162 ORIENTALISM remarkable peculiarities in the manners, customs, and character of a nation are attributable to the physical peculiarities of the country.””* What follows confirms this easily—the Nile, Egypt's “remarkably salubrious” climate, the peasant's “precise” labor. Yet instead of this leading to the next episode in narrative order, the detail is added to, and consequently the narrative fulfillment expected on purely formal grounds is not given. In other words, although the gross outlines of Lane’s text conform to the narrative and causal sequence of birth—life—-death, the special detail introduced during the sequence itself foils narrative movement. From a general observation, to a delineation of some aspect of Egyptian character, to an account of Egyptian childhood, adolescence, maturity, and senescence, Lane is always there with great detail to prevent smooth transitions. Shortly after we hear about Egypt’s salubriqus climate, for instance, we are informed that few Egyptians live beyond a few years, because of fatal illness, the absence of medical aid, and oppressive summer weather. Thereafter we are told that the heat “excites the Egyptian [an unqualified generalization] to intemperance in sensual enjoyments,” and soon are bogged down in descriptions, complete with charts and line drawings, of Cairene architecture, decoration, fountains, and locks. When a narrative strain re-emerges, it is clearly only as a formality. What prevents narrative order, at the very same time that narrative order is the dominating fiction of Lane’s text, is sheer, overpowering, monumental description. Lane’s objective is to make Egypt and the Egyptians totally visible, to keep nothing hidden from his reader, to deliver the Egyptians without depth, in swollen detail. As rapporteur his propensity is for sadomasochistic colossal tidbits: the self-multilation of dervishes, the cruelty of judges, the blending of religion with licentiousness among Muslims, the excess of libidinous passions, and so on. Yet no matter how odd and perverse the event and how lost we become in its dizzying detail, Lane is ubiquitous, his job being to reassemble the pieces and enable us to move on, albeit jerkily. To a certain extent he does this by just being a European who can discursively control the passions and excitements to which the Muslims are unhappily subject. But to an even greater extent, Lane’s capacity to rein in his profuse subject matter with an unyielding bridle of discipline and detachment depends on his cold distance from Egyptian life and Egyptian productivity. The main symbolic moment occurs at the beginning of chapter 6,

Orientalist Structures and Restructures 163 “Domestic Life-—Continued.” By now Lane has adopted the narrative convention of taking a walk through Egyptian life, and having reached the end of his tour of the public rooms and habits of an Egyptian household (the social and spatial worlds are mixed together by him), he begins to discuss the intimate side of home life. Immediately, he “must give some account of marriage and the marriage-ceremonies.” As usual, the account begins with a general observation: to abstain from marriage “when a man has attained a sufficient age, and when there is no just impediment, is esteemed