A TURKISH PARADISE
Ali Pasha himself had built the whole citadel of Janina, and had been
wise enough, as soon as the fortress was finished, to at once and
quietly remove out of the way all the builders and architects who had
had anything to do with it, so that he only knew all the secrets of
the place. There were secret exits and listening-galleries in every
part of the building, and each single group of redoubts which, viewed
from the outside, seemed quite isolated, was really so well connected
together by means of subterranean passages, that one could go backward
and forward from one to the other without being observed in the least.
At a later day Ali Pasha's enemies were to have very bitter experience
of these architectural peculiarities.
One could go right round the palace of the three Beys, both above and
below, by means of a secret corridor, and not one of the inhabitants
of the building had the least idea of the existence of this corridor.
It was in the midst of the fathom-thick wall between two rows of
windows, and within this space invisible doors opened into every
apartment, either between windows, or behind mirrors, or beneath the
ceiling between two stories, and these doors could not be opened by
keys, but turned upon invisible hinges set in motion by hidden
screws, and they closed so hermetically as to leave not the slightest
orifice behind them.
Ali Pasha stood there in the banqueting-chamber unobserved by any one.
He stood beside a huge Corinthian column, and here hung a black board
indicating the direction in which Mecca lay. He had no fear that any
one would look thither. That place, towards which every truly
believing Mussulman must turn when he prays, was carefully avoided by
every eye, for fear it should encounter the golden letters which
sparkle on the walls of the Kaaba.[6]
[Footnote 6: The chief sanctuary of the Mussulmans standing in the
midst of the great mosque at Mecca.]
For now is the time for enjoyment. There is no need of a heavenly
Paradise, for Paradise is already here below. There is no need to
inquire of either Muhammad or the angel Izrafil concerning the wine
which flows from the roots of the Tuba-tree; far more fiery, far more
stimulating, is the wine which flashes in glass and goblet. The houris
may hide their white bosoms and their rosy faces, for what are they
compared with the earthly angels whose mundane charms intoxicate the
hearts of mortals? Truly Muhammad was but an indifferent prophet, he
did not understand how to arrange paradise; let him but regard the
arrangements of Mukhtar Bey--they will show him how that sort of thing
ought to be managed.
Muhammad imagined that the embraces of seven and seventy houris would
make an enraptured Moslem eternally happy. Why, the bungler forgot the
best part of it. Would it not be more satisfactory if now and then,
say once in a thousand years or so, the Moslems were to exchange their
own houris for those of their neighbors? In this way the aroma of
brand-new kisses would prevent their raptures from growing stale, and
the Paradise of Muhammad would be worth something after all. With all
eternity before him, a man would scarcely mind waiting for his own
wives for a paltry millennium or two while he enjoyed the wives of his
neighbors, and when he returned to his seven and seventy original
damsels again, what a pleasant reunion it would be!
Now the Prophet had forgotten to introduce this novelty into his own
Paradise, and Mukhtar Bey was the happy man to whom the fairy Malach
Taraif whispered the idea during the fast preceding the Feast of
Bairam while he slept, and he immediately proceeded to discuss the
matter with his kinsmen.
All three brothers lived under one roof, each of the three had his own
special harem, and each of them possessed in their harems beauties far
surpassing what the angels Monkar and Nakir could promise them in the
next world. After the Feast of Bairam, when Mukhtar Bey had well plied
his brethren with good wine, he said to them, "Let us exchange
harems!"
Sulaiman Bey immediately gave his hand upon it; Vely Bey laughed at it
as a good idea at first, but afterwards drew back. The other two
worthies laughed uproariously at his simplicity, made fun of him, and
proceeded at once to transfer to each other their respective damsels,
and on the morrow and the following days aggravated Vely by extolling
before him the exchanged odalisks, each of them confiding to him what
novel attractions he had discovered in this or that bayadere. Thus
Sulaiman could not sufficiently extol the extraordinary brilliance of
the eyes of Mukhtar Bey's favorite damsel, while Mukhtar protested
that the languishing Jewish maiden he had got in exchange from
Sulaiman quivered in his arms like a dancing flame.
Vely laughed a good deal over the business, but still continued to
shake his head, confessing at last that the reason why he did not
exchange his harem was because it contained an Albanian damsel whom he
had neither purchased nor captured, but who had come to him of her own
accord, and whom he had promised long ago never to abandon, and her he
would not give for both their harems put together; nay, he said he
would not give her up for a whole world full of damsels. The two
brethren thereupon assured Vely that if he loved this particular
damsel so very much, he might exclude her from the others and keep her
for himself, and it need make no difference. Then Vely Bey also
acceded to this fraternal division of delights, and transferred his
harem also, with the exception of Xelianthé.
