Part 17 (1/2)
”No,” said the lawyer, ”the woman he is speaking to.”
”Mirza?” exclaimed the commandant.
”Yes,” said the lawyer. ”The centre of affairs, since the world was sent spinning, has always been a woman. Who placed the primal curse of labor on the race? Was it the man, Adam, or the woman, Eve?”
”As I remember,” said the commandant, ”the serpent was the prime mover in that affair.”
”Yes,” said the lawyer; ”but being 'more subtile than any beast in the field,' he knew that if he caught the woman the man would follow of his own accord. Julius Caesar and Antony were dwarfed by Cleopatra. Helen of Troy set the world ablaze. Joan of Arc saved France. Catharine I saved Peter the Great. Catharine II made Russia. Marie Antoinette ruled Louis XVI and lost a crown and her head. Fat Anne of England and Sarah Jennings united England and Scotland. Eugenie and the milliners lost Alsace and Lorraine. Victoria made her country the mistress of the world. I have named many women who have played great parts in this drama which we call life. How many of them were good women? By 'good' I do not mean virtuous, but simply 'good.'”
”Out of your list,” said the commandant, ”I should name Joan of Arc and Victoria.”
”A woman,” repeated the lawyer, ”is the centre of every affair. When you go back to France, what are you looking forward to?”
”My wife's kiss,” said the commandant. ”And you, since you are a bachelor?”
”The scolding of my housekeeper,” said the lawyer, and he shrugged his shoulders.
The commandant laughed. ”But what of Mirza?” he asked. ”Why is she so powerful?”
”For the same reason that your wife and my housekeeper are powerful,”
said the lawyer; ”she is a woman.”
”A woman here,” said the commandant, ”is a slave.”
”A _good_ woman, I grant you,” said the lawyer, ”but a _bad_ woman, if she chance to be beautiful, is an empress. Do you know how many men it takes to officer a mosque of the first cla.s.s, such a one as we have here? Twelve,” and he dropped the cards and began to count his fingers.
”Two _mueddins_ the chaps that call to prayer; two _tolbas_ who read the litanies; two _hezzabin_, who read the Koran; a _mufti_ who interprets the law; a _khetib_ who recites the prayer for the chief of the government each Friday, and who is very unpopular; an _iman_ who reads the five daily prayers; a _chaouch_ who is a secretary to the last of the list, the _oukil_ who collects the funds and pays them out.
The _oukil_ is the man who governs the mosque. He is the man in the green turban whom you saw talking with Mirza. They are partners. He attends to the world, she to the flesh, and both to the devil. It is a strong partners.h.i.+p. It is what, in America, they call a 'trust.' The _oukil_ sends his clients to Mirza, and she sends hers to the _oukil_.
Look out of the window again. There are three thousand religionists who have pa.s.sed through the hands of the _oukil_ and Mirza, and she, making the most money, has the last word. Do you ask, now, why she is the most powerful person in Biskra?”
”It seems,” said the commandant, ”that it is because she is a woman, and is bad.”
”And beautiful,” added the lawyer.
”Do you think her beautiful?” asked the commandant.
The lawyer thought a moment. ”Did you ever see a hunting-leopard?” he asked.
”No,” said the commandant.
”I used to see them,” said the lawyer, ”when I was in Sumatra, looking after the affairs of some Frenchmen who were buying pearls from the oyster-beds of Arippo. They were horribly beautiful. Mirza reminds me of them, especially when she seizes her prey. Most beasts of prey are satisfied when they have killed all that they can devour; but the hunting-leopard kills because she loves to kill. So does Mirza. She destroys because she loves to destroy. A hunting-leopard and Mirza are the only two absolutely cruel creatures I have ever seen. Of course,”
he added, ”I eliminate the English, who deem the day misspent unless they have killed something, and who give infinite pains and tenderness to the raising of pheasants, that they may slaughter a record number of them at a _battue_. Aside from a hunting-leopard and a hunting- Englishman, I know of no being so cruel as Mirza; no being that takes such delight in mere extermination. They used to call our n.o.bility, in the time of Louis XIV and Louis XV, cruel, but they did not kill, they merely taxed. In the height of the ancient _regime_, it was not good form to kill a peasant, because then the country had one less taxpayer. The height of the art was to take all the peasant had and then to induce him to set to work again. When he had earned another surplus, his lord came and took it. France had an accomplished n.o.bility. England had a brutal one. The latter used to take all the eggs out of the nest and then kill the hen. The French n.o.ble took all the eggs but one or two, and spared the hen. He could rob a nest a dozen times and his English contemporary could rob it but once.”
”My friend,” said the commandant, laughing, ”you rea.s.sure me. When you begin comparing England with France, I know that you have nothing of importance at hand and that your mind is kicking up its heels in vacation. You have a charming mind, my friend, but it has been prost.i.tuted to the law. If you had been bred a soldier--”
He stopped, because the murmur of the square suddenly stopped. The cessation of a familiar clamor is more startling than a sudden cry. The two men ran to the window. The fires under the pots were still burning and the square was light as day. At the opposite side, where the caravan road debouched, three thousand white-robed Mussulmans stood, silent. Above them the commandant and the lawyer could see the heads of the six _spahis_, they and their horses silent. Beyond, were the heads of many camels. The commandant threw up the sash. Across the silent square came a woman's voice, speaking Arabic in the dialect of Ouled Nail.
”That is Mirza,” said the lawyer.
Then there came a man's voice, evidently in reply.