Half an hour later Yûsuf and Hâfiz were in each other’s arms, sighing
gustily and rocking to and fro in the ecstasy of reconciliation.
Barakah had explained things to her husband in the interim, taking him
to task severely for his savage conduct. To be thought uncivilized
had always been his dread, and just then, with red eyes and all
dishevelled, a-quiver from the fray, he stood convicted. With repentant
tears he ran to ask forgiveness of his late antagonist.
It was decided that they twain, with their respective consorts, should
spend the evening quietly in Yûsuf’s room; in pursuance of which
resolution they had supped together, and Bedr-ul-Budûr, who owned
a lute, was going to sing, when a card was brought to Hâfiz by the
chamber-maid. He frowned and clenched his teeth as he examined it.
“It is the Prince, my uncle!” he exclaimed. “He has been told our
whereabouts; it must be by my father, since we have been careful not to
call on any of the Turks in Paris. O Calamity! My uncle is correct and
cold, a madman who condemns all pleasure.”
With haste he sent his concubine into her own apartment, while Yûsuf
hustled Barakah into the dressing-room and locked the door. No would-be
Franks received the exiled Prince, but a pair of ceremonious Orientals,
with fezes carried at the most respectful angle, who strove with one
another to be first to kiss his hand.
The Prince was a tremendous talker. A scion of the ruling house of
Egypt, enduring banishment for his political opinions, he began upon
the state of that unhappy country for which he saw no hope save in
a European form of government. He wished the young men to attend
the meetings of his club, “the Friends of Progress,” at a café on
the Boulevard des Italiens; and the young men swore to do so on the
first evening they could spare from the study of French thought and
institutions which at present took up every minute of their time.
From national affairs the Prince passed on to household matters,
advocating education for all women and promotion to an equal rank with
men. At this his nephew cried:
“We think as you do, having each a lady whom we treat precisely in the
Frankish manner. Yûsuf here present has espoused a noble Englishwoman,
who instructs us. Introduce her, Yûsuf, since my uncle shares our
views.”
Barakah expected her release, which she had long desired, for the
Prince’s voice was wonderfully sweet and winning, and she burned
with curiosity to see his face. But the talk sheered off from her.
The Prince, resenting the intrusion of a concrete instance on ideas,
rebuked the young men sternly, causing both to cringe.
“You mistake my meaning,” he informed them. “God forbid that I should
wish our ladies to resemble closely those of Europe. If you desire
that, you are very foolish. The harîm life, or something like it, is
the best for women. It only needs reform and elevation. It is a system
founded on the laws of God expressed in nature, whereas the European
way of treating women has no sanction. The latter seems entirely
meretricious when one sees how ladies here make sport of marriage and
shun motherhood--how children flout and override their parents. If the
understanding of our women were improved, their status raised, I think
our way would be acknowledged better by impartial judges. No, all that
I would borrow from the Franks would be a weapon. They excel us in
mechanical contrivances, in practical education, and in method. These
gifts I covet, for with equal weapons we should be their masters; our
Faith exceeding any motive power which they possess.”
He went on talking in this strain till nearly midnight, when he left
abruptly. Barakah was then let out of her dark prison. Alone with
Yûsuf, she inquired his real opinion of the Prince’s views, which
seemed to her inspiring.
“Like pitch! Like dung!” he answered in the vulgar speech of Egypt.
“The production of ideas is an amusing pastime. It is strange, the
things a man can think of if he applies his mind to it. And when a
Prince is speaking one admires, of course; though this one is a madman
who has lost a fine position and will lose his life merely for love of
argument. What we are and do belongs to Allah. No thinking or wild talk
affects it, praise to Him!”
He seemed glad to change the subject. Putting his arm round Barakah,
he begged her in seductive tones to confide to him the secret about
Frankish women.
“It is not for myself I ask,” he whispered fondly; “but Hâfiz,
Izz-ud-dîn, and Saïd die to know. Where are these balls at which
distinguished women fling aside all shame? We have been to dances, but
the women there are base and ribald, showing none of that refinement in
depravity which charms the mind in writings of this country.”
In vain did she assure him that good Frankish women were every whit as
moral as good Orientals.
“We have their books for testimony,” was his answer. And again he told
her: “It is for my friends I plead. I myself, as is well known, desire
thee only.”
The women were left more and more alone, the private explorations
of their lords bereaving them by day as well as night. Barakah did
her best to entertain them. Together with the landlady she planned
excursions, and took them to the ateliers where modes are created. But
the sense of desolation dogged them everywhere. Scenes which they might
have viewed with pleasure had their lords been faithful, encounters
which might then have given them a thrill of mischief, appeared
heart-rending in their luckless state. The very gaiety of the Parisian
streets seemed gruesome. If a man in passing touched them they were
seized with trembling, and once or twice came very near to fainting
from pure shame; and their terror was intense at passing unknown
doorways, though the landlady assured them there was not the slightest
danger.
