was a vague pilgrimage, as many pilgrimages are in this world--the
journey of the searcher who knew not what she sought. And so now she lay
in the dark, and heard the rustle of the warm African rain, and smelt
the perfumes rising from the ground, and felt that the unknown was very
near her--the unknown with all its blessed possibilities of change.

CHAPTER II

Long before dawn the Italian waiter rolled off his little bed, put a cap
on his head, and knocked at Domini's and at Suzanne Charpot's doors.

It was still dark, and still raining, when the two women came out to get
into the carriage that was to take them to the station. The place de la
Marine was a sea of mud, brown and sticky as nougat. Wet palms dripped
by the railing near a desolate kiosk painted green and blue. The sky was
grey and low. Curtains of tarpaulin were let down on each side of the
carriage, and the coachman, who looked like a Maltese, and wore a round
cap edged with pale yellow fur, was muffled up to the ears. Suzanne's
round, white face was puffy with fatigue, and her dark eyes, generally
good-natured and hopeful, were dreary, and squinted slightly, as she
tipped the Italian waiter, and handed her mistress's dressing-bag and
rug into the carriage. The waiter stood an the discoloured step, yawning
from ear to ear. Even the tip could not excite him. Before the carriage
started he had gone into the hotel and banged the door. The horses
trotted quickly through the mud, descending the hill. One of the
tarpaulin curtains had been left unbuttoned by the coachman. It flapped
to and fro, and when its movement was outward Domini could catch
short glimpses of mud, of glistening palm-leaves with yellow stems, of
gas-lamps, and of something that was like an extended grey nothingness.
This was the sea. Twice she saw Arabs trudging along, holding their
skirts up in a bunch sideways, and showing legs bare beyond the knees.
Hoods hid their faces. They appeared to be agitated by the weather,
and to be continually trying to plant their naked feet in dry places.
Suzanne, who sat opposite to Domini, had her eyes shut. If she had not
from time to time passed her tongue quickly over her full, pale lips she
would have looked like a dead thing. The coquettish angle at which her
little black hat was set on her head seemed absurdly inappropriate
to the occasion and her mood. It suggested a hat being worn at some
festival. Her black, gloved hands were tightly twisted to