Coming back from lunch I heard the sour cry of X, who was dying. On my couch, I read the notes on Arabia by Bekir Bey. It’s three o’clock.

Death of an English lady who became Muslim. The Catholic and Muslim priests fight over her soul. At three I came down to smoke a pipe in the garden. Ms X had died; passing by in the staircase I heard the cries of despair of her daughter. Around the basin, near the little monkey tied to the mimosa, there was a Franciscan, who greeted me. We looked at each other and he said: “There is still a little green”, and he went. The children from the Jew’s school were playing in the garden, two little girls and three boys, one who ran a mechanic which makes toy soldiers run. Doctor Ruppel came, gave a nut to the monkey, who jumped on him. “Ah! pig! ah! pig! ah! little pig!”, he said; then he went: shopping in town, for he had his hat. In the yard, Bouvaret in his shirt and smoking his cigar told me “it’s over” - the mother is about to be removed and the daughter clings to her - she screams loudly now, it nearly sounds like barks.

She was an English woman, raised in Paris - in the neighborhood where she lived she met a young Muslim, now a Kaymakan in the Ottoman administration, and became a Muslim. The Catholic and Muslim priest fight over her burial - she confessed this morning but since came back to Mahomet and will be buried in the Turkish fashion.