her soul was as bright as the horizon; she talked delightfully with her
Bostangi about many indifferent matters, for the mere purpose of
speaking to him; and after he had filled her flower-basket, she seated
herself in a grove, and bound up a nosegay, with which she presented
him. The Count, as a mark of reverence to his fair mistress, fastened
it, with a look of surprise and delight, to the breast of his waistcoat,
without ever dreaming that the flowers might have a secret import; for
these hieroglyphics were hidden from his eyes, as from the eyes of a
discerning public the secret wheel-work of the famous Wooden
Chess-player. And as the Princess did not afterwards expound that secret
import, it has withered away with the blossoms, and been lost to the
knowledge of posterity. Meanwhile she herself supposed that the language
of flowers must be as plain to all mortals as their mother-tongue; she
never doubted, therefore, but her favourite had understood the whole
quite right; and as he looked at her with such an air of reverence when
he took the nosegay, she accepted his gestures as expressions of modest
thanks for the praise of his activity and zeal, which, in all
probability, the flowers had been meant to convey. She now took a
thought of putting his inventiveness to proof in her turn, and trying
whether in this flowery dialect of thanks he could pay a pretty
compliment; or, in a word, translate the present aspect of his
countenance, which betrayed the feelings of his heart, into
flower-writing; and accordingly, she asked him for a nosegay of his
composition. The Count, affected by such a proof of condescending
goodness, darted to the end of the garden, into a remote greenhouse,
where he had established his flower-depot, and out of which he was in
the habit of transferring his plants to the soil as they came into
blossom, without stirring them from their pots. There chanced to be an
aromatic plant just then in bloom, a flower named _Mushirumi_[23] by the
Arabs, and which hitherto had not appeared in the garden. With this
novelty Count Ernst imagined he might give a little harmless pleasure to
his fair florist; and accordingly, for want of a salver, having put a
broad fig-leaf under it, he held it to her on his knees, with a look
expressive of humility, yet claiming a little merit; for he thought to
earn a word of praise by it. But, with the utmost consternation, he
perceived that the Princess turned away her face, and, so far as he
could notice through the veil, cast down her eyes as if ashamed, and
looked on the ground, without uttering a word. She hesitated, and seemed
embarrassed in accepting it; not deigning to cast a look on it, but
laying it beside her on the seat. Her gay humour had departed; she
assumed a majestic attitude, announcing haughty earnestness; and after a
few moments left the grove, without taking any farther notice of her
favourite, not, however, leaving her _Mushirumi_ behind her, but
carefully concealing it under her veil.
[23] _Hyacinthus Muscari_.
The Count was thunderstruck at this enigmatical catastrophe; he could
not for his life understand the meaning of this strange behaviour, and
continued sitting on his knees, in the position of a man doing penance,
for some time after his Princess had left the place. It grieved him to
the heart that he should have displeased and alienated this divinity,
whom, for her condescending kindness, he venerated as a Saint of Heaven.
When his first consternation had subsided, he slunk home to his
dwelling, timid and rueful, like a man conscious of some heavy crime.
The mettled Kurt had supper on the table; but his master would not
bite, and kept forking about in the plate, without carrying a morsel to
his lips. By this the trusty _Dapifer_ perceived that all was not right
with the Count; wherefore he vanished speedily from the room, and
uncorked a flask of Chian wine; which Grecian care-dispeller did not
fail in its effect. The Count became communicative, and disclosed to his
faithful Squire the adventure in the garden. Their speculations on it
were protracted to a late hour, without affording any tenable hypothesis
for the displeasure of the Princess; and as with all their pondering
nothing could be discovered, master and servant betook them to repose.
The latter found it without difficulty; the former sought it in vain,
and watched throughout the painful night, till the dawn recalled him to
his employments.
