Allouma
I
One of my friends had told me that if, during my travels in Algeria, I happened to be in the neighbourhood of Bordj-Ebbaba, I was to be sure to visit his old friend Auballe, who had settled down there.
These names had passed from my mind, and the settler was far from my thoughts, when by pure chance I came across him.
For a month I had been roaming afoot over that magnificent country which stretches from Algiers to Cherchell, Orleansville and Tiaret, a region both barren and wooded, its scenery both imposing and friendly. Between the mountains dense forests of pines clothe the narrow valleys through which the winter torrents rush. Enormous trees fallen across the ravine serve as bridges for the Arabs, and support a mass of creepers which twine around their dead trunks and deck them anew with life. In the secluded folds of the mountains there are dells awe-inspiring in their beauty, and streamlets whose level banks, covered with rosebay, delight the eye with their inconceivable charm.
But my sweetest memories of the journey are those of my afternoon walks along the shady roads over those undulating hills, from which one overlooks a vast russet-brown expanse of rolling country, stretching from the bluish sea to the mountain range of the Ouarsenis, crowned by the cedar forests of Teniet-el-Haad.
On the day I was speaking of, I had lost my way. I had just surmounted a crest from the top of which I could see, above a line of hills, the extensive plain of the Mitidja, and far in the background, on the summit of another range of mountains, almost invisible in the distance, that strange monument called the Christians’ Tomb, the burying-place, so they say, of a family of Mauritanian kings. I went down the other side, towards the South, while before me, stretching as far as the peaks upreared against the clear sky on the edge of the desert, there appeared a broken rocky country, tawny in colour as if all the hills were covered with lion skins sewn together. Here and there, higher than the rest, rose a yellowish, pointed hummock, like the hairy back of a camel.
I walked rapidly, lighthearted, as one feels when following the intricate windings of a mountain path. Life has no burdens during these vigorous tramps in the keen mountain air; body and soul, thoughts and cares alike, all cease to trouble. That day I was oblivious of all the cares that oppress and torture our lives, oblivious of everything but the joy of that descent. In the distance I discerned Arab encampments, brown pointed tents, clinging to the ground like shellfish to the rocks, or little cabins, mere huts made of branches, from which a grey smoke issued. White forms, men or women, wandered slowly about, and the bells of the herds sounded thinly in the evening air.
The strawberry-trees along my path drooped under their curious load, and spattered the road with their purple fruit. They looked like martyred trees from which a bloody sweat dripped, for at the end of each branch hung a red spot like a drop of blood.
The soil around them was covered with this scarlet rain, and the fruit trodden underfoot left gory stains on the ground. Now and again, springing upwards as I went along, I gathered some of the ripest and ate them.
Now all the valleys were filling with a white mist which rose slowly like the steam from a bull’s flanks, and above the mountains which rose on the horizon, bordering the Sahara, flamed a sunset like an illuminated missal. Long streaks of gold alternating with streaks of bloodred (more blood; the whole story of man is blood and gold!), while here and there, between the streaks, a narrow opening yielded a glimpse of a greenish-blue sky, far off as a dream.
Oh! how far I was from everything and everybody connected with a town-dweller’s life, even far from myself, a kind of wandering being, without consciousness or thought, merely seeing things as I went along and liking what I saw; far also from the road I had planned to follow and which I had forgotten about, for with the approach of night I realised that I was lost.
Darkness fell upon the land like a pall, and I could see nothing in front of me but the mountain looming in the distance. Seeing tents in a valley, I went down to them, and endeavoured to make the first Arab I met understand where I wanted to go. I cannot tell whether he guessed my meaning, but he replied at great length in a tongue of which I understood not a word. In despair, I had made up my mind to spend the night near the camp, wrapped in a rug, when amongst the strange words which came from his mouth, I thought I recognised the name of Bordj-Ebbaba.
“Bordj-Ebbaba?” I repeated, and he replied: “Yes, yes!”
I showed him two francs, a fortune to him, and he started off, I following him. Oh! for a long time in the darkness of the night, I followed this pale phantom who hurried barefooted before me over stony paths on which I continually stumbled.
Suddenly a light appeared. We came to the door of a white house, a kind of small fort, straight-walled and with no windows on the outside. I knocked, and the howling of dogs came from within. A Frenchman’s voice inquired: “Who is there?”
“Does M. Auballe live here?” I replied.
“Yes.”
The door opened, and I was face to face with M. Auballe himself, a tall, fair-haired fellow, down at heel, a pipe in his mouth, looking like a good-natured Hercules.
I introduced myself, and he held out both hands to me, saying: “Make yourself at home, sir.”
