Letters From My Windmill Alphonse Daudet (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📖

amongst a bunch of bohemians, crowded intothe archways of a Moorish courtyard. It adjoins the Milianah mosque,and is a regular refuge for the Muslim destitute. They call it theCourtyard of the Poor.

Large, emaciated, lousy, and threatening, greyhounds range around me.Backed up against the gallery pillars, I try to keep control of myselfand don't talk to anyone, as I try to look unconcernedly at the rainbouncing off the flagstones. The bohemians are lying about carelessly.Close by me is a young woman, almost beautiful, with her breasts andlegs uncovered, and thick iron bracelets on her wrists and ankles. Sheis singing a strange tune consisting of three melancholic, nasal notes,while she is breast feeding a naked, reddish-bronze child, and fills amortar with barley with her free arm. The wind-blown rain sometimessoaks the arms of the nursing woman and the body of the child. Thebohemian girl completely ignores this and keeps singing during thegusts, while still piling up the barley and giving suck.

The storm abates and gives me a chance to leave the courtyard ofMiracles and make my way towards dinner at Sid'Omar's, now imminent….As I cross the main square, I run into my Jew of recent memory again.He is leaning on his consultant; his witnesses are following happilybehind him, and a bunch of naughty, little Jewish boys skip aroundhim…. They are all beaming. The consultant is taking charge of theaffair; he will ask for two thousand francs compensation from thetribunal.

* * * * *

Dinner at Sid'Omar's is sumptuous. The dining room opens onto a Moorishcourtyard, where two or three fountains are playing…. It's anexcellent Turkish meal, whose highlights are poulet aux amandes,couscous à la vanille, and tortue à la viande—a bit heavy, but agourmet meal nevertheless—and biscuits made with honey calledbouchées du kadi…. For wine—nothing but champagne. Sid'Omarmanaged to drink some despite Muslim law—while the servers werelooking away…. After dinner we go into our host's room where we areserved with sweetmeats, pipes, and coffee…. The furnishings of thisroom are sparse: a divan, several mats, and a large high bed at theback scattered with gold embroidered red cushions…. A Turkishpainting of the exploits of a certain Hamadi hangs upon the wall.Turkish painters only seem to use one colour per canvas. This canvas isdecidedly green. The sea, the sky, the ships, even the admiral himself,everything is green, and deep green at that!… Arabs usually retireearly, so, once I have finished my coffee and smoked my pipe, I bidgoodnight to my host and leave him to his wives.

* * * * *

Now, where to round off my evening? Well, it's too early for bed, thespahi soldiers haven't sounded the retreat on their bugles, yet.Moreover, Sid'Omar's gold cushions were dancing fabulous farandolesround me and making sleep impossible…. I'm outside the theatre, let'sgo in for a moment.

The Milianah theatre is an old fur store, refurbished as far aspossible to make a stage and auditorium. The lighting is made up oflarge oil lamps which are refilled during the interval. The audiencestands; only the orchestra sits, but on benches. The galleries arequite swish with cane chairs…. All around the room there is a long,dark corridor with no wooden flooring…. You might as well be in thestreet, it has absolutely nothing in it. The play has already startedwhen I arrive. The actors aren't at all bad, the men at least; they gettheir training from life…. They are mainly amateurs, soldiers of thethird division, and the regiment is proud of them and supports themevery night.

As for the women, well!… It always is and always will be the same insmall provincial theatres, the women are always pretentious,artificial, and overact outrageously…. And yet, among the women thereare two very young Jewesses, beginners at the drama, who catch myeye…. Their parents are in the audience and seem enchanted. They areconvinced that their daughters are going to earn a fortune on thestage. The legendary Rachel, Israeli millionaire, and actress, has anorient-wide reputation with the Jews.

Nothing could be more comical and pathetic than these two littleJewesses on the boards…. They stand timidly in a corner of the scene,powdered, made-up, and as stiff as a board in low cut dresses. They arecold and they are embarrassed. Occasionally, they gabble a phrasewithout understanding its meaning, and as they speak, gaze vacantlyinto the auditorium.

* * * * *

I leave the theatre…. I hear shouting in the surrounding blacknessfrom somewhere in the square…. Some Maltese settling a point, nodoubt, at the point of a knife….I return slowly along the ramparts tothe hotel. A gorgeous scent of oranges and thujas wafts up from theplain. The air is mild and the sky almost clear…. At the end of theroad, yonder, an old, walled phantom reaches upwards—the debris ofsome old temple. This wall is sacred. Every day, Arab women come tohang ex-voto gifts, bits of haiks and foutas, long tresses of red hairtied with silver wire, and bits of burnous…. All this dances about inthe warm breeze, lit by a narrow ray of moonlight….

THE LOCUSTS

Just one more souvenir of Algeria and then—back to the windmill!…

I couldn't sleep the night I arrived at the farm of the Sahel. Maybe itwas the new country, the stress of the voyage, the barking jackals, ontop of the irritating, oppressive, and completely asphyxiating heat. Itfelt as though the mosquito nets were keeping the air out with theinsects…. As I opened my window at first light, I saw a heavy summermist, slow-moving, fringed with black and pink, and floating in the airlike smoke over a battle field. Not a leaf moved in the lovely gardensstretched out before me, where, the well-spaced vines, that gave suchsweet wine, were enjoying full sunshine on the slopes. There were alsoEuropean fruit trees sheltered in a shady spot, and small orange andmandarin trees in long, closely packed lines. Everything had the samegloomy look about it, with that certain limpness of leaf waiting forthe storm. Even the banana trees, those great, pale-green reeds,usually on the move as some light breeze tangles their fine, lightfoliage, stood straight and silent in their symmetrical plumage.

I