ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a basic story that is related by four different narrators, from four different perspectives, each narrator at the same time, of course, exposing Lawrence Durrell. The colloquial passages bear the imprint of a level of Egyptian society that Durrell is fond of describing, in its more lurid and sordid aspect. The four narrators are Madame Mariana, Husni Allam, Mansour Bahi and Sarhan al-Behairi. The story revolves around the Pension Miramar, kept by Mariana, an Alexandrian-born Greek who has never been in Greece. The second narrator, Allam, is in his early thirties, robust and good-looking, scion of a well-known family in Tanta, who 'still owns a hundred faddans, which the Revolution has not touched', as Mariana proudly announces. The third narrator, Bahi, is twenty-five years old and works at the Alexandria Radio Station. The fourth narrator, Sarhan is an upstart who seeks anchorage in Alexandria to achieve his aim in life: 'a villa, a car and a woman'.
