Then there is the Polish Count, Count Ponomareff, who arrived four days ago. He is past middle age, with a drooping moustache and large red nose; a wistful and woebegone figure, but a brilliant conversationalist, when the mood is upon him. I have not taken very kindly to the man. Among other things, he disapproves of flint-collecting; he asks, rather scornfully, "whether one can sell such stones." And yet, for some obscure reason, he has singled me out among the men as the object of his favourable notice, affecting rather a distant manner towards the rest of us; the ladies, however, are charmed by his courtly graces. He wears profuse jewellery, to set off his title, no doubt. It is understood that he has held high Government posts, and is now only waiting for some letters before joining certain friends in a costly caravan expedition further south. Yet he seems poor—hopelessly poor. I surprised him, soon after his arrival, in a heated debate with the landlord on the subject of candles and café au lait. Then he enquired if the country was safe.
"Not if you go out with a machine comme ça," touching the Count's gorgeous watch-chain.
He knows, at least, how to handle his knife and fork, which is more than can be said of all the inmates of this hostelry. A town-dweller, evidently; he tells me he detests wild life of every kind and has come here only to oblige his friends; he calls the Arabs "ignoble savages."
Such, however, is not the opinion of another guest, my friend Monsieur M——. One must be careful how one criticizes the habits of the natives in his presence; not that he would be angry, for he is too gentle to feel wrath; or become argumentative—he is too sure of his ground for that; but he might be wounded on his most sensitive spot, and he would certainly think you—well, misinformed.
The motley crew of Gafsa have become his favourites ever since his arrival in the country two weeks ago, and he has a theory that it is a mistake to endeavour to learn their language—it only leads you astray, it spoils the "direct impression."
He is a well-known French painter, whom some eye trouble has forced—only temporarily, let us hope—to abandon the brush. Despite his patriarchal beard, he is an impenitent romanticist of contagious youthfulness; the entire universe lies so harmoniously disposed and in such roseate tints before his mental vision, that no one save Madame M——, a wise lady of the formal-yet-opulent type, whom Maupassant would have classed as "encore désirable," is able to drag him to earth again, with a few words of wholesome cynicism.
Just for the fun of the thing, and to while away his hours of enforced idleness, he is collecting facts for a book to be entitled "Customs of the Arabs," as exemplified by the life of Gafsa. The idea came to him quite suddenly, after reading some descriptions which he considered sadly misleading. Customs of the Arabs! To tease him, I quote the authority of Bordereau, who says that there are practically no Arabs in Gafsa; that the customs of this town are one thing and those of the Arabs another, unless he applies the word Arab to all the Mohammedan races of these parts.
The objection is brushed aside; one word is as good as another, n'est-ce-pas?
I point out a genuine Arab who happens to be passing; he has come down from the hills and is leading a camel loaded with halfa; he is gaunt and ill-clad, but walks with a fine swagger, and is evidently a valuable young person, to judge by his tattooings.
"That? That's only a young savage from the mountains. How are you to find out anything about him? And I make a point, you know, of only recording what I see with my eyes. No theories for me! I mean to see everything and to set it down; to describe the Arabs as they are—as they really are, in all the circumstances of their daily lives. One must see everything."