Mukhtar Bey had fixed the last night of the great Bairam feast for the
entertainment that was to rival Paradise, inviting his brethren and
the Prophet Muhammad himself, in order that he might learn from them
how to be happy, and might regulate heaven accordingly. To this end
they had a fourth divan added to their three, with its own
well-appointed table in front of it, and bade the attendant odalisks
be diligent in keeping the fourth goblet well filled, and do their
best to entertain the invited guest. Mockery of religious subjects was
no unusual thing with Turkish magnates in those days. Blasphemy had
gone so far as to become an open scandal; popular fanaticism and
official orthodoxy made it all the more glaring.
So the sons of Ali Pasha invited the Prophet to be their guest, and
had made up their minds that if he did appear among them he would not
be bored.
All the odalisks danced and sung before them in turn, and the brethren
diverted themselves by judging which of the damsels was the sweetest
and loveliest.
In every song, in every dance, Rebecca, Mukhtar Bey's beautiful Jewish
damsel, and the blue-eyed bayadere Lizza, who was Sulaiman Bey's
favorite, equally excelled. It was impossible to decide which of the
twain deserved the palm. At last they were made to dance together.
"Look!" cried Mukhtar, his eyes sparkling with delight, "look! didst
ever behold a more beautiful figure? Like the flowering branch of the
Ban-tree she sways to and fro. How proudly she throws her head back,
and looks at thee so languishingly that thou meltest away for very
rapture! Would that her light feet might dance all over me; would that
she might encompass every part of me like the atmosphere!"
"She really is charming," admitted Sulaiman, "and if the other were
not dancing by her side, she would be the first star in the firmament
of beauty. But ah! one movement of the other one is worth all the life
in her body. She is but a woman, the other is a sylph. She kills you
with rapture, the other raises you from the dead."
"Thou are unjust, Sulaiman," said Mukhtar; "thou dost judge only with
thine eyes. If thou wouldst take counsel of thy lips, they would speak
more truly. Taste her kisses, and then say which of them is the
sweeter."
With that he beckoned to the two odalisks. Rebecca, the lovely Jewish
damsel, sank full of amorous languor on Sulaiman's breast, while
Lizza, with sylph-like agility, sat her down upon his knee, and the
intoxicated Bey, in an access of rapture, kissed first one and then
the other.
"Rebecca's lips are more ardent," he cried, "but the kisses of Lizza
are sweeter. The kiss of Rebecca is like the poppy which lulls you
into sweet unconsciousness, but Lizza's kiss is like sweet wine which
makes you merry."
"Lizza's kiss may perchance be like sweet wine," interrupted Mukhtar,
"but Rebecca's kiss is like heavenly musk which only the Blessed may
partake of, and those who partake thereof _are_ blessed."
And with that Mukhtar caught up both the odalisks in his arms, that he
might pronounce judgment as to the sweetness of their lips. It was an
enviable process. The contending parties themselves were in doubt as
to which of themselves should obtain a verdict. At length they called
upon Vely Bey to decide--Vely, who was now lying blissfully asleep
beside them on the divan, overcome with wine, his head in Xelianthé's
bosom. His two brethren awoke him that he might judge between them as
to the sweetness of rival kisses.
It took a good deal of trouble to make the stupidly fuddled Bey
understand what was required of him, and when he did understand, the
only answer he made was, "Xelianthé's kisses are the sweetest;" and
with that he embraced his favorite damsel once more and, reclining his
head on her bosom, went off to sleep again.
Then cried Mukhtar, "Wherefore dost thou ask for _his_ judgment, when
amongst us sits the Prophet himself? Let him judge between us."
With these words he pointed to the empty place which had been left for
a fourth person. Rich meats were piled up there on gold and silver
plate, and wine sparkled in transparent crystal.
"Come, Muhammad!" exclaimed Mukhtar, addressing the vacant place;
"thou in thy lifetime didst love many a beauteous woman, and in thy
Paradise there is enough and to spare of beauty. I summon thee to
appear before us. Here is a dispute between us two as to whose damsel
is the sweeter and the lovelier. Thou hast seen them dance, thou hast
heard them sing; now taste of their kisses!"
