...
There is some movement, at least, in this market; often the familiar
story-tellers, surrounded by a circle of charmed listeners; sometimes,
again, a group of Soudanese from Khordofan or Bournu, who parade a black
he-goat, bedizened with gaudy rags because devoted to death; they will
slay him in due course at some shrine; but not just now, because there is
still money to be made out of his ludicrous appearance, with an incidental
dance or song on their own part. Vaguely perturbing, these negro melodies
and thrummings; their reiteration of monotony awakens tremulous echoes on
the human diaphragm and stirs up hazy, primeval mischiefs.
And this morning there arrived a blind singer, or bard; he was led by two
boys, who accompanied his extemporaneous verses--one of them tapping with
a pebble on an empty sardine-tin, while the other belaboured a beer-bottle
with a rusty nail: both solemn as archangels; there was also a
professional accompanist, who screwed his mouth awry and blew sideways
into a tall flute, his eyes half-closed in ecstatic rapture. Arab gravity
never looks better than during inanely grotesque performances of this
kind; in such moments one cannot help loving them, for these are the
little episodes that make life endurable.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40