At the hour when Melechsala used to visit him, the Count kept an eager
eye on the entrance, but the door of the Seraglio did not open. He
waited the second day; then the third: the door of the Seraglio was as
if walled up within. Had not the Count of Gleichen been a sheer idiot in
flower-language, he would readily have found the key to this surprising
behaviour of the Princess. By presenting the flower to her, he had, in
fact, without knowing a syllable of the matter, made a formal
declaration of love, and that in no Platonic sense. For when an Arab
lover, by some trusty hand, privily transmits a _Mushirumi_ flower to
his mistress, he gives her credit for penetration enough to discover the
only rhyme which exists in the Arabian language for the word. This rhyme
is _Ydskerumi_, which, delicately rendered, means _reward of love_.[24]
To this invention it must be conceded, that there cannot be a more
compendious method of proceeding in the business than this of the
_Mushirumi_, which might well deserve the imitation of our Western
lovers. The whole insipid scribbling of _Billets-doux_, which often cost
their authors so much toil and brain-beating, often when they come into
the wrong hand are pitilessly mangled by hard-hearted jesters, often by
the fair receivers themselves mistreated or falsely interpreted, might
by this means be dispensed with. It need not be objected that the
_Mushirumi_, or _Muscadine-hyacinth_, flowers but rarely and for a short
time in our climates; because an imitation of it might be made by our
Parisian or native gumflower-makers, to supply the wants of lovers at
all seasons of the year; and an inland trade in this domestic
manufacture might easily afford better profit than our present
speculations with America. Nor would a Chevalier in Europe have to
dread that the presenting of so eloquent a flower might be charged upon
him as a capital offence, for which his life might have to answer, as in
the East could very simply happen. Had not Princess Melechsala been so
kind and soft a soul, or had not omnipotent Love subdued the pride of
the Sultan's daughter, the Count, for this flower-gallantry, innocently
as on his part it was intended, must have paid with his head. But the
Princess was in the main so little indignant at receiving this
expressive flower, that on the contrary the fancied proffer struck a
chord in her heart, which had long been vibrating before, and drew from
it a melodious tone. Yet her virgin modesty was hard put to proof, when
her favourite, as she supposed, presumed to entreat of her the reward of
love. It was on this account that she had turned away her face at his
proposal. A purple blush, which the veil had hidden from the Count,
overspread her tender cheeks, her snow-white bosom heaved, and her heart
beat higher beneath it. Bashfulness and tenderness were fighting a
fierce battle within it, and her embarrassment was such that she could
not utter a word. For a time she had been in doubt what to do with the
perplexing _Mushirumi_; to disdain it, was to rob her lover of all hope;
to accept it, was the promise that his wishes should be granted. The
balance of resolution wavered, now to this side, now to that, till at
length love decided; she took the flower with her, and this at least
secured the Count's head, in the first place. But in her solitary
chamber, there doubtless ensued much deep deliberation about the
consequences which this step might produce; and the situation of the
Princess was the more difficult, that in her ignorance of the concerns
of the heart, she knew not how to act of herself; and durst not risk
disclosing the affair to any other, if she would not leave the life of
her beloved and her own fate at the caprice of a third party.
[24] Hasselquist's _Travels in Palestine_.
It is easier to watch a goddess at the bath than to penetrate the
secrets of an Oriental Princess in the bedchamber of the Seraglio. It is
therefore difficult for the historian to determine whether Melechsala
left the _Mushirumi_ which she had accepted of to wither on her
dressing-table; or put it in fresh water, to preserve it for the solace
of her eyes as long as possible. In like manner, it is difficult to
discover whether this fair Princess spent the night asleep, with gay
dreams dancing round her, or awake, a victim to the wasting cares of
love. The latter is more probable, since early in the morning there
arose great dole and lamentation in the Palace, as the Princess made
her appearance with pale cheeks and languid eyes; so that her female
council dreaded the approach of grievous sickness. The Court Physician
was called in; the same bearded Hebrew who had floated off the Count's
fever in his sweat-bath; he was now to examine the pulse of a more
delicate patient. According to the custom of the country, she was lying
on a sofa, with a large screen in front of it, provided with a little
opening, through which she stretched her beautifully turned arm, twice
and three times wrapt with fine muslin, to protect it from the profane
glance of a masculine eye, "God help me!" whispered the Doctor into the
chief waiting-woman's ear: "Things have a bad look with her Highness;
the pulse is quivering like a mouse-tail." At the same time, with
practical policy, he shook his head dubitatingly, as cunning doctors are
wont; ordered abundance of Kalaf and other cordials, and with a shrug of
the shoulders predicted a dangerous fever.
