over the wall. With that look, effendi, went the heart of Hamed the Attar.
The voice, I have said, might have
been that of a houri from Paradise,
but when I looked over the wall it
seemed to me that I looked on one whose
comeliness would turn a houri furious
with envy. All unmindful of my ardent
gaze, she reclined on a low diwan placed
among potted shrubs and flowers, singing
to a bird suspended in a cage before
her. And even as I looked, she finished
her song, and the bird answered her with
trilling notes of its own.
To this day, effendi, I see her in my dreams as I saw her that night, her beauty radiant as the sun at dawn, with hair of spun, red gold, with Paradise in her eyes, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Nejd.
At some distance from her on a mat, there sat an old slave-woman with folded hands. Presently, with croaking voice, she interrupted the sweet warbling of the bird.
"Salamah Khatun," she said, "you sing so beautifully that the voice of the thrush rasps harshly in comparison. It is perhaps for gladness that you sing."
"What gladness, Ya Ummi? I have no reason to be glad."
"Is it not, then, an occasion for great joy that your brave and handsome cousin, Sheik Ali ben Mohammed, comes to take you to wife ere the moon waxes full again?"
"To be his third wife, and thus subject to the rule of the first and the jealousies of the second? I do not so understand the significance of joy."
"I, too, was young once, my lady, and though a slave, I loved and sang for love. You can not fool me thus easily, my pretty."
"Nor do I seek to, Ya Ummi, but rather to confide in you. I sing for love, but not for love of Sheik Ali, who forces his cousinly claims on me."
"Awah! I suspected as much. Today I saw the blush that suffused your cheeks when the youthful attar gazed into your eyes for but a moment. The yashmak could not hide it from my old, dim eyes, yet that young and sanctimonious fool did not perceive it. Or if he be not a fool, then is he like graven stone, and in neither case would he be worth a paring of your nail."
Now when I heard these words of the old woman, effendi, though they were not complimentary, my heart leaped with a great joy that knew no bounds, for it happened that I was the only youthful attar in the city, and that I now recognized these two as having come into my shop that very afternoon. I recalled that the young lady had purchased a bottle of my most expensive scent from me, and had blushed when I looked into her eyes for a moment, whereat I had tactfully paid no attention, as was my wront, though marveling at the unusual occurrence. For while signing with the eyes and hands are voluntary, and denote boldness, a blush is involuntary and denotes modesty. It was like finding a nugget of pure gold in a worthless heap of glittering dross.
The old hag continued to vilify me, calling me an "Akh al-Jahalah," which means "Brother of Ignorance," and many other unpleasant names which I will not trouble to repeat, but her tirade was suddenly cut short by the girl.
"Enough!" she exclaimed. "I will not permit you to slander him thus. Begone, now, and prepare me a warm bath against my retiring."
The old woman rose, shaking her head sorrowfully.
"Awah! Awah!" she groaned. "If
