THE FEAST OF HALWET.
The surgujal--the turban with the triple gold circlet--was on the head
of Mahmud, but the sword, the sword of dominion, was in the hand of
Halil Patrona. The people whose darling he had become were accustomed to
regard him as their go-between in their petty affairs, the host trembled
before him, and the magnates fawned upon him for favour.
In the Osman nation there is no hereditary nobility, everyone there has
risen to the highest places by his sword or his luck. Every single Grand
Vizier and Kapudan Pasha has a nickname which points to his lowly
origin; this one was a woodcutter, that one a stone-mason, that other
one a fisherman. Therefore a Mohammedan never looks down upon the most
abject of his co-religionists, for he knows very well that if he himself
happens to be uppermost to-day and the other undermost, by to-morrow the
whole world may have turned upside down, and this last may have become
the first.
So now also a petty huckster rules the realm, and Sultan Mahmud has
nothing to think about but his fair women. Who can tell whether any one
of us would not have done likewise? Suppose a man to have been kept in
rigorous, joyless servitude for twenty years, and then suddenly to be
confronted with the alternative--"reign over hearts or over an
empire"--would he not perhaps have chosen the hearts instead of the
empire for his portion?
At the desire of the beauteous Sultana Asseki the insurrection of the
people had no sooner subsided than the Sultan ordered the Halwet
Festival to be celebrated.
The Halwet Festival is the special feast of women, when nobody but
womankind is permitted to walk about the streets, and this blissful day
may come to pass twice or thrice in the course of the year.
On the evening before, it is announced by the blowing of horns that the
morrow will be the Feast of Halwet. On that day no man, of whatever
rank, may come forth in the streets, or appear on the roof of a house,
or show himself at a window, for death would be the penalty of his
curiosity. The black and white eunuchs keeping order in the streets
decapitate without mercy every man who does not remain indoors. Notices
that this will be done are posted up on all the boundary-posts in the
suburbs of the city, that strangers may regulate their conduct
accordingly.
On the day of the feast of Halwet all the damsels discard their veils,
without which at all other times they are not permitted to walk about
the streets. Then it is that the odalisks of one harem go forth to call
upon the odalisks of another. Rows upon rows of brightly variegated
tents appear in the midst of the streets and market-places, in which
sherbet and other beverages made of violets, cane-sugar, rose-water,
pressed raisins, and citron juice, together with sweetmeats,
honey-cakes, and such-like delicacies, to which women are so partial,
are sold openly, and all the sellers are also women.
Ah! what a spectacle that would be for the eyes of a man! Every street
is swarming with thousands and thousands of bewitching shapes. These
women, released from their prisons, are like so many gay and thoughtless
children. Group after group, singing to the notes of the cithern,
saunter along the public ways, decked out in gorgeous butterfly apparel,
which flutter around their limbs like gaily coloured wings. The suns and
stars of every climate flash and sparkle in those eyes. The whole
gigantic city resounds with merry songs and musical chatter, and any man
who could have seen them tripping along in whole lines might have
exclaimed in despair: "Why have I not a hundred, why have I not a
thousand hearts to give away!"
And then when the harem of the Sultan proudly paces forth! Half a
thousand odalisks, the lovelinesses of every province in the Empire, for
whom the youths of whole districts have raved in vain, in garments
radiant with pearls and precious stones, mounted on splendid prancing
steeds gaily caparisoned. And in the midst of them all the beautiful
Sultana, with the silver heron's plume in her turban, whose stem flashes
with sparkling diamonds. Her glorious figure is protected by a garment
of fine lace, scarce concealing the snowy shimmer of her well-rounded
arms. She sits upon the tiger-skin saddle of her haughty steed like an
Amazon. The regard of her flashing eyes seems to proclaim her the tyrant
of two Sultans, who has the right to say: "I am indeed my husband's
consort!"
In front and on each side of the fairy band march four hundred black
eunuchs, with naked broadswords across their shoulders, looking up at
the windows of the houses before which they march to see whether,
perchance, any inquisitive Peeping-Toms are lurking there.
Dancing and singing, this bevy of peris traverses the principal streets
of Stambul. Every now and then, a short sharp wail or scream may be
heard round the corner of the street the procession is approaching: the
eunuchs marching in front have got hold of some inquisitive man or
other. By the time the radiant cortège has reached the spot, only a few
bloodstains are visible in the street, and, dancing and singing, the
fair company of damsels passes over it and beyond. Scarce anyone would
believe that those wails and screams did not form part and parcel of the
all-pervading cries of joy.
