Level A1 · Lesson 16
The captain’s watch
La montre du commandant
Nobody can find the thief. Then the captain’s watch vanishes… and turns up the next day among the first officer’s collars.
The story
Le voyage continue. Chaque jour, le commandant et les passagers cherchent le voleur.
The voyage goes on. Every day the captain and the passengers look for the thief.
Ils cherchent dans les cabines, dans les valises et même au fond des sacs. Rien.
They search the cabins, the suitcases and even the bottom of the bags. Nothing.
Et un matin, surprise : la montre du commandant disparaît !
And one morning, surprise: the captain’s watch disappears!
Le commandant est furieux. Il parle aux officiers, il parle aux passagers, et il surveille Rozaine du matin au soir.
The captain is furious. He talks to the officers, he talks to the passengers, and he watches Rozaine from morning to night.
Pour lui, Rozaine est l’homme du télégramme : blond, seul, avec un nom en R.
To him, Rozaine is the man from the telegram: blond, alone, with a name beginning with R.
Le lendemain, nouvelle surprise : la montre est dans la cabine du commandant en second, au milieu des faux cols !
The next day, another surprise: the watch is in the first officer’s cabin, in the middle of his collars!
Tout le monde rit, sauf le commandant. C’est la signature d’Arsène Lupin : il vole, mais il joue aussi.
Everybody laughs, except the captain. It is Arsène Lupin’s signature: he steals, but he plays too.
Pour lui, le vol est un jeu, et le bateau est un théâtre.
To him, theft is a game and the ship is a theatre.
Je regarde Rozaine, sombre et silencieux au bout du pont. Si c’est lui, c’est un artiste. Et j’ai presque de l’admiration pour l’artiste.
I look at Rozaine, gloomy and silent at the end of the deck. If it is him, he is an artist. And I almost admire the artist.
Vocabulary
- la montre: the watch
- le faux col: the detachable collar
- la valise: the suitcase
- le sac: the bag
- la cabine: the cabin
- la signature: the signature
- le commandant en second: the second-in-command
- l’officier: the officer
- le voleur: the thief
- le vol: the theft
- le jeu: the game
- l’artiste: the artist
- l’admiration: admiration
- continuer: to go on, to continue
- disparaître (il disparaît): to disappear
- surveiller: to keep an eye on
- rire (il rit): to laugh
- jouer: to play
- au fond de: at the bottom of
- au milieu de: in the middle of
- au bout de: at the end of
- du matin au soir: from morning to night
- le lendemain: the next day
- chaque jour: every day
- sauf: except
- sombre: dark, gloomy
- furieux / furieuse: furious
De and à + the article: du, des, au, aux
English has a neat little trick for ownership, the apostrophe-s: “the captain’s watch”. French has no such thing. It turns the phrase around and uses de (“of”): la montre de Nelly, literally “the watch of Nelly”. The owner always comes last.
Now the catch. When de lands in front of le or les, the two words are not allowed to sit side by side. They merge, every time, with no exceptions and no choice:
| de + … | à + … | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| le | du commandant | au commandant | merged |
| la | de la dame | à la dame | left alone |
| l’ | de l’officier | à l’officier | left alone |
| les | des passagers | aux passagers | merged |
Only the masculine le and the plural les get swallowed. La and l’ are left in peace, which is why the story says la montre du commandant but would say la cabine de la dame and la cabine de l’officier.
You met the à column in lesson 13 (aller au salon). It works in exactly the same way, and the two often travel together: du matin au soir, “from morning to night”, or au bout du pont, “at the end of the deck”.
One trap: des now has two jobs. In lesson 2 it meant “some” (des passagers, some passengers). Here it is “of the” (au milieu des faux cols, in the middle of the collars). The sentence always tells you which one you are looking at. And with a person’s name there is no article to merge: la signature d’Arsène Lupin, le kodak de Bernard.
Leblanc in the original
«Le lendemain, ironie charmante, on retrouvait la montre parmi les faux-cols du commandant en second.»The next day, a charming irony, the watch was found among the collars of the second-in-command.