. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES Tartarin on the Alps With Illustrations by Aranda, De Beaumont, Montenard Myrbach, and Rossi STATE NORMALS* Authorised Edition All rights reserved 'Daudet Tartarin on the Alps Translated by Henry Frith London J. M. Dent and Co. 1896 Z>e Co. At the Ballantyne Press pq \ k T5 ^^l Table of Contents Page An apparition on the Rigi-Kulm. Who is he? What was said at the table d'hSle. Rice and Prunes. An improvised ball. The Unknown signs his name in the hotel register. P. C. A. i II Tarascon, five minutes' stoppage. The Alpine Club. Explanation of P. C. A. Rabbits of the warren arjd of the cabbage-garden. " This is my will." The Sirop de Cadavre. First ascent. Tartarin mounts his spectacles ... 29 Table of Contents III Page An alarm on the Rigi. Be cool ! be cool ! The Alpine horn, What Tartarin found on his looking-glass when he awoke. Perplexity. He asks for a guide by telephone 65 IV On board the steamer. Rain. The hero of Tarascon salutes the Shades. The truth about William Tell. Disillusion. Tartarin of Tar- ascon never existed ! " 7 was transformed into the " After a good breakfast in the open country each one of the sportsmen took his cap, threw it with all his strength into the air, and fired at it ' flying ' with No. 5, No. 6, or No. 2 shot, according to the regulations. He who hit his cap oftenest was proclaimed King of the Sport, and returned in the evening to Tarascon in triumph his riddled cap at the end of his gun amidst the barking of dogs and the flourish of trumpets. " 3 2 Tartarin on the Alps Alpine Club, after the pattern of the famous Alpine Club in London, whose members have sustained its renown even in the Indies. There is, however, this difference between the clubs that the Tarasconnais, instead of expatriating themselves with the view of conquering strange and distant mountains, are content with what they have in their hands, or rather under their feet, at the gates of their town. The Alps of Tarascon ? No, but the Alpines^ that chain of little hills perfumed with thyme and lavender ; neither very difficult nor very Planted on the summits of the Alpines the flag of the club the silver-spangled dragon." 34 Tartarin on the Alps high (some 450 to 600 feet in elevation above the level of the sea), which form a horizon of blue waves to the Provencal roads, and which the local imagination has supplied with fabulous and characteristic names, such as k Mont- Terrible, le Bout-dit- Monde, le Pic-des-Geants, c. It is a pleasant sight on a Sunday morning to see the Tarasconnais fully accoutred, with ice-axe, knapsack, and tent on his back, go forth, preceded by clarions, to make the ascent of which the Forum the local journal gives such a flourishing and descriptive account, with an exaggeration of epithets, " abysses, ravines, terrible gorges," as if it were describing an ascent in the Himalayas. Just think that in this pastime the natives have acquired new strength, the " double muscles " formerly the attributes of the good, brave, heroic Tartarin only. If Tarascon epitomised the South, Tartarin epitomised Tarascon. He was not only the first citizen of the town, he was its soul, its genius ; he knew all about it. He was acquainted with its ancient exploits, its Tartarin on the Alps 35 triumphs of song (oh, that duet from Robert le Diable at the chemist's !), with the as- tounding Odyssey of its lion-hunts from which he brought back that splendid camel, the last in Algeria, which has since died full of years and honours, the skeleton of which is in the town museum amongst the Tarasconnais curiosities. Tartarin himself had not deteriorated ; he had still good teeth, a bright eye, notwith- standing his fifty years ; and always conserved that extraordinary imagination which brought near and enlarged objects with the power of a telescope. It was of him that the brave commander Bravida said, " C'est un lapin." Two rabbits, rather. For in Tartarin, as in all the Tarasconnais, there is a warren and a cabbage breed, very clearly marked. The rabbit of the warren is a rover an adventurous animal ; the cabbage-rabbit is domesticated a stay-at-home, having an extraordinary horror of fatigue, of draughts, and of all the con- tingencies which may bring death in their train. We all know that this prudence never pre- Tartarin on the Alps vented him from showing himself brave, and even heroic, on occasion ; but it is quite per- missible to inquire what business he had on the Rigi (Regina montiuni) at his age, when he had so dearly purchased the right to his ease and comfort. To such a question the infamous Coste- calde only could reply. Costecalde, a gun-maker by trade, repre- sented a type rare in Tarascon. Envy base, malignant envy visible in the curl of the thin lips, and in a kind of yellow steam which, rising from the liver in puffs, swelled his large, shaven face into uneven ridges as if produced by the blows of a hammer like an ancient medal of Tiberius or Cara- calla. Envy with him was a disease which he did not even attempt to hide, and with that Tartarin on the Alps 37 fine Tarasconic temperament, which is gushing enough, he used to say when speaking of his infirmity, " You do not know how bad it is " ! Costecalde's tormentor naturally was Tar- tarin. All that glory for one man ! To him ever j always to him ! And slowly, surely, like the termite in the gilded wood of the idol, for twenty years he had been sapping and under- mining this great repu- tation, moth eating it as it were. When in the evening, at the club, Tartarin would relate his combats with the lion, his hunting in the Sahara, Costecalde would indulge in little sniggering laughs, and incredulous shakes of the head. " But the skins at least, Costecalde, the lion-skins which he sent us, which are yonder in the club-room ? " " Te ! pardi. And the furs ; do not you 38 Tartarin on the Alps think that there is any want of them in Algeria ? " " But the marks of the bullets, quite round, in the heads ? " " And on the other hand, was it not at the time of our cap-hunting that we used to find, in the hatters' shops, caps with bullet -holes, and riddled with shot, for the unskilful marks- men ? " No doubt the fame of Tartarin, the beast- slayer, remained superior to these attacks ; but the Alpinist in his own house listened to all the criticism, and Costecalde did not spare him, furious that they had named as Presi- dent of the Alpine Club a man who was ageing visibly, and whose habits, contracted in Algeria, disposed him to laziness. Rarely did Tartarin take part in any of the ascents ; he contented himself by accompany- ing the climbers with his good wishes, and in reading to the full assembly, with much rolling of eyes, and emphasis which made ladies grow pale, the dramatic records of the expeditions. Costecalde, on the contrary, dry, muscular, nervous, "Jambe de coq" as they called Tartarin on the Alps 39 him, always climbed first of all : he had made all the ascents of the Alpines one by one, and had planted upon their lofty summits the flag of the club, the silver-spangled Tarasque or dragon. Nevertheless, he was only the Vice- President (V. P. C. A.), but he was working so well that evidently at the next election Tartarin would be ousted. Advised of this by his associates, our hero was at first terribly disgusted ; the evil spirit which ingratitude and injustice will raise in the best minds seized upon him. He had a great mind to give the whole thing up to emigrate to cross the bridge, and live in Beaucaire amongst the Volsques. But he grew calmer after a while. To leave his little house, his garden, his cherished habits, to renounce his chair as President of the Alpine Club he had founded, to give up the majestic P. C. A. which embellished and distinguished his card, his writing paper, even the lining of his hat ! It was not to be thought of ! It was impossible ! Vc ! Then suddenly there occurred to him a perfectly miraculous notion. Tartarin on the Alps As a matter of fact the exploits of Coste- calde were confined to his expeditions in the Alpines. Why should not Tartarin, during the three months which must in- tervene between that time and the election, attempt some grand adventure ? why should not he plant upon the highest summits in Europe (the Jungfrau and Mont Blanc for instance) the banner of his club ? What a triumph would await him on his Tartarin on the Alps return, what a slap in the face it would be for Costecalde when the Forum would have published the narrative of the ascent ! How after that could he dare to dispute the pos- session of the chairmanship ? With all speed he went to work : he had sent to him secretly from Paris a number of special works, such as Whymper's Scrambles in the Alps, Tyndall's Among tlie Glaciers, Stephen d'Arve's Mont Blanc, the Alpine Journals (both Swiss and English) ; and he 42 Tartarin on the Alps fuddled his brain with a string of Alpine terms, chimneys, couloirs, moulins, neve, seracs, moraines, rotures, without knowing precisely what they all meant. At night his dreams were disturbed by interminable glissades, and sheer falls into bottomless crevasses ! Avalanches over- whelmed him ; aretes of ice impaled his body on the way ; and long after he was awake and had consumed his morning chocolate, which he always took in bed, he retained the agony and the oppression of the nightmare. But that did not deter him, once he had got up, from devoting his morn- ing to the laborious exercise of getting into training. There is all around Tarascon a road planted with trees, which in the local parlance is called " le tour de ville." Every Sunday, in the afternoon, the residents, who despite their imaginativeness are a regular people, always make the tour of the town, and always in the same way. Tartarin trained himself by doing it eight or ten times in the morning, and often even in the opposite direction ! He proceeded Tartarin on the Alps 43 with his hands behind his back, taking short steps as on a mountain, slow and sure, and the stall-keepers, horrified at this infraction of the local custom,' lost themselves in specula- tions of the most complicated character. At home, in his own garden, he practised leaping crevasses by jumping over the little basin wherein some water-lilies floated ; on two occasions he fell in, and was obliged to go and change his clothes. These drawbacks only excited him to fresh effort, and, risking vertigo, he walked along the narrow rim of the basin, to the manifest alarm of the old servant, who could by no means understand all these performances. At the same time he ordered from Avignon crampons, such as are recommended by Whymper, for his boots, and an ice-axe of the Kennedy pattern ; he also procured a cooking-lamp, two waterproof coverings, and two hundred feet of rope of his own invention, twisted with iron wire. The arrival of these different articles, the mysterious comings and goings which their manufacture necessitated, exercised the Taras- 44 Tartarin on the Alps connais very greatly. It was reported in the town that the President was preparing a coup, But of what nature ? Something great for certain, for according to the brave and sen- tentious commandant Bravida, a retired captain who only dealt in apophthegms, " The eagle does not hunt flies ! " With his most intimate friends Tartarin remained impenetrable ; but at the club meetings they would remark the trembling of his voice and his flashing eyes when he spoke to Costecalde an indirect result of this new expedition, of which the dangers and fatigues became more accentuated as the time drew nearer. The unlucky man did not conceal them from himself, and he looked at them in such lugubrious colours that he put his affairs in order and wrote his last wishes, the expression of which costs the Tarasconnais, who love their lives, so much that they generally die intestate ! So one morning in June, a bright, sunny day, without a cloud in the sky, the door of the study open to the neat little garden with its sanded walks, on which the exotic plants Tartarin on the Alps 45 threw clearly-defined shadows, in which a tiny jet of water trickled amid the joyous cries of the Savoyards who were playing at marelle before the gate, on that morning see Tartarin in slippers, and easy flannel costume, happy, satisfied, smoking a favourite pipe, and reading aloud as he wrote : "This is my will." One had need to have a heart firm in its place and solidly fixed; these are cruel moments ! Nevertheless, neither his hand nor his voice shook, while he devised to the citizens all the ethnographical riches treasured 46 Tartarin on the Alps in his little house, carefully dusted and kept in first-rate order : " To the Alpine Club, the baobab (Arbos gigantea), to be placed on the chimney-piece of the hall of science. " To Bravida, my fowling-pieces, revolvers, hunting-knives, Malay knives, tomahawks, and other deadly weapons. " To Excourbanies, all my pipes, calumets, narghiles, and little pipes for kif and opium smoking. "To Costecalde yes, Costecalde himself had his legacy the famous poisoned arrows. (Mind you don't touch them !) " Perhaps Tartarin had a secret hope that the man would touch them and die, but no such idea was evidenced in the will, which closed with these words of divine mansuetude : " I beg my dear Alpinists not to forget their president. I hope they will forgive my mortal enemy as I forgive him, although it is he, nevertheless, who has occasioned my death." Here Tartarin was compelled to stop, Tartarin on the Alps 47 blinded by his tears. For one moment he seemed to see himself a mangled mass at the / ^- foot of some lofty mountain, picked up in a wheelbarrow, and his shapeless remains car- ried to Tarascon. Oh, power of the Pro- venc,al imagination ! he was assisting at his own funeral, listening to the chants for the dead, the discourse at the grave. " Poor Tartarin ! pechere ! " And lost amid the crowd of his friends, he began to weep for himself ! But almost immediately the sight of his study, filled with sunlight, glittering with weapons and rows of pipes, the song of the little jet d'eau in the garden, brought him back to the reality of things. On the other hand, why should he die ? why even go away? Who compelled him to do so, if not his own self-respect ? To risk his life for a presidential chair and three letters ! But this was only weakness, and did not last longer than the other impression. At the end of five minutes the will was finished, signed, and sealed with an enormous black seal, and the great man then made the last preparations for his departure. 48 Tartarin on the Alps Once again Tartarin of the warren had triumphed over Tartarin of the cabbage- garden. And we might say of this Tarascon hero what was said of Turenne : " His body was not always ready to go into battle, but his soul carried him there in spite of himself." On the evening of that very day, as the last stroke of ten was sounding from the maison de ville, and the streets, already deserted, were clear except for here and there a belated one knocking for admission, a gruff voice half strangled with fear cried in the dark, " Good-night, au mouain" and then, with a sudden closing of the door, a pedestrian glided through the darkened town where the fronts of the houses were only illuminated by the red and green tints brightly re- flected from the bottles in Bezuquet's shop, which were projected with the silhouette of the chemist himself, with his elbows on his desk, and sleeping on the Codex. He indulged in a little nap every evening in this manner, from nine till ten, so that as he said he might be all the fresher at Tatfarin on the Alps 49 night should any one require his services. Between ourselves, this was a mere Taras- connade, for no one ever called him up, and indeed he had himself severed the wire of the night-bell in order that he might sleep the more soundly. Suddenly Tartarin entered, wrapped up, his travelling-bag in his hand, and so pale, so discomposed, that the chemist, with that vivid local imagination of which the shop did not deprive him, believed that some fearful and terrible thing had happened. "Unhappy man ! " he exclaimed, "what is E 50 Tartarin on the Alps the matter ? You have been poisoned ? Quick, quick, the ipecacuanha ! " He was hurrying off, upsetting his bottles, when Tartarin, to stop him, was obliged to hold him round the body : " Just listen now, que diable ! " and in his sharp tones the spitefulness of the actor who has made a bad entrance was manifest. The chemist once again brought back to his counter by an iron hand, Tartarin whispered : " Are we alone, Bezuquet ? " " Be oui ! " replied the other, looking about him in vague terror. " Pascal on has gone to bed (Pascalon was his pupil), and mother also But why ? " "Shut your shutters," said Tartarin in a commanding tone, without replying to the question. " They can see us from outside." Bezuquet obeyed, trembling. He was an old bachelor, living with his mother, whom he had never quitted ; he was as timid and gentle as a girl, and his demeanour contrasted strangely with his swarthy face and thick lips, his immense hooked nose, which bent over his long moustache a head of an Algerian Tartarin on the Alps 51 pirate before the conquest. These antitheses are common in Tarascon, where the heads possess too much of the Roman and Saracenic character : heads with the ex- pression of models in a school of design, unfitted to mere tradespeople and the ultra- pacific manners of the little town. Thus it was that Excourbanies, who had the air of one of the bold companions of Pizarro, was a mercer, and rolled flaming yellow eyes when measuring off two yards of thread; and that Be'zuquet, labelling the Spanish liquorice and the sirupus gummi, resembled an ancient rover of the Barbary coast. When the shutters had been closed, and fastened with bolt and bar, Tartarin said, "Listen, Ferdinand," for he had a habit of calling people by their Christian names. Then he arose and " emptied his heart," which was full of bitterness against his associates. He related the low manoeuvres of " Jambe de cog" the trick which they wished to play him at the next election, and the manner in which he hoped to checkmate them. Tartarin on the Alps In the first place, it was most important to keep the matter a secret, and not reveal it until the precise moment which would deter- mine the success of the plan had arrived, always except in case of an accident one of those fearful catastrophes " Eh ! coquin de sort, Bezuquet ; don't whistle like that while I am speaking." This was one of the chemist's little habits. Being taciturn by nature- a phenomenon in Taras- con he gained the con- fidence of the President ; his big lips, always like an O, preserved the habit of a continual whistling, which seemed to ridicule every one, even in the most solemn moments. And while the hero was alluding to his possible death, and saying, as he placed the folded, sealed, packet upon the table, " My last wishes are declared here, Bezuquet : I have chosen you as the executor of my will " //?/, /tu, hu" whistled the chemist, carried Tartarin on the Alps 53 away by his mania, but really very much moved, and quite appreciating the importance of the part he had to play. Then the hour of departure approached : he wished to drink success to the enterprise " something good, que ? a glass of the Garus Elixir." After many cupboards had been opened and searched, he remembered that his _ I mother had the keys of the Garus. It would be necessary to wake her, and tell who was there. So a substitute for the elixir was found in a glass of the syrup of Calabria, a summer beverage, modest and inoffensive, of which Bezuquet was the inventor, and which was advertised in the Forum as " Strop de Calabre, ten sous the bottle, in- 54 Tartarin on the Alps eluding a glass " ! " Strop de Cadavre" that infernal Costecalde would say, for he sneered at all successes : for the rest, this abominable play upon the words only aided the sale, and the Tarasconnais were exceedingly fond of this strop de Cadavre. The libation performed, a few last words exchanged, the friends tore themselves asunder. Bezuquet was still whistling through his moustache, while great tears were rolling down his cheeks. "Adieu, au mouain" said Tartarin in a rough voice, feeling as if he were about to weep also ; and as the shutter of the door had been put up, the hero was obliged to leave the shop on all fours. The trials of his journey were already commencing. Three days later he disembarked at Vitznau, at the foot of the Rigi. As a preliminary canter to get into training for mountaineering, the Rigi attracted him because of its low altitude (1800 metres, about ten times the height of Mont-Terrible, the most elevated peak of the Alpines /), and also because of Tartarin on the Alps 55 the splendid panorama which is obtainable from the summit, all the Bernese Alps seated, white and rosy, round the lakes, waiting till the climber shall make his choice, and throw his ice-axe at one of them. Sure of being recognised en route, and per- haps followed for it was a weakness of his to fancy he was as well-known throughout France as he was celebrated and popular in Tarascon he had made a wide detour to reach Switzerland, and did not "harness" himself until he had crossed the frontier. It was a good thing he did not, as his " arma- ment " could never be contained in a French railway compartment. But, however commodious the Swiss rail- way carriages may be, the Alpinist, embar- rassed by implements to the use of which he was quite unaccustomed, stabbed people's toes with the point of his alpenstock, har- pooned others with his crampons, and every- where he went, in the railway stations, the hotels, or on the steamer, he excited as much astonishment as cursing, elbowing, and angry looks, which he could not understand, and Tartann on the Alps which were torture to his candid and affectionate nature. To sum up, there was a leaden sky, heavy clouds, and a pelting rain. It rained at Bale, where the houses are washed and re-washed by servants and the water from heaven ; it rained at Lucerne, on the quay where the mails and luggage seem- ed to be just recovered from a wreck ; and when he reached Vitznau, on the brink of the Lake of the Four Cantons, there was the same de- luge falling upon the green slopes of the Rigi, encircled by black clouds, with torrents dashing over the rocks, making cascades in dust-like spray, dropping from all the stones and from every fir-branch. Tartarin had never seen so much water before. He entered an auberge, and was served She burst into a peal of inextinguishable laughter.' 58 Tartarin on the Alps with some cafe au lait, honey, and butter, the only really good things that he had so far enjoyed in his journey. Then, once more refreshed, his beard cleared of some honey by means of a corner of his serviette, he made preparations to attempt his first ascent. " And now," said he, as he was packing up his sac, " how long will it take me to get to the top of the Rigi ? " "An hour Or an hour and a quarter, monsieur. But you must make haste ; the train will start in five minutes." " A train up the Rigi ! You are joking ! " Through the leaden-sashed window of the auberge she showed him the train which was about to ascend. Two large covered waggons without windows, pushed by a locomotive with a short chimney and with a kettle-shaped body a monstrous insect clinging to the mountain, and getting quite out of breath in its attempt to climb the steep sides. The two Tartarins the wild and the domestic species were shocked at the idea of ascending in this hideous machine. One thought it ridiculous to climb the Alps in a Tartarin on the Alps 59 lift : as for the other, the light bridges which carry the line over chasms, with the prospect of a fall of a thousand feet if the train left the metals ever so little, inspired him with all kinds of sad reflections, which found reason for the establishment of the little cemetery at Vitznau, the tombs in which are squeezed together at the bottom of the slope like the linen displayed in the courtyard of a laundry. Evidently this cemetery is established as a matter of precaution, so that in case of acci- dent travellers may find it quite convenient. " I'll go up on foot," said the valiant Tarasconnais. " It will give me some exercise. Zou ! " And so he went, very much pre-occupied by his alpenstock in the presence of the staff of the auberge, who ran to the door shouting to him the way, indications which he never heard. He first pursued an ascending path, paved with great pebbles, of unequal sizes, pointed, as in a Southern lane, and bordered with wooden channels to permit the escape of the rain-water. To right and left are fine orchards, grassy 60 Tartarin on the Alps meadows crossed by these same irrigating pipes made from trunks of trees. This arrangement causes a continual splashing of water from the top to the bottom of the mountain, and every time that the ice-axe of the Alpinist caught in the low branches of an oak or chestnut his cap crackled as if subjected to a shower from a watering- pot. " Diou! what a quantity of water !" sighed the man of the South. But things became worse when the paved way ceased, for then he was obliged to pick his way through the torrent, to leap from one stone to another, so as not to wet his gaiters. Then the downpour hindered him, penetrating, continuous ; and it seemed to get colder as he ascended. When he stopped to take breath, he could hear nothing but the rushing of the water in which he stood, half-drowned, and when he turned round he could see the black clouds united to the lake by long fine rods of glass, through which the chalets of Vitznau glistened like freshly varnished toy-houses. Several men and children passed close by, Tartarin on the Alps 61 - some with heads bent down and backs curved under the hod of white wood con- taining supplies for some villa or pension, whose balconies could be perceived mid-way. " To the Rigi-Kulm ? " asked Tartarin, to as sure himself that he was in the right direction ; but his ex- traordinary equipment, and particularly the knitted comforter which shrouded his face, alarmed those he addressed, and every one of them, after staring at him with wide-open eyes, hurried upwards without re- plying. These meetings soon became few and far between : the last human being he en- countered, was an old woman who was washing some linen in the trunk of a> tree 62 Tartarin on the Alps under the shade of an enormous red umbrella fixed in the ground. " Rigi-Kulm ? " asked the Alpinist. The old woman raised to his a terrified and idiotic face, bearing a goitre which hung from her neck, as large as the bell of a Swiss cow : then after having taken a long look at him she burst into a peal of inextinguishable laughter, which stretched her mouth from ear to ear, puckering up her little eyes ; and every time that she opened them again, the sight of Tartarin standing before her, his ice-axe on his shoulder, seemed to redouble her mirth. " Tron de Pair ! " growled the Tarascon- nais, " it's lucky she's a woman ; " and burst- ing with rage he continued his route, losing his way in a pine wood, where his boots slipped upon the soaking moss. Beyond that, the scene changed. No more paths, no trees nor pastures. A few mournful slopes^ bare, but sustaining great boulders, which he was obliged to scale on hands and knees for fear of falling ; morasses full of yellow mud, which he crossed slowly, testing Tartarin on the Alps 63 the quagmire with his alpenstock, and lifting his feet like a knife-grinder. Every moment he consulted the compass which hung as a charm to his watch-chain ; but, whether owing to the altitude or to the variations of the tem- perature, the needle seemed defective. He had no means by which he could take his bear- ings, for the thick yellow fog that prevented him from seeing ten paces in any direction, was penetrated by a thick, cold sleet, which made the ascent more and more laborious. Suddenly he halted, the ground was white in front. Take care of your eyes ! He had come to the snow-line ! Immediately he drew his glasses from their case and adjusted them firmly. The moment was a solemn one. Somewhat nervous, but proud all the same, Tartarin felt that at one bound he had ascended 3000 feet towards the peaks and their dangers ! He advanced with great precaution, think- ing of the crevasses and the rotures of which he had read, and in his heart of hearts cursing the people of the auberge, who had advised him to ascend straight up without a guide. 