The more I looked at her work, the more enthusiastic I grew. "You must be very talented," I said, turning to her. "It is a pity that you cannot go abroad to study." "But I have studied many years here."
"That is all very well," I said, still busy looking at the pictures. "Just the same you ought to go to Paris to study." "What for?" she asked. "Because I think you have a great deal of talent which unfortunately is wasted in a harem." As I spoke, I raised my eyes.
Ordinarily I am not a coward, though I do run from a mouse; but when my eyes met her finely penciled ones, there was a curious look of anger in them that made a shiver go down my back. "If I have said anything to offend you," I said, "I beg you to forgive me. Believe me, it was my enthusiasm." She smiled in a most charming way. If she had been angry, it had gone quickly by. "But why do you wish me to go to Paris?" she asked again.
"I don't know," I said, "except that Paris is nearer Turkey than any other great center, and I feel that you ought to have the advantage of being where you could get all the help possible." "What for?" she inquired. I began to feel uncomfortable. I knew her very little, and this was the first time I ever visited a former seraigli (one who has been an inmate of the imperial palace). "Because," I answered lamely, "when a person has talent she generally goes to Paris or to some other great artistic center."
"What for?" again insisted the question.
If I had not been in a harem, and in the presence of a woman of whom I was somewhat afraid, my answer would have been, "Well, if you are foolish enough not to know, why, what is the use of telling you? " Instead, while that exquisite hand was lying on my arm and those big almond-shaped eyes were holding mine, I tried to find a way of explaining. "If you were free to go, you could see masterpieces, you could study various methods of painting, and if it were in you, you might become great in turn." "What for?" was the calm inquiry.
She was very beautiful; not of the Turkish type, but of the pure Circassian, with exquisite lines and a very low, musical voice, and of all things on this earth I am most susceptible to physical beauty. At that particular moment, however, I should have derived great pleasure if I could have smacked her pretty mouth. "Well," I said calmly, though I was irritated, "if you had a great talent and became very famous, you would not only have all the money you wanted, but glory and admiration." "What for?" she repeated, with inhuman monotony.
"For Heaven's sake, Aishe Hanoum," I cried, "I don't know what for; but if I could, I should like to become famous and have glory and lots of money. " "What for?" "Because then I could go all over the world and see everything that is to be seen, and meet all sorts of interesting people." "What for?"
"Hanoum doudou," I cried, lapsing into the Turkish I had spoken as a child. "Are you trying to make a fool of me, or---" She put her palms forward on the floor, and then her head went down and she laughed immoderately. I laughed, too, considerably relieved to have done with her "what for 's." She drew me to her as if I were a baby, and took me on her lap. "You would do all these things and travel about like a mail-bag because you think it would make you happy, don't you, yavroum?" she asked.
"Of course, I should be happy." "Is this why you ran away from home---to get famous and rich?"
She was speaking to me precisely as if I were a little bit of a thing, and was to be coaxed out of my foolishness. "I have neither fame nor riches," I answered, "so we need not waste our breath." "Sorry, yavroum, sorry," she said sympathetically. "I should have liked you to get both; then you would see that it would not have made you happy. Happiness is not acquired from satisfied desires." "What is happiness, then?" I asked. "Allah kerim [God only can explain it]. But it comes not from what we possess, but from what we let others possess; and no amount of fame would have made me leave my home and go among alien people to learn their ways of doing something which I take great pleasure in doing in my own way." She kissed me twice on the cheek and put me down by her. "You are a dear little one," she said.
Source: From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Vol. VI: Russia, Austria-Hungary, The Balkan States, and Turkey, pp. 579-582. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.
AFTER the evening prayer, I took my way to the Tower, calling by the way on Seid-Ahmed, with whom in our late ramble I had arranged for an early meeting. "Sidi," said I, addressing him, "I was going to avail myself this evening of your invitation to visit you whenever convenient to myself; but Seid-Abd' el-Rahman having sent word that he expects me after the evening prayer, I called to say that I must defer that pleasure until another time." "It so happens," rejoined Seid-Ahmed, "that I, too, am going to the Tower; for tonight the Nagib sits there in judgment. Every second night after the last prayer, the Nagib dispenses justice to the Marebeys, and this is an evening for the session of a messhouar [tribunal]."
I proceeded with him to the Tower, where we found the Nagib seated upon his cushions at the door of the vestibule. There, surrounded by his chiefs and a crowd of retainers, he rendered important decisions while smoking his chicha. The audience was a large one, for Seid-Abd' el-Rahman was very popular with his people, owing in great measure, to his accessibility to all. Mussulman, Sabian, or Jew, provided only he was of the country, enjoyed the privilege of access to him at all times to state his case, on which the Nagib at once rendered justice by a decree based upon equity as well as common sense. Seid-Ahmed took the place reserved for him among the members of the tribunal, while for myself, after the interchange of the usual compliments, the Nagib ordered a chibouque to be brought, which he lighted and presented to me with his own hands. Curious to witness an example of the justice of the country, I took up the most convenient position for seeing and hearing, as the audience commenced.
