The Garden of Allah

his little bed, put a cap on his head, and knoc

the hill. One of the tarpaulin curtains had been left unbuttoned by the coachman. It flapped to and fro, and when its movement was outward Domini could catch short glimpses of mud, of glistening palm-leaves with yellow stems, of gas-lamps, and of something that was like an extended grey nothingness. This was the sea. Twice she saw Arabs trudging along, holding their skirts up in a bunch sideways, and showing legs bare beyond the knees. Hoods hid their faces. They appeared to be agitated by the weather, and to be continually trying to plant their naked feet in dry places. Suzanne, who sat opposite to Domini, had her eyes shut. If she had not from time to time passed her tongue quickly over her full, pale lips she would have looked like a dead thing. The coquettish angle at which her little black hat was set on her head seemed absurdly inappropriate to the occasion and her mood. It suggested a hat being worn at some festival. Her black, gloved hands were

prominent and round chin, and a very expressive mouth, not very small, slightly depressed at the corners, with perfect teeth, and red lips that were unusually flexible. Her figure was remarkably athletic, with shoulders that were broad in a woman, and a naturally small waist. Her hands and feet were also small. She walked splendidly, like a Syrian, but without his defiant insolence. In her face, when it was in repose, there was usually an expression of still indifference, some thought of oppo

ns, surrounded Domini with offers of assistance. One, the dirtiest of the group, with a gaping eye-socket, in which there was no eye, succeeded by his passionate volubility and impudence in attaching himself to her in a sort of official capacity. He spoke fluent, but faulty, French, which attracted Suzanne, and, being abnormally muscular and active, in an amazingly short time got hold of all their boxes and bags and ranged them on t

glistening in the faint lamp-light. After a few minutes the Arabs she had noticed on the road entered. Their brown, slipperless feet were caked with sticky mud, and directly they found themselves under shelter in a dry place they dropped the robes they had been holding up, and, bending

etting it weighed and registered quickly. Apparently they were wrapped in savage dreams. At length a light shone through the small opening of the ticket-office, the men in smocks stirred and threw down their cigarette stumps, and the few travellers pressed forward against the counter, and pointed to their boxes with their sticks and hands. Suzanne Charpot assumed an expression of attentive suspicion, and Domini ceas

opposite to her was enormously fat, with a coal-black beard growing up to his eyes. He wore black gloves and trousers, a huge black cloth hat, and a thick black cloak with a black buckle near the throat. His eyes were shut, and his large, heavy head drooped forward. Domini wondered if he was travelling to the funeral of some relative. The two other men, one of whom looked like a commercial traveller, kept

etic look at France, the stormy voyage, the sordid illness of almost everyone on board, the approach long after sundown to the small and unknown town, of which it was impossible to see anything clearly, the marshalling of the recruits pale with sickness, their pitiful attempt at cheerful singing, angrily checked by the Zouaves in charge of them, their departure up the hill carrying their poor belongings, the sleepless night, the sound of the rain falling, the scents rising from the unseen earth. The tap of the Italian waiter at the door

n railing dividing the platform from the country road, mud, grass bending beneath the weight of water-drops, and tall, dripping, shaggy eucalyptus trees. Sometimes the station-m

ircles of Kohl, and, with stained, claret-coloured hands, whose nails were bright red, they clasped their light and bridal raiment to their prominent breasts. They were escorted by a gigantic man, almost black, with a zigzag scar across the left

ight grew slowly stronger, the rain ceased, and it was p

e rounded hills, where the earth was brownish yellow, a flock of goats with flapping ears tripped slowly, followed by two Arab boys in rags. One of the boys was playing upon a pipe coverd with red arabesques. Domini heard two or three bars of the melody. They were ineffably wild and bird-like, very clear and sweet. They seemed to her to match exactly the pure and ascetic light cast by the dawn over these bare, grey hills, and they stirred her abruptly from the depressed lassitude in which the dreary chances of recent travel had drowned her. She began, with a certain faint excitement, to realise that these low, round-backed hills were Africa, that she was leaving behind the sea, so many of whose waves swept along European shores, that somewhe

ht about during this part of her journey. Subsequent events so coloured all her memories of Africa that every fold of its sun-dried soil was endowed in her mind with the significance of a living thing. Every palm beside a well

she f

and by want of sleep, but she did not know it. Lying back in her seat, with her head against the dir

ll things of His creation, all the furniture He had put into the great

ini th

d where water is. And still, as the train ran on, His gifts were fewer. At last even the palms were gone, and the Barbary fig displayed no longer among the crumbling boulders its tortured strength, and the pale and fantastic evolutions of its unnatural foliage. Stones lay everywhere upon the pale yellow or grey-brown earth. Crystals glittered in the sun like shallow jewels, and far a

