i

it was three years since jean peyral had first set foot in this land of africa, and since his arrival he had undergone an extraordinary transformation. he had passed through several phases of moral development. environment, climate, nature, had gradually exercised all their enervating influence upon his youthful personality. slowly he had felt himself gliding down unknown slopes—and to-day he was the lover of fatou-gaye, a young negro girl of khassonké race, who had cast upon him i know not what sensual and impure seduction, what talismanic enchantment.

the story of jean’s early life was not a very complicated one.

at twenty the ballot had snatched him from his old mother, who wept. he had gone away like other lads of the village singing noisily to keep himself from bursting into tears.

his height marked him out for cavalry. the mysterious attraction of the unknown had induced him to choose the corps of spahis.

his childhood had been passed in the cevennes, in an obscure village in the heart of the woods.

[21]

in the strong, pure mountain air he had shot up like a young oak tree.

the first impressions graven on his childish mind were wholesome and simple, the well-beloved forms of his father and mother, his home, a little old-fashioned house shaded by chestnut trees. these things were all imprinted ineffaceably upon his memory, and had their own sacred place deep down in his heart. and then there were the great woods, his wanderings at random along paths deep in moss—and there was freedom.

in the first years of his life he knew nothing of the rest of the world beyond the bounds of the obscure village where he was born. he was aware of no other neighbourhood, but the wild, open country where the shepherds dwelt, the mountain sorcerers.

in these woods, where he was wont to roam all day long, he nursed the dreams of a solitary child, the musings of a shepherd boy—and then suddenly he would be seized with a wild desire to run, to climb, to break branches from the trees, to catch birds.

one distasteful memory was that of the village school, a gloomy place, where one had to stay quietly cooped up within four walls. his parents gave up sending him there; he was always playing truant.

on sunday he was given his fine mountaineer’s dress to wear, and he went to church with his mother, hand in hand with little jeanne, whom they picked up as they passed uncle méry’s house. after service, he used to play bowls on the common under the oak trees.

he was conscious that he was better looking and[22] stronger than the other children, and at play he was always the one to be obeyed, and he was accustomed to meet with this submission wherever he went.

when he grew older his independence of spirit and his insatiable restlessness became more marked. he would go his own way. he was forever in mischief, untethering horses and galloping far away on them, forever poaching with an old gun that would not go off, and frequently getting into trouble with the rural constable, to the great despair of his uncle méry, who had hoped to have him taught a trade, and to make of him a steady man.

it was true. he had really been “a bit of a scapegrace in his time,” and it was still remembered against him at home.

nevertheless he was a general favourite even with those who had suffered most at his hands, because he had a frank and open disposition. no one could be seriously angry with him who saw his good-natured smile. besides, if he were spoken to gently and taken the right way, he could be led like a docile child. uncle méry, with his lectures and threats, had no influence over him. but when his mother reproved him, and he knew that he had grieved her, his heart was very heavy, and this big boy, who had already the air of a man, could be seen hanging his head, almost in tears.

he was undisciplined, but not dissolute. this big, strong, growing youth was of a proud, and somewhat uncouth, demeanour. in his village young men were safe from evil communications from the precocious depravity of sickly, town-bred creatures, so[23] much so, that when he reached his twentieth year and had to begin his term of military service, jean was as pure as a child, and almost as ignorant of the facts of life.

ii

but then came a period full of all kinds of surprises for him.

he had followed his new comrades to places of debauch, where he had made the acquaintance of “love” in the most sordid and revolting conditions that a great town affords. his youthful understanding was confused, what between surprise and disgust, and also the devouring fascination of this new thing just revealed to him.

and then, after some days of riotous life, a ship had carried him far, far away over the calm, blue sea, and had landed him on the banks of the senegal, a bewildered exile.

iii

one day in november—the season when the great baobabs shed their last leaves on the sand—jean peyral had cast his first glance of curiosity on this corner of the earth, where the hazard of destiny had condemned him to pass five years of his life.

the strangeness of this land had in the first instance appealed strongly to his imagination and inexperience. besides that, he had appreciated very keenly the joy of having a horse, of curling his rapidly growing moustache, of wearing an arab fez, a red jacket, and a big sabre.[24] he considered the ensemble very fine, and this gave him great pleasure.

iv

it was november—the fine weather season corresponding to our french winter; the heat was less violent, and the dry wind of the desert had taken the place of the great storms of the summer.

when the fine weather begins in senegal, one may safely camp out in the open without a roof to one’s tent. for six months not a drop of water will fall on the land; every day without respite, without remorse, it will be scorched by the consuming sun.

it is the season in which the lizards delight—but the water fails in the cisterns; the marshes dry up; the grass dies; even the cactuses, the thorny nopals, no longer open their melancholy yellow flowers. yet the evenings are chill. at sunset a strong sea-breeze invariably springs up, rousing the breakers off the african coast to their everlasting moaning, pitilessly shaking the last autumn leaves.

it is a dreary autumn, bringing with it neither the long evenings of france, nor the charm of the first frosts, nor harvest, nor golden fruit. never a fruit in this land disinherited of god! even the dates of the desert are denied to it, nothing ripens there, except the ground nut and the bitter pistachio.

the sensation of winter, experienced in the midst of heat which is still extreme, has a curious effect upon the spirit.

here and there upon the vast, hot plains, forlorn[25] and desolate, covered with dead grass, side by side with slender palms, tower huge baobabs, mastodons, as it were, of the vegetable kingdom; their bare boughs are inhabited by families of vultures, lizards, and bats.

v

poor jean had soon fallen a victim to boredom. he suffered from a kind of vague, indefinable melancholy, such as he had never felt before, the beginning of home-sickness for his mountains, his village, for the cottage of the aged parents, so dear to him.

the spahis, his new companions, had already worn their big sabres in various indian and algerian garrisons. in the taverns of maritime towns, where they had spent their youth, they had caught the mocking and licentious turn of mind, peculiar to those who lead a roving life. they were masters of ready-made, cynical jests, in slang, in sabir, and in arabic, and with these jests they met every contingency. good fellows at heart, gay companions as they were, they had none the less certain habits which jean failed to understand, and certain pleasures that excited in him extreme repugnance.

jean was a dreamer, like all mountaineers. reverie is a thing unknown to the stupefied and corrupt faculties of the populace of great cities. but among those who have been brought up on the land, among sailors, among fishermen’s sons who have grown up in their father’s boat, amid the perils of the deep, there are men who really dream, true, but[26] inarticulate poets, with a poet’s insight into all things. only, they have not the faculty of putting their impression into form, and remain incapable of interpreting them.

jean had plenty of leisure in barracks, and he spent it in observing and thinking.

every evening he was wont to take a walk along the great stretch of beach, whose bluish sands were lighted up by sunsets of unimaginable beauty.

he would bathe in those great breakers of the african sea, amusing himself, like the child he still was, by letting himself be rolled over and over by these enormous waves, which covered him with sand.

or he would take long walks, for the mere pleasure of movement, of breathing deeply the salt air that blew off the sea. at times this unending flatness vexed him, oppressed his imagination, accustomed to the contemplation of mountains. he felt, as it were, a need to go on and on forever, to widen his horizon, to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond.

at dusk, the beach was crowded with negroes returning to the villages, laden with sheaves of millet. fishermen, too, were drawing in their nets, surrounded by clamorous swarms of women and children.

these hauls of fish in senegal were always miraculous draughts; the nets would break under the weight of thousands of fish of every shape and form. the negresses carried away on their heads baskets full of them; the black babies returned home garlanded with big fish, still alive, strung together through the gills.