Meanwhile in the Etmeidan a much more free-and-easy sort of
entertainment is taking place. The women of the lower orders are there
diverting themselves in gaily adorned tents, where they can buy as much
mead as they can drink, and in the midst of the piazza on round,
outspread carpets dance the bayaderes of the streets, whom Sultan Achmed
had once collected together and locked up in a dungeon where they had
remained till the popular rising set them free again. In their hands
they hold their nakaras (timbrels), clashing them together above their
heads as they whirl around; on their feet are bronze bangles; and their
long tresses and their light bulging garments flutter around them,
whilst with wild gesticulations they dance the most audacious of dances,
compared with whose voluptuous movements the passion of the fiercest
Spanish bailarina is almost tame and spiritless.
Suddenly one of these street dancing-girls scream aloud to her
companions in the midst of the mazy dance, bringing them suddenly to a
standstill.
"Look, look!" she cried, "there comes Gül-Bejáze! Gül-Bejáze, the wife
of Halil Patrona."
"Gül-Bejáze! Gül-Bejáze!" resound suddenly on every side. The bayaderes
recognise the woman who had been shut up with them in the same dungeon,
surround her, begin to kiss her feet and her garments, raise her up in
their arms on to their shoulders, and so exhibit her to all the women
assembled together on the piazza.
"Yonder is the wife of Halil Patrona!" they cry, and Rumour quickly
flies with the news all through the city. Everyone of the bayaderes
dancing among the people has something to say in praise of her. Some of
them she had cared for in sickness, others she had comforted in their
distress, to all of them she had been kind and gentle. And then, too, it
was she who had restored them their liberty, for was it not on her
account that Halil Patrona had set them all free?
Everyone hastened up to her. The poor thing could not escape from the
clamorous enthusiasm of the sturdy muscular fish-wives and bathing women
who, in their turn also, raised her upon their shoulders and carried her
about, finally resolving to carry her all the way home for the honour
of the thing. So for Halil Patrona's palace they set off with Gül-Bejáze
on their shoulders, she all the time vainly imploring them to put her
down that she might hide away among the crowd and disappear, for she
feared, she trembled at, the honour they did her. From street to street
they carried her, whirling along with them in a torrent of drunken
enthusiasm everyone they chanced to fall in with on the way; and before
them went the cry that the woman whom the others were carrying on their
shoulders was the wife of Halil Patrona, the fêted leader of the people,
and ever denser and more violent grew the crowd. Any smaller groups they
might happen to meet were swept along with them. Now and then they
encountered the harems of the greatest dignitaries, such as pashas and
beglerbegs. It was all one, the august and exalted ladies had also to
follow in the suite of the wife of Halil Patrona, the most powerful man
in the realm, whose wife was the gentlest lady under Heaven.
Suddenly, just as they were about to turn into the great square in front
of the fortress of the Seven Towers, another imposing crowd encountered
them coming from the opposite direction. It was the escort of the
Sultana. The half a thousand odalisks and the four hundred eunuchs
occupied the whole width of the road, but face to face with them were
advancing ten thousand intoxicated viragoes led by the frantic
bayaderes.
"Make way for the Sultana!" cried the running eunuchs to the approaching
crowd, "make way for the Sultana and her suite!"
The execution of this command bordered on the impossible. The whole
space of the square was filled with women--a perfect sea of heads--and
visible above them all was a quivering, tremulous white figure which
they had raised on high.
"Make way for the Sultana!" screamed the Kadun-Kiet-Khuda, who led the
procession; a warty old woman she was, who had had charge of the harem
for years and grown grey in it.
At this one of the boldest of the bayaderes thrust herself forward.
"Make way thyself, thou bearded old witch," she cried; "make way, I say,
before the wife of Halil Patrona. Why, thou art not worthy to kiss the
dust off her feet. Stand aside if thou wilt not come along with us."
And with these words she banged her tambourine right under the nose of
the Kadun-Kiet-Khuda.
And then the bad idea occurred to some of the eunuchs to lift their
broadswords against the boisterous viragoes, possibly with a view of
cutting a path through them for the Sultana.
Ah! before they had time to whirl their swords above their heads, in the
twinkling of an eye, their weapons were torn from their hands, and their
backs were well-belaboured with the broad blades. The furious mænads
fell upon their assailants, flung them to the ground, and the next
instant had seized the bridles of the steeds of the odalisks.
The Kizlar-Aga was fully alive to the danger which threatened the
Sultana. The whole square was thronged with angry women who, with faces
flushed and sparkling eyes, were rushing upon the odalisks. Any single
eunuch they could lay hold of was pretty certain to meet with a martyr's
death in a few seconds. They tore him to pieces, and pelted each other
with the bloody fragments before scattering them to the winds. Elhaj
Beshir, therefore, earnestly implored the Sultana to turn back and try
to regain the Seraglio.
