up peacefully in a corner of room 36 in the Hotel de l'Europe. Sleep
without fear, great tawny lions! The Tarasconais is searching for his
Moor.

Since the events in the omnibus, the unhappy man seems to feel
constantly on his feet the scurrying of the little red mouse, and the
sea breeze which wafts across his face seems somehow perfumed by an
amorous odour of patisserie and anise. He must find his Dulcinea; but to
find in a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants a person of whom one
knows only the scent of their breath, the appearance of their slippers
and the colour of their eyes is no light undertaking. Only a lovesick
Tarasconais would attempt such a task. To make matters worse, it must be
confessed that beneath their masks all Moorish ladies tend to look very
much the same; and then they do not go out a great deal, and if one
wants to see them one must go to the upper town, the Arab town, the town
of the Teurs.

A real cut-throat place that upper town. Little dark alley-ways, very
narrow, climbing steeply between two rows of silent, mysterious houses
whose roofs touch to make a tunnel. Low doorways and small windows,
opaque and barred, and then, to right and left, little shops within
whose deep shade fierce "Teurs" with piratical faces, glittering eyes
and gleaming teeth, smoke their hookahs and converse in low tones, as
if planning some wicked deed.... To say that Tartarin walked through this
fearsome township unmoved would be to lie. He was on the contrary moved
a good deal, and in those obscure alleys where his large stomach took
up almost the entire width, the brave fellow advanced with the greatest
caution, his eyes alert, his finger on the trigger of his revolver, just
as he used to be at Tarascon on his way to the club. At any moment he
expected to be jumped on from behind by a whole gang of janissaries and