64 Tartarin on the Alps Night would surprise him on the mountain. Could he find a hut, or only the projection of a rock, to shelter himself? Suddenly he perceived, on the wild and desolate platform, a kind of wooden chalet, bound with a placard bearing enormous letters, which he deciphered with difficulty : PHO TO GRA PHIE DU Rl GI KULM. At the same moment the immense hotel with its three hundred windows became visible to him a little farther on between the great lamps, which burned brightly in the fog. III. An alarm on the Rigi. Be cool ! be cool ! The Alpine horn. What Tartarin found on his looking-glass when he awoke. Perplexity. He asks for a guide by telephone. " Ques aco ? Who goes there ? " cried Tartarin, listening attentively, and with eyes wide open in the dark. The pattering of many feet was audible in the hotel doors banged sounds of puffing blowing cries of " Make haste ! " while out of doors was a blowing of horns, and a rush F 66 Tartarin on the Alps of flame lighted up the windows and the curtains. Fire ! With a single bound Tartarin was out of bed, and, rapidly shod and dressed, gained the still gas -lit staircase, where he found, descending, a buzzing swarm of young ladies hastily coiffees, wrapped up in green shawls, woollen scarves anything that first came to hand when they got out of bed. Tartarin, with a view to fortifying his own courage, and to reassure the young ladies as he rushed about and ran against everybody, cried out, " Keep cool ! keep cool ! " with the voice of a sea-gull a thin, faint voice one of those which one hears in dreams, which give the "creeps" to the bravest of us. Can you imagine how the young ladies almost shouted with laughter as they looked at him ? only thinking him very funny indeed. They had no idea of the danger at their age ! Fortunately the old diplomatist came after them, rapidly arrayed in a dressing-gown over white cale$ons, and silken slippers. Tartarin on the Alps 67 At last there was a man ! Tartarin ran up to him gesticulating : "Ah, Monsieur le Baron, what a terrible mishap ! Do you know anything about it ? Where is it ? How did it break out ? " "Who? what?" bleated the bewildered Baron, who understood nothing of all this. " Why, the fire ! " "What fire?" The unfortunate man was evidently so vacant and stupid that Tartarin left him to himself, and dashed out of doors to organise assistance. " Assistance ! Help ! " repeated the Baron ; and after him five or six waiters, who slept standing in the antechamber, stared at each other and repeated in a bewildered fashion, " Help ! " At the first step he took outside the building Tartarin perceived his mistake. There was not the least sign of a fire. A nipping cold, a dark night illuminated by pine-torches which threw a lurid glare upon the snow. At the bottom of the steps, a man with an Alpine horn emitted his modulated low- 68 Tartarin on the Alps ings, a monotonous ranz des vaches of three notes, with which it is the fashion on the Rigi- Kulm to awake the sun- worshippers, and to an- nounce to them the approaching appearance of the luminary. It is stated that he shows himself sometimes, at his first rising, at the extreme edge of the mountain behind the hotel. To find his bearings Tartarin had only to follow the continual tittering of the girls, who were walking close to him. But he proceeded more slowly, still feeling very sleepy, and stiff in his limbs after his six hours' climb. " Is that you Maniloff ? " asked a clear-toned voice suddenly out of the darkness a lady's voice : " come and help me ; I have lost my shoe." Tartarin recognised the bird- like notes of his little neighbour at "A little hand resting for a minute on his shoulder. " 70 Tartarin on the Alps the table d'hote, whose graceful profile he caught in the pale light reflected from the snowy ground. " It is not Maniloff, mademoiselle ; but if I can be of any assistance She uttered a little cry of surprise and fear, and made a gesture of repulsion which Tartarin did not see, for he was already stooping down and tapping the short grass, which crackled with frost beneath his fingers. " Te, pardi! here it is ! " he exclaimed joyfully. He shook the slender shoe, which was powdered with rime, knelt down on one knee on the cold damp ground, in the most gallant fashion, and asked that he might be rewarded by having the honour to put on Cinderella's slipper ! The lady, more unamiable than in the story, replied with a " No " very sharply uttered, and hopping on one foot endeavoured to insert her silk stocking into the reddish-brown shoe ; but she would never have succeeded without the aid of our hero, who was very much pleased to feel a little hand resting for a minute on his shoulder. Tartarin on the Alps 71 " You have very good eyes," she said by way of acknowledgment, while they proceeded groping their way in the dark side by side. "The result of sporting habits, made- moiselle." " Ah, then you are a sportsman ! " She said this with some raillery and a little incredulity in her voice. Tartarin had only to mention his name to convince her of the fact, but, like all illustrious people, he was discreet, and, with a kind of coquetry, wished to surprise her by degrees as it were : " I am a hunter, as a matter of fact ! " She continued in her ironical tone " And what game do you hunt for choice, now?" " The large carnivora and the great deer," replied Tartarin, believing he would over- whelm her. " Do you find many of them on the Rigi ? " she asked. Always polite in his repartee, Tartarin was going to reply that on the Rigi he had met none but gazelles, when his remark was cut short by the approach of two shadows who called out, 7 2 Tartarin on the Alps " Sonia ! Sonia ! " " I am coming," she said, and then turning towards Tartarin, whose eyes, now accustomed to the obscurity, were able to distinguish her pretty pale face under a mantilla en manola, she added, this time seriously : " You are engaged in a dangerous pursuit, my good man. Take care you do not lose your life And then, all of a sudden, she disap- peared in the dark- ness with her friends. Later on the men- acing import of these words occurred to the imaginative mind of the Southerner : but at the time he was only vexed at the use of the term "good man," flung at his stout- ness and grey hair, and Tartarin on the Alps 73 at the careless disappearance of the young lady just as he was going to tell her who he was, and to gloat over her stupefaction. He advanced a few paces in the direction of the group who were preceding him, with a confused murmur in his ears the coughing, the sneezing of the assembled tourists, who were waiting with impatience the rising of the sun : some of the most adventurous climbed up into a little stand or belvedere, the supports of which, coated with snow, were dis- tinguishable in the dying darkness of the night. A gleam of light began to streak the eastern sky, and was saluted by another note on the Alpine horn, and with that "ah" 74 Tartarin on the Alps which escapes from the overcharged bosoms of the spectators as the prompter's last bell rings for the raising of the curtain. Thin as a crack in a lid, the light gradually ex- tended itself, widening the horizon, but at the same time raising from the valley a thick, opaque, yellow fog, which became thicker and more extended as day broke. It was like a veil between the stage and the audience. They were obliged to give up all hope of seeing the beautiful effects described by the guide-books. On the other hand, the hetero- dox costumes of the dancers of the night before, hurriedly aroused from sleep, were displayed as in a magic lantern, ludicrous and eccentric ; for shawls, counterpanes, even the curtains of the beds which they had occupied were worn. Beneath the varied head-dresses silk or cotton caps, hoods, toques, night-caps were scared, puffed faces, the heads of shipwrecked people on an island in the open sea, on the watch for a sail in the offing with all the intentness of gaze of which their widely open eyes were capable. And nothing all the time nothing ! Tartarin on the Alps 75 Nevertheless, some of them in an access of good will made believe to distinguish the peaks from the belvedere ; and the " clucking " of the Peruvian girls were heard as they surrounded a big fellow in a check ulster who was enumerating in the calmest way the invisible panoramic objects of the Bernese Alps, naming and designating, in a loud voice, the peaks which were enveloped in the fog: "On the left you see the Finsteraarhorn, 12,825 feet high ; the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the Monch, the Jungfrau, to the elegant proportions of which I would call the attention of the young ladies." "Be! true, that fellow does not want for impudence," said Tartarin to himself. Then as an after-thought he muttered " But I know that voice pas mouain" He recognised the accent that assent of the South of France which is as distinguish- able at a distance as the garlic is ; but so pre-occupied was he in following up the fair unknown that he did not stop, continuing to inspect the groups he passed. She had, 76 Tartarin on the Alps no doubt, returned to the hotel, as every one else was now doing, tired of remaining shivering in the cold and stamping their feet. Some bent backs, some tartar-plaids, the ends of which swept the snow, disappeared into the ever-thicken- ing fog ! Very soon nothing remained on the plateau, cold and desolate in the grey dawn, but Tartarin, and the Alpine horn-blower who continued to extract melancholy howls from the in- strument like a dog baying at the moon. He was a little old man, with a long beard, wearing a Tyrolese hat embellished with green tassels which fell down his back, and bearing, like those of all the retainers of the hotel, the Regina Montium in letters of gold. Tartarin advanced towards him to bestow on him a Tartarin on the Alps 77 pour-boire, as he had seen the other tourists do. " Let us go to bed, old fellow," said he, tapping the man upon the shoulder with the Tarascon familiarity. "A regular humbug, que, this Rigi sunrise ! " The old man continued to blow his horn, finishing his ritornello with a silent laugh which wrinkled up the corners of his eyes and shook the green tassels of his hat. Tartarin, after all, did not regret the expe- rience of the night. The meeting with the pretty blonde made amends to him for his interrupted sleep, for although near his fiftieth year he had still a warm heart, a romantic 78 Tartarin on the Alps imagination, an ardent soul. When he again had reached his bedroom, and had shut his eyes to woo sleep, he still fancied he could feel in his hand the tiny shoe, and hear the jerky appeals of the young lady : " Is that you, Maniloff ? " Sonia ! What a beautiful name. She was certainly a Russian ; and these young men were travelling with her friends of her brother no doubt. Then all became misty ; the golden-curled little head went to mingle with other floating and drowsy visions the slopes of the Rigi and the waterfalls, and very soon the heroic snoring of the great man, sonorous and rhythmical, filled the little room and a considerable section of the corridor besides. As he was about to go down stairs next morning, at the first sound of the breakfast- bell, Tartarin was reassuring himself that his beard had been properly brushed, and that he did not look very badly in his mountaineering costume, when suddenly he began to shake with fear. Before him, open, and stuck in the looking-glass, an anonymous letter displayed the following threatening words : Tartarin on the Alps 79 " Fran fat's du diable, thy disguise but ill conceals thee. We have spared thee this time, but if thou crossest our path again, beware ! " Perfectly astounded, he read and re-read the note without comprehending it. Of whom, of what, was he to beware ? How had the letter got there ? Evidently while he slept, for he had not perceived it when he returned from his early morning promenade. He rang for the chambermaid, a flat-faced creature marked with small-pox like a Gruyere cheese, from whom he could elicit nothing intelligible except that she was of " pan fa- mille" and never entered the rooms when a gentleman was in possession. " What a very curious thing," said Tartarin, as he turned the note over and over. He was greatly impressed. In a moment the name of Costecalde crossed his mind, Costecalde imbued with his own plans of mountaineer- ing, and endeavouring to turn him aside by menaces and plotting ! Then he began to persuade himself that the letter was a hoax, for he soon abandoned the other theory ; perhaps some of the girls who had laughed 8o Tartarin on the Alps at him so merrily had perpetrated it, they were so independent, these young English and American ladies ! The second bell sounded. He put the anonymous letter in his pocket. " After all, we shall soon see," he muttered, and the formidable mom which accompanied this reflection indicated the heroism of his soul. A new surprise awaited him at the breakfast-table. Instead of the pretty little neighbour with the golden hair he perceived the vulture-like neck of an old English woman whose long " weepers " swept the cloth. Tartarin on the Alps 81 It was repeated near him that the young lady and her party had left by the early train. " Cre nom ! je suis floue" ex- claimed the Ita- lian tenor who the night before had declared so rudely to Tar- tarin that he did not understand French. He had evidently learnt it in the night ! The tenor rose from his chair, threw down his serviette and rushed out, leav- ing our hero completely dumbfounded. A great many of the guests also 82 Tartarin on the Alps took their departure. It is always thus on the Rigi, where no one remains more than four-and- twenty hours. Besides, the arrangements of the table are invariably the same, the dessert dishes in long rows separating the two factions. But that morning the Rice Party were trium- phant in the large majority reinforced by some illustrious personages ; and the Prunes, as was said, did not show to advantage. Tartarin, without taking either side, went up stairs, fastened up his knapsack, and sent for his bill. He had had quite enough of Regina montium, of its table d'hote, and its "dummies." Suddenly reminded of his Alpine mania by the touch of his ice-axe, the rope, and the crampons with which he was again accoutred, he began to burn with the desire to attack some real mountain a peak without a lift and a photographic studio in the open. He hesitated between the more elevated Fin- steraarhorn and the more celebrated Jungfrau, while the fair virginal name of the latter brought the little Russian once more to his memory. Tartarin on the Alps 83 As he was balancing these questions in his mind while his bill was being got ready, he amused himself in the large, silent, and melancholy hall, by looking at the coloured photographs on the wall, which represent the glaciers, the snow-slopes, the celebrated and dangerous passes of the mountains. Here is a party in single file, like ants in search of food, upon an \ce-areie, steep and blue ; farther on an enormous crevasse with sea-green sides, across which a ladder had been flung, and was being crossed by a lady on her knees, then by an abbe holding up his gown. The mountaineer of Tarascon, resting his hands upon his ice-axe, had had no idea of such difficulties as those ; but he must en- counter them somehow ! Suddenly his face paled in fear. In a black frame was an engraving after the famous picture of Gustave Dore, repre- senting the accident on the Matterhorn. Four human bodies, on their backs or on their faces, were sliding down the snow-slope, their arms extended, their hands beating the snow, seeking the broken rope on which their lives 84 Tartarin on the Alps l, ami \vhirh hail only served to drag them more easily to death over the precipice when they fell pell-mell with ropes, axes, green veils, and all the pleasant apparatus of the ascent which had become so terribly tragic. " Matin ! " said Tartarin, speaking aloud in dismay. One of the polite managers heard his exclamation, and thought it his duty to reassure the guest. Accidents of that kind were becoming more and more rare : prudence was one essential qualification, and, particularly, a good guide. Tartarin inquired whether the manager could tell him of one in confidence. Not that he had any fear ; but it was always best to be on the safe side. The man considered the point with a very important air, caressing his whiskers the while. " In confidence ? Ah ! if monsieur had only mentioned it sooner we had here this morning the very man. The courier of a Peruvian family." " He is acquainted with the mountain ? '' asked Tartarin with a knowing air. Tartarin on the Alps 85 " Oh, monsieur, with every mountain in Switzerland, Savoy, the Tyrol, and India, in the whole world he has done them all ; he knows them by heart, and will tell you about them. He is something like ! I believe they would relinquish him without making any difficulty. With such a man as he a child could go anywhere without danger ! " " Where is he ? Where can he be found ? " "At the Kaltbad, monsieur, where he is arranging the rooms for his party. We can telephone." A telephone, on the Rigi ! That was the crowning of the edifice. Tartarin was never astonished at anything after that ! In five minutes the garfon returned with the reply. The Peruvians' courier was leaving for Tellsplatte, where he would certainly stay the night. This Tellsplatte is a memorial chapel, one of the shrines established in honour of William Tell, many of which are found in Switzerland. People go there to see the 86 Tartarin on the Alps frescoes which a celebrated painter of Bale has executed on the walls of the chapel. It was scarcely an hour by steamboat or an hour and a half perhaps. Tartarin did not hesitate. He might thus lose a day, but he must pay his respects to William Tell, for whom he had a strong predilection ; and then there was the chance to secure this wonderful guide and arrange to do the Jungfrau with him. En route, zou ! He immediately paid his bill, in which the sunrise and sunset were included as well as the lights and attendance, and then, preceded by the ^terrible clanking of iron which dis- seminated fear and surprise wherever he went, he proceeded to the railway for to descend the Rigi on foot when he had already walked Tartarin on the Alps up it seemed to him waste of time, and would, besides, be doing too much honour to that artificial mountain. A detachment of the Salvation Army.' IV On board the steamer. Rain. The hero of Tarascon salutes the Shades. The truth about William Tell. Disillusion. Tar- tarin of Tarascon never existed ! " Te! Bompard ! " HE had left snow on the Rigi-Kulm below on the lake he found rain, a fine close rain, a kind of mist in which the mountains ap- peared like clouds. The Fdhn wind was blowing, making waves upon the lake, where the gulls, flying low, seemed to be carried on by the billows : one could almost fancy one's self at sea. Tartarin recalled his departure from po Tartarin on the Alps Marseilles fifteen years before, when he was setting out to hunt lions he thought of that sky without a cloud, bathed in light ; the blue sea, blue as indigo, stirred up into crisp salt waves by the mistral ; the salutes of the forts, the clanging of the bells, intoxication, joy, sun, all the fairy impressions of the first voyage ! What a contrast was it with the black deck of the almost deserted little steamer, on which he made out as in a mist a few passengers wrapped in ulsters or mackintoshes ; and the man at the wheel, motionless abaft, hooded, grave, and sybilline, above the legend couched in three languages : " You must not speak to the man at the wheel." This prohibition was quite unnecessary, for no one spoke on board the Winkelried at all, no more on deck than in the cabins, which were crammed with passengers of melancholy mien, sleeping, reading, yawning, pell-mell, their light baggage strewn upon the benches. They appeared like a number of people being transported on the day after a coup d'etat. Tartarin on the Alps 91 From time to time the hoarse steam whistle announced the approach to a station. A noise of footsteps and of the unloading of luggage resounded from the deck. Then the shore faded into the mist, advanced again, displaying the dark green slopes, the villas shivering amid the saturated trees, the poplars in rows along the road, bordered all its length by sumptuous hotels designated in letters of gold on their fagades the hotels Meyer, Miiller, du Lac, with numbers of heads belonging to bored residents looking out of the dripping casements. The people crossed the gangway to the shore ; descended, ascended ; equally dirty, soaked, and silent. On the tiny pier a crowd of umbrellas was visible : the omnibus quickly disappeared. Then the paddle- wheels churned the water into foam and the shore receded, fading into the blurred landscape with the pensions Meyer, Muller, du Lac, all the windows of which, for an instant open, displaying at every story a waving of pocket handkerchiefs, and out- stretched arms, as if to say : " Have mercy ! 9 2 Tartarin on the Alps pity us ! take us away if you only knew ! " Sometimes the Winkelried would pass another steamer, with its name in black letters on the white ground Germania, Guillaume Tell. There was the same lugubrious deck, the same shiny waterproofs, the same lament- able passage, no matter in which direction the phantom vessel was proceeding, the same distressful glances were exchanged from one to the other. And to think that all these people were travelling for pleasure ! that they were prisoners for their own pleasure in the pensions of Meyer, Miiller, and du Lac ! Here, as at the Rigi-Kulm, the great Tartarin on the Alps 93 grievance of Tartarin, which irritated him more than the cold rain or the leaden sky, was the impossibility of speaking ! Below, hfe had again found some well-known faces the member of the Jockey Club, with his niece ! The Academician, Astier-Rehu, and Professor Schwanthaler, those two im- placable foes, condemned to exist side by side for a month, bound to the same itinerary, to a Cook's circular tour, with others too : but none of these illustrious Prunes would recog- nise the Tarasconnais, who was nevertheless easily recognisable by his comforter and his equipment, in a most indubitable manner. Every one seemed ashamed of that dance the evening before, and of the inexplicable 94 Tartarin on the Alps transports into which they had been inveigled by that fat man. Madame Schwanthaler alone came towards her partner, with the bright and rosy appear- ance of a little chubby fairy, and holding her skirt between two fingers as if she was about to perform a minuet, she said, " Ballir, dant- sir, ires choli ! " Was she invoking memory, or tempting him to tread another measure? She would not let him alone ; and Tartarin, to escape her importunity, went on deck again, preferring to be wet to his very bones rather than be made a laughing-stock. And it did come down, and the sky was murky ! To heighten the gloom, a whole detachment of the Salvation Army was going to Beckenried a dozen fat girls of heavy mien, with navy-blue dresses, and coal-scuttle bonnets, under enormous red umbrellas, singing hymns, which were accompanied on the accordion by a man with wild eyes, lanky, emaciated a kind of David Gamm. These shrill voices, spiritless and discordant as the cries of a gull, came dragging through the rain, and the smoke of the steamer which Tartarin on the Alps 95 the wind beat back. Tartarin had never heard anything so deplorable in his life. At Brunnen the detachment quitted the boat, leaving the tourists' pockets full of pious tracts; and almost immediately the accordion and the singing of these poor larva had ceased, the sky began to clear, and bits of blue became visible. Now the steamer was entering the Bay of Uri, shaded and inclosed between wild and lofty mountains ; and on the right, at the foot of Seelisberg, the tourists were shown the Griitli, where Melchtal, Fiirst, and StaufTacher took the oath to deliver their land from the oppressor. Tartarin, very much affected, reverently removed his cap, without noticing the as- tonishment his action aroused; he even waved his head-covering in the air three times, by way of doing homage to the manes of the heroes. Some passengers mistook his enthusiasm, and politely returned his salute. At length the engine uttered a hoarse bellow, which echoed across the narrow bay. The placard which they display on deck 96 Tartarin on the Alps at every landing-place as is done at public balls at every change of dance announced Tellsplatte. They had arrived ! The chapel is situated five minutes' walk from the landing-place, quite on the margin of the lake, on the very rock upon which William Tell leaped from Gesler's boat in the storm. Tartarin experienced a delicious emotion, while he followed the Cook's tourists along the lake, as he trod the historic ground, and recalled, and lived over again, the principal events of the great drama, the details of which he knew as well as those in his own life. From his earliest years, William Tell had been his ideal ! When, at the chemist's, (at Bezuquet's) they used to write their "likes and dislikes," their favourite poet, author? tree, scent, hero or heroine, one of the papers invariably bore the following: " The favourite tree ? The baobab. " The favourite scent ? Of powder. " The favourite author? Fenimore Cooper- "Who would you wish to have been? William Tell." Tartarin on the Alps 97 Then in the surgery there was only one opinion they all cried with one voice, " That is Tartarin ! " Ask yourself, then, whether he was not happy, if his heart did not beat high, when he reached this 'memorial chapel erected as a mark of the gratitude of the entire nation. It seemed to him that William Tell in person, still dripping with water after his plunge in the lake, his cross-bow and arrows in his hand, would open the door to him. " No admission. I am at work : this is not the day," shouted a voice from the interior, the tone being much increased in volume by the vaulted roof. 98 Tartarin on the Alps " Monsieur Astier-Rehu, of the French Academy." " Herr Doctor Professor Schwanthaler." " Tartarin de Tarascon ! " In the ogive window above the door, the artist, perched on a scaffolding, appeared in his working blouse, palette in hand. "My famulus is going down to open the door to you, gentlemen," he said respectfully. " I was sure of it," thought Tartarin. " I had only to mention my name ! " Nevertheless he had the good taste to keep back, and modestly enter after every one else. The painter, a very fine young fellow, showing a golden head of an artist of the Renaissance, received his visitors on the wooden steps which ascended to the tem- porary staging erected for the painting of the chapel. The frescoes, representing the princi- pal episodes in the life of William Tell, had been completed, all but one the representa- tion of the shooting at the apple in the market-place of Altorf. He was working at it then, and his young assistant -famulus, as he called him his hair a farchange, his legs and Tartarin on the Alps 99 feet bare, beneath a smock frock of the middle ages, was posing as the son of William Tell. All these archaic personages, red, green, yellow, blue, of more than human stature, in narrow streets, and intended to be seen from a distance, impressed the spectators rather tamely ; but they were there to admire, and they did so. Besides, nobody there knew anything about them ! " I call that most characteristic," said the pontifical Astier-Re'hu, bag in hand. And Schwanthaler, a camp-stool under his arm, not to be outdone, quoted two verses of Schiller, half of which remained in his flowing beard. Then the ladies exclaimed their delight, and for a while nothing was to be heard but such phrases as " Schon ! oh, schon ! " " Yes ; lovely ! " " Exquis ! delicieux ! " One could have fancied one's self at a confectioner's ! Suddenly, a voice rang out like a trumpet blast in the silence which succeeded. TOO Tartarin on the Alps " That shoulder is wrong, I tell you : that cross-bow is out of drawing ! " We can picture the stupor of the artist, face to face with the critical mountaineer, who, with his staff in hand and ice-axe on his shoulder threatening to wound some one at every movement, was demonstrating ener- getically that the attitude of William Tell was not correctly represented. " And I know what I am talking about, au mouains ! I beg you to believe " Who are you ? " " Who am I ! " exclaimed Tartarin, very much "put out." Was it not for him that admission had been granted ! Therefore, Tartarin on the Alps 101 drawing himself up, he said : " Go and ask my name of the panthers of Zaccar, from the lions of the Atlas. They will perhaps inform you ! " There was a simultaneous recoil, a general alarm, at these words. " But," asked the artist, at length, " in what way is my position not correct ? " " Look at me you ! " Falling into posi- tion with a stamp- ing which drove the dust from the staging in clouds, \ Tartarin shoulder- ed his alpenstock after the manner of a cross-bow, and stood in position. " Splendid ! He is right. Don't stir." Then the artist, addressing \\\$famulus, cried, " Quick a sheet of paper a charcoal-pencil." Tartarin was going to be painted as he stood, a dumpy, round-backed man, wrapped Tartarin on the Alps in his muffler to the chin ; fixing the terrified famulus with his flaming little eye. Imagination, oh what magic power you possess ! He believed himself standing in the market-place of Altorf, facing his son he who had never had one a bolt in his cross-bow, another in his girdle to pierce the heart of the tyrant. More than that, he com- municated the conviction to the spectators ! "It is William Tell himself!" said the artist, who, seated on a stool, was wielding his pencil in feverish haste. "Ah, monsieur, I wish I had known you sooner ! You would have served for my model." " Really ! You see some resemblance, then ? " asked Tartarin, feeling much flattered, but without disarranging his pose. Yes, it was quite thus that the artist had pictured the hero. " His head, too ? " asked Tartarin. " Oh, the head does not matter," replied the artist, as he stepped back to criticise his sketch. " A manly, energetic face is all that is necessary, since no one knows what William Tell was like he probably never lived." Tartar in on the Alps 103 Tartarin let fall his " stock " in a kind of stupefaction. " Outre ! ' Never lived ! What is that you tell me ? " "Ask these gentlemen." Astier-Rehu, very solemn, his three chins resting upon his white neckcloth, replied : " It is a Danish legend." " Ice-landic," affirmed Schwanthaler, no less majestically. " Saxo Grammaticus relates that a valiant named Tobe or Paltanoke " " It is written in the Viking's Saga Then they proceeded, together " dass der Islandische Konig Needing " fut condamne par le roi de Danemark, Harold aux dents bleues " With fixed eyes, extended arms, without either looking at or understanding each other, 1 Outre and boufre are Tarasconnais oaths of mysterious ety- mology. Ladies use them at times with a softening addition as, " Outre I que vous me feriez dire I " 104 Tartarin on the Alps they both spoke at the same time, as if " in the chair," in the dictatorial despotic tones of the professor assured of not being con- tradicted. They became excited, shouting names and dates: "Justinger de Berne!" " Jean de Winterthur ! " By and by the discussion became general, animated, furious; they brandished camp- stools, umbrellas, valises, while the unhappy artist went from one to another endeavouring to restore harmony, while trembling for the solidity of his staging. When the storm had ceased, he was desirous to resume his sketch, " Fixing the terrined/a//j with his glaring eye." io6 Tartarin on the Alps and sought the mysterious mountaineer ; he of whom the panthers of Zaccar, and the lions of the Atlas could alone pronounce the name ! But the Alpinist had disappeared ! He was striding furiously along through the birches and beeches, towards the hotel of Tellsplatte where the Peruvians' courier was to pass the night ; and, smarting under the blow which had disillusioned him, he spoke aloud, driving his alpenstock furiously into the soaked pathway. " Never lived ! William Tell ! William Tell ' a myth, a legend ! And it is the painter intrusted with the decoration of Tellsplatte who calmly says that ! " He inveighed against it as a sacrilege ; he was angry with the savants, with this sceptical century, the impious upsetter, which respects nothing neither glory nor beauty : " coquin de sort /" Thus two hundred or three hundred years hence, when people speak of Tartarin, they will find Astier-Rehus and Schwanthalers to support the argument that no such person as Tartarin ever lived ! that he was a Provencal or Barbary myth ! He stopped, suffocated Tartarin on the Alps 107 by his indignation and the steep ascent ; and seated himself upon a rustic bench. From that place one can see, between the branches of the trees, the lake, and the white walls of the chapel like a new mausoleum. A blowing-ofif of steam and a rattling of a gangway indicated a new access of visitors. They were grouped on the shore of the lake, guide-book in hand, advancing and ges- ticulating as they read the legend. And suddenly, by a quick revulsion of thought, the comic side of the question came into Tartarin's head. He thought of all historic Switzerland living upon this imaginary hero ; raising statues and building chapels in his honour in the market-places of little towns and in the museums of great ones ; organising patriotic fetes at which people from all the cantons appear with banners carried before them ; the banquets, the toasts, the speeches, the cheering, the singing, the tears which swell the manly bosoms all this for a great patriot who, everybody knows, never had any ex- istence ! io8 Tartarin on the Alps Talk of Tarascon ! Here was a Tarascon- nade which never had its equal there ! Restored to good humour, Tartarin in a few good jumps regained the high road to Fluelen, on which stands the Tellsplatte hotel with its long green-shuttered facade. While waiting the announcement of dinner, the boarders were walking up and down before a rock-work cascade upon the ravined road, along which a number of unhorsed carriages were placed amid the copper-coloured pools of water. Tartarin ascertained that the man he sought .was there. He learnt that he was at dinner. "Lead me to him, zou" and he said it with such an authoritative air, that, notwith- standing the respectful repugnance to disturb so important a personage which was displayed, a female servant led the Alpinist through the hotel, where his appearance created some sensation, towards the precious courier who was eating by himself in a small room opening from the courtyard. " Monsieur," began Tartarin, as he came in, ice-axe on shoulder. " Excuse me if ' Tartarin on the Alps 109 He stopped in surprise ; while the courier, the lanky courier, his serviette tucked under his chin amid the savoury steam of a plateful of soup, let his spoon fall. " Ve ! Monsieur Tartarin." "7?/ Bompard." It was Bompard, the former manager of the club : a good fellow enough, but afflicted with a vivid imagination which prevented him from uttering a single word of truth, an attribute which had gained for him in Tarascon the surname of the Impostor. Designated at Tarascon as an impostor, you may judge what he was ! And this man was the incomparable no Tartarin on the Alps guide, the climber of the Alps, the Himalayas, the Mountains of the Moon ! " Oh, then I understand ! " exclaimed Tartarin, somewhat disappointed, but pleased, nevertheless, at finding a countryman, and hearing the dear delicious accent du Cours. " Differemment, Monsieur Tartarin, you will dine with me, que ? " Tartarin at once accepted, relishing the idea of seating himself at a nice little table laid for two, without any partisan dishes, to be able to drink freely, to talk while he ate, and to enjoy many excellent courses ; for MM. les Courriers are very well treated by inn-keepers; they dine apart, and have the best wines and the " extra " dishes. And there was plenty of au mains, pas mains, and differemment then ! " So it was you, mon ban, whom I heard in the early morning holding forth on the staging on the Rigi ? " "Eh, parfaitemain ! I was pointing out the beauties to the young ladies. Is not the sunrise on the Alps magnificent ? " " Superbe!" assented Tartarin, at first without Tartartn on tke Alps in conviction, not wishing to contradict his friend, but wound up after a minute or so ; and then it was perfectly bewildering to listen to the two Tarasconnais recalling with enthusiasm the splendours they had seen on the Rigi. It was like Joanne alternated with Baedeker ! Then, in proportion as the meal progressed, the conversation became of a more personal character full of confidences, gush, protest- ations, which brought tears into the brilliant Provencal eyes, always retaining in their facile emotion a trace of farce or raillery. This was the only point in which the friends re- sembled each other : one so dry, salted, tanned, seamed with those peculiar professional wrinkles ; the other short, broad-backed, of a sleek appearance, and of fresh complexion. He had seen so much of it, had this poor Bompard, since he had left the club ; that insatiable imagination, which prevented him from retaining any situation, had sent him wandering under so many suns with varied fortune ! And he related his adventures, enumerating all the excellent opportunities he had had of enriching himself, such as his latest Ii2 Tartarin on the Alps invention for reducing the amount ot the Army Estimates by economising the expense of godillots. " Do you know how ? Oh, mon Dieu, it is very simple by shoeing the soldiers' feet with iron.". "Outre!" remarked Tartarin, astonished. Bompard continued, calm as ever, with that cool, innocent air of his : " A grand idea, was it not ? Eh ! be, to the War Office but they never took any notice of me. Ah, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, I have had my bad days. I have eaten the bread of affliction before I entered the service of the Company " The Company ? " Bompard discreetly lowered his voice. "Chut!\yj and by not here!" Then resuming his natural tone, he continued : " And now, what have you all been about at Tarascon? You haven't told me anything of your reasons for coming amid the mountains." This was the opportunity for Tartarin to unbosom himself. Without anger, but with that melancholy cadence, that ennui, which Tartarin on the Alps 113 all great artists, beautiful women, and great conquerors of people and hearts, attain when they grow old, he related the defection of his compatriots, the plot that was being concocted to deprive him of the presidency of the club, and the decision he had come to to do some- * ' tiling heroic ; to make a grand ascent, to plant the banner of Tarascon higher than it had ever yet been fixed in fine, to prove to the Alpinists of Tarascon that he was ever worthy, always worthy Emotion made him pause ; he was obliged to cease speak- ing ; then : "You know me, Gonza.gue!" he cried i H4 Tartarin on the. Alps No one could do justice to the effusiveness, the tenderness, which he threw into this troubadour-like name of Bompard. It was a kind of hand-pressing of clasping him to his heart. " You know me, que ! You know whether I have ever quailed when in quest of the lion ; and during the war, when we organised the defence of the club Bompard nodded his head with dreadful mimicry ; he could fancy himself there still. "Well, mon bon, what the lions, what the Krupp guns, could not do, the Alps have done ! I am afraid ! " " Don't say that, Tartarin ! " " Why not ? " said the hero, with touching simplicity. " I say I am afraid, because I am ! " Then quietly, without any attitudinising, he avowed the impression which the engraving from Dore's picture had made upon him, the catastrophe upon the Matterhorn still haunted him. He was afraid of encountering like perils, and so, hearing of a most extra- ordinary guide, capable of avoiding such dangers, he had come to confide in him Tartarin on the Alps 115 Then in the most matter-of-course tone he added : " You never have been a guide, have you, Gonzague ? " " He ! yes ; " replied Bompard, smiling. " Only I have not done all I said I had." " Of course," assented Tartarin. Then his companion said between his teeth : " Let us go out into the road, we shall be able to converse more freely there." Night was coming on : a cool humid breeze was driving the black clouds across the sky wherein the setting sun had left a gleam of dusky grey. They went side by side in the direction of Fluelen, passing mute shadows of famished tourists who were returning to the hotel, shades themselves, not uttering a word, until they reached the long tunnel through which the road is carried, and which opens here and there in " bays," terrace-fashion, over the lake. " Let us halt here," said Bompard, whose loud voice echoed in the archway like a cannon. Then, seated on the parapet, they 1 1 6 Tartarin on the Alps contemplated the beautiful view of the lake, the slopes of firs, beeches, black and thick, in the foreground ; the indistinct summits of the higher mountains, then others higher still in a confused bluish mass, like clouds ; in the middle a white line, scarcely visible, of some glacier frozen into the crevices, which was suddenly illuminated with party-coloured fires, yellow, red, and green. The mountain was being illuminated with Bengal lights. From Fluelen rockets were sent up, break- ing into multi-coloured stars, while Venetian lanterns shone and passed to and fro upon the lake in the invisible boats, carrying musicians and those assisting in the fete. A truly fairy scene it was, framed in the cold, smooth granite of the tunnel walls, " What a queer country this Switzerland is ! " exclaimed Tartarin. Bompard began to laugh. " Ah, va'i! Switzerland ! In the first place there is nothing Swiss in it ! " t^^^ Confidences in a tunnel. "SWITZERLAND at the present time, vtl Monsieur Tartarin, is nothing more than an immense Kursaal, which is open from June till September a panoramic casino, to which people crowd for amusement, from all parts of the world ; and which a tremendously wealthy company possessed of thousands of millions, which has its head-quarters in Geneva, has exploited. Money is necessary, you may depend, to farm, harrow, and top- dress all this land, its lakes, forests, mountains, n8 Tartarin on the Alps and waterfalls, to keep up a staff of employes^ of supernumeraries, and to build upon all high places monster hotels with gas, telegraphs, and telephones all laid on." " That is true enough," murmured Tartarin, who recalled the Rigi. " Yes, it is true ; but you have seen nothing of it yet. When you penetrate a little farther into the country, you will not find a corner which is not fixed up and machined like the floor beneath the stage in the Opera : water- falls lighted up, turnstiles at the entrances of glaciers, and, for ascents of mountains, rail- ways either hydraulic or funicular. The Company, ever mindful of its clients, the English and American climbers, takes care that some famous mountains, such as the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn, shall always retain their difficult and dangerous aspects, although in reality they are no more dan- gerous than any others." " But, my dear fellow, the crevasses ! Those horrible crevasses ! If you tumble into one of them?" " You tumble on snow, Monsieur Tartarin, Tartarin on the Alps 119 and you will come to no harm : there is always at the bottom a porter a chasseur - somebody who is able to assist you up again, who will brush your clothes, shake off the snow, and respectfully inquire whether ' Monsieur has any luggage ? ' ' "Whatever is all this you are saying, Gonzague ? " Bompard became twice as serious as before : " The keeping up of the crevasses is one of the greatest sources of the Company's expenditure," he replied. There was a momentary silence in the tunnel : the surroundings were calm and peaceful. No more coloured fires, rockets, or boats on the water ; but the moon had risen, and displayed another conventional scene, blue, and liquid, with edges of im- penetrable shade. Tartarin hesitated to believe his com- panion's mere statement. Nevertheless, he reflected upon all the curious things he had seen in four days : the sun of the Rigi ; the farce of William Tell : and the inventions of Bompard seemed to him all the more Tartarin on the Alps credible, inasmuch as in every Tarasconnais the faculty of cramming doubles that of swallowing. " Well, but, my good friend, how do you explain those terrible accidents that on the Matterhorn, for instance ? " " That was sixteen years ago : the Company was not then in existence, Monsieur Tartarin." " But only last year there was that accident on the Wetterhorn two guides were buried with the travellers." "That must happen sometimes, as a bait for Alpine climbers. The English would not Tartarin on the Alps 121 care for a mountain which did not give them the chance of a broken head. The Wetter- horn was going down in people's estimation : but after this little accident the receipts went up immediately." " Well, but the two guides ? " " They got out, as well as the tourists ; but they were obliged to to disappear to be maintained abroad for six months. This was a serious expense to the Company ; but it is rich enough to stand it." " Listen, Gonzague." Tartarin rose, one hand laid on the shoulder of the quondam manager : " You do not wish me to come to any harm, que ? Well then, tell me frankly ; you know my ' form ' as a moun- taineer it is but middling." " Very middling, certainly ! " " Nevertheless, do you think that I can without too great risk attempt the ascent of the Jungfrau ? " "I will answer for it, Monsieur Tartarin, Tartarin on the Alps 'with my head in the fire.' You have only to trust yourself to your guide." " And suppose I get giddy ? " " Shut your eyes." " If I slip ? " "Let yourself slip. It is just like the theatre. Everything is practicable. You run no risk." " Ah, if I only had you there to tell me all that to repeat it to me ! Allans, my brave fellow a good idea. Come with me ! " Bompard would have asked for nothing better ; but he had his Peruvians in tow till the end of the season ; and how astonished his friend was to see him performing the services of a courier a servant ! " What would you have, Monsieur Tartarin ? The Company has the right to employ us as it seems good to them." Then he began to reckon off on his fingers the various situations he had filled during the past three years : guide in the Oberland ; horn-player in the Alps ; an old chamois- hunter ; an old soldier of Charles X. ; Protest- ant pastor on the mountains Tartarin on the Alps 123 " Ques aco ? " asked Tartarin, in surprise. And the other in his calm way replied : "Be! oui. When you travel in German Switzerland, you may often perceive a pastor in the open air standing on a rock, or on a rustic chair, or on the trunk of a tree. Some shepherds and cheese-makers, with their caps in their hands, and women, habited in the cantonal costume, are grouped around in picturesque attitudes : the country is pretty, the pastures are green or freshly reaped ; there are waterfalls along the road ; and the cattle, with their heavy bells tinkling, are on all the mountain-slopes. All this, ve! is just decoration puppet-show ! The employes of the Company guides, pastors, couriers, hotel-keepers only are in the secret ; and it is their interest not to publish it, for fear of frightening away their customers." The Alpinist remained astounded, silent, the greatest sign of stupefaction in him. In his heart, any doubt of Bompard's veracity which he had was now removed ; he was more calm concerning Alpine ascents, and the conversation soon made him joyous. The 124 Tartarin on the Alps friends talked of Tarascon, of their pleasant jokes in the past when they were younger. "Talking of jokes," said Tartarin suddenly, " they played me a nice trick at the Rigi- Kulm. Just imagine, this morning Then he proceeded to relate the incident of the letter fixed to his glass, which began with the emphatic " Franc ais du diable" "That is a mystery, que? "Who can say? perhaps began Bompard, who seemed to take the incident more seriously. He inquired whether Tartarin during his stay at the Kulm had any conversation with any one, and let fall a word too much. " Ah ! va'i, a word too much ! How could one even open his mouth with all those English and Germans as mute as fishes by way of being in ' good form ' ! " On reflection, however, he remembered having " given a clincher " pretty smartly to a sort of Cossack, a certain Mi Milanoff ! Tartarin on the Alps I2 5 " Maniloff," said Bompard, correcting him. " You know him, then ? Between you and me, I believe that this Maniloff was annoyed with me on account of a little Russian girl." " Yes, Sonia ; " murmured Bompard. " You know her also ? Ah, my friend, what a pearl of price what a dear little grey par- tridge she is ! " " Sonia de Wassilief ! 'Twas she who shot General Felianine dead in the open street. He was president of the court- martial which had condemned her brother to transportation for life." Sonia an assassin ! that child ! that little blonde ! Tartarin could not believe it. But Bompard was precise, and gave him the details of the incident, which were well known. For two years, it appeared, Sonia had lived at Zurich, where her brother Boris, who had escaped from Siberia, had joined 126 Tartarin on the Alps her. He was consumptive, and all the summer she carried him about in the bracing mountain air. The courier had frequently met them in the company of friends, who were all exiles conspirators. The Wassiliefs, very intelligent, very energetic, still possessing some means, were at the head of the Nihilist party, with Bolibine, the assassin of the Prefect of Police, and this Maniloff, who the year before had blown up the Winter Palace. " Boufre ! " ejaculated Tartarin, " one has queer neighbours on the Rigi." But there was yet another thing ! Bompard was of opinion that the famous letter had come from these young people : he recognised in this the Nihilist mode of proceeding. The Czar every morning found such menaces in his own room ; beneath his serviette. " But," said Tartarin, who had become very pale, " why do they send them to me ? What have / done ? " Bompard thought they must have taken him for a spy. "A spy! I?" "Be, yes." In all the Nihilist centres at Tartarin on the Alps 127 Zurich, Lausanne, Geneva the Russian Government maintained at great cost a number of detectives ; some time back she had enlisted the former chief of the French Imperial police with a dozen Corsicans, who followed and watched all exiled Russians, adopting a thousand disguises to entrap them. The costume of our Alpine climber, his spectacles, his accent, they had no doubt mis- taken for the disguise of one of these agents. " Coquin de sort ! You have given me an idea," said Tartarin. "They had all the time at their heels an Italian tenor. He is a detective, you may be sure ! But what am I to do now ? " " First of all, take care that you do not cross the path of these people, who have warned you that evil will befall you." " Ah ! vat, evil ! The first of them who approaches me will get a bullet in his brain ! " And in the obscurity of the tunnel the eyes of the Tarasconnais gleamed. But Bompard, less assured than he, knew that the hatred of these Nihilists was terrible, and overtakes one secretly by underhand plotting. One had 128 Tartarin on the Alps better be a rabbit like the president. You must be distrustful of the bed at the inn in which you sleep ; the chair you sit upon ; of the rail of the steamer, which will suddenly give way, and cause a fatal accident. And the poisoned dishes, and water ! " Beware of the spirits in your flask ; of the foaming milk which is brought to you by the cowherd in sabots. These people stick at nothing, I can tell you ! " " Then what is left ? I am a lost man ! " groaned Tartarin ; and, seizing the hand of his companion, he said : "Advise me, Gomague." After a moment's reflection, Bompard traced out his programme. Let him depart early next morning, cross the lake, and the Pass of the Briinig, and sleep at Interlachen. The next day go up to Grindelwald by the Little Scheideck. The day after that, the Jungfrau ! Then away to Tarascon, without losing an hour, without even looking back ! " I will start to-morrow, Gonzague," said our hero, in a stout voice, but with an uneasy glance around into the darkness. VI The Pass of the Briinig. Tartarin falls into the hands of the Nihilists. Disappearance of an Italian tenor and an Avignon rope. New exploits of a "chasseur de casquettes." Pan ! pan ! " Now then, get in ! Get in ! " " But where ? Where the devil am I to get in ? all the places are filled ! They won't have me anywhere ! " This conversation took place at the end of the Lake of the Four Cantons, at Alpnach on that damp, undrained shore, like a delta, whence the diligences and post-carriages start in line for the Briinig Pass. 130 Tartarin on the Alps A fine, needle-pointed rain had been falling since morning, and the worthy Tartarin, im- peded by his equipment, bustled about by the porters and the custom-house people, was running from carriage to carriage, noisy, and encumbered like the one-man orchestra at fetes, who at every movement plays a triangle, a big drum, a Chinese hat, and cymbals. At every door our hero was saluted with cries of alarm, and the same " Full " which warned him off in all languages, the same extension motions in order to occupy as much space as possible, and to prevent the entry of such a dangerous and loud-voiced companion. The unfortunate man perspired and panted, responded by cries of " Coquin de ban sort" and by despairing gestures to the impatient clamour of the convoy : " En route ; " " All right;" " Andiamo ; " " Vonvartz." The horses pawed the ground, the drivers swore. At length the mail-guard ; an immense red- faced man in a tunic and flat cap, interfered ; and opening the door of a half-covered landau pushed Tartarin in like a parcel, and then Tartarin on the Alps 131 stood upright and majestic before the splash- board, his large hand extended for a trinkgeld. Humiliated, furious with the people in the carriage, who received him manu militari, Tartarin pretended not to look at them, thrust his purse down into his pocket, wedg- ing in his ice axe beside him with evident ill-humour. " Bonjour, monsieur" said a sweet and well-known voice. He looked up, and remained transfixed with terror ; opposite to him was the pretty, rosy, round face of Sonia, who was seated under the hood of the landau, and also a great boy wrapped up in shawls and rugs, of whom nothing could be seen but a forehead of livid pallor and some curly hair, thin and golden as the frames of his eye-glasses. The brother, no doubt. A third person, whom Tartarin knew too well, accompanied them ; this was Maniloff, the incendiary of the Winter Palace. Sonia ! Maniloff! what a trap he had fallen into ! Tartarin on the Alps Now they would carry out their threat in the precipitous Pass of the Brunig, flanked by deep abysses ! And our hero, in one of those lightning-flashes of imagination, saw himself stretched on the pebbles in some ravine, or balanced on the high branches of an oak-tree. Fly ? Whither ? How ? At that moment the carriages were beginning to file off at the sound of a horn ; a crowd of gamins presented bunches of edelweiss at the doors. Tartarin, in his infatuation, had a great mind to commence the attack, by spitting, with a blow of his alpenstock, the Cossack who was seated next to him : then, on reflection, he thought it more prudent to Tartarin on the Alps 133 refrain. Evidently these people would not make their attack until they had gone some distance, in the uninhabited districts ; and per- haps he would have an opportunity of getting out first. Besides, their intentions did not appear to him hostile. Sonia smiled on him sweetly with her pretty turquoise-blue eyes; the big, pale young man looked at him as if in- terested ; and Maniloff, very much softened in manner, obligingly moved up so as to permit Tartarin to put his knapsack between them. Had they discovered their mistake after read- ing in the register of the Rigi-Kulm Hotel the illustrious name of Tartarin of Tarascon ? He wished to assure himself of this, and in a familiar, good-natured way he began : 134 Tartarin on the Alps " Delighted to meet you again, young lady; allow me to introduce myself: you are un- aware with whom you have to do, while 1 know perfectly well who you are." " Chut!" said the smiling Sonia from behind the tip of her gant de Suede ; and she pointed to the coach-box, where, by the side of the driver, was the tenor with the sleeve-links, and the other young Russian, sheltering under the ' same umbrella, laughing and talking