“I could not help smiling at her quaint air of grief, and sent her away to bed.
“An hour later, as I was going to bed, there were two light taps on my door, so light that I scarcely heard them.
“ ‘Come in,’ I cried, and Allouma entered, carrying a large tray loaded with Arab delicacies, sweet fried croquettes, and a strange collection of native pastry.
“She laughed, showing her fine teeth, and repeated:
“ ‘We are going to keep Ramadan together.’
“You know that the fasting which begins at dawn and ends at dusk, at the moment when the eye cannot distinquish between a white and a black thread, is followed every evening by private little feasts in which eating goes on until dawn. It follows that for a native not overburdened by his conscience, Ramadan merely consists in transposing day and night. Allouma, however, was more conscientious about it. She placed her tray between us on the couch, and taking in her long slender fingers a little powdered ball, she put it in my mouth, murmuring:
“ ‘Eat this, it is good.’
“I munched the light cake, which was indeed excellent, and asked her:
“ ‘Did you make that?’
“ ‘Yes, I did.’
“ ‘For me?’
“ ‘Yes, for you.’
“ ‘To enable me to tolerate Ramadan?’
“ ‘Yes, don’t be unkind! I will bring you some every day.’
“What a terrible month I spent there! a sugary, insipid, maddening month, full of little indulgences, temptations, fits of anger and vain struggles against an invincible resistance.
“Then, when the three days of Beiram arrived, I celebrated them in my own way, and Ramadan was forgotten.
“A very hot summer passed, and towards the early days of Autumn, Allouma seemed to be preoccupied and abstracted and took no interest in anything.
“One evening, when I sent for her, she was not in her room, and thinking that she was somewhere about the house, I sent someone to look for her. She had not come back, so I opened the window and called for Mohammed.
“His answer came from within the tent:
“ ‘Yes, sir?’
“ ‘Do you know where Allouma is?’
“ ‘No, sir. She is not lost, is she?’
“A few seconds later, he entered my room, so agitated that he could not suppress his anxiety.
“ ‘Allouma lost?’ he asked.
“ ‘Yes, she has disappeared.’
“ ‘Surely not.’
“ ‘Go and look for her,’ I told him.
“He remained standing there, lost in thought and trying to grasp the situation. Then he entered Allouma’s room, where her clothes were scattered in truly Oriental disorder. He examined everything like a policeman, or rather he snuffed around like a dog, and then, incapable of further effort, he murmured with an air of resignation:
“ ‘Gone! she is gone!’
“For my part, I feared some accident, a fall down a ravine, a sprained joint, and I sent out all the men in the camp with orders to search until they had found her.
“They searched for her all night, the whole of the next day and for a week, but could discover no clue that would put us on the right track. I suffered badly, for I missed her; the house seemed empty and life seemed a desert. Then disturbing thoughts began to pass through my mind: I thought that she might have been kidnapped, or even killed. But every time I attempted to question Mohammed or to tell him my fears, he replied steadfastly:
“ ‘No, she has gone away.’
“Then he added the Arab word r’ezale, meaning a gazelle, as if to say that she ran quickly and was far away.
“Three weeks passed, and I had given up hope of ever seeing my Arab mistress again, when one morning Mohammed, his face beaming with joy, came into my room and said:
“ ‘Allouma has returned, sir!’
“I jumped out of bed and asked him where she was.
“ ‘She does not dare to come in! Look, under the tree over there!’
“And with outstretched arm he pointed through the window to a whitish shadow at the foot of an olive-tree.
“I got up and went out. As I approached that bundle of cloth which seemed to have been thrown against the twisted trunk, I recognised the large dark eyes and the tattooed stars on the long well-formed face of the native girl who had bewitched me. As I advanced, I was seized by a fit of anger, a longing to strike her, to make her suffer in revenge. I called to her from a distance:
“ ‘Where have you been?’
“She did not reply, and remained motionless, as if she scarcely lived, resigned to the expected blows.
“I was now standing right above her, gazing with astonishment at the rags she wore, tatters of silk and wool, grey with dust, and torn and filthy.
“With my hand raised as if to a dog, I repeated:
“ ‘Where have you been?’
“ ‘From over there,’ she murmured.
“ ‘From where?’
“ ‘From the tribe.’
“ ‘From what tribe?’
“ ‘From my own.’
“ ‘Why did you go away?’
“Seeing that I was not going to strike her, she plucked up a little courage, and said in a low voice:
“ ‘I wanted … I wanted … I could not live in the house any longer.’
“I saw tears in her eyes, and I immediately felt a foolish sort of pity. I stooped towards her, and on turning round to sit down I perceived Mohammed watching in the distance.
“Very gently I continued:
“ ‘Come, will you tell me why you went away?’
“Then she told me that she had for a long time felt in her heart the nomad’s irresistible desire to get back to a tent, to sleep, run and roll on the sand, to wander from plain to plain with the herds, to feel nothing over her head, or between the yellow stars of heaven and the blue stars on her face, but the thin curtain of worn and patched cloth through which one can see, awakening in the night, the gleam of countless spots of light.
“She pictured this to me so simply, so forcibly and so reasonably that I was convinced of the truth of it, and feeling sorry for her, I asked:
“ ‘Why didn’t you
