“O wretched day! O death of honour! O calamity! Didst thou not swear
to guard my love from danger, O my father? Yet death has reached
her--poison! This house is now gehennum. Woe to all of us! O Allah,
ease the sorrow of my heart! O Lord, behold me rent in twain--My wife!
My mother!”
Yûsuf had burst into the room of the selamlik where his father was
transacting business with the steward of his property. Regardless
of the stranger’s presence, he gave way to grief and rage, falling
prostrate on the pavement, tearing at it with his hands, and biting at
it with his teeth convulsively. The steward, a person of discretion,
rose at once and asked permission to retire. The Pasha nodded, and,
when he was gone, bent over his demented child, inquiring of his cause
of grief with heart near broken, for he feared the worst had happened.
By dint of patience he elicited the simple facts, which, when he knew
them, eased his mind so greatly that he smiled and rendered fervent
thanks to the Most High. The Englishwoman was not dead; the poisonous
attempt had failed; the vision of an angry Consul, void of decency,
transgressing with investigations every man’s intrinsic right to sole
and secret jurisdiction in his own harîm, raising a scandal far more
dreadful than the sad event, receded suddenly.
“Be not distressed, my son!” he urged benignly. “Praise God, as I do,
that the matter is no worse. Think! a mere plant of jasmine dead in
place of her thou lovest. The call is for rejoicing, not for grief.
Have patience, O my soul! Control thy spirits!”
“Have patience, sayest thou?” sobbed Yûsuf. “My anguish is more
terrible than flesh can bear. My mother, she who bore me, whom I love
by nature, has turned my enemy, to poison her by whom alone I live. I
hate the murderess of my delight, and would destroy her; but lo! she is
my mother, and I can but weep. My soul is torn asunder. All the world
is blackened. O Allah, take my life! O Lord, protect me!”
Muhammad Pasha was profoundly moved by this lament. He thanked God for
vouchsafing him a son who, in the moment of extreme affliction, could
still preserve such justice in his sentiments.
“Take comfort, O my son! Be thankful that no harm has happened,” he
insisted tenderly.
But Yûsuf would not be consoled. The soothing tone enraged him, seeming
to make a trifle of his agony. He leapt upon his feet and cried:
“No harm! O Allah! Is it nought then, what I tell thee? Then thou hast
no love for me. Thou art my father; thou didst promise to preserve her
from my mother’s malice. Thou seest my despair, and yet thou smilest. O
Allah, kill me now, for I am orphaned cruelly. Both my parents hate me,
and deride my sufferings. I go to my mother Murjânah, who is kind and
gracious. She will weep with me.”
And before the older man could grasp his purpose, much less intervene,
that victim of a duteous heart had fled the room. After a space of
thought the Pasha followed to Murjânah Khânum’s quarters, where he
found the young man writhing on a bed of cushions, while his second
mother wept with him and prayed.
“Listen, O Yûsuf, O my son!” began the father earnestly. “I have been
thinking. Thou and thy bride shall have a house apart----”
But at his voice the young man, foaming at the mouth, sprang up from
his couch with teeth and hands clenched in a final spasm, and, flinging
up his hands, fell back insensible.
“Go, fetch the leech, the fit will pass, in sh´Allah. Be secret, lest
tongues wag to our dishonour,” said Murjânah, and the Pasha went at
once to the selamlik, returning with a black slave skilled in surgery.
Yûsuf was bled. While assisting in the operation the Pasha asked
Murjânah:
“What punishment is meet for her we wot of?”
“Forgiveness, for the love of Allah!” was the answer. “Upbraid her on
religious grounds and then forgive her. We know her generous, impulsive
nature. Thy sudden kindness will affect her more than blows. Poor soul,
she must have suffered very deeply. My slaves inform me that she saw
this Englishwoman as a kind of ghoul. Tomorrow, with her nature, she
may wish to hug her. Remove the young folks for the present.”
“I had thought of that,” rejoined the Pasha. “By Allah, they shall
have the garden-house towards Rôdah. To-morrow I will have the place
prepared for them.”
When Yûsuf Bey came back to life he wept anew, but weakly, helplessly.
In that condition he was carried to his own apartments by the surgeon,
with the Pasha’s help, Murjânah going on before to warn the bride.
This sad procession happened to encounter a slave of Leylah Khânum’s
who, hearing Yûsuf’s groans, ran off with screams and told her mistress
he was dead. At once the whole harîm was filled with wailing. Fitnah
Khânum, thunderstruck by the appalling news, defiled her face with dirt
and tore her raiment. She rushed shrieking to the bridal chamber, as
did every woman and child who by relationship could claim the right to
enter. She knelt before the bride, who stood apart, bewildered, and
besought her:
“Remove the spell, restore him, for the love of Allah. I sinned. I here
confess it. Thou art much too strong for me. Thou, by thy magic, hast
turned round the sword to pierce my bosom. I was impatient, I am justly
punished. The wisest of mankind advised me I should wait three months.
Thou seest how I love thee, how I kneel to thee and kiss thy feet.
Accept my life’s devotion: only save him!”
Without seeking for an answer to her prayer, she rose distractedly and
went and flung herself upon the bed where Yûsuf lay. He moaned:
“My mother! Oh, alas, thy bitterness! How couldst thou seek to rob me
of delight? Behold me dead! Now art thou satisfied? O Lord have mercy
on me! O Calamity!”
Blubbering loudly, she implored forgiveness. Soon his arms went
round her; they lay, hugging one another, sobbing, cooing, while the
spectators wept aloud in tender sympathy. The Pasha’s face was hidden
in his pocket-handkerchief. Murjânah Khânum murmured prayers beneath
her breath.
“O my despair! my wickedness!” the mother shrieked.
“My grief, my desolation; now my joy!” sobbed Yûsuf.
“O Lord, relieve me, for my heart is bursting,” moaned the Pasha.
“Oh, what do I behold. How rapture pains me!” came from bystanders.
All, in the selfish orgy of emotion, forgot the terrified and wondering
bride, who, understanding not a word of what was said, surveyed a
riddle. She asked the Pasha what the matter was. He answered with a
hiccup of emotion:
“It is nothing, mademoiselle. It will soon pass. Have no fear!” which
only added to her stupefaction.
She had seen such exhibitions in ill-governed nurseries, but never
among grown-up folks before. To account for all the outcry she imagined
some tremendous tragedy, and waited anxiously to learn its nature.
It was close on midnight ere the chamber emptied and, left alone with
Yûsuf, she could put her question. Then he told her the whole story
with frequent interjection of “Oh, how I suffered!” She learnt that she
had narrowly escaped a cruel death. But how her danger bore upon the
scenes she had just witnessed, or in what manner they were meant to
reassure her, she could not divine. Yûsuf himself bestowed no thought
on her predicament, immersed in contemplation of his own emotions.
Feeling alone and outcast, she wept a little ere she went to sleep.
In the morning Yûsuf had recovered his accustomed spirits. When she
alluded with a shudder to his mother’s wickedness, he bade her have
no fear; all that was past. From that day forth his mother would be
sure to cherish her. Her mind derived no comfort from that light
assurance; it remained perturbed until the Pasha came with tidings
of a new arrangement he had made for her and Yûsuf to sojourn in a
pleasure-house of his among the suburbs.