, when the gate of the little garden hurriedly opened and closed behind him and Tartarin found himself at home, when he saw the little paths with their borders so neatly58 raked, the basin, the fountain, the gold fish (squirming as the gravel59 creaked beneath his feet), and the baobab giant in its mignonette pot, the comfort of that cabbage-rabbit burrow60 wrapped him like a security after all his dangers and adversities . . . But the bells, those cursed bells, tolled61 louder than ever; their black heavy notes fell plumb63 upon his heart and crushed it again. In funereal64 fashion they were saying to him: “Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother? Tartarin, where is Bompard?” Then, without courage to take one step, he sat down upon the hot coping of the little basin and stayed there, broken down, annihilated65, to the great agitation66 of the gold fish.
The bells no longer toll62. The porch of the cathedral, lately so resounding67, is restored to the mutterings of the beggarwoman sitting by the door, and to the cold immovability of its stone saints. The religious ceremony is over; all Taras-con has gone to the Club of the Alpines, where, in solemn session, Bompard is to tell the tale of the catastrophe and relate the last moments of the P. C. A. Besides the members of the Club, many privileged persons of the army, clergy68, nobility, and higher commerce have taken seats in the hall of conference, the windows of which, wide open, allow the city band, installed below on the portico69, to mingle70 a few heroic or plaintive71 notes with the remarks of the gentlemen. An enormous crowd, pressing around the musicians, is standing72 on the tips of its toes and stretching its necks in hopes to catch a fragment of what is said in session. But the windows are too high, and no one would have any idea of what was going on without the help of two or three urchins73 perched in the branches of a tall linden who fling down scraps74 of information as they are wont75 to fling cherries from a tree:
“Vé, there’s Costecalde, trying to cry. Ha! the beggar! he’s got the armchair now . . . And that poor Bézuquet, how he blows his nose! and his eyes are all red!.. Té! they’ve put crape on the banner . . . There’s Bompard, coming to the table with the three delegates . . . He has laid something down on the desk . . . He’s speaking now . . . It must be fine! They are all crying . . . ”
In truth, the grief became general as Bompard advanced in his narrative76. Ah! memory had come back to him — imagination also. After picturing himself and his illustrious companion alone on the summit of Mont Blanc, without guides (who had all refused to follow them on account of the bad weather), alone with the banner, unfurled for five minutes on the highest peak of Europe, he recounted, and with what emotion! the perilous77 descent and fall; Tartarin rolling to the bottom of a crevasse78, and he, Bompard, fastening himself to a rope two hundred feet long in order to explore that gulf38 to its very depths.
“More than twenty times, gentlemen — what am I saying? more than ninety times I sounded that icy abyss without being able to reach our unfortunate présidain whose fall, however, I was able to prove by certain fragments left clinging in the crevices79 of the ice . . . ”
So saying, he spread upon the table-cloth a fragment of a tooth, some hairs from a beard, a morsel80 of waistcoat, and one suspender buckle81; almost the whole ossuary of the Grands-Mulets.
In presence of such an exhibition the sorrowful emotions of the assembly could not be restrained; even the hardest hearts, the partisans82 of Costecalde, and the gravest personages — Cambalalette, the notary83, the doctor, Tournatoire — shed tears as big as the stopper of a water-bottle. The invited ladies uttered heart-rending cries, smothered84, however, by the sobbing85 howls of Excourbaniès and the bleatings of Pascalon, while the funeral march of the drums and trumpets86 played a slow and lugubrious bass87.
Then, when he saw the emotion, the nervous excitement at its height, Bompard ended his tale with a grand gesture of pity toward the scraps and the buckles88, as he said:—
“And there, gentlemen and dear fellow-citizens, there is all that I recovered of our illustrious and beloved president . . . The remainder the glacier14 will restore to us in forty years . . . ”
He was about to explain, for ignorant persons, the recent discoveries as to the slow but regular movement of glaciers, when the squeaking89 of a door opening at the other end of the room interrupted him; some one entered, paler than one of Home’s apparitions90, directly in front of the orator91.
“Vé! Tartarin!..”
“Té! Gonzague!..”
And this race is so singular, so ready to believe all improbable tales, all audacious and easily refuted lies, that the arrival of the great man whose remains92 were still lying on the table caused only a very moderate amazement93 in the assembly.
“It is a misunderstanding, that’s all,” said Tartarin, comforted, beaming, his hand on the shoulder of the man whom he thought he had killed. “I did Mont Blanc on both sides. Went up one way and came down the other; and that is why I was thought to have disappeared.”
He did not mention that he had come down on his back.
“That damned Bompard!” said Bézuquet; “all the same, he harrowed us up with his tale . . . ” And they laughed and clasped hands, while the drums and trumpets, which they vainly tried to silence, went madly on with Tartarin’s funeral march.
“Vé! Costecalde, just see how yellow he is!..” murmured Pascalon to Bravida, pointing to the gunsmith as he rose to yield the chair to the rightful president, whose good face beamed, Bravida, always sententious, said in a low voice as he looked at the fallen Costecalde returning to his subaltern rank: “The fate of the Abbé Mandaire, from being the rector he now is vicaire!“
And the session went on.
The End
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1
tambourines
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓( tambourine的名词复数 )；（鸣声似铃鼓的）白胸森鸠 | |
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2
promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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grasshoppers
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| n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 )；蝗虫；蚂蚱；（孩子）矮小的 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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citation
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| n.引用，引证，引用文；传票 | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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13
glaciers
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| 冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
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glacier
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| n.冰川，冰河 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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delegation
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| n.代表团；派遣 | |
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41
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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42
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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43
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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44
alpines
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| n.高山的，高山上的（尤指阿尔卑斯山）( alpine的名词复数 ) | |
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45
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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46
valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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47
jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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48
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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50
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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51
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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52
exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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53
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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54
housekeepers
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| n.（女）管家( housekeeper的名词复数 ) | |
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55
lugubrious
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| adj.悲哀的，忧郁的 | |
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56
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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60
burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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61
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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65
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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68
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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portico
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| n.柱廊，门廊 | |
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mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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urchins
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| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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75
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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crevasse
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| n. 裂缝，破口；v.使有裂缝 | |
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79
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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80
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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81
buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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82
partisans
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| 游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙 | |
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83
notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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84
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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85
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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86
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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87
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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88
buckles
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| 搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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89
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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90
apparitions
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| n.特异景象( apparition的名词复数 )；幽灵；鬼；（特异景象等的）出现 | |
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91
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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92
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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93
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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