Their haunting fear was lest male unbelievers should abduct them; still
more, perhaps, lest they should come to wish for such a fate--the most
appalling that could be imagined for a Muslim woman. Bedr-ul-Budûr
declared she knew a girl who, married to an infidel, brought forth
black beetles--“not one, but thousands! millions!”--she related
graphically--which at length devoured her. Such stories were received
with acclamation, as justifying the extreme abhorrence which they felt
for Frenchmen. And Barakah, though she tried to reason with them,
shared their feelings in some measure, dismayed by the vulgarity of
Western life. When, added to all this, it rained for five days in
succession, her friends resigned their cause to God and ceased to
worry, while she herself grew thoroughly despondent.
The girls shrugged shoulders at the sinful folly of their owners, now
too far gone in dissipation to endure reproaches.
“It is a malady, a madness,” said Bedr-ul-Budûr, with resignation.
“It is the air of infidelity in this accursed city. We did wrong to
travel unprovided with the antidote, which must be known to sages and
obtainable. It is bad enough for us, but what of Barakah--a chief wife,
a great lady? How can she endure it?”
Barakah did at last think fit to make a protest. One night and early
morning she sat up for Yûsuf, and her reproaches met with a success
which startled her. He wept aloud and flung himself upon the floor. His
face was ghastly. When questioned, he confessed that he had sinned most
foully, having that night consumed so much abomination that on his way
home he had been struck down by God with awful sickness and had nearly
died. He swore that none but devils lived in Paris, and implored her to
transport him back to Egypt.
A picture seen the previous morning in a shop upon the boulevard had
roused in Barakah the wish to visit Switzerland. She longed to walk by
forest streams, beneath great mountains, in solitude, with keen, cool
breezes to restore her spirits.
“Paris is not the whole of Europe,” she informed him gently. “There
are scenes of famous beauty which we ought to visit. Take me to
Switzerland!”
“At once!” he cried. “This very day now dawning! By Allah, I would go
to Gebel Câf with thee alone to get away from Paris.”
She bade him tell his friends to treat their women better, which he
swore to do; and directly after breakfast took him out, while his
resolve was eager, to obtain money from the bank where he had credit,
and buy tickets to Geneva, the first name occurring to her. She was
glad that she had taken this precaution when, later in the day, she saw
his purpose weaken. The tickets actually bought alone sustained it, for
he had the Oriental’s shrewd regard for money’s worth. That night they
spent in the train, both cherishing sensations of deliverance, though
those of Barakah were chequered by the vision of three weeping girls,
who at the moment of departure had embraced her knees and tried to hold
her.
Their Alpine tour, however, was of short duration. Yûsuf was contented
in Geneva, giving praise to Allah for the vast supply of drinking
water. But when, at her suggestion, they moved on to Chamounix, his
feeling changed. His face went green as on that night in Paris. His
nostrils and his eyes distended to their utmost, reminding the observer
of a frightened horse. The sight of the great mountains closing in
and hanging over him oppressed his soul with terror which was not
diminished by the occurrence in the hour of their arrival of a dreadful
thunderstorm. When he saw the numbers of the visitors he gasped and
questioned: “Come these here for pleasure? Is it possible? A place
so frightful, so appalling, like Gehennum! If one came with a large
company, with music and loud songs that never ceased, and kept his eyes
shut all the time, it might be bearable; supposing one were forced to
do it, for some crime ... For pleasure, sayest thou? What pleasure can
they find?”
“They walk and climb the mountains. They love Nature. And the air is
excellent.”
“By Allah, wild beasts! Human beings are more sensitive. How can they
love Nature who approve her in most horrid mood? It is evident that
God Most High designed such scenes for a warning and a menace, to be
shunned. Yet these applaud. They are utterly devoid of feeling. May Our
Lord destroy them!”
A prey to panic, he no longer heard her arguments. His one desire was
to rejoin his friends as soon as might be, to see once more the visage
of a true believer; and two days later they were back in Paris.
Barakah’s return was hailed with rapture by the hapless girls, who had
not ventured out of doors during her absence. Things, they declared,
were even worse than ere she left, their men more shameless. Yûsuf
had sworn beforehand to discountenance nocturnal outings, and for the
first two days he kept his word; though Hâfiz and the others begged
her to release him from it, protesting that their occupations were
most innocent. Indeed, their childlike zest in evil-doing so resembled
innocence that she felt cruel when refusing, as if denying babies some
small pleasure. But on the third day Yûsuf came to her, with worried
frown, and said:
“Hâfiz and the rest, I fear, are going much too far. I feel responsible
for them, since we are all one party. They do not tell me all their
pranks. I have been thinking. It is my duty to be with them and
restrain their conduct.”