A quarter of an hour later I was dining exceedingly well opposite my host, who continued to smoke.
I knew his story. After having wasted a lot of money on women, he had invested all he had left in an Algerian estate, and had planted a vineyard. The vines were doing well; he was happy, and had the serene air of a contented man. I could not understand how this gay Parisian had been able to get used to this monotonous, solitary life, and I questioned him about it.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Nine years.”
“Don’t you get terrible fits of depression?”
“No, one gets reconciled to this country, and then ends by liking it. You would scarcely believe how it grips people by means of a host of trivial animal instincts that we are unconscious of in ourselves. At first we become attached to it by the subtle, inexplicable satisfaction of our senses. The air and the climate conquer our bodies, in spite of ourselves, and the cheerful sunlight which floods the country keeps the mind clear and peaceful without any trouble. Through our eyes it pours into us continuously, and you might truly say that it purges the darkest recesses of the soul.”
“And women?” I asked.
“Ah! one misses them a little.”
“Only a little?”
“My God! Yes—a little. For even amongst the tribes, one always finds accommodating natives who wish to copy European ways.”
He turned to the Arab who was waiting on me, a tall dark fellow with black eyes gleaming under his turban, and said:
“Leave us, Mohammed; I will call you when I want you.”
Then, turning to me, he explained:
“He understands French, and I am going to tell you a story in which he plays a great part.”
On Mohammed’s departure, he began:
“I had been here about four years, still very little at home in this country whose language I was only just beginning to stammer, and compelled from time to time to spend several days in Algiers to avoid breaking right away from the pleasures that had in the past caused my downfall.
“I had bought this farmhouse, a bordj, as they call it, an old fortified guard house, some hundreds of yards from the native encampment whose men I employ in my fields. From this tribe—a branch of the tribe of Ulad Taadja—I had chosen for my personal servant a strapping fellow, Mohammed ben Lam’har, whom you have just seen, and he soon became extremely devoted to me. As he did not like sleeping in a house that he was not accustomed to, he pitched his tent a few steps from the door, so that I could call him from my window.
“My life, well, you can guess it. All day I supervised the clearing and planting, I hunted a little, and dined with the officers of the neighbouring stations, or they came to dine with me.
“As for … amusements—you have heard about those. Algiers supplied all the very best; and now and again an accomodating and sympathetic Arab would stop me in the middle of a walk, to suggest that he should bring me home a native woman in the evening. Sometimes I accepted his offer, but more often I refused, thinking of the trouble that might follow.
“One evening in early summer, on returning from a tour of inspection around the fields, I wanted Mohammed, and entered his tent without calling, a thing I often did.
“On a big, red, woollen rug—one of those made by Jebel-Amour—thick and soft as a mattress, a woman was sleeping, a girl in fact, almost nude, with her arms crossed over her eyes. Her white body gleaming in the light admitted through the raised flap, seemed to me to be one of the most perfect specimens I had ever seen. Round here women are very beautiful, tall and uncommonly graceful in form and features.
“Somewhat confused, I dropped the flap of the tent and returned to the house.
“I am very fond of women. That lightning vision had pierced me through and through, kindling again in my blood the old, formidable ardour which had obliged me to leave France. It was a warm evening in July, and I spent nearly the whole night at the window, my eyes fixed on the dark shadow on the ground which was Mohammed’s tent.
“When he came into my room the next day, I looked him full in the face, and he lowered his head like a man who feels ashamed and guilty. Did he guess what I knew?
“I asked him bluntly: ‘So you are married, Mohammed?’
“I saw him blush, and he stammered:
“ ‘No, sir.’
“I made him speak French and as he had given me lessons in Arabic, the result was one of the most incoherent jumbles imaginable.
“ ‘Then why is there a woman under your roof?’ I retorted.
“ ‘She is from the South,’ he murmured.
“ ‘Ah! she is from the South. That does not tell me how she comes to be in your tent.’
“Without answering my question, he continued:
“ ‘She is very pretty.’
“ ‘Yes, indeed! Well, the next time you have a very pretty woman from the South to stay with you, please show her into my cabin and not into yours. Do you understand, Mohammed?’
“He replied very earnestly: ‘Yes, sir.’
“I must confess that during the whole day my feelings were dominated by the memory of that Arab girl lying on the red rug, and on my way back to dinner, I wanted to go into Mohammed’s tent again. In the evening he waited on me as usual, coming and going with impassive face, and I was often on the point of asking whether he was going to keep this very pretty Southern maiden for long under his camel-skin roof.
