Sid-Abd-Alla was very polite to the Ambassador.
“I like you very much,” he said, without preamble, through the interpreter.
The Ambassador replied that he experienced the same sentiment toward him.
“I had scarcely seen you,” continued the Minister, “when my heart was all yours.”
The Ambassador returned the compliment.
“The heart,” concluded Sid-Abd-Alla, “cannot be resisted; and when it commands you to love a person, even without knowing the reason, you must obey.”
The Ambassador gave him his hand, which be pressed to his breast.
Eighteen dishes were served. I speak not of them. Enough to say that I hope that my partaking of them will some day be counted in my favor. By way of variety the water was flavored with musk, the table-cloth of many colors, and the chairs tottering on their legs. But these little calamities, instead of putting us into an ill humor, only excited our comic vein, so that seldom were we so full of mischievous frolic as on that occasion. If Sid-Abd-Alla could only have heard us! But Sid-Abd-Alla was entirely absorbed in the Ambassador. Signor Morteo alarmed us for an instant by whispering to us that the blue giant, who was from Tunis, might possibly understand a few words of Italian. But observing him attentively when certain jokes were made, and seeing him always impassible as a statue, we were reassured, and went on without minding him. How many apt and unexpected similes did we find, and with what clamorously comic effect, but unfortunately not to be repeated, for those ragoûts and sauces!
The breakfast over, we all went out into the court, where the Minister presented to the Ambassador one of the highest officers of the army. He was the commander-in-chief of the artillery: a little old man, dry, and bent like the letter C, with an enormous hooked nose and two round eyes; the face of a bird of prey; overwhelmed, rather than covered, by an immeasurable yellow turban of a spherical form, and dressed in a sort of Zouave dress, all blue, with a white mantle on his shoulders. He wore at his side a long sabre, and had a silver poniard in his belt. The Ambassador inquired to what rank in a European army his own corresponded. He seemed embarrassed by the question. He hesitated a moment, and then answered, stammering, “General”; then he thought again, and said, “No; colonel,” and was confused. He said he was a native of Algeria. I had a suspicion that he was a renegade. Who knows by what strange vicissitudes he has come to be colonel in Morocco?
The other officers, meantime, were breakfasting in a room opening on the court, all sitting in a circle on the floor, with the dishes in the midst. Seeing them eat, I understood how it was that the Moors could do without knives and forks. The neatness and dexterity, the precision with which they pulled chickens, mutton, game, and fish to pieces cannot be described. With a few rapid movements of the hands, without the least discomposure, each one took his exact portion. They seemed to have nails as sharp as razors. They dipped their fingers in the saucers, made balls of the cùscùssù, ate salad by the handful, and not a morsel or crumb fell from the dish; and when they rose, we saw that their caftans were immaculate. Every now and then a servant carried round a basin and a towel; they gave themselves a wash, and then all together plunged their paws into the next dish. No one spoke, no one raised his eyes, no one seemed to notice that we were looking on.