After ten minutes' reflection, he resolved to put off the introductory
slip till to-morrow, and to set to work at once to describe Algiers.

And he traced on his paper the words: "Algiers is a white city," without
being able to state anything further. He recalled in his mind the pretty
white city flowing down in a cascade of flat-roofed dwellings from the
summit of its hills to the sea, but he could no longer find a word to
express what he had seen and felt.

After a violent effort, he added: "It is partly inhabited by Arabs."

Then he threw down his pen and rose from his chair.

On his little iron bedstead, hollowed in the center by the pressure of
his body, he saw his everyday garments cast down there, empty, worn,
limp, ugly as the clothing at the morgue. On a straw-bottomed chair his
tall hat, his only one, brim uppermost, seemed to be awaiting an alms.

The wall paper, gray with blue bouquets, showed as many stains as
flowers, old suspicious-looking stains, the origin of which could not be
defined; crushed insects or drops of oil; finger tips smeared with
pomatum or soapy water scattered while washing. It smacked of shabby,
genteel poverty, the poverty of a Paris lodging-house. Anger rose within
him at the wretchedness of his mode of living. He said to himself that
he must get out of it at once; that he must finish with this irksome
existence the very next day.

A frantic desire of working having suddenly seized on him again, he sat
down once more at the table, and began anew to seek for phrases to
describe the strange and charming physiognomy of Algiers, that ante-room

of vast and mysterious Africa; the Africa of wandering Arabs and unknown
tribes of negroes; that unexplored Africa of which we are sometimes
shown in public gardens the improbable-looking animals seemingly made to
figure in fairy tales; the ostriches, those exaggerated fowls; the
gazelles, those divine goats; the surprising and grotesque giraffes; the
grave-looking camels, the monstrous hippopotomi, the shapeless
rhinosceri, and the gorillas, those frightful-looking brothers of
mankind.

He vaguely felt ideas occurring to him; he might perhaps have uttered
them, but he could not put them into writing. And his impotence
exasperated him, he got up again, his hands damp with perspiration, and
his temples throbbing.

His eyes falling on his washing bill, brought up that evening by the
concierge, he was suddenly seized with wild despair. Al