[27]

there were extraordinary-looking people, just-arrived from the interior; picturesque caravans of moors and peuhles, who had come down the neck of barbary; incredible scenes at every step, in the white glow of an unnatural radiance.

and then the blue summits of the sandhills turned pink; the last horizontal rays of light glided across this whole region of sand; the sun was quenched in blood-red vapour. and with one impulse all that black throng cast themselves face downwards on the ground to offer up the evening prayer.

it was islam’s holy hour. from mecca to the sahara coast the name of mahomet passed from mouth to mouth, wafted like a mysterious breath over africa. little by little it became fainter as it travelled over the soudan, until it expired there on those black lips by the shore of the great, restless sea.

the old yolof priests in their flowing robes, turned towards the sea, recited their prayers with their faces bowed upon the sand, and all the shores were covered with prostrate men. then all was still, and night fell with the rapidity usual in those countries of the sun.

at nightfall, jean returned to the spahi’s quarters in the south of st louis.

in the great white barrack room, open to the evening breeze, all was still and quiet. the numbered beds of the spahis were ranged in rows along the bare walls; the tepid wind from the sea swayed their muslin mosquito curtains. the spahis were out. jean returned home at a time when the other men[28] were scattered about the deserted streets, hastening to their pleasures, to their loves.

it was at such times that the isolated barracks seemed to him dreary, and that he thought most of his mother.

vi

in the southern quarter of st louis stood some old brick houses, arab in appearance, which were lighted up at evening, and whose lamps continued to cast their red rays upon the sands at a time when all that dead-alive town lay asleep. strange odours of negroes and alcohol, all blended and intensified by the torrid heat, issued thence. here also at night broke forth an uproar as from hell itself. in that quarter the spahis reigned supreme. thither betook themselves these unfortunate, red-jacketed warriors, to raise a racket and to forget their troubles; to absorb, actuated either by habit or bravado, incredible quantities of alcohol, and wantonly to spend the sap of their lusty youth.

a dishonouring intimacy with mulatto women lay in wait for them in these vile dens, and extravagant orgies were held, in a delirium caused by absinthe and the torrid heat of africa.

but jean avoided with horror these haunts of vice. he was very steady, and was already putting aside the little he could save out of his soldier’s pay, against the blissful moment of his home-coming.

he was very steady, and yet his comrades did not rally him on the subject.

handsome muller, a tall alsatian, who set the[29] tone in the spahis’ barracks by virtue of a past full of duels and adventure—handsome muller thought a great deal of him, and every one was always of the same opinion as fritz muller. but jean’s real friend was nyaor-fall, the black spahi, a gigantic african, of the magnificent fouta-diallonké tribe, a strange, imperturbable figure, with a delicate arab profile, and a mysterious smile always hovering on his thin lips—a splendid statue in black marble.

this man was jean’s friend; he used to take jean home to his native dwelling in guet n’dar; he would make him sit beside his wives on a white mat, and offer him negro hospitality: kouss-kouss and gourous.

vii

in the evenings at st louis, social life followed the usual monotonous routine of small colonial towns. the fine weather brought a little animation to these dead-alive streets. after sunset, a few women who had escaped fever displayed their european frocks on the place du gouvernement, or in the avenue of yellow plains of guet n’dar. this introduced a suggestion of europe into that country of exile.

on that large place du gouvernement, surrounded by symmetrical, white buildings, one might have imagined oneself in some town of southern europe had it not been for that immense stretch of sand, that interminable plain, which flung afar its uncompromising line.

these few persons who came to take the air were[30] all acquaintances, and passed the time in staring at one another. jean would look at these people, and they also would look at jean. the handsome spahi, who walked alone with such a grave seriousness, roused the curiosity of st louis society, who imagined that his life contained some romantic episode.

there was one woman, in especial, who looked at jean, a woman better dressed and prettier than the rest.

she was said to be a mulatto, but so white, so very white, that she might have been taken for a parisienne.

white and pale she was, of a spanish pallor, with fair chestnut hair—the fairness of mulattos—with large, half-closed, dark-shadowed eyes, which she turned slowly with creole languor.

she was the wife of a rich farmer of revenue on the river. but at st louis she was referred to by her christian name, like a coloured woman. cora they called her, in contempt.

she had just returned from paris, as the other women could see from her gowns. jean, however, was not yet sufficiently experienced to be able to define the difference. but he was well aware that her trailing gowns, even when they were simple, had something distinctive about them, a gracefulness, in which the other women’s gowns were lacking.

the point that he principally noticed was that she was very beautiful, and as she always flung her glances around him, he felt a sort of tremor when he met her.

[31]

“she’s in love with you, peyral,” handsome muller had declared, with the knowing air of a man who has had his successes in the pursuit of love affairs.

viii

it was true that she was in love with him in her mulatto way, and one day she summoned him to her house to tell him so.

for poor jean the two months that followed fled past in the midst of enchanting dreams. this unwonted luxury, this dainty, perfumed woman, all these things worked terrible confusion in his hot head and chaste body. love, of which hitherto only a cynical travesty had been revealed to him, now intoxicated him.

and all this had been bestowed upon him precipitately, without reservation, like a splendid fortune in a fairy tale. yet one reflection troubled him. this woman’s avowal, this want of modesty, disgusted him a little when he thought about it.

but he seldom pondered, and when he was at her side he was intoxicated with love.

he, too, began to experiment with refinements of the toilet. he used scent, and tended his moustache and his brown hair. it seemed to him, as to all young lovers, that life had begun for him on the day when he first met his mistress, and that all his past existence counted for nothing.

[32]

ix

cora loved him, too, but the heart had little to do with the sort of love she felt.

a mulatto of bourbon, she had been brought up in the sensual idleness and luxury of wealthy creoles, but had been kept at arm’s length by white women with pitiless contempt, repulsed everywhere as a coloured woman. the same racial prejudice had pursued her to st louis; although she was the wife of one of the leading farmers of revenue on the river, she was left alone, an outcast.

in paris she had had numbers of exquisites to love her; her ample means had enabled her to make a presentable appearance in france, to taste vice according to the most elegant standards of propriety.

at present she was tired of delicate gloved hands, the sickly affectations of dandies, and their romantic languid airs. she had chosen jean because he was big and strong. in her way she loved this splendid, wild growing plant. she loved his rough, simple manners; she found attraction even in the coarse texture of his soldier’s shirt.

cora’s dwelling was an immense brick building, with the somewhat egyptian aspect common to the old parts of st louis, and white like an arab caravanserai. below, there were great courts, whither came camels and moors of the desert to crouch upon the sand, and where swarmed a grotesque, motley crowd of cattle, dogs, ostriches, and black slaves.

up above there were endless verandahs, supported[33] by massive, square columns, like the terraces of babylon.

the apartments were reached by means of outside staircases of white stone, monumental of aspect. all this was dilapidated and dreary, like everything else at st louis, that town which has already lived its life, that moribund colony of bygone days.

the drawing-room had a certain air of grandeur, with its lordly proportions and its furniture of the past century.

blue lizards haunted it; cats, parrots, tame gazelles chased one another over the fine guinea mats; negro women servants went dolefully backwards and forwards across the room, shuffling their sandals, diffusing pungent odours of soumaré and musk-scented amulets. the ensemble produced an indefinably melancholy atmosphere of exile and solitude. it was very dreary, all of it, especially in the evening, when the sounds of life ceased and gave place to the eternal complaint of the african breakers.

