Certainly, thought I, nothing was ever more strongly pronounced than the doctrine of predestination has been in this instance. Here, one of my masters arrives from regions beyond the rising of the sun, to espouse the widow of another of my masters, who dies just at the very nick of time to produce the meeting, which I, who come from the countries of the south, step in to promote.
The hakîm's widow was the fattest of the three, and therefore I made no scruple in proposing her to Osman, who at once acceded to my offer. Softening down the little asperities of her temper, making much of her two eyebrows in one, and giving a general description of her person, suited to the Ottoman taste, I succeeded in giving a very favorable opinion to the bridegroom of his intended.
I then proceeded to inform the mollah Nadân of my success, who appeared to listen with delight to the adventures of this couple, which I related to him with scrupulous detail. He directed me how to proceed, and informed me, in order to make the marriage lawful, that a vakeel, or trustee, must appear on the part of the woman, and another on that of the man. That the woman's vakeel having beforehand agreed upon the terms of the marriage, proceeded to ask the following question of the man's vakeel, in the Arabic tongue.
'Have you agreed to give your soul to me upon such and such conditions?' to which the other answers, 'I have agreed'; and then the parties are held to be lawfully joined together. Nadân himself proposed to officiate on the part of the hakîm's widow, and I on the part of Osman; and it was left to my ingenuity to obtain as large a fee as possible for ourselves, on this happy occasion.
I forthwith communicated the joyful tidings to the khanum, as I still called her, who did not fail to excite the envy of her other companions, for she immediately laid her success to her superior beauty, and to that never-failing object of her care, her two eyebrows in one. She was, as the reader may be allowed to suppose, in great anxiety at her appearance; for she dreaded not being corpulent enough for her Turk, and from what I could judge, rather doubted the brilliancy of her eye, from the great quantity of black paint which she had daubed on her eyelids.
I left her to return to Osman Aga, who, good man, was also arming himself for conquest; and he seemed to think that, owing to his long residence among camels, he might have imbibed so much of their natures as to have become a fit subject for the perfumes of musk and ambergris. Accordingly, he went to the bath, his grey beard was dyed a glossy black; his hands received a golden tinge; and his mustachios were invited to curl upwards towards the corners of his eyes, instead of downwards into his mouth, as they usually had done.
He then arrayed himself in his best, and followed me to the house of the mollah Nadân, where owing to this change in his appearance, he very well passed off for a man at least ten years younger than he was in reality.
As soon as the parties came in sight of each other, an unconcerned bystander would have been amused with their first glances—he, the bridegroom, endeavouring to discover what he was about to espouse—she, the bride, making play with her veil in such an artful manner as to induce his belief that it concealed celestial charms. But I was too deeply interested in the game to make it matter of amusement. Besides, more than once, a certain fifty ducats that had formerly belonged to Osman, and which I had appropriated to my own use, came into my mind, and made me fear that it also might have a place in his: 'and if,' said I, 'he gets displeased and angry, who knows what ashes may not fall upon my head!'
However, they were married; and I believe most truly that he did not succeed in getting one glimpse of his intended until I had pronounced the awful words, 'I agree'; when in his impatience he partly pulled her veil on one side, and I need not say that he was far from fainting with delight.
As soon as he was well satisfied that his charmer was not a Zuleikha, he called me to him, and said, 'Hajji, I thought that youth, at least, she would have possessed; but she is more wrinkled than any camel. How is this?'