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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23411-0.txt b/23411-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca98038 --- /dev/null +++ b/23411-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,816 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s Smaïn; and Safti’s Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Smaïn; and Safti’s Summer Day + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23411] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAÏN; AND SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +SMAÏN; and SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. + +By Robert Hichens + +Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + +Copyright, 1905 + + + “_When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe._” + + Sahara Saying. + + + + +SMAÏN + + +Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the +pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a +child who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed +through the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and +come into a land of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. +The feet of the camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow +alleys between the brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and +left into the shady enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dotted +with little pools of pale yellow water, and saw always giant palms, +with wrinkled trunks and tufted, deep green foliage, brooding in their +squadrons over the dimness they had made. The activity of man might be +discerned here in the regularity of the artificial rills, the ordered +placing of the trees, each of which, too, stood on its oval hump. But no +man was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; no robe, pale blue or white, +fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked in the golden patches of +the sun--only the sound of the flute came to us from some hidden place +ceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd coquetry, and of an +absurdity that was both uncivilised and touching. + +I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between the +palms. + +“Where does it come from?” I asked of Safti. + +His one eye blinked languidly. + +“From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou are +gardeners.” + +The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like drops +of water flung softly in our faces. + +“He is in love,” added Safti with a slight yawn. + +“How do you know?” + +“When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what they +say in the Sahara.” + +“And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?” + +“Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, +and, perhaps, all night too.” + +“But she cannot hear him.” + +“That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart can +hear.” + +I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. I +tried to read the player’s heart in the endless song it made. Trills, +twitterings, grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air--surely +it was a boy’s heart, and not unhappy. + +“It is coming nearer,” I said. + +“Yes. Ah, it is Smaïn!” + +Safti’s one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tall +youth in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bent +down, his brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with red +arabesques. His feet were bare, and he moved slowly. + +Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. He +stopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a moment +he was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring at +me the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come to +Sidi-Amrane, and Smaïn had never wandered far. + +“What does he say?” I asked of Safti. + +“I tell him we shall be at Touggourt tomorrow night, and shall stay +there a week. He answers that his heart is there with Oreïda.” + +“What! Does his lady-love live at Touggourt?” + +“Yes; she is a dancer.” + +Smaïn smiled. He did not understand French, but he knew we were speaking +of his love affair, and he was not afflicted with shyness. As he +accompanied us to the village he played again, and I read his nature in +the soft sounds of his flute. + +All that day he stayed with us, and nearly all that day he played. Even +when he guided me through the village, where, between terraced houses, +pretty children--the girls in deep purple, with yellow flowers stuck in +their left nostrils, the boys in white--danced with a boisterous grace +round brushwood fires, his flute was at his lips, and his fingers +fluttered ceaselessly. And as night drew on the music was surely more +amorous, and I seemed to see Oreïda drawing near over the sands. + +Smaïn was but sixteen, tall and slim as a reed, with a poetic face and +lustrous, languid eyes. I imagined Oreïda a child too--one of those +flowers of the desert that blossom early and fade ere noontide comes. +Sometimes such flowers are very beautiful. As I heard the flute of Smaïn +in the pale yellow twilight I knew that Oreïda was beautiful--with one +of those exquisite, lithe figures, whose movements make a song; with +long, narrow dark eyes, mysterious pools of light and shadow; with thick +hair falling loosely round a low, broad forehead; and perfect little +hands, made for the dance of the hands that the Bedouin loves so well. + +All this I knew from the sound of Smain’s flute. I told it to Safti, and +bade him ask Smaïn if it were not true. + +Smain’s reply was:-- + +“She is more beautiful than that; she is like the young gazelle, and +like the first day after the fast of Ramadan.” + +Then he played once more while the moon rose over the palm gardens, and +Safti, lighting his pipe of keef with tender deliberateness, remarked +placidly: + +“He would like to come with us to Touggourt and to die there at +Oreïda’s feet, but his father, Said-ben-Kouïdar, wishes him to remain at +Sidi-Matou and to pack dates. He is young, and must obey. Therefore he +is sad.” + +The smoke rose up in a cloud round Smaïn and his flute, and now I +thought that, indeed, there was a wild pathos in the music. The moon +went up the sky, and threw silver on the palms. The gay cries from the +village died down. The gardeners lay upon the earth divans under the +palmwood roofs, and slept. And at last Smaïn bade us good-bye. I saw his +white figure glide across the great open space that the moon made white +as it was. And when the shadows took him I still heard the faint sound +of his flute, calling to his heart and to the distant Oreïda through the +magical stillness of the night. + +The next day we reached Touggourt, and in the evening I went with Safti +and the Caïd of the Nomads to the great café of the dancers in the +outskirts of the town. At the door Arab soldiers were lounging. The +pipes squealed within like souls in torment. In the square bonfires +were blazing fiercely, and the whole desert seemed to throb with beaten +drums. Within the café was a crowd of Arabs, real nomads, some in rags, +some richly dressed, all gravely attentive to the dancers, who entered +from a court on the left, round which their rooms were built in +terraces, and danced in pairs between the broad divans. + +“Tell me when Oreïda comes,” I said to Safti, while the Caïd spread +forth his ample skirts, and turned a cigarette in his immense black +fingers. + +The dancers came and went. They were amazing trollops, painted until, +like the picture of Balzac’s madman, they were chaotic, a mere mess of +frantic colours. Not for these, I thought, did Smaïn play his flute. The +time wore on. I grew drowsy in the keef-laden air, despite the incessant +uproar of the pipes. Suddenly I started--Safti had touched me. + +“There is Oreïda, Sidi.” + +I looked, and saw a lonely dancer entering from the court, large, weary, +crowned with gold, tufted with feathers, wrinkled, with greedy, fatigued +eyes, and hands painted blood-red. She was like an idol in its dotage. +Over her spreading bosom streamed multitudes of golden coins, and many +jewels shone upon her wrists, her arms, her withered neck. She advanced +slowly, as if bored, until she was in the midst of the crowd. Then +she wriggled, stretched forth her hands, slowly stamped her feet, and +promenaded to and fro, occasionally revolving like a child’s top that is +on the verge of “running down.” + +“That is not Oreïda,” I said to Safti, smiling at his absurd mistake. +For this was the oldest and ugliest dancer of them all. + +“Indeed, Sidi, it is. Ask the Caïd.” + +I asked that enormous potentate, who was devouring the withered lady +with his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused +before us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with +a sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her +eyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word +“Smaïn.” The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with a +somnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red hands +and stamping heavily upon the earthen floor. + +“Smaïn loves that!” I said to Safti. + +“Yes, Sidi. Oreïda is famous, and very rich. She has houses and many +palm-trees, and she is much respected by the other dancers.” + +A week later Safti and I were again at Sidi-Matou, on our way homeward +through the desert. The moon was at the full now, and when we rode up to +the Bordj the open space in front of it, between us and the village, +was flooded with delicate light. Against it one tree, which looked +like Paderewski grown very old, stood up with tousled branches. In +the village bonfires flared, and the dark figures of skipping children +passed and re-passed before them. We heard youthful cries echoing across +the sands. Soon they faded. The lights went out, and the wonderful +silence of night in the desert came in to its heritage. + +I sat on the edge of an old stone well before the Bordj, while Safti +smoked his keef. Near midnight, quivering across the sands, came +the faint sound of a flute moving from the village towards the deep +obscurity of the palm gardens. I knew that air, those trills, those +little runs, those grace notes. + +“It is Smaïn,” I said to Safti. + +“Yes, Sidi. He will play all night alone among the palms. He is in +love.” + +“But with Oreïda! Is it possible?” + +“Did he not say that she was like the first day after the fast of +Ramadan? When an African says that his heart is big with love.” + +The flute went on and on, and I said to myself and to the moon, as I had +often said before: + +“He that is born in the Sahara is an impenetrable mystery.” + + + + + +SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. + +By Robert Hichens + + +Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earth +house in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and in +winter he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, and +the great red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful land +which is the only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnous +around him, pulls his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls and +lights his cigarette, and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. +This is the white arcade of a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellers +come in winter. I am an unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I come +there in winter, and Safti comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti’s +profession. Byrne, and others like me, he lives. For a consideration +he shows me round the market, which I knew by heart six years ago, and +takes me up the mosque tower, from which I gazed over the flying pigeons +and the swaying palms when Safti was comparatively young and frisky. +Together we visit the gazelles in their pretty garden, and the Caïd’s +Mill, from which one sees the pink and purple mountains of the Aures. We +ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to Sidi-Okba. We take our _déjeuner_ +out to the yellow sand dunes, and we sip our coffee among the keef +smokers in Hadj’s painted café. We listen to the songs of the negro +troubadour, and we smile at Algia’s dancing when the silver moon comes +up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads’ tents begin their serenades. +And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he bids me +“_Bonne nuit!