in cora’s bedroom everything was gayer and more modern. the furniture and hangings, lately arrived from paris, gave it an air of fresh elegance and comfort. one breathed there the perfume of the most fashionable essences bought at the scent shops on the boulevard.

it was there that jean passed his hours of intoxication. this room seemed to him an enchanted palace, surpassing in luxury and charm all that his imagination could have pictured.

this woman had filled his life and had become his only happiness. with the refinement of a creature[34] sated with pleasure, she had desired to possess jean’s soul as well as body. with the feline guile of a creole she had acted for the benefit of this lover, who was younger than herself, an irresistible comedy of ingenuous love. she had succeeded; he belonged to her, body and soul.

xi

a very comical little negress, of whom jean took no notice, lived in cora’s house as a “captive.” this little girl was called fatou-gaye.

she had been brought quite recently to st louis and sold as a slave by doua?ch moors, who had captured her in one of their raids upon the territory of the khassonkés.

her extreme mischievousness and her fierce independence had caused her to be relegated to a very humble position in the household. she was looked upon as a little nuisance, a useless mouth, and an acquisition to be regretted.

having not yet quite arrived at marriageable age, when the negresses of st louis deem it proper to clothe themselves, she generally went naked, with a necklet of grigris round her throat, and a few glass beads strung round her loins. her head was very carefully shaven, except for five tiny locks of hair, knotted and stiffened with gum, five little rigid tails, arranged at regular intervals from the forehead to the nape of the neck. each of these locks had a coral bead at the tip, except the middle one, which displayed a more precious ornament. this was a gold sequin of great antiquity, which must have been[35] brought in old days from algiers by caravan, after long and complicated wanderings through the sahara.

without this grotesque arrangement of hair, the regularity of fatou-gaye’s features would have been striking. she was of the purest khassonké type: a small delicate grecian face, with a skin smooth and black as polished onyx; teeth of dazzlingly whiteness; eyes of extraordinary mobility, two large, jet black, restless orbs rolling left and right, with whites of a bluish tint, and black eyelids.

when jean was leaving his mistress, he often used to meet this little creature.

as soon as she saw him she tucked a piece of blue cotton cloth around her waist—this was her festal garment—and came towards him smiling. with soft, caressing inflections in her small, shrill, piping negress’s voice, with hanging head and the mincing airs of an enamoured ouistiti, she would say,

may man coper, souma toubab. (translated: give me a copper, give me a sou, my white man.)

that was the refrain of all the little girls in st louis. jean was used to it. when he was in a good temper and had a sou in his pocket, he would give it to fatou-gaye.

but that was not the most curious feature of the incident. what was out of the ordinary was fatou-gaye’s behaviour. instead of buying herself a piece of sugar, as other girls might have done, she would go and hide herself in a corner and set to work to sew very carefully into the sachets of her amulets the sous that she received from the spahi.

[36]

xii

one night in february a suspicion crossed jean’s mind.

cora had asked him to leave at midnight, and just as he was going away, he thought he heard a sound of pacing in an adjoining room, as if someone were waiting there.

he left at midnight, and then he returned with stealthy tread, stepping noiselessly over the sand. he climbed over a wall and on to a balcony, and looked into cora’s room through the half-opened door leading on to the terrace.

someone had taken jean’s place by his mistress’s side—quite a young man, wearing the uniform of a naval officer. he had made himself at home, and was lounging in an arm chair with an air of disdainful ease.

she was standing, and they were talking.

at first it seemed to jean that they were speaking an unknown tongue. the words were french, yet jean could not understand them. these scraps of speech, which they interchanged so lightly, seemed to him mocking enigmas, perfectly meaningless for him. cora too, was no longer the same; her expression had changed; a kind of smile hovered on her lips, a smile such as he remembered to have seen on the lips of a tall girl in a place of ill-repute.

[37]

jean found himself trembling. he felt as if all the blood had left his head, and had poured back into his heart. he heard a roaring in his ears, like the noise of the sea; his eyes grew dim.

he was ashamed of being there, yet he was determined to remain and to understand.

he heard his name spoken; they were talking about him; he drew nearer, supporting himself against the wall, and he caught some words more distinctly spoken.

“you are wrong, cora,” said the young man in a very quiet voice, with an exasperating smile. “in the first place, he is a very handsome fellow, and then he, at all events, loves you.”

“true, but i wanted two of you. i chose you because your name is jean, like his. otherwise i should have been capable of making a slip in the name when i was talking to him. i am very absent-minded.”

and then she drew closer to the new jean.

she was still more changed in voice and face. with the languorous, lisping, coaxing inflections of the creole accent she murmured childish words to him, and offered him her lips, still warm from the spahi’s kisses.

but her lover had caught sight of the pale face of jean peyral gazing at them through the half-open door, and for all reply he pointed cora towards him with his hand.

[38]

the spahi was standing there, motionless, petrified, fixing his wide, haggard eyes upon them.

when he found that they in their turn were looking at him, he simply stepped back into the shadow. cora had advanced towards him, with the hideous expression of an animal disturbed in its love-making; this woman frightened him; she was almost near enough to touch him. she shut her door with a furious gesture; shot a bolt behind it ... and all was over.

through the disguise of the polished élégante the mulatto woman, grand-daughter of a slave, had betrayed herself again with her appalling cynicism. she felt neither remorse, nor fear, nor pity....

the coloured woman and her lover heard a noise as of a body falling heavily to the ground, a loud sinister noise in the silence of the night—and then later, towards morning, a sob behind that door, and a rustling sound as of hands fumbling in the dark.

the spahi had risen to his feet, and feeling his way, he went out into the night.

xiii

walking on aimlessly, like a drunken man, sinking ankle-deep in the sand of the deserted streets, jean came to guet n’dar, the negro town with its thousands of pointed huts. in the darkness he stumbled over men and women who lay sleeping on the ground rolled in pieces of white cotton, seeming to him like a population of phantoms. he walked on and on, feeling as if he had lost his senses.

[39]

soon he found himself on the shore of the sombre sea. the breakers were roaring loudly. with a shudder of horror he distinguished swarms of crabs, fleeing before his footsteps, in solid masses. he remembered to have seen a corpse that had been washed up on the beach, torn and excarnated by them. he had no wish for such a death.

nevertheless these breakers attracted him; he felt himself fascinated, as it were, by those great, glistening volutes, already gleaming silvery in the doubtful light of the morning, curling over all along the vast beaches, farther than the sight could reach.

it seemed to him that their coolness would be grateful to his burning head, and that in their kindly waters death would appear less cruel.

and then he remembered his mother and jeanne, the little friend and sweetheart of his childhood. he no longer wished for death.

he threw himself on the sand and fell into a strange, heavy sleep.

xiv

for full two hours it had been daylight, and jean’s sleep continued.

he was dreaming of his childhood and of the woods of the cevennes. it was dark in these woods, dark with the mysterious obscurity of dreamland; his visions were clouded like far-off memories. he saw himself there, a child, with his mother in the[40] shade of immemorial oaks: in a spot carpeted with moss and slender grasses he was plucking bluebells and heather.

and when he awoke, he cast a bewildered glance around him.

the sands were glittering under a torrid sun. black women, adorned with necklets and amulets, were traversing the burning ground, singing weird melodies. great vultures glided backwards and forwards silently through the still air; the grasshopper chirped noisily....

xv

then he noticed that his head was sheltered under a little canopy formed by a piece of blue cotton, supported by a series of small sticks planted in the sand, the whole erection casting upon him a clear-cut, ashen shadow with grotesque contours....

the patterns of the piece of cotton seemed to him familiar. he turned his head and saw fatou-gaye seated behind him, rolling her mobile eyeballs.

she it was who had followed him and had spread her festal garment above his head.

had it not been for this shelter he would undoubtedly have died of sunstroke sleeping on those sands.

she it was who for several hours had been crouching there in ecstasy, very gently kissing jean’s eyelids when no one was passing, dreading to wake him lest[41] she should send him away, and no longer have him all to herself; trembling, too, at times lest jean should be dead, yet happy, perchance, had it been so. for then she would have dragged him far away, very far away, and would have stayed with him always until she died by his side, clasping him tight, so that none should separate them again.

