With his lined, wind-burned face and slow Limousin drawl, he reminded his followers of the old ways, la France profonde and all kinds of comforting verities that had been pushed aside by modern life. He kept a peasant's innocence, and in 1966 got into deep merde with his colleagues for agreeing to a newfangled drugs test which they were all refusing. But he also kept a shrewd business head on his shoulders. He knew the value of a franc, ever since he and his brothers had broken their bedroom window and been told, by their father, that there would be no money to mend it until the spring.
他那布滿皺紋、久經(jīng)風吹日曬的臉,加上利穆贊地區(qū)慢吞吞的語調(diào),使他的追隨者想起了古老的生活方式,那種偏遠地區(qū)的有著各種令人欣慰的準則的生活方式,它已經(jīng)被現(xiàn)代人拋在一邊了。他保持著農(nóng)民的單純,1966年,他同意了一項新奇的藥物測試,遭到了同事們的拒絕后和他們進行了深入的討論。但他同時也保持著精明的商業(yè)頭腦。他知道一個法郎的價值,每當他和兄弟們打破臥室的窗戶后,他們的父親就告訴他們,到春天之前都沒有修補的錢。
It was therefore oddly satisfying that his great rival, Jacques Anquetil, was everything he was not: a well-off, pale-faced, blond-quiffed, almost ghostly Norman, withdrawn and unflamboyant. Anquetil won the Tour five times, yet to his fury the French still loved Poupou more. The depth of their duelling was witnessed by half a million spectators when, in 1964, they battled up the Puy de Dôme in Auvergne side by side, Anquetil on the mountain side and Poupou on the precipice edge, so close that their elbows knocked and Poupou could feel the hot breath of “Maître Jacques” on his arms.
因此,奇怪的是,他的勁敵雅克·安克蒂爾卻完全是他的反面,這使他感到很滿意。一個富裕的、臉色蒼白、頭發(fā)金黃、幾乎像幽靈一樣的諾曼人,沉默寡言,不張揚。安克蒂爾贏過五次環(huán)法冠軍,但是令他憤怒的是,法國人還是愛普普更多一點。1964年,他們在奧弗涅區(qū)多姆山近距離的精彩決斗由50萬人目睹,安克蒂爾在靠近山那一邊,普普則在峭壁邊緣。他們靠得很近,胳膊肘都碰在一起,普普能感覺到雅克先生的熱氣噴在他的胳膊上。

He gained 42 seconds over him; it was not enough to win the Tour. But he did not mind too much, as he never did. One reason to be relaxed was that he was making a lot of money—more even than Anquetil, some said. From the start he had been astonished at what cyclists earned. His first prize, 80,000 old francs for coming second, would have taken him six years to get by farming (or substantially less time at the poker table, where he was a skilled bluffer).
普普比他快了42秒,這并不足以使他贏得比賽。但是他并不是很在意,因為他永遠都沒有在意過。一些人說,他感到放松的一個原因是他賺了很多錢,甚至比安克蒂爾還多。從一開始他就為自行車手的收入感到驚訝。他第一次拿獎時,成績第二,得到了80000法郎,當農(nóng)民的話得需要六年時間。(或者玩撲克的時間大大減少,他在撲克桌上是一個熟練的吹牛者)。
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