United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
"I could live here for ever," she added, "without once wishing to go out into the world." Smain looked drowsily pleased. "We are coming to the centre of the garden," he said, as they passed over a palm-wood bridge beneath which a stream glided under the red petals of geraniums. The tongues of flame were left behind.
Very delicate was the touch of the dying upon the yellow sand. It increased the sense of pervading mystery and made Domini more deeply conscious of the pulsing life of the garden. "There is the room of the little dog," said Smain. They had come out into a small open space, over which an immense cocoanut tree presided.
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."
The distant love-song of the flute seemed to Domini the last touch of enchantment making this indeed a wonderland. She could not move, and held up her hands to stay the feet of Smain, who was quite content to wait. Never before had she heard any music that seemed to mean and suggest so much to her as this African tune played by an enamoured gardener.
He was there when I was born, and I have been married twice and divorced twice." Domini turned from the window and looked at Smain with astonishment. He was smelling his rose like a dreamy child. "You have been divorced twice?" "Yes. Now I will show Madame the smoking-room." They followed another of the innumerable alleys of the garden.
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.
She laughed. "No one must think here but you!" "I prefer to keep all the folly to myself. Is not that a grand cocoanut?" He pointed to a tree so tall that it seemed soaring to heaven. "Yes, indeed. Like the one that presides over the purple dog." "You have seen my fetish?" "Smain showed him to me, with reverence." "Oh, he is king here.
Upon the cloth, in vases of rough pottery, stained with designs in purple, were arranged the roses brought by Smain from Count Anteoni's garden. "Our wedding breakfast!" Domini said under her breath. She felt just then as if she were living in a wonderful romance. They sat down side by side and ate with a good appetite, served by Batouch and Ali.
This was surely a home of dreams, a haven where the sun came to lie down beneath the trees and sleep. "What is your name?" she added. "Smain," replied the Arab. "I was born in this garden. My father, Mohammed, was with Monsieur the Count." He led the way over the sand, moving silently on his long, brown feet, straight as a reed in a windless place. Domini followed, holding her breath.
Word Of The Day