As the sea in a great storm rages against the land, ferocious that land
should be, so the desert now raged against the oasis that ventured to
exist in its bosom. Every palm tree was the victim of its wrath, every
running rill, every habitation of man. Along the tunnels of mimosa
it went like a foaming tide through a cavern, roaring towards the
mountains. It returned and swept about the narrow streets, eddying at
the corners, beating upon the palmwood doors, behind which the painted
dancing-girls were cowering, cold under their pigments and their heavy
jewels, their red hands trembling and clasping one another, clamouring
about the minarets of the mosques on which the frightened doves were
sheltering, shaking the fences that shut in the gazelles in their
pleasaunce, tearing at the great statue of the Cardinal that faced it
resolutely, holding up the double cross as if to exorcise it, battering
upon the tall, white tower on whose summit Domini had first spoken with
Androvsky, raging through the alleys of Count Anteoni's garden, the
arcades of his villa, the window-spaces of the _fumoir_, from whose
walls it tore down frantically the purple petals of the bougainvillea
and dashed them, like enemies defeated, upon the quivering paths which
were made of its own body.
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