_” and his ghostly figure is lost in the black shadows of +the palm-trees. + +Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him: +“Don’t you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the +Sahara home together? You are getting on in years now.” + +“Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!” + +He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at +subtraction as a London beauty. + +“Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear +of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as +you do would break down an American millionaire.” + +Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah’s dwelling. + +“Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you +and all the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the +darkness of your days, I take my little holiday.” + +“Your holiday! But is it long enough?” + +“It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am +strong as the lion.” + +I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, +indeed, something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We +were at the edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the +quivering mirage which guards dead Okba’s tomb. A tiny earthen house, +with a flat terrace ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was +crouched here in the shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. +Suddenly Safti’s bare legs began to “give.” I felt it would be cruel to +push on farther. We entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously +upon a baked divan of mud, set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our +cigarettes, and commanded our coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud +stuck under his turban had brought it languidly, I said to Safti: + +“And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday.” + +Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of +repose. + +“Each day is like its brother, Sidi,” he responded, gazing out through +the low doorway to the shimmering Sahara. + +“Then tell me how you pass a summer day.” + +The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke. + +“_Sahah_ Sidi.” + +“_Merci_.” + +We sipped. + +“A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at +five in the morning I get up----’ + +“And light the fire,” I murmured mechanically. + +The one eye stared in blank amazement. + +“Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early.” + +“The sun rises at a quarter to five.” + +“To call you. Well?” + +“I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, +and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends.” + +“That is half-an-hour’s exercise?” + +“About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play at +dominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. I +remain in the café at the corner--” + +“I know--by the Garden of the Gazelles!” “--till eleven o’clock, at +which time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. +When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, and +dates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve we +all go to bed together in a black room.” + +“A black room?” + +“We fear the flies.” + +“I see.” + +“Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in the +black room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the Café +Maure in old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffees +till seven o’clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us from +playing any more.” + +“How intrusive! Always at seven?” + +“Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end of +the oasis.” + +“To the Tombuctou road?” + +“Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, and +I go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. +After this I return to the café and play ronda till one o’clock.” + +“One o’clock at night?” + +“Yes. At one o’clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe in +the stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, +perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi.” + +“What’s lagmi?” + +“Palm wine. Then at three o’clock I go to my home, mount upon the roof +quietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn.” + +“And you do this for five months?” + +“For five months, Sidi.” + +“And--and your wife, Safti?” + +I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and has +bought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me. + +“My wife, Sidi?” + +“What does she do all the time?” + +“She remains quietly in my house.” + +“She never goes out?” + +“Never, except upon the roof to take a little air.” + +“Doesn’t she get rather bor----” + +The one eye began to look remarkably vague. + +“And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the course +of the year?” + +Safti smiled at me with resignation. + +“I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman.” + +“Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will of +Allah that you should toil.” + +“_Shal-làh!_ I will take another coffee, Sidi.” + +“Larbi!” + +I called the Kabyle boy. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Smaïn; and Safti’s Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAÏN; AND SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 23411-0.txt or 23411-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23411/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/23411-0.zip b/23411-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..026c08e --- /dev/null +++ b/23411-0.zip diff --git a/23411-8.txt b/23411-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fbd41a --- /dev/null +++ b/23411-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,815 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Sman; and Safti's Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sman; and Safti's Summer Day + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23411] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAN; AND SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +SMAN; and SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY. + +By Robert Hichens + +Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + +Copyright, 1905 + + + "_When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe._" + + Sahara Saying. + + + + +SMAN + + +Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the +pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a +child who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed +through the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and +come into a land of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. +The feet of the camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow +alleys between the brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and +left into the shady enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dotted +with little pools of pale yellow water, and saw always giant palms, +with wrinkled trunks and tufted, deep green foliage, brooding in their +squadrons over the dimness they had made. The activity of man might be +discerned here in the regularity of the artificial rills, the ordered +placing of the trees, each of which, too, stood on its oval hump. But no +man was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; no robe, pale blue or white, +fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked in the golden patches of +the sun--only the sound of the flute came to us from some hidden place +ceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd coquetry, and of an +absurdity that was both uncivilised and touching. + +I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between the +palms. + +"Where does it come from?" I asked of Safti. + +His one eye blinked languidly. + +"From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou are +gardeners." + +The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like drops +of water flung softly in our faces. + +"He is in love," added Safti with a slight yawn. + +"How do you know?" + +"When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what they +say in the Sahara." + +"And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?" + +"Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, +and, perhaps, all night too." + +"But she cannot hear him." + +"That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart can +hear." + +I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. I +tried to read the player's heart in the endless song it made. Trills, +twitterings, grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air--surely +it was a boy's heart, and not unhappy. + +"It is coming nearer," I said. + +"Yes. Ah, it is Sman!" + +Safti's one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tall +youth in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bent +down, his brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with red +arabesques. His feet were bare, and he moved slowly. + +Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. He +stopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a moment +he was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring at +me the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come to +Sidi-Amrane, and Sman had never wandered far. + +"What does he say?" I asked of Safti. + +"I tell him we shall be at Touggourt tomorrow night, and shall stay +there a week. He answers that his heart is there with Oreda." + +"What! Does his lady-love live at Touggourt?" + +"Yes; she is a dancer." + +Sman smiled. He did not understand French, but he knew we were speaking +of his love affair, and he was not afflicted with shyness. As he +accompanied us to the village he played again, and I read his nature in +the soft sounds of his flute. + +All that day he stayed with us, and nearly all that day he played. Even +when he guided me through the village, where, between terraced houses, +pretty children--the girls in deep purple, with yellow flowers stuck in +their left nostrils, the boys in white--danced with a boisterous grace +round brushwood fires, his flute was at his lips, and his fingers +fluttered ceaselessly. And as night drew on the music was surely more +amorous, and I seemed to see Oreda drawing near over the sands. + +Sman was but sixteen, tall and slim as a reed, with a poetic face and +lustrous, languid eyes. I imagined Oreda a child too--one of those +flowers of the desert that blossom early and fade ere noontide comes. +Sometimes