The Sahara. Pierre Loti
had induced him to choose the corps of spahis.
His childhood had been passed in the Cevennes, in an obscure village in the heart of the woods.
In the strong, pure mountain air he had shot up like a young oak tree.
The first impressions graven on his childish mind were wholesome and simple, the well-beloved forms of his father and mother, his home, a little old-fashioned house shaded by chestnut trees. These things were all imprinted ineffaceably upon his memory, and had their own sacred place deep down in his heart. And then there were the great woods, his wanderings at random along paths deep in moss—and there was freedom.
In the first years of his life he knew nothing of the rest of the world beyond the bounds of the obscure village where he was born. He was aware of no other neighbourhood, but the wild, open country where the shepherds dwelt, the mountain sorcerers.
In these woods, where he was wont to roam all day long, he nursed the dreams of a solitary child, the musings of a shepherd boy—and then suddenly he would be seized with a wild desire to run, to climb, to break branches from the trees, to catch birds.
One distasteful memory was that of the village school, a gloomy place, where one had to stay quietly cooped up within four walls. His parents gave up sending him there; he was always playing truant.
On Sunday he was given his fine mountaineer’s dress to wear, and he went to church with his mother, hand in hand with little Jeanne, whom they picked up as they passed Uncle Méry’s house. After service, he used to play bowls on the common under the oak trees.
He was conscious that he was better looking and stronger than the other children, and at play he was always the one to be obeyed, and he was accustomed to meet with this submission wherever he went.
When he grew older his independence of spirit and his insatiable restlessness became more marked. He would go his own way. He was forever in mischief, untethering horses and galloping far away on them, forever poaching with an old gun that would not go off, and frequently getting into trouble with the rural constable, to the great despair of his Uncle Méry, who had hoped to have him taught a trade, and to make of him a steady man.
It was true. He had really been “a bit of a scapegrace in his time,” and it was still remembered against him at home.
Nevertheless he was a general favourite even with those who had suffered most at his hands, because he had a frank and open disposition. No one could be seriously angry with him who saw his good-natured smile. Besides, if he were spoken to gently and taken the right way, he could be led like a docile child. Uncle Méry, with his lectures and threats, had no influence over him. But when his mother reproved him, and he knew that he had grieved her, his heart was very heavy, and this big boy, who had already the air of a man, could be seen hanging his head, almost in tears.
He was undisciplined, but not dissolute. This big, strong, growing youth was of a proud, and somewhat uncouth, demeanour. In his village young men were safe from evil communications from the precocious depravity of sickly, town-bred creatures, so much so, that when he reached his twentieth year and had to begin his term of military service, Jean was as pure as a child, and almost as ignorant of the facts of life.
II
But then came a period full of all kinds of surprises for him.
He had followed his new comrades to places of debauch, where he had made the acquaintance of “love” in the most sordid and revolting conditions that a great town affords. His youthful understanding was confused, what between surprise and disgust, and also the devouring fascination of this new thing just revealed to him.
And then, after some days of riotous life, a ship had carried him far, far away over the calm, blue sea, and had landed him on the banks of the Senegal, a bewildered exile.
III
One day in November—the season when the great baobabs shed their last leaves on the sand—Jean Peyral had cast his first glance of curiosity on this corner of the earth, where the hazard of destiny had condemned him to pass five years of his life.
The strangeness of this land had in the first instance appealed strongly to his imagination and inexperience. Besides that, he had appreciated very keenly the joy of having a horse, of curling his rapidly growing moustache, of wearing an Arab fez, a red jacket, and a big sabre. He considered the ensemble very fine, and this gave him great pleasure.
IV
It was November—the fine weather season corresponding to our French winter; the heat was less violent, and the dry wind of the desert had taken the place of the great storms of the summer.
When the fine weather begins in Senegal, one may safely camp out in the open without a roof to one’s tent. For six months not a drop of water will fall on the land; every day without respite, without remorse, it will be scorched by the consuming sun.
It is the season in which the lizards delight—but the water fails in the cisterns; the marshes dry up; the grass dies; even the cactuses, the thorny nopals, no longer open their melancholy yellow flowers. Yet the evenings are chill. At sunset a strong sea-breeze invariably springs up, rousing the breakers off the African coast to their everlasting moaning, pitilessly shaking the last autumn leaves.
It is a dreary autumn, bringing with it neither the long evenings of France, nor the charm of the first frosts, nor harvest, nor golden fruit. Never a fruit in this land disinherited of God! Even the dates of the desert are denied to it, nothing ripens there, except the ground nut and the bitter pistachio.
The sensation of winter, experienced in the midst of heat which is still extreme, has a curious effect upon the spirit.
Here and there upon the vast, hot plains, forlorn and desolate, covered with dead grass, side by side with slender palms, tower huge baobabs, mastodons, as it were, of the vegetable kingdom; their bare boughs are inhabited by families of vultures, lizards, and bats.
V
Poor Jean had soon fallen a victim to boredom. He suffered from a kind of vague, indefinable melancholy, such as he had never felt before, the beginning of home-sickness for his mountains, his village, for the cottage of the aged parents, so dear to him.
The spahis, his new companions, had already worn their big sabres in various Indian and Algerian garrisons. In the taverns of maritime towns, where they had spent their youth, they had caught the mocking and licentious turn of mind, peculiar to those who lead a roving life. They were masters of ready-made, cynical jests, in slang, in Sabir, and in Arabic, and with these jests they met every contingency. Good fellows at heart, gay companions as they were, they had none the less certain habits which Jean failed to understand, and certain pleasures that excited in him extreme repugnance.
Jean was a dreamer, like all mountaineers. Reverie is a thing unknown to the stupefied and corrupt faculties of the populace of great cities. But among those who have been brought up on the land, among sailors, among fishermen’s sons who have grown up in their father’s boat, amid the perils of the deep, there are men who really dream, true, but inarticulate poets, with a poet’s insight into all things. Only, they have not the faculty of putting their impression into form, and remain incapable of interpreting them.
Jean had