_Chapter VII_
_AT THE CAFE_
Whether it be due to the incessant cold and dry winds, that parch the more
genial humours, or to some other cause, there is certainly a tone of
exacerbation, at this moment, among the European residents at Gafsa. I
noticed it very clearly yesterday evening in the little French cafe--a
soul-withering resort, furnished with a few cast-iron tables and
uncomfortable chairs that repose on a flooring of chill cement
tiles--where, in sheer desperation, two or three of us, muffled up to our
ears, congregate before dinner to exchange gossip and imbibe the
pre-prandial absinthe.
I announced my intention of leaving shortly for Tozeur.
"So you have not yet taken your fill of dirt and discomfort in Tunisia,
Monsieur?" asked one of the clients. He is a wizened old nondescript with
satyr-like beard, a kind of Thersites, who is understood to have
established, from the days of Abdelkader and "for certain reasons," his
headquarters at Gafsa, where he sips absinthes past all computation,
exercising his wit upon everybody and everything with a fluent and rather
diverting pessimism.
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