sipped the beverage, and I inhaled the chibouk; time passed slowly, and, towards six o’clock, the sanctified voice of the muezzin called the faithful to prayer. All rose, passed a hand over their beards, and took their way to the mosque.
At length I was alone.
Sidi Houmaïum, casting around him an uneasy glance, approached me and stooped to kiss my hand.
“Seigneur Talbe (Doctor), what brings you to my humble dwelling? In what can I serve you?”
“You can make me acquainted with Fatima.”
“Fatima, the Mauresque?”
“Yes, the Mauresque.”
“Seigneur Talbe, in the name of your mother, do not see this woman!”
“Why?”
“She is the perdition of faithful and infidels alike; she possesses a charm that kills! Do not see her!”
“Sidi Houmaïum, my resolution is not to be shaken. Fatima possesses a charm; well, I possess one still more powerful. Hers gives death; mine, life, youth, beauty. Tell her that, Sidi Houmaïum; tell her that the wrinkles of age fly at my approach. Tell her that of the apple of Eve—the apple which, from the beginning of the centuries, has condemned us all to die—I have recovered the seeds, and planted them; that from these has sprung a tree, the fruit of which gives the grace of eternal youth! That whoever tastes of it, though she were old, ugly, and shriveled as a witch, would be restored, her wrinkles effaced, her skin made white and soft as a lily, her lips rosy and perfumed as the queen of flowers, her teeth lustrous as those of the young jackal.”
“But, Seigneur Talbe,” cried the Mussulman, “Fatima is not old; on the contrary, she is young and beautiful—so beautiful that she might be the pride of a sultan.”
“I know it; she is not old, but she will become so. I want to see her. Remember, Sidi Houmaïum, your oft-repeated promises.”
“Since such is your will, Seigneur Talbe. Return tomorrow at the same hour. But remember well what I have told you: Fatima makes a vile use of her beauty.”
“Be under no apprehension; I will not forget.”
And presenting my hand to the coulouglis, I retired as I had come, with head held high and majestic step.
* * * *
You may imagine with what impatience I awaited the hour of my rendezvous with Sidi Houmaïum. I lost all control of myself; a hundred times I crossed and recrossed the courtyard waiting to catch the sound of the muezzin, doffing my hat to everybody I met, and even talking with the sentinel to kill time.
At length the verse from the Koran sounded in the air, passing from minaret to minaret over the lazy city. I flew to Sidi Houmaïum’s bodega, which I found him closing up.
“Well?” I inquired breathlessly.
Fatima awaits you, Seigneur Talbe.”
He fastened the bolt, and then, without further explanation, walked on before me.
The sky was dazzlingly bright. The high white houses—a veritable procession of phantoms—draped at long distances apart by a ray of sunlight, reflected their dreariness on the infrequent passers.
Sidi Houmaïum proceeded onwards without turning his head, the long sleeves of his burnoose almost sweeping the ground; and, as I followed his steps, I could hear him repeating in Arabic litanies like those in use by our pilgrims.
After awhile, turning out of the main street, he entered the Suma alley, in which two persons cannot walk abreast. There, in the black mire of the gutter, under wretched stalls, swarmed a whole population of shoemakers, morocco-leather embroiderers, dealers in Indian spices, aloes, dates, and rare perfumes, some going and coming with apathetic air, others squatting cross-legged, meditating, Heaven knows on what, in the midst of a bluish smoke that escaped from their mouths and nostrils at once.
The sun of Africa penetrated this dingy pig-sty of a place in streaks of gold, shining here upon an old hook-nosed grey-beard, with chibouk and fat hands laden with rings; at another place, on the graceful profile of a handsome woman, sad and dreamy, in the interior of her shop; or, still more, on the display of an armorer, with its tapering yatagans and long Bedouin guns inlaid with pearl. The odor of filth mingled itself with the pungent emanations of drugs. Light cut sharply through the shadows of the place, shaping them into luminous fringes, sprinkling them with glittering spangles, but without being able to drive them altogether away.
We proceeded still on our road.
Suddenly, in one of the inextricable windings of the alley, Sidi Houmaïum stopped before a low door and raised the knocker.
“You must go in with me and act as interpreter for me,” I said to him in an under-tone.
“Fatima speaks French,” he replied, without turning his head.
At the same moment, the shining face of a black woman appeared at the grating. Sidi Houmaïum spoke a few words to her in Arabic. The door was opened and suddenly closed behind me. The black woman went away by a side-door which I had not at first noticed, and Sidi Houmaïum remained outside of the house.
Left alone for several minutes, I was beginning to lose patience, when a door on the left opened, and the woman who had let me in made a sign to me to follow her.
After ascending a few steps, I found myself in an open court paved with tiles in mosaic. Several doors opened into this court.
The black woman conducted me into a room on the ground-floor, the open windows hung with silk curtains of Moorish design. All ’round the room violet-hued cushions were arranged. The floor was covered with an amber-colored reed-mat, and the ceiling was painted with fantastic fruits and flowers in interminable arabesques. But what immediately seized on my attention was Fatima herself, reclining on the divan, her eyes veiled by long lids and black lashes, her lip slightly shadowed, her nose straight and thin, her arms laden with heavy bracelets. She had pretty feet and was saucily playing with her small gold-broidered slippers when I paused at the threshold.
For a few seconds the Mauresque observed me with a sidelong glance, and then a sly smile half parted her lips.
“Come in, Seigneur Talbe,” she said in a nonchalant tone; “Sidi Houmaïum has prepared me for your visit; I know the motive which brings you. You are very good to interest yourself in poor Fatima, who is growing old, for she is already nearly seventeen—seventeen!—age of regrets and wrinkles, and tardy repentances! Ah! Seigneur Talbe, sit down and be welcome. You bring me the apple of Eve, that is true, is it not?—the apple that gives youth and beauty! And poor Fatima has need of it!”
I did not know what to answer—I was confused; but suddenly recollecting the motive which had brought me, the flow of my blood seemed to be arrested, turned, and, under the influence of this extreme reaction, I became cold as marble.
“You jest charmingly,” I replied, taking a seat on the divan; “I had heard your wit celebrated as not less than your beauty—I now see how truly.”
“Indeed!” she cried, “by whom?”
“By Dutertre.”
“Dutertre?”
