Part 6 (1/2)
”We shall be happy to have her with us,” replied Beldi, and gave order to his servants to return to Tatrang with the Pasha's followers and bring his carriage from there by torch light. Kutschuk sent word that Feriz Bey was to come too. Meantime, Beldi presented Kutschuk Pasha to his wife, and it gave him no little pleasure to find that she remembered the Pasha's wife as a friend in her youth, whom she would meet again with natural interest and joy.
In the course of a few hours the carriage arrived and rolled heavily over the stone-paved courtyard. Madame Beldi hurried down the steps to meet the Pasha's wife, and as the latter stepped from the carriage received her with a cry of joy. ”Katharine, do you know me still?” She too recognized her playmate of old and the two friends rushed into each other's arms, kissed each other and said sweetly, ”How handsome you have grown!” ”What a stately woman you have become!”
”See, this is my son,” said Katharine, pointing to Feriz Bey who, dismounted from his horse, was now hurrying forward to help his mother from the carriage.
”What a fine boy!” exclaimed Madame Beldi, charmed; she threw her arms around the handsome, rosy-cheeked child and kissed him again and again;--if she had only known that this child was no longer a child, but a general!
”I too have children,” said Madame Beldi, with the sweet rivalry of maternal feeling. ”You shall see them. Does your son speak Hungarian?”
”Hungarian!” asked Katharine, almost hurt. ”Does the child of a Hungarian mother speak Hungarian! How can you ask such a question?”
”So much the better,” said Madame Beldi, ”the children will become acquainted the more easily and they will belong to one family henceforth. Our husbands have arranged that with each other and it certainly will please us.”
The affectionate mother threw her arms around her friend again, took Feriz Bey by the hand, and brought them both into the midst of the family circle, where they chatted uninterruptedly and asked and answered thousands of questions.
In the little boudoir was a cheerful open fire; large, beflowered silk curtains shaded the windows; on an ivory table ticked a handsome clock set with jewels. In the back part of the room an easy sofa covered with cornflower blue velvet invited one to rest. On a centre-table covered with a handsome Persian rug was a ma.s.sive silver candelabrum in the form of a siren who held up a wax candle in each hand. In front of the fireplace stood Madame Beldi's children; the older, Sophie, a maiden of thirteen years, tall, delicately built, with shy glance, appeared to be arranging the fire. She still wore her hair in childish fas.h.i.+on in two long, heavy braids reaching almost to her heels. This girl afterward became the wife of Paul Wesselenyi.
The second child, a little girl of four, knelt before her older sister and scattered light sticks on the fire. Her name was Aranka, the Hungarian for gold-child; her hair was in golden curls falling over her little shoulders; her features were animated and her eyes as well as her hands in constant motion, interfering with her sister in one way or another; she laughed innocently when the older girl at last became angry.
The two children rose when they heard steps and voices at the door. As soon as the older girl caught sight of the strangers she tried to smooth out her dress, while Aranka rushed noisily to her mother, and catching her by the dress looked up at her with a smile on her little round face. Katharine embraced the older girl who timidly offered her forehead to be kissed.
”And your cousin, little Feriz, you must kiss him, too,” said Madame Beldi, and brought the two reluctant children together, who hardly dared touch each other's lips. Sophie turned red to her very ears, ran out of the room and could not be persuaded to come back that evening.
”Oh, you bashful Mimosa,” said Madame Beldi, with a laugh. ”Aranka is braver than you are, I am sure. You are not afraid to kiss Cousin Feriz, are you, darling?”
The child looked up at Feriz and drew back, clinging to her mother's gown, with her large, dark blue eyes fixed on Feriz. Feriz Bey on his side knelt down, embraced the child and imprinted a hearty kiss on her round, red cheeks. Now that this first step had been taken the acquaintance was made for Aranka. She bade her Turkish cousin sit down beside the fireplace, and leaning against him she began to question him about everything she saw on him, from the sword hilt to the feathers on his turban; nothing escaped her.
”Let us leave the children to play,” said Madame Beldi, and led her friend out on the balcony from which was a view of the valley of Tatrang flooded with moonlight. While the men talked seriously and the children gave themselves up to play, the two ladies began one of those confidential conversations so dear to young women, especially when they have so much to tell each other, to ask and to inquire, as these two had. Madame Beldi sat down beside Katharine, took her affectionately by the hand and asked half in jest;--”So your husband has no other wife?”
Katharine laughed, but there was a little vexation with it, as she said;--”I suppose you think a Hungarian marries a Turk only to be his slave. My husband loves me dearly.”
”I don't doubt it, Katharine, but that certainly is the custom with you.”
”With _us_! I am no Turk.”
”What then?”
”A Protestant like yourself. It was a Protestant who married me--the Reverend Martin Biro, who lives in Constantinople in banishment, and to whom my husband in his grat.i.tude gave a house where the Transylvanians and Hungarians living in Constantinople can meet for wors.h.i.+p.”
”What, does not your husband persecute the Christians?”
”No, indeed. The Turks believe that every religion is good and leads to heaven, only they think their own religion is the best; for in their opinion theirs leads the way to the heaven of heavens. Besides, my husband has a kind heart and is much more enlightened than most Turks.”
”Then why couldn't you bring him over to the Christian faith?”
”Why not? perhaps because whenever the story-tellers relate the romance of a Turk who fell in love with a Christian girl, they end the tale with her bringing him to baptism and exchanging the caftan for a coat. In this case they have a romance in which the wife follows her husband and sacrifices everything for him.”
”You are quite right, Katharine, but you see it takes me some little time to become accustomed to the thought that a Christian, a Hungarian woman, can have a Turk for a husband.”
”But consider, my good friend, G.o.d might not have counted it such a good service on my part if I had brought my husband over to our religion, as he does that I left him in the religion in which he was born. A Christian renegade, the most that he could have done would have been to take his place in the Church. But now, as one of the most influential Pashas, he can transform the fate of any Christian in Turkey to one so favorable that the Christian subjects of other lands crowd thither as to the Holy Land. How often, when he has received his portion of the war-plunder, has he handed me a long list on which were marked the names of my imprisoned countrymen whom he had set free for a large sum. He has expended immense treasure for this purpose, and, my darling, the reading of such a list gives me more pleasure than would the most beautiful Eastern pearls he could have bought for the same treasure; and such a deed raises him higher in my eyes than if he could say all the psalms by heart. Beside, he is not at all the man whom you would expect to change his opinions in the least for G.o.d or man; then, too, if he were ready to give up his religion I could no longer trust his love, for he would cease to be the same man I knew and loved--a man who, when he had once said a thing, stood firmly by it and never yielded to any fear or persuasion.”