That was my thought as I seemed on the sacred pigeons

That was my thought as I seemed on the sacred pigeons, circling in pleased freedom over the gardenwhere Bajazet slumbers beneath his catafalque, flut-tering around the cupolas of their mosque, and be-neath the gray-pink-and-white arcade, with its dull-green and plum-colored columns, or crowding collectively upon the skinny branches of their plane-tree. A pure wind blew by way of the courtroom and concerning the marble fountain. The music made by the iridescent wings of the birds by no means ceased, and their perpetual cooing was just like the candy voice of content material. The sunshine streamed over the pavement and penetrated beneath the arches, making the coral beads of a rosary glow and its gold beads glitter, giving to the amber liquid carried on a tray by a boy to a barber beneath his awning a vivacity nearly of flame. Beside me a lover was dictating a letter to a scribe, who squatted earlier than his desk, on which have been organized a bright- blue inkstand and cup, a pile of white paper, and a stand with crimson pens and blue pencils. Farther on, males have been being shaved, and have been ingesting espresso as they lounged upon bright-yellow sofas. Close to me a really outdated Turk, with fanatical, half-shut eyes, was sitting on the bottom and gazing on the pink toes of the pigeons as they tripped over the pavement, upon which a pilgrim to the mosque had simply flung some grain.

Mechanically lingered his rosary

As he gazed, he mechanically lingered his rosary, swiftly shifting the beads on and on, beads after beads, at all times two at a time. Some incense smoldered in a three-legged brazier, giving out its peculiar and drowsy odor. On the opposite aspect of the courtroom a fruit-seller slept by a pile of yellow melons. The grain thrown by the pilgrim was all eaten now, and for a second the sunshine was dimmed by the cloud of rising and dispersing birds, grey and inexperienced, with gentle gleams like jewels entangled of their plumage. Some flew far to the tall white-and-gray minaret of their mosque, others settled on the cupola above the fountain. A number of, venturous truants, dis-appeared within the route of the seraskierat wall, not far off. The higher quantity returned to their plane- tree on the proper of the lover and the scribe. And because the lover recommended, and the scribe wrote from proper to left, the pigeons puffed out their breasts and cooed, calling different pilgrims to keep in mind that even the sacred have their carnal appetites, and to honor the poor widow’s reminiscence earlier than going as much as the mosque to hope.