such flowers are very beautiful. As I heard the flute of Sman +in the pale yellow twilight I knew that Oreda was beautiful--with one +of those exquisite, lithe figures, whose movements make a song; with +long, narrow dark eyes, mysterious pools of light and shadow; with thick +hair falling loosely round a low, broad forehead; and perfect little +hands, made for the dance of the hands that the Bedouin loves so well. + +All this I knew from the sound of Smain's flute. I told it to Safti, and +bade him ask Sman if it were not true. + +Smain's reply was:-- + +"She is more beautiful than that; she is like the young gazelle, and +like the first day after the fast of Ramadan." + +Then he played once more while the moon rose over the palm gardens, and +Safti, lighting his pipe of keef with tender deliberateness, remarked +placidly: + +"He would like to come with us to Touggourt and to die there at +Oreda's feet, but his father, Said-ben-Koudar, wishes him to remain at +Sidi-Matou and to pack dates. He is young, and must obey. Therefore he +is sad." + +The smoke rose up in a cloud round Sman and his flute, and now I +thought that, indeed, there was a wild pathos in the music. The moon +went up the sky, and threw silver on the palms. The gay cries from the +village died down. The gardeners lay upon the earth divans under the +palmwood roofs, and slept. And at last Sman bade us good-bye. I saw his +white figure glide across the great open space that the moon made white +as it was. And when the shadows took him I still heard the faint sound +of his flute, calling to his heart and to the distant Oreda through the +magical stillness of the night. + +The next day we reached Touggourt, and in the evening I went with Safti +and the Cad of the Nomads to the great caf of the dancers in the +outskirts of the town. At the door Arab soldiers were lounging. The +pipes squealed within like souls in torment. In the square bonfires +were blazing fiercely, and the whole desert seemed to throb with beaten +drums. Within the caf was a crowd of Arabs, real nomads, some in rags, +some richly dressed, all gravely attentive to the dancers, who entered +from a court on the left, round which their rooms were built in +terraces, and danced in pairs between the broad divans. + +"Tell me when Oreda comes," I said to Safti, while the Cad spread +forth his ample skirts, and turned a cigarette in his immense black +fingers. + +The dancers came and went. They were amazing trollops, painted until, +like the picture of Balzac's madman, they were chaotic, a mere mess of +frantic colours. Not for these, I thought, did Sman play his flute. The +time wore on. I grew drowsy in the keef-laden air, despite the incessant +uproar of the pipes. Suddenly I started--Safti had touched me. + +"There is Oreda, Sidi." + +I looked, and saw a lonely dancer entering from the court, large, weary, +crowned with gold, tufted with feathers, wrinkled, with greedy, fatigued +eyes, and hands painted blood-red. She was like an idol in its dotage. +Over her spreading bosom streamed multitudes of golden coins, and many +jewels shone upon her wrists, her arms, her withered neck. She advanced +slowly, as if bored, until she was in the midst of the crowd. Then +she wriggled, stretched forth her hands, slowly stamped her feet, and +promenaded to and fro, occasionally revolving like a child's top that is +on the verge of "running down." + +"That is not Oreda," I said to Safti, smiling at his absurd mistake. +For this was the oldest and ugliest dancer of them all. + +"Indeed, Sidi, it is. Ask the Cad." + +I asked that enormous potentate, who was devouring the withered lady +with his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused +before us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with +a sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her +eyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word +"Sman." The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with a +somnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red hands +and stamping heavily upon the earthen floor. + +"Sman loves that!" I said to Safti. + +"Yes, Sidi. Oreda is famous, and very rich. She has houses and many +palm-trees, and she is much respected by the other dancers." + +A week later Safti and I were again at Sidi-Matou, on our way homeward +through the desert. The moon was at the full now, and when we rode up to +the Bordj the open space in front of it, between us and the village, +was flooded with delicate light. Against it one tree, which looked +like Paderewski grown very old, stood up with tousled branches. In +the village bonfires flared, and the dark figures of skipping children +passed and re-passed before them. We heard youthful cries echoing across +the sands. Soon they faded. The lights went out, and the wonderful +silence of night in the desert came in to its heritage. + +I sat on the edge of an old stone well before the Bordj, while Safti +smoked his keef. Near midnight, quivering across the sands, came +the faint sound of a flute moving from the village towards the deep +obscurity of the palm gardens. I knew that air, those trills, those +little runs, those grace notes. + +"It is Sman," I said to Safti. + +"Yes, Sidi. He will play all night alone among the palms. He is in +love." + +"But with Oreda! Is it possible?" + +"Did he not say that she was like the first day after the fast of +Ramadan? When an African says that his heart is big with love." + +The flute went on and on, and I said to myself and to the moon, as I had +often said before: + +"He that is born in the Sahara is an impenetrable mystery." + + + + + +SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY. + +By Robert Hichens + + +Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earth +house in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and in +winter he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, and +the great red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful land +which is the only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnous +around him, pulls his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls and +lights his cigarette, and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. +This is the white arcade of a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellers +come in winter. I am an unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I come +there in winter, and Safti comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti's +profession. Byrne, and others like me, he lives. For a consideration +he shows me round the market, which I knew by heart six years ago, and +takes me up the mosque tower, from which I gazed over the flying pigeons +and the swaying palms when Safti was comparatively young and frisky. +Together we visit the gazelles in their pretty garden, and the Cad's +Mill, from which one sees the pink and purple mountains of the Aures. We +ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to Sidi-Okba. We take our _djeuner_ +out to the yellow sand dunes, and we sip our coffee among the keef +smokers in Hadj's painted caf. We listen to the songs of the negro +troubadour, and we smile at Algia's dancing when the silver moon comes +up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads' tents begin their serenades. +And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he bids me +"_Bonne nuit!_" and his ghostly figure is lost in the black shadows of +the palm-trees. + +Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him: +"Don't you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the +Sahara home together? You are getting on in years now." + +"Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!" + +He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at +subtraction as a London beauty. + +"Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear +of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as +you do would break down an American millionaire." + +Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah's dwelling. + +"Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you +and all the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the +darkness of your days, I take my little holiday." + +"Your holiday! But is it long enough?" + +"It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am +strong as the lion." + +I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, +indeed, something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We +were at the edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the +quivering mirage which guards dead Okba's tomb. A tiny earthen house, +with a flat terrace ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was +crouched here in the shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. +Suddenly Safti's bare legs began to "give." I felt it would be cruel to +push on farther. We entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously +upon a baked divan of mud, set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our +cigarettes, and commanded our coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud +stuck under his turban had brought it languidly, I said to Safti: + +"And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday." + +Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of +repose. + +"Each day is like its brother, Sidi," he responded, gazing out through +the low doorway to the shimmering Sahara. + +"Then tell me how you pass a summer day." + +The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke. + +"_Sahah_ Sidi." + +"_Merci_." + +We sipped. + +"A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at +five in the morning I get up----' + +"And light the fire," I murmured mechanically. + +The one eye stared in blank amazement. + +"Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early." + +"The sun rises at a quarter to five." + +"To call you. Well?" + +"I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, +and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends." + +"That is half-an-hour's exercise?" + +"About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play at +dominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. I +remain in the caf at the corner--" + +"I know--by the Garden of the Gazelles!" "--till eleven o'clock, at +which time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. +When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, and +dates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve we +all go to bed together in a black room." + +"A black room?" + +"We fear the flies." + +"I see." + +"Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in the +black room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the Caf +Maure in old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffees +till seven o'clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us from +playing any more." + +"How intrusive! Always at seven?" + +"Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end of +the oasis." + +"To the Tombuctou road?" + +"Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, and +I go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. +After this I return to the caf and play ronda till one o'clock." + +"One o'clock at night?" + +"Yes. At one o'clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe in +the stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, +perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi." + +"What's lagmi?" + +"Palm wine. Then at three o'clock I go to my home, mount upon the roof +quietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn." + +"And you do this for five months?" + +"For five months, Sidi." + +"And--and your wife, Safti?" + +I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and has +bought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me. + +"My wife, Sidi?" + +"What does she do all the time?" + +"She remains quietly in my house." + +"She never goes out?" + +"Never, except upon the roof to take a little air." + +"Doesn't she get rather bor----" + +The one eye began to look remarkably vague. + +"And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the course +of the year?" + +Safti smiled at me with resignation. + +"I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman." + +"Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will of +Allah that you should toil." + +"_Shal-lh!