“Do what thou judgest right and God preserve thee!” answered Barakah,
with a point of irony which he did not perceive.
“My conscience is relieved,” he cried. “I thank thee. God knows how it
has troubled me since our return.”
That evening he departed with his friends, leaving Barakah to hear the
lamentations of the girls.
“They are all bewitched,” cried Bedr. “Hâfiz is by nature pious. Even
now he names the Name of Allah when he opens any door and curses the
religion of the infidels when passing by their idols in the streets
and squares. Our Lord preserve his life! Each night I see him dead in
some disgraceful haunt, his house dishonoured. Oh that I knew a good
magician, a true believer, in this land of mangy dogs!”
Their fears, against her will, infected Barakah; during the long
night-watches they became a sickness, and when day broke again they
seemed confirmed. Yûsuf had not returned. She went to Bedr-ul-Budûr and
found her in the same anxiety. They sat together, wondering what to
do. Grey light at the window, raindrops coursing down the panes, made
anguish visible.
At length, when eight o’clock had struck, there came a note
for Barakah. It was in French, and from the exiled Prince, the
revolutionary. It bade her have no fear; her husband would be with her
in an hour, when the writer hoped, with her permission, to present his
compliments in person and explain the case. The other girls had come by
that time from their lodgings to get strength from Barakah. Conjecture
ravened round the simple statement in the letter. At ten o’clock the
Prince sent up his card; the three girls fled across the passage just
in time to avoid encountering the visitor, who led into the room the
errant youths. The Prince, a lean, ascetic-looking man, with boyish
eyes, bowed low to Barakah.
“Madame,” he opened, with a flourish of his hand towards the group of
reprobates, “I ask you to remember of your husband, and also beg you
to remind the fair companions of my nephew and these other gentlemen,
that they are young, these boys, and therefore capable of progress.
It is a proof that they possess some germ of sense, which later may
develop into mind, that, being terrified at last, they sent to me. I
found them in a most equivocal position--in fact, dear madame, at the
Conciergerie. Thanks to my relations with important people in this
city, I had no difficulty in procuring their release, since they were
not precisely guilty, only imbecile. I am glad to have been able to
assist them, for the love I bear their parents and our common Faith.
But they will allow me to remark that vicious boys should travel only
with a tutor, who should have a whip. It disgusts me even to conceive
that any man could be so foolish as to quit the side of one so lovely
and so virtuous as you, madame, to follow beastliness. Dear madame,
your servant!”
He retired; when Yûsuf and the others pressed round Barakah, a group
of penitent and frightened children. Hâfiz, the fat, knelt down before
her, tears coursing down his cheeks; Saïd kissed her raiment; Yûsuf
pleaded in her ear. They had done wrong, they owned, though nothing
very dreadful. Some elegant ladies had admitted them to their society;
they were sitting in a café communing in all refinement, when horrible
low men arrived and claimed those ladies. One threw a glass at Saïd
and cut his face--the wound was shown--on which there was a scuffle;
gendarmes came and, siding with their co-religionists, conveyed the
righteous Muslims straight to prison.
“Where we should have stayed for ever, had not Hâfiz thought of calling
in his uncle,” blubbered Izz-ud-dîn; “simply for being Muslims, they
are so fanatical.”
All four were bent upon return to Egypt, since Paris had become a place
of terror. The rapture of the girls was indescribable. They danced and
clapped their hands, embraced each other, laughed, cried, and gave way
to all kinds of folly. Bedr-ul-Budûr made vows to divers saints, and
held delighted conversations with her mother long since dead.
Four days later they were all on board a steamer, quitting France. The
sea was smooth; the ladies stayed on deck. There was no longer any
question of confining them in stuffy cabins; experience of Frankish
manners had done that much good.
Yûsuf turned round from cursing the fair country they were leaving, to
look ahead across the vast expanse of sparkling sea.
“O land of Egypt! Blessed one!” he sighed. “Most beautiful of all
that see the sun! In thee are no hideous and shocking mountains, no
cataracts, no chasms, no ferocious beasts or savage people such as
appal the traveller in other lands. All is flat and smooth and debonair
in thee; and if thou housest infidels they dare not bite. Thy Nile is
smooth and good to drink, not putrid and for ever kicking like this
sea. May Allah bring us to thy shores in safety and never let us leave
them any more, but live in honour, eating, drinking, fasting in due
season, praising God, doing good deeds, and getting many children!”
At this conclusion there was laughter and applause.
“Amîn!” cried Hâfiz. “By Allah, it is true. The air of lands of
infidelity breeds madness. Hail, O Egypt!”