THE GARDEN GODDESS
It was natural that I should bring Nashan to Djimlah, and that she
should become the fourth of our group. Mechmet and his brother Shaadi
also often came to spend the day at Djimlah’s, and joined in our games.
Djimlah’s grandmother was desirous that we four girls should have
some of our lessons together, and my mother, from the distance, could
only acquiesce in this. Thus I saw them daily; and the more frequent
contact brought forth more frequent causes for warfare between us.
When they were all together, the fact of their being Turks became more
emphasized, and within me there burned the desire to dazzle them with
what the Greeks really had been in the world.
The way to do this came to me one night when sleep deserted me, and
in its stead Inspiration sat by my pillow. Since they knew absolutely
nothing of Greek History, I would tell it to them as a story.
Feverishly I sketched it all out in my head. I would begin at the
very beginning, showing them how Prometheus stole the divine fire to
create the Greeks. The Turks should come into the tale under the name
of Pelasgians--yes, I would call them Pelasgians, while the Greeks
should be called Prometheans. I could tell a story very well, at the
time, and I hugged my pillow fervently at the thought of my three
companions breathlessly listening to the recital of the great deeds of
the Greeks--and loathing the Turks for all their misdoings. And when
I had them properly moved, I should explain to them that this was not
a story, but real history: that the Prometheans were the Greeks, and
the Pelasgians were the Turks. And I should conclude: “You may call
yourselves the proud Osmanlis, and you may think that you are the
chosen people of Allah, but this is what history thinks of you--that’s
what you are to the world.”
I was so excited to begin my work that I slept no more that night. Yet
on the very next day I learned that my most inconsiderate parents had
decided to go for a few months to the Bosphorus. It always struck me
as the worst side of grown-ups that they never considered the plans of
the little ones. They will teach you, “It is not polite to interrupt
papa or mamma with your affairs when they are busy”--while papa or
mamma are only talking silly, uninteresting stuff which might very
well be interrupted. Yet how often, when I was intently watching a
cloud teaching me his art of transforming himself from a chariot to
an immense forest or from a tiger to a bevy of birds, mamma would
interrupt without even apologizing; and were I to say to her, “Just
wait a minute,” as mamma thousands of times said to me, I should be
called a rude little girl.
Thus it happened that, when my life’s work was unfolded before my eyes
by an inspiration, I was snatched away to that outlandish place, the
Bosphorus.
And there, about a quarter of a mile from the house we took, with
nothing between us but fields and gardens, lived a Turkish general and
his family. I do not recall his name, for every one spoke of him as the
Damlaly Pasha, which means “the pasha who has had a stroke.”
His was a modest house, surrounded by a garden, the wall of which had
tumbled down in one place, offering a possible means of ingress to a
small child of my activity. Some day I meant to avoid the vigilance of
the elders and to penetrate into the heart of that unknown garden; for
the opening was for ever beckoning to me. But, though I had not yet
been able to do so, I had already managed to peep into it; and had seen
a young woman who seemed to me the embodiment of a fairy queen picking
flowers there.
Every Friday morning the general went over to Constantinople, to ride
in the Sultan’s procession, as I afterwards learned. He wore his best
uniform, and his breast was covered with medals. A eunuch and a little
girl always accompanied him to the landing, and their way led past our
house.
Being lonely at the time, I took a great interest in the happenings
on our road, and I learned to wait every Friday morning for the queer
trio: the gorgeously uniformed and bemedalled old general, painfully
trailing his left foot; the old, bent eunuch, in a frock coat as old
and worn-out as himself, and the fresh little girl, with all her skirts
stuffed into a tight-fitting pair of trousers.
I thought her quite pretty, in spite of the ridiculous trousers. Her
hair was light, as is the colour of ripe wheat, and her eyes were as
blue as if God had made them from a bit of his blue sky. I nicknamed
her Sitanthy, and used to make up stories about her, and was always
wondering what her relationship was to the old general. Once I heard
her call him father, but I felt sure he could not be that. To my way
of thinking a father was a tall, slim, good-looking person. The other
species of men were either uncles, or grandfathers, or, worse yet, bore
no relationship to little girls, but were just so many stray men.
I never contemplated talking to the little girl--she was to me almost a
fictitious character, like one of the people I knew and consorted with
in our Greek Mythology--until fate brought us together.
One wonderful, mysterious, summer evening thousands of fireflies were
peopling the atmosphere. I had never seen so many before, and wanted to
stay up and play with them. But the tyranny of the elders decreed that
I should be put to bed at the customary hour, as if it had been any
ordinary night.