Domini looked with a heavy and lethargic interest. Many Kabyles, f

gh the carriage windows. The mountains, as Domini saw them more clearly, looked more gloomy, more unearthly. There was something unnatural in their hard ou

atched. It seemed to her quite impossible that this shaking and slowly moving train had any destination. The desolation of the country had become so absolute that she could not conceive of anything but still greater desolation lying beyond. She

en he forced his way out of his religion. And in this region he had die

yellow and of brown mingled and flowed away towards the foot of the mountains. Here and there dry water-courses showed their teeth. Their crumbling banks were like the rind of an orange. Little birds, the hue of the earth, with

me such region as this his soul must s

down t

olling leagues of emptiness. Neither among mountains nor upon the sea had she ever found an atmosphere so fiercely pure, clean and lively with unutterable freedom. She leaned out to it, shutting her eyes. And now that she saw nothing her palate savoured it more

at it was the soul which flames in the centre of things, and beyond. She could not think any longer of her father as an outcast because he had abandoned a religion. For all religions were surely here, marching side by side, and behind them, background to them, there was something far greater than any religion. Was it snow or fire? Was it t

r it!" she mu

sciousness of ordinary things-o

the window

played over the wrinkled earth deepened and glowed. Domini had sunk into a lethargy so comp

hich she had already noticed and thought animal. A guard came up, told her the place was El-Akbara, and that the train would stay there ten minutes to wait for the train from Beni-Mora. She decided to get out and stretch her cramped limbs. On the platform she found Suzanne, looking like a person who had just been slapped. One side of the maid's face was flushed and covered with a faint tracery of tiny lines. The other was greyish white. Sleep hung i

been aslee

Mam'z

had an

get it down,

ee if you can get a

zelle. I couldn't to

soon be

nding her left foot. Two or three young Arabs came up and stood, staring, round her. Their eyes were magnificent, and gravely observant. Suzanne went on shaking and patting her skirt, and Dom

f rock that faced her. But she could see no opening. The towering summits of the cliffs, jagged as the teeth of a wolf, broke crudely upon the serene purity of the sky. Somewhere, concealed in the darkness of the gorge at their feet, was the mouth from which had poured forth that wonderfu

sh!" They disappeared, desert-men with their desert-beasts, bound no doubt on some tremendous journey through the regions of the sun. Where would they at last unlad

ket braided with gold, and a fez, standing near her. She was struck by the colour of his skin, which was faint as the colour of cafe au lait, and by the cont

een the deser

answere

th a delicate refinement that was almost mincing. "In the desert one forgets e

hat be?" a

ill of God. One rememb

cles of the rocks. There was something fana

ur name?" D

e. You are goin

Bato

em. It will be addressed to Irena, the dancing-girl. She is li

up, half drew back rather awkwardly as if to allow her to precede him, then suddenly sprang in before her. The Arab lifted in the bag, and the man, endeavouring hastily to thrust some money into his hand, dropped the coin, which fell down between the step of the carriage and the platform. The Arab immediately made a greedy dive after it, interposing his

turned towards the door, and made no attempt to get his Arab out of the way, although the train was just about to start. Domini was very tired, and she began to feel angry with him, contemptuous too. The Arab could not find the money, and the little horn now piped its warning of departure. It was absolutely necessary for her to get in at once if she did not me

rt European jacket the Arab w

get in at once. T

ghted on the platform beside her and nearly fell. Before he had recovered himself she sprang up into the train, which began to move at that very moment. As she got in, the man who had caused all the bother was leaning forward with a bit of silver in his hand, looking as if he were about to l

hought as she bent out

ature into hers. She forgot her recent vexation and the man who had caused it. She forgot everything in mere sensation. She had no time to ask, "Whither am I going?" She felt like one borne upon a wave, seaward, to the wonder, to the danger, perhaps, of a murmuring unknown. The rocks leaned forward; their teeth were fastened in the sky; they enclosed the train, banishing the sun and the world from all the lives within it. She caught a fleeting glimpse of rushing waters far beneath her; of crumbling banks, covered with debris like the banks of a disused quarry; of shattered boulders, grouped in a wild disorder, as if they had been vomited forth from some underworld or cast headlong from the sky; of the flying shapes of fruit

f which the face of a man looked, like a