Adsalis cast a contemptuous look on the Aga.
"One can see that thou art neither man nor woman," cried she, "for if
thou wert one or the other, thou wouldst know how to be courageous."
Then she buried the point of her golden spurs in the flank of her steed,
and urged it towards the spot where the most frantic of the mænads stood
fighting with the mounted odalisks, tearing some from their horses,
rending their clothes, and then by way of mockery remounting them with
their faces to the horses' tails.
Suddenly the Sultana stood amongst them with a haughty, commanding look,
like a demi-goddess.
"Who is the presumptuous wretch who would bar the way before me?" she
cried in her clear, penetrating voice.
One of the odalisks planted herself in front of the Sultana and, resting
one hand upon her hip, pointed with the other at Gül-Bejáze!
"Look!" she cried, "there is Gül-Bejáze, and she it is who bars thy way
and compels thee to make room for her."
Gül-Bejáze, whom the women had brought to the spot on their shoulders,
wrung her hands in her desperation, and begged and prayed the Sultana
for forgiveness. She endeavoured to explain by way of pantomime, for
speaking was impossible, that she was there against her will, and it was
her dearest wish to humble herself before the face of the Sultana. It
was all of no use. The yells of the wild Bacchantes drowned every sound,
and Adsalis did not even condescend to look at her.
"Ye street-sweepings!" exclaimed Adsalis passionately, "what evil spirit
has entered into you that ye would thus compel the Sultana Asseki to
give way before a pale doll?"
"This woman comes before thee," replied the bayadere.
"Comes before me?" said Adsalis, "wherefore, then, does she come before
me?"
"Because she is fairer than thou."
Adsalis' face turned blood-red with rage at these words, while
Gül-Bejáze went as white as a lily, as if the other woman had robbed all
her colour from her. There was shame on one side and fury on the other.
To tell a haughty dame in the presence of ten, of twenty thousand
persons, that another woman is fairer than she!
"And she is more powerful than thou art," cried the enraged bayadere,
accumulating insult on the head of Adsalis, "for she is the wife of
Halil Patrona."
Adsalis, in the fury of despair, raised her clenched hands towards
Heaven and could not utter a word. Impotent rage forced the tears from
her eyes; and only after these tears could she stammer:
"This is the curse of Achmed!"
When they saw the tears in the eyes of the Sultana, everyone for a
moment was silent, and suddenly, amidst the stillness of that dumb
moment, from the highest window of the prison-fortress of the Seven
Towers, a man's voice called loudly into the square below:
"Sultana Adsalis! Sultana Adsalis!"
"Ha! a man! a man!" cried the furious mob; and in an instant they all
gazed in that direction--and then in a murmur which immediately died
away in an awe-struck whisper: "Achmed! Achmed!"
Only Adsalis was incapable of pronouncing that name, only her mouth
remained gaping open as she gazed upwards.
There at the window of the Seven Towers stood Achmed, in whose hands was
now a far more terrible power than when they held the wand of dominion,
for in his fingers now rests the power of cursing. It is sufficient now
for him to point the finger at those he loves not, in order that they
may wither away in the bloom of their youth. Whomsoever he now breathes
upon, however distant they may be, will collapse and expire, and none
can save them; and he has but to pronounce the name of his enemies, and
torments will consume their inner parts. The destroying angel of Allah
watches over his every look, so that on whomsoever his eye may fall,
that soul is instantly accursed. Since the death of Ispirizade the
people fear him more than when he sat on the throne.
A deep silence fell upon the mob. Nobody dared to speak.
And Achmed stretched forth his hand towards Adsalis. Those who stood
around the Sultana felt a feeling of shivering awe, and began to
withdraw from her, and she herself durst not raise her eyes.
"Salute that pure woman!" cried the tremulous voice of Achmed, "do
obeisance to the wife of Halil Patrona, and cover thy face before her,
for she is the true consort of her husband."
And having uttered these words, Achmed withdrew from the window whither
the noise of the crowd had enticed him, and the multitude clamoured as
before; but now they no longer tried to force the suite of the Sultana
to make way before Gül-Bejáze, but escorted Halil Patrona's wife back to
the dwelling-place of her husband.
Adsalis, desperate with rage and shame, returned to the Seraglio.
Sobbing aloud, she cast herself at the feet of the Sultan, and told him
of the disgrace that had befallen her.
Mahmud only smiled as he heard the whole story, but who can tell what
was behind that smile.
"Dost thou not love me, then, that thou smilest when I weep? Ought not
blood to flow because tears have flowed from my eyes?"
Mahmud gently stroked the head of the Sultana and said, still smiling:
"Oh, Adsalis! who would ever think of plucking fruit before it is
_ripe_?"