together in Italian. Between the policemen and the Nihilists Tartarin did not hesitate. " Do you know who that man is ? " he asked in a low voice, putting his face very close to the rosy complexion of Sonia, and seeing himself reflected in her bright eyes, which grew stern and hard in their expres- sion as she answered " Yes," with quivering lashes. The hero shivered, but as at a theatre, with that delicious sensation in the epidermis which seizes you when the action is strong, and you sit back in your stall to see and hear better. Personally out of the business, de- Tartarin on the Alps 135 livered from the horrible visions which had haunted him all night, which had prevented his enjoying his coffee, butter, and honey, and, on the boat, had kept him far from the bulwarks, he now breathed freely, found life pleasant, and this little Russian irresistibly charming in her travelling toque, her jersey high to her neck, clinging to her arms and moulding her still slim but elegant figure. And such a child ! a child in the openness of her laugh, the softness of her cheeks, and the pretty grace with which she spread her shawl over her brother's knees, asking him if he were well and not cold. How could one believe that that little hand, so slender in its chamois glove, had had the moral force and physical courage to kill a man ! Nor did the others appear ferocious either. All had the same ingenuous laugh a little sad and constrained on the lips of the invalid, more noisy in the case of Maniloff, who, very youthful under his shaggy beard, would ex- plode, like a schoolboy out for a holiday, in roars of exuberant merriment. The third companion, he whom they called 136 Tartarin on the Alps Bolibine, and who was chatting with the Italian, was as much amused, and would often turn round to translate the tales which the pretended singer related of his successes at the St. Petersburg Opera-house ; his bonnes fortunes, the sleeve-links which lady subscribers had presented to him on his departure ; the curious buttons, graven with the three notes la, do, re, (T adore) ; and this pun, repeated in the landau, caused such amusement that the tenor drew himself up proudly, and twirled his moustache with such a " killing " air as he stared at Sonia, that Tartarin began to ask himself whether he had not to do with ordinary tourists, and a real tenor ! But the carriages, driving rapidly, rolled over the bridges, and alongside the pretty lakes, the flowery meads, the lovely orchards, dripping and deserted, for it was Sunday, and the peasants were dressed in their holiday garments, the women wearing long plaits of hair and silver chains. The travellers were beginning to ascend the zig-zag road amid the woods of oak and beech ; by degrees the magnificent horizon unrolled itself on the Tartarin on the Alps 137 left hand ; and at each turn of the carriage, streams, and valleys, from which uprose church steeples, were seen ; and in the distance the snowy peak of the Finsteraarhorn sparkled in the beams of the invisible sun. After a while the road became shaded, , and of a wilder aspect. On one side was gloomy shadow, a chaos of trees planted on the slope, twisted and irregular, amongst which the splashing of a torrent was audible : on the right an immense rock overhung the path, bristling with branches which sprung from the crevices in its sides. They were not laughing in the landau now : 138 Tartarin on the Alps all were admiring the scenery, and with uplifted faces endeavouring to catch sight of the top of the granite tunnel. " One would almost imagine we were in the forests of the Atlas," remarked Tartarin gravely, and his speech passing unnoticed he added " Without the roaring of the lions, of course/' " You have heard them then, monsieur ? " inquired Sonia. Heard lions ! He ! Then, with an indul- gent smile, he replied : " I am Tartarin of Tarascon, mademoiselle." Now see what barbarians they were ! If he had said " I am called Dupont," it would have been just the same. They were un- acquainted with the name of Tartarin ! However, he did not feel vexed, and re- plied 'to the question of the young lady as to whether the roar of the lion frightened him : " No, mademoiselle ; my camel trembled greatly as I rode him, but I visited my bait as quietly as if in the neighbourhood of a herd of cows. At a distance, the roar is something like this " Tartarin on the Alps 139 With a view to give Sonia an exact idea of the thing, he forced from his chest in his most sonorous tones a most formidable " Meuh" which rose, extending in volume, and was reflected back by the echo of the rock. The horses pranced, the travellers in all the carriages stood up, greatly alarmed, wanting to know what had happened, and the cause of such an awful noise ; then recognising the Alpinist, whose capped head and voluminous equipment were visible over the hood of the landau, they asked themselves once more : " What can that creature be ? " He himself, perfectly calm, continued to illustrate the details, the manner of attacking the beast, the conquest, and the despatching of it, the diamond " sight " with which his gun was supplied so as to enable him to fire straight at night. The young girl listened, bending towards him, with the greatest atten- tion, as evidenced by the slight palpitation of her nostrils. "They say that Bombonnel still hunts," said her brother. " Did you know him ? " " Yes," replied Tartarin, without enthu- 140 Tartarin on the Alps siasm. " He is by no means unskilful. But we have better than he." A word to the wise ! Then in a melancholy tone he continued : " After all, one's greatest pleasures are in hunting noble game. When one cannot get that life seems void, and one does not know how to fill up ex- istence." At this juncture, Maniloff, who un- derstood French although he did not speak it, seem- ed to listen intently to Tartarin, and said some few words laughingly to his friends. " Maniloff pretends that we are in the same category with you," explained Sonia to Tar- tarin. " We also hunt big game ! " Tartarin on the Alps 141 " Te! Yes, fardi; wolves, white bears." " Yes, wolves ; white bears, and other beasts still more detestable ! " The laughing began again, strident, inter- minable, in fierce and penetrating tones this time ; laughs which displayed the teeth, and recalled to Tartarin the peculiar character of the company in which he was travelling. Suddenly the carriages . ; : - r; pulled up. The road was becoming stiff, and in this j place made a long circuitous bend to reach the top of the i Briinig, which could be j reached in twenty minutes I by a footpath through the L beech-wood. Notwithstanding the morn- ing's rain, and the wet and slippery ground, the tourists, taking advantage of a break in the clouds, nearly all got out, and proceeded in a long file in the narrow path. From Tartarin's landau, which came last, the men descended ; but Sonia, finding the paths very muddy, settled herself in the carriage, and as the Alpinist was following 142 Tartarin on the Alps the others, somewhat retarded by his equip- ment, she said to him in a low tone and in a very insinuating manner too" Remain here, and keep me company ! " The poor man stood still, quite overwhelmed, weaving for himself a romance as delicious as un- likely, which made his old heart throb loudly and fast. He was quickly undeceived when he per- ceived the young lady bending anxiously to watch Bolibine and the Italian at the entrance of the path, behind Maniloff and Boris who were already ahead. The pretended tenor hesitated. Some instinct seemed to warn him not to trust himself alone with these men. He made up his mind at last, and Sonia watched him ascending, caressing her cheek with a bunch of violet cyclamen those mountain violets, the leaf of which is toned with the fresh colour of the flowers. The landau proceeded at a slow pace ; the coachman was walking with his comrades, and the train of fifteen carriages proceeded upwards silent and empty. Tartarin felt disturbed by some presenti- Tartarin on the Alps 143 ment of sinister import, not daring to look at his companion, so greatly did he fear that a word or a glance might make him an actor or an accomplice in the drama which he felt was about to take place. But Sonia paid no attention to him : with abstracted eyes she continued to caress the soft down of her cheek, mechanically, with the bunch of flowers. Then she said after a long pause : " So you know who we are I and my friends ? Well, what do you think of us ? What do the French people think of us ? " The hero grew pale and then red. He did not wish to anger, by any imprudent state- ments, people so vindictive as these ; on the other hand, how could he make a compact with assassins ? He got out of the difficulty by using a metaphor : " Well, mademoiselle, you told me just now that we were in the same category, hunters of hydras and monsters, of despots and carnivora. So as a confrere of St. Hubert I will reply. My opinion is that even when dealing with wild beasts we ought to meet them with honest weapons. Our Jules Gerard 144 Tartarin on the Alps the famous lion-hunter used explosive bullets. I myself do not recognise such things, and I never used them. When I went in pursuit of the lion or the panther, I stood up before the animal face to face with my double-barrelled gun and bang ! bang ! went a bullet into each eye ! " " In each eye ! " said Sonia. " Never once did I miss my aim ! " He said so : he still believed it himself. The young lady regarded "him with naive admiration, thinking aloud : " It is a good thing that he should have been quite sure of it." A quick tearing aside of the branches of the briars, and the thicket opened above them so suddenly, in so feline a manner, that Tartarin, whose head was full of hunting adventures, could have believed he was on the watch in the Zaccar. Maniloff leaped from the thicket noiselessly, close to the carriage. His little wrinkled eyes burned ; his face was scratched by the brambles, his beard and his hair were dripping with moisture. Panting for breath, his great hands resting on Tartarin on tJie Alps the carriage-door, he said a few words in Russian to Sonia, who, turning to Tartarin, said sharply : "Your rope Quick ! " " My my rope ? " " Quick, quick ! You shall have it again immediately." Without deigning any other explanation, with her own little gloved hands she assisted him to unfasten the famous rope, made at Avignon. Maniloff took the coil joyfully, and regained the summit of the bank in two bounds, with the activity of a wild cat. "What is going on ? What are they going L 146 Tartarin on the Alps to do? He looked very ferocious," muttered Tartarin, not daring to speak his thoughts aloud. Fierce ! Maniloff ! Ah, it was easily to be seen that he did not know him. No creature could be better, milder, more compassionate ; and, as instancing this susceptible nature of his, Sonia, with open blue eyes, told him that her friend, after executing the dangerous man- date of the Revolutionary Committee, leaped into the sleigh which awaited him in his flight, and threatened to throw the coachman from his seat if he continued to beat or over-drive the horses on whose speed his own safety depended ! Tartarin thought this trait worthy of the ancients ; then, having speculated on all the human lives sacrificed as indiscriminately as an earthquake, or as an active volcano, by Maniloff, who would not have an animal ill- treated, he asked the young lady with an ingenuous air : " Did he kill many people in the explosion of the Winter Palace ? " " Far too many," Sonia replied sadly. Tartarin on the Alps 147 "And the only one who deserved to die escaped." She remained silent, as if displeased ; and so pretty the head bent down, and the long, golden lashes resting upon the damask cheek. Tartarin was vexed that he had annoyed her, and captivated by the charms of youthfulness and freshness which seemed to surround this strange little being. " So, monsieur, the war we wage appears to you unjust and inhuman?" She asked that question with her face close to his, with a caress in her voice and in her eyes : our hero felt himself giving way. " Do not you think that any means are good and legitimate to deliver a people who are in the death-throes, who are being strangled ? " " No doubt no doubt." The young lady, becoming more pressing as Tartarin became weaker, continued : " You were speaking of a void to be filled, just now; does it not occur to you that it would be more noble, more interesting, to stake your life in a great cause than to risk it in killing lions or in climbing glaciers ? " 148 Tartarin on the Alps " The fact is " said Tartarin, who, quite intoxicated, had lost his head, and was tortured by the mad impulse to seize and kiss that dainty, warm, persuasive hand which she had placed upon his arm, as she had that morning up on the Rigi, when he was putting on her shoe. At length he could control him- self no longer, and seizing her little gloved hand between his own " Listen, Sonia," he cried, in a soft, familiar, and paternal voice ; " Listen, Sonia The sudden stoppage of the landau inter- rupted him. They had reached the summit of the Briinig : tourists and drivers were re Tartarin on the Alps 149 joining their respective carriages, to make up for lost time, and to gain the next village where dejeuner and relays were to be had at a gallop. The three Russians resumed their places, but that of the Italian remained unoccupied. "The gentleman has got into one of the first carriages," said Boris to the coachman, who made inquiry concern- ing him ; and then, address- ing himself to Tartarin, whose anxiety was plainly visible, he said : "We must obtain your rope from him ; he wished to keep it ! " Upon that, fresh bursts of laughter rose in the landau, and caused Tartarin once again the greatest perplexity : he did not know what to think of this good humour and cheerful disposition of the supposed assassins. While wrapping the invalid in plaids and rugs for the air at that elevation was sharp, and aug- 150 Tartarin on the Alps mented by the pace of the carriage Sonia related in Russian to her friends the con- versation she had had with Tartarin, throwing upon the " bang ! bang ! " a gentle emphasis which her countrymen repeated after her, some admiring the hero, while Maniloff shook his head incredulously. The relays ! There is, in the place of a large village, an old inn with a worm-eaten wooden balcony, with a rusty hanging iron sign-board. There the file of carriages halted, and while the horses were being changed, the hungry travellers hurried up and crowded into a first-floor room, painted green, which smelt mouldy and damp, where a table d'hote had been laid for twenty people, more or less. There were actually sixty, and for five minutes a regular scramble took place between the Rice and Prune factions round the dishes, to the great alarm of the inn-keeper, who became quite confused, as if the " post " did not pass his door every day at the same time, and he bustled his servants about, who were also seized with a chronic aberration of intellect Tartarin on the Alps 151 an excellent excuse for only serving half the dishes enumerated on the carte, and to give a fantastic change of their own, in which the white sou pieces of Switzerland count as half-francs ! " Suppose we breakfast in the carriage ? " said Sonia, who was tired ; and as nobody had time to attend to them the young people undertook to wait. Maniloff returned brand- ishing a cold leg of mutton, Bolibine with a long roll and sausages ; but the best forager of all was Tartarin. No doubt there was an excellent opportunity for him to leave his companions in the hubbub, and to assure himself concerning the fate of the Italian, but he did not think of that : he was entirely occupied by the prospect of breakfasting with " la petite" and of showing Maniloff and the others what a native of Tarascon could do in the way of supplies. When he descended the steps of the hotel, with a grave and resolute face, holding a tray on which were plates, serviettes, and different kinds of food, with Swiss champagne in gold foil, Sonia clapped her hands and complimented him: 152 Tartarin on the Alps " How did you manage to get all this ? " "I don't know- one manages it some- how we are all like that in Tarascon." Oh ! those happy moments. They will be red-letter minutes in the hero's life. That delightful break- fast, seated opposite Sonia, almost on her knees, as in a scene at the opera : the village market-place with its green quincunx, be- neath which the silver ornaments and the dresses of the Swiss women glanced brightly as they paced about, two and two like dolls. How good the bread seemed to be, and what savory sausages ! The sky itself was Tartarin on the Alps 153 sympathetic, soft, veiled, but not inclement. There was rain, certainly, but such gentle rain "lost drops" just enough to tone down the Swiss champagne, which is dangerous for Southern heads. Under the veranda of the hotel were four Tyrolese, two giants and two dwarfs, in heavy ragged costumes of staring colours, who, it was said, released by the bankruptcy of a show at a fair, were now mingling their "goose-notes," " aou aou" with the clatter of plates and glasses. They stood there, ugly, stupid, inert, stretching the tendons of their thin necks ! Tartarin thought them delight- 154 Tartarin on the Alps ful, and threw them handfuls of coppers, to the great astonishment of the villagers who had assembled round the unhorsed landau. " Fife le Vranze ! " exclaimed a tremulous voice from the crowd, out of which pushed his way a tall old man, clothed in a curious blue uniform with silver buttons, the skirts of his coat sweeping the ground behind him. He wore an enormous shako in the shape of a sauerkraut trough, and so heavy with its great plume that the old man was obliged to balance himself with his arms extended as he walked, like a tight-rope dancer. " Fieuxsoltat carte royale Charles tix ! " The Tarasconnais, still mindful of the tales told him by Bompard, began to laugh, and covertly winked. " I know you, my friend ! " But neverthe- less he gave him a piece of silver, aijd poured him out a bumper, which the old man ac- cepted smilingly and with another wink, without knowing why. Then, taking from the side of his mouth an enormous porcelain pipe, he raised his glass and drank "to the company," a circumstance which confirmed Tartarin on the Alps 155 Tartarin in his opinion that the man was a colleague of Bompard. Never mind : one toast was as good as another ! Then, standing up in the carriage, Tartarin, in a loud voice and with uplifted glass, brought tears to his own eyes, by drinking, first to France, his native land, and afterwards to hospitable Switzerland, which he was happy thus publicly to honour, and to thank, for the generous reception which she bestowed upon all conquered people, and all exiles. Lastly, lowering his voice, the glass inclined towards his travelling companions, he wished them a speedy return to their own land, where he trusted they might find kind relatives and faith- ful friends, honourable employment, and the termination of all dissensions ; for people can- not spend their lives in destroying each other. While he was enunciating this toast, the brother of Sonia smiled coldly and depre- catingly behind his glasses ; Maniloff, with extended neck, his frowning brows making a furrow on his forehead, asked himself if that " barine " was never going to stop bab- 156 Tartarin on the Alps bling ; while Bolibine, perched on the seat, and screwing up his queer face, which was yellow and wrinkled like a Tartar's, looked like a wretched little monkey perched on the shoulders of Tartarin. The young lady only listened to him : she was very serious, and endeavouring to under- stand this curious type of individual. Did he mean all he had said ? Had he done all he had related ? Is he a fool, or only a braggart, like the deceptive Maniloff, who, in his capacity of a man of action, gave to the word a misleading significance ? The test was about to be applied. His speech concluded, Tartarin was about to resume his seat when a sound of fire-arms was heard three shots in succession, which at once caused him to rise in some excitement, his ear on the alert ; he scented powder. " Who is firing ? where is it ? what is happening ? " In his inventive brain quite a little drama was being played the attack on the convoy by an armed band ; an occasion to defend the life and honour of this charming girl. " Only time enough to load a double-barrelled gun. 158 Tartarin on the Alps But no ; the firing came merely from the stand where the young men of the village practised shooting on Sundays. Tartarin airily suggested that they should go so far. He had his idea in proposing this ; Sonia had hers in accepting. Guided by the old soldier of the royal guard, still undulating beneath his heavy shako, the party crossed the market- place, dividing the ranks of the crowd, who followed them with some curiosity. With its thatched roof and newly-cut fir supports, the stand resembled, in a very rustic fashion, one of the (French) shooting-galleries at fairs, at which amateurs practise with old- fashioned, muzzle-loading weapons, which they handle cleverly enough. Silent, with folded arms, Tartarin watched the shooting, criticising it in a loud voice, giving advice but he did not shoot. The Russians noticed all this, and made signs to each other. " Bang ! bang ! " laughed Bolibine, with a gesture of aiming a gun, and imitating the accent of Tarascon : " Pan ! pan ! " Tartarin turned round, scarlet, and bursting with rage : Tartarin on the Alps 159 " Parfaitemain, young man. Pan ! pan ! and as many times as you please." In the time necessary to load a double- barrelled gun, which had served for genera- tions of chamois-hunters, Tartarin was ready. Pan ! pan ! He had done it ! Both bullets were in the mouth of the figure. A hurrah of admiration rose from all sides. Sonia was triumphant. Bolibine did not laugh. " That is nothing at all," said Tartarin. "You shall see." The stand did not suffice; he sought a mark, something to knock over, and the crowd recoiled, dismayed, before this strange Alpinist, with his gun in his hand, who was suggesting to the old guardsman to permit him to knock his pipe from between his teeth at fifty paces. The old man uttered a cry of terror, ran away, and endeavoured to conceal himself in the crowd, over the heads of which his plume nodded continually. Nevertheless Tartarin felt constrained to put the bullet into something. " Te, pardi ! like at Tarascon !" And the old sportsman the chasseur de casquettes threw his head-piece 160 Tartarin on the Alps into the air with all the strength of his " double muscles," fired, and put the ball through it. " Bravo ! " said Sonia, placing in the little hole, made by the bullet in the cloth, the bouquet with which she had lately been caressing her cheek. With this beautiful trophy, Tartarin got into the carriage again. The horn was blown, the string of carriages started at a rapid pace down the hill along that marvellous corniche road cut in the rocks, where only posts six feet apart protect the traveller from a fall of more than a thousand feet. But Tartarin no longer thought of danger ; he no longer gazed upon the landscape. Softened by tender re- flections, he admired the pretty child opposite, thinking that glory is only doubtful happiness, that it is a sad thing to grow old alone in so great grandeur, like Moses ; and that this cold flower of the North, transplanted into the little garden at Tarascon, would dissipate the monotony of the everlasting baobab (Arbos giganted) in its tiny pot. Sonia gazed at him also, and thought but who can ever tell of what young ladies think ! Night at Tarascon. Where is he ? Anxiety The " cigales du Cours " demand Tartarin. -Martyrdom of a Tarascon saint. The Alpine Club. What happened at the chemisfs. Help ! Bezuquet. " A LETTER, M. Bezuquet. It comes from Switzerland, w/ from Switzerland, "exclaimed the postman joyfully across the little court, as he waved something in the air, and hurried up as the summer evening was closing in. The chemist, who was enjoying the fresh air in his shirt-sleeves at his door, bounded forward, seized the letter with trembling 162 Tartarin on the Alps hands, and carried it into his " den," which was redolent of various elixirs and dried herbs, but he did not open the missive until the postman had gone, refreshed by a glass of the delicious Strop de Cadarre as a reward for his good news. For fifteen days had Bezuquet been expect- ing this letter from Switzerland fifteen days of agonising suspense ! Now here it is ! And while only looking at the small and determined address on the envelope, the post-mark of Interlachen and the large violet stamp of the " Hotel Jungfrau, kept by Meyer," tears filled his eyes, and caused those heavy Barbary-corsair moustaches to tremble with emotion. " Confidential : destroy when read." These words in large letters at the head of the page, and in the telegrammic style of the Pharmacopoeia "For external use only: to be well shaken before being applied," troubled the recipient so greatly that he read them aloud as one speaks in bad dreams. " What has happened to me is appalling ! " In the next room, Madame Be'zuquet, his Tartarin on the Alps 163 mother, who was in the habit of taking a little nap, after supper, could hear him as well as the pupil who kept braying something in a great mortar in the laboratory. Bezuquet continued his reading in a low voice began again two or three times, very pale, while his hair literally stood up on his head ! Then, with a rapid glance around him era era there was the letter in a thousand little bits tossed into the waste-paper basket : but it could be pieced together again, perhaps ! While he was stooping to pick them up, a querulous voice cried : " Ve, Ferdinand, are you there ? " "Yes, maman," replied the unhappy cor- sair, congealed with fear, all his great body under the desk as he groped for the pieces of the letter. " What are you doing, my treasure ? " " I am, he I am making the eye-salve for Mademoiselle Tournatoire." The mother went to sleep again ; the pestle of the pupil, suspended for the moment, again resumed the monotonous movement which lulled to sleep the household, already 164 Tartarin on the Alps exhausted bythe fatigue of the hot summer day. Bezuquet now paced up and down before his door, by turns red or green according as he passed one or other of his bottles. He gesticulated, jerking out words at intervals : " Poor fellow ! lost ! fatal attachment ; how can he be extracted from this ? " and notwith- standing his anxiety he accompanied with a lively whistle the " retreat " played by the dra- goons under the plane-trees of the Tourde ville^ Tartarin on the Alps 165 "He! adieu, Bezuquet," said a shadow, hurrying through the grey twilight. " Where are you off to, Pegoulade ? " " To the club ; there is a meeting to-night. We are to discuss Tartarin and the presidency. We must attend." " Te, yes ! I will come," replied the chemist, suddenly. He had conceived a provi- dential idea. He went inside, put on his overcoat, and searched his pockets to assure himself that his latch key and the American knuckle - duster, without which no native of Tarascon would venture out after " retreat," were safe. Then he called for Pascalon, but in subdued tones, for fear of arousing the old lady. 1 66 Tartarin on the Alps Almost a youth, and already bald, as if he wore all his hair in his frizzly fair beard, the pupil Pascalon had the elevated soul of a fanatic, a forehead like a dome, eyes like an idiotic gnat, and on his cheeks pimples of vari- ous delicate tones, crusty and golden, like a little loaf of Beaucaire. On great days and festivals the club intrusted its banner to this youth who had vowed to the P. C. A. a fierce admiration, the silent, but burning, devotion of the candle which consumes itself upon the altar at Easter-tide. " Pascalon," whispered the chemist, so close to his pupil's head that the tip of his mous- tache entered his ear, " I have had news of Tartarin ! It is harrowing ! " Then, seeing his assistant grow paler, he continued : " Courage, my lad, all may yet be repaired. Differemment to you I confide the shop. If any one asks for arsenic, don't let him have it ; if any one asks for opium, don't give it to him ; nor rhubarb either nor anything ! If I am not back at ten o'clock, shut up and go to bed. Go!" Tartarin on the Alps 167 With intrepid steps he plunged into the darkness of the Tour de ville without once looking behind him, a circumstance which gave Pascalon the opportunity to rush to the waste-paper basket, and to search with eager and trembling hands, to turn the contents out at last upon the desk, in his anxiety to ascer- tain whether some bits of the mysterious letter did not remain. Any one who knows the exaltation of the Tarasconnais will readily understand the state of excitement the little town had been in since the sudden disappearance of Tartarin. And besides, pas moins, differemment, they had all lost their heads, all the more because they were now in the middle of August, and their craniums were broiling under a sun hot enough to boil their kettles. From morning till night nothing was heard in the town but the name of " Tartarin," whether on the pinched lips of the old women with hoods, or in the cherry mouths of the grisettes with velvet ribbons in their hair : " Tartarin, Tartarin," and, under the plane-trees of the Cours, laden with white dust, the hidden grasshoppers seemed to give i68 Tartarin on the Alps vent to the two sounding syllables, "Tar tar tar tar tar. " As no one knew anything whatever about him, it was only natural that every one should be well-informed, and be able to give an ex- planation of the departure of the President. There were the most extravagant versions. According to some, he had become a Trappist, he had carried away the Dugazon; others said that he had emigrated to found a colony which would be called Port Tarascon, or even that he had penetrated into Central Africa in search of Doctor Livingstone ! Tartarin on the Alps 169 " Ah ! va'i, Livingstone ! Why he died two years ago ! " But the Tarascon imagination defies all considerations of time and space. And the curious part of the matter was that all these tales of La Trappe, colonisation, distant voyages, &c., were ideas of Tartarin himself ; visions of that waking dreamer, already com- municated to his intimate friends, who did not know what to think ; and felt very much annoyed in their secret hearts at not being told ; while affecting with others an ostenta- tious reserve, a knowing and crafty air ! 