Constantinople, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

The residence of the chief eunuch near by was a small royal palace in itself, between which and the third court flowed a constant stream of black eunuchs, slaves, and servants. Foreign ambassadors passed through on their way to the reception-chamber of the Sultan, and then the gallery would be hung from one end to the other with scarlet cloth, while the walls and pavements were as polished and glittering as the floor of a room. Two hundred Janissaries, spahis, and silidars, members of the Divân guard, would stand drawn up in the shade of the cypress and plane trees, dressed and armed like princes, while troops of white and black eunuchs, perfumed and anointed, flanked the entrance. Everything within this second enclosure indicated the vicinity of the Grand Seignior: voices were pitched in a lower key, steps were more measured, and all noises which indicated labor or toil, and the sounds of horses’ hoofs, were rigorously banished. Soldiers and servants alike went back and forth in silence, and a certain sanctuary-like stillness reigned over the entire courtyard, broken only from time to time by the sudden cry of a bird winging its way among the high branches of the trees or the resounding clang of the great iron doors being swung to by the kapuji.

The only one of the buildings in this court visited by me was the hall of the Divân, which is almost precisely as it was in the days when the deliberations of the chief assemblage of the state were held within its walls. It is a large, vaulted apartment, lighted from above by small Moorish windows, lined with marbles, covered with gold arabesques, and without other furniture save the long divan upon which the members of the council took their seats. Directly above the grand vizier’s place may still be seen the small window covered with a gilded lattice from behind which first Suleiman I., and after him all the other pâdishahs, took part unseen, or at all events were supposed to take part, in the sessions.[H] A secret passageway led from this hidden recess to the imperial apartments in the third enclosure. Here the great assembly, composed of all the chief ministers of the empire, met five times a week, presided over by the grand vizier. It was a most impressive sight: facing the entrance sat the grand vizier, and near him the viziers of the dome, the kapudan pasha, or chief admiral, the two chief justices of Anadoli and Rumili, representing the judiciary of the provinces of Asia and Europe; on one side the imperial treasurers, on the other the nisciandgi, whose duty it was to affix the Sultan’s seal to all decrees; beyond, to the right and left, two long lines of ulemas and chamberlains, and in the angles the sciaùs to whom were assigned the duties of bearing the orders and despatches of the assembly and carrying out the sentences, and who were trained to comprehend at once the exact significance of every look and gesture. Before this gathering the boldest quailed and the most innocent began to fearfully interrogate their own consciences. Every one sat with immovable countenance, crossed arms, and hands concealed in the folds of his garment; from overhead a flood of pale golden light fell upon the white turbans, long beards, rich furs, jewelled dagger-hilts, and motionless figures of the council, lending them a death-like pallor, as though a row of statues had been dressed and colored in imitation of life. Thick matting muffled the footfall of all who came and went, heavy perfumes filled the air from the rich furs of the ministers, and the green branches of the trees in the court without were reflected in the polished marbles of the walls, while from time to time the silence was broken by bursts of melody from the birds, which echoed and re-echoed beneath the gilded roof. All the surroundings of that awful tribunal were graceful, charming, delicate. One at a time the different voices of the members could be heard, subdued, monotonous, like the murmur of a brook, so that the accused, standing erect in the centre of the hall, would not know even from which particular mouth the sounds issued. A hundred great eyes were fixed with penetrating scrutiny upon a single face, whose every shade of expression was noted, and every smallest word that dropped from whose lips was taken account of. The deepest, most hidden secrets of the heart were guessed from a change of countenance. Sometimes the death-sentence would be pronounced in a few calm words after long dialogues carried on in subdued tones and listened to in sepulchral silence; or, again, it would fall suddenly, unexpectedly, like a clap of thunder, having its echoes in the passionate remonstrances of a tortured soul in its supreme moment, cut suddenly short when, at a sign from the vizier, a cimeter would descend, cleaving the skull in twain and staining the marbles and matting with blood. Aghas of spahis and Janissaries would fall to the earth, thrust through with daggers; governors and kaimacan sink with staring eyes, the noose drawn tight about their necks. In a few moments the body would have been laid beneath the plane trees with a green cloth thrown over it, the blood have been wiped up, the air perfumed afresh, and, the executioner having returned to his post, the council would resume its deliberations with countenances unmoved, hands still concealed, and unruffled, monotonous voices, while from the little Moorish windows above the same long, slanting rays of pale yellow light fell upon the same white turbans and black beards. It was those haughty judges’ turn to tremble, however, when, the Divân having incurred the displeasure of Murad IV. or the second Selim by some of its measures, the gilded grating which concealed the imperial recess was suddenly heard to resound beneath the furious fist of their supreme lord; even then, after a long and profound silence, during which terrified eyes furtively took counsel of one another, the deliberations were resumed in solemn tones and with impassive faces, but their icy fingers trembled beneath the great sleeves and their souls they commended to the mercy of God.

