登陆注册
5242100000145

第145章 CHAPTER XXI(5)

"Bravo!" Domini cried, delighted at this feat of horsemanship. "But what have you been doing? You are transformed!"

"Madame, we have been to the Bain Maure," replied Batouch, calmly, swelling out his broad chest under his yellow jacket laced with gold.

"We have had our heads shaved till they are smooth and beautiful as polished ivory. We have been to the perfumer"--he leaned confidentially towards her, exhaling a pungent odour of amber--"to the tailor, to the baboosh bazaar!"--he kicked out a foot cased in a slipper that was bright almost as a gold piece--"to him who sells the cherchia." He shook his head till the spangled muslin that flowed about it trembled. "Is it not right that your servants should do you honour in the city?"

"Perfectly right," she answered with a careful seriousness. "I am proud of you both."

"And Monsieur?" asked Ali, speaking in his turn.

Androvsky withdrew his eyes from the city, which was now near at hand.

"Splendid!" he said, but as if attending to the Arabs with difficulty.

"You are splendid."

As they came towards the old wall which partially surrounds Amara, and which rises from a deep natural moat of sand, they saw that the ground immediately before the city which, from a distance, had looked almost fiat, was in reality broken up into a series of wavelike dunes, some small with depressions like deep crevices between them, others large with summits like plateaux. These dunes were of a sharp lemon yellow in the evening light, a yellow that was cold in its clearness, almost setting the teeth on edge. They went away into great rolling slopes of sand on which the camps of the nomads and the Ouled Nails were pitched, some near to, some distant from, the city, but they themselves were solitary. No tents were pitched close to the city, under the shadow of its wall. As Androvsky spoke, Domini exclaimed:

"Boris---look! That is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen!"

She put her hand on his arm. He obeyed her eyes and looked to his right, to the small lemon-yellow dunes that were close to them. At perhaps a hundred yards from the road was a dune that ran parallel with it. The fire of the sinking sun caught its smooth crest, and above this crest, moving languidly towards the city, were visible the heads and busts of three women, the lower halves of whose bodies were concealed by the sand of the farther side of the dune. They were dancing-girls. On their heads, piled high with gorgeous handkerchiefs, were golden crowns which glittered in the sun-rays, and tufts of scarlet feathers. Their oval faces, covered with paint, were partially concealed by long strings of gold coins, which flowed from their crowns down over their large breasts and disappeared towards their waists, which were hidden by the sand. Their dresses were of scarlet, apple-green and purple silks, partially covered by floating shawls of spangled muslin. Beneath their crowns and handkerchiefs burgeoned forth plaits of false hair decorated with coral and silver ornaments.

Their hands, which they held high, gesticulating above the crest of the dune, were painted blood red.

These busts and heads glided slowly along in the setting sun, and presently sank down and vanished into some depression of the dunes.

For an instant one blood-red hand was visible alone, waving a signal above the sand to someone unseen. Its fingers fluttered like the wings of a startled bird. Then it, too, vanished, and the sharply-cold lemon yellow of the dunes stretched in vivid loneliness beneath the evening sky.

To both of them this brief vision of women in the sand brought home the solitude of the desert and the barbarity of the life it held, the ascetism of this supreme manifestation of Nature and the animal passion which fructifies in its heart.

"Do you know what that made me think of, Boris?" Domini said, as the red hand with its swiftly-moving fingers disappeared. "You'll smile, perhaps, and I scarcely know why. It made me think of the Devil in a monastery."

Androvsky did not smile. Nor did he answer. She felt sure that he, too, had been strongly affected by that glimpse of Sahara life. His silence gave Batouch an opportunity of pouring forth upon them a flood of poetical description of the dancing-girls of Amara, all of whom he seemed to know as intimate friends. Before he ceased they came into the city.

The road was still majestically broad. They looked with interest at the first houses, one on each side of the way. And here again they were met by the sharp contrast which was evidently to be the keynote of Amara. The house on the left was European, built of white stone, clean, attractive, but uninteresting, with stout white pillars of plaster supporting an arcade that afforded shade from the sun, windows with green blinds, and an open doorway showing a little hall, on the floor of which lay a smart rug glowing with gay colours; that on the right, before which the sand lay deep as if drifted there by some recent wind of the waste, was African and barbarous, an immense and rambling building of brown earth, brushwood and palm, windowless, with a flat-terraced roof, upon which were piled many strange-looking objects like things collapsed, red and dark green, with fringes and rosettes, and tall sticks of palm pointing vaguely to the sky.

"Why, these are like our palanquin!" Domini said.

"They are the palanquins of the dancing-girls, Madame," said Batouch.

"That is the cafe of the dancers, and that"--he pointed to the neat house opposite--"is the house of Monsieur the Aumonier of Amara."

"Aumonier," said Androvsky, sharply. "Here!"

He paused, then added more quietly:

"What should he do here?"

"But, Monsieur, he is for the French officers."

"There are French officers?"