170 Tartarin on the Alps Excourbanies suspected Bravida of knowing all about it, and Bravida on his part said : " Bezuquet must be acquainted with all this. He looks askance like a dog carrying a bone ! " It is a fact that the chemist suffered a thousand deaths with this secret like a hair- shirt, smarting and itching ; making him grow pale and red in the same minute, and causing him to squint continually. Just think that the poor wretch was in Tarascon, and say whether, in all the Book of Martyrs, there is to be found a torture so terrible as his the martyrdom of Saint Bezuquet, who knew something and was not permitted to divulge it ! This is the reason why that evening, not- withstanding the terrible news, his step was so light, so free, almost running as he went to the meeting. Enfdn ! He was going to speak : to unbosom himself, to tell what had so long weighed on his mind, and in his haste to free himself he threw out interjectional remarks at the passers-by in the Tour de ville. The day had been so hot that notwithstanding the unwonted hour and the terrifying darkness it was a quarter to eight by the town clock Tartarin on the Alps 171 there was out of doors a merry crowd, trades men's families seated on the benches and enjoying the fresh air while their houses were cooling ; bands of factory-girls walked five or six abreast, holding each other's arms, in an undulating, chattering, laughing line. In all these groups they were speaking of Tartarin. " Well, Monsieur Be'zuquet, no letter yet ? " asked one, stopping the chemist in his walk. " Yes, indeed, my friend ; I beg your pardon! Read the Forum to-morrow morning." He hurried on, but they followed him, pressed upon him, and there ran a murmur along the drive, a trampling of feet, that halted under the windows of the club, which were open, throwing large square patches of light upon the ground. The meeting was being held in the old card-room, in which the long table covered with green cloth served as a desk. In the centre of it was the President's chair with P. C. A. embroidered on the back ; and the chair of the secretary faced it. Behind was displayed the banner, above a long map in relievo of the Alpines, with their respective 172 Tartarin on the Alps names and altitudes. Alpenstocks of honour, mounted in ivory in racks like billiard-cues, embellished the corners, and the glass cases displayed curiosities picked up on the mountains crystals, flints, petri- factions, two sea-urchins, and a salamander ! In the absence of Tartarin, Costecalde, looking radiant, rejuvenated, occupied the It is false ! The President has written ! : 174 Tartarin on the Alps chair. The secretary's seat was filled by Excourbanies ; but this devil of a fellow, frizzled, shaggy, and bearded, felt the need of noise or of agitation, which did not fit him for performing secretarial duties. On the smallest pretext he would throw up his arms and legs, utter the most alarming cries, and shout " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " in his ferocious joy, which generally terminated in the terrible war- cry of the residents of Tarascon in their idiom "JFen d'e brut ! let us make a noise ! " They called him " The Gong," because his brazen tones were continually dinning in one's ears. Here and there about the room the other members of the Committee were seated. In the first line was the former capitaine d' habillement, Bravida, whom every one in Tarascon called the Commandant a very small man, as neat as a new pin, who com- pensated himself for his small stature by cultivating the wild and moustached head and face of Vercingetorix. Then we perceive the long, seamed, and sickly face of Pe'goulade, the tax-col- lector, the sole survivor of the wreck of Tartarin on the Alps 175 the Medusa. Always, as far as the memory of man extended, there had been in Tarascon a sole survivor of the wreck of the Medusa. At one time, indeed, there had been three, who mutually looked upon each other as impostors, and would not associate with each other. Of the three, the true one was Pegoulade. Shipped on board the Medusa with his parents, he had experienced the disaster when he was six months old, but this circumstance did not prevent him from recounting, as an eye-witness, the minutest details of the famine, the boats, the raft, and he told how he had seized by the neck the captain, who had endeavoured to save him- self " the wretch ! " At six months old ! Outre ! Always boring people with his ever- lasting story, which everybody knew before, filtered through fifty years, and which gave him a pretext for giving himself an injured, desolate air, apart from life, as it were. "After what I have seen," he would say, and very unjustly, since he had retained his position as tax-gatherer through every administration. 176 Tartarin on the Alps Near him were the brothers Rognonas, twins and sexagenarians, never deserting each other, but always quarrelling and making rude remarks to each other. There was so great a resemblance between their two old, worn, and irregularly-shaped heads, that, had they been placed facing in opposite directions for antipathy, they might have figured in a medallion with IANVS BIFRONS as a legend. In other chairs were scattered President Bedaride, Barjavel the advocate, Cambal- alette the notary, and the terrible Doctor Tournatoire, who, Bravida said, " would let blood from a turnip ! " The heat was increasing, being much augmented by the gas, so these gentlemen sat in their shirt-sleeves, a circumstance which rather detracted from the dignity of the meeting. It is true they were in private, and the infamous Costecalde wished to profit by it to advance the date of the election, without waiting for the return of Tartarin. Assured of success, he triumphed in advance, 'and when, after the reading of the orders of the day by Excourbanies, he rose to work his Tartarin on the Alps 177 plot out, a horrible smile curved his thin lips. " Beware of him who smiles before speak- ing," muttered the Commandant. Costecalde, without flinching, and with a wink to the faithful Tournatoire, began in a thin voice : " Gentlemen, the indefensible conduct of our President, the uncertainty in which he leaves us " It is false ! The President has written ! " Be'zuquet, trembling, planted himself before the table ; but remembering that his attitude was " unparliamentary," he changed his tone, N 178 Tartarin on the Alps and with uplifted hand, according to custom, requested leave to make a statement on a pressing question. " Speak ! Speak ! " Costecalde, very yellow, and with throat compressed, gave him permission with a nod. Then, and not till then, Bezuquet began : "Tartarin is at the foot of the Jungfrau. He is about to ascend it. He requests that the banner may be sent to him." A silence, broken only by the hard breath- ing of the audience and the burning of the gas, succeeded. Then a loud hurrah, an uproar of "bravos" and stamping, which overbore the gong of Excourbanies, who uttered his war-whoop, " Ha ! ha ! ha ! fen de brut ! " to which the anxious crowd without responded with cheers. Costecalde, becoming more and more yellow, rang the presidential bell desperately. At length Bezuquet continued, mopping his forehead and purring as if he was ascending five stories high. Now, about this banner, which their Presi- dent demanded, with a view to planting it on Tartarin on the Alps 179 the virgin summit, were they going to tie it up, and send it, packed like an ordinary case, by express? " Never ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! " roared Excour- banies. Would it not be better to appoint a delegation by lot ? They would not permit him to finish. While you could say " Zou ! " the proposition was carried by acclamation, the names of the three delegates were chosen in the following order: (i) Bravida, (2) Pegoulade, (3) the chemist. No. 2 protested. The lengthy journey alarmed him, so weak and ill had he been since the accident to the Medusa. " I will go in your place, Pegoulade," roared Excourbanies, making a semaphore of his limbs. As for Bezuquet, he could not leave his pharmacy. It was necessary for the safety of the town that he should remain. One indiscreet act on the part of the pupil, and Tarascon would be poisoned, decimated ! " Outre ! " said the Committee, rising as one man. i8o Tartarin on the Alps It was certain that the chemist could not go, because he could not leave Pascalon alone, but he could send Pascalon, who would carry the banner. That he would know how to do. On this, more acclama- tions, a fresh burst of clangour from the Gong, and outside another popular demon- stration, so great that Excourbanies felt constrained to show himself at the window, Tartarin on the A/ps 181 and his unrivalled voice was soon heard above the tumult. " My friends, Tartarin is found. He is in a fair way to cover himself with glory." Without adding more than " Vive Tartarin" his war-whoop was uttered with all the force of his lungs; it dominated the terrible clamour of the great crowd under the trees of the Cours, rolling on and echoing in the cloud of dust until it reached the trees where- 182 Tartarin on the Alps on it compelled the trembling grasshoppers to pipe up again as if in mid-day ! Hearing that, Costecalde, who had ap- proached a window, as well as all the others, returned to his chair with unsteady steps. " Ve, Costecalde," said some one, "what is the matter ? How yellow he is ! " Every one ran away then, for the terrible Tournatoire was bringing out his lancet, but the gun-maker, writhing in apparent pain, murmured, through a hideous grimace, ingenuously : " Nothing it is nothing. Leave me it is the envy ! " Poor Costecalde, he had indeed all the appearance of suffering ! While these events were taking place, at the other side of the Tour de ville, in the chemist's shop, Bezuquet's pupil, seated on Tartarin on the Alps 183 his patron's counter, was patiently collecting and putting together bit by bit the fragments left by the chemist in the waste-paper basket ; but numerous pieces could not be re-united. Here was the strange and startling puzzle put before him, very like a map of Central Africa, with spaces the blanks of terra incognita, which the terrified imagination of the simple banner-bearer was exploring : mad for love lamp a chalum Chicago preserves can scarce tear mys Nihilist to death condition abom in exchange of her You know me, Ferdi know my liberal notions, but from that to Czaricide rrible consequences Siberia hung adore her Ah ! shake thy faithful han Tar Tar VIII Memorable dialogue between the Jungfrau and Tartarin.- A Nihilist salon. The duel with hunting-knives. Horrible night- mare. " 'Tis I whom you seek, gentlemen ? " Strange reception of the Tarascon delegates at the Hotel Meyer. LIKE all the fashionable hotels in Inter- lachen, the Hotel Jungfrau, kept by Meyer, is situated on the Hceheweg, a wide promen- ade between rows of chestnut-trees which vaguely recalled to Tartarin his beloved Tour de ville without the sun, the dust, and the 1 86 Tartarin on the Alps grasshoppers, for the rain had not ceased for a week. He had a capital room, with a balcony, on the first floor ; and in the morning, when trimming his beard before a little hand-glass an old habit of his the first object that met his gaze, beyond the corn, and the lavender, and the firs, in a frame of dark green, rising by successive stages, was the Jungfrau, its peak-like summit emerging from the clouds, a pure white mass of snow, upon which the rays of an invisible sunrise rested daily. Then, between the red and white Alp and the Alpinist of Tarascon arose a short dialogue which was not wanting in grandeur. " Tartarin, are we ready ? " inquired the Jungfrau severely. " Voild, I am ready," replied the hero, his thumb beneath his nose, hastening to finish his beard ; and very quickly he dressed as far as his check suit, which had not been worn for some days. He passed it by, grumbling : " Coquin de sort ! it is true that is no word - " But a clear and pleasant voice now arose Tartarin on the Alps 187 amid the myrtles which lined the windows of the rez-de-chaussee : "Good morning," said Sonia, seeing him appear upon the balcony ; " the landau is waiting for us make haste, you lazy man ! " " I am coming ; I am coming ! " In " two twos " he had substituted a linen shirt for his flannel one ; for his knicker- bockers a serpent-green suit with which he had been in the habit of turning the heads of all the Tarascon ladies on Sundays. The landau was waiting in front of the hotel. Sonia was already seated beside her brother, who was growing paler and paler day by day, notwithstanding the healthy air of Interlachen ; but at the moment of departure Tartarin saw approaching, with all the de- liberation of bears, two famous guides of Grindelwald, Rudolf Kaufmann and Christian Inebnit, engaged by him for the ascent of the Jungfrau, and who every morning came to see whether their employer was disposed to attempt it. The appearance of these two men, wearing strong hobnailed boots, fustian jackets, rubbed i88 Tartarin on the Alps on the shoulder by the knapsack and rope, their simple and serious faces, the four words of French which they stumbled over as they twirled their great hats in their hands, was veritable torture for Tartarin. He had better have said : " Don't disturb yourselves ; I will come to you first." Every day he found them in the same place, and got rid of them by a "tip" in proportion to the magnitude of his remorse. Very much de- lighted to do the Jungfrau in such pleasant fashion, the guides pocketed the trinkgeld gravely, and with resigned steps returned to their village in the fine rain, leaving Tartarin confused and desperate in his weakness. But the beautiful air, the flowery plains, reflected in the clear pupils of Sonia's bright eyes, the Tar tar in on the Alps 189 touch of her little foot on his boot in the carriage To the devil with the Jungfrau ! The hero only thought of his love, or rather of the mission which had been assigned to him to turn into the right way this poor little Sonia an unconscious cri- minal, cast, in consequence of her devotion to her brother, be- yond the pale of the law and of nature. This was the motive which kept him in Inter- lachen, in the same hotel as the Wassiliefs. At his age, with his fatherly air, he could not it was out of the question that he should fall in love with this child ; only he perceived she was so gentle, so kind, so generous towards all the miserable people of her party, so devoted to her brother, who had returned from the Siberian mines covered with ulcers, poisoned with verdigris, condemned to death 190 Tartarin on the Alps by consumption more surely than by any number of courts-martial ! There was some- thing to touch him in all this, allons ! Tartarin suggested that they should come to Tarascon, and he would accommodate them in a cottage full of sunlight at the gates of the town, that charming little town where it never rains, where life passes in singing and fetes. He got excited, pretended to play a tambourine on his hat, and hummed the gay national air to a farandole : Lagadigadeu La Tarasco, La Tarasco t Lagadigadeh La Tarasco de Casteu. But while an ironical smile thinned the lips of the invalid, Sonia shook her head. No fetes, no sun for her, so long as the Russian people groaned beneath the tyrant. So soon as her brother had recovered his sunken eyes told another tale nothing would prevent her from returning to Russia to suffer and to die for the sacred cause. Tartarin on the Alps 191 "But, coquin de bon sort!" exclaimed Tar- tarin, "after this present tyrant has been blown up, there will be another ! You will then have to begin all over again ! And so time passes ve ! the time for happiness and love." His manner of pronouncing amour, in the Tarascon dialect, with three r's, and his eyes starting out of his head, amused the young girl : but then, seriously, she could never love any man but one who would save her native land. Yes, were he as ugly as Bolibine, more rustic and rough-looking than Maniloff, she was prepared to give her- self up to him, to live with him en libre grace, so long as her youth lasted, or until he was tired of her ! "En libre grace /" is the term used by the Nihilists to describe the unions illegally con- tracted between them by mutual consent. And of this primitive style of marriage Sonia spoke calmly, with her maiden face opposite Tartarin, a good citizen, a peaceable elector, but quite disposed, nevertheless, to end hie days with this adorable girl in the said state of "free grace '' if she had not saddled it with 192 Tartarin on the Alps so many murders, and such-like horrible conditions. While they were discussing these exceed- ingly delicate topics, the fields, the lakes, the woods, the mountains were being unfolded before them, and ever, at every turning, through every shower of the perpetual wet days which followed the hero in his excur- sions, the Jungfrau uplifted her white peak as if to sharpen the edge of his remorse for that beautiful excursion. The party returned to dejeuner, and seated themselves at the long table, where the Rice and Prune factions pieserved their hostile attitude, and silent as Tartarin on the Alps 193 ever ; but Tartarin was perfectly unconcerned about them, as he sat beside Sonia, watching to see that Boris did not have a window open behind him, solicitous, attentive, paternal, airing all his seductions as a man of the world, and his domestic qualities as an excellent domestic rabbit ! Afterwards they took tea in the Russian apartments, in the little salon on the ground floor at the end of the garden, by the side of the promenade. Another charming hour of 194 Tartarin on the , Alps intimate conversation in a low tone for Tar- tarin, while Boris slept on a sofa. The hot water bubbled in the samovar, a smell of watered flowers came in through the half-open door, with the blue tint of the glass frame. A little more sun and heat, and it would have been the realisation of Tartarin's dream his little Russian seated by him, tending the small garden in which the baobab grew ! Suddenly Sonia jumped up : " Two o'clock ! And the letters ? " " Here goes," cried the worthy Tartarin. and by nothing but his accent, the manner in which he buttoned up his coat, and balanced his cane, could you have guessed the gravity of his errand, so simple in appearance, viz., to go to the post-office to find the Wassiliefs' letters. Very closely watched by the local authori- ties and the Russian police, the Nihilists, par- ticularly the chiefs, were compelled to take certain precautions, such as having their letters addressed to the paste restante, and with initials only. Since their arrival at Interlachen, Boris had Tartarin on the Alps 195 scarcely been able to get about. Tartarin, with a view to spare Sonia the long wait at the guichet, under the gaze of many eyes, was charged with the risks and perils of the correspondence. The post-office is only ten minutes' walk from the hotel, in the wide street which is a continuation of the promenade, and bordered with cafes, beer-shops, shops for tourists' alpenstocks, gaiters, straps, opera- glasses, tinted spectacles, flasks, travelling- bags, everything that would serve to make a renegade climber ashamed of himself. Tourists passed in caravans horses, guides, mules, blue veils, green veils, with the rattling of canteens, and the ambling of animals, the iron tips of sticks marking the steps ; but this fete, ever renewed, left Tartarin indifferent. He did not even feel the bise and the puffs of snow which came down from the mountains, being only attentive to throw off the scent the spies whom he believed were on his track. The first soldier of the advance-guard, the first skirmisher skirting the wall of an enemy's town, does not advance with more circumspec- tion than did our hero during his short 1 96 Tartarin on the Alps excursion from the hotel to the post-office. At the least sound of footsteps behind him, he stopped attentively at the photographic shops, or turned a few pages of an English or German book, in order to com- pel the detective to pass him ; or some- times he would turn suddenly round, to per- ceive, with his fierce eyes, a girl from one Hy/ JteL^Kj^jL 1 of the inns carrying or \s-fc IWIF in g for provisions; -/A* III 1 V^ re 1 or some inoffensive tourist, an old Prune from the table d'hote, who would step off the pavement aston- ished, taking him for an idiot. When he reached the " poste" the pigeon- hole of which opens right upon the street, Tartarin passed and repassed before he ap- proached ; then suddenly he hastened forward, pushed his head and shoulders into the " Watched the faces before he approached.' 198 Tartarin on the Alps aperture, muttering some indistinct words, which they always asked him to repeat, a course which made him savage, and at length, having received his letters, he regained the hotel by a long detour by the kitchens, his hand clenched in his pocket upon the packet of letters and papers, ready to tear them up and swallow them on the least alarm. Maniloff and Bolibine nearly always waited for the news in their friends' apartments. From motives of prudence and economy they did not lodge in the hotel. Bolibine had found work in a printing-office, and Maniloff, a very skilful cabinet-maker, worked for contractors. The Tarasconnais did not love these men ; the one bored him with his grimaces and his bantering manner, the other haunted him with his fierce airs. Besides, they occupied too much of Sonia's heart. " He is a hero, " she had said to him when talking of Bolibine, and she related how, during three years, he had, unaided, printed a revolutionary paper in St. Petersburg. Three years he did this, without coming down stairs once, and without showing himself at a window, Tartarin on the Alps 199 sleeping in a large cupboard, where the woman with whom he lodged concealed him every evening with his clandestine printing-machine. And, again, the life of Maniloff during six months in the underground cellars of the Winter Palace, biding his time, sleeping every night upon his store of dynamite, which gave him intolerable headaches, and nervous attacks, still more enhanced by the ceaseless anguish, the sudden appearances of the police vaguely conscious that a mine was being prepared, and coming suddenly to surprise the work- men employed in the Palace. At his rare exits, Maniloff would be accosted on the Admiralty Square by a delegate of the Revolutionary Committee, who demanded, in a whisper : "Is it done?" " No, nothing yet," the other would reply, without moving his lips. At length, one evening in February, the same question was put in the same terms ; he replied with the greatest coolness : " It is done." Almost immediately afterwards a bewilder- 200 Tartarin on the Alps ing uproar confirmed his words, and all the lights in the Palace were suddenly extinguished, the square was plunged in the deepest obscurity, which was pierced only by the cries of pain and terror, the sounding of trumpets, the galloping of orderlies, and of the fire-brigade hurrying up with their engines. . . . Sonia paused in her recital : " Is this horrible, so many human lives sacrificed? is so much effort, courage, and intelligence useless ? No, no ; yet, these butcheries en masse are bad. The man they aim at always escapes The true way to proceed, the most humane, would be to go to the Czar as you would approach a lion, determined, well armed, post yourself at a Tartarin on the Alps 201 window, or at the door of his carriage, and when he passes " "Be oui ! certainly," said Tartarin, who felt much embarrassed, feigning not to understand the allusion ; and suddenly he launched into some discussion, philosophic or humanitarian, with some of the others present. For Bolibine and Maniloff were not the only visitors to the Wassiliefs. Every day some new faces came in, young people, men or women dressed as poor students or fanatical teachers, blonde and rosy, with the obstinate foreheads and the fierce childishness of Sonia, law-breakers, exiles, some of them even under sentence of death, which could in no way detract from their youthful expansiveness. They laughed, chatting loudly too, and as Tartarin on the Alps the greater number spoke French, Tartarin quickly found himself at his ease. They called him " uncle," divining in him something infantine, naif, which pleased them. Perhaps he rather carried his recitals of his exploits a little too far, baring his arm above the elbow to show where the panther had wounded him, or displaying beneath his beard the holes which the claws of the lion of the Atlas had made ; perhaps, also, he became familiar with his friends too soon, putting his arm round them, slapping them on the shoulders, calling them by their Christian names in about five minutes after being introduced, as thus : " Listen, Dmitri, " " You know me, Fedor Ivanovitch," or at any rate within a very short time ; but he " went down " with them all the same, by his plain-dealing, his amiability, his confident air, and by his desire to please. They read their letters in his presence, dis- cussed their plans and passwords to blindfold the police a purely conspirators' view which tickled Tartarin's imagination very much ; and although he was by nature opposed to acts of violence, he could not at times help Tartarin on the Alps 203 discussing their homicidal projects, approving, criticising, offering advice dictated by the experience of a great chief who has been upon the war-path, accustomed to the management of all kinds of weapons, and to personal encounters with wild beasts. One day, when they were talking in his presence of the assassination of a police officer by a Nihilist at the theatre, he demon- strated to them that the thrust had been badly given, and then he gave them a lesson on the use of the knife : " Like this, ve ! from below upwards. Thus you do not run any risk of wounding yourself." Then, exciting himself to his acting level, he said : " Suppose, te ! that I have your despot entre quartre-z'yeux at a bear-hunt. He is where you are. Fedor ; I am here near the round table, and each has a hunting-knife. We two, monseigneur, we must have a turn ! " Planted in the middle of the room, bending his short legs ready for a spring, stripped like a woodcutter, he imitated for them a real comba'c, terminating with his cry 204 Tartarin on the Alps of triumph when he had plunged his weapon to the hilt upwards, coquin de sort ! in the entrails of his adversary ! " That is how it is done, young people,'' he said. But what retribution, what terrors, he endured when he was no longer under the influence of Sonia's blue eyes, after the mental intoxi- cation which had produced this bouquet of follies, he found himself alone, in his night- cap, face to face with his reflections and his usual nightly glass of eau sucree. After all, in what was he meddling ? The Czar was not his Czar; and all these tales scarcely concerned him. Suppose that, one Tartarin on the Alps 205 of these days, he was imprisoned, banished, delivered up to Muscovite justice ! Bonfre ! all these Cossacks did not joke about that ! And in the darkness of his own room, with that horrible faculty of imagina- tion that the horizontal position increases, now was opened out before him, like one of those sets of unfolding pictures which he used to have given him when a child, the varied and terrible punishments to which he was rendering himself liable ; Tartarin in the copper-mines, as Boris had been, working in water up to his waist, his 206 Tartarin on the Alps body being slowly eaten away poisoned. He escapes ! hides himself in the midst of snowy forests, pursued by Tartars and dogs trained to hunt fugitives. Worn out by cold and hunger, he is recaptured, and finally hanged between two convicts, embraced by a priest with shiny hair, smelling strongly of brandy and seal-oil, while far away yonder at Tarascon, in the sunlight, sound the fa n- fares of trumpets on a fine Sunday : the crowd the ungrateful and oblivious populace are installing the triumphant Costecalde in the chair of the P. C. A. ! It was in the agony of one of these terrible dreams that he shouted, "A moi, Bezuquet!" He sent to the chemist that confidential letter under the influence of that horrible nightmare. But the gentle " Good morning " of Sonia again bewitched him, and threw him once again into all the weakness of indecision. One evening, when returning from the Kursaal to the hotel with the Wassiliefs and Bolibine, after two hours of enthralling music, the miserable man forgot all prudence, and the words " Sonia, I love you ! " which he had Tartarin on the Alps 207 so long restrained, he at length pronounced, grasping the little arm which rested on his own. She made no sign of emotion, but looked at him fixedly, very pale, under the gas-light where they had stopped : " Well then, deserve me," she said, with a charming but puzzling smile, which displayed all her beautiful teeth. Tartarin was about to reply, binding himself, by an oath, to perform any, deadly deed, when the chasseur of the hotel came up and said : " There are some people for you, up stairs, some gentlemen. They are looking for you ! " " Looking for me ! Outre ! What for ? " Then Number i of his dioramic views came before his mind's eye : Tartarin imprisoned exiled ! Certainly he was afraid, but his attitude was heroic. Separating himself quickly from Sonia, he said in a choking voice. " Fly ! save yourself ! " Then he as- cended the stairs, with head erect, and proud mien, as if he were going to execution ; but so nervous, nevertheless, that he was obliged to grasp the banisters for support. 