The nights at Tarascon, Where is he? Anxiety. The
grasshoppers on the promenade call for Tartarin. Martyrdom
of a great Tarasconese saint. The Club of the Alpines. What
was happening at the pharmacy. “Help! help! Bêzuquet!”
“A letter, Monsieur Bêzuquet!.. Comes from Switzerland, _vé!_..
Switzerland!” cried the postman joyously, from the other end of the
little square, waving something in the air, and hurrying along in the
coming darkness.
The apothecary, who took the air, as they say, of an evening before his
door in his shirt-sleeves, gave a jump, seized the letter with feverish
hands and carried it into his lair among the varied odours of elixirs
and dried herbs, but did not open it till the postman had departed,
refreshed by a glass of that delicious _sirop de cadavre_ in recompense
for what he brought.
Fifteen days had Bêzuquet expected it, this letter from Switzerland,
fifteen days of agonized watching! And here it was. Merely from looking
at the cramped and resolute little writing on the envelope, the postmark
“Interlaken” and the broad purple stamp of the “Hôtel Jungfrau, kept
by Meyer,” the tears filled his eyes, and the heavy moustache of the
Barbary corsair through which whispered softly the idle whistle of a
kindly soul, quivered.
“_Confidential. Destroy when read._” Those words, written large at
the head of the page, in the telegraphic style of the pharmacopoeia
(“external use; shake before using”) troubled him to the point of
making him read aloud, as one does in a bad dream: “_Fearful things
are happening to me_...” In the salon beside the pharmacy where she was
taking her little nap after supper, Mme. Bézuquet, _mère_, might hear
him, or the pupil whose pestle was pounding its regular blows in the big
marble mortar of the laboratory. Bézuquet continued his reading in a low
voice, beginning it over again two or three times, very pale, his hair
literally standing on end. Then, with a rapid look about him, _cra
cra_... and the letter in a thousand scraps went into the waste-paper
basket; but there it might be found, and pieced together, and as he was
stooping to gather up the fragments a quavering voice called to him:
“_Vé!_ Ferdinand, are you there?” “Yes, mamma,” replied the unlucky
corsair, curdling with fear, the whole of his long body on its hands and
knees beneath the desk. “What are you doing, my treasure?” “I am... h’m,
I am making Mile. Tournatoire’s eye-salve.”
Mamma went to sleep again, the pupil’s pestle, suspended for a moment,
began once more its slow clock movement, while Bézuquet walked up and
down before his door in the deserted little square, turning pink or
green according as he passed before one or other of his bottles. From
time to time he threw up his arms, uttering disjointed words: “Unhappy
man!.. lost... fatal love... how can we extricate him?” and, in spite of
his trouble of mind, accompanying with a lively whistle the bugle “taps”
of a dragoon regiment echoing among the plane-trees of the Tour de
Ville.
“_Hé!_ good night, Bézuquet,” said a shadow hurrying along in the
ash-coloured twilight.
“Where are you going, Pégoulade?”
“To the Club, _pardi!_.. Night session... they are going to discuss
Tartarin and the presidency... You ought to come.”
“_Té!_ yes, I ‘ll come...” said the apothecary vehemently, a
providential idea darting through his mind. He went in, put on his
frock-coat, felt in its pocket to assure himself that his latchkey was
there, and also the American tomahawk, without which no Tarasconese
whatsoever would risk himself in the streets after “taps.” Then he
called: “Pascalon!.. Pascalon!..” but not too loudly, for fear of waking
the old lady.
Almost a child, though bald, wearing all his hair in his curly blond
beard, Pascalon the pupil had the ardent soul of a partizan, a dome-like
forehead, the eyes of crazy goat, and on his chubby cheeks the delicate
tints of a shiny crusty Beaucaire roll. On all the grand Alpine
excursions it was to him that the Club entrusted its banner, and
his childish soul had vowed to the P. C. A. a fanatical worship, the
burning, silent adoration of a taper consuming itself before an altar in
the Easter season.
