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Updated: May 12, 2025
Pale and excited, his heart full of love, Tartarin jumped out of bed and as he climbed into his ample underwear he asked "What shall I do now?" "Write to the lady quite simply and ask for a meeting" "She understands French then?" Said Tartarin with an air of disappointment. For his dreams had been of an Arabian Houri, uncontaminated by the west.
"Quick!... quick!... get dressed" he said, "Your Moor has been found... her name is Baia... as pretty as a picture, twenty years old and already a widow." "A widow!.... Well that's a bit of luck" Said Tartarin who was a little uneasy at the thought of Moorish husbands. "Yes, but closely guarded by her brother" "Oh!
At any moment he expected to be jumped on from behind by a whole gang of janissaries and eunuchs, but his desire to find the lady endowed him with the courage and determination of a giant. For eight days the intrepid Tartarin did not quit his search. Sometimes he could be seen hanging about the turkish baths, waiting for the women to emerge in chattering groups, scented from the bath.
"We will start to-morrow beating up the Shelliff Plain, and you will see lions enough!" "What, prince! have you an intention to go a-hunting, too?" "Of course! Do you think I am going to leave you to march by yourself into the heart of Africa, in the midst of ferocious tribes of whose languages and usages you are ignorant! No, no, illustrious Tartarin, I shall quit you no more.
Tartarin had an inside seat, where he installed himself as best he could, and where, instead of the musky scent of the great cats, he could savour the ripe perfume of the coach, compounded of a thousand odours of men, women, horses, leather, food and damp straw. The other passengers on the coach were a mixed lot.
LITTLE, indeed, beside Tartarin of Tarascon, arming himself capa-pie to go to his club at nine, an hour after the retreat had sounded on the bugle, was the Templar Knight preparing for a sortie upon the infidel, the Chinese tiger equipping himself for combat, or the Comanche warrior painting up for going on the war-path. "All hands make ready for action!" as the men-of-war's men say.
Asked the little gentleman. "Ti!... Pardi!... To be sure I know him, we have hunted together more than twenty times." "You hunt panthers also M. Tartarin?" "Occasionally, as a pastime." Said Tartarin casually, and raising his head with a heroic gesture which went straight to the hearts of the two Cocottes, he added "They cannot be compared to lions."
You can hear that she knows French all right." Tartarin advanced, furious: "Captain!.." He began; but then, leaning over the balcony with a rather vulgar gesture, Baia threw down a few well-chosen words. Tartarin, deflated, sat down on a drum, his Moor spoke in the argot of the Marseilles back-streets.
Steady, with eye afire and heaving breast, Tartarin would gather himself like a jaguar in readiness to spring forward whilst uttering his war-cry, when, all of a sudden, out of the thick of the murkiness, he would hear honest Tarasconian voices quite tranquilly hailing him with: "Hullo! you, by Jove! it's Tartarin! Good night, old fellow!" Maledictions upon it!
I warrant you, "they" would have been warmly received, though; but, alack! by reason of some nasty meanness of destiny, never indeed did Tartarin of Tarascon enjoy the luck to meet any ugly customers not so much as a dog or a drunken man nothing at all! Still, there were false alarms somewhiles. He would catch a sound of steps and muffled voices. "Ware hawks!"
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