Then, sitting down again, she questioned Duroy on the topography of Algeria, of which she was absolutely ignorant. In ten minutes she knew as much about it as he did, and she dictated a little chapter of political and colonial geography to coach the reader up in such matters and prepare him to understand the serious questions which were to be brought forward in the following articles. She continued by a trip into the provinces of Oran, a fantastic trip, in which it was, above all, a question of women, Moorish, Jewish, and Spanish.
“That is what interests most,” she said.
She wound up by a sojourn at Saïda, at the foot of the great tablelands; and by a pretty little intrigue between the sub-officer, George Duroy, and a Spanish workgirl employed at the alfa factory at Ain el Hadjar. She described their rendezvous at night amidst the bare, stony hills, with jackals, hyenas, and Arab dogs yelling, barking and howling among the rocks.
And she gleefully uttered the words: “To be continued.” Then rising, she added: “That is how one writes an article, my dear sir. Sign it, if you please.”
He hesitated.
“But sign it, I tell you.”
Then he began to laugh, and wrote at the bottom of the page, “George Duroy.”
She went on smoking as she walked up and down; and he still kept looking at her, unable to find anything to say to thank her, happy to be with her, filled with gratitude, and with the sensual pleasure of this newborn intimacy. It seemed to him that everything surrounding him was part of her, everything down to the walls covered with books. The