For several days she had been meeting, always at the same hour, a certain very ugly old woman, who looked at her in a curious way out of the corner of her eye, without turning her head.... At last yesterday evening, she had returned home in tears, assuring Jean that she felt that she had been bewitched.
And all night long she had been obliged to hold her head in water to counteract the immediate effects of the spell.
In the collection of amulets that she possessed, there were charms against all kinds of ills or accidents; against bad dreams and vegetable poisons; against dangerous falls and the venom of insects; against the wanderings of Jean’s affections and damage by white ants; against colic and alligators. But there were as yet no amulet against the evil eye and the spells that people cast upon you in the street.
Now amulets of this kind were known to be a specialty of Samba-Latir, and it was for this reason that Fatou had had recourse to him.
Samba-Latir had the very thing. He drew from an old mysterious coffer a small red sachet, attached to a leather cord; he hung it round Fatou-gaye’s neck, pronouncing sacramental words—and the evil spirit was exorcised.
It only cost two silver khâliss (ten francs). And the spahi, who did not know how to bargain, not even for an amulet, paid without a murmur. Nevertheless he felt the blood rising in his temples as he saw the two coins vanish, not that he cared about the money—for he had never learnt to appreciate the value of money—but just now two khâliss was a heavy tax upon his slender spahi’s purse. And above all, he said to himself with a remorseful pang, his old parents no doubt denied themselves many things which cost less than two khâliss, and were certainly more useful than Fatou’s amulets.
VII
Letter from Jeanne Méry to her cousin Jean.
My dear Jean,—It is almost three years now since your departure, and I am always expecting you to talk to me about your return; I myself have faith in you, you see, and I know that you would never deceive me. But that does not prevent the time from seeming very long. There are nights when I feel very unhappy, and all kinds of ideas come into my head. Besides this, my parents say that if you had really wanted to do so, you could have taken leave and paid us a visit. I am pretty sure, too, that there are people here in the village who stir them up, but it is true, all the same, that our cousin Pierre came home twice while he was doing his term of soldiering.
There are people who spread a report that I am going to marry that big gaby Suirot. What an idea! How odd it would be to marry that great booby who plays the gentleman. I let them talk, because I know that no one in the world can be the same to me as my dear Jean.