2o8 Tartarin on the Alps When he gained the corridor, he perceived a group of men at the door of his apartment, looking through the keyhole, knocking, and calling to him. He advanced two paces, and then with parched lips managed to say, " Do you want me, gentlemen ? " " Te, pardi! yes, my President ! " A little elderly man, brisk and bony, dressed in a grey suit, and who seemed to be carrying on his coat, his hat, his gaiters, his long pendent moustaches, all the dust of the Tour de ville^ fell upon the neck of our hero, rubbing against his soft and chubby cheeks the tough hide of the old captain. " Bravida ! it is impossible ! Excourbanies, too ! and who is that yonder ? " A bleating voice replied, " Dear ma-as-ter ! " Then the pupil advanced, knocking against the wall as he came a species of long fishing- rod, thick at the top, and swathed in silver paper and oil-cloth. "He! ve, it is Pascalon. Let us embrace, petitot ! But what are you carrying? Put it down ! " Tartarin on the Alps 209 " The paper undo the paper," puffed the Commandant. The youth unrolled it quickly, and the Tarascon banner was displayed to the eyes of the astonished Tartarin. The delegates took off their hats. " My President " Bravida's voice was trembling, solemn, and husky "you de- manded the banner ; we have brought it to you te ! " The President opened his eyes until they became as large as apples : " I ! / asked for it ? " " What ! didn't you ask for it ? " "Ah! yes, parfaitemain" replied Tartarin, Tartarin on the Alps suddenly enlightened by the name of Bezuquet. 1 Now he understood it all, and guessed what had happened ; and feeling overcome by the ingenious deception which Bezuquet had practised with a view to recall him to his duty and to honour, he choked, and muttered in his beard : " Ah, my children, this is kind what good you do me ! " " Vive le Presidain ! " squeaked Pascalon, brandishing his " oriflamme." The Gong sounded loudly, and shouted his war-whoop, " Ha ! ha ! ha ! fen de brut ! " which pene- trated to the cellars of the hotel. Doors were opened, curious faces appeared on every floor. These disappeared quickly at the sight of the standard and of the dark and shaggy men who hurled out strange defiances with extended arms. Never had such a row been heard in the peaceful Jungfrau hotel before. " Come into my room," said Tartarin, somewhat ashamed. They were feeling their way in the darkness, seeking the match-box, * Bfauquet is not mentioned. Trans Tartarin on the Alps 211 when an authoritative rap at the door caused it to open and disclose the arrogant, yellow, puffed visage of Meyer, the hotel proprietor. He was about to enter the room, but stopped in the darkness, in which his fiery eyes gleamed, on the sill, his teeth clenched on his hard Teutonic accents : " Mind you keep quiet, or I will have you all taken up by the police." A bellow as from a buffalo followed this discourteous speech, and the brutal use of the word " ramasser." The landlord retreated a pace, but flung another sentence into the room : "We know who you are! Be off! We have our eyes upon you ; and I do not want any more people like you in the house ! " "Monsieur Meyer," replied Tartarin calmly, politely, but very firmly, "get my bill made out ; these gentlemen and I will leave for the Jungfrau to-morrow morning." O, native land, O, little country in the 212 Tartarin on the Alps great one, what influence is thine ! It was sufficient to hear the Tarascon dialect rustling, with the country air, the blue folds of the banner when, lo ! there is Tartarin delivered from his love, and from the snares which surrounded him, restored to his friends, his mission, and to glory ! Now, zou ! IX At the sign of " The Faithful Chamois" NEXT day it was delightful to take the foot- path from Interlachen to Grindelwald, which the tourists were obliged to pass to pick up the guides for the Little Scheideck ; delightful, the triumphal march of the P. C. A., once more equipped in his mountaineering habili- ments, supported on one side by the thin shoulder of the Commandant Bravida, on the other by the robust arm of Excourbanies, both proud to escort him, to sustain their dear President, to carry his ice-axe, his sac, his 214 Tartarin on the. Alps alpenstock ; while sometimes in front, and sometimes behind, or on the flank, Pascalon gamboled like a little dog, carrying his banner, wisely packed up, so as to avoid any demonstration such as they had had the evening before. The high spirits of his companions, the sentiment of duty done, the snowy Jungfrau yonder, were not sufficient to make the hero forget what he had left behind him, perhaps for ever, and without a farewell ! As he passed the last houses of Interlachen, his eyes filled with tears, and while he was walk- ing he unbosomed himself, turn about, to Excourbanies with " Listen, Spiridion," or to Bravida with " You know me, Placide " for, by the irony of fate, the invincible soldier was called Placide, and the rough " buffalo," with material instincts, Spiridion. Unfortunately, the Tarascon race, more brave than sentimental, never could take love affairs seriously. "Whoever loses a woman and fifteen pence, is to be condoled with for the loss of the money,'' replied the senten- tious Placide, and Spiridion quite agreed with Tartarin on the Alps 215 him. As for the innocent Pascalon, he held women in fear, and blushed to the eyes when they pronounced the name of la Petite Scheideck in his hearing, having a kind of no- tion that it referred to a lady of somewhat free-and-easy manners. The poor lover was, therefore, obliged to keep his thoughts to himself, and to console himself alone, which is, after all, the safest course. Besides, what worries could resist the attrac- tions of the route across the narrow, deep, and shaded valley, where the tourists skirted a wind- ing river, white with foam, and roaring like thun- der amid the echoing pines which overhung and surrounded it on both its sloping sides ! The Tarasconnais delegates, with their heads held high, advanced with a feeling akin to terror in " religious " admiration ; like the companions of Sindbad the Sailor, when they saw the mangroves and other gigantic flora of the Indian coasts. Only hitherto acquainted with their little bare and stony hills, they had no idea that there could possibly grow so many trees at once, on such very high mountains too ! " Oh, that is nothing ; wait until you see the 216 Tartarin on the Alps Jungfrau," remarked the P. C. A., who quite enjoyed their surprise, and felt himself grow- ing bigger in their estimation. At the same time, to enliven the scene and to humanise its imposing strain, many parties of people passed them en route large lan- daus at full trot, with veils floating from the doors heads were bent in curiosity to see the President surrounded by the delegation ; while from time to time wood-carvers' stalls were passed ; little girls standing by the way- side, looking very wooden-y in their straw hats with wide ribbons, and party-coloured skirts, singing in chorus of three voices, and offering bouquets of raspberry-sprays and edelweiss. Sometimes the Alpine horn would echo through the mountains its melancholy notes, swelling up, and repeated by the gorges, then slowly dying away after the manner of a cloud resolving into vapour. "It is beautiful. One might fancy it the notes of an organ," murmured Pascalon, who, with moist eyes, was in ecstasy like a saint in a stained-glass window. Excourbanies shouted without any fear, and the echo Tartarin on the Alps 217 repeated itself in his Tarascon dialect until it finally died away : " Ha ! ha ! ha ! fen de brut!" But they got tired of this in about two hours, proceeding through the same scenery was it all arranged ? green on blue ; glaciers at the bottom; and as sonorous as a musical clock. The roar of the torrents, the three - voice choruses, the sellers of wood- carvings, the little flower- girls, became insupport- able to our friends : the dampness, too, the steam at the bottom of this gorge, the humid ground, full of water- plants, into which the sun never penetrates. " It is enough to give one pleurisy," re- marked Bravida, pulling up his coat-collar. Then fatigue, hunger, and ill-humour all 2i8 Tartarin on the Alps attacked him at once. They could find no inn, and, being stuffed with raspberries, Excourbanies and Bravida began to suffer cruelly. Even Pascalon himself that angel laden not only with the flag, but with the ice-axe, the sac, and the alpenstock, of which the others had by turns disembarrassed them- selves, had lost his sprightliness and activity. At a turn of the road, as they were about to cross the Lutschine on one of the covered bridges which are found in very snowy dis- tricts, a very formidable blowing of a horn reached their ears. "Ah! vef enough! enough!" screamed the exasperated delegation. The blower a giant ambushed by the side of the road put down an enormous pine-trumpet, which rested on the ground and was terminated b*y a sounding-box which gave to this prehistoric instrument the loud- ness of a piece of artillery. " Ask him whether he knows where there is an inn ? " said the President to Excour- banies, who with great dignity, and with a very small pocket-dictionary, pretended Tartarin on the Alps 219 to act as interpreter to the delegation since they were in German Switzerland. But before he could produce his dictionary, the horn-blower replied in very good French : " An inn, gentlemen ? why, certainly : the Chamois fidele is quite close by : allow me to show you the way ? " And while he accompanied them thither he informed them that he had lived in Paris many years as commissionaire at the corner of the Rue Vivienne. " Another of the Company's people, par- bleu ! " thought Tartarin, leaving his friends to be amazed. The confrere of Bompard also made himself very useful, for although the sign of the house was in French, the people of the Chamois fidele only spoke a horrible German patois. The delegates, seated before an enormous potato omelette, soon recovered their health and good humour, which are essential to the Southerner as the sun is to his country. They drank deeply, and ate well. After toasts drunk to the President and to his ascent, Tartarin, who had been much exercised in 22O Tartarin on the Alps his mind concerning the sign, turned to the horn -player, who was breaking a crust in the same room with them, and said : " So you have some chamois hereabouts ? I thought none were left in Switzerland." The man winked his eyes : "There are not many of them, but we could manage to let you see one all the same ! " "He wants to shoot at one, v/" said Pascalon enthusiastically, " and the President never misses his aim." Tartarin on the Alps Tartarin was sorry he had not brought his gun. " Wait a minute ; I will speak to the ' patron.' " He ascertained that the innkeeper was an old chamois-hunter ; he offered his gun, powder, his buckshot, and even his services as guide to the gentlemen, towards a lair which he knew. "En avant ; sou/" cried Tartarin, yielding to his Alpinists, who were delighted to wit- ness their chiefs skill. It was only a trifling delay after all ; and the Jungfrau would lose ' . ' \ nothing by waiting. Leaving the inn by the back door, they had only to push through a path in an orchard scarcely larger than the little garden of a station-master on a railway, to find them- Tartarin on the Alps selves on the mountain side, cut up by great crevasses between the pines and the bushes. The innkeeper had gone on ahead, and the delegates could perceive him gesticulating and throwing stones, no doubt with a view to startling the animal. They had considerable trouble to rejoin him on the rocky and difficult slopes, particularly for people who have just got up from table, and who are no more accustomed to climbing than the worthy Tarasconnais were. There was, besides, a heavy air, a pressage of storm, which rolled the clouds slowly across the peaks overhead. " Boufre!" whined Bravida. Excourbanies groaned : " Outre ! " " Let me tell you " added the tame and bleating Pascalon. But as the guide motioned them to be silent and to stay where they were, they obeyed. " One should never speak when carrying arms," said Tartarin of Tarascon with a severity of which each took his share, although the President was the only one armed. They remained standing and holding Tartarin on the Alps 223 their breath ; suddenly Pascalon exclaimed : " Ve! the chamois/ Ye!" At a hundred yards above them there stood the pretty animal, his horns upright, his coat a pretty fawn colour, the four feet planted together upon a rock. It was plainly visible against the sky, looking around without any appearance of fear. Tartarin methodically shouldered his gun as usual : he was going to fire, when the chamois disappeared ! " It is your fault," said the Command- ant to Pascalon. "You whistled that frightened it." " I whistled ! I ! " "Then it was Spiridion." " Ah ! vdi ; I never whistled in my life." There had nevertheless been a whistle, shrill and long. The President put them all at their ease by informing them that the chamois at the approach of an enemy utters a whistling noise through his nostrils. What a devil of a fellow Tartarin was ! he knew all the details of chamois-hunting as well as of all the other sports. At the guide's suggestion they continued their way ; but the slope 224 Tartarin on the Alps became more and more steep, the rocks more uneven, with sloughs and gullies to right and left. Tartarin kept his presence of mind, turning round every moment to assist the delegates, to hold out his hand or his gun to them. " The hand, the hand ! . ., if it's all the same to you," exclaimed the brave Bravida, who had a mortal horror of loaded firearms. Another sign from the guide another halt. "I think I felt a drop of rain," muttered the Commandant, who was very anxious. At the same time it thundered, and louder than the thunder rose the voice of Excourbanies : " Look out, Tartarin ! " The chamois came on, bounding between them like a flash too quick for even Tartarin to shoulder his gun, not quick enough though to prevent them from hearing the loud whist- ling of his nostrils. " I will give an account of him, coquin de 1 Tartarin shouldered his gun methodically as usual." 226 Tartarin on the Alps sort ! " said the President ; but the delegates protested. Excourbanies suddenly very sharply asked him if he had sworn to exterminate them. " Dear ma-as-ter," bleated Pascalon, timid- ly, " I have heard it said that the chamois when driven to bay turns against the hunter, and becomes very dangerous." " Don't let us bring him to bay, then," said Bravida the terrible. Tartarin called them chicken-hearted milk- sops. Then suddenly, while they were dis- puting, they lost sight of each other in a thick, warm cloud which smelt of sulphur, and through which they kept searching for each other, calling out : " He ! Tartarin ! " " Are you there, Placide ! " " Ma-as-ter ! " " Keep cool ! keep cool ! " There was a regular panic. Then a gust of wind dispersed the cloud, carried it away like a veil torn off the bushes, and from it came a forked flash of lightning, followed by an awful crash of thunder under their very feet as it seemed. Tartarin on the Alps 227 " My cap ! " exclaimed Spiridion, whose hail was standing up quite electrified, his head- gear having been carried off by the tempest. They were in the heart of the storm in Vulcan's forge itself. Bravida first fled at full speed ; the remainder of the delegation fol- lowed him ; but one cry from the P. C. A., who thought for them all, restrained them : " Malheureux ! beware of the lightning!" Besides, outside of the real dangers which threatened them, they could scarcely run upon the steep slopes, across ravines now trans- formed into torrents and cascades by the rain. Their return was disastrous, at a slow pace, amid the lightning, the thunder, their tumbles, glissades, and forced halts. Pascalon crossed himself, and appealed aloud as at Tarascon to Saint Martha, Saint Helena, and Saint Mary Magdalen, while Excourbanies swore " Coquin de sort ! " and Bravida, who brought up the rear, turning round in a nervous state, said : " What is that I hear coming behind us ? that sniffling, that gallop, there it has stopped ! " The idea of the maddened. 228 Tartarin on the Alps chamois throwing itself upon the hunters could not be banished from the mind of the old warrior. In a low tone, so as not to alarm the others, he imparted his fears to Tartarin, who bravely changed places with him, and marched last with head held high, wet to the skin, yet with the inward determina- tion which imminent danger bestows ! But when they had regained the inn, and when he saw his dear Alpinists in shelter, in a fair way to dry themselves around an enormous faience stove, in a room on the first floor, whence was ascending the odour of hot grog and wine, then the President felt himself shiver, and he declared with a very pale face: " I really believe I am taken ill." Taken ill ! an expression of sinister mean- ing in its vagueness and brevity, which hinted at all kinds of maladies plague, cholera, yellow fever, "blue devils," jaundice, and lightning-strokes, the thought of which always occurred to the Tarasconnais at the least indisposition. Tartarin was taken ill ! There could, there- fore, be no question of continuing the journey, Tartarin on the Alps 229 and the delegates only cared for rest. Quickly they warmed his bed, plied him with wine, and at the second glass the President felt a grateful warmth permeate his body : a good omen ! Two pillows at his back, an Tar farm on -the Alps eider-down on his feet, his comforter tied over his head, he experienced a delicious satisfaction in listening to the roarings of the storm ; in the pleasant smell of the pines ; in the little rustic, wooden inn, with latticed windows; in regarding his friends, the dear Alpinists, who pressed around his bed, glasses in hand, looking such queer figures in their odd costumes of curtains and such materials, with their Gallic, Saracen, or Roman types of features, while their clothes were drying before the stove. Forgetting himself, he questioned them in a doleful voice : "Are you quite well, Placide? Spiridion, you seemed to be unwell just now." No, Spiridion suffered no longer, it had all passed away when the President was taken so ill. Bravida, who suited the moral to the proverbs of his country, added cynic- ally : " The sickness of a neighbour comforts and even cures us." Then they spoke of their hunting, warming at the recollection of certain dangerous incidents, such as when the animal had turned upon them furiously ; and without any complicity of lying, they Tartarin on the Alps 231 very ingeniously fabricated a fable which they would relate on their return. Suddenly, Pascalon, who had gone down stairs for another modicum of grog, re- appeared in the greatest alarm a naked arm outside his blue-flowered curtain, which he gathered around him with modest gesture a la Polyeucte, He was more than a second in the room before he could utter in a low voice and with quick breathing : "The chamois ! " " Well, what about it ? " " It is down stairs, in the kitchen ! " " Ah, go along ! " " You are joking ! " " Will you go and see, Placide ? " Bravida hesitated ; so Excourbanies de- scended on tip-toe ; and then returned almost immediately, with a scared face. More extraordinary news still The chamois was drinking warm wine ! They owed him as much, poor beast, after the pretended hunt he had afforded them on the mountain, all the time started off or recalled by his master, who usually contented 232 Tartarin on tlu Alps himself with putting it through its paces in the salle to show tourists how easily it had been tamed. "This is crushing," said Bravida, not caring to understand any more about it, while Tartarin pulled the comforter over his face to hide from the delegates the gentle mirth which overspread his features, when at any stage of his journey he encountered the all- satisfying Switzerland of Bompard, with its mechanism and its supernumeraries ! The ascent of the Jungfrau. Ve ! the oxen ! The Kennedy " crampons" do not answer; neither does the lamp. Appearance of masked men at the chalet. The President in the crevasse. He leaves his spectacles behind him. On the peaks. Tartarin a deity. THERE was a tremendous crowd that morning at the Belle Vue Hotel on the Little Scheideck. Notwithstanding the rain and the squalls, the tables had been laid out of doors, under the shelter of the veranda, amongst an assemblage of alpenstocks, flasks, telescopes, cuckoo-clocks, &c. ; and the tourists could, 234 Tartarin on the Alps while breakfasting, gaze to the left upon the valley of Grindelwald, some 6,000 feet below; on the right the Lauterbrunnen valley, and in front of them, at what seemed within gun-shot distance, the pure and stupendous slopes of the Jungfrau, with its neve, its glaciers, the whiteness of it all illuminating the air around, making the glasses still more transparent and the table-linen still more snowy. But for the moment the attention of the company was directed to a noisy bearded party of tourists, who were coming up on mule-back, on donkey-back, one man even in a chaise a porteurs, who prepared themselves for the as- cent by a copious breakfast ; they were in high spirits, and the noise they made contrasted greatly with the worn-out and solemn airs of the Rice and Prune factions, some illustrious members of which had assembled at the Scheideck : Lord Chippendale, the Belgian Senator and his family, the Austro-Hungarian diplomatist and his family. It seemed as if all these bearded people were about to attempt the ascent, for they occupied themselves in turn with the preparations for departure, Tartarin on the Alps 235 rose, hurried off to give instructions to the guides; to inspect the provisions, and from one end of the terrace to the other they shouted to each other in discordant accents : " He ! Placide, see if the frying-pan is in the bag, and don't forget the spirit-lamp, mind ! " When the starting time arrived, however, it was perceived that all this was on account of one, and that of all the party one individual alone was going to undertake the ascent ! But what an individual ! "Children, are we ready?" said the good Tartarin, in a triumphant and joyful tone, which did not tremble with the shadow of a fear for the possible perils of the journey, his last doubt concerning the " machinery " of the Swiss having been dissipated that morning before the two Grindelwald glaciers, each pro- vided with a turn-stile and a guichet with an inscription, "Entrance to the glacier, one franc and a half." He could then enjoy this departure without regret : the delight of feeling himself the observed of all observers; envied, admired, 236 Tartarin on the Alps by those cheeky little girls with the close- cropped hair, who had laughed at him so quietly on the Rigi-Kulm ; and who were at that very moment in raptures, comparing that Tartarin on the Alps 2 37 little man with that enormous mountain which he was going to ascend. One was sketching him in her album, another was requesting the honour of holding his alpenstock. " Tchimp- pegne Tchimppegne," suddenly cried a lanky, melancholy Englishman, of brick-tint, who was approaching with a bottle and a glass in his hands. Then, after having com- pelled the hero to drink, he said : " Lord Chippendale, sir ; et I'd?" " Tartarin de Tarascon.'' " Oh, yes, Tarterine. It's a capital name for a horse," said his lordship, who must have been a great sportsman on the other side of the Channel ! 