Halil the Pedlar Part 3

"Come! bring her into my shop!" said Halil to the public crier; "don't leave her out in the public square there for everybody to stare at her."

"Impossible!" replied the public crier. "As I value my head I must obey my orders, and my orders are to take her veil from off her head in the auction-yard, where the ordinary slaves are wont to be offered for sale, and there announce the price set upon her in the sight and hearing of all men."

"What crime has this slave-girl committed that she should be treated so scurvily?"

"Halil Patrona!" answered the public crier, "it will be all the better for my tongue and your ears if I do not answer that question. I simply do what I have been told to do. I unveil this odalisk, I proclaim what she can do, to what use she can be put. I neither belittle her nor do I exalt her. I advise n.o.body to buy her and I advise n.o.body not to buy her. Allah is free to do what He will with us all, and that which has been decreed concerning each of us ages ago must needs befall." And with these words he whisked away the veil from the head of the odalisk.

"By the Prophet! a beauteous maid indeed! What eyes! A man might fancy they could speak, and if one gazed at them long enough one could find more to learn there than in all that is written in the Koran! What lips too! I would gladly remain outside Paradise if by so doing I might gaze upon those lips for ever. And what a pale face! Well does she deserve the name of Gul-Bejaze! Her cheeks do indeed resemble white roses! And one can see dewdrops upon them, as is the way with roses!--the dewdrops from her eyes! And what must such eyes be like when they laugh? What must that face be like when it blushes? What must that mouth be like when it speaks, when it sighs, when it trembles with sweet desire?"

Halil Patrona was quite carried away by his enthusiasm.

"Carry her not any further," he said to the public crier, "and show her to n.o.body else, for n.o.body else would dare to buy her. Besides, I'll give you for her a sum which n.o.body else would think of offering, I will give five thousand piastres."

"Be it so!" said the crier, veiling the maid anew; "you have seen her, anyhow, bring your money and take the girl!"

Halil went in for his purse, handed it over to the crier (it held the exact amount to a penny), and took the odalisk by the hand--there she stood alone with him.

Halil Patrona now lost not a moment in locking up his shop, and taking the odalisk by the hand led her away with him to his poor lonely dwelling-place.

All the way thither the girl never uttered a word.

On reaching the house Halil made the girl sit down by the hearth, and then addressed her in a tender, kindly voice.

"Here is my house, whatever you see in it is mine and yours. The whole lot is not very much it is true, but it is all our own. You will find no ornaments or frankincense in my house, but you can go in and out of it as you please without asking anybody's leave. Here are two piastres, provide therewith a dinner for us both."

The worthy Mussulman then returned to the bazaar, leaving the girl alone in the house. He did not return home till the evening.

Meanwhile Gul-Bejaze had made the two piastres go as far as they could, and had supper all ready for him. She placed Halil's dish on the reed-mat close beside him, but she herself sat down on the threshold.

"Not there, but come and sit down by my side," said Halil, and seizing the trembling hand of the odalisk, he made her sit down beside him on the cushion, piled up the pilaf before her, and invited her with kind and encouraging words to fall to. The odalisk obeyed him. Not a word had she yet spoken, but when she had finished eating, she turned towards Halil and murmured in a scarce audible voice,

"For six days I have eaten nought."

"What!" exclaimed Halil in amazement, "six days! Horrible! And who was it, pray, that compelled you to endure such torture?"

"It was my own doing, for I wanted to die."

Halil shook his head gravely.

"So young, and yet to desire death! And do you still want to die, eh?"

"Your own eyes can tell you that I do not."

Halil had taken a great fancy to the girl. He had never before known what it was to love any human being; but now as he sat there face to face with the girl, whose dark eyelashes cast shadows upon her pale cheeks, and regarded her melancholy, irresponsive features, he fancied he saw a peri before him, and felt a new man awakening within him beneath this strange charm.

Halil could never remember the time when his heart had actually throbbed for joy, but now that he was sitting down by the side of this beautiful maid it really began to beat furiously. Ah! how truly sang the poet when he said: "Two worlds there are, one beneath the sun and the other in the heart of a maid."

