My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement
increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face
with that woman, to tell her.... So far as anything else was
concerned, I already was done for.
I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn
at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked
out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the
burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.
We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me
pass.
I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass
ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first
thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the
figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand
had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.
Only three o'clock!
The day seemed to have lasted a century already.... And only a little
more than half of it was gone.
Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.
"Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her."
A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into
it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in
the demand.
My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my
eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of
the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar--all this made me
appear a pitiable enough suitor.
I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the
center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that
perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood
dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and
colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity
of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.
I still had strength to think, "The devil take Atlantis and the vault
and Le Mesge."
Then I fell asleep in the bath.
When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost
reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the
edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his
forehead bound with an immense orange turban.
He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.
"Who is this fellow?"
The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a
feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not
dwell.
In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.
The Negro began to massage me vigorously.
"More gently there, fellow!"
My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.
"Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a
Targa."
Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.
"After all, I am making a fool of myself," I said, giving up the case.
"Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his
nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for
Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!"
"Cigarette, sidi?"
Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and
lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.
"He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging," I thought.
And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.
This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his
pleasure by giving me great slaps.
When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from
the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment.
Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.
A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old
Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative
as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the
interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then
my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.
Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro,
grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on
his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He
quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then,
without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.