With that he beckoned to the two damsels, and they sat down, one on
each side of the empty divan, and made as if they were embracing a
shape sitting between them, and filled the air with their burning,
fragrant kisses.
"Well, let us hear thy verdict, Muhammad!" cried Mukhtar, with drunken
bravado; and, taking the crystal goblet from the empty place and
raising it in the air, looked around him with a flushed, defiant face,
and exclaimed, "Come! drink of the wine of this goblet her health to
whom thou awardest the prize!"
Ali Pasha, shocked and filled with horror at the shamelessly impudent
words he heard from his hiding-place, drew a pistol from his girdle
and softly raised the trigger.
"Drink, Muhammad!" bellowed Mukhtar, raising the goblet on high,
"drink to the health of the triumphant damsel! Which shall it be,
Rebecca or Lizza?"
At that same instant a loud report rang through the room, and the
upraised crystal goblet was shivered into a thousand fragments in
Mukhtar's hand. Every one leaped from his place in terror. But
whichever way they looked there was nothing to be seen. The only
persons in the room were the three brothers and the damsels. Only at
the spot from whence the shot had proceeded a little round cloud of
bluish smoke was visible, which sluggishly dispersed. Nobody present
carried weapons, and there was no door or window there by which any
one could have got in.
From the minarets outside the muezzins proclaimed the prayer of dawn:
"La illah il Allah! Muhammad razul Allah!"--"There is no God but God,
and Muhammad is His Prophet!"
* * * * *
Ali Pasha did not pursue the fugitives. That day he was praying all
the morning. He locked himself up in his inmost apartments, that
nobody might see what he was doing. He now did what he had not done
for seventy years--he wept. For a whole hour his inflexible soul was
broken. So that woman whom he had loved better than life itself, she
forsooth had given the first signal of approaching misfortune, the
first sign of the coming struggle! Let it come! Let her veil be the
first banner to lead an army against Janina! Tepelenti would not
attempt to stay her in her flight. For one long hour he thought of
her, and this hour was an hour of weeping; and then he bethought him
of the approaching tempest which the prophetic voice had warned him
of, and his heart turned to stone at the thought. Ali Pasha was not
the man to cringe before danger; no, he was wont to meet it face to
face, and ask of it why it had tarried so long. He used even to send
occasionally for the _nimetullahita_ dervish who had been living a
long time in the fortress, and question him concerning the future. It
must not be supposed, indeed, that Tepelenti ever took advice from
anybody; but he would listen to the words of lunatics and soothsayers,
and liked to learn from magicians and astrologers, and their sayings
were not without influence upon his actions.
The dervish was a decrepit old man. Nobody knew how old he really was;
it was said that only by magic did he keep himself alive at all. Every
evening they laid him down on plates of copper and rubbed invigorating
balsam into his withered skeleton, and so he lived on from day to day.
Two dumb eunuchs now brought him in to Tepelenti, and, bending his
legs beneath him, propped him up in front of the pasha.
"Sikham," said Ali to the dervish, "I feel the approach of evil days.
My sword rusted in its sheath in a single night. My buckler, which I
covered with gold, has cracked from end to end. A severed head, which
hid itself away from me so that I could not find it, came forth to me
at night and spoke to me of my death; and in my dreams I see my sons
make free with the Prophet. I ask thee not what all these things
signify. That I know. Just as surely as in winter-time the hosts of
rooks and crows resort to the roofs of the mosques, so surely shall
my sworn enemies fall upon me. I am old compared with them, and it is
a thing unheard of among the Osmanlis that a man should reach the age
of nine and seventy and still be rich and mighty. Let them come! But
one thing I would know--who will be the first to attack me? Tell me
his name."
The dervish thereupon caused a wooden board to be placed before him on
which meats were wont to be carried; then he put upon it an empty
glass goblet, and across the glass he laid a thin bamboo cane. Next he
wrote upon the wooden board the twenty-nine letters of the Turkish
alphabet, and then, thrice prostrating himself to the ground with
wide-extended arms, he fixed his eyes steadily upon the centre of the
goblet.
In about half an hour the goblet began to tinkle as if some one were
rubbing his wet finger along its rim. This tinkling grew stronger and
stronger, louder and louder, till at last the goblet moved up and down
on the wooden board, and began revolving along with the light cane
placed across it, revolving at last so rapidly that it was impossible
to discern the cane upon it at all.
