13 French Science-Fiction Stories by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

But destiny toys with men, and that same evening—out of idleness, and to try out my new black sorrel—I wandered down the Alley of the Old Jews. There I surprised a singular activity: a façade was being covered with mortar, the metalwork of the shutters was being polished; giant Negroes were carrying bundles of golden cloth, ebony furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl, jade and onyx vases, and those astonishing screens of cloisonné enamel which were beginning to reach us from the Orient. Others were spreading a deep-piled Mirzapur on the steps, still others were sponging the flagstones of the entry with aromatics, burning incense and benzoin there.

The installation of a prince, if such he was! I stayed there, surprised and charmed: in a few days and without commotion, these diligent servants had transformed the ruin into a fairy palace. But porters were springing up afresh, bent caryatids carrying chests in the sinister form of coffins, made of pale lemonwood enriched only by its grain. A fantastic thing: while they were setting them on the ground, a chorus of thin and discordant voices reached me, as if from a flock of hungry sparrows; I turned, thinking a crowd of children had followed me, but the Alley was deserted, the gabled houses dark, the doors closed.

Nevertheless, a yellow rose, with a peppery scent, fell on the neck of my sorrel.

After that, I had no rest because I had failed to enter that house of Barbary. Youth is so fashioned: if Al-Hazreh had been less secretive and jealous, never would I have found myself under his windows. And if the rose had been white and of a less piquant perfume . . . It is natural to invent one’s own chimeras: already I was imagining that beauty in the robes of a Empress of Cathay, with tilted eyes and a skin of yellow satin.

. . . In which I was mistaken.

The next morning, meeting Nardo accompanied by an enormous black who carried brushes and canvas, I fell into step. Nardo made me a present of his angelic smile. The morning was mild, the sky of an exquisite mauve; silvery carillons fell from the campaniles, and mist floated on the transparent river.

I was apprehensive of meeting the gallows bird Al-Hazreh, but he had the good grace to absent himself, and we went up, through all the enchantments of the thousand and one nights. One room succeeded another, each with its lintel of lapis-lazuli and its ivory door; on each doorsill slept a black; a fountain pulsed in each lotus-shaped basin.

One immense room, which had been part of the warehouses, was now transformed with exquisite taste into a studio: daylight entering by a window of colored crystal was softened by turquoise veils; it gave things an aspect aquatic and strange. An ebony screen, pierced in the form of lilies and swans, marked off the space of a choir. There was little furniture, save for some armchairs and small tables garlanded with mother-of-pearl, now mauve, now pink, according to the light.

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