IV
IN OLD RABAT
Before General Lyautey came to Morocco Rabat had been subjected to the
indignity of European "improvements," and one must traverse boulevards
scored with tram-lines, and pass between hotel-terraces and cafés and
cinema-palaces, to reach the surviving nucleus of the once beautiful
native town. Then, at the turn of a commonplace street, one comes upon
it suddenly. The shops and cafés cease, the jingle of trams and the
trumpeting of motor-horns die out, and here, all at once, are silence
and solitude, and the dignified reticence of the windowless Arab
house-fronts.
We were bound for the house of a high government official, a Moroccan
dignitary of the old school, who had invited us to tea, and added a
message to the effect that the ladies of his household would be happy to
receive me.
The house we sought was some distance down the quietest of white-walled
streets. Our companion knocked at a low green door, and we were admitted
to a passage into which a wooden stairway descended. A brother-in-law
of our host was waiting for us; in his wake we mounted the ladder-like
stairs and entered a long room with a florid French carpet and a set of
gilt furniture to match. There were no fretted walls, no painted cedar
doors, no fountains rustling in unseen courts: the house was squeezed in
between others, and such traces of old ornament as it may have possessed
had vanished.
But presently we saw why its inhabitants were indifferent to such
details. Our host, a handsome white-bearded old man, welcomed us in the
doorway, then he led us to a raised oriel window at one end of the room,
and seated us in the gilt armchairs face to face with one of the most
beautiful views in Morocco.
Below us lay the white and blue terrace-roofs of the native town, with
palms and minarets shooting up between them, or the shadows of a
vine-trellis patterning a quiet lane. Beyond, the Atlantic sparkled,
breaking into foam at the mouth of the Bou-Regreg and under the towering
ramparts of the Kasbah of the Oudayas. To the right, the ruins of the
great Mosque rose from their plateau over the river; and, on the
farther side of the troubled flood, old Salé, white and wicked, lay like
a jewel in its gardens. With such a scene beneath their eyes, the
inhabitants of the house could hardly feel its lack of architectural
interest.
After exchanging the usual compliments, and giving us time to enjoy the
view, our host withdrew, taking with him the men of our party. A moment
later he reappeared with a rosy fair-haired girl, dressed in Arab
costume, but evidently of European birth. The brother-in-law explained
that this young woman, who had "studied in Algeria," and whose mother
was French, was the intimate friend of the ladies of the household, and
would act as interpreter. Our host then again left us, joining the men
visitors in another room, and the door opened to admit his wife and
daughters-in-law.
The mistress of the house was a handsome Algerian with sad expressive
eyes, the younger women were pale, fat and amiable. They all wore sober
dresses, in keeping with the simplicity of the house, and but for the
vacuity of their faces the group might have been that of a Professor's
family in an English or American University town, decently costumed for
an Arabian Nights' pageant in the college grounds. I was never more
vividly reminded of the fact that human nature, from one pole to the
other, falls naturally into certain categories, and that Respectability
wears the same face in an Oriental harem as in England or America.
My hostesses received me with the utmost amiability, we seated ourselves
in the oriel facing the view, and the interchange of questions and
compliments began.
Had I any children? (They asked it all at once.)
Alas, no.
"In Islam" (one of the ladies ventured) "a woman without children is
considered the most unhappy being in the world."
I replied that in the western world also childless women were pitied.
(The brother-in-law smiled incredulously.)
Knowing that European fashions are of absorbing interest to the harem I
next enquired: "What do these ladies think of our stiff tailor-dresses?
Don't they find them excessively ugly?"
"Yes, they do;" (it was again the brother-in-law who replied.) "But
they suppose that in your own homes you dress less badly."
"And have they never any desire to travel, or to visit the Bazaars, as
the Turkish ladies do?"
"No, indeed. They are too busy to give such matters a thought. In _our
country_ women of the highest class occupy themselves with their
household and their children, and the rest of their time is devoted to
needlework." (At this statement I gave the brother-in-law a smile as
incredulous as his own.)
All this time the fair-haired interpretess had not been allowed by the
vigilant guardian of the harem to utter a word.
I turned to her with a question.
"So your mother is French, _Mademoiselle_?"
"_Oui, Madame_."
"From what part of France did she come?"
A bewildered pause. Finally, "I don't know . . . from Switzerland, I
think," brought out this shining example of the Higher Education. In
spite of Algerian "advantages" the poor girl could speak only a few
words of her mother's tongue. She had kept the European features and
complexion, but her soul was the soul of Islam. The harem had placed its
powerful imprint upon her, and she looked at me with the same remote and
passive eyes as the daughters of the house.
After struggling for a while longer with a conversation which the
watchful brother-in-law continued to direct as he pleased, I felt my own
lips stiffening into the resigned smile of the harem, and it was a
relief when at last their guardian drove the pale flock away, and the
handsome old gentleman who owned them reappeared on the scene, bringing
back my friends, and followed by slaves and tea.
