"As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
voice a couplet from the music of La Reine Hortense.
De ma fille Isabelle
Sois l'époux à l'instant,
Car elle est la plus belle
Et toi, le plus vaillant.
"As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
printer of labels for the red marble hall,--how could I meet him
without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
curious case of apocope: [Greek: Atlantinea]. Suppression of alpha,
of tau and of lambda! I would like to direct your attention to
another case as curious: [Greek: klêmêntinea], Clémentine. Apocope of
kappa, of lamba, of epsilon and of mu. If Morhange were with
us, he would tell you many charming erudite things about it. But,
alas! Morhange does not deign to come among us any more. We never see
Morhange.' "My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
so often as during those days of waiting! Now--after six years--she
must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
politeness.
"Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
by the merchants of Rhât, she was born in Constantinople and had been
brought into Africa by her master when he became kaïmakam of
Rhadamès.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
history by the incantations of this manicure.
"'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guemâma, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
and noble tribe of Kel-Rhelâ. She was born in the year twelve hundred
and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
prefers to have them come to her.' "'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
devoted to her?' "'Nobody here knows Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
Antinea. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, he owes his life to her. He is
one of the men who assassinated the great Kébir Flatters.