_ I will take another coffee, Sidi." + +"Larbi!" + +I called the Kabyle boy. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Sman; and Safti's Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAN; AND SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 23411-8.txt or 23411-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23411/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Smaïn; and Safti's Summer Day + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23411] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAÏN; AND SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + SMAÏN; <br /> <br /> and SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. + </h1> + <h2> + By Robert Hichens<br /> <br /> + </h2> + <h3> + Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + </h3> + <h4> + Copyright, 1905 + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> SMAÏN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SMAÏN + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “<i>When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe.</i>” + + Sahara Saying. +</pre> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the + pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a child + who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed through the + sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and come into a land + of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. The feet of the + camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow alleys between the + brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and left into the shady + enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dotted with little pools of pale + yellow water, and saw always giant palms, with wrinkled trunks and tufted, + deep green foliage, brooding in their squadrons over the dimness they had + made. The activity of man might be discerned here in the regularity of the + artificial rills, the ordered placing of the trees, each of which, too, + stood on its oval hump. But no man was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; + no robe, pale blue or white, fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked + in the golden patches of the sun—only the sound of the flute came to + us from some hidden place ceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd + coquetry, and of an absurdity that was both uncivilised and touching. + </p> + <p> + I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between the + palms. + </p> + <p> + “Where does it come from?” I asked of Safti. + </p> + <p> + His one eye blinked languidly. + </p> + <p> + “From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou are + gardeners.” + </p> + <p> + The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like drops of + water flung softly in our faces. + </p> + <p> + “He is in love,” added Safti with a slight yawn. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what they say + in the Sahara.” + </p> + <p> + “And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, and, + perhaps, all night too.” + </p> + <p> + “But she cannot hear him.” + </p> + <p> + “That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart can + hear.” + </p> + <p> + I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. I tried to + read the player’s heart in the endless song it made. Trills, twitterings, + grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air—surely it was a + boy’s heart, and not unhappy. + </p> + <p> + “It is coming nearer,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Ah, it is Smaïn!” + </p> + <p> + Safti’s one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tall youth + in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bent down, his + brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with red arabesques. + His feet were bare, and he moved slowly. + </p> + <p> + Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. He + stopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a moment + he was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring at me + the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come to Sidi-Amrane, + and Smaïn had never wandered far. + </p> + <p> + “What does he say?” I asked of Safti. + </p> + <p> + “I tell him we shall be at Touggourt tomorrow night, and shall stay there + a week. He answers that his heart is there with Oreïda.” + </p> + <p> + “What! Does his lady-love live at Touggourt?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; she is a dancer.” + </p> + <p> + Smaïn smiled. He did not understand French, but he knew we were speaking + of his love affair, and he was not afflicted with shyness. As he + accompanied us to the village he played again, and I read his nature in + the soft sounds of his flute. + </p> + <p> + All that day he stayed with us, and nearly all that day he played. Even + when he guided me through the village, where, between terraced houses, + pretty children—the girls in deep purple, with yellow flowers stuck + in their left nostrils, the boys in white—danced with a boisterous + grace round brushwood fires, his flute was at his lips, and his fingers + fluttered ceaselessly. And as night drew on the music was surely more + amorous, and I seemed to see Oreïda drawing near over the sands. + </p> + <p> + Smaïn was but sixteen, tall and slim as a reed, with a poetic face and + lustrous, languid eyes. I imagined Oreïda a child too—one of those + flowers of the desert that blossom early and fade ere noontide comes. + Sometimes such flowers are very beautiful. As I heard the flute of Smaïn + in the pale yellow twilight I knew that Oreïda was beautiful—with + one of those exquisite, lithe figures, whose movements make a song; with + long, narrow dark eyes, mysterious pools of light and shadow; with thick + hair falling loosely round a low, broad forehead; and perfect little + hands, made for the dance of the hands that the Bedouin loves so well. + </p> + <p> + All this I knew from the sound of Smain’s flute. I told it to Safti, and + bade him ask Smaïn if it were not true. + </p> + <p> + Smain’s reply was:— + </p> + <p> + “She is more beautiful than that; she is like the young gazelle, and like + the first day after the fast of Ramadan.” + </p> + <p> + Then he played once more while the moon rose over the palm gardens, and + Safti, lighting his pipe of keef with tender deliberateness, remarked + placidly: + </p> + <p> + “He would like to come with us to Touggourt and to die there at Oreïda’s + feet, but his father, Said-ben-Kouïdar, wishes him to remain at Sidi-Matou + and to pack dates. He is young, and must obey. Therefore he is sad.” + </p> + <p> + The smoke rose up in a cloud round Smaïn and his flute, and now I thought + that, indeed, there was a wild pathos in the music. The moon went up the + sky, and threw silver on the palms. The gay cries from the village died + down. The gardeners lay upon the earth divans under the palmwood roofs, + and slept. And at last Smaïn bade us good-bye. I saw his white figure + glide across the great open space that the moon made white as it was. And + when the shadows took him I still heard the faint sound of his flute, + calling to his heart and to the distant Oreïda through the magical + stillness of the night. + </p> + <p> + The next day we reached Touggourt, and in the evening I went with Safti + and the Caïd of the Nomads to the great café of the dancers in the + outskirts of the town. At the door Arab soldiers were lounging. The pipes + squealed within like souls in torment. In the square bonfires were blazing + fiercely, and the whole desert seemed to throb with beaten drums. Within + the café was a crowd of Arabs, real nomads, some in rags, some richly + dressed, all gravely attentive to the dancers, who entered from a court on + the left, round which their rooms were built in terraces, and danced in + pairs between the broad divans. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me when Oreïda comes,” I said to Safti, while the Caïd spread forth + his ample skirts, and turned a cigarette in his immense black fingers. + </p> + <p> + The dancers came and went. They were amazing trollops, painted until, like + the picture of Balzac’s madman, they were chaotic, a mere mess of frantic + colours. Not for these, I thought, did Smaïn play his flute. The time wore + on. I grew drowsy in the keef-laden air, despite the incessant uproar of + the pipes. Suddenly I started—Safti had touched me. + </p> + <p> + “There is Oreïda, Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + I looked, and saw a lonely dancer entering from the court, large, weary, + crowned with gold, tufted with feathers, wrinkled, with greedy, fatigued + eyes, and hands painted blood-red. She was like an idol in its dotage. + Over her spreading bosom streamed multitudes of golden coins, and many + jewels shone upon her wrists, her arms, her withered neck. She advanced + slowly, as if bored, until she was in the midst of the crowd. Then she + wriggled, stretched forth her hands, slowly stamped her feet, and + promenaded to and fro, occasionally revolving like a child’s top that is + on the verge of “running down.” + </p> + <p> + “That is not Oreïda,” I said to Safti, smiling at his absurd mistake. For + this was the oldest and ugliest dancer of them all. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed, Sidi, it is. Ask the Caïd.” + </p> + <p> + I asked that enormous potentate, who was devouring the withered lady with + his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused before + us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with a + sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her + eyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word + “Smaïn.” The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with a + somnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red hands and + stamping heavily upon the earthen floor. + </p> + <p> + “Smaïn loves that!” I said to Safti. