United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This was el Wasr indeed. The dance commenced, its every phase followed eagerly by the motley clientele of the hashish house. Zarmi danced with an insolent nonchalance that nevertheless displayed her barbaric beauty to greatest advantage.
Woman voices reached us faintly from the street we had left and the muted pulse of the darâbukeh pursued us. Upon a raised dais having candles set at his head and feet reposed a venerable sheikh, dead. His white beard flowed over his breast. He reclined in majestic sleep where the pipes were wailing the call of El Wasr, and the shadow of the minaret lay upon life and upon death.
Through the glass panes of the skylight I looked down upon a scene so bizarre that my actual environment became blotted out, and I was mentally translated to Cairo to that quarter of Cairo immediately surrounding the famous Square of the Fountain to those indescribable streets, wherefrom arises the perfume of deathless evil, wherein, to the wailing, luresome music of the reed pipe, painted dancing-girls sway in the wild abandon of dances that were ancient when Thebes was the City of a Hundred Gates; I seemed to stand again in el Wasr.
Is it not strange that this scene should recur to me to-night?" "Strange and uncomplimentary," replied Thessaly. "Whilst I have no objection to your finding an analogy between my perfectly respectable neighbours and the women of the Wasr, the rôle of a defunct and saintly Arab does not appeal to me." Some reflection of the setting sun touched him where he stood and bathed him as in fire.
Watch how the spears of light strike redly into that canopy of foulness hanging above Kynoch's Works. A Ministry of Munitions controls all that poisonous activity. Mario, it is the second Crucifixion. The Jews crucified the Body; all the world has conspired to crucify the Spirit. "The Word has failed. There lies the reading of your day dream, Mario, your dream of the Sheikh of El Wasr.
In reality it was a perfectly natural, instinctive movement. To Zahara her own beauty was a commonplace to be displayed or concealed as circumstances might dictate. In a certain sense, which few could appreciate, this half-caste dancing girl and daughter of El Wasr was as innocent as a baby. It was one of the things which men did not understand.
The Cairo illusion persisted. "Do you know, Thessaly," said Paul, "to-night I cannot help thinking of a scene I once witnessed in El Wasr. I formed one of a party of three and we were wandering aimlessly through those indescribable lanes.
Word Of The Day