“About nine o’clock, still haunted by the lure of the female, which is as tenacious as the hunting instinct in dogs, I went out for a breath of air, taking a short walk in the direction of the brown canvas tent, through which I could see the bright flame of a lamp. Then I wandered further away, lest Mohammed should find me near his quarters.
“On returning an hour later, I saw clearly his characteristic profile in silhouette on the tent. Then, taking my key from my pocket, I made my way into the bordj where there slept, as I did, my steward, two French labourers and an old cook brought from Algiers.
“I went upstairs and was surprised to notice a streak of light under my door. I opened it, and saw facing me, seated on a wicker chair beside the table on which a candle was burning, a girl with the face of a statue, quietly waiting for me, and wearing all the silver trinkets which the women of the South wear on legs and arms, on the throat and even on the stomach. Her eyes, dilated by the use of kohl, were looking at me; her forehead, her cheeks and her chin were studded with four little blue marks delicately tattooed on the skin. Her arms, loaded with bangles, rested on her thighs, which were covered by a kind of red silk jibbah which hung from her shoulders.
“Seeing me come in, she stood upright before me, covered with her barbarous jewellery, in an attitude of proud submission.
“ ‘What are you doing here?’ I said to her in Arabic.
“ ‘I am here because I was told to come.’
“ ‘Who told you to come?’
“ ‘Mohammed.’
“ ‘All right. Sit down.’
“She sat down and lowered her eyes, while I stood looking at her.
“She had an unusual face: with regular, refined features with a slightly animal expression, but mystical like that of a Buddha. Her thick lips, coloured with a kind of reddish bloom which was also apparent elsewhere on her skin, pointed to a slight mixture of Negro blood, although her hands and arms were irreproachably white.
“Perplexed, tempted and embarrassed, I felt doubtful as to what I ought to do. In order to gain time, and to give myself an opportunity to consider the problem, I asked further questions about her origin, her arrival in this country and her connection with Mohammed. But she only answered those which least interested me, and I found it impossible to ascertain why or when she had come, with what object, on whose orders, or what had taken place between her and my servant.
“Just as I was going to tell her to return to Mohammed’s tent, she apparently anticipated my words, suddenly drew herself up, and raising her bare arms, while the tinkling bracelets slid in a mass towards her shoulders, she clasped her hands behind my neck and drew me towards her with an air of entreaty and irresistible wilfulness.
“Her eyes, burning with the desire to bewitch, with that need of conquest that imparts a feline fascination to the immodest gaze of a woman, appealed to me, captivated me, robbed me of all power of resistance, and roused me to an impetuous passion. It was a short, silent and violent struggle carried on through the medium of the eyes alone, the eternal struggle between the primitive man and woman, in which man is always conquered.
“Her hands behind my head drew me, with slow, increasing irresistible pressure, towards her smiling red lips, to which I suddenly pressed mine, holding her close to me, while the silver bangles, from her throat to her feet, jingled under the pressure.
“She was as wiry, supple and healthy as an animal, with the tricks and movements, the grace and even the scent of a gazelle, which gave her kisses a rare indescribable flavour, as foreign to my senses as a taste of some tropical fruit.
“After a while … I say after a while, it was perhaps as dawn was breaking, I decided to send her away, thinking that she would go just as she had come. I had not yet considered what I would do with her, or what she would do with me. But as soon as she understood my intention, she murmured:
“ ‘If you send me away, where would you have me go? I will have to sleep out of doors, in the dark. Let me sleep on the carpet at the foot of your bed.’
“What could I say? What could I do? I reflected that Mohammed, in his turn, was doubtless watching the lighted window of my room, and all kinds of problems, which had not occurred to me in the embarrassment of the first few moments, now confronted me.
“ ‘Stay here,’ I said; ‘We must talk it over.’
“My decision was made almost immediately. Since this girl had been thrown into my arms, I would keep her as a kind of slave mistress, hidden in my house, like the women of the harems. When she no longer pleased me, it would always be easy to get rid of her somehow, for in Africa these creatures belong to us almost body and soul.
“ ‘I will be kind to you,’ I said, ‘I will treat you well, but I want to know who you are, and where you come from.’
“She understood that she had to tell me something, and related her story to me, or rather a story, for she was probably lying from beginning to end, as Arabs invariably do, with or without a motive.
“The habit of lying is one of the most surprising and incomprehensible features of the native character. These people who are so steeped in Islamism that it forms a part of them, governs their instincts, modifies their racial characteristics and differentiates them from others in mental outlook as much as the colour of the skin differentiates the Negro from the white man, are liars to the backbone, to such an extent that one can never believe what they say. Do they owe it to their religion? I cannot say. One must have lived among them to understand to what a degree falsehood forms a part of their whole existence and becomes a kind of second nature, a necessity of life.