Nevertheless, these alarming symptoms, which the medical gentleman
considered as so many heralds announcing the approach of a malignant
distemper, appeared to be nothing more than the consequences of a bad
night's-rest; for the patient having taken her _siesta_ about noon,
found herself, to the Israelite's astonishment, out of danger in the
evening; needed no more drugs, and by the orders of her AEsculapius was
required merely to keep quiet for a day or two. This space she employed
in maturely deliberating her intrigue, and devising ways and means for
fulfilling the demands of the _Mushirumi_. She was diligently occupied,
inventing, proving, choosing and rejecting. One hour fancy smoothed away
the most impassable mountains; and the next, she saw nothing but clefts
and abysses, from the brink of which she shuddered back, and over which
the boldest imagination could not build a bridge. Yet on all these rocks
of offence she grounded the firm resolution to obey the feelings of her
heart, come what come might; a piece of heroism, not unusual with Mother
Eve's daughters; which in the mean time they often pay for with the
happiness and contentment of their lives.
The bolted gate of the Seraglio at last went up, and the fair Melechsala
again passed through it into the garden, like the gay Sun through the
portals of the East. The Count observed her entrance from behind a grove
of ivy; and there began a knocking in his heart as in a mill; a thumping
and hammering as if he had just run a race. Was it joy, was it fear, or
anxious expecting of what this visit would announce to him--forgiveness
or disfavour? Who can unfold so accurately the heart of man, as to trace
the origin and cause of every start and throb in this irritable muscle?
In short, Count Ernst did feel considerable palpitations of the heart,
so soon as he descried the Princess from afar; but of their Whence or
Why, he could give his own mind no account. She very soon dismissed her
suite; and from all the circumstances it was clear that poetical
anthology was not her business in the present case. She bent her course
to the grove; and as the Count was not playing hide-and-seek with much
adroitness or zeal, she found him with great ease. While she was still
at some distance, he fell upon his knees with mute eloquence before her,
not venturing to raise his eyes, and looked as ruefully as a delinquent
when the judge is ready to pass sentence on him. The Princess, however,
with a soft voice and friendly gesture, said to him: "Bostangi, rise and
follow me into this grove." Bostangi obeyed in silence; and she having
taken her seat, spoke thus: "The will of the Prophet be done! I have
called on him three days and three nights long, to direct me by a sign
if my conduct were wavering between error and folly. He is silent; and
approves the purpose of the Ringdove to free the captive Linnet from the
chain with which he toilsomely draws water, and to nestle by his side.
The Daughter of the Sultan has not disdained the _Mushirumi_ from thy
fettered hand. My lot is cast! Loiter not in seeking the Iman, that he
lead thee to the Mosque, and confer on thee the Seal of the Faithful.
Then will my Father, at my request, cause thee to grow as the
Nile-stream, when it oversteps its narrow banks, and pours itself into
the valley. And when thou art governing a Province as its Bey, thou
mayest confidently raise thy eyes to the throne: the Sultan will not
reject the son-in-law whom the Prophet has appointed for his daughter."
Like the conjuration of some potent Fairy, this address again
transformed the Count into the image of a stone statue; he gazed at the
Princess without life or motion; his cheeks grew pale, and his tongue
was chained. On the whole, he had caught the meaning of the speech: but
how he was to reach the unexpected honour of becoming the Sultan of
Egypt's son-in-law was an unfathomable mystery. In this predicament, he
certainly, for an accepted wooer, did not make the most imposing figure
in the world; but awakening love, like the rising sun, coats everything
with gold. The Princess took his dumb astonishment for excess of
rapture, and attributed his visible perplexity of spirit to the
overwhelming feeling of his unexpected success. Yet in her heart there
arose some virgin scruples lest she might have gone too fast to work
with the ultimatum of the courtship, and outrun the expectations of her
lover; therefore she again addressed him, and said: "Thou art silent,
Bostangi? Let it not surprise thee that the perfume of thy _Mushirumi_
breathes back on thee the odour of my feelings; in the curtain of deceit
my heart has never been shrouded. Ought I by wavering hope to increase
the toil of the steep path, which thy foot must climb before the bridal
chamber can be opened to thee?"
During this speech the Count had found time to recover his senses; he
roused himself, like a warrior from sleep when the alarm is sounded in
the camp. "Resplendent Flower of the East," said he, "how shall the tiny
herb that grows among the thorns presume to blossom under thy shadow?
Would not the watchful hand of the gardener pluck it out as an unseemly
weed, and cast it forth, to be trodden under foot on the highway, or
withered in the scorching sun? If a breath of air stir up the dust, that
it soil thy royal diadem, are not a hundred hands in instant employment
wiping it away? How should a slave desire the precious fruit, which
ripens in the garden of the Sultan for the palate of Princes? At thy
command I sought a pleasant flower for thee, and found the _Mushirumi_,
the name of which was as unknown to me, as its secret import still is.
