And the old man's
furious cry pursued her through the doorway.
Within there was space and darkness. The darkness seemed to be praying.
Vistas of yellowish-white arches stretched away in front, to right and
left. On the floor, covered with matting, quantities of shrouded figures
knelt and swayed, stood up suddenly, knelt again, bowed down their
foreheads. Preceded by Mustapha and the guide, who walked on their
stockinged feet, Domini slowly threaded her way among them, following
a winding path whose borders were praying men. To prevent her slippers
from falling off she had to shuffle along without lifting her feet from
the ground. With the regularity of a beating pulse the old man's shriek,
fainter now, came to her from without. But presently, as she penetrated
farther into the mosque, it was swallowed up by the sound of prayer. No
one seemed to see her or to know that she was there. She brushed against
the white garments of worshippers, and when she did so she felt as if
she touched the hem of the garments of mystery, and she held her habit
together with her hands lest she should recall even one of these hearts
that were surely very far off.
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