*Reprinted by permission of the author.
_At the old gentleman's side sat a young lady more beautiful than
pomegranate blossoms, more exquisite than the first quarter moon
viewed at twilight through the tops of oleanders._
--O. Henry: THE TRIMMED LAMP.
I
As the caique glided up to the garden gate the three boatmen rose
from their sheepskins and caught hold of iron clamps set into the
marble of the quay. Shaban, the grizzled gate-keeper, who was
standing at the top of the water-steps with his hands folded
respectfully in front of him, came salaaming down to help his master
out.
"Shall we wait, my Pasha?" asked the head _kaikji_.
The Pasha turned to Shaban, as if to put a question. And as if to
answer it Shaban said:
"The Madama is up in the wood, in the kiosque. She sent down word to
ask if you would go up too."
"Then don't wait." Returning the boatmen's salaam, the Pasha stepped
into his garden. "Is there company in the kiosque or is Madama
alone?" he inquired.
"I think no one is there--except Zümbül Agha," replied Shaban,
following his master up the long central path of black and white
pebbles.
"Zümbül Agha!" exclaimed the Pasha. But if it had been in his mind
to say anything else he stopped instead to sniff at a rosebud. And
then he asked: "Are we dining up there, do you know?"
"I don't know, my Pasha, but I will find out."
"Tell them to send up dinner anyway, Shaban. It is such an evening!
And just ask Moustafa to bring me a coffee at the fountain, will you?
I will rest a little before climbing that hill."
"On my head!" said the Albanian, turning off to the house.
The Pasha kept on to the end of the walk. Two big horse-chestnut
trees, their candles just starting alight in the April air, stood
there at the foot of a terrace, guarding a fountain that dripped in
the ivied wall. A thread of water started mysteriously out of the
top of a tall marble niche into a little marble basin, from which it
overflowed by two flat bronze spouts into two smaller basins below.
From them the water dripped back into a single basin still lower
down, and so tinkled its broken way, past graceful arabesques and
reliefs of fruit and flowers, into a crescent-shaped pool at the foot
of the niche.
The Pasha sank down into one of the wicker chairs scattered
hospitably beneath the horse-chestnut trees, and thought how happy a
man he was to have a fountain of the period of Sultan Ahmed III, and
a garden so full of April freshness, and a view of the bright
Bosphorus and the opposite hills of Europe and the firing West. How
definitely he thought it I cannot say, for the Pasha was not greatly
given to thought. Why should he be, since he possessed without that
trouble a goodly share of what men acquire by taking thought? If he
had been lapped in ease and security all his days, they numbered many
more, did those days, than the Pasha would have chosen. Still, they
had touched him but lightly, merely increasing the dignity of his
handsome presence and taking away nothing of his power to enjoy his
little walled world.
So he sat there, breathing in the air of the place and the hour,
while gardeners came and went with their watering-pots, and birds
twittered among the branches, and the fountain plashed beside him,
until Shaban reappeared carrying a glass of water and a cup of coffee
in a swinging tray.
"Eh, Shaban! It is not your business to carry coffee!" protested the
Pasha, reaching for a stand that stood near him.
"What is your business is my business, _Pasha'm_. Have I not eaten
your bread and your father's for thirty years?"
"No! Is it as long as that? We are getting old, Shaban."
"We are getting old," assented the Albanian simply.
The Pasha thought, as he took out his silver cigarette-case, of
another Pasha who had complimented him that afternoon on his
youthfulness. And, choosing a cigarette, he handed the case to his
gatekeeper. Shaban accepted the cigarette and produced matches from
his gay girdle.
"How long is it since you have been to your country, Shaban?"
The Pasha, lifting his little cup by its silver zarf, realised that
he would not have sipped his coffee quite so noisily had his French
wife been sitting with him under the horse-chestnut trees. But with
his old Shaban he could still be a Turk.
"Eighteen months, my Pasha."
"And when are you going again?"
"In Ramazan, if God wills. Or perhaps next Ramazan. We shall see."
"Allah, Allah! How many times have I told you to bring your people
here, Shaban? We have plenty of room to build you a house somewhere,
and you could see your wife and children every day instead of once in
two or three years."
"Wives, wives--a man will not die if he does not see them every day!
Besides, it would not be good for the children. In Constantinople
they become rascals. There are too many Christians." And he added
hastily: "It is better for a boy to grow up in the mountains."
"But we have a mountain here, behind the house," laughed the Pasha.
"Your mountain is not like our mountains," objected Shaban gravely,
hunting in his mind for the difference he felt but could not express.
"And that new wife of yours," went on the Pasha. "Is it good to
leave a young woman like that? Are you not afraid?"
"No, my Pasha. I am not afraid. We all live together, you know. My
brothers watch, and the other women. She is safer than yours.
Besides, in my country it is not as it is here."
"I don't know why I have never been to see this wonderful country of
yours, Shaban. I have so long intended to, and I never have been.
But I must climb my mountain or they will think I have become a
rascal too." And, rising from his chair, he gave the Albanian a
friendly pat.
"Shall I come too, my Pasha? Zümbül Agha sent word----"
"Zümbül Agha!" interrupted the Pasha irritably. "No, you needn't
come. I will explain to Zümbül Agha."
With which he left Shaban to pick up the empty coffee cup.