“A great idea, wasn’t it? Eh! _be!_ at the ministry they did not even
answer me... Ah! my poor Monsieur Tartarin, I have had my bad moments,
I have eaten the bread of poverty before I entered the service of the
Company...”
“Company! what Company?”
Bompard lowered his voice discreetly.
“Hush! presently, not here...” Then returning to his natural tones, “_Et
autremain_, you people at Tarascon, what are you all doing? You haven’t
yet told me what brings you to our mountains...”
It was now for Tartarin to pour himself out. Without anger, but with
that melancholy of declining years, that ennui which attacks as they
grow elderly great artists, beautiful women, and all conquerors of
peoples and hearts, he told of the defection of his compatriots, the
plot laid against him to deprive him of the presidency, the decision
he had come to to do some act of heroism, a great ascension, the
Tarasconese banner borne higher than it had ever before been planted; in
short, to prove to the Alpinists of Tarascon that he was still
worthy... still worthy of... Emotion overcame him, he was forced to keep
silence... Then he added:--
“You know me, Gonzague...” and nothing can ever render the effusion,
the caressing charm with which he uttered that troubadouresque Christian
name of the courier. It was like one way of pressing his hands, of
coming nearer to his heart... “You know me, _que!_ You know if I balked
when the question came up of marching upon the lion; and during the war,
when we organized together the defences of the Club...”
Bompard nodded his head with terrible emphasis; he thought he was there
still.
“Well, my good fellow, what the lions, what the Krupp cannon could never
do, the Alps have accomplished... I am afraid.”
“Don’t say that, Tartarin!”
“Why not?” said the hero, with great gentleness... “I say it, because it
is so...”
And tranquilly, without posing, he acknowledged the impression made upon
him by Doré’s drawing of that catastrophe on the Matterhorn, which
was ever before his eyes. He feared those perils, and being told of an
extraordinary guide, capable of avoiding them, he resolved to seek him
out and confide in him.
Then, in a tone more natural, he added: “You have never been a guide,
have you, Gonzague?”
“_Hé!_ yes,” replied Bompard, smiling... “Only, I never did all that I
related.”
“That’s understood,” assented Tartarin.