Think not that I meant aught with it but to obey thee."
This response distorted the fair plan of the Princess very considerably.
She had not expected that it could be possible for a European not to
combine with the _Mushirumi_, when presented to a lady, the same thought
which the two other quarters of the world unite with it. The error was
now clear as day; but love, which had once for all taken root in her
heart, now dextrously winded and turned the matter; as a seamstress does
a piece of work which she has cut wrong, till at last she makes ends
meet notwithstanding. The Princess concealed her embarrassment by the
playing of her fair hands with the hem of her veil; and, after a few
moments' silence, she said, with gentle gracefulness: "Thy modesty
resembles the night-violet, which covets not the glitter of the sun, yet
is loved for its aromatic odour. A happy chance has been the interpreter
of thy heart, and elicited the feelings of mine. They are no longer hid
from thee. Follow the doctrine of the Prophet, and thou art on the way
to gain thy wish."
The Count now began to perceive the connection of the matter more and
more distinctly; the darkness vanished from his mind by degrees, as the
shades of night before the dawn. Here, then, the Tempter, whom, in the
durance of the Grated Tower, he had expected under the mask of a horned
satyr, or a black shrivelled gnome, appeared to him in the figure of
winged Cupid, and was employing all his treacherous arts, persuading him
to deny his faith, to forsake his tender spouse, and forget the pledges
of her chaste love. "It stands in thy power," said he, "to change thy
iron fetters with the kind ties of love. The first beauty in the world
is smiling on thee, and with her the enjoyment of all earthly happiness!
A flame, pure as the fire of Vesta, burns for thee in her bosom, and
would waste her life, should folly and caprice overcloud thy soul to the
refusing her favour. Conceal thy faith a little while under the turban;
Father Gregory has water enough in his absolution-cistern to wash thee
clean from such a sin. Who knows but thou mayest earn the merit of
saving the pure maiden's soul, and leading it to the Heaven for which it
was intended?" To this deceitful oration the Count would willingly have
listened longer, had not his good Angel twitched him by the ear, and
warned him to give no farther heed to the voice of temptation. So he
thought that he must not speak with flesh and blood any longer, but by
one bold effort gain the victory over himself. The word died away more
than once in his mouth; but at last he took heart, and said: "The
longing of the wanderer, astray in the Libyan wilderness, to cool his
parched lips in the fountains of the Nile, but aggravates the torments
of his thirsty heart, when he must still languish in the torrid waste.
Therefore think not, O best and gentlest of thy sex, that such a wish
has awakened within me, which, like a gnawing worm, would consume my
heart, since I could not nourish it with hope. Know that, in my home, I
am already joined by the indissoluble tie of marriage to a virtuous
wife, and her three tender children lisp their father's name. How could
a heart, torn asunder by sadness and longing, aspire to the Pearl of
Beauty, and offer her a divided love?"
This explanation was distinct; and the Count believed that, as it were
by one stroke, and in the spirit of true knighthood, he had ended this
strife of love. He conceived that the Princess would now see her
over-hasty error, and renounce her plan. But here he was exceedingly
mistaken. The Princess could not bring herself to think that the Count,
a young blooming man, could be without eyes for her; she knew that she
was lovely; and this frank exposition of the state of his heart made no
impression on her whatever. According to the fashion of her country, she
had no thought of appropriating to herself the sole possession of it;
for, in the parabolic sport of the Seraglio, she had often heard, that
man's love is like a thread of silk, which may be split and parted, so
that every filament shall still remain a whole. In truth, a sensible
similitude; which the wit of our Occidental ladies has never yet lighted
on! Her father's Harem, had also, from her earliest years, set before
her numerous instances of sociality in love; the favourites of the
Sultan lived there with one another in the kindest unity.
"Thou namest me the Flower of the World," replied the Princess; "but
behold, in this garden there are many flowers blossoming beside me, to
delight eye and heart by their variety of loveliness; nor do I forbid
thee to partake in this enjoyment along with me. Should I require of
thee, in thy own garden, to plant but a single flower, with the constant
sight of which thy eye would grow weary? Thy wife shall be sharer of the
happiness I am providing for thee; thou shalt bring her into thy Harem;
to me she shall be welcome; for thy sake she shall become my dearest
companion, and for thy sake she will love me in return. Her little
children also shall be mine; I will give them shade, that they bud
pleasantly, and take root in this foreign soil."
