Mingled with his delirious infatuation, Jean still felt a sort of secret horror, as he saw, contrasting with the background of dusky twilight, the intenser blackness of his bride; as he saw, close to his own, the glitter of Fatou’s rolling eyes.
Great bats flitted noiselessly above them, their silken-winged flight seemed like the rapid fluttering of black cloth. They flew so low that they brushed them with their wings, their bat-like curiosity greatly excited by Fatou’s garment of white cotton, which showed up on the parched grass.
Anamalis fobil! ... Faramata hi! ...
PART II
I
... Three years had passed....
Three times the terrible spring and the cold weather season had come again; three times the “season of thirst,” with its cold nights, its wind from the desert....
... Jean was lying asleep on his tara in his whitewashed lodging in Samba-Hamet’s house. Near him lay his yellow dog, motionless, with open eyes, his paws straight out in front of him, his head on his paws, his tongue hanging out thirstily; he resembled in attitude and expression those hieratic pictures of jackals in Egyptian temples.