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sidi. Oreïda is famous, and very rich. She has houses and many + palm-trees, and she is much respected by the other dancers.” + </p> + <p> + A week later Safti and I were again at Sidi-Matou, on our way homeward + through the desert. The moon was at the full now, and when we rode up to + the Bordj the open space in front of it, between us and the village, was + flooded with delicate light. Against it one tree, which looked like + Paderewski grown very old, stood up with tousled branches. In the village + bonfires flared, and the dark figures of skipping children passed and + re-passed before them. We heard youthful cries echoing across the sands. + Soon they faded. The lights went out, and the wonderful silence of night + in the desert came in to its heritage. + </p> + <p> + I sat on the edge of an old stone well before the Bordj, while Safti + smoked his keef. Near midnight, quivering across the sands, came the faint + sound of a flute moving from the village towards the deep obscurity of the + palm gardens. I knew that air, those trills, those little runs, those + grace notes. + </p> + <p> + “It is Smaïn,” I said to Safti. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sidi. He will play all night alone among the palms. He is in love.” + </p> + <p> + “But with Oreïda! Is it possible?” + </p> + <p> + “Did he not say that she was like the first day after the fast of Ramadan? + When an African says that his heart is big with love.” + </p> + <p> + The flute went on and on, and I said to myself and to the moon, as I had + often said before: + </p> + <p> + “He that is born in the Sahara is an impenetrable mystery.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. + </h2> + <h3> + By Robert Hichens + </h3> + <p> + Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earth + house in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and in winter + he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, and the great + red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful land which is the + only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnous around him, pulls + his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls and lights his cigarette, + and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. This is the white arcade of + a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellers come in winter. I am an + unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I come there in winter, and Safti + comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti’s profession. Byrne, and others + like me, he lives. For a consideration he shows me round the market, which + I knew by heart six years ago, and takes me up the mosque tower, from + which I gazed over the flying pigeons and the swaying palms when Safti was + comparatively young and frisky. Together we visit the gazelles in their + pretty garden, and the Caïd’s Mill, from which one sees the pink and + purple mountains of the Aures. We ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to + Sidi-Okba. We take our <i>déjeuner</i> out to the yellow sand dunes, and + we sip our coffee among the keef smokers in Hadj’s painted café. We listen + to the songs of the negro troubadour, and we smile at Algia’s dancing when + the silver moon comes up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads’ tents begin + their serenades. And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he + bids me “<i>Bonne nuit!</i>” and his ghostly figure is lost in the black + shadows of the palm-trees. + </p> + <p> + Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him: + “Don’t you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the Sahara + home together? You are getting on in years now.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!” + </p> + <p> + He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at + subtraction as a London beauty. + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear + of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as you + do would break down an American millionaire.” + </p> + <p> + Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah’s dwelling. + </p> + <p> + “Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you and all + the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the darkness of + your days, I take my little holiday.” + </p> + <p> + “Your holiday! But is it long enough?” + </p> + <p> + “It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am strong + as the lion.” + </p> + <p> + I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, indeed, + something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We were at the + edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the quivering mirage + which guards dead Okba’s tomb. A tiny earthen house, with a flat terrace + ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was crouched here in the + shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. Suddenly Safti’s bare + legs began to “give.” I felt it would be cruel to push on farther. We + entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously upon a baked divan of mud, + set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our cigarettes, and commanded our + coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud stuck under his turban had + brought it languidly, I said to Safti: + </p> + <p> + “And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday.” + </p> + <p> + Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of + repose. + </p> + <p> + “Each day is like its brother, Sidi,” he responded, gazing out through the + low doorway to the shimmering Sahara. + </p> + <p> + “Then tell me how you pass a summer day.” + </p> + <p> + The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Sahah</i> Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Merci</i>.” + </p> + <p> + We sipped. + </p> + <p> + “A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at five + in the morning I get up——’ + </p> + <p> + “And light the fire,” I murmured mechanically. + </p> + <p> + The one eye stared in blank amazement. + </p> + <p> + “Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early.” + </p> + <p> + “The sun rises at a quarter to five.” + </p> + <p> + “To call you. Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, + and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends.” + </p> + <p> + “That is half-an-hour’s exercise?” + </p> + <p> + “About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play at + dominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. I + remain in the café at the corner—” + </p> + <p> + “I know—by the Garden of the Gazelles!” “—till eleven o’clock, + at which time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. + When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, and + dates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve we + all go to bed together in a black room.” + </p> + <p> + “A black room?” + </p> + <p> + “We fear the flies.” + </p> + <p> + “I see.” + </p> + <p> + “Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in the black + room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the Café Maure in + old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffees till seven + o’clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us from playing any + more.” + </p> + <p> + “How intrusive! Always at seven?” + </p> + <p> + “Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end of + the oasis.” + </p> + <p> + “To the Tombuctou road?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, and I + go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. After + this I return to the café and play ronda till one o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + “One o’clock at night?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. At one o’clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe in the + stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, + perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s lagmi?” + </p> + <p> + “Palm wine. Then at three o’clock I go to my home, mount upon the roof + quietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn.” + </p> + <p> + “And you do this for five months?” + </p> + <p> + “For five months, Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + “And—and your wife, Safti?” + </p> + <p> + I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and has + bought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me. + </p> + <p> + “My wife, Sidi?” + </p> + <p> + “What does she do all the time?” + </p> + <p> + “She remains quietly in my house.” + </p> + <p> + “She never goes out?” + </p> + <p> + “Never, except upon the roof to take a little air.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t she get rather bor——” + </p> + <p> + The one eye began to look remarkably vague. + </p> + <p> + “And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the course of + the year?” + </p> + <p> + Safti smiled at me with resignation. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will of Allah + that you should toil.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Shal-làh!</i> I will take another coffee, Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + “Larbi!” + </p> + <p> + I called the Kabyle boy. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Smaïn; and Safti’s Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAÏN; AND SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 23411-h.htm or 23411-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23411/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Smain; and Safti's Summer Day + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23411] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAIN; AND SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +SMAIN; and SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY. + +By Robert Hichens + +Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + +Copyright, 1905 + + + "_When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe._" + + Sahara Saying. + + + + +SMAIN + + +Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the +pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a +child who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed +through the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and +come into a land of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. +The feet of the camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow +alleys between the brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and +left into the shady enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dotted +with little pools of pale yellow water, and saw always giant palms, +with wrinkled trunks and tufted, deep green foliage, brooding in their +squadrons over the dimness they had made. The activity of man might be +discerned here in the regularity of the artificial rills, the ordered +placing of the trees, each of which, too, stood on its oval hump. But no +man was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; no robe, pale blue or white, +fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked in the golden patches of +the sun--only the sound of the flute came to us from some hidden place +ceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd coquetry, and of an +absurdity that was both uncivilised and touching. + +I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between the +palms. + +"Where does it come from?" I asked of Safti. + +His one eye blinked languidly. + +"From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou are +gardeners." + +The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like drops +of water flung softly in our faces. + +"He is in love," added Safti with a slight yawn. + +"How do you know?" + +"When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what they +say in the Sahara." + +"And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?" + +"Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, +and, perhaps, all