«C'est une noble bête!... Elle m'a vu tuer tous mes lions.»
[20]Là-dessus, il prit familièrement le bras du commandant, rouge
de bonheur; et, suivi de son chameau, entouré des chasseurs
de casquettes, acclamé par tout le peuple, il se dirigea paisiblement
vers la maison du baobab, et, tout en marchant, il commença
le récit de ses grandes chasses:
[25]«Figurez-vous, disait-il, qu'un certain soir, en plein Sahara....»
END OF THE TEXT
NOTES
The notes refer to the page and line number in the following format:
Page# Line#
Dedication: Gonzague-Privat (Louis de): painter, art critic and novelist, born at Montpellier in 1843. Daudet wrote a preface for his "Joie perdue" (1893).
1 1 Tarascon: a very old city (population 9,000) on the east bank of the Rhone, opposite Beaucaire (cf. note to 13 28), about fifty miles northwest of Marseilles. To Daudet the choice of proper names was always a matter for careful consideration. Tarascon was not the home of the original Tartarin (see Introduction, p xxvi), but, as Daudet explains in "Trente Ans de Paris," p 142, "a pseudonym picked up on the road from Paris to Marseilles because when rounded out by the southern accent it vibrated sonorously and triumphed at the conductor's call of stations like the war-cry of an Apache Indian." On the Tarasque cf. note to 3 25.
1 2 il y a ... de cela: 'that was ... ago,' lit. 'there are ... from that.'