In the morning Yûsuf had recovered his accustomed spirits. When she alluded with a shudder to his mother’s wickedness, he bade her have no fear; all that was past. From that day forth his mother would be sure to cherish her. Her mind derived no comfort from that light assurance; it remained perturbed until the Pasha came with tidings of a new arrangement he had made for her and Yûsuf to sojourn in a pleasure-house of his among the suburbs.
XI
The pleasure-house was a two-storeyed building, much dilapidated, having been unoccupied by the proprietor for many years. The garden, originally made for pleasure by the Pasha’s father, had since been used exclusively for growing vegetables. It was now like several fields with palm trees set at intervals, the whole surrounded by a high mud wall. The Pasha in one day had had the rooms cleaned out, the snakes extracted from their walls by a professional charmer; the next he sent down servants with the furniture, and the same evening Barakah arrived.
The house resembled a gigantic lantern in the blue of night with light exuding from its many lattices. Descending from the harem carriage which had brought her, together with two women and the girl Fatûmah, her own slaves, she was met by Yûsuf, whom she had not seen all day. He introduced to her two men—a new experience, which seemed an earnest of less strict seclusion. One, who bore a torch, bowed low with eyes downcast. He was the gardener. The other—a most honest-looking youth—gazed awestruck at her shrouded form, his large brown eyes dilated to the very utmost, while a vast ecstatic smile bared all his teeth—a smile which told of infinite fidelity.
“His name,” said Yûsuf, “is Ghandûr—my faithful friend. He is your water-carrier, and will be always within call in case you have some errand out of doors.”
Yûsuf then walked apart with the two men, while Sawwâb, the eunuch, showed the lady her apartments. Sawwâb had come as escort to the carriage and returned with it as soon as he had seen her settled comfortably. A leering crone was left to guard propriety, a task which she performed extremely ill on that first evening; for instead of checking the high spirits of the slave-girls, who romped for joy at their release from stricter discipline, she smiled upon their antics, and herself performed a most improper dance before the bride.
For several days Yûsuf remained contented in the house and garden; while Barakah, half-dazed but happy too, beheld him as incarnate passion, not as man. She was the first to tire of loves and doves, and try to talk of something sensible. Yûsuf appeared to think the speech of every day a waste of time between them.
Then came the period of tiffs, the fretful wakening. Yûsuf began to deal in sentiment about his mother, proclaiming it a hardship that his wife should still distrust her.
“She is kind and tender—O, how dear to me! Go to her, Barakah! Kneel at her feet, embrace her hands, and she will surely pardon.”
“Pardon? What, pray?” exclaimed the bride indignantly. “It is for her to ask pardon of me whom, kindly recollect, she tried to poison.”
“She is older than you; she is my mother. It behoves you to be modest and submissive towards her. I have forgiven all, and so should you. She is my mother.”
It was a relief one morning when the Pasha came and bore the young man off, declaring jokingly that he would die of too much sweet if he remained immured there longer. Of Barakah he said the same, informing her that Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah would call that afternoon to take her out upon a round of visits.
Then Yûsuf took to being absent all day long, but came home gladly in the evenings, full of love. He volunteered no tidings of his day’s amusements, and when she questioned him about them seemed to think it odd.
“All that is not your business,” he informed her kindly.
She hinted at the pleasures of companionship, the bond of common interests. He laughed, inquiring:
“Are we not companions? Have we not interests in common? You teach me English, and I teach you Arabic; we compare the customs of the races. And we love! Are not these interests much greater than to hear what Fulân said to Zeyd, what Zeyd replied, and whether Hâfiz or Mahmûd obtained the Government appointment? That is the life of men, a passing of the hours till night, when they return to the beloved. If anything of weight befell I should inform you. What pleasure could it give to you to hear repeated the gabble of a lot of people you will never know?”
Perceiving much in Yûsuf’s tastes and conversation which pious English people would have thought ungodly, she gasped a little on discovering he was religious. Attracted by a faith which showed some tolerance of human failings, she was studying the rudiments of El Islam by Yûsuf’s guidance; acquiring prayers and all the rules for saying them, including washings and the proper time and place. Nothing seemed left to the believer’s judgment, it was all laid down. When, at a lesson in prostration, she was moved to laughter, he became quite terrible, and warned her threateningly that in this country any man or woman was likely to be torn in pieces for a hint of blasphemy. The awe she felt was oddly mixed with fascination.
There were details she would not have chosen in her cloistered life, but on the whole it was the happiest that she had ever known. She was waited on hand and foot who
