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VEILED WOMEN
by
MARMADUKE PICKTHALL
Author of “Saïd the Fisherman,” etc.
London
Eveleigh Nash
1913
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I 5
CHAPTER II 14
CHAPTER III 20
CHAPTER IV 24
CHAPTER V 38
CHAPTER VI 47
CHAPTER VII 59
CHAPTER VIII 64
CHAPTER IX 71
CHAPTER X 77
CHAPTER XI 83
CHAPTER XII 93
CHAPTER XIII 100
CHAPTER XIV 112
CHAPTER XV 121
CHAPTER XVI 131
CHAPTER XVII 143
CHAPTER XVIII 156
CHAPTER XIX 166
CHAPTER XX 174
CHAPTER XXI 182
CHAPTER XXII 188
CHAPTER XXIII 195
CHAPTER XXIV 203
CHAPTER XXV 210
CHAPTER XXVI 218
CHAPTER XXVII 228
CHAPTER XXVIII 236
CHAPTER XXIX 246
CHAPTER XXX 254
CHAPTER XXXI 263
CHAPTER XXXII 271
CHAPTER XXXIII 277
CHAPTER XXXIV 283
CHAPTER XXXV 288
CHAPTER XXXVI 296
CHAPTER XXXVII 300
CHAPTER XXXVIII 305
CHAPTER XXXIX 310
CHAPTER XL 314
MR. EVELEIGH NASH’S LIST OF NEW BOOKS
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
CHAPTER I
“If good the news, O bird, alight and welcome;
If bad, draw up thy claws and hie away!”
At the corner of a lofty housetop overlooking a great part of Cairo,
a woman stood with arms uplifted and solemnly addressed a crow which
seemed about to settle. The bird, as if the meaning of the chant had
reached him, turned in the air with clumsy flapping, and withdrew,
rising to join the hundreds of his kind which circled high above the
city bathed in early sunlight. The woman shook her fist at his receding
shape, glass bracelets tinkling on her strong brown arm. She sighed,
“The curse of God on thy religion, O thou faithless messenger!” then,
with a laugh, turned round to join the group of slave-girls, her
companions, sent up to lay out herbs to dry upon the roof. These had
watched her invocation of the crow with knowing grins. But one, a young
Circassian, who sat watching while the others worked, betrayed surprise
and asked the meaning of the little ceremony.
At that there was much giggling.
“Knowest thou not, O flower? It is the woman’s secret!”
“Secret of secrets, all unknown of men!”
“By Allah, men know nothing of it. In sh´Allah, they will be astonished
some day!”
“O Hind, relate the story! Our honey, our gazelle, Gulbeyzah, has not
heard it.”
Thus urged, the one who had adjured the crow, a free servant of the
house, obsequious towards the slaves, its pampered children, explained
as she knelt down again to work:
“In the name of Allah, thus it is related: Know, O my sweet, that, in
the days of our lord Noah (may God bless him), after the flood, the men
and women were in equal numbers and on equal terms. What then? Why,
naturally they began disputing which should have the right to choose
in marriage and, as the race increased, enjoy more mates than one. The
men gave judgment on their own behalf, as usual; and when the women
made polite objection, turned and beat them. What was to be done? The
case was thus: the men were stronger than the women, but there exists
One stronger than the men--Allah Most High. The women sought recourse
to Allah’s judgment; but--O calamity!--by ill advice they made the crow
their messenger. The crow flew off towards Heaven, carrying their dear
petition in his claws, and from that day to this he brings no answer.
But God is everliving and most merciful; a thousand years with Him
seem but an hour. Perhaps He does but hold our favour over, as might a
son of Adam, till the evening for reflection, to grant it at the last.
In sh´Allah!”
“In sh´Allah!” came the chorus of a dozen voices; followed by a general
laugh when Gulbeyzah, the Circassian, yawned and sighed, “Four goodly
husbands all my own! O Lord, give quickly!”
“That is the reason,” Hind concluded, “why good women have a word to
say to crows who seek to settle. Any one of them may be the bearer of
the blessed edict. The reason as related--Allah knows!”
“Good news and hopeful, by my maidenhood!--the best I ever heard!”
chuckled Gulbeyzah, reposing with her back against the parapet. She
then remained a long while silent, lost in day-dreams.
The hour was after sunrise of a spring morning in the twelve hundred
and eightieth year of the Hegirah, the second of the reign of Ismaîl.
The house was that of Muhammad Pasha Sâlih, a Turk by origin but born
and bred in Egypt, who held a high position in the government. The
girls, their task accomplished, sat down on their heels, each with her
tray of basketwork before her, and sniffed the breeze, in no haste to
return indoors.
“Praise to Allah,” one exclaimed with fervour, “we escape for an hour
from that Gehennum there below. Never have I seen the lady Fitnah so
enraged. Her wrath is not so much because her son desires the English
governess, as because the Pasha sees no hindrance to the match. I
tremble every time I have to go to her, lest in her fury she should
damage my desirability.”
“Praise be to Allah, I am not her property,” replied another, “but that
of her durrah, the great lady. Yet I know her for a good and pious
creature, not likely to be so enraged without rare cause. They say
this foreign teacher has bewitched the young man. He is mad. He flung
himself before her in the passage as she came from driving. She spurned
him, and they bore him, senseless, to his chamber, where for two days
he weeps and moans, refusing nourishment. It is enchantment, evidently,
for the girl is ugly.”
“Nay, by Allah, she is white and nicely rounded. But shameless! But an
infidel!”
“She can change her faith.”
“As easily as dung can change its odour!”
“Gulbeyzah here is whiter and more appetizing.”
“Well, God alone knows what she is or is not. This is sure: I have no
itching to go down into the house while Fitnah Khânum rages.”