I believe few of the elders retain the powers of childhood--which see
far beyond the confines of the seen world--else why should they have
insisted on my leaving this romantic world outside, which was beckoning
me to join its revels?
However, they did put me to bed, and as usual told me to shut my eyes
tight and go to sleep. But shutting one’s eyes does not make one go
to sleep. On the contrary one sees many more things than before. The
beauty of the night had intoxicated me. I was a part of nature, and she
was claiming me for her own. There was a pond in our garden where frogs
lived. They, too, must have felt the power of to-night’s beauty; for
they were far more loquacious than usual. I listened to them for a long
time--and presently I understood that they were talking to me.
“Get up, little girl!” they were saying. “Get up, little girl!”
For hours and hours they kept this up, now softly and insinuatingly,
then swelling into loud command.
They ended by persuading me. I crept from my bed, put on my slippers,
threw over my nighty the pink little wrap with its silk-lined hood, and
went out on the balcony outside of my window. From there I slid down
one of the columns, and, before I knew it, was on the ground.
Supreme moment of happiness! I was free--free to revel in the wonders
of the night, free from vigilance and from orders. Clasping my wrap
closely around me, I first went to the pond, and told the frogs that I
was up.
“That’s right, little girl!” they answered me. “That’s right, little
girl!” But that was all they had to say to me, so I left them and gave
myself up to the deliciousness of being out of bed at an hour when all
well-regulated children should be in bed--according to the laws of the
elders.
The fireflies laughed and danced with me, twinkling in and out of
the darkness. They seemed like thousands of little stars, who, tired
of contemplating the world from heights above, like me had escaped
vigilance, and, deserting the firmament, had slid down to the earth to
play.
What a lot they had to say to me, these cheerful little sparks. On and
on we wandered together. They always surrounded me--almost lifting
me from the ground; and occasionally I succeeded in catching one and
sticking it on my forehead, till I had quite a cluster, so close
together that I must have looked like a cyclops, with one fiery eye in
the middle of my forehead.
We came into the fields where the daisies and poppies were sleeping
together, and passing through still another field, we arrived at the
place where the Damlaly Pasha lived. Then I knew that the opening in
the wall and the goddess had invited me to call on them that night.
Climbing over the opening was not an easy task, for my bedroom slippers
were soft, and the stones of the tumble-down wall were hard and sharp;
but I accomplished it. As for the fireflies, they had no difficulty:
they flew over the wall as if it were not there at all.
Inside, the sense of real exploration came over me. The garden was
old-fashioned, where the flowers grew in disorder, as they generally
do in Turkish gardens. How delicious was the perfume of the flowers.
I felt sure that, like me and the fireflies and the frogs and the
nightingales, the flowers here were awake--and not like the daisies and
poppies, who are sleepy-heads. But in vain did I look for my goddess.
She was not there.
Presently another little form came moving along through the bushes. We
met in the shrubbery. I pushed aside the branches, put my face through,
and in Turkish I said:
“Hullo, Sitanthy!”
“Hullo!” she answered, “What did you call me?”
“Sitanthy,” I replied. “That’s your name. I gave it to you. It is the
blue flower in the wheat--because you look like one of them.”
“That’s pretty,” Sitanthy commented. “And what is _your_ name?”
I told her.
“I know who you are,” she went on. “You are the solitary child, who
lives on the road to the landing, and who never plays.”
“I do play!” I cried.
“How can you? You are always sitting still.”
“I play most when I am most still.”
“Yours must be a funny game,” she observed “for when _I_ sit still
I go to sleep.”
Across the bushes we leaned and kissed each other. With her fingers
Sitanthy took hold of my cheeks and told me that she loved me.
“I have loved _you_ ever since we came to live here,” I said,
“because you are so pretty.”
“Are you pretty?” she inquired politely. “You have the largest eyes of
anyone in the world.”
“They are not really so large,” I corrected her. “They only look so,
because my face is little. I know it for a fact, because one day I
measured with a thread those of my father, and they were every bit as
large as mine.”
We linked arms and walked about the garden. She still wore her
ridiculous trousers.
“Didn’t they put you to bed?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t want to go--and I don’t go unless I want to.”
I stared at her in amazement. “And do the elders let you?”
She nodded.
“They put _me_ to bed every night--at the same hour,” I confided,
with great pity for myself.
She put her arm around me and kissed me, and though she said nothing I
knew that she felt the tragedy of this.