[H] The sultans sat behind this lattice when giving audience to foreign ambassadors.—Trans.

At the end of this second courtyard, which may be called, in a certain sense, the diplomatic court of the Seraglio, stood the third gate, flanked by marble columns and covered by a wide, overhanging roof, before which, night and day, a troop of white eunuchs and a band of kapuji, armed with sabres and daggers, stood on guard. This was the famous Bâb-i-Sâdet, or Gate of Felicity, leading to the third and innermost enclosure—that sacred portal which for nearly four centuries remained obdurately closed to every Christian who was not the representative of a reigning sovereign or a state; that door at which the supplicating curiosity of thousands of celebrated and influential travellers has knocked in vain; that door from out of which flowed, to spread abroad through every country on the surface of the earth, so many wild and fantastic and romantic tales, so many strange and mournful rumors, so many recitals of love and adventure and shadowy whispers of intrigues and dark conspiracies—so many volumes of poetry, voluptuous, fantastic, and horrible. It was the sacred threshold of the sanctuary of the king of kings, whose name was only pronounced by the common people with bated breath and feelings of secret awe and terror, as though it were the portal leading to some region of enchantment, passing which a profane mortal might suddenly find himself turned to stone or else behold sights which human language would be powerless to express—a door, in short, before which even now the most matter-of-fact, unimaginative traveller pauses with some slight feeling of awe, while his incredulous glance rests upon the lengthened shadow of his own stiff hat as it falls athwart the heavy half-closed doors.

