"Then she will probably die," said Gregorios, reassuringly. "Crazy people almost always have a lucid interval before death."
"You take a cheerful view," I observed.
"Fate would confer a great benefit on Patoff by removing his mother from this valley of tears," returned my friend. "Besides, as our proverb says, mad people are the only happy people. Madame Patoff, in passing from insanity to sanity, has therefore fallen from happiness to unhappiness."
"If all your proverbs were true, the world would be a strange place."
"I will not discuss the inexhaustible subject of the truth of proverbs," answered Balsamides. "I only doubt whether Madame Patoff will be happy now that she is sane, and whether the uncertainty of the issue of our search may not drive her mad again. She will probably spoil everything by chattering at all the embassies. By the by, since we are on the subject of death, lunacy, and other similar annoyances, I may as well tell you that Laleli is very ill, and it is not expected that she can live. I heard it this morning on very good authority."
"That is rather startling," I said.
"Very. Dying people sometimes make confessions of their crimes, but to hear the confession you must be there when they are about to give up the ghost."
"That is impossible in this case, unless you can get into the harem as a doctor."
"Who knows? We must make a desperate attempt of some kind. Leave it to me, and do not be surprised if I do not appear for a day or two. I have made up my mind to strike a blow. You are too evidently a Frank to be of any use. I wish you were a Turk, Griggs. You have such an enviably sober appearance. You speak Turkish just well enough to make me wish you would never betray yourself by little slips in the verbs and mistakes in using Arabic words. Only educated Osmanlis can detect those errors: just now they are the very people we want to deceive."
"I can pass for anything else here without being found out," I answered. "I can pass for a Persian when there are no Persians about, or for a Panjabí Mussulman, if necessary."