night too." + +"But she cannot hear him." + +"That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart can +hear." + +I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. I +tried to read the player's heart in the endless song it made. Trills, +twitterings, grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air--surely +it was a boy's heart, and not unhappy. + +"It is coming nearer," I said. + +"Yes. Ah, it is Smain!" + +Safti's one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tall +youth in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bent +down, his brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with red +arabesques. His feet were bare, and he moved slowly. + +Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. He +stopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a moment +he was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring at +me the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come to +Sidi-Amrane, and Smain had never wandered far. + +"What does he say?" I asked of Safti. + +"I tell him we shall be at Touggourt tomorrow night, and shall stay +there a week. He answers that his heart is there with Oreida." + +"What! Does his lady-love live at Touggourt?" + +"Yes; she is a dancer." + +Smain smiled. He did not understand French, but he knew we were speaking +of his love affair, and he was not afflicted with shyness. As he +accompanied us to the village he played again, and I read his nature in +the soft sounds of his flute. + +All that day he stayed with us, and nearly all that day he played. Even +when he guided me through the village, where, between terraced houses, +pretty children--the girls in deep purple, with yellow flowers stuck in +their left nostrils, the boys in white--danced with a boisterous grace +round brushwood fires, his flute was at his lips, and his fingers +fluttered ceaselessly. And as night drew on the music was surely more +amorous, and I seemed to see Oreida drawing near over the sands. + +Smain was but sixteen, tall and slim as a reed, with a poetic face and +lustrous, languid eyes. I imagined Oreida a child too--one of those +flowers of the desert that blossom early and fade ere noontide comes. +Sometimes such flowers are very beautiful. As I heard the flute of Smain +in the pale yellow twilight I knew that Oreida was beautiful--with one +of those exquisite, lithe figures, whose movements make a song; with +long, narrow dark eyes, mysterious pools of light and shadow; with thick +hair falling loosely round a low, broad forehead; and perfect little +hands, made for the dance of the hands that the Bedouin loves so well. + +All this I knew from the sound of Smain's flute. I told it to Safti, and +bade him ask Smain if it were not true. + +Smain's reply was:-- + +"She is more beautiful than that; she is like the young gazelle, and +like the first day after the fast of Ramadan." + +Then he played once more while the moon rose over the palm gardens, and +Safti, lighting his pipe of keef with tender deliberateness, remarked +placidly: + +"He would like to come with us to Touggourt and to die there at +Oreida's feet, but his father, Said-ben-Kouidar, wishes him to remain at +Sidi-Matou and to pack dates. He is young, and must obey. Therefore he +is sad." + +The smoke rose up in a cloud round Smain and his flute, and now I +thought that, indeed, there was a wild pathos in the music. The moon +went up the sky, and threw silver on the palms. The gay cries from the +village died down. The gardeners lay upon the earth divans under the +palmwood roofs, and slept. And at last Smain bade us good-bye. I saw his +white figure glide across the great open space that the moon made white +as it was. And when the shadows took him I still heard the faint sound +of his flute, calling to his heart and to the distant Oreida through the +magical stillness of the night. + +The next day we reached Touggourt, and in the evening I went with Safti +and the Caid of the Nomads to the great cafe of the dancers in the +outskirts of the town. At the door Arab soldiers were lounging. The +pipes squealed within like souls in torment. In the square bonfires +were blazing fiercely, and the whole desert seemed to throb with beaten +drums. Within the cafe was a crowd of Arabs, real nomads, some in rags, +some richly dressed, all gravely attentive to the dancers, who entered +from a court on the left, round which their rooms were built in +terraces, and danced in pairs between the broad divans. + +"Tell me when Oreida comes," I said to Safti, while the Caid spread +forth his ample skirts, and turned a cigarette in his immense black +fingers. + +The dancers came and went. They were amazing trollops, painted until, +like the picture of Balzac's madman, they were chaotic, a mere mess of +frantic colours. Not for these, I thought, did Smain play his flute. The +time wore on. I grew drowsy in the keef-laden air, despite the incessant +uproar of the pipes. Suddenly I started--Safti had touched me. + +"There is Oreida, Sidi." + +I looked, and saw a lonely dancer entering from the court, large, weary, +crowned with gold, tufted with feathers, wrinkled, with greedy, fatigued +eyes, and hands painted blood-red. She was like an idol in its dotage. +Over her spreading bosom streamed multitudes of golden coins, and many +jewels shone upon her wrists, her arms, her withered neck. She advanced +slowly, as if bored, until she was in the midst of the crowd. Then +she wriggled, stretched forth her hands, slowly stamped her feet, and +promenaded to and fro, occasionally revolving like a child's top that is +on the verge of "running down." + +"That is not Oreida," I said to Safti, smiling at his absurd mistake. +For this was the oldest and ugliest dancer of them all. + +"Indeed, Sidi, it is. Ask the Caid." + +I asked that enormous potentate, who was devouring the withered lady +with his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused +before us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with +a sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her +eyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word +"Smain." The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with a +somnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red hands +and stamping heavily upon the earthen floor. + +"Smain loves that!" I said to Safti. + +"Yes, Sidi. Oreida is famous, and very rich. She has houses and many +palm-trees, and she is much respected by the other dancers." + +A week later Safti and I were again at Sidi-Matou, on our way homeward +through the desert. The moon was at the full now, and when we rode up to +the Bordj the open space in front of it, between us and the village, +was flooded with delicate light. Against it one tree, which looked +like Paderewski grown very old, stood up with tousled branches. In +the village bonfires flared, and the dark figures of skipping children +passed and re-passed before them. We heard youthful cries echoing across +the sands. Soon they faded. The lights went out, and the wonderful +silence of night in the desert came in to its heritage. + +I sat on the edge of an old stone well before the Bordj, while Safti +smoked his keef. Near midnight, quivering across the sands, came +the faint sound of a flute moving from the village towards the deep +obscurity of the palm gardens. I knew that air, those trills, those +little runs, those grace notes. + +"It is Smain," I said to Safti. + +"Yes, Sidi. He will play all night alone among the palms. He is in +love." + +"But with Oreida! Is it possible?" + +"Did he not say that she was like the first day after the fast of +Ramadan? When an African says that his heart is big with love." + +The flute went on and on, and I said to myself and to the moon, as I had +often said before: + +"He that is born in the Sahara is an impenetrable mystery." + + + + + +SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY. + +By Robert Hichens + + +Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earth +house in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and in +winter he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, and +the great red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful land +which is the only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnous +around him, pulls his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls and +lights his cigarette, and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. +This is the white arcade of a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellers +come in winter. I am an unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I come +there in winter, and Safti comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti's +profession. Byrne, and others like me, he lives. For a consideration +he shows me round the market, which I knew by heart six years ago, and +takes me up the mosque tower, from which I gazed over the flying pigeons +and the swaying palms when Safti was comparatively young and frisky. +Together we visit the gazelles in their pretty garden, and the Caid's +Mill, from which one sees the pink and purple mountains of the Aures. We +ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to Sidi-Okba. We take our _dejeuner_ +out to the yellow sand dunes, and we sip our coffee among the keef +smokers in Hadj's painted cafe. We listen to the songs of the negro +troubadour, and we smile at Algia's dancing when the silver moon comes +up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads' tents begin their serenades. +And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he bids me +"_Bonne nuit!_" and his ghostly figure is lost in the black shadows of +the palm-trees. + +Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him: +"Don't you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the +Sahara home together? You are getting on in years now." + +"Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!" + +He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at +subtraction as a London beauty. + +"Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear +of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as +you do would break down an American millionaire." + +Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah's dwelling. + +"Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you +and all the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the +darkness of your days, I take my little holiday." + +"Your holiday! But is it long enough?" + +"It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am +strong as the lion." + +I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, +indeed, something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We +were at the edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the +quivering mirage which guards dead Okba's tomb. A tiny earthen house, +with a flat terrace ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was +crouched here in the shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. +Suddenly Safti's bare legs began to "give." I felt it would be cruel to +push on farther. We entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously +upon a baked divan of mud, set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our +cigarettes, and commanded our coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud +stuck under his turban had