Part 2 (1/2)
”Nothing, nothing at all! there never is nothing!”
Upon which double negation, which he meant as a stronger affirmative, the worthy champion would walk in to play his game of bezique with the commandant.
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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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-cla.s.s appet.i.te 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, la.s.soes, 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.
VII. Tartarin--The Europeans at Shanghai--Commerce--The Tartars--Can Tartarin of Tarascon be an Impostor?--The Mirage.
UNDER one conjunction of circ.u.mstances, Tartarin did, however, once almost start out upon a great voyage.
The three brothers Garcio-Camus, relatives of Tarascon, established in business at Shanghai, offered him the managers.h.i.+p of one of their branches there. This undoubtedly presented the kind of life he hankered after. Plenty of active business, a whole army of under-strappers to order about, and connections with Russia, Persia, Turkey in Asia--in short, to be a merchant prince!
In Tartarin's mouth, the t.i.tle of Merchant Prince thundered out as something stunning!
The house of Garcio-Camus had the further advantage of sometimes being favoured with a call from the Tartars. Then the doors would be slammed shut, all the clerks flew to arms, up ran the consular flag, and zizz!
phit! bang! out of the windows upon the Tartars.
I need not tell you with what enthusiasm Quixote-Tartarin clutched this proposition; sad to say, Sancho-Tartarin did not see it in the same light, and, as he was the stronger party, it never came to anything. But in the town there was much talk about it. Would he go or would he not?
”I'll lay he will!”--and ”I'll wager he won't!” It was the event of the week. In the upshot, Tartarin did not depart, but the matter redounded to his credit none the less. Going or not going to Shanghai was all one to Tarascon. Tartarin's journey was so much talked about that people got to believe he had done it and returned, and at the club in the evening members would actually ask for information on life at Shanghai, the manners and customs and climate, about opium, and commerce.
Deeply read up, Tartarin would graciously furnish the particulars desired, and, in the end, the good fellow was not quite sure himself about not having gone to Shanghai, so that, after relating for the hundredth time how the Tartars came down on the trading post, it would most naturally happen him to add:
”Then I made my men take up arms and hoist the consular flag, and zizz!