“Pascalon,” said the apothecary in a low voice, and so close to him
that the bristle of his moustache pricked his ear. “I have news of
Tartarin... It is heart-breaking...”
Seeing him turn pale, he added:
“Courage, child! all can be repaired... _Différemment_ I confide to you
the pharmacy... If any one asks you for arsenic, don’t give it; opium,
don’t give that either, nor rhubarb... don’t give anything. If I am not
in by ten o’clock, lock the door and go to bed.”
With intrepid step, he plunged into the darkness, not once looking back,
which allowed Pascalon to spring at the waste-paper basket, turn it over
and over with feverish eager hands and finally tip out its contents on
the leather of the desk to see if no scrap remained of the mysterious
letter brought by the postman.
To those who know Tarasconese excitability, it is easy to imagine
the frantic condition of the little town after Tartarin’s abrupt
disappearance. _Et autrement, pas moins, différemment_, they lost their
heads, all the more because it was the middle of August and their brains
boiled in the sun till their skulls were fit to crack. From morning till
night they talked of nothing else; that one name “Tartarin” alone was
heard on the pinched lips of the elderly ladies in hoods, in the rosy
mouths of grisettes, their hair tied up with velvet ribbons:
“Tartarin, Tartarin...” Even among the plane-trees on the Promenade,
heavy with white dust, distracted grasshoppers, vibrating in the
sunlight, seemed to strangle with those two sonorous syllables: “Tar..
tar.. tar.. tar.. tar...”
As no one knew anything, naturally every one was well-informed and gave
explanations of the departure of the president. Extravagant versions
appeared. According to some, he had entered La Trappe; he had eloped
with the Dugazon; others declared he had gone to the Isles to found a
colony to be called Port-Tarascon, or else to roam Central Africa in
search of Livingstone.
“Ah! _vaï!_ Livingstone!.. Why he has been dead these two years.”
But Tarasconese imagination defies all hints of time and space. And the
curious thing is that these ideas of La Trappe, colonization, distant
travel, were Tartarin’s own ideas, dreams of that sleeper awake,
communicated in past days to his intimate friends, who now, not knowing
what to think, and vexed in their hearts at not being duly informed,
affected toward the public the greatest reserve and behaved to one
another with a sly air of private understanding. Excourbaniès suspected
Bravida of being in the secret; Bravida, on his side, thought: “Bézuquet
knows the truth; he looks about him like a dog with a bone.”
True it was that the apothecary suffered a thousand deaths from this
hair-shirt of a secret, which cut him, skinned him, turned him pale and
red in the same minute and caused him to squint continually. Remember
that he belonged to Tarascon, unfortunate man, and say if, in all
martyrology, you can find so terrible a torture as this--the torture of
Saint Bézuquet, who knew a secret and could not tell it.
This is why, on that particular evening, in spite of the terrifying news
he had just received, his step had something, I hardly know what, freer,
more buoyant, as he went to the session of the Club. _Enfin!_.. He was
now to speak, to unbosom himself, to tell that which weighed so heavily
upon him; and in his haste to unload his breast he cast a few half words
as he went along to the loiterers on the Promenade. The day had been
so hot, that in spite of the unusual hour (_a quarter to eight_ on the
clock of the town hall!) and the terrifying darkness, quite a crowd of
reckless persons, bourgeois families getting the good of the air while
that of their houses evaporated, bands of five or six sewing-women,
rambling along in an undulating line of chatter and laughter, were
abroad. In every group they were talking of Tartarin.
“_Et autrement_, Monsieur Bézuquet, still no letter?” they asked of the
apothecary, stopping him on his way.
“Yes, yes, my friends, yes, there is... Read the _Forum_ to-morrow
morning...”
