Part 33 (1/2)

Mariska, as one inspired, placed her hand upon her heart and said: ”It is written here!”

Azrael regarded the woman abashed. Truly, many mysterious words are written in the heart, why cannot everyone read them? She also had listened to such mystic voices, but they were words shouted in a desert, in her savage breast there was no manner of love which could interpret their meaning.

Mariska again put down her child on the edge of the cus.h.i.+on.

”Place not thy child there,” cried Azrael impatiently; ”it might easily fall, place it between us!”

Mariska accepted the offer, and placed the little one between herself and Azrael.

When the first ray of dawn penetrated the large window Mariska awoke, and, folding her hands together above the head of the little child, again began to pray.

Azrael looked on darkly.

”Dost thou never pray?” said Mariska, turning towards her.

”Why should women pray? Their destiny is not in their own hands. Their fate depends upon their masters; if their masters are happy, they are happy also; if their masters perish, they perish with them. This is their earthly lot--and that is all. Allah never gave them a soul--what have they to do with the life beyond this? In Paradise the Houris take their places and the Houris remain young for ever. The breath of a woman vanishes with the autumn mist like the fumes of a dead animal, and Allah has no thought for them.”

Mariska, with only half intelligible sorrow, looked at this woman who wished to seem worse than she really was.

Azrael crept closer up to her.

”And dost thou really believe that there is someone who listens to what the worms say, to what the birds twitter, and to what women pray?”

”Certainly,” replied the young Christian woman; ”turn to Him, and thou wilt feel for thyself His goodness.”

”How can it be so? Why should He pay any attention to me?”

”It is not enough I know to clasp thy hands and close thy eyes. Thy pet.i.tion must come straight from thy heart, and thy soul must believe that it will gain its desire.”

Azrael's face flushed red. Hastily she cast herself down on her knees on the carpet, and pressing her folded hands to her bosom, stammered in a scarce audible voice:

”G.o.d! grant me one moment in my life in which I can say: I am happy.”

Her eyes were still closed when the door of the dormitory opened, and Hayat, the oldest duenna of the harem, entered with an air of great secrecy. She was now a shrivelled up bundle of old bones, but formerly she had been the first favourite of Ha.s.san Pasha, and now she was the slave and secret confidante of all the favourites in turn.

Azrael leaned towards her, perceiving from the face of the duenna that she brought some message for her; whereupon the latter advanced and, looking around in case anyone should be lurking there, whispered some words in Azrael's ear.

On hearing these words the odalisk leaped from her seat with a face flushed with joy, while unspeakably tender tears trembled in her eyes.

Her hands were involuntarily pressed against her heaving bosom, and her lips seemed to murmur some voiceless prayer.

Some great unusual joy had come upon her, some joy which she had always longed but never dared to hope for. Scarce able to restrain herself she turned towards her comrade, who, after listening to her, gazed wonderingly at her and pressed her hand, exclaiming in a voice of strong conviction: ”Then it is true, our prayer has indeed been heard!”

Azrael began merrily putting on her garments, and helped Mariska also to dress; then she sent the duenna with a message to Ha.s.san. She must go again to the mosque of the old dervish to pray, for she had been dreaming of Ha.s.san.

Soon afterwards Ha.s.san himself came to her, took from her arm the golden shackle which fastened the chain that bound her to Mariska, and, ordering her palanquin to be brought up to the door, sent her away to the old dervish; while, seizing the end of the Princess's chain, he led her, together with her child, into his own apartments and there sat down on his cus.h.i.+ons, drawing his rosary from his girdle and mumbling the first prayers of the naama, constantly holding in his hand the end of the Princess's chain.

The Vizier had of late been much given to prayer, for since the lost battle not a soul had come to visit him. The envoys of the Sultan, the country pet.i.tioners, the foreign ministers, the begging brotherhoods, all of them had avoided his threshold as if he were dead.