We plucked dew-soaked flowers together, talking all the time of those
things which belong to childhood alone; for children are nearer to the
world from which they have come, and when they meet, they naturally
talk of the things they remember, which the elders have forgotten--and
because they have forgotten, call unreal.
We caught some fireflies for her forehead, too, and thus we were two
cyclopses instead of one. I had to tell Sitanthy about them, for she
being a Turkish child knew nothing of them. Then I inquired about the
goddess of the garden; but Sitanthy only said that there was no young
woman in their house except their _halaïc_.
When I was ready to go, she let me out of the gate, and I started back
to my home. I was a little cold. A heavy dew was falling, and my
nighty was wet, and so was the flimsy pink wrapper. As for my slippers,
they became so soaked through that I discarded them in one of the
fields.
I meant to return to my bed as quietly as I had come out, but on
reaching our garden I knew that my escape had been discovered. A light
was burning in my bedroom, and other lights were moving to and fro in
the house, and there were lanterns in the garden.
I walked up to the nearest lantern. Happily it was in the hands of my
father.
To scare him I imitated the croak of a frog.
“Oh, baby!” he cried. “Oh, baby, where have you been?”
I confided my whole adventure to him, because of all the elders I have
known--except my brother, who was one of the immortals of Olympus--my
father seemed, if not to remember, at least to understand.
That night I was not scolded. The wet clothes were replaced by warm
ones, and I was only made to drink a disagreeable _tisane_. And
since, in spite of the _tisane_, I did catch cold and for two days
was feverish, I escaped even a remonstrance.
Yet my escapade had one lasting good result. It led to my friendship
with Sitanthy--and finally to the goddess of the garden.
On the following Friday, although I was still not quite well, I begged
to be permitted to sit by the window.
The trio for whom I was waiting came, but sooner than their customary
hour. From afar Sitanthy waved her little hand to me. Then instead
of passing by, as usual, all three came up to our house, and the old
general ceremoniously delivered a letter addressed to my father, who at
once came out, and accompanied them to the gate.
When my father returned, he said that on her way back the little girl
was to stay and play with me.
On this first visit, Sitanthy told me her history. She was the only
child of the only son of the old general and his _hanoum_. Her
father was killed in one of those wars, unrecorded by history, which
the sultan wages against his unruly subjects in remote, unmapped
corners of Asia. But, if these wars are not recorded by history, their
record is written with indelible ink in the hearts of the Turkish
women; for every one means the loss of brothers, fathers, husbands, and
sons, whose deaths are reported, if at all, long after they have been
laid away in unknown graves.
Sitanthy’s mother died from a broken heart, and thus my little friend
was all that remained to the old couple.
“I wear those trousers,” she explained, “to afford pleasure to my
grandparents. You see I’m only a girl, and it must break their hearts
to have a boyless home, so I saved all my pennies and bought these
trousers to give the household an air of possessing a boy.”
I hugged her, and never again thought of her trousers as ridiculous.
In the simple way Turkish children have, she also told me the
affairs of her home. The household consisted of her grandfather, her
grandmother, the old eunuch, a cook older than the eunuch, and a young
slave--the _halaïc_.
A _halaïc_ is a slave who is plain, and consequently cannot be
given in marriage to a rich husband; nor is she clever enough to become
a teacher; nor does she possess that grace and suppleness which might
make of her a dancing girl. Having thus neither mental nor physical
attributes, she becomes a menial.
She does all the coarsest work; and after seven years of servitude, if
she belongs to a generous master, she is either freed, with a minimum
dowry of two hundred and fifty dollars, or is given in marriage, with
a larger dowry, to one of the men servants in the retinue of the
household.
It is said that sometimes, if her master be either poor or cruel, he
sells her before her time expires, and thus she passes from house
to house--a beast of burden, because Allah has given her neither
cleverness, nor bodily beauty nor grace; and men cheat her of her
freedom and youth.
Thus, knowing exactly what a _halaïc_ was, I laughed at Sitanthy
when, in answer to my question about the goddess of her garden, she
replied: “It must be our _halaïc_--she is the only young woman in
our household.”
After I was entirely well again, I was permitted to go with Sitanthy
to play in her garden. I went with great expectations; for I hoped
that by daylight and with all the afternoon before me I could find out
something about my goddess.
On entering the garden, the first person I encountered was she--and
what I saw stabbed my heart. My goddess was harnessed to the
old-fashioned wooden water-wheel at the well, and with eyes shut was
walking round and round it, drawing up water.
We had a similar arrangement in our own garden, but it was a
blindfolded donkey who did the work--not a goddess.