For a long time he gazed rapturously on the beauteous slave, admiring in turn her fair countenance, her voluptuous bosom, and her houri-like figure. How lovely, how divinely lovely it all was! And then he bethought him that all this loveliness was his own; that he was the master, the possessor of this girl, at whose command she would fall upon his bosom, envelop him with the pavilion, dark as night, of her flowing tresses, and embrace him with arms of soft velvet. Ah! and those lips were not only red but sweet; and that breast was not only snow-white but throbbing and ardent--and at the thought his brain began to swim for joy and rapture.

And yet he did not even know what to call her! He had never had a slave-girl before, and hardly knew how to address her. His own tongue was not wont to employ tender, caressing words; he knew not what to say to a woman to make her love him.

"Gul-Bejaze!" he murmured hoa.r.s.ely.

"I await your commands, my master!"

"My name is Halil--call me so!"

"Halil, I await your commands!"

"Say nothing about commanding. Sit down beside me here! Come, sit closer, I say!"

The girl sat down beside him. She was quite close to him now.

But the worst of it was that, even now, Halil had not the remotest idea what to say to her.

The maid was sad and apathetic, she did not weep as slave-girls are wont to do. Halil would so much have liked the girl to talk and tell him her history, and the cause of her melancholy, then perhaps it would have been easier for him to talk too. He would then have been able to have consoled her, and after consolation would have come love.

"Tell me, Gul-Bejaze!" said he, "how was it that the Sultan had you offered for sale in the bazaar."

The girl looked at Halil with those large black eyes of hers. When she raised her long black lashes it was as though he gazed into a night lit up by two black suns, and thus she continued gazing at him for a long time fixedly and sadly.

"That also you will learn to know, Halil," she murmured.

And Halil felt his heart grow hotter and hotter the nearer he drew to this burning, kindling flame; his eyes flashed sparks at the sight of so much beauty, he seized the girl's hand and pressed it to his lips. How cold that hand was! All the more reason for warming it on his lips and on his bosom; but, for all his caressing, the little hand remained cold, as cold as the hand of a corpse.

Surely that throbbing breast, those provocative lips, are not as cold?

Halil, intoxicated with pa.s.sion, embraced the girl, and as he drew her to his breast, as he pressed her to him, the girl murmured to herself--it sounded like a gentle long-drawn-out sigh:

"Blessed Mary!"

And then the girl's long black hair streamed over her face, and when Halil smoothed it aside from the fair countenance to see if it had not grown redder beneath his embrace--behold! it was whiter than ever. All trace of life had fled from it, the eyes were cast down, the lips closed and bluish. Dead, dead--a corpse lay before him!

But Halil would not believe it. He fancied that the girl was only pretending. He put his hand on her fair bosom--but he could not hear the beating of the heart. The girl had lost all sense of feeling. He could have done with her what he would. A dead body lay in his bosom.

An ice-cold feeling of horror penetrated Halil's heart, altogether extinguishing the burning flame of pa.s.sion. All tremulously he released the girl and laid her down. Then he whispered full of fear:

"Awake! I will not hurt you, I will not hurt you."

Her light kaftan had glided down from her bosom; he restored it to its place and, awe-struck, he continued gazing at the features of the lovely corpse.

After a few moments the girl opened her lips and sighed heavily, and presently her large black eyes also opened once more, her lips resumed their former deep red hue, her eyes their enchanting radiance, her face the delicate freshness of a white rose, once more her bosom began to rise and fall.

She arose from the carpet on which Halil had laid her, and set to work removing and re-arranging the scattered dishes and platters. Only after a few moments had elapsed did she whisper to Halil, who could not restrain his astonishment:

"And now you know why the Padishah ordered me to be sold like a common slave in the bazaar. The instant a man embraces me I become as dead, and remain so until he lets me go again, and his lips grow cold upon mine and his heart abhors me. My name is not Gul-Bejaze, the White Rose, but Gul-Olu, the Dead Rose."