VIII
The Slave of Market at Budapest
In the middle of the sixteenth century, Haji Baba, the most celebrated slave-dealer of Stambul, having been secretly informed beforehand, by acquaintances in the Seraglio, that a great host would assemble that summer beneath Pest, hastily filled his ship with wares before his business colleagues had got an inkling of what was going to happen; and, steering his bark with its precious load through the Black Sea and up the Danube, reached Pest some time before the army had concentrated there.
Casting anchor in the Danube, he adorned his vessel with oriental carpets and flowers, and placing a band of black eunuchs in the prow of the vessel with all sorts of tinkling musical instruments, he set about beating drums till the sound reechoed from the hills of Buda.
The Turks immediately assembled on the bastions of the castle of Buda right opposite, and perceiving the bedizened ship with its flags streaming from the mast and sweeping the waves, thereby giving everyone who wanted to know what sort of wares were for sale there, got into all sorts of little skiffs and let themselves be rowed out thither.
The loveliest damsels in the round world were there exhibited for sale.
As soon as the first of the Turks had well intoxicated himself with the sight of the sumptuous wares, he hastened back to get his money and come again, telling the dozen or so of his acquaintances whom he met on the way what sort of a spectacle he had seen with no little enthusiasm, and in a very short time hundreds more were hastening to this ship which offered Paradise itself for sale.
Hassan Pasha, the then Governor of Buda, perceiving the throng from the windows of his palace, and ascertaining the cause, sent his favourite Yffim Beg to forbid the market to the mob till he, the general, had chosen for himself what girls he wanted; and if there was any one of the slave-girls worthy of consideration, he was to buy her for his harem.
Yffim Beg hastened to announce the prohibition, and when the skiffs had departed one by one from the ship, he got into the general’s curtained gondola and had himself rowed over to the ship of Haji Baba.
The man-seller, perceiving the state gondola on its way to him, went to the ship’s side, and waited with a woebegone face till it had come alongside, and stretched forth his long neck to Yffim Beg that he might clamber up it on to the deck.
The Beg, with great condescension, informed the merchant that he had come on behalf of the Vizier of Buda, who was over all the Pashas of Hungary, to choose from among the wares he had for sale.
Haji Baba, on hearing this, immediately cast himself to the ground and blessed the day which had risen on these hills, and the water and the oars which had brought the Beg thither, and even the mother who had made the slippers in which Yffim Beg had mounted his ship.
Then he kissed the Beg’s hand, and having, as a still greater sign of respect, boxed the ears of the eunuch who happened to be nearest to the Beg, for his impertinence in daring to stand so near at all, led Yffim into the most secret of his secret chambers. Heavy gold-embroidered hangings defended the entry to the interior of the ship; after this came a second curtain of dark-red silk, and through this were already audible sweet songs and twittering, and when this curtain was drawn aside by its golden tassels, a third muslin-like veil still stood in front of the entrance through which one could look into the room beyond without being seen by those inside.
Fourteen damsels were sporting with one another. Some of them darting in and out from between the numerous Persian curtains suspended from the ceiling, and laughing aloud when they caught each other; one was strumming a mandolin; five or six were dancing a round dance to the music of softly sung songs; another group was swinging one another on a swing made from costly shawls. All of them were so young, all of them were of such superior loveliness, that if the heart had allowed the eye alone to choose for it, mere bewilderment would have made selection impossible.
Yffim Beg gazed for a long time with the indifference of a connoisseur, but even his face relaxed at last, and smilingly tapping the merchant on the shoulder, he said to him:
“You have been filching from Paradise, Haji Baba!”
Haji Baba crossed his hands over his breast and shook his head humbly.
“All these girls are my pupils, sir. There is not one of them who resembles her dear mother. From their tenderest youth they have grown up beneath my fostering care; I do no business with grown-up, captured slave-girls, for, as a rule, they only weep themselves to death, grow troublesome, wither away before their time, and upset all the others. I buy the girls while they are babies; it costs a mint of money and no end of trouble before such a flower expands, but at least he who plucks it has every reason to rejoice. Look, sir, they are all equally perfect! Look at that slim lily there dancing on the angora carpet! Did you ever see such a figure anywhere else? How she sways from side to side like the flowering branch of a banyan tree! That is a Georgian girl whom I purchased before she was born. Her father when he married had not money enough for the wedding-feast, so he came to me and sold for a hundred denarii the very first child of his that should be born. Yes, sir, not much money, I know, but suppose the child had never been born? And suppose it had been a son! And how often too, and how easily