She was dressed in a loose, many-coloured bright garment, held in at
the waist by a wide brass belt. A yellow veil was thrown over her head;
her bare arms were crossed on her breast, and bathed in the light of
that summer day, with eyes closed, she was doing this dreadful work,
without apparent shame, without mortification.
On the contrary, she seemed unaware of the degradation of her work. She
could not have looked more majestic or more beautiful had she been a
queen in the act of receiving a foreign ambassador. But I, who loved
her and called her my goddess, felt the shame and tears of rage sprang
to my eyes.
Saturated as I was with Greek mythology, there came to my mind the
thought of Danaë, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, and mother of
Perseus. Because she refused to listen to the love-words of the king
who received her, after her father exiled her, she was condemned to
similar work.
A great excitement seized me. I thought that the story I had read did
not belong to the past--that it was being enacted in that very place,
at that very hour, and before my own eyes. Nay, more! _I_ was a
Greek runner, ordered by the gods of Olympus to announce to her the
return of her son.
Possessed by the conviction, I rushed up to her, and stopped her in her
work.
“Hail to thee, Danaë!” I cried. “Perseus, your son, is coming, bringing
the head of Medusa, and with it he will turn into stone those who are
ill-treating you.”
She opened her eyes and gazed at me with a puzzled expression.
I repeated my words, my enthusiasm a trifle damped by her reception of
them.
When I had explained everything to her, and had given her every detail
of Danaë’s life and her son’s achievements a smile broke over her
face. Of all our visible signs, the soul comes nearest to speaking in
the smile. When the _halaïc_ smiled it was as if God were peeping
through the clouds.
“You adorable baby! You adorable Greek baby!” she laughed.
She unharnessed herself, and took me in her arms, holding me there as
a nest must hold a little bird. How comfy, how motherly her arms were.
She sat down on a stump and cuddled me in her lap; and I, pushing aside
her dress at the throat, kissed her where she was the prettiest.
“Why are you a _halaïc_?” I moaned. “Why do you have to be a
donkey--you who are beautiful as a Greek nymph?”
Her face softened, her eyes became misty, and her lips quivered, yet
remained wreathed in smiles. Silently she patted me, and I spoke again
of the cruelty of her position.
“Well, well, _yavroum_, you see the old people are very poor. They
have no money this month to engage a donkey, and the men on this place
are too old for such hard work. I am young and strong, so I do it.”
“But why are you a _halaïc_?” I repeated.
She laughed. “I am not exactly a _halaïc_, for I am a free woman.
I may go if I please--only I please to stay. The old _hanoum_
brought me up. I love her. She is old and poor. She needs me, and I
stay.”
Just then Sitanthy came out of the house, and claimed a part of the
lap that I was occupying, and there we both sat for awhile. But the
_halaïc_ had much to do, and presently we were sent off to play.
I questioned Sitanthy about her.
“She will pine away some day and die,” Sitanthy said.
My eyes grew larger. “Never!” I cried. “She is immortal.”
Sitanthy shook her head. “Oh, yes, she will; for her ailment is
incurable. Her heart is buried in a grave.”
In vain I begged for more explanations. With maddening precision
Sitanthy reiterated the same words. She had heard her grandmother say
this, and being a child of her race she accepted it as final. Her mind
received without stimulating her imagination. But I was a Greek child,
with a mind as alert, an imagination as fertile as hers were placid and
apathetic.
The _halaïc_ became the heroine of my daydreams. There was not
a tale which my brain remembered or concocted in which she did not
figure. My soul thirsted for knowledge of her affairs. They beckoned
to me as forcibly as had the tumble-down wall, and I meant some day to
penetrate her secrets.
She had said that the old _hanoum_ had brought her up, and that
the old _hanoum_ was very poor. That was one more reason why
she should have been given a great marriage. Any rich Turk would have
been willing to pay a fortune for such as she. In the East, we talk of
these things openly, as common occurrences; and since my intimacy with
Djimlah I had unconsciously learned a great deal about Turkish customs.
The affairs of the _halaïc_ quite absorbed me. I watched her
carefully. She never looked sad, or even tired. She performed her
menial duties as if they were pleasant tasks, like arranging flowers in
vases. She did everything, from being the donkey of the well to beating
the rugs, washing the linen, and scrubbing the floors.
In the early fall, toward sunset one day, I met her for the first time
outside the garden wall. I was being taken home to supper, and she
was mounting a hill leading to the forest of Belgrade. She passed me
without seeing me, her eyes on the horizon, a mysterious smile on her
lips.
