The house we took belonged to a Turkish lady, who became at once the great interest of my life, although she was never to be seen. We heard that she was the former wife of dashing young Nouri Pasha, whom we knew on the island of Prinkipo, and who was famous for his looks, his riches, and his many beautiful wives. We transacted our business with her through one of her slaves. The lady herself had never been seen since the day she left her husband, eight years before, and came to bury herself in her maternal property here.
Our house was surrounded by a very large garden and an orchard, the trees of which were so old and so patched that I was never surprised on climbing a cherry tree to find plums growing there, or at the top of a plum tree to discover dzidzifa. It became a game with me to climb the highest trees, to see what would grow on the top branches. These trees were grafted with the greatest ingenuity, not for the fruit, but for the colour scheme in blossom time.
At the end of our orchard there was a drop of about eight feet, and there began the garden surrounding the house where our proprietess lived. It must have comprised a hundred acres, and ended at the sea. It was not cultivated, like the other properties, but was mostly woodland, with flowers in the clearings. What I could see of it fascinated and attracted me. I had an idea that if I could penetrate into that garden I should surprise the spirits of the flowers and trees, who, thinking themselves protected from human intrusion, must come forth from their earthly shells to parade under their own shadow.
We had been in our new, old house for two weeks, and when I was neither reading nor climbing the trees I was scheming how to get into the garden. In all my reconnoitring I had never seen or heard a human being in that garden below, and if I had not known that people lived there I should have thought the property abandoned.
My mother went away for the week-end. It was early afternoon, and the entire universe was at siesta. I chose that hour to make a still closer search for a means of getting down those eight feet, to roam the beckoning garden. If discovered, of course, I should have to pretend that I had fallen in accidentally.
I came as near to the edge as I could, and before I knew it, down went the stones under my feet, and down went I, followed by more stones. In falling my teeth cut my lip, and made it bleed.
I lay partially stunned, but certain I was not badly hurt; for all my limbs had answered to the call of my little brain. Then I heard the pit-pat of running feet, and waited to see what would happen.
A young woman came and bent over me.
“Yavroum, are you hurt?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.