“it is i, my white man,” she said, “i did this, because i know that the sun of st louis is not good for the toubabs of france.... i knew very well,” continued the little creature with tragic solemnity, in an indescribable jargon, “that there was another toubab who came to see her. i did not go to bed last night so that i might listen. i was hidden on the staircase among the calebashes. when you fell down by the door, i saw you. i watched over you the whole time. and then when you got up, i followed you.”

jean gazed up at her, his eyes wide with astonishment, and full of kindness and gratitude. he was touched to the heart.

“do not tell anyone, child.... go home now quickly, and do not tell anyone that i came and lay down on the beach. go back to your mistress at once, little fatou. and i, i will go back to the spahi’s house.”

and he caressed her, patting her gently with his hand, with precisely the same emotion as he felt when he used to scratch the neck of the big, coaxing tom cat, who at night in barracks would come and curl himself up on jean’s soldier’s cot.

quivering under jean’s innocent caress, with[42] hanging head, half-closed eyes, and heaving bosom, she took up her festal garment and went away trembling all over with joy.

xvi

poor jean! suffering was a new experience for him; he rebelled against this unknown power that had seized him and was strangling his heart with bruising hoops of iron.

smothered rage, rage against that young man, whom he longed to break in pieces with his own hands; rage against that woman, whom it would have delighted him to maul with blows of his spurs and whip; all this he endured, and at the same time he was possessed with i know not what urgent physical need of action, an impulse to rush headlong into some desperate piece of folly. he found, too, that his comrades vexed and irritated him. he was conscious that they cast upon him glances which were already inquisitive, and might to-morrow become ironical.

towards evening he asked for, and obtained permission, to go with nyaor-fall to try some horses to the north of the point of barbary. they had a furious gallop over the desert sands in gloomy weather, under a wintry sky—for out there, too, there are wintry skies, less frequent than our own, of a startling and sinister effect in that land of desolation—unbroken clouds, so black and low that the plain beneath appears white, and the desert seems an interminable, snow-covered steppe. when the[43] two spahis passed in their burnooses, carried at full speed on their madly excited horses, huge vultures, that were lazily walking about the ground in families, rose in startled flight and began to describe fantastic curves in the air overhead.

at night jean and nyaor returned dripping with sweat to their quarters, with their exhausted horses.

xvii

but on the morrow of this one day of unnatural excitement, fever attacked jean.

on the morrow, the spahi, lying on his wretched little grey mattress, was placed on a stretcher and taken to hospital.

xviii

noon!... the hospital is as still as a great mortuary.

noon!... the grasshopper is chirping. the african woman is singing in her thin voice her vague and drowsy song. upon the whole expanse of the desert plains of senegal the sun darts down its perpendicular rays of torrid light, which the vast horizon reflects in shimmer and glitter.

[44]

noon!... the hospital is as still as a great mortuary. the long, white galleries, the long corridors are deserted. half way up the high, bare wall, lime-washed a dazzling white, hangs a clock, pointing to noon with it slow-moving hands of steel. the grey-lettered, mournful inscription around the dial is fading in the sun, vit? fugaces exhibet horas. the twelve strokes ring out painfully, with that feeble tone that the dying know; that tone, heard in feverish, wakeful hours, by those who have come hither to die; that tone like a knell, tolled in an atmosphere too heavy with heat to conduct the sounds.

noon!... the mournful hour, when sick men die. the air of this hospital is heavy with fever, the indefinable emanations, as it were, of death.

above, in an open ward, are voices that whispered softly; little, scarcely perceptible sounds; the good sister’s cautious footsteps, as she moves carefully over the mats. she comes and goes with a troubled air, sister pac?me, with her pale, sallow face under her nurse’s cap. doctor and priest are there, too, seated beside a bed, which is curtained with a white mosquito net.

out-of-door, through the open window, are sun and sand, sand and sun, and far away, blue outlines and shimmering light.

will he pass away, poor spahi?...

is this the moment when jean’s soul will take its flight thither into that overwhelming noontide air?[45]... so far from home, where will it find a resting place in all these desert plains?... whither will it vanish?...

no. the doctor, who had remained there a long time, expecting the final departure, has quietly withdrawn.

the cooler hours of evening have come, and the breeze off the sea brings relief to the dying. to-morrow, perhaps! but jean is more tranquil, and his head does not burn so terribly.

down below in the street, outside the door, a small negro girl sat crouching on the sand, playing at knucklebones with white pebbles to keep herself in countenance when any one went past. she had been there since morning, endeavouring to avoid notice, playing her little part, for fear of being driven away. she did not venture to question any one, but she knew very well that if the spahi were to die, he would be carried through this door on his way to the cemetery of sorr.

xix

the fever lasted another week, and daily at noon jean became delirious. each renewed attack was regarded with anxiety. nevertheless the danger was over, and the disease conquered.

oh those hot hours of midday, hours that weigh most heavily upon the sick! those who have had fever on the banks of these african rivers know them[46] well, those deadly hours of torpor and slumber. shortly before noon, jean would fall asleep. it was a kind of suspended existence, haunted by confused visions and a persistent impression of suffering. and from time to time he had the sensation of dying, and for an instant he would lose all consciousness of himself. these were his moments of peace.

towards four o’clock he would awake and ask for water. the visions faded, shrank away into remote corners of the ward, behind the white curtains, and vanished. only his head continued to hurt violently, as if boiling lead had been poured into it, but the delirium had passed its climax.

among these faces, gentle or grimacing, real or imaginary, that hovered around him, he had two or three times thought he recognised cora’s lover standing near his bed and looking at him kindly, but disappearing as soon as jean’s eyes were raised to his. doubtless he, too, was an illusion, like those people from his village whom he imagined he saw there, strange in demeanour, vague and distorted in appearance.

yet, curiously enough, since he had seemed to see him thus, he no longer felt that he hated him.

but one evening—no, he was certainly not dreaming—one evening he really saw him there before him, in the same uniform he had worn at cora’s house, with his two officer’s stripes shining on his blue sleeve. jean looked at him with his great eyes, raising his head slightly, and he stretched out his wasted arm as if to feel if there were really someone there.

