bonjour à tous , quelqu'un pourrait m'aider à comprendre ce texte ? merci d'avance
“Hullo, Robinson Crusoe”
Four children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger, are holidaying with their mother on the shores
of an unnamed lake in England. They have received permission to set sail in the dinghy Swallow
to camp on a deserted island on the lake and have been there for some time.
Hullo Man Friday”, said Titty joyfully.
“Hullo, Robinson Crusoe,” said Mother. That was the best of Mother. She was different
from other natives. You could always count on her to know things like that.
Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday then kissed each other as if they were pretending to
be Titty and Mother.
“You didn’t expect to see me so soon after yesterday,” said Mother, “but I came to say
something to John. I supposed he’s with the rest of the crew in that secret harbor of yours
that poor natives are not allowed to see.”
“No. He isn’t on the island just at present,” said Titty. “No one is except me… and now
you too.”
“So you really are Robinson Crusoe,” said Mother, “and I am Man Friday in earnest. If
I’d known that I’d have made a good big footprint on the beach. But where are the
others?”
“They’re all right,” said Titty. “They’re coming back again. They’ve gone in Swallow on
a cutting-out expedition.” More than that she could not well say, because, after all, Man
Friday might be Mother, but she was also a native, even if she was the best native in the world.
“I expect they’ve gone to meet the Blackett children,” said Mother.
“Man Friday ought not to know anything about them,” said Titty.
“Very well, I won’t,” said Mother. “But what are you doing all by yourself?”
“Properly I’m in charge of the camp,” said Titty. “But while they’re not here it does not
make any diff erence if I’m Robinson Crusoe instead.”
“I am sure it doesn’t,” said Mother. “Have they left you anything to eat?”
“I’ve got my rations in the tent,” said Titty.
“Well, it’s high time you ate them,” said Mother. “Will you let Man Friday put some more
wood on the fire and make some tea? I can’t stay very long but perhaps they’ll be back
before I go.”
“I don’t think they will,” said Titty. “They’ve sailed across the Pacifi c Ocean. Timbuctoo
is nothing to where they’ve gone.”
“Well, I’ll make some tea anyhow,” said Mother. “Let’s see what they’ve left you in the
way of rations.” […]
When they had eaten their meal, which was a very good one, Robinson Crusoe said, “Now
Man Friday, would you mind telling me some of your life before you came to this island?”
Man Friday began at once by telling how she had nearly been eaten by savages, and had
only escaped by jumping out of the stew-pot at the last minute.
“Weren’t you scalded?” said Robinson Crusoe.
“Badly,” said Man Friday, “but I buttered the places that hurt most.”
And then Man Friday forgot about being Man Friday and became Mother again, and told
about her own childhood on a sheep station in Australia, and about emus that laid eggs
as big as baby’s heads, and opossums than ran about with their young ones in a pocket in
their fronts, and about kangaroos that could kill a man with a kick, and about snakes that
hid in the dust. Here Robinson Crusoe, who had forgotten that she was Robinson Crusoe,
and had turned into Titty again, talked about the snake which she had seen herself in the
cigar-box that was kept in the charcoal-burners’ wigwam . Then she told Mother about
the dipper, and how it had bobbed at her, and fl own under water. Then Mother talked about
the great drought on the sheep stations, when there was no rain and no water in the wells
and the flocks had to be driven miles and miles to get a drink, and thousands and thousands
of them died. Then she talked of the pony she had when she was a little girl, and then of
the little brown bears that her father caught in the bush, and that used to lick her fingers
for her when she dipped them in honey.
Time went on very fast, much faster than when Robinson had been alone.