He hastened his steps, but they followed him, fastened on him, and along
the Promenade rose a murmuring sound, the bleating of a flock, which
gathered beneath the windows of the Club, left wide open in great
squares of light.
The sessions were held in the _bouillotte_ room, where the long
table covered with green cloth served as a desk. At the centre, the
presidential arm-chair, with P. C. A. embroidered on the back of it; at
one end, humbly, the armless chair of the secretary. Behind, the banner
of the Club, draped above a long glazed map in relief, on which the
Alpines stood up with their respective names and altitudes. Alpenstocks
of honour, inlaid with ivory, stacked like billiard cues, ornamented
the corners, and a glass-case displayed curiosities, crystals, silex,
petrifactions, two porcupines and a salamander, collected on the
mountains.
In Tartarin’s absence, Costecalde, rejuvenated and radiant, occupied
the presidential arm-chair; the armless chair was for Excourbaniès, who
fulfilled the functions of secretary; but that devil of a man, frizzled,
hairy, bearded, was incessantly in need of noise, motion, activity which
hindered his sedentary employments. At the smallest pretext, he threw
out his arms and legs, uttered fearful howls and “Ha! ha! has!” of
ferocious, exuberant joy which always ended with a war-cry in the
Tarasconese patois: “_Fen dé brut_... let us make a noise “... He was
called “the gong” on account of his metallic voice, which cracked the
ears of his friends with its ceaseless explosions.
Here and there, on a horsehair divan that ran round the room were the
members of the committee.
In the first row, sat the former captain of equipment, Bravida, whom all
Tarascon called the Commander; a very small man, clean as a new penny,
who redeemed his childish figure by making himself as moustached and
savage a head as Vercingétorix.
Next came the long, hollow, sickly face of Pégoulade, the collector,
last survivor of the wreck of the “Medusa.” Within the memory of man,
Tarascon has never been without a last survivor of the wreck of the
“Medusa.” At one time they even numbered three, who treated one another
mutually as impostors, and never con~ sented to meet in the same room.
Of these three the only true one was Pégoulade. Setting sail with his
parents on the “Medusa,” he met with the fatal disaster when six months
old,--which did not prevent him from relating the event, _de visu_,
in its smallest details, famine, boats, raft, and how he had taken the
captain, who was selfishly saving himself, by the throat: “To your duty,
wretch!.. “At six months old, _outre!_... Wearisome, to tell the truth,
with that eternal tale which everybody was sick of for the last fifty
years; but he took it as a pretext to assume a melancholy air, detached
from life: “After what I have seen!” he would say--very unjustly,
because it was to that he owed his post as collector and kept it ‘under
all administrations.
Near him sat the brothers Rognonas, twins and sexagenarians, who never
parted, but always quarrelled and said the most monstrous things to
each other; their two old heads, defaced, corroded, irregular, and ever
looking in opposite directions out of antipathy, were so alike that they
might have figured in a collection of coins with IANVS BIFRONS on the
exergue.
Here and there, were Judge Bédaride, Barjavel the lawyer, the notary
Cambalalette, and the terrible Doctor Tournatoire, of whom Bravida
remarked that he could draw blood from a radish.
In consequence of the great heat, increased by the gas, these gentlemen
held the session in their shirt-sleeves, which detracted much from the
solemnity of the occasion. It is true that the meeting was a very
small one; and the infamous Costecalde was anxious to profit by that
circumstance to fix the earliest possible date for the elections without
awaiting Tartarin’s return. Confident in this manoeuvre, he was enjoying
his triumph in advance, and when, after the reading of the minutes by
Excourbaniès, he rose to insinuate his scheme, an infernal smile curled
up the corners of his thin lips.
“Distrust the man who smiles before he speaks,” murmured the Commander.
Costecalde, not flinching, and winking with one eye at the faithful
Tournatoire, began in a spiteful voice:--
“Gentlemen, the extraordinary conduct of our president, the uncertainty
in which he leaves us...”