"Yes, Monsieur, four or five, and the commandant. They live in the palace with the cupolas."

"I forgot," Androvsky said to Domini. "We are not out of the sphere of French influence. This place looks so remote and so barbarous that I imagined it given over entirely to the desert men."

同类推荐
  • 资政要览

    资政要览

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 柳洲医话

    柳洲医话

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 上清元始变化宝真上经

    上清元始变化宝真上经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 希夷梦海国春秋

    希夷梦海国春秋

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 文房四谱

    文房四谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 女神属性女配命

    女神属性女配命

    温萦粉丝称她为“女王大人”“恶毒女配”,林叙言粉丝称他为“林美人”温萦:美人,给爷笑一个。林叙言:遵命,我的女王大人。不笑则已,一笑倾城。披着羊皮的狼的影帝美人VS女王气质的恶毒女配的故事。
  • 啼笑因缘

    啼笑因缘

    《啼笑因缘》主要描写旅居北平的江南大学生樊家树和天桥唱大鼓的姑娘沈凤喜之间的恋爱悲剧,同时又穿插了大家闺秀何丽娜对樊家树坚持不懈的追求,卖艺为生的关寿峰之女秀姑对樊家树的暗恋,军阀刘德柱仗势霸占民女以及豪侠仗义的关氏父女锄强扶弱等情节。该书采用一男三女的爱情模式为故事的核心结构,反映了北洋军阀统治时期黑暗、动乱的一个社会侧面。情节曲折、人物性格鲜明、京味浓郁,继承了中国古典小说的精华,具有浓郁的时代特色。不仅在旧派章回小说的老读者群众,引起强烈反响,也使当时的新文艺界惊异不止,流传广泛而深远。
  • 重生之宋悄悄

    重生之宋悄悄

    重生而来,宋悄悄发现,所以的一切都跟她的记忆截然不同,突然出现的外公,还有那个死了的渣爹,以及,那个神秘的大佬,她开始分不清什么才是真实,只能,披荆斩棘,一路走下去。
  • 寻宝惊魂:鬼蜮逃杀

    寻宝惊魂:鬼蜮逃杀

    一群老兵在参加62年中印自卫反击战中突然遭遇了一系列不可思议的奇事,误闯入凶险的野人山中,与人,兽,匪,盗,国民党残部等搏斗求生存回国返乡的传奇故事。
  • 豪门强宠:绯闻老公欠调教

    豪门强宠:绯闻老公欠调教

    【已完结】沈墨凌,站在食物链顶端的钻石男,爱慕者如过江之鲫,大排长龙。可惜他不近女色情有独钟,偏偏只宠温婉上天,妒煞旁人。助理紧张来报:“BOSS,夫人把您送的求婚钻戒拍卖了!”沈墨凌冷眸微眯:“不喜欢?再订做个更大的!”助理更紧张的来报:“BOSS,夫人微博被您的脑残粉围攻!”沈墨凌剑眉一蹙,打开电脑将头像换成一个“碗”,改名“妻奴凌”!助理满脸“妈的智障”!心中怒吼:从前高冷神秘的BOSS去哪了?沈墨凌勾唇浅笑:“尔等单身狗岂能领悟爷的性福!”
  • 霸道影后,萧少请让路

    霸道影后,萧少请让路

    第一次见面,顾念给萧逸笙介绍精神病医生,从此招惹上一个“混世大魔王”萧逸笙!对此,顾念简直不屑,呵,什么混世魔王,姐有的办法是治你!某日,顾恋推门而入,撩起萧逸笙的下巴“听说你喜欢姐?而且还把像我表白的人封杀?萧总本领那么大?”萧逸笙不要脸的说,是的哦,谢谢夸奖。“我们一没关系!二没血缘!也不是情侣!所以麻烦你别管我!”萧逸笙一脸坏笑“我也不介意我们发生一点关系!”
  • 玄气天地

    玄气天地

    杀手榜排行第一,却被自己最好的兄弟还有自己的爱人暗算。自己的一生就这样结束了吗,不,这只是另一场旅行的开始…
  • 大集须弥藏经

    大集须弥藏经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 异界龙魂神尊

    异界龙魂神尊

    人有三魂,分别为魔、武、兽。三魂之力受神之封印而沉睡,三股魂力觉醒之时,可以为人体带来毁天灭地的力量。濮阳羽,一个同时具备三种魂力的超级变态,将以自己强大的实力征服一个个敌人,赢得诸多佳丽芳心。
  • 铁血王朝

    铁血王朝

    民族大学学生和田,痴迷于转轮大法,崇拜成吉思汗蒙古铁骑,横扫天下,阴差阳错之下穿越到末代皇帝元顺帝,魂魄断续,一会是现代版成吉思汗,一会又成了懦弱的鲁班天子,啼笑皆非之下,万众期盼之下,竟然成就了一番大业,多瑙河畔、南洋诸岛、亚美利加、大海洋时代的梦想逐步实践。