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Updated: June 3, 2025
Even the frowning, fortress-like coloured pile, the Lord Warden, thrusts its shoulders forward on the right, and advances well out into the sea, as if to be the first to attract the arrivals. There is a quaint relish, too, in the dingy, old-fashioned marine terrace of dirty tawny brick, its green verandas and jalousies, which lend quite a tropical air.
I, however, heard a very gentle and musical voice say: "How do you do, Mr Grenvile? I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. Lucy, dear, please throw open the jalousies. We are so dark here that Mr Grenvile cannot see where he is."
What an array of figures beautiful, revolting, sly, fatuous, witty, brave, pusillanimous, mean, generous meets the eye as we recall one by one these famous stories; beautiful and amorous, but mercurial ladies with henna scented feet and black eyes often with a suspicion of kohl and more than a suspicion of Abu Murreh in them peeping cautiously through the close jalousies of some lattice; love sick princes overcoming all obstacles; executioners with blood-dripping scimitars; princesses of blinding beauty and pensive tenderness, who playfully knock out the "jaw-teeth" of their eunuchs while "the thousand-voiced bird in the coppice sings clear;" hideous genii, whether of the amiable or the vindictive sort, making their appearance in unexpected moments; pious beasts nay, the very hills praising Allah and glorifying his vice-gerent; gullible saints, gifted scoundrels; learned men with camel loads of dictionaries and classics, thieves with camel loads of plunder; warriors, zanies, necromancers, masculine women, feminine men, ghouls, lutists, negroes, court poets, wags the central figure being the gorgeous, but truculent, Haroun Al Rashid, who is generally accompanied by Ja'afer and Masrur, and sometimes by the abandoned but irresistible Abu Nowas.
Festivity seemed to haunt the very air of the place, beaming from the trim white villas with their smart green jalousies, the tall hotels with crudely tinted flags flying from their roofs, the cheery little shops with their cheerier dames de comptoir smiling complacently on the tourists who unwarily bought their goods.
Once more were they surprised at witnessing the same illumination of the house, and one of the jalousies having burst open with the wind, they perceived the shadow of Yussuf, reflected on the wall, his beard wagging over his kabobs, and a cup of wine in his hand. "Who is there?" cried Yussuf, when Giaffar, at the command of the caliph, knocked at the door.
Close them directly, and then begone quick!" The man, with a startled look, did as he was bid; and the heavy wooden jalousies thus shut reduced the room to comparative darkness. "I am afraid I find you very far from well, Signor Marchese. Would not a little sun be pleasant this bright morning? the air is quite fresh despite the sunshine." "I don't like the sun indoors!
Madama was long in response; but after a time her light showed, the door was opened, and the guests housed. Goodwin stood in the quiet street, lighting another cigar. In two minutes a faint gleam began to show between the slats of the jalousies in the upper story of the hotel. "They have engaged rooms," said Goodwin to himself. "So, then, their arrangements for sailing have yet to be made."
I had gone out on the gallery to fill a ewer with water in his excitement of the previous evening, Marcel had forgotten my morning bath and saw him distinctly through the jalousies. He must have commenced at daylight; for, though it was then early, the ground was almost entirely dug up. Near him, on the pavement, was the basket over which he had displayed so much agitation.
Mademoiselle Claire also went seldom abroad; and it followed that during the long July days when the sunshine flooded the second floor, in the early mornings when the sparrows perched on the open jalousies and twittered gaily, or in the grey evenings, when the night fell slowly, they met from time to time met not infrequently.
There was no word from Bonaparte among the first papers; and it was scarcely possible that there should be in the other packet; yet he could not keep his eye from it. Other eyes were watching from behind the jalousies.
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