Chapter XIVEpilogue. A REGION more impressionable than Tarascon was never seen under the sun of any land. At times, of a fine festal Sunday, all the town out, tambourines a-going, the Promenade swarming, tumultuous, enamelled with red and green petticoats, Arlesian neckerchiefs, and, on big multi-coloured posters, the announcement of wrestling-matches for men and lads, races of Camargue bulls, etc., it is all-sufficient for some wag to call out: "Mad dog!" or "Cattle loose!" and everybody runs, jostles, men and women fright themselves out of their wits, doors are locked and bolted, shutters clang as with a storm, and behold Tarascon,...
Long Stories - Post by : astoller - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 2154
Chapter XIII The catastrophe. On a dark, dark night, moonless, starless, skyless, on the trembling whiteness of a vast ledge of snow, slowly a long rope unrolled itself, to which were attached in file certain timorous and very small shades, preceded, at the distance of a hundred feet, by a lantern casting a red light along the way. Blows of an ice-axe ringing on the hard snow, the roll of the ice blocks thus detached, alone broke the silence of the _neve on which the steps of the caravan made no sound. From minute to minute, a cry, a smothered groan,...
Long Stories - Post by : astoller - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 2281
Chapter XIIHotel Baltet at Chamonix. "I smell garlic!" The use of rope in Alpine climbing. "Shake hands." A pupil of Schopenhauer. At the hut on the Grands-Mulets. "Tartarin, I must speak to you." Nine o'clock was ringing from the belfry at Chamonix of a cold night shivering with the north wind and rain; the black streets, the darkened houses (except, here and there, the facades and courtyards of hotels where the gas was still burning) made the surroundings still more gloomy under the vague reflection of the snow of the mountains, white as a planet on the night of the sky....
Long Stories - Post by : astoller - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 1278
Chapter XIEn route for Tarascon. The Lake of Geneva. Tartarin proposes a visit to the dungeon of Bonnivard. Short dialogue amid the roses. The whole band under lock and key. The unfortunate Bonnivard. Where the rope made at Avignon was found. As a result of the ascension, Tartarin's nose peeled, pimpled, and his cheeks cracked. He kept to his room in the Hotel Bellevue for five days--five days of salves and compresses, the sticky unsavouriness and ennui of which he endeavoured to elude by playing cards with the delegates or dictating to them a long, circumstantial account of his expedition, to...
Long Stories - Post by : astoller - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 2404
Chapter VIIThe nights at Tarascon, Where is he? Anxiety. The grasshoppers on the promenade call for Tartarin. Martyrdom of a great Tarasconese saint. The Club of the Alpines. What was happening at the pharmacy. "Help! help! Bezuquet!" "A letter, Monsieur Bezuquet!.. Comes from Switzerland, _ve!_.. Switzerland!" cried the postman joyously, from the other end of the little square, waving something in the air, and hurrying along in the coming darkness. The apothecary, who took the air, as they say, of an evening before his door in his shirt-sleeves, gave a jump, seized the letter with feverish hands and carried it into...
Long Stories - Post by : astoller - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 1091
Chapter VIThe Bruenig pass. Tartarin falls into the hands of Nihilists, Disappearance of an Italian tenor and a rope made at Avignon, Fresh exploits of the cap-sportsman. Pan! pan! "Get in! get in!" "But how the devil, que! am I to get in? the places are full... they won't make room for me." This was said at the extreme end of the lake of the Four Cantons, on that shore at Alpnach, damp and soggy as a delta the post-carriages wait in line to convey tourists leaving the boat to cross the Bruenig. A fine rain like needle-points had been...
Long Stories - Post by : astoller - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 1477
Chapter VConfidences in a tunnel. "Switzerland, in our day, _ve! Monsieur Tar-tarin, is nothing more than a vast Kursaal, open from June to September, a panoramic casino people come from all four quarters of the globe to amuse themselves, and which is manipulated and managed by a Company _richissime by hundreds of thousands of millions, which has its offices in London and Geneva. It costs money, you may be sure, to lease and brush up and trick out all this territory, lakes, forests, mountains, cascades, and to keep a whole people of employes, supernumeraries, and what not, and set up...
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Chapter IVOn the boat. It rains. The Tarasconese hero salutes the Ashes. The truth about William Tell. Disillusion. Tartarin of Tarascon never existed. "Te! Bompard." He had left the snows of the Rigi-Kulm; down below, on the lake, he returned to rain, fine, close, misty, a vapour of water through which the mountains stumped themselves in, graduating in the distance to the form of clouds. The "Foehn" whistled, raising white caps on the lake where the gulls, flying low, seemed borne upon the waves; one might have thought one's self on the open ocean. Tartarin recalled to mind his departure from...
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Chapter III An alarm on the Rigi. "Keep cool! Keep cool!" The Alpine horn. What Tartarin saw, on awaking, in his looking-glass, Perplexity. A guide is ordered by telephone. "Ques aco?.. Qui vive?" cried Tartarin, ears alert and eyes straining hard into the darkness. Feet were running through the hotel, doors were slamming, breathless voices were crying: "Make haste! make haste!.." while without was ringing what seemed to be a trumpet-call, as flashes of flame illumined both panes and curtains. Fire!.. At a bound he was out of bed, shod, clothed, and running headlong down the staircase the gas still...
