Chapter 9 SOME OF OUR GUESTS

I shall be glad to leave for Metlaoui and the Djerid. Gafsa is losing its flavour; the novelty and pungency are gone. The same old faces, the same old bouts de conversation; quickly, indeed, does one live oneself into a place and learn, or think to learn, all its little secrets.

The hotel, too, has suddenly become an insufferable menagerie. Mysterious inspectors come and go, and commercial travellers of unappetizing looks and habits are far more frequent than formerly. But I shall regret the earth-convulsing laughter of the Greek doctor, who has latterly taken to putting in an appearance at meal-time. He is a gruff, jovial personage, and so huge in bulk that he can barely squeeze into the door of his little shop in the souk where he sits, surrounded by unguents and embrocations, to treat the natives for their multifarious distempers. He is quite straightforward about the business. "You come to this country to spend money," he tells me, "but I-to make it."

The profession is not all plain sailing, however, for the French authorities raise every kind of obstacle in his path; they tear his red advertisements down from the street walls and openly call him a quack. Were it not for the Greek Consul in Tunis, who happens to be an old friend of his, who knows how much longer they would allow him to practise in the land!

I sometimes go to watch his operations, which, so far as I can judge, are fairly remunerative, thanks to Achmet the interpreter, one of whose many duties it is to inform himself confidentially of the financial status of prospective patients. For the richest sheikh will don tattered clothes when he visits the surgery, and would doubtless be taken for some poor labourer were it not for Achmet, who sees through the disguise and gives a discreet sign to ?sculapius, whose services, of course, must be prepaid; it is money down before he will prescribe or give away a drop of medicine.

I was much interested in one of his methods as exemplified on the person of a native youth who was led in the other day. He was an Aissouiyah dancer, and had evidently overdone his part in the heat of enthusiasm; there were no less than forty-three sword-cuts across his middle. After receiving a handsome fee the doctor gave him some liniment which caused exquisite pain: the patient writhed in agony.

[Illustration: Natives of Gafsa]

"That's good medicine," I heard Achmet telling him, reassuringly; "that's strong. See how it hurts!"

For a while he bore up bravely, but the pain growing worse instead of better, the doctor was at last persuaded, out of compassion and in return for a second fee, to give him something with a more soothing effect.

But eye diseases are his speciality. His pièce de résistance is a Jewish tradesman whom he has lately supplied with an admirable glass eye-a thing almost unheard-of in these parts. This man and myself were sitting in the shop not long ago when a Moroccan happened to be passing who had known him in his one-eyed days; the stranger gave him a sharp look and then walked swiftly away, apparently suspecting himself to be the victim of some absurd hallucination as regards the new eye. But he returned anon, to make sure of his mistake, I suppose; while the Jew confronted him with a defiant glance of his two eyes. They stared at each other for some time in silence. At last the Moroccan enquired:

"Are you the man who sold me that piece of cloth three weeks ago?"

"I am he."

There was another long pause. Then:

"That new eye: how came you by it?"

The Jew, a dreadful scoffer, pointed heavenwards with one finger.

"A thing of God!" he said. "A miracle has been vouchsafed me."

But the man of Mequinez answered nothing. He gazed at him once more, and then, slowly bending down his head, folded his hands across his breast in prayer, and walked away....

Then there is the Polish Count, Count Ponomareff, who arrived four days ago. He is past middle age, with a drooping moustache and large red nose; a wistful and woebegone figure, but a brilliant conversationalist, when the mood is upon him. I have not taken very kindly to the man. Among other things, he disapproves of flint-collecting; he asks, rather scornfully, "whether one can sell such stones." And yet, for some obscure reason, he has singled me out among the men as the object of his favourable notice, affecting rather a distant manner towards the rest of us; the ladies, however, are charmed by his courtly graces. He wears profuse jewellery, to set off his title, no doubt. It is understood that he has held high Government posts, and is now only waiting for some letters before joining certain friends in a costly caravan expedition further south. Yet he seems poor-hopelessly poor. I surprised him, soon after his arrival, in a heated debate with the landlord on the subject of candles and café au lait. Then he enquired if the country was safe.

"Not if you go out with a machine comme ?a," touching the Count's gorgeous watch-chain.

He knows, at least, how to handle his knife and fork, which is more than can be said of all the inmates of this hostelry. A town-dweller, evidently; he tells me he detests wild life of every kind and has come here only to oblige his friends; he calls the Arabs "ignoble savages."

Such, however, is not the opinion of another guest, my friend Monsieur M--. One must be careful how one criticizes the habits of the natives in his presence; not that he would be angry, for he is too gentle to feel wrath; or become argumentative-he is too sure of his ground for that; but he might be wounded on his most sensitive spot, and he would certainly think you-well, misinformed.

