intellectual, no intoxication of thought or feeling is mingled with that
sensual intoxication which those charming nonentities excite in us.
Nevertheless, they captivate us like the others do, but in a different
fashion, which is less tenacious, and, at the same time, less cruel and
painful.

"I cannot even now explain precisely what I felt for her. I said to you
just now that this country, this bare Africa, without any arts, void of
all intellectual pleasures, gradually captivates us by its climate, by
the continual mildness of the dawn and sunset, by its delightful light,
and by the feeling of well-being with which it fills all our organs.
Well, then! Allouma captivated me in the same manner, by a thousand
hidden, physical, alluring charms, and by the procreative seductiveness,
not of her embraces, for she was of thoroughly oriental supineness in
that respect, but of her sweet self-surrender.

"I left her absolutely free to come and go as she liked, and she
certainly spent one afternoon out of two with the wives of my native
agricultural laborers. Often also, she would remain for nearly a whole
day admiring herself in front of a mahogany wardrobe with a large
looking-glass in the doors that I had got from Miliana.

"She admired herself conscientiously, standing before the glass doors, in
which she followed her own movements with profound and serious attention.
She walked with her head somewhat thrown back, in order to be able to see
whether her hips and loins swayed properly; went away, came back again,
and then, tired with her own movements, she sat down on a cushion and
remained opposite to her own reflection, with her eyes fixed on her face
in the glass, and her whole soul absorbed in that picture.

"Soon, I began to notice that she went out nearly every morning after
breakfast, and that she disappeared altogether until evening, and as I
felt rather anxious about this, I asked Mohammed whether he knew what
she could be doing during all these long hours of absence, but he replied
very calmly:

"'Do not be uneasy. It will be the Feast of Ramadan soon, and so she goes
to say her prayers.'

"He also seemed delighted at having Allouma in the house, but I never
once saw anything suspicious between them, and so I accepted the
situation as it was, and let time, accident, and life act for themselves.

"Often, after I had inspected my farm, my vineyards, and my clearings, I
used to take long walks. You know the magn