Handsome Muller, a tall Alsatian, who set the tone in the spahis’ barracks by virtue of a past full of duels and adventure—handsome Muller thought a great deal of him, and every one was always of the same opinion as Fritz Muller. But Jean’s real friend was Nyaor-fall, the black spahi, a gigantic African, of the magnificent Fouta-Diallonké tribe, a strange, imperturbable figure, with a delicate Arab profile, and a mysterious smile always hovering on his thin lips—a splendid statue in black marble. This man was Jean’s friend; he used to take Jean home to his native dwelling in Guet n’dar; he would make him sit beside his wives on a white mat, and offer him negro hospitality: _kouss-kouss_ and _gourous_. VII In the evenings at St Louis, social life followed the usual monotonous routine of small colonial towns. The fine weather brought a little animation to these dead-alive streets. After sunset, a few women who had escaped fever displayed their European frocks on the Place du Gouvernement, or in the avenue of yellow plains of Guet n’dar. This introduced a suggestion of Europe into that country of exile. On that large Place du Gouvernement, surrounded by symmetrical, white buildings, one might have imagined oneself in some town of southern Europe had it not been for that immense stretch of sand, that interminable plain, which flung afar its uncompromising line. These few persons who came to take the air were all acquaintances, and passed the time in staring at one another. Jean would look at these people, and they also would look at Jean. The handsome spahi, who walked alone with such a grave seriousness, roused the curiosity of St Louis society, who imagined that his life contained some romantic episode. There was one woman, in especial, who looked at Jean, a woman better dressed and prettier than the rest. She was said to be a mulatto, but so white, so very white, that she might have been taken for a Parisienne. White and pale she was, of a Spanish pallor, with fair chestnut hair—the fairness of mulattos—with large, half-closed, dark-shadowed eyes, which she turned slowly with creole languor. She was the wife of a rich farmer of revenue on the river. But at St Louis she was referred to by her Christian name, like a coloured woman. Cora they called her, in contempt. She had just returned from Paris, as the other women could see from her gowns. Jean, however, was not yet sufficiently experienced to be able to define the difference. But he was well aware that her trailing gowns, even when they were simple, had something distinctive about them, a gracefulness, in which the other women’s gowns were lacking. The point that he principally noticed was that she was very beautiful, and as she always flung her glances around him, he felt a sort of tremor when he met her. “She’s in love with you, Peyral,” handsome Muller had declared, with the knowing air of a man who has had his successes in the pursuit of love affairs. VIII