Intricate designs stir in the graveyard chaos. Between the head stones and the foot stones the thin earth is raised so that the body may lightly rise to Heaven. (Jackals and dogs, as well as souls, find the shallow graves to their taste.) And now, to meet this subtle stir of dust, comes music. Common notes, sordid notes, between the sand and the sky. Drone of men in prayer, sudden motley of boys who sit in a black room and shout the Koran, girl laughter, donkey bray, banter--a music secret as this world. It comes with the night, swift, like any revelation. It fuses with the graveyard stones, with the world. The labyrinth of walls, enclosing gardens down to the Oued, is one with it. Fig tree, palm, volute Barbary cactus, winding path to the river, muddy river stretch, litter of refuse, excrement, manure, fuse with the music and the graveyard stones, rhyme in the oneness of Allah. A late worker jogs past on a burro. A Caïd--Judge--swings with his basket-saddle on a mule. Another worker sticks his rod into the open sore on his burro’s haunch. On one side of the glimmering Oued is the town--a wall with many breaks, cobbles on mud, that lead into alleys and that grow into streets. The walls, within, flank out into a square from which turn several streets. The houses here are open to the night, and on the doorsteps before brasiers red with coal, sit women. Allah is one. They wear gay shawls, striped skirts. They wear massive barbarous bracelets, anklets, necklaces. Their faces, in the gloom, are heavy with designs: brow, cheek, chin painted with henna or with kohl. From eye to temple run delicate starry lines. And the hands are henna-splashed. When man approaches they sing the song of invitation. Behind them crouching on their brasiers, freshening their faces, gleams a room with a samovar and a couch. Now, the classic song of lust from their still lips. The crystal and the song of Islam! One note for all prayer, one note for all begging, one note for lust. Allah is one. The whole town has caught the day’s fair fever. A man sits with a metal pipe whose saccade cadence flies ... splinters of steel ... into the night. And women dance. They move in strange reply to the music. For it is violent, swift and lean; it is the clang and charge of martial hoofs. But the women are slow, almost imperceptible their feet; almost moveless their thick bodies. The arms wave languid like branches of the willow. The whole town in the dead day’s fever. Dance and laughter and flame blossom in the shadows of the street. A ballad singer sits among the girls: he sings of the chieftain whose head was left upon the field and how the Prophet came and joined it to his body, for the Resurrection. But girls dance in a rising tide of Spring. His hands upon the drum make running of swift steeds, his voice is a javelin: the girls move like their breathing breasts.