LULEIKA, THE RICH WIDOW
You hear people talk about the disadvantages of living in New York. Personally, I cannot think of greater happiness than being in this great metropolis, if only for the reason that I can be all over Europe in one night. Five cents carfare lands you in the French district. Five more minutes reading of the "Subway Sun" lands you in Hungary; from whence you can tramp in fifteen minutes to Italy or Greece or Turkey, as the spirit moves you or inclination dictates. You can eat your breakfast in a Russian restaurant on East Fifth Street, have caviar and Bolshevik talk; go for lunch in China, on Mott Street, where they will serve you tea grown on the highest mountain of Asia; for dinner you can have your choice between Persian, French, Hindu or Greek menus, and still have the cuisines of a dozen other foreign nationalities to choose from if you are alive the next morning.
And now, in case you ever intend going down to the Syrian Quarter for supper and atmosphere, I will acquaint you with the story of Luleika, as it was told to me by Malouf the jeweler, who is a Mohammedan gentleman, born in Constantinople. Malouf believes in the glory of Allah. His face is as dry as smoked parchment, and he touches the ground with his forehead twice a day, at sunrise and sundown, as it is commanded in the Koran. Malouf lives on Washington Street, which is at a stone's throw from the Statue of Liberty in the Bay of New York.
"And it is written in the Koran: 'For whosoever sells his soul for gain, shall suffer in his flesh, and whosoever sells his flesh for gain shall suffer in his soul.'
"But you, my listener, are either a Christian Giaour or a Yehudi Kepek, and know nothing about the Koran.
"And Luleika was young then, in her twenty-fifth year, and the Koran was only a name to her and not the fountain of wisdom which it really is.
"She was young and beautiful when her brother, Ali, who was a rich dealer in rugs, brought her here, to this pork-eating country. Her brother was very proud of her. Not one woman in a thousand could wear a diamond-studded comb in her hair as well as Luleika could; not one in a million could carmine her nails as well; and not another in the whole world could make the lines of her mouth harmonize so well with the curves of her eyebrows.
"I loved Luleika. But I was poor and her brother was rich, and richer yet were the friends he had. So Ali set up a store, not far from the Christian church around the corner, in which he sold rugs to the rich of this country. And in the store he put up a little cage in which sat Luleika like an imprisoned bird. Men came to buy rugs and smile at the girl. Ali became richer every day. As his gold piled up he forgot the good teachings of the holy book and ate pork and drank wine. And Luleika did as he did.