“She told me, then, that she was a daughter of a Caid of Ouled Sidi Cheik and of a woman captured by him in a raid on the Touaregs. This woman must have been a black slave, or at least the offspring of an earlier mixture of Arab and Negro blood. It is well known that Negresses are highly prized in harems, where they play the part of aphrodisiacs.
“Nothing of this origin was evident except in the purplish colour of her lips and the dark flush on her long supple breasts. The rest belonged to the beautiful Southern race, white and slender, her features as simple and regular as the head of an Indian image, a likeness which was enhanced by her wide-set eyes.
“Of her real life I could get no real information. She described it to me in disconnected trifles which seemed to pour haphazard from a confused memory, mingled with delightfully childish remarks. It was like a picture of nomadic life from the brain of a squirrel leaping from tent to tent, from camp to camp and from tribe to tribe.
“All this was narrated with the serious air which this strange race always preserves, with the expression of an idol descending to gossip, and with a rather comical gravity.
“When she had finished, I realized that I had absorbed nothing of her long story, full of trifling incidents stored up in her nimble brain, and I wondered whether she had not been merely playing with me in this meaningless and serious gossip, which left me no wiser than before about her or any event in her life.
“I reflected on this conquered race in the midst of whom we settle, or rather, who settle in the midst of us, whose language we are beginning to speak, whose everyday life we see going on under the flimsy canvas of their tents, on whom we impose our laws, our regulations and our customs, and of whom we know nothing. All this, mark you, goes on as though we were not there, as though we had not been watching little else for nearly sixty years. We no more know what happens under that hut made of branches or under that little cone of cloth anchored to the ground with stakes, than we know what the so-called civilised Arabs in the Moorish houses in Algiers are doing or thinking. Behind the whitewashed walls of their dwellings in the city, behind the leafy screens of their huts or behind the brown curtain of camel skin flapping in the wind, they live on our thresholds unknown, mysterious, sly and untrustworthy, smiling and impenetrable in their submission. Believe me, when I look at the neighbouring encampment from a distance through my field glasses, I find that they have superstitions, ceremonies and innumerable customs still unknown and not even suspected by us! Never, perhaps, has a race conquered by force been able to escape so completely from any effective domination, moral influence or persistent but useless inquiry on the part of their conquerors.
“I suddenly felt, as never before, that secret and impassable barrier which nature has mysteriously erected between the races, raised between me and that Arab girl who had just offered herself to me.
“Thinking of it for the first time, I asked her:
“ ‘What is your name?’
“She had been silent for some minutes, and I saw her start involuntarily as if she had forgotten that I was there. Then I saw in her eyes that the short interval had been sufficient for sleep to claim her, a sudden irresistible slumber, almost overwhelming, like everything that seizes the changing fancies of women.
“She replied dully, stifling a yawn: ‘Allouma.’
“ ‘You want to go to sleep?’ I continued.
“ ‘Yes,’ she replied.
“ ‘Very well, then, sleep,’ I said.
“She quietly stretched herself by my side, lying face down, her forehead resting on her crossed arms, and I felt almost at once that her primitive, fugitive thoughts had vanished in sleep.
“As for me, lying near her, I began to wonder why Mohammed had given her to me. Had he played the part of the generous and self-sacrificing servant who gives up the woman he had taken for himself, or had he acted on an idea more complex and practical in thus giving up to me this girl who had taken my fancy? An Arab, where women are concerned, has the most rigorous standards coupled with the most inexplicable tolerance, and one can understand his stern yet easygoing morality no better than his other feelings. Perhaps in my chance entry into his tent I had forestalled the kindly intentions of this thoughtful servant who had intended for me this woman, his friend, perhaps even his mistress.
“Tormented by all these possibilities, I became so tired that, in my turn, I gradually fell into a deep slumber.
“The creaking of my door aroused me; Mohammed was coming in to wake me as he did every morning. He opened the window, through which poured a flood of daylight, lighting up the figure of Allouma still asleep on the bed; then he gathered up my trousers, waistcoat and jacket from the floor in order to brush them. He did not look at the woman lying by my side, he did not even appear to notice that she was there, and his gravity, his demeanour and his expression were the same as usual. But the light and movement, the slight patter of the man’s bare feet, and the feeling of the fresh air on her skin and in her lungs roused Allouma from her torpor. She stretched her arms, turned over and opened her eyes, looked at me and at Mohammed with the same indifference, and sat up. Then she murmured:
“ ‘I am hungry now.’
“ ‘What will you have to eat?’ I inquired.