[47]

then, seeing that jean recognised him, the young man, before he disappeared as usual, took the spahi’s hand and pressed it, saying simply,

“pardon me.”

tears, his first tears, sprang to the spahi’s eyes and brought relief.

xx

jean’s convalescence was rapid.

once the fever had left him, his youth and strength soon gained the upper hand. but nevertheless he could not forget, poor fellow, and he was very unhappy. at times he fell into moods of wild despair, and nourished almost savage notions of vengeance. but this phase was soon over, and then he would say to himself that he would willingly endure whatever humiliations she might choose to inflict, if he might see her and possess her again, as before.

his new friend, the naval officer, came again from time to time, and sat by his bedside. he spoke to him almost as one would speak to a sick child, although he was scarcely as old as jean.

“jean,” he said one day very gently.... “jean, you know, about that woman—if my telling you this sets your mind at rest—i give you my word of honour that i have never set eyes on her again since that night that you remember. you see, there are many things, my dear jean, that you don’t know about yet. some day you will realise; you, too, that one must not take such a small matter so much to heart.... in any case, as far as that[48] woman is concerned, i am quite willing to swear to you never to go near her again.”

this was the only reference to cora made by either of them, and the promise actually restored jean’s peace of mind.

oh yes! he realised clearly now, poor fellow, that there must be “many things that he did not know about yet,” that there must be—commonplaces, no doubt, to people moving in a social sphere more sophisticated than his own—instances of cold-blooded, subtle perversity, outside the scope of his imagination.

little by little, moreover, he grew fond of this friend, whom he could not understand; this friend once cynical, but now grown kind, who regarded life with inexplicable serenity and light-heartedness, and who had come to offer him his protection as an officer, by way of amends for the suffering he had caused him.

but jean had no wish for protection; neither promotion nor anything else appealed to him any longer; his heart, so young still, was filled with the bitterness of this first agony of despair.

xxi

... it was at dame virginie-scholastique’s. (missionaries sometimes have veritable inspirations in naming their neophytes.) it was one in the morning; the tavern showed large and dark. as is usual[49] with places of ill-repute, it was closed with thick doors, reinforced with iron.

a small evil-smelling lamp shed its light on a jumbled litter of objects, crowded painfully together in the dense atmosphere—red jackets and bare, black flesh, weird entanglements, broken glasses and broken bottles on the table and on the ground; red caps, negro bon-bons, spahis’ sabres, all in floods of beer and alcohol. the temperature of the hovel was that of a vapour bath. the heat was maddening, the atmosphere dense with black, or milky, smoke, and with the odours of absinthe, musk, spices, soumaré, sweat of negroes.

it must have been a hilarious revel, and surpassingly uproarious, but now it was over. there was an end to the songs and the racket. now followed the period of reaction, of stupefaction that comes after drinking. the spahis were there, some of them dull-eyed, resting their foreheads on the table, and smiling vacuously. others still preserved their dignity, bracing themselves against intoxication, still holding their heads erect—handsome faces with strong features, the lustreless eyes retaining their seriousness with an indescribable expression of melancholy and loathing.

distributed among them, haphazard, was virginie-scholastique’s whole pack of little twelve-year-old negro girls and small negro boys.

outside a listening ear could hear in the distance the cry of jackals prowling around the cemetery of sorr, where for some of those now here there were places already marked out beneath the sand.

[50]

dame virginie, copper-coloured, thick-lipped, with woolly hair wrapped in a piece of red cotton—drunk herself—was sponging the blood from a head of fair hair. a tall spahi, with a young, fresh-coloured face, and hair the colour of ripe corn, lay there unconscious with broken head, while dame virginie, assisted by a black wench more drunk than her mistress, was sponging his wound with fresh water and applying compresses of vinegar. she was not actuated by motives of compassion—certainly not, but by fear of the police. she was really uneasy, virginie scholastique, for the blood continued to flow. it had filled a whole bowl and it would not stop, and the old harridan was sobered by her anxiety.

jean was seated on a bench in a corner, more drunk than all the rest, yet still holding himself stiffly, his eyes staring and glassy.

he it was who had inflicted this wound with an iron latch wrenched off a door, and he was still holding the latch in his clenched hand, unconscious of the blow he had struck with it.

it was a month since his recovery, and every evening he could have been seen dragging himself from tavern to tavern, foremost among the dissolute and drunken, practising himself in the insolent airs of rake and cynic.

there was still much in this behaviour that was due to mere childishness, but the result was the same; he had travelled along a terrible road during this[51] month of suffering. he had devoured novels, whose every detail was new to his imagination, and he had assimilated all their unwholesome extravagances. and then he had gone the round of the easy conquests of st louis, coloured women and white, among whom his handsome person had secured for him unresisted possession.

and to crown everything, he had begun to drink.

oh you who lead a well-regulated domestic life, seated peacefully day after day by your fireside, do not pass judgment on the sailors and spahis, men of ardent natures, whom their destiny has plunged into abnormal conditions of life upon the wide ocean, or in the far away lands of the sun, exposed to unheard of privations, to desires and temptations of which you have no conception. do not pass judgment on these exiles, or these wanderers, whose sufferings, joys, tortured imaginings are unknown to you.

so jean began to drink, and he drank more than the others; he drank prodigiously.

“how can he do it?” said those around him, “a man who has never been accustomed to it.”

it was precisely because he had “never been accustomed to it” that his head was stronger, and for the moment he could stand more. and this impressed his comrades greatly.

yet through it all, in spite of the rakish airs he gave himself, like the big, undisciplined child he was, poor jean had kept himself almost chaste.

he would not stoop to a dishonouring intimacy with negresses, and when dame virginie’s pupils let their hands stray over him, he pushed them away with the[52] end of his riding whip, like unclean animals, and the miserable little creatures came to look upon him as a sort of human fetish whom they might not approach.

but he was violent when he was drunk; when he lost his head and his enormous physical strength was no longer under control, he was terrifying. he had struck that blow just now, roused by some casual jest on the subject of his love affairs, and he no longer remembered anything about it. he remained there motionless, with lack-lustre eyes, still holding in his hand the blood-stained latch.

suddenly his eyes flashed. now it was that old woman who was provoking his unreasoning wrath, the senseless rage of a drunken man. he half rose to his feet, threatening her in his fury. the old hag uttered a hoarse cry; she went through a minute of horrible fear.

“hold him,” she moaned to the inert beings who were already lying asleep under the tables.

some heads were raised; feeble, impotent hands tried to hold jean back by his jacket, but their efforts were futile.

“give me some drink, you old witch,” he said; “some drink, you old devil of night; you horrible old hag, some drink.”

“yes, yes,” she answered, her voice choking with fear. “that’s it! some drink, sam, some absinthe, quick, to finish him off; absinthe laced with brandy.”

in these emergencies, dame virginie did not consider expense. jean drank it off at one draught,[53] flung his glass against the wall, and fell back as if struck by lightning.

he was successfully “finished off,” as the old harridan had said. he was no longer dangerous.

she was strong, was old scholastique, sturdily built—and wholly sober now. with the help of her black wench and her little girls, she lifted jean like a dead weight, and after rapidly searching his pockets for the last coins they might contain, she opened the door and threw him out. jean fell like a corpse, his arms extended, his face in the sand—and the old hag, after discharging a flood of appalling abuse and savage obscenities, drew to her door, which closed heavily with a loud clang of iron.

all was still. the wind blew from the cemetery, and in the intense silence of midnight could be clearly heard the shrill howling of the jackals, the uncanny music of the body-snatchers.

xxii

fran?oise peyral to her son.

