A DISTANT EPISODE
47
owner was furious, and so annoyed by the laughter of the others that
he felt obliged to send them away, saying that he would await a
more propitious time for exhibiting
his
property, because he dared
not show his anger before the elder. However, when they had left
he dealt the Professor a violent blow on the shoulder with his cane,
called him various obscene things, and went out into the street, slam–
ming the gate behind him. He walked straight to the street of the
Ouled Nail, because he was sure of finding the Chaamba there among
the girls, spending the money. And there in a tent he found one of
them still abed, while an Ouled Nall washed the tea glasses. He
walked in and almost decapitated the man before the latter had even
attempted to sit up. Then he threw his razor on the bed and ran out.
The Ouled Nail saw the blood, screamed, ran out of her tent
into the next, and soon emerged from that with four
girls
who rushed
together into the coffee house and told the caouadji who had killed
the Chaamba. It was only a matter of an hour before the French
military police had caught him at a friend's house, and dragged him
off to the barracks. That night the Professor had nothing to eat, and
the next afternoon,
in
the slow sharpening of his consciousness caused
by increasing hunger, he walked aimlessly about the courtyard and
the rooms that gave onto it. There was no one. In one room a calendar
hung on the wall. The Professor watched nervously, like a dog watch–
ing a fly
in
front of its nose. On the white paper were black objects
that made sounds in his head. He heard them:
"Grande Epicerie du
Sahel. ]uin. Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi.
... "
The tiny inkmarks of which a symphony consists may have been
· made long ago, but when they are fulfilled in sound they become
imminent and mighty. So a kind of music of feeling began to play
in the Professor's head, increasing in volume as he looked at the
mud wall, and he had the feeling that he was performing what had
been written for him long ago. He felt like weeping; he felt like
roaring through the little house, upsetting and smashing the few break–
able objects. His motion got no further than this one overwhelming
desire. So, bellowing as loud as he could, he attacked the house and
its belongings. Then he attacked the door into the street, which re–
sisted for a while and finally broke. He climbed through the opening
made by the boards he had ripped apart, and still bellowing and
shaking his arms in the air to make as loud a jangling as possible, he
began to gallop along the quiet street toward the gateway of the
town. A few people looked at him with great curiosity.
As
he passed