The doctrine of Toleration in Love has, in our enlightened century, made
far slower progress than that of Toleration in Religion; otherwise this
declaration of the Princess could not seem to my fair readers so
repulsive, as in all probability it will. But Melechsala was an
Oriental; and under that mild sky, Megaera Jealousy has far less
influence on the lovelier half of the species than on the stronger;
whom, in return, she does indeed rule with an iron sceptre.
Count Ernst was affected by this meek way of thinking; and who knows
what he might have resolved on, could he have depended on an equal
liberality of sentiment from his Ottilia at home, and contrived in any
way to overleap the other stone of stumbling which fronted him,--the
renunciation of his creed? He by no means hid this latter difficulty
from the goddess who was courting him so frankly; and, easy as it had
been for her to remove all previous obstacles, the present was beyond
her skill. The confidential session was adjourned, without any
settlement of this contested point. When the conference broke up, the
proposals stood as in a frontier conference between two neighbouring
states, where neither party will relinquish his rights, and the
adjustment of the matter is postponed to another term, while the
commissioners in the interim again live in peace with each other, and
enjoy good cheer together.
In the secret conclave of the Count, the mettled Kurt, as we know, had a
seat and vote; his master opened to him in the evening the whole
progress of his adventure, for he was much disquieted; and it is very
possible that some spark of love may have sputtered over from the heart
of the Princess into his, too keen for the ashes of his lawful fire to
quench. An absence of seven years, the relinquished hope of ever being
re-united with the first beloved, and the offered opportunity of
occupying the heart as it desires, are three critical circumstances,
which, in so active a substance as love, may easily produce a
fermentation that shall quite change its nature. The sagacious Squire
pricked up his ears at hearing of these interesting events; and, as if
the narrow passage of the auditory nerves had not been sufficient to
convey the tidings fast enough into his brain, he likewise opened the
wide doorway of his mouth, and both heard and tasted the unexpected news
with great avidity. After maturely weighing everything, his vote ran
thus: To lay hold of the seeming hope of release with both hands, and
realise the Princess's plan; meanwhile, to do nothing either for it or
against it, and leave the issue to Heaven. "You are blotted out from the
book of the living," said he, "in your native land; from the abyss of
slavery there is no deliverance, if you do not hitch yourself up by the
rope of love. Your spouse, good lady, will never return to your
embraces. If, in seven years, sorrow for your loss has not overpowered
her and cut her off, Time has overpowered her sorrow, and she is happy
by the side of another. But, to renounce your religion! That is a hard
nut, in good sooth; too hard for you to crack. Yet there are means for
this, too. In no country on Earth is it the custom for the wife to teach
the husband what road to take for Heaven; no, she follows his steps, and
is led and guided by him as the cloud by the wind; looks neither to the
right hand nor to the left, nor behind her, like Lot's wife, who was
changed into a pillar of salt: for where the husband arrives, there is
her abode. I have a wife at home, too; but think you, if I were stuck in
Purgatory, she would hesitate to follow me, and waft fresh air upon my
poor soul with her fan? So, depend on it, the Princess will renounce her
false Prophet. If she love you truly, she will, to a certainty, be glad
to change her Paradise for ours."
The mettled Kurt added much farther speaking to persuade his master that
he ought not to resist this royal passion, but to forget all other ties,
and free himself from his captivity. It did not strike him, that by his
confidence in the affection of his wife, he had recalled to his master's
memory the affection of his own amiable spouse; a remembrance which it
was his object to abolish. The heart of the Count felt crushed as in a
press; he rolled to this side and that on his bed; and his thoughts and
purposes ran athwart each other in the strangest perplexity, till,
towards morning, wearied out by this internal tumult, he fell into a
dead sleep. He dreamed that his fairest front-tooth had dropped, out, at
which he felt great grief and heaviness of heart; but on looking at the
gap in the mirror, to see whether it deformed him much, a fresh tooth
had grown forth in its place, fair and white as the rest, and the loss
could not be observed. So soon as he awoke, he felt a wish to have his
dream interpreted. The mettled Kurt soon hunted out a prophetic Gipsy,
who by trade read fortunes from the hand and brow, and also had the
talent of explaining dreams. The Count related his to her in all its
circumstances; and the dingy wrinkled Pythoness, after meditating long
upon it, opened her puckered mouth, and said: "What was dearest to thee
death has taken away, but fate will soon supply thy loss."