my dear son,—we have had no answer to our letter, and peyral says it is beginning to be quite time that something came for us. i can see that he is very unhappy whenever toinou goes past with his box and says that he has nothing for us. i, too, am very anxious. but i always believe that the good god will guard my dear boy, as i so often beg of him, and that no harm can come to him, nor any trouble, either through bad behaviour or punishment. if there were anything like that i should be too unhappy.

your father wishes me to say that memories come into[54] his head of what he himself was like, formerly, when he was in the army. and he says, when he was stationed in garrison towns, he has seen young men, who were not very sensible, have a rough time of it, through comrades leading them on to drink and to mix with bad women, who are always on the lookout to ruin them. i am telling you this because he wants me to, but for my part i know that my dear boy is steady, and that he has ideas in his head which will surely keep him away from all these evil things.

next month we will send you a little more money. out there i expect you have to pay a great deal for trifling things. i know you will not spend money unnecessarily, when you think of all the trouble your father takes. as for me, a woman’s trouble is no great matter, and i speak for him, the dear man. the village folk always talk about you at the evening working parties and merrymakings, and no social gathering passes without some conversation about our jean. all the neighbours send hearty messages.

my dear son, your father and i embrace you with all our hearts. the good god keep you.

your mother,

fran?oise peyral.

this letter was received by jean in the prison attached to the barracks, where he had been locked up “for drunkenness, and for having had himself brought back by the guard.”

fortunately the fair-haired spahi’s wound was not very serious, and neither the injured man nor his comrades had wished to report peyral. jean’s clothes were soiled and blood-stained, his shirt in rags, and his head still confused with the fumes of[55] alcohol. mists swam before his eyes, so that he could scarcely read. and besides, a dense veil now lay upon the affection he felt for the friends of his childhood and for his family. this veil was woven by cora and his own despair and passions. (it is thus, sometimes, during periods of bewilderment and loss of balance. then the veil fades away, and quite tranquilly one returns to all that one used to love.)

in spite of all, this touching letter, so full of trust, found without difficulty the way to jean’s heart. he kissed it devoutly, and tears came to his eyes.

and then he swore to himself to drink no more, and as the habit was not yet inveterate he was able to keep strictly to his promise; he was never drunk again.

xxiii

a few days later an unforeseen event created a fortunate and necessary diversion in jean’s existence.

the spahis were ordered, both horses and men, to go for a change of air into camp at dialamban, several miles to the south of st louis, near the mouth of the river.

the day before their departure, fatou-gaye came to the quarters, wearing her fine blue garment, to pay a farewell visit to her friend. he kissed her for the first time on both her little black cheeks. at nightfall the spahis set out on the march.

as for cora, after the first moments of excessive excitement and resentment, she missed her lovers.[56] in truth she missed both of them, both jeans, each of whom had appealed equally to her senses. treated by the spahi as a goddess, it was a change to be treated by the other as the light woman she really was. hitherto no one had exhibited towards her such calm, absolute contempt; the novelty of it charmed her.

but she was seen no more at st louis trailing her flowing draperies over the sand. she took her departure secretly one day, despatched by her husband on the recommendation of the authorities, to one of the most remote branches in the south.

doubtless fatou-gaye had been gossiping, and st louis was shocked at this last scandal in which this woman had figured.

xxiv

it is a calm night at the end of february, a typical cold weather night—calm and cool, following upon a burning day.

the column of spahis bound for dialamban is crossing at a walking pace the plains of legbar. leave had been given to break rank, each man at his choice and pleasure, and jean, who has fallen to the rear, is marching quietly along in the company of his friend nyaor....

in the sahara and the soudan there are cold nights such as this, possessing the clear splendour of our own winter nights, but with greater transparency and luminousness.

a death-like stillness pervades the whole country.[57] the sky is greenish blue, sombre and deep, with an infinity of stars. the moon shines bright as day, and defines the outlines of things with surprising sharpness, tinging them with rosy light.

in the distance, farther than sight can penetrate, stretch swamps overgrown with the depressing vegetation of the mangrove tree. such is all this region of africa, from the left bank of the river as far as the inaccessible borders of guinea.

sirius is rising; the moon has reached its zenith; the silence is awe-inspiring.

out of the pink sand rise the tall, bluish euphorbi?, casting a short, hard shadow. the moon outlines the smallest shadows of the plants with a set and frozen precision, intense in its immobility and mystery.

here and there are clumps of brushwood, blurred obscurities, forming great gloomy patches on the luminous, pink background of the sands; then sheets of stagnant water, with vapour floating above them like white smoke, feverish miasma, more noxious and subtle than that of the day time. there is a penetrating sensation of chilliness, strange after the heat of the day; the moist air is all impregnated with the odour of great swamps.

here and there by the roadside lie large skeletons, contorted with pain, carcases of camels, swimming in a black, fetid fluid. there they lie, grinning at the moon, shamelessly displaying their flanks, torn by vultures, their bodies hideously disembowelled.

[58]

from time to time the cry of a swamp bird breaks the immense silence.

at long intervals a baobab stretches its massive branches into the still air, like a great dead madrepore, a tree of stone, and the moon defines with surprising sharpness the contours of its structure, rigid like a mastodon’s, conveying to the imagination the impression of a thing inert, petrified and cold.

in the midst of its polished branches perch black masses: the inevitable vultures. whole families of them roost there confidingly, sleeping heavily; they suffer jean to approach, with the indifference of fetish birds, and the moon casts blue reflections and metallic gleams on their great folded wings.

and jean is full of wonder at this first revelation at dead of night of all the intimate details of this land.

at two o’clock there bursts forth a chorus of yells, as of dogs baying the moon, but more savage, more grating, more weirdly sinister. sometimes at night at st louis, when the wind blew from the direction of the cemetery, jean had fancied he heard in the far distance similar lamentations. but to-night this lugubrious music was close at hand, there, in the brush. the dismal yelping of jackals mingled with piercing strident caterwaulings of hyenas. a battle was in progress between two wandering packs on the prowl in search of dead camels.

“what is it?” jean asked the black spahi.

[59]

it was, perhaps, a presentiment: a kind of horror seized him. the thing was undoubtedly there, quite near him, in the brush, and the sound of these voices made his flesh creep and his hair stand on end.

“those who are lying dead,” replied nyaor-fall with expressive pantomime, “those who are lying dead on the ground, these beasts find them and eat them.”

and when he said “eat them,” he made as if to bite his black arm with his magnificent white teeth.

jean understood and shuddered. afterwards, whenever he heard at night these dismal concerts, he remembered the explanation which nyaor’s mimicry had made so clear, and he, who in broad daylight was seldom afraid, shuddered and felt chilled to the bone by one of those vague and gloomy forebodings that assail the superstitious mountaineer.

the noise grows fainter and dies away in the distance; it breaks out again, somewhat muffled, at another point of the horizon, then it ceases and all is still again.

the white vapours that hang above the sleeping waters grow denser with the approach of morning. one is penetrated and chilled to the bone by the glacial dampness of the swamps. it is a curious sensation, to experience cold in this country. the dew falls. little by little the moon glides down the western sky, is obscured, extinguished. the heart is wrung by the solitude.

at last, low on the horizon, appear the thatched roofs of the village of dialamban, where at dawn the spahis are to pitch their camp.

