Short Fiction

distraction!

She had two francs in her pocket. To whom could she apply? Suddenly she remembered her cousin Barral, who was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine.

She had just enough to hire a cab; she would go to him. And she met him just as he was starting for his office. Like Lebrument, he carried a large pocketbook under his arm.

She leaned out of the carriage and called: “Henry!”

He stopped, much surprised.

“Jeanne,” said he, “here?⁠—and alone? Where do you come from? What are you doing?”

She stammered, with her eyes full of tears: “My husband is lost somewhere⁠—”

“Lost? where?”

“On the omnibus.”

“On the omnibus! Oh!”

And she related to him the whole story, weeping much over the adventure.

He listened reflectively, and then asked:

“This morning? And was his head perfectly clear?”

“Oh! yes! And he had my dowry.”

“Your dowry? The whole of it?”

“Yes, the whole of it⁠—in order to pay for his practice.”

“Well, my dear cousin, your husband, whoever he is, is probably well on his way towards the Belgian frontier by this time.”

She did not yet comprehend. She stammered: “My husband⁠—you say⁠—”

“I say that he has run off with your⁠—your capital⁠—and that’s all about it.”

She remained standing there, choking with grief, murmuring:

“Then he is⁠—he is⁠—is a wretch!”

Then, overcome with emotion, she fell on her cousin’s shoulder, sobbing violently.

As people were stopping to look at them, he guided her gently into the doorway of his house, and with his arm around her waist, he helped her up the stairs. When his astonished servant opened the door he said:

“Sophie, run to the restaurant and bring breakfast for two persons. I shall not go to the office today.”

Mohammed-Fripouille

“Shall we have our coffee on the roof?” asked the captain.

“Yes, by all means,” I replied.

He rose. It was already dark in the room, lighted only by the inner courtyard, as is the custom in Moorish houses. In front of the high, pointed windows, creepers fell from the wide balcony on which the warm summer evenings were spent. Nothing but fruit remained upon the table, huge African fruits, grapes as large as plums, soft figs with purple flesh, yellow pears, long fat bananas, dates from Tougourt in a basket of esparto grass.

The Moorish servant opened the door, and I ascended the staircase, upon whose sky-blue walls fell from above the gentle light of the dying day.

Soon I uttered a deep sigh of contentment, as I reached the balcony. It dominated Algiers, the harbour, the roadstead, and the distant coastline.

The house which the captain had purchased was an ancient Arab dwelling, situated in the centre of the old town, amid the labyrinthine lanes in which swarms the strange population of the coasts of Africa.

Below, the flat square roofs descended like a giant’s staircase to the sloping roofs of the European quarter. Beyond these could be seen the masts of the ships at anchor, and then the sea, the open sea, blue and calm under the calm blue sky.

We lay down on mats, our heads supported by cushions; while slowly sipping the delicious native coffee, I watched the earliest stars come out in the darkening blue. They were dimly to be glimpsed, so distant, so pale, as yet scarcely lit.

A light, winged warmth caressed our skins. There were occasional hotter, more oppressive gusts, bearing in their bosoms a vague scent, the scent of Africa; they seemed the nearby breath of the desert, come over the peaks of the Atlas Mountains. The captain, lying on his back, observed:

“What a country, my dear fellow! How sweet life is here! how vastly delightful to rest! Nights like these are made for dreaming!”

I was still watching the birth of the stars, with a curiosity at once indolent and lively, with drowsy happiness.

“You really ought to tell me something about your life in the South,” I murmured.

Captain Marret was one of the oldest officers in the African army, a soldier of fortune, formerly a spahi, who had carved his career with the point of his sword.

Thanks to him, and to his relatives and friends, I had been able to make a magnificent trip in the desert; and I had come that night to thank him before returning to France.

“What kind of story would you like?” he said. “I’ve had so many adventures during my twelve years in the sand that I no longer remember any separate one.”

“Tell me about the Arab women,” I replied.

He did not answer, but remained lying on his mat, his arms bent back and his hands beneath his head; now and then I caught the scent of his cigar, the smoke of which rose straight up towards the sky in the windless night.

Suddenly he burst out laughing.

“Yes, I’ll tell you a funny incident that dates from my earliest days in Algeria. In those days we had some queer specimens in the African army; they’re no longer to be seen, they no longer happen. They’d have interested you enough to make you spend your whole life in this country.

“I was a plain spahi, a little fellow of twenty, a fair-haired young devil, supple and active, a real Algerian soldier. I was attached to the military post at Boghar. You know Boghar, the place they call the balcony of the South. From the summit of the fort you’ve seen the beginning of that land of fire, devastated, naked, tortured, stony, and reddened. It’s the real antechamber of the desert, the superb blazing frontier of that immense stretch of tawny empty spaces.

“There were forty of us spahis at Boghar, a company of convict soldiers, and a squadron of African lancers, when the news came that the Ould-Berghi tribe had murdered an English traveller. Lord knows how he got into the country; the English are possessed of the devil.

“Justice had to be done for this crime against a European, but the commanding officer hesitated to send out an expedition, thinking that an Englishman really wasn’t worth so much fuss.

“Well, as he was talking the matter over with the captain and the lieutenant,