“ ‘Kahoua.’33
“ ‘Coffee with bread and butter?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“Mohammed, standing near our bed, my clothes over his arm, waited for orders.
“ ‘Bring something to eat for Allouma and myself,’ I told him, and he went out without the least trace of astonishment or annoyance on his face.
“When he had gone, I asked the young Arab girl:
“ ‘Do you wish to live in my house?’
“ ‘Yes, I am willing.’
“ ‘I will give you a room for yourself, and a woman to wait on you.’
“ ‘You are generous, and I am grateful for it.’
“ ‘But if you do not behave yourself, I will send you away from here.’
“ ‘I will do anything you want of me.’
“She took my hand and kissed it, in token of submission.
“Mohammed returned, bringing a tray with breakfast.
“ ‘Allouma is going to live in the house,’ I told him. ‘Spread some rugs in the room at the end of the passage, and send for the wife of Abd-el-Kaderel-Hadara to come and wait on her.’
“ ‘Yes, sir.’
“That was all he said.
“An hour later, my beautiful Arab girl was installed in a large, well-lighted room; and when I came to see that everything was right, she entreated me to give her a wardrobe with a mirror on the door. I promised and left her squatting on a rug made in Jebel-Amour, a cigarette in her mouth, and gossiping with the old Arab woman whom I had engaged, as if they had known each other all their lives.
II
“For a month I was very happy with her, and in a queer fashion I became attached to this creature of another race, who seemed to me to be almost of another species, born on a neighbouring planet.
“I did not love her; no, one does not love the young women of this primitive continent. Between them and ourselves, even between them and their own menfolk the Arabs, love as we understand it does not exist. They are too primitive, their feelings are insufficiently refined to arouse in our souls that sentimental exaltation which is the poetry of love. There is no mental or moral intoxication blended with the physical intoxication which these charming and worthless creatures stimulate in us.
“Yet they grip us and take possession of us just as other women do, but in a different way, less tenacious, less painful and sorrowful.
“My feelings in that way I cannot yet describe with any accuracy. I told you a little while ago that Africa, this bare artless country, devoid of all intellectual attraction, gradually overcomes us by an indefinable and unfailing charm, by the breath of its atmosphere, by the constant mildness of the early mornings and the evenings, by its delightful sunlight and by the feeling of well-being that it instils in us. Well, Allouma attracted me in the same way by numberless hidden and fascinating enticements, by the keen allurements, not of her caresses, for she was typically Oriental in her nonchalance, but of her charming unconstraint.
“I left her absolutely free to come and go as she pleased, and she passed at least one afternoon out of every two in the neighbouring camp, amongst my native labourers’ womenfolk. Often, too, she would spend a whole day admiring herself in the glazed mahogany wardrobe that I had obtained from Miliana. She admired herself in all conscience, standing before the great glass door in which she followed her movements with deep and serious attention. She would walk with her head thrown back in order to pass judgment on her hips and her back, turn, move away and come back again, until, tired of moving about, she would sit on a hassock and contemplate her reflection face to face, her mind absorbed in this occupation.
“After a little while, I noticed that she went out nearly every day after breakfast, and disappeared completely until the evening.
“Feeling somewhat anxious, I asked Mohammed whether he knew what she might be doing during this lengthy absence.
“ ‘Don’t let it trouble you,’ he replied, unconcernedly, ‘the feast of Ramadan will soon be here. She has to carry out her devotions.’
“He also seemed delighted with the presence of Allouma in the house, but not once did I detect the least sign of anything suspicious between them, nor did they even seem to be in collusion, or to hide anything from me.
“I therefore accepted the situation, though without understanding it, leaving the solution to the workings of time and chance.
“Often, after inspecting my fields, the vines and the clearings, I would go for a long walk. You know the magnificent forests of this part of Algeria, those almost impenetrable ravines where the fallen pine-trees dam the torrents, and those little dells full of rosebay which from the mountain tops look like Oriental carpets spread out along the watercourses. You know that frequently in these woods and on these slopes, where never a soul seems to have penetrated, you may suddenly come across the snow-white dome of a koubla containing the bones of a lonely, humble marabout, visited at infrequent intervals by a few determined followers, who come from the neighbouring village with candles in their pockets to light them on the tomb of the holy man.
“One evening, as I was returning, I passed close to one of these Mohammedan chapels, and glancing through the ever open door, I saw that a woman was praying before the shrine. It made a charming picture, this Arab girl bowed on the floor in the ruinous building, where the wind entered at will and piled up into yellowish heaps in the corners the withered, delicate pine-needles. I approached in order to see better, and recognised Allouma. Absorbed in her devotions, she neither saw nor heard me, and continued to address the saint in a low voice, thinking herself alone with him, and pouring out to God’s servant all her troubles. Sometime she stopped awhile to meditate, to remember what she had still to say, to make sure of forgetting none of her store of confidences; at other times she grew excited as if he had answered her, or as if he had advised her to do something against her will, against which she was arguing.
