“She is kind and tender—O, how dear to me! Go to her, Barakah! Kneel at her feet, embrace her hands, and she will surely pardon.”
“Pardon? What, pray?” exclaimed the bride indignantly. “It is for her to ask pardon of me whom, kindly recollect, she tried to poison.”
“She is older than you; she is my mother. It behoves you to be modest and submissive towards her. I have forgiven all, and so should you. She is my mother.”
It was a relief one morning when the Pasha came and bore the young man off, declaring jokingly that he would die of too much sweet if he remained immured there longer. Of Barakah he said the same, informing her that Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah would call that afternoon to take her out upon a round of visits.
Then Yûsuf took to being absent all day long, but came home gladly in the evenings, full of love. He volunteered no tidings of his day’s amusements, and when she questioned him about them seemed to think it odd.
“All that is not your business,” he informed her kindly.
She hinted at the pleasures of companionship, the bond of common interests. He laughed, inquiring:
“Are we not companions? Have we not interests in common? You teach me English, and I teach you Arabic; we compare the customs of the races. And we love! Are not these interests much greater than to hear what Fulân said to Zeyd, what Zeyd replied, and whether Hâfiz or Mahmûd obtained the Government appointment? That is the life of men, a passing of the hours till night, when they return to the beloved. If anything of weight befell I should inform you. What pleasure could it give to you to hear repeated the gabble of a lot of people you will never know?”
Perceiving much in Yûsuf’s tastes and conversation which pious English people would have thought ungodly, she gasped a little on discovering he was religious. Attracted by a faith which showed some tolerance of human failings, she was studying the rudiments of El Islâm by Yûsuf’s guidance; acquiring prayers and all the rules for saying them, including washings and the proper time and place. Nothing seemed left to the believer’s judgment, it was all laid down. When, at a lesson in prostration, she was moved to laughter, he became quite terrible, and warned her threateningly that in this country any man or woman was likely to be torn in pieces for a hint of blasphemy. The awe she felt was oddly mixed with fascination.