The motley crew of Gafsa have become his favourites ever since his arrival in the country two weeks ago, and he has a theory that it is a mistake to endeavour to learn their language-it only leads you astray, it spoils the "direct impression."

He is a well-known French painter, whom some eye trouble has forced-only temporarily, let us hope-to abandon the brush. Despite his patriarchal beard, he is an impenitent romanticist of contagious youthfulness; the entire universe lies so harmoniously disposed and in such roseate tints before his mental vision, that no one save Madame M--, a wise lady of the formal-yet-opulent type, whom Maupassant would have classed as "encore désirable," is able to drag him to earth again, with a few words of wholesome cynicism.

Just for the fun of the thing, and to while away his hours of enforced idleness, he is collecting facts for a book to be entitled "Customs of the Arabs," as exemplified by the life of Gafsa. The idea came to him quite suddenly, after reading some descriptions which he considered sadly misleading. Customs of the Arabs! To tease him, I quote the authority of Bordereau, who says that there are practically no Arabs in Gafsa; that the customs of this town are one thing and those of the Arabs another, unless he applies the word Arab to all the Mohammedan races of these parts.

The objection is brushed aside; one word is as good as another, n'est-ce-pas?

I point out a genuine Arab who happens to be passing; he has come down from the hills and is leading a camel loaded with halfa; he is gaunt and ill-clad, but walks with a fine swagger, and is evidently a valuable young person, to judge by his tattooings.

"That? That's only a young savage from the mountains. How are you to find out anything about him? And I make a point, you know, of only recording what I see with my eyes. No theories for me! I mean to see everything and to set it down; to describe the Arabs as they are-as they really are, in all the circumstances of their daily lives. One must see everything."

As a painter, I urge, he must have discovered how useful it is to restrict the field of vision now and then; to be deliberately half blind.

"Painting, Monsieur, is one thing, and writing another. It is one of the few advantages of growing old that things begin to fall, so to speak, into their proper places. When I go to my studio, I go for distraction; art, it seems to me, is there to create moods, pleasurable or otherwise; a painter must seize impressions. But I go to my library for information; the business of a writer is to collect and arrange facts; a book, as I apprehend it, should be-a book. That is my quarrel with this Tunisian literature; many of the things that have been written about the country are not books at all; while others are full of mistakes. Look at these two volumes, for instance! Impressionistic realism, I suppose they would call it, scrawled down by an excitable female journalist who, I am sorry to say, has created quite a rage for European and American lady tourists among these Arabs, to the great discredit of our civilization. Read them, Monsieur, as a warning example, and perhaps you will give me your Bordereau instead; there may be something in it, after all."

I gladly make the exchange, and regard the transaction in the light of an omen, an epoch. I have been craving for something different from the facts of Bordereau, who has been my companion all these days. A solid little piece of work, by the way, which often set me wondering whether our British public would care to pay four shillings for a technical account of the climate, history and natural products of some remote Egyptian oasis. But perhaps the cost of production has been defrayed by some Government department.

These two volumes by Isabelle Eberhardt-where have I heard that name before?-look tempting. I promise myself some hours of pleasant reading.

"And then, for downright misstatement," he continued, "look at this. Here is a Monsieur Kocher, who passes for an authority, and who, describing the Arab marriage customs, talks of the 'brutalité du viol dans le marriage-un drame lugubre.' Now that comes of not examining things with one's own eyes. Since my arrival here I have already seen several Arab weddings and something of their married life, and I must say, candidly, that I find it full of romance. Say what you will, these Arabs are unconscious poets."

"And if you want still further information," I said, "ask the boy whom I saw blacking your boots this morning. He will describe to you the minutest details of his married life with surprising frankness. His father bought him a wife two weeks ago, under the condition, however, that his little brother is to be allowed to share in the joys of matrimony. That young savage from the mountains would blush, if Arabs ever could blush, to hear their revelations."

"Oh, oh, oh! You appal me! But I would like to make personal enquiries into the matter; that is, if I can make them understand me. It is my rule, you know."

"Do, Monsieur; question both the brothers, and write down their answers, the perusal of which will be a liberal education for our boys at home. Among other things, they say that whenever--But here is Madame coming!"

"Never mind her! She takes an interest in Arab institutions, as I do.... Only imagine, Amélie, our shoeblack is said to be actually married; and so is his little brother, and they have one and the same bride! Two husbands to one wife, or half a wife apiece-what do you think of that?"

"I think it's quite enough to begin with. Remember, mon cher, they are only children."