“I stole away noiselessly, as I had come, and returned to dinner.
“In the evening I sent for her, and as she came in I saw on her face a thoughtful look that was not usually there.
“ ‘Sit down there,’ I said to her, indicating a seat on the couch by my side.
“She sat down, and as I leaned towards her to kiss her, she drew her head back quickly.
“I was astonished, and asked her what was the matter.
“ ‘It is Ramadan,’ she said.
“I began to laugh.
“ ‘And the marabout has forbidden you to allow yourself to be kissed during Ramadan?’
“ ‘Oh, yes! I am an Arab, and you are an infidel.’
“ ‘That would be a great sin?’
“ ‘Oh, yes!’
“ ‘Then you have eaten nothing all day, until sunset?’
“ ‘No, nothing.’
“ ‘But after sunset you had something to eat?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘Well, then, as it is quite dark now, you cannot be less strict on food than on anything else.’
“She looked ruffled and hurt, and retorted with a haughtiness that I had not known in her before:
“ ‘If an Arab girl let herself be touched by an infidel during Ramadan, she would be accursed forever.’
“ ‘And this will last for the whole of the month?’
“She replied with a definite air:
“ ‘Yes, the whole month of Ramadan.’
“I adopted a tone of annoyance, and said to her:
“ ‘Very well, you may go and spend Ramadan with your family.’
“She seized my hands and clasped them to her, crying:
“ ‘Oh! I beg of you, don’t be cruel; you shall see how good I will be. Let us keep Ramadan together, if you will. I will look after you, I will do anything you fancy, but don’t be cruel.’
“I could not help smiling at her quaint air of grief, and sent her away to bed.
“An hour later, as I was going to bed, there were two light taps on my door, so light that I scarcely heard them.
“ ‘Come in,’ I cried, and Allouma entered, carrying a large tray loaded with Arab delicacies, sweet fried croquettes, and a strange collection of native pastry.
“She laughed, showing her fine teeth, and repeated:
“ ‘We are going to keep Ramadan together.’
“You know that the fasting which begins at dawn and ends at dusk, at the moment when the eye cannot distinquish between a white and a black thread, is followed every evening by private little feasts in which eating goes on until dawn. It follows that for a native not overburdened by his conscience, Ramadan merely consists in transposing day and night. Allouma, however, was more conscientious about it. She placed her tray between us on the couch, and taking in her long slender fingers a little powdered ball, she put it in my mouth, murmuring:
“ ‘Eat this, it is good.’
“I munched the light cake, which was indeed excellent, and asked her:
“ ‘Did you make that?’
“ ‘Yes, I did.’
“ ‘For me?’
“ ‘Yes, for you.’
“ ‘To enable me to tolerate Ramadan?’
“ ‘Yes, don’t be unkind! I will bring you some every day.’
“What a terrible month I spent there! a sugary, insipid, maddening month, full of little indulgences, temptations, fits of anger and vain struggles against an invincible resistance.
“Then, when the three days of Beiram arrived, I celebrated them in my own way, and Ramadan was forgotten.
“A very hot summer passed, and towards the early days of Autumn, Allouma seemed to be preoccupied and abstracted and took no interest in anything.
“One evening, when I sent for her, she was not in her room, and thinking that she was somewhere about the house, I sent someone to look for her. She had not come back, so I opened the window and called for Mohammed.
“His answer came from within the tent:
“ ‘Yes, sir?’
“ ‘Do you know where Allouma is?’
“ ‘No, sir. She is not lost, is she?’
“A few seconds later, he entered my room, so agitated that he could not suppress his anxiety.
“ ‘Allouma lost?’ he asked.
“ ‘Yes, she has disappeared.’
“ ‘Surely not.’
“ ‘Go and look for her,’ I told him.
“He remained standing there, lost in thought and trying to grasp the situation. Then he entered Allouma’s room, where her clothes were scattered in truly Oriental disorder. He examined everything like a policeman, or rather he snuffed around like a dog, and then, incapable of further effort, he murmured with an air of resignation:
“ ‘Gone! she is gone!’
“For my part, I feared some accident, a fall down a ravine, a sprained joint, and I sent out all the men in the camp with orders to search until they had found her.
