The Pasha was too surprised, at first, to move--and too conscious of
the eyes of servants, too uncertain of what he should do, too fearful
of doing the wrong, the un-European, thing. And afterward it was too
late. He stood watching until the flicker of the lantern disappeared
among the dark trees. Then his eyes met the eunuch's.
"Why don't you go down too?" suggested Zümbül Agha. The variable
climate of a great house had made him too perfect an opportunist not
to take the line of being in favour again. "It might be better.
Give me the key and I will do what there is to do. But you might
send up Shaban."
Why not, the Pasha secretly asked himself? Might it not be the best
way out? At the same time he experienced a certain revulsion of
feeling, now that Hélène was gone, in the way she had gone. She
really was prodigious! And with the vanishing of the lantern that
had brought him a measure of reassurance he felt the weight of an
uncleared situation, fantastic but crucial, heavy upon him. And the
Negro annoyed him intensely.
"Thank you, Zümbül Agha," he replied, "but I am not the nurse of
Madama, and I will not give you the key."
If he only might, though, he thought to himself again!
"You believe her, this Frank woman whom you had never seen five years
ago, and you do not believe me who have lived in your house longer
than you can remember!"
The eunuch said it so bitterly that the Pasha was touched in spite of
himself. He had never been one to think very much about minor
personal relations, but even at such a moment he could see--was it
partly because he wanted more time to make up his mind?--that he had
never liked Zümbül Agha as he liked Shaban, for instance. Yet more
honour had been due, in the old family tradition, to the former. And
he had been associated even longer with the history of the house.
"My poor Zümbül," he uttered musingly, "you have never forgiven me
for marrying her."
"My Pasha, you are not the first to marry an unbeliever, nor the
last. But such a marriage should be to the glory of Islam, and not
to its discredit. Who can trust her? She is still a Christian. And
she is too young. She has turned the world upside down. What would
your father have said to a daughter-in-law who goes shamelessly into
the street without a veil, alone, and who receives in your house men
who are no relation to you or to her? It is not right. Women
understand only one thing--to make fools of men. And they are never
content to fool one."
The Pasha, still waiting to make up his mind, let his fancy linger
about Zümbül Agha. It was really rather absurd, after all, what a
part women played in the world, and how little it all came to in the
end! Did the black man, he wondered, walk in a clearer cooler world,
free of the clouds, the iridescences, the languors, the perfumes, the
strange obsessions, that made others walk so often like madmen? Or
might some tatter of preposterous humanity still work obscurely in
him? Or a bitterness of not being like other men? That perhaps was
why the Pasha felt friendlier toward Shaban. They were more alike.
"You are right, Zümbül Agha," he said. "The world is upside down.
But neither the Madama nor any of us made it so. All we can do is to
try and keep our heads as it turns. Now, will you please tell me how
you happened to be up here? The Madama never told you to come. You
know perfectly well that the customs of Europe are different from
ours, and that she does not like to have you follow her about."
"What woman likes to be followed about?" retorted the eunuch with a
sly smile. "I know you have told me to leave her alone. But why was
I brought into this house? Am I to stand by and watch dishonour
brought upon it simply because you have eaten the poison of a woman?"
"Zümbül Agha," replied the Pasha sharply, "I am not discussing old
and new or this and that, but I am asking you to tell me what all
this speech is about."
"Give me that key and I will show you what it is about," said the
eunuch, stepping forward.
But the Pasha found he was not ready to go so directly to the point.
"Can't you answer a simple question?" he demanded irritably,
retreating to the farther side of the fountain.
The reflection of the painted ceiling in the pool made him think of
Hélène--and Madame Pomegranate. He stared into the still water as if
to find Hélène's face there. Was any other face hidden beside it,
mocking him?
But Zümbül Agha had begun again, doggedly:
"I came here because it is my business to be here. I went to town
this morning. When I got back they told me that you were away and
that the Madama was up here, alone. So I came. Is this a place for
a woman to be alone in--a young woman, with men working all about and
I don't know who, and a thousand ways of getting in and out from the
hills, and ten thousand hiding places in the woods?"
The Pasha made a gesture of impatience, and turned away. But after
all, what could one do with old Zümbül? He had been brought up in
his tradition. The Pasha lighted another cigarette to help himself
think.
"Well, I came up here," continued the eunuch, "and as I came I heard
Madama singing. You know how she sings the songs of the Franks."
The Pasha knew, but he did not say anything. As he walked up and
down, smoking and thinking, his eye caught in the pool a reflection
from the other side of the room, where the door of the latticed room
was and where the cypress-wood chest stood as the servants had left
it in the middle of the floor. Was that what Hélène had stood
looking at so long, he asked himself? He wondered that he could have
sat beside it so quietly. It seemed now like something dark and
dangerous crouching there in the shadow of the little room.
"I sat down, under the terrace," he heard the eunuch go on, "where no
one could see me, and I listened. And after she had stopped I
heard----"
"Never mind what you heard," broke in the Pasha. "I have heard
enough."
He was ashamed--ashamed and resolved. He felt as if he had been
playing the spy with Zümbül Agha. And after all there was a very
simple way to answer his question for himself. He threw away his
cigarette, went forward into the little room, bent over the chest,
and fitted the key into the lock.
Just then a nightingale burst out singing, but so near and so loud
that he started and looked over his shoulder. In an instant he
collected himself, feeling the black man's eyes upon him. Yet he
could not suppress the train of association started by the
impassioned trilling of the bird, even as he began to turn the key of
the chest where his mother used to keep her quaint old silks and
embroideries. The irony of the contrast paralysed his hand for a
strange moment, and of the difference between this spring night and
other spring nights when nightingales had sung. And what if, after
all, only calamity were to come out of the chest, and he were to lose
his last gift of hope! Ah! He knew at last what he would do! He
quickly withdrew the key from the lock, stood up straight again, and
looked at Zümbül Agha.
"Go down and get Shaban," he ordered, "and don't come back."
The eunuch stared. But if he had anything to say he thought better
of uttering it. He saluted silently and went away.