brought it languidly, I said to Safti: + +"And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday." + +Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of +repose. + +"Each day is like its brother, Sidi," he responded, gazing out through +the low doorway to the shimmering Sahara. + +"Then tell me how you pass a summer day." + +The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke. + +"_Sahah_ Sidi." + +"_Merci_." + +We sipped. + +"A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at +five in the morning I get up----' + +"And light the fire," I murmured mechanically. + +The one eye stared in blank amazement. + +"Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early." + +"The sun rises at a quarter to five." + +"To call you. Well?" + +"I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, +and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends." + +"That is half-an-hour's exercise?" + +"About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play at +dominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. I +remain in the cafe at the corner--" + +"I know--by the Garden of the Gazelles!" "--till eleven o'clock, at +which time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. +When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, and +dates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve we +all go to bed together in a black room." + +"A black room?" + +"We fear the flies." + +"I see." + +"Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in the +black room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the Cafe +Maure in old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffees +till seven o'clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us from +playing any more." + +"How intrusive! Always at seven?" + +"Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end of +the oasis." + +"To the Tombuctou road?" + +"Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, and +I go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. +After this I return to the cafe and play ronda till one o'clock." + +"One o'clock at night?" + +"Yes. At one o'clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe in +the stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, +perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi." + +"What's lagmi?" + +"Palm wine. Then at three o'clock I go to my home, mount upon the roof +quietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn." + +"And you do this for five months?" + +"For five months, Sidi." + +"And--and your wife, Safti?" + +I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and has +bought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me. + +"My wife, Sidi?" + +"What does she do all the time?" + +"She remains quietly in my house." + +"She never goes out?" + +"Never, except upon the roof to take a little air." + +"Doesn't she get rather bor----" + +The one eye began to look remarkably vague. + +"And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the course +of the year?" + +Safti smiled at me with resignation. + +"I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman." + +"Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will of +Allah that you should toil." + +"_Shal-lah!_ I will take another coffee, Sidi." + +"Larbi!" + +I called the Kabyle boy. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Smain; and Safti's Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAIN; AND SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 23411.txt or 23411.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23411/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Smaïn; and Safti's Summer Day + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23411] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAÏN; AND SAFTI'S SUMMER DAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + SMAÏN; <br /> <br /> and SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. + </h1> + <h2> + By Robert Hichens<br /> <br /> + </h2> + <h3> + Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + </h3> + <h4> + Copyright, 1905 + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> SMAÏN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SMAÏN + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “<i>When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe.</i>” + + Sahara Saying. +</pre> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the + pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a child + who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed through the + sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and come into a land + of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. The feet of the + camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow alleys between the + brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and left into the shady + enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dotted with little pools of pale + yellow water, and saw always giant palms, with wrinkled trunks and tufted, + deep green foliage, brooding in their squadrons over the dimness they had + made. The activity of man might be discerned here in the regularity of the + artificial rills, the ordered placing of the trees, each of which, too, + stood on its oval hump. But no man was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; + no robe, pale blue or white, fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked + in the golden patches of the sun—only the sound of the flute came to + us from some hidden place ceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd + coquetry, and of an absurdity that was both uncivilised and touching. + </p> + <p> + I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between the + palms. + </p> + <p> + “Where does it come from?” I asked of Safti. + </p> + <p> + His one eye blinked languidly. + </p> + <p> + “From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou are + gardeners.” + </p> + <p> + The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like drops of + water flung softly in our faces. + </p> + <p> + “He is in love,” added Safti with a slight yawn. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what they say + in the Sahara.” + </p> + <p> + “And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, and, + perhaps, all night too.” + </p> + <p> + “But she cannot hear him.” + </p> + <p> + “That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart can + hear.” + </p> + <p> + I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. I tried to + read the player’s heart in the endless song it made. Trills, twitterings, + grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air—surely it was a + boy’s heart, and not unhappy. + </p> + <p> + “It is coming nearer,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Ah, it is Smaïn!” + </p> + <p> + Safti’s one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tall youth + in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bent down, his + brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with red arabesques. + His feet were bare, and he moved slowly. + </p> + <p> + Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. He + stopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a moment + he was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring at me + the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come to Sidi-Amrane, + and Smaïn had never wandered far. + </p> + <p> + “What does he say?” I asked of Safti. + </p> + <p> + “I tell him we shall be at Touggourt tomorrow night, and shall stay there + a week. He answers that his heart is there with Oreïda.” + </p> + <p> + “What! Does his lady-love live at Touggourt?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; she is a dancer.” + </p> + <p> + Smaïn smiled. He did not understand French, but he knew we were speaking + of his love affair, and he was not afflicted with shyness. As he + accompanied us to the village he played again, and I read his nature in + the soft sounds of his flute. + </p> + <p> + All that day he stayed with us, and nearly all that day he played. Even + when he guided me through the village, where, between terraced houses, + pretty children—the girls in deep purple, with yellow flowers stuck + in their left nostrils, the boys in white—danced with a boisterous + grace round brushwood fires, his flute was at his lips, and his fingers + fluttered ceaselessly. And as night drew on the music was surely more + amorous, and I seemed to see Oreïda drawing near over the sands. + </p> + <p> + Smaïn was but sixteen, tall and slim as a reed, with a poetic face and + lustrous, languid eyes. I imagined Oreïda a child too—one of those + flowers of the desert that blossom early and fade ere noontide comes. + Sometimes such flowers are very beautiful. As I heard the flute of Smaïn + in the pale yellow twilight I knew that Oreïda was beautiful—with + one of those exquisite, lithe figures, whose movements make a song; with + long, narrow dark eyes, mysterious pools of light and shadow; with thick + hair falling loosely round a low, broad forehead; and perfect little + hands, made for the dance of the hands that the Bedouin loves so well. + </p> + <p> + All this I knew from the sound of Smain’s flute. I told it to Safti, and + bade him ask Smaïn if it were not true. + </p> + <p> + Smain’s reply was:— + </p> + <p> + “She is more beautiful than that; she is like the young gazelle, and like + the first day after the fast of Ramadan.” + </p> + <p> + Then he played once more while the moon rose over the palm gardens, and + Safti, lighting his pipe of keef with tender deliberateness, remarked + placidly: + </p> + <p> + “He would like to come with us to Touggourt and to die there at Oreïda’s + feet, but his father, Said-ben-Kouïdar, wishes him to remain at Sidi-Matou + and to pack dates. He is young, and must obey. Therefore he is sad.” + </p> + <p> + The smoke rose up in a cloud round Smaïn and his flute, and now I thought + that, indeed, there was a wild pathos in the music. The moon went up the + sky, and threw silver on the palms. The gay cries from the village died + down. The gardeners lay upon the earth divans under the palmwood roofs, + and slept. And at last Smaïn bade us good-bye. I saw his white figure + glide across the great open space that the moon made white as it was. And + when the shadows took him I still heard the faint sound of his flute, + calling to his heart and to the distant Oreïda through the magical + stillness of the night. + </p> + <p> + The next day we reached Touggourt, and in the evening I went with Safti + and the Caïd of the Nomads to the great café of the dancers in the + outskirts of the town. At the door Arab soldiers were lounging. The pipes + squealed within like souls in torment. In the square bonfires were blazing + fiercely, and the whole desert seemed to throb with beaten drums. Within + the café was a crowd of Arabs, real nomads, some in rags, some richly + dressed, all gravely attentive to the dancers, who entered from a court on + the left, round which their rooms were built in terraces, and danced in + pairs between the broad divans. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me when Oreïda comes,” I said to Safti, while the Caïd spread forth + his ample skirts, and turned a cigarette in his immense black fingers. + </p> + <p> + The dancers came and went. They were amazing trollops, painted until, like + the picture of Balzac’s madman, they were chaotic, a mere mess of frantic + colours. Not for these, I thought, did Smaïn play his flute. The time wore + on. I grew drowsy in the keef-laden air, despite the incessant uproar of + the pipes. Suddenly I started—Safti had touched me. + </p> + <p> + “There is Oreïda, Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + I looked, and saw a lonely dancer entering from the court, large, weary, + crowned with gold, tufted with feathers, wrinkled, with greedy, fatigued + eyes, and hands painted blood-red. She was like an idol in its dotage. + Over her spreading bosom streamed multitudes of golden coins, and many + jewels shone upon her wrists, her arms, her withered neck. She advanced + slowly, as if bored, until she was in the midst of the crowd. Then she + wriggled, stretched forth her hands, slowly stamped her feet, and + promenaded to and fro, occasionally revolving like a child’s top that is + on the verge of “running down.” + </p> + <p> + “That is not Oreïda,” I said to Safti, smiling at his absurd mistake. For + this was the oldest and ugliest dancer of them all. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed, Sidi, it is. Ask the Caïd.” + </p> + <p> + I asked that enormous potentate, who was devouring the withered lady with + his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused before + us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with a + sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her + eyebrows Safti addressed her animatedly in Arabic. I caught the word + “Smaïn.” The lady smiled, and made a guttural reply; then, with a + somnolent wink at me, she waddled onward, flapping the blood-red hands and + stamping heavily upon the earthen floor. + </p> + <p> + “Smaïn loves that!” I said to Safti. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sidi. Oreïda is famous, and very rich. She has houses and many + palm-trees, and she is much respected by the other dancers.” + </p> + <p> + A week later Safti and I were again at Sidi-Matou, on our way homeward + through the desert. The moon was at the full now, and when we rode up to + the Bordj the open space in front of it, between us and the village, was + flooded with delicate light. Against it one tree, which looked like + Paderewski grown very old, stood up with tousled branches. In the village + bonfires flared, and the dark figures of skipping children passed and + re-passed before them. We heard youthful cries echoing across the sands. + Soon they faded. The lights went out, and the wonderful silence of night + in the desert came in to its heritage. + </p> + <p> + I sat on the edge of an old stone well before the Bordj, while Safti + smoked his keef. Near midnight, quivering across the sands, came the faint + sound of a flute moving from the village towards the deep obscurity of the + palm gardens. I knew that air, those trills, those little runs, those + grace notes. + </p> + <p> + “It is Smaïn,” I said to Safti. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sidi. He will play all night alone among the palms. He is in love.” + </p> + <p> + “But with Oreïda! Is it possible?” + </p> + <p> + “Did he not say that she was like the first day after the fast of Ramadan? + When an African says that his heart is big with love.” + </p> + <p> + The flute went on and on, and I said to myself and to the moon, as I had + often said before: + </p> + <p> + “He that is born in the Sahara is an impenetrable mystery.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY. + </h2> + <h3> + By Robert Hichens + </h3> + <p> + Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earth + house in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and in winter + he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, and the great + red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful land which is the + only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnous around him, pulls + his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls and lights his cigarette, + and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. This is the white arcade of + a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellers come in winter. I am an + unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I come there in winter, and Safti + comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti’s profession. Byrne, and others + like me, he lives. For a consideration he shows me round the market, which + I knew by heart six years ago, and takes me up the mosque tower, from + which I gazed over the flying pigeons and the swaying palms when Safti was + comparatively young and frisky. Together we visit the gazelles in their + pretty garden, and the Caïd’s Mill, from which one sees the pink and + purple mountains of the Aures. We ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to + Sidi-Okba. We take our <i>déjeuner</i> out to the yellow sand dunes, and + we sip our coffee among the keef smokers in Hadj’s painted café. We listen + to the songs of the negro troubadour, and we smile at Algia’s dancing when + the silver moon comes up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads’ tents begin + their serenades. And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he + bids me “<i>Bonne nuit!</i>” and his ghostly figure is lost in the black + shadows of the palm-trees. + </p> + <p> + Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him: + “Don’t you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the Sahara + home together? You are getting on in years now.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!” + </p> + <p> + He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at + subtraction as a London beauty. + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear + of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as you + do would break down an American millionaire.” + </p> + <p> + Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah’s dwelling. + </p> + <p> + “Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you and all + the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the darkness of + your days, I take my little holiday.” + </p> + <p> + “Your holiday! But is it long enough?” + </p> + <p> + “It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am strong + as the lion.” + </p> + <p> + I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, indeed, + something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We were at the + edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the quivering mirage + which guards dead Okba’s tomb. A tiny earthen house, with a flat terrace + ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was crouched here in the + shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. Suddenly Safti’s bare + legs began to “give.” I felt it would be cruel to push on farther. We + entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously upon a baked divan of mud, + set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our cigarettes, and commanded our + coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud stuck under his turban had + brought it languidly, I said to Safti: + </p> + <p> + “And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday.” + </p> + <p> + Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of + repose. + </p> + <p> + “Each day is like its brother, Sidi,” he responded, gazing out through the + low doorway to the shimmering Sahara. + </p> + <p> + “Then tell me how you pass a summer day.” + </p> + <p> + The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Sahah</i> Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Merci</i>.” + </p> + <p> + We sipped. + </p> + <p> + “A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at five + in the morning I get up——’ + </p> + <p> + “And light the fire,” I murmured mechanically. + </p> + <p> + The one eye stared in blank amazement. + </p> + <p> + “Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early.” + </p> + <p> + “The sun rises at a quarter to five.” + </p> + <p> + “To call you. Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, + and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends.” + </p> + <p> + “That is half-an-hour’s exercise?” + </p> + <p> + “About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play at + dominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. I + remain in the café at the corner—” + </p> + <p> + “I know—by the Garden of the Gazelles!” “—till eleven o’clock, + at which time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. + When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, and + dates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve we + all go to bed together in a black room.” + </p> + <p> + “A black room?” + </p> + <p> + “We fear the flies.” + </p> + <p> + “I see.” + </p> + <p> + “Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in the black + room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the Café Maure in + old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffees till seven + o’clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us from playing any + more.” + </p> + <p> + “How intrusive! Always at seven?” + </p> + <p> + “Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end of + the oasis.” + </p> + <p> + “To the Tombuctou road?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, and I + go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. After + this I return to the café and play ronda till one o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + “One o’clock at night?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. At one o’clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe in the + stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, + perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s lagmi?” + </p> + <p> + “Palm wine. Then at three o’clock I go to my home, mount upon the roof + quietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn.” + </p> + <p> + “And you do this for five months?” + </p> + <p> + “For five months, Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + “And—and your wife, Safti?” + </p> + <p> + I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and has + bought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me. + </p> + <p> + “My wife, Sidi?” + </p> + <p> + “What does she do all the time?” + </p> + <p> + “She remains quietly in my house.” + </p> + <p> + “She never goes out?” + </p> + <p> + “Never, except upon the roof to take a little air.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t she get rather bor——” + </p> + <p> + The one eye began to look remarkably vague. + </p> + <p> + “And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the course of + the year?” + </p> + <p> + Safti smiled at me with resignation. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will of Allah + that you should toil.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Shal-làh!</i> I will take another coffee, Sidi.” + </p> + <p> + “Larbi!” + </p> + <p> + I called the Kabyle boy. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Smaïn; and Safti’s Summer Day, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMAÏN; AND SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 23411-h.htm or 23411-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23411/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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