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Chapter II Tarascon, five minutes' stop! The Club of the Alpines. Explanation of P. C. A. Rabbits of warren and cabbage rabbits. This is my last will and testament. The Sirop de cadavre. First ascension, Tartarin takes out his spectacles. When that name "Tarascon" sounds trumpetlike along the track of the Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean, in the limpid, vibrant blue of a Provencal sky, inquisitive heads are visible at all the doors of the express train, and from carriage to carriage the travellers say to each other: "Ah! here is Tarascon!.. Now, for a look at Tarascon." What they can see of it is,...
Long Stories - Post by : granknee - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 3274
Title: Tartarin On The Alps Author: Alphonse Daudet Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley Chapter IApparition on the Rigi-Kulm. Who is it? What was said around a table of six hundred covers. Rice and Prunes, An improvised ball. The Unknown signs his name on the hotel register, P. C. A. On the 10th of August, 1880, at that fabled hour of the setting sun so vaunted by the guide-books Joanne and Baedeker, an hermetic yellow fog, complicated with a flurry of snow in white spirals, enveloped the summit of the Rigi (_Regina monhum_) and its gigantic hotel, extraordinary to behold on the arid...
Long Stories - Post by : granknee - Date : May 2012 - Author : Alphonse Daudet - Read : 2338
CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL"Come, wake up! Visitors are here." Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the curtains of the next bed,--they hung in such straight and motionless folds to the very ground. "Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you. But you are very weak." The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat and...
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CHAPTER XXIII. A MELANCHOLY SPECTACLEThat evening there was a great literary entertainment at the editors of the Review; a fete had been arranged to celebrate Charlotte's return, at which it was proposed that D'Argenton should read his new poem. But was there not something rather ridiculous in deploring the absence of a person who was then present? And how could he describe the sufferings of a deserted lover, he who was supposed at the moment to be at the summit of bliss, by reason of the return of the beloved object? Never had the apartments been so luxuriously arranged; flowers were...
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CHAPTER XXII. CECILE UNHAPPY RESOLVEFob a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When he went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see the windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of which, with the key, he had sent to her: "The house is ready. Come when you will." Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute. Jack was in...
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CHAPTER XVIII. D'ARGENTON'S MAGAZINEIn a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging to the last century, D'Argen-ton had established himself as editor of the new magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor. Do not smile: this was really the case; his money had been used to establish it Charlotte had some little scruple at first in so employing these funds, which she wished to preserve intact for the boy on his attaining his majority; but she yielded to the poet's persuasions. "Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you' know. Can there be a better...
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CHAPTER XVII. IN THE ENGINE-ROOMHow is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zenaide was married, and since Jack's terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since Zenaide's marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all alike monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former serenity. The winter has been a...
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CHAPTER XVI. CLARISSEThis was what had happened. The day after he had written to Jack's mother, the superintendent was in his office alone, when Madame Rondic entered, pale and agitated. Paying little attention to the coolness with which she was received, her conduct having for a long time habituated her to the silent contempt of all who respected themselves, she refused to sit down, and, standing erect, said slowly, attempting to conceal her emotion,-- "I have come to tell you that the apprentice is not guilty; that it is not he who has stolen my stepdaughter's dowry." The Director started from...
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CHAPTER XV. CHARLOTTE'S JOURNEYOne gray morning Charlotte was cutting the last bunches from the vines; the poet was at work, and Dr. Hirsch was asleep, when the postman reached Aulnettes. "Ah! a letter from Indret!" said D'Argenton, slowly opening his newspapers,--"and some verses by Hugo!" Why did the poet watch this unopened letter as a dog watches a bone that he does not wish himself, and is yet determined that no one else shall touch? Simply because Charlotte's eyes had kindled at the sight of it, and because this most selfish of beings felt that for a moment he had become...
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CHAPTER XIV. A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW"Chateau des Aulnettes. "I am not pleased with you, my child. M. Rondic has written to his brother a long letter, in which he says, that in the year that you have been at Indret you have made no progress. He speaks kindly of you, nevertheless, but does not seem to think you adapted for your present life. We are all grieved to hear this, and feel that you are not doing all that you might do. M. Rondic also says that the air of the workshops is not good for you, that you are pale and...
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CHAPTER XIII. INDRETThe opera-singer stood upright in the boat and cried, "Is not the scene beautiful, Jack?" It was about four o'clock--a July evening; the waves glittered in the sunlight, and the air palpitated with heat. Large sails, that in the golden atmosphere looked snowy white, passed by from time to time; they were boats from Noirmoutiers, loaded to the brim with sparkling white salt. Peasants in their picturesque costumes were crowded in, and the caps of the women were as white as the salt Other boats were laden with grain. Occasionally a three-masted vessel came slowly up the stream, arriving,...
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Tartarin On The Alps - Chapter 14