Then, quite suddenly, the dervish raised his fingers from the table,
and the goblet immediately stopped. The point of the cane stood
opposite the letter _ghain_--G.[7]
[Footnote 7: The marvels of our modern table-turning and table-tapping
spirits, and all the wonders of this sort, were known to the Arab
dervishes long ago.--JÓKAI.]
"That signifies the first letter of his name," said the dervish--"G!"
And then the mysterious operation was repeated, and the magic stick
spelled out the name letter by letter: "G--a--s--k--h--o B--e--y." At
the last letter the goblet stopped short and would move no more.
"I know no man of that name," said Ali, amazed that he whose name was
so world-renowned was to tremble before one whose name he had never
heard before.
"Where does the fellow live?" he inquired of the dervish.
The magic jugglery was set going again, and now the dancing goblet
spelled out the name, "Stambul."
That was enough. Ali beckoned to the eunuchs to take the dervish away
again.
Ali thereupon summoned forty Albanian soldiers from the garrison, and
gave to each one of them twenty ducats.
"This," said he, "is only earnest money. I want a man put to death
whose name and dwelling-place I know. His name is Gaskho Bey, and he
lives in Stambul. This man's head is worth as many gold pieces as
there are miles between him and me. He who brings the head can measure
the distance and be paid for it. The first who brings but the report
of his death shall receive two hundred ducats; he who slays him, a
thousand."
The Albanians consulted together for a brief moment, and then
intimated that if a bey of the name of Gaskho really existed, he was
as good as dead already.
Towards mid-day Ali sent for his sons. He said not a word to them of
the anxieties, the visions, and the apparitions of the night before,
but made them, after they had respectfully kissed his hands, sit down
all around him. Mukhtar Bey he invited to sit down on his left hand,
Vely on his right, and Sulaiman directly opposite.
He addressed himself first of all to Sulaiman.
"Thou art the youngest and boldest," said he. "To-morrow thou must go
to sea and take three ships with thee. These ships thou must take to
Sicily, load them there with sulphur, and return without losing an
instant."
"Oh, my father!" replied Sulaiman, "the tempest is now abroad upon the
sea. Who would venture now with a ship upon the billows? All the
monsters of the ocean are now running upon the surface seeking whom
they may devour, and the phantom ship, with her shadowy rigging and
her shadowy crew, pursues her zigzag course across the waters."
Ali Pasha said no more, but turned towards Mukhtar Bey.
"Thou art the most crafty," said he; "go then to the captains of the
Suliotes and invite them to assemble with their forces at Janina with
all despatch. Spare neither promises nor assurances nor fair winds."
Mukhtar Bey's face turned quite angry, and, wagging his head, still
heavy from his overnight debauch, he answered, sullenly: "In the
mountains the snow is now thawing; every stream is swollen into a
river; naught but a bird can find a place for its foot on the dry
ground; how, then, can armies move hither and thither? Wait for a
week, till the inundations have subsided. Truly there is no enemy on
thy borders. In thy whole realm there is not so much as a rat to
nibble at thy walls. What dost thou want now with chariots and armed
men?"
Ali now turned to Vely, who was sitting on his right hand. "Go thou
over to Misrim," said he, "and purchase for me two thousand horses; a
thousand of them shall be meet for war-chargers, and a thousand for
drawing guns."
"Oh, my father!" answered Vely, who was the eldest and wisest of Ali's
sons, "I will not object to thy command that the simoon has now begun
in Misrim, before whose burning, suffocating breath every living
creature is forced to fly. I reck little of that, but the horses, thy
precious horses, will perish. And, moreover, I would ask of thee one
question. Wherefore dost thou get together a host, and horses and
guns, without cause, and with no danger threatening thee? Will not all
these warlike preparations excite the rage of the Padishah against
thee, and so thy preparing against an imagined peril will saddle thee
with a real war?"
Ali Pasha laughed aloud--a very unusual habit with him.
"Well," said he, "it is for me to prove to you, I suppose, that you
are all wrong in your calculations. Dine with me and be merry. After
dinner you shall see that the sea is not stormy, that the rivers are
not in flood, and that the simoon is not suffocating. I have a
talisman which will convince you thereof."
