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Updated: May 5, 2025
When I want to be disturbed by no one, when I want to smoke the keef, to eat the hashish, or just to sit by myself and forget my affairs, and dream quietly for a little, I shut myself in here." An embroidered curtain, the ground of which was orange colour, covered with silks of various hues, faced them at the end of the corridor.
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.
On the hot earth over which, whenever there is any wind from the desert, the white sand grains sift and settle, were laid innumerable rugs of gaudy colours on which were disposed all sorts of goods for sale; heavy ornaments for women, piles of burnouses, haiks, gandouras, gaiters of bright red leather, slippers, weapons many jewelled and gilt, or rich with patterns in silver pyramids of the cords of camels' hair that bind the turbans of the desert men, handkerchiefs and cottons of all the colours of the rainbow, cheap perfumes in azure flasks powdered with golden and silver flowers and leaves, incense twigs, panniers of henna to dye the finger-nails of the faithful, innumerable comestibles, vegetables, corn, red butcher's meat thickly covered with moving insects, pale yellow cakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver spitted on skewers which, cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy drunkenness more overwhelming even than that produced by haschish musical instruments, derboukas, guitars, long pipes, and strange fiddles with two strings, tomtoms, skins of animals with heads and claws, live birds, tortoise backs, and plaits of false hair.
The dances of the Cafes Maures, the songs of the smokers of the keef, the long histories of the story-tellers between the lighted candles she wanted none of these, and, for a moment, she wished she were in London, Paris, any great capital that spent itself to suit the changing moods of men. With a sigh she got up and went out to the Arcade. Batouch joined her immediately.
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."
That, too, was a slave a slave in the Eastern house of Baroudi. Slowly she closed her eyes, in the Eastern house of Baroudi. Here Baroudi lay, as she was lying, and smoked the keef, and ate the hashish, and dreamed. He would never be the slave of a woman. She felt sure of that. But he might make a woman his slave. At moments, when he looked at her, he had the eyes of a slave-owner.
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.
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