of her attics, so that on the whole the Galeries Kahn
had not benefited to any extent by the rise of the Hotel
et Cafe de la Tarasque; however, Kahn cloaked his
irritation in smiles and proceeded to scout up and
down the coast for a firm whose demands would
meet his resources. In the end he discovered a humble
contractor who lived in the neighbourhood of Men-
ton, a Frenchman in the eyes of the law, it was true,
but in every other respect an Italian, as were also the
talkative, good-looking youths who had been sent
along from the frontier as workmen. Having deftly
erected a few wooden shacks for themselves they
appeared to lose interest in building, spending most
of their time making eyes at the girls, drinking quarts
of red wine, and brewing black coffee; and although
the sun by now was quite hot, they shivered at the
first intimation of a mistral: 'Tempo di cani, signore!5
they would say, rubbing their hands as though it
were freezing. Then speaking in their hideous bastard
French, they would go on to grumble that the wind
dried the ground and thus rendered it harder to dig
foundations. One morning, however, it obligingly
rained, but it seemed that this was not propitious
either, for when Kahn went along to urge on the
work he found them all crouching under umbrellas
while one of them strummed on a mandoline in order
to cheer his depressed companions.
Bitter although Kahn felt towards Jouse who had
wilfully hindered his impatient ambitions, he none
the less spoke of him with regret, carefully curbing
his rising anger —as one who had been very griev-
ously wronged spoke Kahn, and his voice was patient
and gentle: 'It is not that he wishes to harm us, the
good Jouse, but rather that his outlook is retro-
gressive. He possesses, alas, the obstructionist mind —
the mind that is always an enemy to progress. It is
sad, for what would become of this town of Saint
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