There were women who complained of ill treatment on the part of their husbands; men who accused their wives of frailty; divisions of inheritance to adjust; thefts and frauds to punish; among all which cases there were two particularly remarkable for the judgments rendered upon them. The first of these cases was one between a katib and a fellah,---that is, a writer and a peasant,---the wife of the latter having been taken away from him by the former, who maintained that he had a claim upon her. The woman declined to acknowledge either the one or the other of them as her husband, or, rather, she acknowledged them both---a view of the case which rendered it decidedly embarrassing. Having heard both sides and reflected a moment, the Nagib said, addressing the claimants, "Leave this woman here, and return in half an hour"; on which the katib and fellah made their salutations and retired.
The second case was between a fekai and a zibdai, or, in other words, a fruiterer and a butter merchant---the latter very much besmeared with butter; the former clean. The fruiterer said, "I had been to buy some butter from this man, and drew out my purse full of money to pay for the butter he had put in my goulla, when, tempted by the sight of the coins, he seized me by the wrist. I cried "Thief!' but he would not let me go; and thus have we come before you---I squeezing my money in my hand, and he grasping my wrist with his. And now, by Mohammed, our great Prophet, I swear that this man lies in saying that I have stolen his money, for that money is truly mine."
The butter merchant said, "This man came to buy a goulla of butter from me, and when I had filled it he said, "Hast thou change of an abumathfa [Spanish piaster]?' I searched my pocket, from which I drew out my hand full of money, which I placed upon the sill of my shop, from which he snatched it, and was going off with my butter and my money, when I seized him by the wrist and cried, "Thief!' but in spite of my cries, he refused to return my property to me, and I have brought him hither in order that you may judge between us. And now, by Mohammed, our great Prophet, I swear that this man lies in saying that I have stolen his money, for that money is truly mine."
The Nagib caused the complainants to repeat their charges twice, but neither of them varied from his first statement. Then said he, after a moment's reflection, "Leave this money here and return in half an hour"; on which the fruiterer, who had all along kept his hold of the money, deposited it in a wooden bowl, brought by one of the guards---and both complainants, having made their salutations, retired.
When they were gone, the Nagib quitted his seat at the door of the vestibule and went up into the fourth story of the tower, taking with him the woman and money in dispute. At the appointed moment he returned with them, and went calmly back to his seat. The parties interested were all present, and the katib and fellah were called up. "Here," said the Nagib, addressing the katib, "take thy wife and lead her away, for she is thine truly." Then, turning to his guards and pointing to the fellah, he said, "Give this man fifty blows of a courbash on the soles of his feet." The katib walked off with his wife, and the guards gave the fellah fifty blows of a courbash on the soles of his feet.
Next came the fruiterer and the butter merchant in their turn. "Here," said the Nagib to the fruiterer, "here is thy money; verily did you take it from your own purse, and never did it belong to him by whom are you accused." Then, turning to his guards and pointing to the butter merchant, he said, "Give this man fifty blows of a courbash on the soles of his feet." The fruiterer walked off with his money, and the guards gave the butter merchant fifty blows of a courbash on the soles of his feet.
When the court had risen, I asked the Nagib how he ascertained that the woman was the wife of the katib, and the money the property of the fruiterer. "Nothing more simple," replied he. "You saw how I went up into the fourth story with the woman and the money. Well, when we arrived there, I ordered her suddenly to clean my inkhorn, when, like one accustomed to that work, she at once took it, drew out the cotton from it, washed it properly, replaced it on the stand, and filled it with fresh ink. Then said I to myself, "If you were the wife of the fellah, you never could have cleaned an inkhorn like that; you must be the wife of the katib.'" "Good!" said I, bowing in token of assent. "So much for the woman. And how about the money?" "The money was quite another business," replied the Nagib, smiling with a self-satisfied expression, as he leered at me with a look full of artfulness and craft. "You must have remarked how buttery the butter merchant was and how greasy his hands were in particular. Well, I put the money into a vessel of hot water, and upon examining the water carefully I could not find that a single particle of grease had come to the surface. Then said I to myself, "This money belongs to the fruiterer, and not to the butter merchant; for, had it belonged to the latter, it must have been greasy, and the grease would have shown on the surface of the water.'"
At this I bowed very low, indeed, and said: "In good faith I doubt whether the great King Solomon himself could have rendered a decision with more sagacity and wisdom." Until then I had always looked upon the tales related to us in the "Arabian Nights" as mere fictions; but on witnessing the delivery of these two judgments, I felt convinced that some of them at least were founded on facts. Of course they are worked up into romances, but they have a basis of reality.
Source: From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Vol. III: Egypt, Africa, and Arabia, pp. 529-533. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg
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