My heart leaped at the radiance of her appearance. She was like the
embodiment of all the Greek heroines of myth and history. The wondrous
expression on her face so moved me that I had to sit down to keep my
heart from leaping from my breast.
“Come now, mademoiselle,” said the elder who was with me, “you know you
are already late for your supper.”
On any other occasion I should have kicked my governess, but the face
of the _halaïc_ had sobered me. Obediently I walked home, but I
did not eat much supper.
The next time I saw Sitanthy, I told her of my meeting with the
_halaïc_.
Sitanthy nodded. “She was going to her hour of happiness. She lives for
that hour. She has it from time to time.”
In vain I begged for more particulars. Sitanthy was the most Asiatic of
all the Turkish children I have known. She could tell me stories of her
world; but her world appeared to her as matter-of-fact and unromantic
as the world of the elders.
Whenever I saw the _halaïc_ she was lovely to me. She smothered me
with kisses, and she scolded me kindly whenever I needed it, which was
pretty often. But there was a patrician reserve about her which kept me
from questioning her.
She was tender, but at times cruel. She would laugh at things which
choked my throat with a big lump. Damlaly Pasha’s household was poor.
They lived on his pension, which was generally in arrears; for the
Oriental knows no fixed time, and the Turkish government is the most
oriental factor in their oriental lives.
There came days when the exchequer of the household was reduced to
small coins, which the hanoum kept tied in a knot in one of the corners
of her indoor veil. She always gave us a penny, when I visited
there; and Sitanthy and I would call the _simitzi_, passing by
with his wares on his head, and we would buy four of his delectable
_simit_, big enough to wear as bracelets--until we had eaten them.
Then came afternoons when we were given only a halfpenny, and each
of us had only one _simit_; and then there was a time when the
_hanoum_ had not even a halfpenny, and she wept because she could
not buy us _simit_. That was the day that the _halaïc_ was
cruel. She laughed at the sorrow of her mistress, and derided her; and
the old _hanoum_ was so mortified that she stopped crying at once.
It happened that one day I was taken suddenly ill while playing with
Sitanthy; and the old _hanoum_ sent word to my home, begging leave
to keep me in her house, in order that I should not be moved, and
imploring to be trusted.
It was the _halaïc_ who took care of me. She made up two little
beds, and slept herself between them. The old _hanoum_ brought
a brazier into the room, filled with lighted charcoal, and on it she
heated olive oil in a tin saucer. When it was very hot they took
off my nightgown, sprinkled dried camomiles all over me; and the
_halaïc_, dipping her hands into the scorching oil, began to rub
me. She rubbed and rubbed, till I screamed, and was limp as a rag. But
I fell into refreshing slumber immediately afterwards.
When I awoke, dripping with perspiration, the _halaïc_ was
changing my nightgown. Then she put me into the other little bed, which
was warm and dry.
Some hours later, I again awoke, and saw the _halaïc_ moving about
the room on tiptoe. She threw a cloak over her shoulders, and, with the
caution of a cat about to lap forbidden milk, stole out of the room.
I sat up in my bed and wondered what she was doing. Then I arose and
went to the window. The last quarter of the moon lighted the garden,
and distinctly I saw the _halaïc_ disappearing into a group of
cypresses.
In an instant I wrapped a shawl around me, and went down after her.
When I next caught sight of her she did not move like a cat any more.
She held in each hand a lighted candle, home-made and aromatic, and she
was going in and out among the trees, as if she were playing a game,
and all the time mumbling something that seemed to be a rhyme.
Then she crouched low on the ground and exhorted Allah to be merciful
and forgive her her--. It was a word I did not understand, and the next
day I had forgotten it.
After a time she rose, put the ends of the lighted candles between her
lips, went to the well, and drew water from it with a small tin cup
tied to a string.
She watered all the trees of this clump, counting the drops as they
fell: “_Bir, iki, utch, dort, besh, alti, yedi._” On the seventh
she always stopped, and went on to the next tree. She did all the
counting without dropping the lighted candles from her mouth--which was
very hard, for I tried it a few days later.
After the watering was ended, she blew out the candles, fell prone on
the earth, and begged Allah, the Powerful, Allah, the Almighty, to
forgive her. She wailed and wept, and told Allah over and over that
she was doing everything according to his bidding, for the sake of his
forgiveness.
Hidden in the shrubbery close by, I wondered what could be the crime of
that radiant creature, who had enthralled and captivated my imagination.