“They searched for her all night, the whole of the next day and for a week, but could discover no clue that would put us on the right track. I suffered badly, for I missed her; the house seemed empty and life seemed a desert. Then disturbing thoughts began to pass through my mind: I thought that she might have been kidnapped, or even killed. But every time I attempted to question Mohammed or to tell him my fears, he replied steadfastly:
“ ‘No, she has gone away.’
“Then he added the Arab word r’ezale, meaning a gazelle, as if to say that she ran quickly and was far away.
“Three weeks passed, and I had given up hope of ever seeing my Arab mistress again, when one morning Mohammed, his face beaming with joy, came into my room and said:
“ ‘Allouma has returned, sir!’
“I jumped out of bed and asked him where she was.
“ ‘She does not dare to come in! Look, under the tree over there!’
“And with outstretched arm he pointed through the window to a whitish shadow at the foot of an olive-tree.
“I got up and went out. As I approached that bundle of cloth which seemed to have been thrown against the twisted trunk, I recognised the large dark eyes and the tattooed stars on the long well-formed face of the native girl who had bewitched me. As I advanced, I was seized by a fit of anger, a longing to strike her, to make her suffer in revenge. I called to her from a distance:
“ ‘Where have you been?’
“She did not reply, and remained motionless, as if she scarcely lived, resigned to the expected blows.
“I was now standing right above her, gazing with astonishment at the rags she wore, tatters of silk and wool, grey with dust, and torn and filthy.
“With my hand raised as if to a dog, I repeated:
“ ‘Where have you been?’
“ ‘From over there,’ she murmured.
“ ‘From where?’
“ ‘From the tribe.’
“ ‘From what tribe?’
“ ‘From my own.’
“ ‘Why did you go away?’
“Seeing that I was not going to strike her, she plucked up a little courage, and said in a low voice:
“ ‘I wanted … I wanted … I could not live in the house any longer.’
“I saw tears in her eyes, and I immediately felt a foolish sort of pity. I stooped towards her, and on turning round to sit down I perceived Mohammed watching in the distance.
“Very gently I continued:
“ ‘Come, will you tell me why you went away?’
“Then she told me that she had for a long time felt in her heart the nomad’s irresistible desire to get back to a tent, to sleep, run and roll on the sand, to wander from plain to plain with the herds, to feel nothing over her head, or between the yellow stars of heaven and the blue stars on her face, but the thin curtain of worn and patched cloth through which one can see, awakening in the night, the gleam of countless spots of light.
“She pictured this to me so simply, so forcibly and so reasonably that I was convinced of the truth of it, and feeling sorry for her, I asked:
“ ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to go away for a while?’
“ ‘Because you would not have liked …’
“ ‘If you had promised to come back, I would have given you permission.’
“ ‘You would not have believed me.’
“Seeing that I was not angry, she laughed, and added:
“ ‘You see, it is all over. I have come back and here I am. I had to spend a few days over there. Now I have had enough: it is all over and done with. I have come back and I am no longer unhappy. I am very pleased. You are not cruel to me.’
“ ‘Come to the house,’ I said to her.
“She stood up, and I took her hand, held her slender fingers; and triumphant in her rags, with a jingling of bracelets, necklaces and ornaments, she walked solemnly towards my house, where Mohammed was waiting for us.
“Before going in, I repeated:
“ ‘Allouma, if at any time you want to go home, tell me so and I will let you go.’
“ ‘You promise?’ she asked cautiously.
“ ‘Yes, I promise.’
“ ‘I promise also. When I feel homesick,’ and she placed her hands on her forehead with a magnificent gesture, ‘I will tell you that I must go yonder, and you will let me go.’
“I accompanied her to her room, followed by Mohammed bringing water, for we had not yet been able to warn the wife of Abd-el-Kader-el-Hadara of the return of her mistress.
“She entered, perceived the mirror, and with joy in her face ran towards it as if to welcome a long-lost mother. She looked at herself for a few seconds, then pouted and said to the mirror, with a shade of annoyance:
“ ‘Wait a minute, I have silk dresses in the wardrobe. I will be beautiful very soon.’
“I left her to flirt with her reflection in the glass.
“Our life together went on as before, and I fell more and more under the strange spell, the physical allurement of this girl, for whom at the same time I felt a kind of paternal superiority.
“All went well for six months, and then I felt that she was again becoming nervous, restless and rather sad. One day I said to her:
“ ‘Do you want to go home?’
“ ‘Yes, I should like to.’
“ ‘You did not dare to tell me?’
“ ‘No, I did not dare.’
“ ‘Very well, then: you may go.’
“She seized my hands and kissed them as she did in all her outbursts of gratitude, and the next day she had disappeared.
“As before, she returned after about three weeks, again in tatters, black with dust and sunburn, and satiated with the nomad’s life, with sand and with freedom. During two years she went home in that way four times.