238 Tartarin on the Alps The Austro-Hungarian diplomatist also came forward to shake the mountaineer by the hand between his mittens having a vague recollection of having met him somewhere. " Delighted, delighted," he repeated many times, and, not knowing how to get out of it, he added : " My compliments to Madame," his society formula, by which he concluded all introductions. But the guides were becoming impatient. The cabin of the Alpine Club must be reached before dark ; there they would sleep, and there was not a moment to lose. Tar- tarin quite understood this, and saluted the company with a wave of his hand, smiled paternally at the malicious " misses," and then, in a voice of thunder, cried : " Pascalon, the banner ! " It was displayed, the Southerners had unfolded it, for they like theatrical display ; and at the thirtieth repetition of " Vive le President!" "Vive Tartarin!" "Ha! ha! fen debrut" the party started the two guides in front carrying the sac, the provisions, and some wood ; then Pascalon, holding the Tartarin on the Alps 239 " oriflamme ; " and the P. C. A. with the dele- gates, \\ho were to escort him to the Guggi glacier, brought up the rear. So the procession deployed, the folds of the flag flapping upon the swampy ground, or on the naked or snowy crests, the cortege in a vague way recalling le jour des morts in country places. Suddenly, the Commandant cried out in great alarm : " V'e ! oxen ! " They perceived some cattle grazing amid the undulations of the ground. The old warrior had a nervous terror of cows an insurmountable fear ; and as his friends could not leave him alone, the delegation was obliged to halt. Pascalon handed the banner to one of the guides ; then a last embrace, a few hurried words of warning, with their eyes on the cows : " Adieu, que ! " " No imprudence, mind ! " And they parted. As for any one proposing to ascend with the President, it was not to be thought of. The ascent was too high, boufre ! As one Tartarin on the Alps got nearer to it, it seemed more difficult, the ravines increased, the peaks bristled up in a white chaos which seemed impossible to traverse. It was much better worth while to watch the ascent from the Sheideck. Naturally, Tarta- rin in all his life had never set foot on a glacier. There were no such things upon the hillocks of Tarascon, which were as perfumed and dry as a bundle of bent-grass. Yet the surroundings of the Guggi gave him a sensation of fami- liarity, as if he had seen them before arousing the memory of the chase in Provence, all around the Camarguo Tartarin on the Alps 241 towards the sea. It was the same grass, but shorter and burnt up as if scorched by fire. Here and there were pools of water, infiltrations, indicated by I slim reeds ; then the moraine, like a mobile hill of sand, broken shells, and cinders ; then the glacier, with its blue- green waves, tipped with white, undulating as a silent and frozen sea. The wind also had all the coolness and fresh- ness of the sea-breeze. " No, thanks ; I have my crampons" said Tartarin, as the guide offered him woollen foot-protectors to wear over his boots : " Kennedy's pattern crampons first-rate very con- venient." He shouted all this at the top of his voice as if the guide were deaf, so as to make him understand better, for Christian Inebnit knew no more French than his comrade Kaufmann. Then Tartarin R 242 Tartarin on the Alps seated himself upon the moraine and fixed upon his boots with irons the species of large pointed iron socks called crampons. He had experimented a hundred times with these " Kennedy crampons" and had tried them in the garden where the baobab grew ; nevertheless the result was unex- pected. Beneath the hero's weight the spikes buried themselves in the ice to such a depth that all attempts to extricate them were vain ! Behold Tartarin nailed to the ice, springing, swearing, making semaphores of his arms and alpenstock ; and finally reduced to recall his guides, who had gone on ahead in the full belief that they had to do with an experienced climber ! Finding it impossible to pull him up, they unfastened the crampons from him, and left them in the ice, replacing them by a pair of worsted boot-coverings. The President then continued his way, not without toil and fatigue. Unaccustomed to use his baton, he knocked it against his legs; the iron slid away from him, dragging him with it, when he leaned on it too heavily ; then he tried Tartarin on the Alps 243 the ice-axe, which proved even more difficult to manage ; the swellings of the glacier in- creased, casting up its motionless waves into the appearance of a furious ocean suddenly petrified. Apparently motionless only for the loud crackings, the interior rumblings, the enor- mous blocks of ice slowly displaced like the revolving scenes at a theatre, displayed the action, the treacherousness, of this immense glacial mass ; and before the climber's eyes, within reach of his axe, crevasses opened bottomless pits into which the pieces of ice rolled to infinity. The hero fell into many of these traps once up to his waist into one of the green gulfs, wherein his broad shoulders alone prevented him from being buried. Seeing him so unskilful, and at the same time so calm and collected laughing, sing- ing, gesticulating, just as he had been doing at breakfast the guides began to think that the Swiss champagne had got into his head. Could they think anything else of a President of an Alpine Club, of a mountaineer so 244 Tartarin on the Alps renowned, of whom his companions never spoke without "Ah !" and expressive gestures? Having, therefore, seized him under his arms after the respectful fashion of policemen putting a well-born but elevated young gentle- man into a cab, the guides, by the aid of monosyllables and gestures, endeavoured to arouse his reason to the dangers of the route ; the threatening appearance of the crevasses, the cold, and the avalanches. With the points of their ice-axes they indicated the enormous accumulations of ice, the sloping wall of neve in front, rising to the zenith in a blinding glare. But the worthy Tartarin laughed at all this. " Ah ! vai, les crevasses ! Ah ! get out with your avalanches ! " and he choked with laughter, winked at the guides, and nudged them playfully in the ribs, to make them understand that he was in the secret as well as they ! The men ended by joining in the fun, carried away by Tarascon melody ; and when they rested a moment upon a block of ice to permit " monsieur " to take breath, they Tartarin on the Alps 245 " jodelled " in Swiss fashion, but not loudly, for fear of avalanches, nor for long, because time was passing apace, r .. ... ..- __ Evening was evidently coming on, the cold was becoming more in- 4fe^ttr- tense, and the singular discoloration of the -' snows and the ice, heaped up and over- hanging in masses, which, even under a cloudy sky, glitter and sparkle, but when day- light is dying out, gone up towards the tapering peaks, take the livid, spectral tints of the lunar world. Pallor, congelation, silence all is dead. And the good Tartarin, so warm, so lively, began at length to lose his verve, when at the distant cry of a bird, the call of the "snow partridge " (ptarmigan) resounding 246 Tartarin on the Alps amid the desolation, before his eyes there passed a vision of a burnt-up country, browned under a setting sun, sportsmen of Tarascon, wiping their foreheads, seated upon their empty game-bags, beneath the shade of an olive-tree ! This reminiscence comforted him. At the same time Kaufmann was pointing out to him something above them which looked like a faggot on the snow. This was the hut. It seemed as if a few paces would suffice to reach it, but it was a good half-hour ere they got there. One of the guides went on in front to light the fire. It was dark by this time ; the east wind came piercingly off the death-like ground, and Tartarin, no longer troubling himself about anything, firmly sustained by the arm of the guide, jumped and bounded about until there was not a dry thread on him, notwithstanding the lowness of the temperature. Suddenly, a savoury odour of onion-soup assailed their nostrils. They had reached the hut. Nothing can be more simple than these stopping-places established on the mountains Tartarin on the Alps 247 by the forethought of the Swiss Alpine Club ; a single room, in which a sloping plank, serving as bed-place, occupies nearly all the space, leaving very little for the stove and the long table, which is nailed to the floor, as well as the benches which surround it. The supper was already laid when the men arrived ; three bowls, tin spoons, the " Etna" for the coffee, two tins of Chicago preserved meats opened. Tartarin found the dinner excellent, although the onion-soup was rather smoked, and the famous patent lamp, which ought to have produced a quart of coffee in three minutes, failed to work. For dessert they sang : it was the only way to converse with the guides. He sang his country's songs : la Tarasque, Us f tiles d' Avig- non, The guides responded with local songs in their German patois : " Mi Vaterisch en Ap- penzeller ; aou, aou ! " Fine fellows these hard as rock, with soft flowing beards like moss, clear eyes, accustomed to move in space, as sailors' are ; and this sensation of the sea and space, which he had lately ex- perienced while ascending the Guggi, Tartarin 248 Tartarin on the Alps again experienced here in the company of these glacier-pilots in that narrow cabin, low and smoky, a veritable " 'tween-decks," in the dripping of the snow which the heat had melted on the roof, and the wild gusts of wind, like masses of falling water, shaking everything, making the planks creak and the lamp flicker : then suddenly stopping in a silence as if all the world were dead. Dinner was finished, when heavy steps were heard approaching, and voices were distin- guished. A violent knocking at" the door ! Tartarin, somewhat alarmed, gazed at the guides. A nocturnal attack at such an eleva- tion as this? The blows redoubled in in- tensity. "Who is there?" cried the hero, seizing his ice-axe : but the cabin was already invaded by two tall Americans masked in white linen, their clothing saturated with per- spiration and snow-water, and behind them guides and porters quite a caravan coming down from the summit of the Jungfrau. " Welcome, my lords," cried Tartarin, with a hospitable and patronising wave of his hand, but " milords " had no compunction Tartarin on the Alps 249 as to making themselves quite at home. In a few seconds the table was relaid, the bowls and spoons passed through some hot water to serve for the new-comers, according to the rules existing in all Alpine huts, the boots of " milords " were drying at the stove, while they, with their feet wrapped in straw, were dis- posing of a new supply of onion soup. These Ameri- cans were father and son two ruddy giants, with the heads of pioneers, hard and practical. The older of the two seemed to have white eyes ; and after awhile the manner in which he tapped and felt around him, and the care which his son took of him, assured Tartarin that he was the famous blind mountaineer of whom he had heard at the Belle Vue Hotel, a fact he could scarcely credit, a famous climber in his youth, and who, notwithstanding his sixty years, had 250 Tartarin on the Alps recommenced his ascents again with his son. He had in this manner already made the ascent of the Wetterhorn and the Jungfrau, and reckoned upon attacking the Cervin and Mont Blanc, declaring that the mountain air gave him intense enjoyment, and recalled all his former vigour. " But," said Tartarin to one of the porters for the Yankees were not communicative, and only replied "Yes " or " No " to all ad- vances "but, if he cannot see, how can he manage to cross dangerous places?" " Oh, he has the foot of a true mountain- eer, and his son looks after him, places his feet in the proper positions, &c. The fact is, he never has an accident." " More especially as accidents are never very deplorable, que?" After a knowing smile to the astonished porter, the Taras- connais, more and more persuaded that all this was blague, stretched himself on the plank, rolled himself in his rug, his comforter up to his eyes, and fell asleep, notwithstanding the light, the chatter, the smoke of pipes, and the smell of the onion-soup. Tartarin on the Alps 251 " Mossie ! Mossie ! " (Monseiur). One of the guides was shaking him by the shoulder, while the other was pouring out some boiling coffee into the bowls. There were a few oaths and some grumbling from the sleepers, as Tartarin pushed past them in his way to the table and to the door. All of a sudden, he found himself in the open air, shivering with cold, and puzzled by the moonlight upon the white plains, the frozen cascades, which the shadows of the peaks, aiguilles, and seraes, cut with intense black- ness. There was not the bewildering scin- tillation of the afternoon, nor the livid grey tinge of the evening, but a town cut by dark alleys, mysterious passages, dubious angles between the marble monuments and crumbled ruins a dead town with its wide deserted squares. Two o'clock ! With good walking they ought to reach the summit by mid-day. "Zou," said the P. C. A. quite gaily, and pressed forward to the assault. But the guides stopped him : it was necessary to rope themselves. 252 Tartarin on the Alps " Ah ! go along with your tying up ! Very well, then ; if it amuses you, be it so ! " Christian Inebnit took the lead, leaving six feet of rope between him and Tartarin, and the same length between Tartarin and the other guide, who was carrying the pro- visions and the banner. The Tarasconnais got on better than the day before, and really he did not seem to appreciate the difficulties of the path if the way along that terrible arete of ice can be called a path over which they were advancing with the greatest caution. It was a few inches wide, and so slippery that Christian had to cut steps in it. The arete glittered between profound abysses. But do you think Tartarin was afraid ? Not a bit of it ! Scarcely did he experience the little tremor of the newly-made Freemason who has to submit to the ordeal ! He placed his feet exactly in the holes cut by the guide, doing everything as he saw him do it, as coolly as if he were in the baobab gar- den, walking on the edge of the fountain, to the great terror of the gold-fish. At one time, the crest became so narrow that they were Tartarin on the Alps 253 compelled to proceed on all-fours, and while they were advancing slowly a tremendous detonation was heard on the right beneath them. " An avalanche ! " said Inebnit, stop- ping quite still so long as the uproar lasted, while the reverberations, grandly repeated, terminated by a lengthened thunder-roll, which slowly died away in echoes. After that the former terrible silence succeeded, covering all things like a winding-sheet. The arete passed, they reached the neve, which sloped easily, but was terribly long. They had climbed for more than an hour, when a thin streak of rosy hue began to touch the peaks high very high over their heads. Day was announcing its arrival. As a good Southerner, cherishing an enmity to darkness, Tartarin trolled out his cheerful song : Grand souleii de la Proven$o Gai compaire dou mistrau.' 1 A tug at the cord both before and behind stopped him short in the middle of his verse : 1 Grand soleil de la Provence, Gai compere du mistral 254 Tar tar in on the Alps " Hush ! hush ! " cried Inebnit, indicating with the handle of his ice-axe the menacing line of immense and clustered seracs which the least shock would send down upon the travellers. But the Tarasconnais knew what he was about they were not going to humbug him ; so he recommenced in a resonant voice ; Tu qu'escoutes la Dnranfo Com mo unflot de vin de Cran. 1 The guides, perceiving that they could not keep the headstrong singer within due bounds, made a wide detour to avoid the seracs, and soon were brought to a standstill by an enorm- ous crevasse, which was lighted in its green depths by the first rays of daylight. A snow bridge crossed it, but so thin and fragile, that at the very first step it disappeared in a whirl- wind of fine snow, dragging with it the head guide and Tartarin, who hung by the cord, which Rudolf Kaufmann, the rear guide, gripped with all his force, his axe firmly fixed in the snow to sustain the tension. But 1 TGI qui siffles la Durance Comme un coup de vin de Crau. Tartarin on the Alps 255 though he could hold up the men, he could not haul them out, and he stood crouching down, with clenched teeth and straining muscles, too far from the crevasse to perceive what was passing within it. Astounded by the fall, and half blinded by the snow, Tartarin for a minute threw his legs and arms about like a puppet : but then, righting himself by means of the rope, he hung over the chasm, his nose touching the icy wall, which thawed beneath his breathing, in the posture of a plumber mending a water- pipe. He saw the sky paling above him, the last stars were disappearing ; beneath him a chasm of intense darkness, whence ascended a cold air. Nevertheless, his first astonishment over, he regained his coolness and good humour : " Eh ! up there ! Father Kaufmann, don't let us get mouldy here, que ! There is a draught, and this cursed cord is bruising our ribs." Kaufmann was not able to reply. If he unlocked his teeth he would lose some of his strength. But Inebnit hailed from below ; 256 Tartarin on the Alps " Mossie ! Mossie! ice-axe!" for he had lost his own in the crevasse ; and the heavy instrument passed from Tartarin's hands into those of the guide a difficult operation because of the length of cord which separated them. The guide wanted it to cut steps in the ice in front of him, or to cling by it foot and hand. The strain upon the rope being thus lessened by one half, Rudolf Kaufmann, with carefully calculated force and infinite precau- tions, commenced to drag up the President, whose cap at length appeared over the edge of the crevasse. Inebnit came up in his turn, and the two mountaineers met with effusion, but with the few words which are exchanged after great dangers by people of a slow habit of speaking. They were much moved, and trembling with their exertions. Tartarin passed them his flask to restore them. He seemed quite composed and calm, and while he was beating the snow from his dress rhythmically, he kept humming a tune, under the very noses of the astonished guides. " Brav ! braii ! franzose," said Kaufmann, Tartarin on the Alps 257 patting him on the shoulder, and Tartarin, with his jolly laugh, replied : " Farceur, I knew quite well there was no danger ! " Within the memory of guide, never had there been such an Alpinist as this ! They continued their way, climbing a gigantic wall of ice eighteen hundred or two thousand feet high, in which they cut steps, which occupied much time. The man of Tarascon began to feel his strength failing him under the blazing sun, which reflected all the whiteness of the land- scape, all the more trying for his eyes as he had dropped his spectacles into the crevasse. Soon afterwards a terrible faintness seized upon him, that "mat de montagnes" which has the same effect as sea-sickness. Utterly done up, and light-headed, with dragging limbs, he stumbled about, so that the guides had to haul him along, one on each side, as they had done the day before, sustaining him, even drawing him up the ice-wall. Scarcely three hundred feet intervened between them and the top of the Jungfrau ; but although 258 Tartarin on the Alps the snow was firm and the way easy, this last stage occupied an " interminable " time, while the fatigue and the sensation of suffoca- tion increased with Tartarin continually. Suddenly, the guides let him go, and wav- ing their hats began to " jodel " with delight. They had reached the summit. This point in immaculate space, this white crest some- what rounded, was the end, and for poor Tartarin the end of the torpor in which he had been walking, as in his sleep, for the last hour. " Scheideck ! Scheideck ! " exclaimed the guides, pointing out to him far below on a verdant plateau, standing out from the mists of the valley, the Hotel Belle Vue, looking a very toy-house. From there they had a magnificent pano- rama spread before them, a snow slope tinged with an orange glow by the sun, or a cold deep blue ; a mass of ice fantastically sculp- tured into towers, steeples, needles, arttes ; gigantic mounds, like graves of the mastodon and the megatherium. All the colours of the rainbow played upon them, uniting again Tartarin on the Alps 259 in the beds of the great glaciers, with their motionless ice-falls, crossed by tiny streams which the sun was warming into life again. But at that great elevation the reflections were toned down, a light was floating in the air, a cold ecliptic light, which made Tartarin shiver as much as the sensation of the silence and solitude of the white desert and its mysterious recesses. A little smoke was perceived, and some detonations were heard from the hotel. They had seen the tourists, and were firing cannon in their honour, and the conviction that they saw him, that his Alpinists were there, the young ladies, the illustrious Rices and Prunes, with their opera-glasses, recalled Tartarin t( the importance of his mission. He snatched the Tarascon banner from the hands of the guide, and waved it two or three times ; then, fixing his ice-axe in the snow, he seated himself upon the iron of the pick, flag in hand, superb, facing the public. And without his perceiving it by one of those spectral images frequent at the tops of mountains, the result of sun, and of mist which was rising behind him a 260 Tartarin on the Alps gigantic Tartarin was outlined on the sky, enlarged and shortened, the beard bristling out of the comforter, like one of the Scan- dinavian deities, which tradition presents to us as enthroned in the midst of the clouds. En route for Tarascon ! T/ie Lake of Geneva. Tartarin suggests a visit to Bonnivard's cell. A short dialogue amid the roses. All the band under lock and key. -The unfor- tunate Bonnivard. A certain rope made in Avignon comes to light. AFTER the ascent, Tartarin's nose peeled and became pimpled, his cheeks cracked. He was obliged to remain in his room for five days at the Belle Vue. Five days of com- presses, pomades of which he whiled away the cloying mawkishness and boredom by making little whist parties with the delegates, 262 Tartarin on the Alps or dictating to them a long detailed account, most circumstantial in incidents, of his ex- pedition, to be read in full meeting at the club, and published in the Forum. Then, when his general fatigue had abated, and there remained upon the noble features of the P. C. A. a few blisters, scars, and cracks, with a beautiful Etruscan vase tint, the dele- gation and its President took the route for Tarascon via Geneva. Let us pass over the incidents of the journey: the terror which the Southern, party aroused in the narrow railway-carriages, the steamers, the tables d'hote, by their songs, cries, and their exuberant affection for each other ; their banner, and their alpenstocks, for since the ascent of the P. C. A. they had all furnished themselves with stocks, on which the records of celebrated ascents were burnt in black letters. Montreux ! Here the delegates, at the suggestion of their leader, decided to halt for two or three days, to see the celebrated shores of the Lake Leman particularly Chillon, and the legend- Tartarin on the Alps 263 ary prison in which languished the great patriot Bonnivard, as related by Byron and Delacroix. As for Tartarin, he cared very little for Bonnivard ; his adventure with William Tell had enlightened him concerning Swiss legends; but while passing through Interlachen he had learnt that Sonia was about to leave for Montreux with her brother, whose condition had become more serious, and this invention of a pilgrimage served him as a pretext to see the young lady once more, and who knows? to persuade her to follow him to Tarascon. It must be understood that his followers all believed in the good faith of their leader when he said he came to render homage to the celebrated citizen of Geneva, whose story the P. C. A. had related ; even now, with their taste for theatrical display, they would have marched in line to Chillon, with the banner displayed, crying " Vive Bonnivard!" But the President was obliged to restrain them. " Let us first breakfast," he said, " and then we shall see." 264 Tartarin on the Alps r They filled the omnibus of a pension Miiller, situated, like many others, near the landing-stage by the lake. " Ve ! le gendarme ! How he stares at us," said Pascalon, as last of all he got into the omnibus with the banner, which was very much in the way; and Bravida, who was nervous, said : " That's true ; what can that gendarme want with us that he examines us so closely ? " "Perhaps he recognises me, pardi!" said the good Tartarin, and he smiled a far off Tartarin on the Alps 265 smile at the Vaudois policeman, whose long blue capote was persistently turned towards the omnibus, which was proceeding along the poplar- lined road by the lake side. That was market-day in Montreux. Rows of little shops in the open air were ranged along the lake, filled with fruit, vegetables, cheap lace, and with the silver jewellery, chains, plaques, brooches, &c., which embel- lish the Swiss female costumes like " worked " snow or ice-pearls. Amid these shops flowed the stream of people from the little harbour, which sheltered a flotilla of boats of brilliant colours, and where the disembarkation of 266 Tartarin on the Alps bags and barrels from the vessels with antennae- like sails, the shrill whistling, the bells of the steamers, the bustle of the cafes, the beer- shops, the florists, and the second-hand dealers which line the quay, were continually mingling. With a little sun, one might have fancied one's self in some Mediterranean port, between Mentone and Bordighera. But the sun was wanting, and the natives of Tarascon looked at this pretty country through a veil of water which rose from the blue lake, climbed up the stony streets, united above the houses with other clouds, massed amid the dark verdure of the mountains, charged with rain, and ready to burst. " Coquin de sort ! I am not a lake-man," said Spiridion Excourbanies, rubbing the glass of the omnibus window to see the views of the glaciers. "No more am I," sighed Pascalon ; "this fog, this dead water, makes one inclined to weep." Bravida complained also : he was afraid of his sciatica. Tartarin reprimanded them severely. Was Tartarin on the Alps 267 it, then, nothing that they would be able to say, when they returned, that they had seen the prison of Bonnivard, written their names on the historic walls beside the signatures of Rousseau, Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Eugene Sue ? Suddenly, in the middle of this tirade, the President interrupted himself changed colour. He had seen a little toque, resting on blonde hair, passing by. Without even stopping the omnibus, just then slacken- ing for the ascent, he leaped out, saying, "Go on to the hotel," to the stupefied Alpinists. " Sonia ! Sonia ! " He was afraid he would not be able to overtake her, so hurried was she, her slim shadow flitting along the wall of the road. She turned and waited for him : " Ah ! 'tis you ! " Immediately their hands clasped she resumed her walk. He placed himself beside her, out of breath, excusing himself for having quitted her in such sudden fashion the arrival of his friends the necessity for the ascent, of which his face still bore the traces. She listened without saying a word, 268 Tartar in on the Alps hurrying on, her eyes fixed and wide open. Judging by her profile, she seemed to him pale, her features deprived of their infantine candour, with something hard, resolute, which until then had not ex- isted, but in her voice her imperious will ; but still her juvenile gracefulness, her wav- ing, golden hair ! "And Boris how is he?" asked Tar- tarin, a little put out by her silence, by the coldness which was creeping over him. " Boris ? " She trembled. " Ah ! yes, it is true ; you didn't know. Well, then, come with me ; come." They proceeded along a little path, bordered with vines hanging almost over the lake, and ' The little cemetery amidst the roses, on the border of the lake." 270 Tartarin on the Alps villas, gardens sanded, elegant, the terraces planted with the virgin vine, roses, petunias, and myrtle. From time to time they passed some strange face, with troubled features and mournful looks, their steps slow and melan- choly, such as one meets with at Mentone or Monaco : only there the light devours all, absorbs everything ; while beneath the cloudy sky suffering is more apparent, while the flowers appear fresher. " Come in," said Sonia, pushing open a gate beneath a pediment of white masonry, inscribed with Russian characters in golden letters. Tartarin did not at first understand where he was. A little garden with carefully tended walks, pebbly, full of climbing roses amid the green bushes, great clusters of yellow and white blossoms filled the place with their aroma and bloom. Amongst these garlands, this marvel- lous display of blossom, were some stones standing up or lying down, with dates and names upon them, this one, quite new : " Boris de Wassilief, aged 22 years." He had been laid there for some days, having Tartarin on the Alps 271 died almost immediately after he had reached Montreux ; and, in this cemetery of strangers, he found a trace of his native land amongst the Russians, Poles, Swedes, buried beneath the flowers consumptive patients who are sent to this northern Nice, because the sunny South is too hot, and the transition too sudden for them. The pair remained motionless and silent for a moment before the new white headstone on the dark ground of the freshly-turned earth : the young girl, with bowed head, breathing the odour of the abundant roses, and thus resting her swollen eyes. " Poor little thing ! " said Tartarin, much affected ; and, taking in his strong rough hands the tips of Sonia's fingers, he continued : " And you ? What will become of you, now ? " She looked him full in the face with dry and brilliant eyes, in which no tear trembled : " I ? I leave here in an hour ! " " You are going away ? " "Bolibine is already in St. Petersburg. Maniloff is waiting for me to pass the frontier. 