I like to pass my afternoons in the shop of the perfumer in old
Tunis. I come by covered ways, where the sunlight sifts through
old rafters on stained walls and worn stones, and soon discern in
the softened darkness the low, small columns wound with alternate
stripes of red and green—bright clustered colors; down the winding
way of dimmed light in the narrow street opens on either side the
row of shallow shops, shadowy alcoves of bright merchandise; and
there in the heart of old Tunis, each in his niche, canopied by
his trade and seeming an emanation of the things he sells, sit the
perfumers. A throng passes by, now dense, now thin—passes forever,
in crowds, in groups, in solitude, rarely speaking; and over against
the silent movement sit the merchants—tranquil figures in perfumed
boxes—whose business seems one long repose. A languid scent loads
the dusky air.
Just opposite the venerable Mosque of the Olive, an isle of
sanctity still uncrossed by the heathen Frankish sea, right under
the shadow of its silence-guarded doors, stands and has stood
for centuries the shop where I love to lounge away hours that
have no attribute of time. My host—I may well call him so,
we are old acquaintances now—salutes me, his robe of fading
hues detaching the figure from the background as he rises; his
serene face lightens with a smile, his stately form softens with
a gesture, he speaks a word, and I sit down on the narrow bench at
the side, and light the cigarette he has proffered, while his only
son quickly commands coffee. How well I remember years ago when the
child’s soft Arab eyes first looked into mine! He is taller now,
beautifully garbed in an embroidered burnoose; and he sits by me,
and talks in low tones. What a relief it is, just to be here! What
an ablution! The very air is courtesy. There is no need to talk;
and we sit, we three, and smoke our cigarettes, and sip our coffee,
with now and then a word, and regard the street.
A motley street, like the bridge at Stamboul—a provincial form
of that unfathomable sea of human faces; and, here as there, an
unknown world in miniature, diverse, novel, brilliant—the African
world. The native predominates, with here and there a flash of
foreign blood, round-faced Sicilians, Spaniards whose faces seem
in arms, French in uniforms; but always the native—every strain
of the littoral and the highland, every tint of the desert sun:
black-bearded Moors of Morocco, vindictive visages; fat Jews of
Djerba laughing; negroes—boys of Fezzan or black giants of the
Soudan; Arabs of every skin, hints of Gothic and Vandal blood and
the old blond race long before all, resolute Kabyles, fair Chaouia,
Touaregs with white-wrapped faces, caravan men, Berber and Bedouin
of all the land; women, too, veiled or with children at the open
breast. That group of Tunisian dandies—how they stroll! olive
faces, inexpressive, with the jonquil stuck over the ear, swinging
little canes, clad in fine burnooses of pale blues or dying greens
or ashy rose! Those bare-legged Bedouins, lean shoulders looped
in earth-brown folds—how they walk! Every moment brings a new
challenge to the eye. What life histories! what unspeaking faces! how
closed a world! and my eyes rest on the shut gates of the ancient
Mosque of the Olive over against me; I feel the spell of the unknown
sealed in that faith, this life—the spell of a new life of the
spirit of man, the mystery of a new earth-life of his body.
One falls into revery and absent-mindedness here, as elsewhere one
falls asleep; but not for long. A lady, closely veiled, stands
in the shop with her shorter, low-browed attendant. I hear low
syllables softly murmured; I am aware of a drop of perfume rubbed
like dew on the back of her hand just below the small fingers,
not too slim; I watch the fall of the precious, twinkling liquid
in the faceted bottle; I mark the delicate handling of the small
balances. It is like a picture in a dream, so still, so vivid in the
semi-darkness of the booth. She is gone, and the fancy wanders after
her—whither? The boy’s _taleb_, his teacher of the mosque school,
passing, sits down for a moment—an alert figure, scrutinizing,
intelligent, energetic. There has been some school excitement,
some public commotion; master and boy both scan the last paper with
eagerness. I ask about the boy’s lessons; but with a kind look
at my young friend, and a half reply to me, he puts the question
aside, as if one should not say pleasant things in a boy’s hearing
too much. He is soon off on his affairs; and other friends of the
shop come and go, not too often, some hearty, some subtle, but all
cordial, merchants who would woo me away to other shops behind whose
seemingly narrow spaces lies the wealth of great houses—oh, not
to buy, but only to view silken stuffs, trifles of wrought silver,
things begemmed, inlaid sword and pictured leather, brass, mosaic,
horn, marvels of the strong and deft brown Arab hand in immemorial
industries; the wealth of a large world is nigh, when I please—it
is but a step here to Samarcand or Timbuctoo; but I say, lightly,
“Another day.”
I love better to sit here, flanked by the huge wax tapers, overhung
by the five-fingered groups of colored candles, amid the curiously
shaped glasses and mysterious boxes, the gold filagree, the facets,
the ivory eggs—and to breathe, only to breathe, diffused hidden
scents of the rose and the violet—jasmine, geranium—essences
of all flowers, all gardens, all odorous things, till life itself
might seem the perfumed essence of existence and the sensual world
only an outer dusk. Oh, the delightful narcotism! I was ever too
much the Occidental not to think even in my dream—I am conscious
of the feeling through all—“What am I, an alien, here?” But
it is sweet to be here, to have peace, and gentleness, and courtesy,
young trust and brave respect, and breeding; it is balm. The darkness
falls; the passer-by grows rare; it is closing time. There is a drop
for my hand now, for good-by. The boy companions me to the limit of
old Tunis. It is good night. It is a departure—as if some shore
were left behind. It is a nostalgia—a shadowy perception that
something more of life has escaped, of the irretrievable thing,
gone, like something flown from the hand. And as I come under the
Gate of France into the lights of the brilliant avenue, I find
again him I had eluded, whom I heard as the voice of one standing
without, saying: “What am I, an alien, here?”—I am again the
old European.