And yet even this sacred precinct was not respected by the mad billows of military revolt. Indeed, it may be said that this particular corner of the great courtyard, situated between the hall of the Divân and the Bâb-i-Sâdet, is the precise spot in which the blind fury of rebellion has committed some of its most daring acts of insubordination. The vicar of God sometimes beheld that gleaming sword with which he ruled the world turned against himself, and that despotism which so jealously guarded every approach to the Seraglio was the very same which, on occasion, violated its most secret recesses. Once the dazzling blades of the cimeters were withdrawn from around that threatening colossus, it was easily seen upon how fragile a support its power rested. Armed hordes of Janissaries and spahis, pounding down the first and second doors with clubs, poured through in the dead of night, waving lighted torches and brandishing on the points of their gleaming blades the names of those ministers upon whom they were determined to wreak their vengeance, while their fierce shouts, reaching far beyond those invulnerable walls, spread terror and dismay in the very innermost recesses of their sovereign’s abode. In vain were bags of gold and silver coins thrown down from the summits of the walls; in vain did terrified muftis, sheikhs, ulemas, and all the most powerful and influential members of the court plead, reason, implore, promise, try by every means their fears or ingenuity could suggest to lower those brawny arms rigid with rage and fury; in vain the validéh sultans, half dead with fright, appeared at the grated windows holding up to view their little innocent children. The blind beast with a thousand heads was unchained, and nothing would satisfy it but living human victims, flesh to tear, blood to pour out, heads to carry stuck on the points of spears; and then the Sultan would appear in person between the battlements, even adventure as far as the barricades of the gateway, surrounded by trembling eunuchs and terrified pages armed with useless daggers, and, one by one, plead for each victim, promising, weeping, begging for mercy in the name of his mother, his sons, the Prophet, for the glory of the empire, the peace of the world; but nothing would avail. A fresh outburst of insults and threats, a waving of torches and brandishing of cimeters, was the only response to all entreaties; and so at last forth from the Gate of Felicity were led ministers, viziers, generals, eunuchs, favorites, one after another, cowering, shrieking, swooning with terror, and on the instant were torn in pieces by the howling pack, hacked by a hundred blades, trodden underfoot, mangled past recognition. Thus Murad III. surrendered his favorite falconer to be torn in pieces before his very eyes, as did Muhammad III. the kislaraghà Otman, and Ghaznèfer, chief of the white eunuchs, being moreover forced to salute the troops in the actual presence of their bleeding and mutilated corpses. And Murad IV. cast down the shrinking form of his grand vizier, Hafiz, into which seventeen daggers were instantly buried to the hilt, while Selim III. sacrificed his entire ministry to the fury of the mob; and then, as these weak pâdishahs returned to their own apartments beside themselves with shame and impotent rage, the triumphant rebels paraded the streets of Stambul, the lights from thousands of torches falling upon the torn and bleeding bodies of their victims dragged in brutal exultation in their midst.

The Gate of Felicity, like the Bâb-el-Selam, is a sort of passageway out of which one issues directly into that mysterious enclosure, the abode of the “brother of the sun.”

For my description to be effective, or for it to give a really good idea of the character of this part of the Seraglio, it should have a running accompaniment of subdued music full of sudden breaks and changes.

This small enchanted city, with its strange, confused architecture, whimsical, graceful, charming, was buried in a forest of great plane trees and cypresses, whose mighty branches stretched far above the roofs, casting their thick shade over an intricate labyrinth of gardens filled with roses and verbenas, courtyards reached by small, heavy doorways, and narrow streets flanked by rows of pavilions and Chinese kiosks. Footpaths led off under the trees to little lakes fringed with myrtle, in whose sparkling bosoms were reflected tiny white mosques and the silver domes of buildings built to resemble temples and cloisters, connected by covered galleries and long files of airy columns, and wooden roofs, inlaid and painted, overhanging arabesqued doorways, and flights of stairs leading to balconies furnished with carved balustrades. In every direction were long, dim perspectives, through which fountains could be seen sparkling in the distance, while glimpses of marble arch and column and terrace alternated with broad views of the Sea of Marmora, two shores of the Bosphorus, the harbor, and Stambul, all framed in by the deep green of the pines and sycamores; and spreading above this paradise that wonderful sky.

The buildings had been added on to one another without any settled plan or design, just as the needs or whims of the moment might dictate, both imposing and flimsy, like a stage-setting, and fairly bristling with secret passage-ways and hidden chambers, planned by a childish jealousy which, unseen itself, desired to see and hear everything. Although swarming with life, this little imperial city looked almost deserted upon the surface, as though the contemplative, pastoral character of the ancient Ottoman princes still brooded over the abode of their descendants—an encampment of stone, which, with all its pomp and splendor, still brought to mind that other one of canvas of the wandering tribes of Tartary; a great, spreading royal residence composed of a hundred little princely dwellings hiding behind one another, combining something of the confinement and melancholy of a prison with the decorum of a temple and the gay abandonment of the country. Before this spectacle, so full of princely magnificence and fantastic ingenuity, the new-comer pauses to ask himself what country he lives in or if he has fallen into another world.

This was the heart of the Seraglio, whence all the arteries of the empire drew their life, and to which all its veins led back.