272 Tartarin on the Alps I am about to enter the furnace. People will hear us talked about." Then, in an undertone, she added, with a half smile, fixing her blue eyes full on the face of Tartarin, who blanched and avoided her gaze : " Who loves me will follow me ! " Ah ! z>a'i, follow her ! This enthusiast made him afraid ; besides, this funereal scene had cooled his ardour. He struggled, neverthe- less, not to run away like a contemptible wretch. So, with his hand on his heart, and a gesture worthy of Abenceragus, the hero began : " You know me, Sonia She did not wish to hear any more. " Babbler ! " she replied, shrugging her shoulders. And then she left him, upright and proud, passing between the rose bushes without once turning round. " Babbler ! " not another word, but the intonation was so contemptuous that the good Tartarin blushed under his beard, and convinced himself that they were alone in the garden, and that no one had heard them. P'ortunately, impressions did not survive long with our Tarasconnais. Five minutes . c Babbler !'' she said, with a shrug of the shoulders." T 274 Tartarin on the Alps later, he ascended the terraces of Montreux with a light step, in quest of the pension Miiller, where the Alpinists were waiting dejeuner for him, and he felt a great relief at the termination of this dangerous liaison. As he proceeded, he nodded vigorously, and explained eloquently to himself the reason which Sonia would not listen to. Be! yes, it was certainly a despotism he would not deny that ; but to pass from the idea to action ! Boufre ! And then, what an employ- ment for him, to fire upon despots ! Suppose every oppressed nation came to him, as the Arabs did to Bombonnel when the panther prowled around the douar, all his efforts would not suffice. Allans ! A passing carriage quickly cut short his monologue. He had only just time to leap aside : " Look out, you animal ! " But his angry exclamation was at once changed into an exclamation of surprise: " Ques aco ! Boudiou ! Impossible ! " I give you a thousand guesses to divine what he saw in the landau. The delegation ! The delegation in full Bravida, Pascalon, Excourbanies Tartarin on the Alps 275 crowded in at one side, pale, exhausted, dis- hevelled, after a struggle with two gendarmes, muskets in hand, seated opposite to them. All their profiles, motionless, mute, in the narrow frame of the doorway, seemed like a bad dream ; and Tartarin stood rooted to the spot as firmly as he ever was by the " Kennedy " crampons. He saw the carriage gallop off, behind it a crowd of school-boys, satchels on back, just released from school, when a voice sounded in his ear : " Here is the fourth man ! ' In a moment he was seized, handcuffed, bound : he was hustled into a hackney carriage with the gendarmes and an officer armed with his gigantic latte, which he held between his knees, the handle touching the top of the cab. Tartarin wanted to speak, to explain himself. There was evidently some mistake. He told them his name. He appealed to his Consul, to a dealer in Swiss honey who had known him at Beaucaire. Then, in face of the persistent silence of his attendants, he began to look upon this arrest as a new move of Bompard's, and, addressing himself to the 276 Tartarin on the Alps officer, he said, with a waggish air : " This is all a joke, que ! Ah ! vai, farceur ! I know very well it is all for fun ! " " If you speak any more I will gag you. Not a word ! " said the officer, rolling his terrible eyes, so that it seemed as if he was going to impale the prisoner on his staff. The other kept quiet, and did not stir any more ; he kept looking out of window at the borders of the lake, the high mountains of a damp green hue the hotels, with their Tartarin on the Alps 277 varied roofs, with gilded signs visible a league away; and on the slopes, as on the Rigi, was a coming and going of men carrying up and down baskets and hods of provisions, &c. ; as at the Rigi, also, a toy railway, squeaking along, and climbing up as far as Glion; and, to complete the resemblance to the Re'gina montium, a heavy beating rain was falling an exchange of water and fog between the lake and the sky, the sky and the lake, the clouds touching the waves. The carriage rolled over a drawbridge between some little shops where knick-knacks 278 Tartarin on the Alps were sold penknives, button-hooks, and such things ; passed through a low postern, and stopped in the courtyard of an old castle, grass-grown, and flanked by round "pepper- box" towers, with black moucharabis sup- ported by beams. Where was he ? Tartarin understood it when he heard the officer of gendarmes conversing with the concierge of the castle, a fat man in a Grecian cap, shaking a huge bunch of rusty keys. " In solitary confinement ? But I have no room ! The others occupy all unless we put him in the Bonnivard prison." " Put him in Bonnivard's chamber, then it is quite good enough for him," said the captain, authoritatively. And his orders were carried out. The Castle of Chillon, about which the President had continually been speaking to his friends the Alpinists, and in which, by the irony of fate, he found himself suddenly im- prisoned without knowing why, is one of the historical monuments of Switzerland. After having served as a summer residence of the Counts of Savoy, then as a State prison, a Tartarin on the Alps 279 depot of arms and stores, it is now only an excuse for an excursion, like the Rigi-Kulm or Tellsplatte. There is, however, a guard there, and a lock-up for drunkards and the wilder lads of the district ; but such inmates are rare, as the Vaud is a most peaceful canton ; thus the lock-up is usually untenanted, and the keeper keeps his store of fuel in it. So the arrival of all these prisoners had put him in a bad temper, particularly when he thought that people would not be able to see the celebrated dungeon, which was at that season of considerable profit. Furious, he led the way, and Tartarin fol- lowed him, timidly, and without making any resistance. A few worn steps, a damp corri- dor feeling like a cave, a high door like a wall, with enormous hinges, and they found themselves in a vast subterranean vault, with deeply trodden floor, and heavy Roman pillars on which hang the rings of iron to which the State prisoners were formerly chained. A semi-daylight flickers in, and the rippling lake is reflected through the narrow apertures which permit naught but the sky to be seen. 280 Tartarin on the Alps "This is your place," said the gaoler. " Mind you don't go to the end, the oubliettes are there." Tartarin recoiled in terror. " Les oubliettes ! Boudiou ! " he exclaimed. " What would you have, man garfon ? They have ordered me to put you in Bonnivard's dungeon. I have put you in Bonnivard's dungeon ! Now, if you have means, I can supply you with some luxuries, such as a mattress and coverlet for the night." " Let me have something to eat first/' said Tartarin, who very fortunately had not left his purse behind him. The concierge came back with some fresh bread, some beer, and a saveloy, which were all devoured eagerly by the prisoner of Chillon, who had not broken his fast since the day before, and was worn out by fatigue and emotion. While he was eating it on his stone bench in the gleam of the embrasure, the gaoler kept examining him with a good- natured air. " Ma foil" he said, " I don't know what you have done, nor why they treat you so severely." Tartarin on the Alps 281 " Eh ! coquin de sort, no more do I ! I know nothing whatever about it," replied Tartarin, with his mouth full. " At any rate, one thing is certain you have not the appearance of a criminal, and I am sure you would never prevent a poor father of a family from gaining his living ? Eh ? Well, then, I have up stairs all the people who have come to see Bonnivard's dungeon. If you will promise me to remain quiet, and not attempt to escape The worthy Tartarin promised at once, and five minutes afterwards he saw his dungeon 282 Tartarin on the Alps invaded by his old acquaintances of the Rigi- Kulm and the Tellsplatte : the ass Sch wan- thaler, the most inept Astier-ReTiu, the member of the Jockey Club with his niece, all the Cook's tourists ! Ashamed, and fear- ful of being recognised, the unhappy man hid behind the pillars, retiring and stealing away as they approached him, the tourists preceding the gaoler, who uttered his clap-trap in a mel- ancholy tone : " This is where the unfortunate Bonnivard was imprisoned." They advanced slowly, retarded by the disputes of the two savants, who were always quarrelling, ready to fly at each other, one waving his camp-stool, the other \nssacde voy- age, in fantastic attitudes, which the half-light magnified along the vaulted dungeon roof. By the mere exigency of retreat, Tartarin found himself at last near the opening of the oubliettes a black pit, open level with the ground, breathing an odour of many centu- ries, damp and cold. Alarmed, he stopped, crouched in a corner, his cap over his eyes ; but the damp saltpetre of the walls affected him, and suddenly a loud sneeze, Tartarin on the Alps 283 which made the tourists recoil, betrayed him ! " Tiens, Bonnivard ! " exclaimed the fast little Parisienne in the Directoire hat, whom the member of the Jockey Club called his niece. The Tarasconnais did not permit himself to show any signs of being disturbed. " It is really very interesting, these oub- liettes! ' ' he remarked in the most natural tone in the world, as if he also was a mere visitor for pleasure to the dungeon. Then he mingled with the other tourists, who smiled on recog- nising the Alpinist of the Rigi-Kulm, the mainspring of that famous ball. " He ! mossie ! ballir, dantsir ! " The comical outline of the little fairy Schwanthaler presented itself before him, ready to dance. Truly, he had a great mind to dance with her. Then, not knowing how to disembarrass himself of this excited little bit of a woman, he offered her his arm, and gallantly showed her his dungeon : the ring whereon the captive's chain had been riveted, the traces of his footsteps worn in the rock 284 Tartarin on the Alps around the same pillar ; and, never having heard Tartarin speak with such facility, the good lady never suspected that he who was walking with her was also a State prisoner a victim to the injustice and the wickedness of men. Terrible, for instance, was the parting, when the unfortunate "Bonnivard," having led her to the door, took leave of her with the smile of a man of the world, saying : " No, thank you, ve ! I remain here a moment longer." She bowed, he bowed ; and the gaoler, who was on the alert, locked and bolted the door, to the great astonishment of all. What an insult ! He was bathed in agonised perspiration as he listened to the exclamations of the departing visitors. For- tunately such torture as this could not be repeated that day. The bad weather would deter tourists. A terrible wind was blowing under the old planks ; cries arose from the oubliettes, like the plaints of unburied bodies, and the ripple of the lake, dotted with the rain, beat against the walls to the edges of the embrasures whence the spray was dashed " ' Tiens ! Bonnivard. 286 Tartarin on the Alps over the prisoner. At intervals the bell of a steamer, and the patter of its wheels, broke upon the reverie of poor Tartarin, while the evening descended grey and mourn- ful on the dungeon, which seemed to grow larger. How could this arrest be explained ? How could his imprisonment be justified ? Coste- calde, perhaps an electoral manoeuvre at the last moment. Or had the Russian police been informed of his imprudent utterances, his proposal to Sonia, and had demanded his extradition ? But then, why arrest the dele- gates ? What could be alleged against these unfortunate men, whose alarm and despair he could picture, although they were not in the dungeon of Bonnivard, in these stony vaults, traversed at night by rats of enormous size, by crayfish, and silent spiders with hairy, uncanny feet. Now you see what it is to have a good conscience. Notwithstanding the rats, the cold, and the spiders, the great Tartarin found, amid all the horrors of the State prison, haunted by the shades of martyrs, a rude sound sleep, Tartarin on the Alps 287 with mouth open and hands clenched, as he had slept between the sky and the abysses in the hut of the Alpine Club. He thought he was still dreaming, when he heard his gaoler enter in the morning. "Get up," said he; "the prefect of the district is here : he will question you ; " and he added, with some respect : " You must be a famous criminal for the prefect to put himself out about you as he has done." Criminal ! No, but one may look like one after a night in a damp and dusty dungeon, without having any opportunity to make one's toilette, however quickly. And in the old stable of the castle, now transformed into a guard-house,embellished with muskets in racks when Tartarin, after a reassuring glance at the Alpinists, who were seated amongst the gendarmes, appeared before the prefect of the district, he had the pleasure of feeling he was in the presence of a tidy, well-dressed magis- trate, one who questioned him severely : u You are named Maniloff, is not that so ? a Russian subject, an incendiary, a fugitive assassin from Siberia ? " 288 Tartarin on the Alps. " Never in my life ! It is an error a misprision ! " " Hold your tongue, or I will gag you," interrupted the captain. The neat prefect continued : " Well, to cut short your denials do you know this rope ? " His rope ! Coquin de sort ! His rope, with the iron fibre, made at Avignon. He bowed his head, to the stupefaction of the delegates, and replied, " I know it ! " " With this rope a man has been hanged in the Canton of Unterwald ! " Tartarin, trembling, swore that he knew nothing about that. " We shall soon see." Then he introduced the Italian tenor, the detective, whom the Nihilists had hanged to the oak on the Briinig, but whom the woodcutters had miraculously delivered from death. The spy looked at Tartarin : " That is not the man nor," he added, looking at the delegates, " are those the others. There has been a mistake here." The prefect was furious : then, to Tartarin, " Well, then, what have you done ? " Tartarin on the Alps 289 "That is just what I want to know, vtf" replied the President, with all the assurance of innocence. After some explanations, the Al- pinists of Tarascon, set at liberty, hurried away from Chillon, of which place no one has experienced the romantic and melancholy oppression more strongly than they. They stopped at the pension Mtiller, to get their luggage, the banner, and to pay the bill of the dejeuner they had not had time to eat : then they departed for Geneva by train. Rain was falling. Through the steaming windows they could see the names of the u 290 Tartarin on the Alps stations, Clarens, Yevay, Lausanne ; the red chalets, the gardens of rare shrubs all lying under a damp veil, which dropped from the branches of the trees, the roofs of the houses, and the terraces of the hotels. Installed in a corner of the long Swiss railway-carriage, two seats face to face, the Alpinists looked defeated and discomfited. Bravida, very bitter, complained of pain, and all the time kept asking Tartarin, with fierce irony: "Eh, be! you haven't seen Bonni- vard's dungeon, have you ? You wished to see it so much, too ! I believe you have seen it, after all, que ? " Excourbanies, voiceless for the first time in his life, gazed piteously at the lake, which the line skirted : " There is water enough, Boudiou ! After this, I shall never take another bath as long as I live ! " Upset by a shock from which he had not yet recovered, Pascalon, the banner between his knees, hid himself behind it, looking right and left, like a hare. And Tartarin ? Oh ! he ; always calm and dignified, he was improving his mind reading the papers from southern France, a packet of journals forwarded to the Tartarin on the Alps 291 pension Miiller, which had all copied from the Forum the narrative of his ascent which he had dictated and enlarged embellished by startling eulogies. All of a sudden, our hero uttered a cry a loud cry which per- vaded the carriage. All the travellers rose : they thought an accident had occurred. It was only that these words had caught Tar- tarin's eyes in the Forum " Listen to this ! " he cried to the Alpinists : '"It is reported that V. P. C. A. Costecalde, who has scarcely recovered from the jaundice which has afflicted him for some days, is about to leave here with a view to ascend Mont Blanc to go higher up than Tartarin ! ' Ah ! the bandit ! He wants to destroy the effect of my Jungfrau ! Well, wait a little ; I will take the wind out of you and your mountain ! Chamonix is only a few miles from Geneva I will do Mont Blanc before him ! Are you agreed, my boys ? " Bravida protested. Outre ! He had had adventures enough. " Enough, and more than enough," growled Excourbanies in a low tone, in his husky voice. 2Q2 Tartarin on the Alps " And you, Pascalon ? " asked Tartarin, gently. The pupil bleated without raising his eyes : " Ma-as-ter ! " He also denied him ! " Very well," said the hero, solemnly and sorrowfully. " Then I will go alone. I shall have all the honour. Zou ! Give me the banner ! " XII The Hotel Baltet at Chamonix. That smell of garlic! Concerning the uses of the cord in Alpine excursions. Shake hands! A pupil of Schopenhauer's. -At the Grands- Mulets. " Tartarin, I must speak to you." THE clock of Chamonix was striking nine on a chilly, wet evening. All the streets were dark, all the houses shut up, except where occasionally the gas of the hotels blazed out and made the surroundings still more sombre in the vague reflection of the snow, a star of white under a night of sky. 294 Tartarin on the Alps At the Hotel Baltet, one of the best and most frequented in the Alpine village, the numerous travellers and excursionists had dispersed by degrees, tired out by the fatigues of the day, so there remained in the grand salon only an English parson playing draughts with his wife, while his innumerable daughters in pinafore aprons were engaged in copying the notices for the next services ; and seated, in front of the hearth, on which blazed a good fire of logs, a young Swede, hollow- cheeked and pale, who was regarding the fire with a mournful air while he drank kirsch and seltzer-water. Occasionally a belated tourist traversed the salon with soaked gaiters and glistening waterproof; went up to a big barometer hanging on the wall, tapped it, watched the mercury for the next day's weather, and turned away in consternation. Not a word, no other manifestation of life save the crackling of the fire, the dashing of the sleet against the windows, and the roaring of the Arve beneath the wooden bridge, a few yards from the hotel. Suddenly the door of the salon was opened, Tartarin on the Alps 295 a silver-laced porter entered laden with valises and rugs, with four Alpinists, shivering, and bewildered by the sudden change from darkness and cold to light and warmth. " Boudiou ! what weather ! " " Something to eat, zou ! " " Warm the beds, que ! " They all spoke together beneath their comforters and wraps and ear protectors, and no one knew which to listen to, until a short fat man, whom they called the President, imposed silence upon them by crying louder than all, in a commanding tone : " Bring me the visitors' book first." Then, turning the leaves with a benumbed hand, he read aloud the names of the travellers who, during the last eight days, had sojourned at the hotel. Doctor Schwan- thaler and Frau again ! Astier-Rehu, of the French Academy ! He turned over two or three pages, growing pale when he saw a name resembling that of which he was in search. Then at length, as he threw the book on the table with a triumphant laugh, 296 Tartarin on the Alps the little man cut a caper an extraordinary performance for such a fat little fellow and cried : " He is not here, ve ! he has not come ! He must come down here, at any rate. Bother Costecalde ! lagadigadeou ! Quick with the soup, lads ! " And the worthy Tartarin, having bowed to the ladies, marched towards the salle a manger, followed by the delegates, hungry and noisy. Eh? Yes; the delegates all of them Bravida himself amongst them ! Is it pos- sible ! What would they have said yonder if they had gone home without Tartarin ? Each one had felt the same. And in the moment of separation at the railway-station at Geneva the buffet was witness to a most heartrending scene of tears, embraces, and distressing farewells to the banner, - the result of which adieux was that the whole party crowded into the landau which the President had engaged to carry him to Chamonix. A superb route to which they firmly closed their eyes, swathed in wraps, snoring sonorously, without admiring the magnificent landscape which from Sallanches Tartarin on the Alps 297 displayed itself through the rain : chasms, forests, foaming cascades, and, according to the windings of the valley, alternately visible or shrouded, the crest of Mont Blanc above the clouds. Fatigued by this kind of natural beauty, the Tarascon- nais only sought how to make up for the bad night they had passed under lock and key at Chillon. And now, once more, at the end of the long, deserted salle a manger of the Hotel Baltet, while being served with the re-heated soup and removes of the table d'hote, they ate ravenously, without speaking, only preoccupied in their desire to get to bed as quickly as possible. Suddenly, Spiridion Excourbanies, who had 298 Tartarin on the Alps been eating like a man in his sleep, rose up out of his place, and, sniffing the air, said : . " Outre ! what a smell of garlic ! " " That's true, that is the smell," remarked Bravida ; and all the party, aroused by this recall to their native land, this smell of the national dishes, which Tartarin had not breathed for a long while, turned in their chairs with gastronomic anxiety. The odour came from the other end of the salle, from a small room wherein was a traveller supping alone no doubt a personage of importance, for every minute the cap of the chef was visible at the grating opening to the kitchen, to pass up a pile of little covered dishes, which were carried by the waitress to the little room. " Some one from the South," murmured the gentle Pascalon ; and the President, who had become pale at the idea of Costecalde, commanded : " Go and see, Spiridion ; you know what to say." A loud burst of laughter arose from the room which the brave man had penetrated to Tartarin on the Alps 299 by his chiefs commands, whence he led in by the hand a long nosed individual with comic eyes, his serviette tucked under his chin, like the gastronomous horse. " Ve! Bompard!" "7?/ The Impostor !" ".He ! Adieu, Gonzague. Comment te va ? " " Pretty well, gentlemen ; I am your most obedient," said the courier, shaking hands all round, and seating himself at the table with the Tarasconnais to partake with them a dish of cepes a Fail, prepared by Mere Baltet, who, as well as her husband, had a horror of the table d'hote fare. Whether it was the fricot or the delight of finding a resting-place, the delightful Bompard was inexhaustibly imaginative. Immediately fatigue and the desire for sleep were dissipated ; champagne was gulped in bumpers, and with moustaches glistening with bubbles, they laughed, screamed, gesticulated, embraced each other, full of effusiveness. "I will not leave you any more," Bompard was saying. " My Peruvians have gone away. I am at liberty." 300 Tartarin on the Alps " At liberty ! Then you can make the ascent of Mont Blanc with me to-morrow ? " "Ah, you are going to do Mont Blanc, demein ? " replied Bompard without enthu- siasm. " Yes, I am going to put Costecalde's nose out of joint. When he comes, uit ! No more Mont Blanc ! You are with me, Gonzague ? " " I'm there, I'm there ; if the weather suits. It is an ascent which is not always pleasant at this season." "Ah! vai with your 'not pleasant!'" said the worthy Tartarin, winking with a meaning which Bompard, on his part, did not seem to understand. " Let us have our coffee in the salon. We will consult with Pere Baltet. He knows all about it. He is an old guide who has made the ascent twenty-seven times." The delegates cried simultaneously : " Twenty-seven times ! Boufre ! " " Bompard is always exaggerating," said the P. C. A. severely, with a touch of envy. In the salon they found the parson's family Tartarin on the Alps 301 still bent over the church notices, the father and mother nodding over their game of draughts, and the long Swede stirring his kirsch and seltzer with the same listlessj gesture. But the in- vasion of the Tarasconnais, brightened up by the champagne, 'gave some little entertainment, as we may imagine, to the young church-women. These charming young girls had never seen coffee taken with so much mimicry and so much rolling of eyes. " Sugar, Tartarin ? " " Well, no, Commandant. You know that since I was in Africa " 302 Tartarin on the Alps " True, pardon ! Te ! Here is M. Ballet." " Sit down there, que, M. Baltet." " Long live M. Baltet ! Ha ! ha ! fen de brut!" Surrounded and pressed upon by these people whom he had never seen in his life Pere Baltet smiled calmly. A robust Savoy- ard, tall and broad-shouldered, his back rounded, his step slow, his thick and shaven face was lighted up by a pair of cunning eyes still youthful, contrasting with his baldness caused by a frost-bite one early morning on the snow-fields. "These gentlemen wish to ascend Mont Blanc ? " said he, gauging the Tarasconnais with a look at once humble and ironical. Tartarin was about to reply, but Bompard anticipated him : " Is not the season rather advanced ? " "No," replied the old guide. " Here is a Swedish gentleman who will go up to-morrow ; and I am expecting, at the end of the week, two American gentlemen to ascend also. One of them is blind." Tartarin on the Alps 303 " I know I met him on the Guggi." " Ah ! monsieur has been to the Guggi ? " " Eight days ago, going up the Jungfrau." There was a flutter among the Evan- gelical ladies, their plumes rustled, and they raised their heads to look at Tartarin, which action, for Englishwomen, who are great climbers, and experts in all sports, carried considerable authority. He had been up the Jungfrau ! "A good expedition," said Pere Baltet, looking at the P. C. A. with astonishment ; while Pascalon, alarmed by the ladies, blushed, and bleated : " Ma - a - ster, tell them the the crevasse" The President smiled : " Child ! " But all the same he commenced his recital of his fall ; first with a touch-and-go listless air, then he warmed up and illustrated the narrative with action, such as kicking at the end of the cord, over the chasm, appeals with stiffened hands, &c. The ladies shivered, devouring him with their cold English eyes those eyes which open so widely and round. 304 Tartarin on the Alps In the silence that followed, the voice of Bompard rose loudly : " Up on Chimborazo we do not tie our- selves to cross the crevasses? The delegates looked at him. As a Taras- connade, this beat everything! "Oh, that Bompard ! " murmured Pascalon, with in- genuous admiration. But Pere Baltet, taking Chimborazo quite seriously, protested against the non-employ- ment of the rope. According to his view, no ascent was possible on ice without ropes a good Manilla rope. At least, then, if one slipped, the others could hold him up. "Supposing the rope does not break, Monsieur Baltet," said Tartarin, recalling the catastrophe on the Matterhom. But the hotel-keeper replied deliberately : " The rope did not break on the Matterhom. The rear guide cut it with his axe." As Tartarin became angry at this, he con- tinued : " You must excuse me, monsieur ; the guide was within his rights. He perceived the impossibility of holding the others, and he detached them to save the lives of himself, Tartarin on the Alps 305 his son, and the traveller who had accom- panied them. Had it not been for his deter- mination, there would have been seven victims instead of four." Then a discussion commenced. Tartarin maintained that, once attached to the line, it was a matter of honour- able engagement to live or die together; and then, influenced by the presence of ladies, he rose to the occasion. He applied his words to facts, to people pre- sent. "Thus," said he, " when to-morrow, /