The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2

riends had

you are in Algeria, be sure and go to see m

et. It is at the same time wooded and bare, grand and charming. Between two hills, one comes across large pine forests in narrow valleys, through which torrents rush in the winter. Enormous trees, which have fallen across the ravine, serve as a bridge for the Arabs, and also

ong the slightly wooded roads on those undulating hills, from which one can see an immense tract of country from

distances that strange monument which is called The Tomb of the Christian Woman, and which was said to be the burial-place of the kings of Mauritana. I went down again, going southward, with a yellow landscape before me, e

t, nor the thoughts, nor even cares. On that day I felt nothing of all that crushes and tortures our life; I only felt the pleasure of that descent. In the distance I saw an Arab encampment, brown pointed tents, which seemed fixed to

s falling on the ground. They looked like martyred trees, from which blood-colored swea

shed the fruit, they left blood-colored traces behind them, and

that bordered the horizon, on the outskirts of the desert of Sahara, the sky was in flames. Long streaks of gold alternated with streaks of blood-blood

far from myself also, for I had become a kind of wandering being, without thought or consciousness, fa

nded, and tried to make the first Arab I met understand in which direction I wanted to go. I do not know whether he understood me, but he gave me a long answer, which I did not in the least understand. In

j-Ebb

s,

bare-footed along stony paths, on which I stumbled continually, for a long time, and then suddenly I saw a light, and we soon reached the door of a whi

is th

Auballe live

es

e with Monsieur Auballe himself, a tall man in slippers, w

my name, he put out b

self at home h

s dining ravenously, opposite t

property and taken to money-making. It turned out prosperously; he was happy, and had the calm look of a happy and contented man. I could

you been here

nine

been intolerably d

ttached to it by our organs, to which it affords secret gratifications which we do not inquire into. The air and the climate overcome our flesh, in spite of ourselves, and the bright light w

at abou

is rather a de

y ra

en among the Arabs, find some complaisant, na

was a tall, dark fellow, with bright, black eyes

nt you, Mohammed." And the

m going to tell you a story in

man had left th

nguage I was beginning to speak, and forced, in order not to break altogether with those passion

be that had settled here, and which formed a portion of the Oulad-Taadja, I chose, as soon as I arrived here, that tall fellow whom you have just seen, Mohammed ben Lam'har, who soon beca

ned with me. As for pleasures ... I have told you what they consisted in. Algiers offered me some which were rather more refined, and from time to time a complaisant and compassionate Arab would stop me when I was out

r head, on one of those thick, red carpets, made of the fine wool of Djebel-Amour, and which are as soft and as thick as a feather bed. Her body, which was beautifully white under the ray of light that came in through the raised covering of the tent, appeared t

ins that old, formidable ardor to which I owe my being here. It was very hot for it was July, and I spent

n the face, and he hung his head, like a man who was guilty and in

and I saw that he got red, and he

e Arabic lessons, which was often productive of a mos

there a woman

South,' he said, in a

? But that does not explain to me

ing my question

s very

a pretty woman from the South, you will take care that she come

uia,' he repea

n at dinner time, I felt very strongly inclined to go to Mohammed's tent again. During the evening, he waited on me just as usual, and hovered round me with his impassi

in the tent, and then, taking the key out of my pocket, I went into the bordj, where besides myself, there slept my steward, two French laborers, and an old cook whom I had picked up in the Algiers. As I went up stairs, I was surprised to see a streak of light under my door, and when I opened it, I saw a girl with the face of a statue sitting on a straw chair by the side of the table, on which a wax candle was burning; she was bedizened

d standing in front of me, covered with her barb

ing here?' I said

ause Mohammed t

well, s

ered her eyes, while I e

ich were rather thick and covered with a reddish efflorescence, which I discovered on the rest of her body as we

hammed was. But she only replied to those that interested me the least, and it was impossible for me to find out why she had come, with what intention, by whose orders, nor what had taken place between her and my servant. However, just as I was about to say to her: 'Go back to

of the feline tribe, allured me, enchained me, deprived me of all the power of resistance, and filled me with impetuous ardor. It was a short, sh

sure, as if by mechanical force towards her red lips, on which I suddenly laid mine while, at the

ays, the grace, and even something of the odor of a gazelle, which made me find a rare, unk

at she would go in the same way that she had come; I did not, even, at the moment, ask myself what I s

shall have to sleep on the ground in the open air at nig

watching the window of my room, in which a light was burning, and questions of various natures,

I replied, 'an

lave-mistress, hidden in my house, like women in a harem are. When the time should come that I no longer cared for her, it would be easy for me

ou so that you shall not be unhappy, but I wan

story, or rather a story, for no doubt she was lying from beginn

d modifies the entire race, and to differentiate it from others in morals just as much as the color of the skin differentiates a negro from a white man, are liars to the backbone, so that one can never trust a word that they say. I do not know whe

reat request for harems, where they act as aphrodisiacs. Nothing of such an origin was to be noticed, however, except the purple color of her lips, and the dark nipples of her elongated breasts, which were as supple as if they were on springs. Nobody who knew anything about the matter, could be mistaken in

liciously childish observations with them; a whole vision of a Nomad world, born of a squirrel's brain that had leapt from tent to tent, from encampment to encampment, f

, that she had stored up in her flighty brain, and I asked myself whether she had not simply been making fun of me by h

n those huts made of branches, and under those small canvas cones that are fastened to the ground by stakes, which are within twenty yards of our doors, than we know what the so-called civilized Arabs of the Moorish houses in Algiers do, think, and are. Behind the white-washed walls of their town houses, behind the partition of their gourbi, which is made of branches, or behind that thin, brown, camel-haired curtain which the wind moves, they live close to us, unknown, mysterious, cunni

I had ever felt it before, between this girl and myself, between this woman who had just given herself to me, who had yielded he

were raised to mine, I saw that that moment had sufficed for her to be overcome by sleep, by irresistible, sudden, almost ove

llo

want to g

' she

l then, go

nt, who sacrifices himself for his master, even to the extent of giving up the woman whom he had brought into his own tent, to him? Or had he, on the other hand, obeyed a more complex and more practical, though less generous impulse, in handing over this girl who had taken my fancy, to my embrace? An Arab, when it is a question of women, is rigorously modest a

who was still asleep; then he picked up my trousers, coat and waistcoat from the floor in order to brush them. He did not look at the woman who was lying by my side, did not seem to know or remark that she was there, and preserved his ordinary gravity, demeanor and looks. But the light, the movement,

would y

aho

nd bread a

Ye

to our bed, with my clothes unde

for Allouma and

slightest astonishment or anger, and as soo

u live in

like to,

om to yourself, and a

nerous, and I am

badly, I shall send

erything that

mission, and just then Mohammed came in, carrying

on the floor of the room at the end of the passage, and

mo'ss

t wa

in a supplicating voice, to give her a wardrobe with a looking-glass in the doors. I promised her one, and then I left her squatting on the carpet