With this lust for adventure, this need for excitement, this longing for
journeys to Lord knows where, how on earth, you may ask, does it happen
that Tartarin had never left Tarascon? For it is a fact that up to the
age of forty-five the bold Tarasconais had never slept away from his
home town. He had never even made the ritual journey to Marseille which
every good Provencal makes when he comes of age. He might, of course,
have visited Beaucaire, albeit Beaucaire is not very far from Tarascon,
as one has only to cross the bridge over the Rhône. Regrettably,
however, this wretched bridge is so often swept by high winds, is so
long and so flimsy and the river at that point is so wide that... Ma
foi... you will understand...!
At this point I think one has to admit that there were two sides to our
hero’s character. On the one hand was the spirit of Don Quixote, devoted
to chivalry, to heroic ideals, to grandiose romantic folly, but lacking
the body of the celebrated hidalgo, that thin, bony apology of a body,
careless of material wants, capable of going for twenty nights without
unbuckling its breastplate and surviving for twenty-four hours on a
handful of rice. Tartarin, on the other hand, had a good solid body,
fat, heavy, sybaritic, soft and complaining, full of bourgeois appetites
and domestic necessities, the short-legged, full-bellied body of Sancho
Panza.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the same man! You may imagine the
arguments, the quarrels, the fights. Carried away by some lurid tale
of adventure, Tartarin-Quixote would clamour to be off to the fields of
glory, to set sail for distant lands, but then Tartarin-Sancho ringing
for the maid servant, would say “Jeanette, my chocolate.” Upon which
Jeanette would return with a fine cup of chocolate, hot, silky and
scented, and some succulent grilled snacks, flavoured with anise;
greatly pleasing Tartarin-Sancho and silencing the cries of
Tartarin-Quixote.
That is how it happens that Tartarin de Tarascon had never left
Tarascon.