So he entertained his sons till late in the evening, and immediately
after dinner he whispered to one of the dumb eunuchs, and then he took
his sons with him into the red tower, the doors of which were left
wide open. He stopped short with them in one of the rooms, the
solitary semicircular window of which looked out upon the lake of
Acheruz. The window was guarded by an iron grating. Here he sat down
with them to smoke his narghily and sip his coffee. The sons would
have preferred to mount upon the roof of the tower, where the fresh
air and the fine view would have made their siesta perfect; but Ali
facetiously observed that in the open air cold and hot winds were just
then blowing together at the same time, and he did not want the simoon
to make them sweat or the trade-winds to make them shiver.
As they were sipping their coffee there the splashing of oars was
audible beneath the tower, and the sons beheld three large,
flat-bottomed boats propelled upon the surface of the water, in which
sat the damsels of their harems; the boats were rowed by muscular
eunuchs.
The faces of the three beys lighted up when they saw the damsels being
rowed on the water, and Mukhtar Bey whispered roguishly in Sulaiman's
ear, "Shall we make the old man also one of our party?"
Ali overheard the whisper, and replied, with a smile, "Truly your
damsels are most beauteous"--here he stroked his white beard from end
to end--"I am not surprised, therefore, that you like to stay at home
here and call the wind hot and cold, though it is nothing but the
breath of Allah, and what comes from God cannot be bad. But your
damsels _are_ beautiful, of that there can be no doubt. Now, last
night I dreamt a dream. Before me stood the Prophet, and he told me
how you had challenged him to say which of your damsels was the
sweeter and the more beautiful." (Here the sons regarded each other,
full of fear and amazement.) "The Prophet replied," continued Ali,
"that it was not meet that he should come to your damsels; they should
rather go to him. So I mean to send them to Paradise."
"What doest thou?" cried all three sons, horror-stricken.
The only answer Ali gave was to give a long shrill whistle, at which
signal the eunuchs drew out the plugs from holes secretly bored at the
bottom of the three boats, leaping at the same time into the water,
and leaving the boats in the middle of the lake.
The damsels shrieked with terror as the water began to rush into the
boats from all sides. The air was filled with cries of agony.
Mukhtar rushed madly to the door and found it locked. With impotent
violence he attempted to burst it open. Sulaiman meanwhile tore away
at the iron window-grating with both hands, as if he fancied himself
capable of pulling down the whole of the vast building by the sheer
strength of his arms. The blue-eyed Albanian girl and the languishing
Jewish damsel, with the fear of death in their eyes, looked up at the
closed window; the waves had already begun to swallow their beautiful
limbs.
Only Vely Bey remained motionless. He, at any rate, had not sinned. He
had not angered the Prophet in that orgie of amorous rivalry. He had
loved one only, by her only had he been loved, and she, yes, she was
perishing there among the others!
The boats sank deeper and deeper; nothing could be heard but the
cries of the drowning wretches in all the accents of despair. The two
sons saw their damsels dying before their eyes, and were unable to
rush out and save them; not even one could be rescued. One more shriek
of woe, and then the boats sank. For a few moments the surface of the
water was covered with bright gauze veils and shiny turbans and white
limbs and dishevelled tresses, and then a few solitary turbans floated
on the water.
Sulaiman, sobbing in despair, fell down in a heap close by the window,
while Mukhtar fell madly on the door and kicked it with all his might,
as if he would drown in the din the cries for help of the perishing
damsels. Only Vely Bey looked in bitter silence upon the detestable
waves, which within a minute had swallowed three heavens.
Far, far away on the crest of the rising waves a black object appeared
to be swimming. What was it? Perhaps one of the damsels. One moment it
vanished in the wave-valleys, the next it appeared again on the top of
a high ridge of water. What could it be? But farther and farther it
receded. Perchance some one had escaped, after all. Greek girls are
good swimmers.
And now Ali Pasha arose from his place and said, with a smile, to his
sons:
"Methinks that neither the storms of ocean, nor the swollen waters,
nor the breath of the simoon will now appear so terrible to you as
they did a few hours ago. Depart now with all speed. When you return
you will find new harems here, which will make you forget the old
ones." And with that he quitted them.
Sulaiman and Mukhtar immediately went their way. Woe to whomsoever
shall now give them a pretext for wreaking their vengeance upon him!
But Vely Bey remained there looking out upon the water, and as the
evening grew darker he thought upon Ali Pasha. His brothers had loaded
their father with curses; he had not said a word. They will soon make
their peace with their father--he never will.[8]
[Footnote 8: It is a fact that Ali drowned the harems of his
sons in the lake of Acheruz because he feared their excessive
influence.--JÓKAI.]