“Nor I!” “Nor I!” exclaimed the rest with feeling.
The morning clamour of the city came up to them as a soothing murmur.
Minarets dreamed round them in the sun-haze which was rosy at its
heart but in the distance pearly with a tinge of brown. On one hand
open country might be seen, green fields and palm trees crowding to
the desert wave on which three pyramids stood out, minute as ciphers;
on the other, ending the long ridge of the Mucattam Hill, arose the
Citadel in smoky shadow, its Turkish dome and minarets, its towers
and ramparts, appearing like a city of the sky. Here and there among
the housetops a small cloud of doves went up, fluttered a moment and
subsided peacefully. Kites hovered, crows were circling, in the upper
air. Gulbeyzah watched their evolutions dreamily.
“Allah defend us from the liberty of Frankish women!” she remarked at
length. “I could not bear it. To meet the stare of all men were too
dreadful. My maidenhood would flush my brain and kill me. O pure shame!
And yet they choose what men they like, the fact is known. In sh´Allah,
the great favour, when the crow does bring it, will not destroy our
blessed privacy.”
“In sh´Allah, truly!” answered Hind, with vehemence. “Fear nothing,
O beloved; God is greatest! Their freedom is from Satan, their liege
lord--the curse of Allah on him! It is a travesty of God’s work, like
all he does. Is it not known when Allah made the cow, he tried his best
to do the same, but got no farther than the water-buffalo? All Heaven
mocked him. Our charter, when it comes, will be perfection.”
“Talking of foreign women makes me curious to know how things are
going, down below. Has the governess consented to give life to Yûsuf?
Has the Pasha quieted the lady Fitnah?”
“Nothing could quiet her, unless it were the quick expulsion of the
Englishwoman. Why did she ever have her children taught the lore of
infidels? The fault is hers! She hoped to keep the Bey from honourable
marriage, chaining his fancy with some slave-girl, her own creature.”
“With me, say plainly!” laughed Gulbeyzah, with a yawn. “I was
brought into the house with that intention. Yet not her creature, for
Murjânah Khânum is my mistress, and she would have seen to it that I
was well respected. If the governess has pity on him--which I think
not likely--as soon would the wild serpent wed the dove--my lady must
provide me with a proper husband. I have no mind to wither as a fruit
untasted.” She yawned again. “Will no one go into the house and bring
me news?”
Up leapt a little Galla girl, a child as yet unveiled, all eyes and
teeth with glee in the adventure.
“I go, O lady! I am not afraid. I will even enter the selamlik. I will
find out everything.”
“Be very careful, O Fatûmah, lest old Fitnah seize thee. She would rip
up thy belly and pluck out thy entrails did she catch thee spying!”
The little black girl laughed and made an impudent grimace.
“And then the eunuchs! They will surely beat thee.”
“By Allah, they must catch me first. Sawwâb adores me, and the others
are too slow.”
“Good. Run, ere curiosity consume me!”
The little negress shot off like an arrow. Down dark, malodorous
stairs, through empty corridors, she glanced, incarnate mischief. In a
pleasure court of the harîm, where orange trees in tubs grew round a
pool, she stopped to listen for the voice of Fitnah. It came from an
apartment on her right. Straight forward, where she wished to go, the
coast seemed clear. Springing on tiptoe, she plucked a spray of blossom
from the nearest tree; then ran on down a passage through the ornate
screen, the boundary of the women’s quarters, where a eunuch tried in
fun to stop her; and in sight of a great hall where men were lounging,
knocked at a door.
The word had scarce been given ere she glided in and held out the sprig
of orange-blossom to the English governess, with every muscle of her
body fawning, smiling. Without a look, she read the stranger’s face,
perceived she had been crying lately but now looked exultant, observed
the order of the room, the foreign furniture; and then, before the
Englishwoman could find words to thank her for the pretty offering,
kissed a white hand which proved as hot as fire, and darted out as
noiselessly as she had entered.
As she was flitting back across the garden-court, she heard a male
voice cry:
“Be silent, woman; or, by the Prophet, I shall have to beat thee!”
Crouching behind a tub, she listened eagerly. But though a wrangle
was in progress not far off between the Pasha and his wife, the lady
Fitnah, she could glean no more than the main tenor of it from the
voices, of which the man’s was irritated and the woman’s mad.
At last the Pasha shouted:
“It is finished. No word more. I go straight to the Consul. Appeal to
the Câdi, I beseech thee; of thy kindness, do so! He will tell thee,
just as I do, that thou art demented.”
Another minute and he crossed the court, wearing his best tarbûsh and
his official garb of black frock-coat and narrow trousers--a thing
unheard of at that early hour.
Having seen him pass to the selamlik, Fatûmah ran like lightning
through the dim old house, till, breathless, she emerged in dazzling
sunlight and flopped down on the roof again beside the others.
“Well, what news?” they clamoured.
“Great news!” Fatûmah panted. “Only listen! The English governess is
going to marry Yûsuf Bey, and she has islamed!”
“Praise to Allah!” cried the others in amazement. “A Frankish woman
convert! A great miracle!”
“The Pasha goes this minute to the English Consul, to confer with him
and make arrangements for the ceremony.”
“Allahu akbar! Is it possible? But what says Fitnah?”
“What can she say, the poor one? The command is on her.”
“But, for the love of Allah, say, how didst thou learn all this?”
Fatûmah shut her lips tight, looking preternaturally cunning.
“Ha, ha!” was all she answered.
“Her tale is nonsense! She is making game of us,” exclaimed Gulbeyzah,
breaking out in laughter. “She was not gone five minutes, that is
known. Thou shalt be paid full measure, little poison-flower! Confess
now that thy story is all lies!”
The marvel was that every word proved true.