[60]

xxv

the land surrounding the camp of dialamban is desolate—never-ending swamps of stagnant water, alternating with plains of arid sand, yielding a growth of stunted mimosas.

jean used to take long, solitary walks, with his rifle over his shoulder, shooting or dreaming—ever the same vague reveries of the mountaineer.

it amused him, too, to paddle a pirogue up the banks of the yellow river, or to plunge into the mazes of the creeks of the senegal.

there were swamps, extending further than the eye could see, where the warm, still waters lay asleep; banks, whose treacherous soil would not support a human foot.

white herons stalked solemnly among the monotonous verdure of the mangroves. enormous blowing-lizards crawled upon the mud; great waterlilies, white or rose-coloured, unfolded their beauty to the tropic sun, to delight the eyes of alligators and fish-eagles.

jean peyral came near falling in love with this country.

xxvi

the month of may had come. the spahis were gaily packing up their kit. with enthusiasm they[61] struck their tents and put together their equipment. they were going back to st louis to take possession again of their great white barracks, newly repaired and lime-washed, and to pick up again all their old pleasures—mulatto women and absinthe.

the month of may! in our land of france, the lovely month of flowers and greenery! but in the dismal plains of dialamban may had brought no verdure.

trees and herbage, every plant not rooted in the yellow water of the swamps, remained blighted, withered, lifeless. for six months not a drop of rain had fallen from the sky, and the land was stricken with dreadful thirst.

and all the time the temperature continued to rise; the strong breezes that used to spring up each evening had ceased; the rainy season was at hand, the season of sultry heat and torrential rain; the season to which each year the europeans in senegal look forward with apprehension, as bringing them fever, an?mia, and often death.

nevertheless, it is necessary to have lived in “the land of thirst” in order to appreciate the delights of this first shower of rain, the joy experienced in exposing oneself to the big drops of this first burst of storm.

o the first tornado!... in a leaden, impassive sky like a gloomy vault, a strange weather sign appears, rising above the horizon.

it rises and rises, assuming unusual and terrifying shapes. at first one might imagine it to be the eruption of a gigantic volcano, the explosion of an[62] entire world. it forms itself into great arches across the sky, ever rising higher, one above the other, with sharply outlined contours, in opaque, heavy masses. one might imagine them vaults of stone about to precipitate themselves upon the world, and the whole is lighted on the under side with metallic gleams, livid, greenish or copper-coloured. and it continues to rise without a check.

the artists who have painted the deluge, the cataclysms of the primeval world, have never conceived scenes so fantastic, skies so terrifying.

and still there is not a breath of air. nature lies prostrate, without a tremor.

suddenly a terrific onslaught of wind, like the crack of a heavy whip, beats to the ground trees, herbage, birds. it whirls the maddened vultures round and round, upsetting everything in its track.

it is the tornado, bursting its chains. all things tremble and reel; nature is convulsed under the terrible might of the hurricane passing on its way.

for perhaps twenty minutes all the sluices of heaven are opened upon the earth. rain, as of the great flood, refreshes the thirsty soil of africa, and the wind blows furiously, strewing the earth with leaves, branches, and débris.

then suddenly all is peace. it is over. the final gusts of wind put to flight the last copper-coloured clouds, and sweep away the tattered shreds of the[63] cataclysm. the hurricane is over, and the sky is once more clear, impassive, blue.

the first tornado took the spahis by surprise, while they were on the march. there was a laughing, noisy stampede. the village of touroukambé lay in the way, and they made for it, helter-skelter.

women who had been pounding millet, children playing in the brush, hens pecking up food, dogs sleeping in the sun, all of them had hurried home, and were herded together beneath the narrow, peaked roofs.

then the huts, already overcrowded, are invaded by the spahis, who step into calebashes and upset the kouss-kouss. some kiss the little girls; others peep out-of-doors, like big children, for the pleasure of getting wet and of feeling the rain from heaven trickling down upon their heated, harum-scarum heads. the horses, tethered haphazard, are neighing, pawing the ground, kicking out in terror. dogs, goats, sheep, all the cattle of the village, are huddled against the doors, yelping, bleating, leaping, thrusting with heads or horns to force an entry—all demanding their share of protection and shelter.

there is a discordant uproar—a mingling of shouts, bursts of laughter from the negresses, the whistling of the storm wind, and the thunder drowning all other sounds with its mighty artillery. wild confusion prevails beneath the black sky—darkness at midday, pierced by sudden flashes of green lightning; rain in torrents, the deluge pouring down at its pleasure, trickling in through all the chinks in the dried up thatch—here and there administering an[64] unexpected shower-bath to the back of a curled-up cat, or to a startled chicken, or a spahi’s head.

when the tornado was over, and order re-established, the spahis took the road again, marching along flooded paths. across the sky flitted the last little curious wisps of cloud, like little parcels of rags and scraps of brown cloth, torn and twisted like curl papers.

strong, unwonted odours rose from the parched earth, at its contact with these first drops of water. nature was preparing for new births.

xxvii

fatou-gaye had posted herself since morning at the entrance to st louis, so that she might not miss the arrival of the column.

when she saw jean pass by, she welcomed him with a discreet kéou, accompanied by a very correct little bow. she did not wish to embarrass him further while he was in the ranks, and she had the good taste to wait two long hours before she came to pay her respects to him in barracks.

fatou had changed greatly. in three months she had grown and developed a swift maturity like the plants of her native country.

she no longer asked for coppers. she had actually a certain graceful timidity, proper to a young girl.

a bou-bou of white muslin now covered her rounded breasts, as is the custom with young girls[65] who have come to marriageable age. a strong scent of musk and soumaré hung about her.

her head no longer displayed its five stiff little tails. she was letting her hair grow, and would presently put herself into the skilful hands of the hairdressers, who would pile up her locks into the complicated erection which is proper to the head of an african woman.

at present her hair was still too short, and it stood out in a dishevelled woolly mass, which gave an entirely new character to her face. formerly pleasing but comical, it had now become attractive and quaint, almost charming.

she was a mixture of young girl, child, and little black devil—a very odd little person.

“the child is pretty, peyral, you know,” said the spahis smiling.

jean had noticed, certainly, that she was pretty, but at present this fact interested him very little. he tried to resume quietly his former mode of life, his walks on the beach, and his long expeditions into the country.

the quiet, contemplative months spent in camp had done him good. he had almost regained his moral equilibrium. his memories of his aged parents and of his young betrothed, trustfully waiting for him at home in their village, held him once more with their wholesome charm and influence.

he had done with childish folly and bravado, and now he could not understand how it was that dame virginie had come to number him among her clients. he had vowed not only to give up absinthe, but likewise[66] to remain faithful to his betrothed until the blissful day of their marriage.

xxviii

the air was charged with sluggish exhalations, seething with the vital odours and scents of young, growing things. nature was hastening to carry out her vast plans of procreation.

formerly, on his first arrival, jean had cast a general look of repulsion on this black population. in his eyes they all seemed alike; they all wore for him the same simian mask, and under that polished surface of oiled ebony he could not have distinguished one individual from another.

little by little, however, he had grown accustomed to these faces. now he could distinguish among them. when he saw the silver-braceletted, black girls go by, he would compare them; one he considered plain, another pretty, one refined, another degraded.

in the end the negresses had for him individual faces, just like white women, and he found them less repulsive than before.

xxix

june! it was spring time indeed, but a tropical spring time—fleeting, feverish, full of enervating odours and the air heavy with thunder.

butterflies and birds returned, life was renewed;[67] the humming birds had cast off their grey dress, and arrayed themselves in their brilliant summer colours. the whole country turned green as if by enchantment; the leafy trees now cast a little shade, warm and soft, upon the moist soil; the mimosas, in full flower, looked like enormous bouquets, with pink or orange sprays, where the humming birds sang in tiny little soft voices, like the muted twittering of swallows. even the clumsy baobabs had put on for a few days fresh leaves of pale, delicate green....

