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.”