At length she rose, and danced a weird dance to the mouse-eaten looking
moon, in turn beseeching her:
“Queen of the Night, Guardian of Womanly Secrets, Mother of Silent
Hours--intercede for me--help me!”
She danced on and on, till she was quite worn out, and fell on the
ground weeping.
I could endure no more; besides my teeth were chattering, and all the
aches that were so especially my own took possession of my frail body
again. I came out of my hiding-place to where the _halaïc_ lay.
She looked up at me bewildered. Then she rose on her knees, and touched
me with her fingers, as if to ascertain that I were a living child. She
peered into my face through the tears in her eyes--and I, quite afraid
now, said not a word.
At length she broke the silence.
“Is that you, Greek baby?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Who sent you here?”
“Nobody. I came.”
She extended her palms upward. Her face took on one of her mystic
smiles.
“Allah,” she said softly. “Allah, thou forgivest me, the unworthy.”
For a long time she prayed to that power whom she called Allah, and I
knew to be God. When her prayers were at an end, she gathered me to her
heart, and kissed me with love and fervent exaltation; and thus carried
me into the house.
Again she rubbed me with hot oil, and in order to warm me better she
took me into her bed, and I slept, held fast in her arms.
The next day I must have been quite ill, and she never left me; for
every time I opened my eyes she was there, crouching by me, wearing
her radiant smile, which would have coaxed any truant soul to return
to earth. At any rate it coaxed mine, which came again, though
reluctantly, to inhabit my poor little body.
On the first day that I really felt better and could sit up, I took
advantage of her devoted attendance to question her.
“What have you done so monstrous and wicked, which Allah must forgive
you?”
After a moment’s thought, she answered me, simply and directly.
“I gave not myself to a man, as Allah ordains that every woman should
do, and I have given no children to multiply the world.”
For hours I puzzled over these words; but in the end I did get at their
meaning. New vistas, new horizons opened to my brain. What she meant,
of course, was that she was not married.
In the middle of that night I awoke--and I woke her too. I sat up in
bed, determined to ask, till all was told to me.
“Then why don’t you marry?” I demanded peremptorily.
“Now, _yavroum_, you go to sleep. You are only a baby, and you
cannot understand.”
“I’m not a baby!” I cried. “I know heaps and heaps of things, and if
you don’t tell me, I shall not go to sleep--and what is more I shall
uncover myself and catch my death of cold. So please tell me why you
don’t marry.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because he whose children I should have been happy to bear is for ever
buried, beyond that hill, in the forest of Belgrade.”
“That cannot be,” I said sceptically, “there is no cemetery there.”
“No, _yavroum_,” she said softly, “but he lies there; for I buried
him.”
Through the curtainless windows the stars were lending us light. The
face of the _halaïc_ shone sweet and tender, full of womanly charm
and loveliness. My little hand slipped into hers. Who shall deny that
we have lived before, that each little girl has been a woman before?
Else why should I, a mere child, have understood this grown-up woman;
and why should she, a woman, have thus spoken to me?
There we sat, our mattresses on the floor, as near to each other as
possible, holding each other’s hands while the stars were helping us to
see--and perhaps to understand.
“Like you, he was a Greek, and like you he said things about nymphs
and goddesses. He said that I was one of them, and he loved me. Some
day soon I was to be his. But in our household then there was another
man who vowed that no infidel should possess me. We were living at
the time over the hill, in the outskirts of the forest of Belgrade.
One night when the moon was at its waning, like the night you saw me
in the garden, that man killed my lover. I buried him myself--in the
forest of Belgrade--and, have tended his grave for these seven years.
I do everything to please Allah, and I never complain. To avert the
punishment which is allotted in the other world to the women who have
not done his will, I exhort him, according to the prescribed magics.
It is said that if during these rites, some time, a child should come,
it is Allah himself who sends it, to show that he understands and
forgives--and you came, _yavroum_, the other night.”
She bent over and kissed me gratefully.
“I shall work all my life for nothing, doing everything to help
others, in the hope that when I die, I shall be made very young and
very beautiful and shall be given to the lord, my lover. And maybe,
_yavroum_,” she added, almost in a whisper, “I may have a baby
like you--for you are a Greek baby, and he was a Greek.”
I cuddled very close to her and kissed her, my arms wound around her
neck, and went to sleep.
After that I no longer minded her being a _halaïc_, and even
at times being the donkey. For wherever I saw her, and in whatever
occupation, her background was always the Elysian fields. There she
walked in the glory of her beauty, and in company with her Greek lover.