the plains were carpeted with strange flowers, wild grasses, daturas with large, scent-laden calyces. and the showers that watered all things were warm and fragrant, and at evening, above the tall grasses sprung up overnight, the ephemeral fire-flies danced their rounds, like sparks of phosphorus.

nature had been so impatient to bring forth all this abundance that in a single week she had exhausted all her gifts.

xxx

in his evening walks, jean invariably came upon little fatou, fatou with a head like a woolly, black lamb. her hair grew quickly—like the grasses—and soon the skilful hairdressers would be able to make something of it.

xxxi

marriages were frequent during this spring time. often at evening, during those enervating june[68] nights, jean would meet these marriage processions meandering across the sands in long fantastic trains. every one was singing, and the chorus of all these falsetto, monkey-like voices had a syncopated accompaniment of handclapping and tom-toms. there was something ponderously voluptuous, brutishly sensual in these songs and this negro gaiety.

jean used often to visit his friend nyaor at guet n’dar, and the scenes of yolof family life and domesticity disturbed him.... how lonely he felt, cut off from his own people in this accursed country!... he thought of jeanne méry, the girl whom he loved with the pure affection of childhood.... alas! he had only been six months in africa.... more than four years to wait until he saw her again!... he began to say to himself that perhaps the courage to endure his solitary existence might fail him, that soon at all costs he might need someone to help him to pass his term of exile.... but whom?...

fatou-gaye perhaps?... oh come!... what profanation of himself!... was he to resemble his comrades, old virginie’s customers?... to maltreat like them little black girls?... he had a kind of self-respect, instinctive modesty, which had hitherto preserved him from such degradation; he could never stoop so low.

xxxii

he took a walk every evening. he took a great many walks.... thunder showers still fell....[69] the immense, evil-smelling swamps, the stagnant waters saturated with feverish miasma covered a wider area every day. this country of sand was now overgrown with tall, grassy vegetation....

the evening sun was pale as if exhausted by excessive heat and noxious emanations....

at the setting of that yellow sun, when jean found himself alone in the midst of these desolate marshes, where so many strange new things worked upon his imagination, he was possessed by inexplicable sadness.... he cast his eyes all around the wide, flat landscape, overhung with motionless vapours; he could not understand what there was in the aspect of things, so mournful and so abnormal, thus to oppress his heart.

above the damp grass floated clouds of dragon flies, with great black-spotted wings, while birds whose song was strange to him called plaintively to one another among the tall grasses.... and the eternal melancholy of this land of ham brooded over everything.

in these twilight hours of spring time these african marshes are steeped in a melancholy that no human tongue could express....

xxxiii

anamalis fobil! shrieked the griots, as, with eyes inflamed, muscles taut, bodies dripping with sweat, they beat their tom-toms.

[70]

and the whole assembly, frenziedly clapping their hands, repeated anamalis fobil! anamalis fobil! ... words whose translation would blister these pages.... “anamalis fobil!” the first words, the motive and refrain of a diabolical song, delirious with licentious passion, the song of the spring bamboulas....

anamalis fobil! the howling of frenzied desire of the sap of negroes heated to excess by the sun, of burning hysteria ... the negro’s alleluia of love, a hymn of seduction chanted likewise by nature, air, earth, plants, and scents.

at the spring bamboulas, the young men mingled with the young girls who had just arrayed themselves in the pomp of their wedding finery. to a maddening rhythm, to a frantic melody, they all sang, as they danced upon the sand, anamalis fobil! ...

xxxiv

anamalis fobil! all the big, milky buds on the baobabs had burst into tender leaf....

and jean felt this negro spring-time burning in his blood, flowing like a consuming poison through his veins....

he was exhausted by all this renewal of life, because it was a life in which he had no part. the blood that boiled in men’s veins was black; the sap that rose in the plants was poisonous; the perfume of the flowers was dangerous, and the insects were swollen with venom.

in him, too, the sap was rising, the sap of his two-and-twenty[71] years, but with a feverishness that exhausted the source from which it sprang, and in the end this terrible renascence would have brought him to the verge of death.

anamalis fobil! how rapidly this spring advanced!... june was scarcely over, and already, under the influence of deadly heat, in an atmosphere no longer endurable, the leaves were turning yellow, the plants were dying, and the sere grasses drooped earthwards....

xxxv

anamalis fobil! ... there are in hot countries certain fruits of harsh and bitter flavour—such as the gourous of senegal—that are detestable to the palate in our cool latitudes, but which, out there, appeal to the taste in special conditions of thirst or ill-health. you may have a passionate craving for them, and they may seem to you curiously delicious.

it was the same with that little creature with her shock of black sheep’s wool, her body of sculptured marble, and her glittering eyes, already fully aware of what they asked of jean, yet downcast in his presence with a childish presence of timid modesty.

this highly-flavoured fruit of the soudan was precociously ripened by the tropical spring, bursting with poisonous juices, rife with morbid voluptuousness, febrile and foreign.

[72]

xxxvi

anamalis fobil!

jean had dressed for the evening hastily, almost frenziedly.

that morning he had told fatou to go at nightfall to the foot of a certain solitary baobab in the marshes of sorr, and to wait for him there.

then, before setting out, he had leaned on his elbow at one of the large windows of the barracks, troubled in mind, trying to think—to think, if that were possible, while he drew a few breaths of less oppressive air. he shuddered at the thing he was about to do.

if he had withstood temptation for several days, his resistance was due to the very complicated emotions struggling within him. a kind of instinctive horror still mingled with the terrible urgency of his senses. and superstition, too, played a part, the superstition inborn in a mountaineer, a vague dread of charms and amulets, horror of i know not what enchantments, what bonds of darkness.

it seemed to him that he was about to cross the fatal threshold, to sign some sort of sinister pact with that black race, that darker veils would descend, separating him from his mother and his betrothed and all that he had loved and regretted in his home overseas.

the warm twilight sank upon the river; the old, white town turned rosy in the light, blue in the[73] shadows; long lines of camels were wending their way across the plain, moving northwards to the desert.

already in the distance could be heard the griots’ tom-toms beginning, and the song of frantic desires. anamalis fobil!—faramata hi!

the hour of his assignation with fatou-gaye was almost past. jean set off at a run to join her in the marshes of sorr.

a solitary baobab cast its shadow upon their strange nuptials. the saffron sky stretched above them its impassive vault, melancholy, oppressive, laden with electricity, with terrestrial emanations and vital elements.

to paint that nuptial couch would require warmer tints than any palette could provide—african words, sounds, rustling noises, and, above all, silence, all the odours of senegal, tempest, sombre fire, transparency, obscurity.

and yet there was nothing to be seen, save a single, solitary baobab in the midst of a great, grassy plain.

mingled with his delirious infatuation, jean still felt a sort of secret horror, as he saw, contrasting with the background of dusky twilight, the intenser blackness of his bride; as he saw, close to his own, the glitter of fatou’s rolling eyes.

great bats flitted noiselessly above them, their silken-winged flight seemed like the rapid fluttering of black cloth. they flew so low that they brushed[74] them with their wings, their bat-like curiosity greatly excited by fatou’s garment of white cotton, which showed up on the parched grass.

anamalis fobil! ... faramata hi! ...