“I used to take her back cheerfully and without jealousy, for I felt that jealousy could not exist without love as we understand love in our own country. Certainly, I might very well have killed her if I had caught her deceiving me, but it would have been rather as I would have thrashed a disobedient dog, from pure anger. I would not have felt that torture, that consuming fire, that terrible suffering that constitute jealousy in the North. I said just now that I might have killed her as I would have thrashed a disobedient dog. I loved her, in fact, rather as one might love a very rare animal, a dog or a horse that one could not replace. She was a wonderful, a delightful animal, but no more, in the form of a woman.
“I can hardly describe what a gulf separated our souls, although no doubt our hearts came into contact at times and responded to the touch. She was a pleasant object in my house and in my life, one to which I had become accustomed and which appealed only to my physical senses.
“One morning Mohammed came into my room with a strange expression on his face, an anxious look, sometimes seen in an Arab’s eyes, which suggests a cat, apprehensive and ready to run, when faced by a dog.
“Seeing his face, I asked:
“ ‘Hullo! what is the matter?’
“ ‘Allouma has gone away.’
“I began to laugh.
“ ‘Gone? where to?’
“ ‘Gone right away, sir.’
“ ‘What, gone right away?’
“ ‘Yes, sir.’
“ ‘You must be mad, my lad!’
“ ‘No, sir.’
“ ‘Why has she gone away? How? Come, explain yourself!’
“He stood still, unwilling to speak; and then, all of a sudden, he gave vent to one of those typical outbursts of rage which occasionally confront us in the streets between two fanatical Arabs, in which Oriental silence and gravity give place to the wildest gestures and the most ferocious threats.
“Then in the midst of his ravings I gathered that Allouma had fled with my shepherd.
“I had to calm Mohammed and drag from him, one by one, the full details.
“It was a long story. I understood at last that for a week he had been keeping watch on Allouma, who had been meeting, behind the nearby clumps of cactus or in the ravine where the rosebay grew, a tramp who had been engaged as a shepherd by my superintendent about the end of the month before.
“Mohammed had seen her go out the night before, and he had not seen her come back, and he repeated, with an incensed air:
“ ‘Gone, sir: she has gone for good.’
“I cannot tell why, but his conviction that she had eloped with this vagabond instantly came home to me also, absolutely and irresistibly. It seemed absurd and improbable, yet all the more certain when one considered the irrational logic typical of women.
“With aching heart, and fuming with rage, I strove to recall this man’s features, and I suddenly recollected seeing him, a week or two before, standing on a hillock in the midst of his flock and looking at me. He was a big Bedouin whose bare limbs matched the colour of his rags, a typical savage brute with prominent cheekbones, a crooked nose, a receding chin and thin legs, like a tall skeleton clothed in tatters, with the treacherous eyes of a jackal.
“I was quite certain that she had fled with this scoundrel. Why? Because she was Allouma, a child of the desert. Another girl in Paris, a streetwalker, would have run away with my coachman or with a frequenter of the slums.
“ ‘It is all right,’ I said to Mohammed. ‘If she has gone, so much the worse for her. Leave me alone; I have some letters to write.’
“He went away, surprised at my calm. I got up and opened the window, and began to draw in deep breaths of the stifling air which the sirocco was bringing from the South. Then I thought to myself:
“ ‘Good heavens, she is a … woman, like many others. Can anyone tell why they do these things, what makes them love and follow a man, or leave him?’
“Yes, occasionally we know: generally we do not. At times, we are doubtful.
“Why had she disappeared with that repulsive brute? Why, indeed? It may have been because for practically a whole month the wind had been blowing from the South.
“A breath of wind! That was reason enough! Did she know, do any of them, even the most introspective of them, know in most cases why they do certain things? No more than a weathercock swinging in the wind. The slightest breeze sways the light vane of copper, iron or wood, in the same way that some imperceptible influence, some fleeting impression, stirs and guides the fickle fancy of a woman, whether she be from town or country, from a suburb or from the desert.
“They may realise, afterwards, if they consider it and understand, why they have done one thing rather than another; but, at the time, they have no idea, for they are the playthings of their susceptibilities, the featherbrained slaves of events and environment, of chance and caprice, and of all their lightest whims.”
M. Auballe had risen to his feet. He took a few steps, looked at me and laughingly said:
“There you have a desert love affair!”
“What if she comes back?” I inquired.
“The wicked girl!” he murmured. “Yet I should be very glad all the same.”
“And you would forgive the shepherd?”
“Good heavens, yes. Where women are concerned, one must either forgive … or ignore.”