“False!.. The president has written...”
Bézuquet, quivering, planted himself squarely before the table; but
conscious that his attitude was anti-parliamentary, he changed his tone,
and, raising one hand according to usage, he asked for the floor, to
make an urgent communication.
“Speak! Speak!”
Costecalde, very yellow, his throat tightened, gave him the floor by a
motion of his head. Then, and not till then, Bézuquet spoke:
“Tartarin is at the foot of the Jungfrau... he is about to make the
ascent... he desires to take with him our banner...”
Silence; broken by the heavy breathing of chests; then a loud hurrah,
bravos, stamping of the feet, above which rose the gong of Excourbaniès
uttering his war-cry “Ha! ha! ha! _fen dé brut!_” to which the anxious
crowd without responded.
Costecalde, getting more and more yellow, tinkled the presidential
bell desperately. Bézuquet at last was allowed to continue, mopping his
forehead and puffing as if he had just mounted five pairs of stairs.
_Différemment_, the banner that their president requested in order to
plant it on virgin heights, should it be wrapped up, packed up, and sent
by express like an ordinary trunk?..
“Never!.. Ah! ah! ah!..” roared Excourbaniès.
Would it not be better to appoint a delegation--draw lots for three
members of the committee?..
He was not allowed to finish. The time to say _zou!_ and Bézuquet’s
proposition was voted by acclamation, and the names of three delegates
drawn in the following order: 1, Bravida; 2, Pégoulade; 3, the
apothecary.
No. 2, protested. The long journey frightened him, so feeble and ill as
he was, _péchèrel_ ever since that terrible event of the “Medusa.”
“I ‘ll go for you, Pégoulade,” roared Excour-baniès, telegraphing with
all his limbs. As for Bézuquet, he could not leave the pharmacy, the
safety of the town depended on him. One imprudence of the pupil, and all
Tarascon might be poisoned, decimated:
“_Outre!_” cried the whole committee, agreeing as one man.
Certainly the apothecary could not go himself, but he could send
Fascalon; Pascalon could take charge of the banner. That was his
business. Thereupon, fresh exclamations, further explosions of the gong,
and on the Promenade such a popular tempest that Excourbaniès was forced
to show himself and address the crowd above its roarings, which his
matchless voice soon mastered.
“My friends, Tartarin is found. He is about to cover himself with
glory.”
Without adding more than “Vive Tartarin!” and his war-cry, given
with all the force of his lungs, he stood for a moment enjoying the
tremendous clamour of the crowd below, rolling and hustling confusedly
in clouds of dust, while from the branches of the trees the grasshoppers
added their queer little rattle as if it were broad day.
Hearing all this, Costecalde, who had gone to a window with the rest,
returned, staggering, to his arm-chair.
“_Vé!_ Costecalde,” said some one. “What’s the matter with him?.. Look
how yellow he is!”
They sprang to him; already the terrible Tournatoire had whipped out his
lancet: but the gunsmith, writhing in distress, made a horrible grimace,
and said ingenuously:
“Nothing... nothing... let me alone... I know what it is... it is envy.”
Poor Costecalde, he seemed to suffer much.
While these things were happening, at the other end of the Tour de
Ville, in the pharmacy, Bézuquet’s pupil, seated before his master’s
desk, was patiently patching and gumming together the fragments of
Tartarin’s letter overlooked by the apothecary at the bottom of the
basket. But numerous bits were lacking in the reconstruction, for here
is the singular and sinister enigma spread out before him, not unlike a
map of Central Africa, with voids and spaces of _terra incognita_,
which the artless standard-bearer explored in a state of terrified
imagination:
mad with love reed
-wick lam
preserves of Chicago.
cannot tear myself
Nihilist
to death condition
abom in exchange
for her
You know me, Ferdi
know my liberal ideas,
but from there to tzaricide
rrible consequences
Siberia hung
adore her
Ah! press thy loyal hand