第45章 CHAPTER VIII(1)

The village was full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. The night was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardens Domini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how he passed his solitary evenings when he went home from the hotel, and she fancied him sitting in some plainly-furnished little room with Bous-Bous and a few books, smoking a pipe and thinking sadly of the White Fathers of Africa and of his frustrated desire for complete renunciation. With this last thought blended the still remote sound of the hautboy. It suggested anything rather than renunciation; mysterious melancholy--successor to passion--the cry of longing, the wail of the unknown that draws some men and women to splendid follies and to ardent pilgrimages whose goal is the mirage.

Hadj was talking in a low voice, but Domini did not listen to him. She was vaguely aware that he was abusing Batouch, saying that he was a liar, inclined to theft, a keef smoker, and in a general way steeped to the lips in crime. But the moon was rising, the distant music was becoming more distinct. She could not listen to Hadj.

As they turned into the street of the sand-diviner the first ray of the moon fell on the white road. Far away at the end of the street Domini could see the black foliage of the trees in the Gazelles' garden, and beyond, to the left, a dimness of shadowy palms at the desert edge. The desert itself was not visible. Two Arabs passed, shrouded in burnouses, with the hoods drawn up over their heads. Only their black beards could be seen. They were talking violently and waving their arms. Suzanne shuddered and drew close to the poet. Her plump face worked and she glanced appealingly at her mistress. But Domini was not thinking of her, or of violence or danger. The sound of the tomtoms and hautboys seemed suddenly much louder now that the moon began to shine, making a whiteness among the white houses of the village, the white robes of the inhabitants, a greater whiteness on the white road that lay before them. And she was thinking that the moon whiteness of Beni-Mora was more passionate than pure, more like the blanched face of a lover than the cool, pale cheek of a virgin.

There was excitement in it, suggestion greater even than the suggestion of the tremendous coloured scenes of the evening that preceded such a night. And she mused of white heat and of what it means--the white heat of the brain blazing with thoughts that govern, the white heat of the heart blazing with emotions that make such thoughts seem cold. She had never known either. Was she incapable of knowing them? Could she imagine them till there was physical heat in her body if she was incapable of knowing them? Suzanne and the two Arabs were distant shadows to her when that first moon-ray touched their feet. The passion of the night began to burn her, and she thought she would like to take her soul and hold it out to the white flame.

As they passed the sand-diviner's house Domini saw his spectral figure standing under the yellow light of the hanging lantern in the middle of his carpet shop, which was lined from floor to ceiling with dull red embroideries and dim with the fumes of an incense brazier. He was talking to a little boy, but keeping a wary eye on the street, and he came out quickly, beckoning with his long hands, and calling softly, in a half-chuckling and yet authoritative voice:

"Venez, Madame, venez! Come! come!"

Suzanne seized Domini's arm.

"Not to-night!" Domini called out.

"Yes, Madame, to-night. The vie of Madame is there in the sand to- night. Je la vois, je la vois. C'est la dans le sable to-night."

The moonlight showed the wound on his face. Suzanne uttered a cry and hid her eyes with her hands. They went on towards the trees. Hadj walked with hesitation.

"How loud the music is getting," Domini said to him.

"It will deafen Madame's ears if she gets nearer," said Hadj, eagerly.

"And the dancers are not for Madame. For the Arabs, yes, but for a great lady of the most respectable England! Madame will be red with disgust, with anger. Madame will have /mal-au-coeur/."

Batouch began to look like an idol on whose large face the artificer had carved an expression of savage ferocity.

"Madame is my client," he said fiercely. "Madame trusts in me."

Hadj laughed with a snarl:

"He who smokes the keef is like a Mehari with a swollen tongue," he rejoined.

The poet looked as if he were going to spring upon his cousin, but he restrained himself and a slow, malignant smile curled about his thick lips like a snake.

"I shall show to Madame a dancer who is modest, who is beautiful, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim," he said softly.

"Fatma is sick," said Hadj, quickly.

"It will not be Fatma."

Hadj began suddenly to gesticulate with his thin, delicate hands and to look fiercely excited.

"Halima is at the Fontaine Chaude," he cried.

"Keltoum will be there."

"She will not. Her foot is sick. She cannot dance. For a week she will not dance. I know it."

"And--Irena? Is she sick? Is she at the Hammam Salahine?"

Hadj's countenance fell. He looked at his cousin sideways, always showing his teeth.

"Do you not know, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?"

"/Ana ma 'audi ma nek oul lek!/"[*] growled Hadj in his throat.

[*] "I have nothing to say to you."

They had reached the end of the little street. The whiteness of the great road which stretched straight through the oasis into the desert lay before them, with the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie staring down it in the night. At right angles was the street of the dancers, narrow, bounded with the low white houses of the ouleds, twinkling with starry lights, humming with voices, throbbing with the clashing music that poured from the rival /cafes maures/, thronged with the white figures of the desert men, strolling slowly, softly as panthers up and down.