When she told Gulbeyzah of the case as of a kind of miracle, the Circassian answered:
“I perceive no cause for wonder. The bridegroom had not thought of her before in that relation, had not truly known her—that is all. Love is a blessing that brings gratitude as surely as the Nile makes plants to grow.”
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr—nay, all her friends—viewed love, apart from any individual man, as a material boon. Bred up to it and ripened for it cunningly, they were ready to adore the man who gave it, however unattractive from a European standpoint. This view of love, when realized, explained to Barakah the happiness which every girl of her acquaintance seemed to find in marriage, even where, as in Gulbeyzah’s case, the husband was a greybeard thrice her age. Those who possessed it were content and virtuous. In those who had it not, or were deprived of it, all amorous crime was reckoned pardonable.
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr explained all this to Barakah in thrilling tones, as if they uttered truths divine.
“Behold the wisdom of our Faith,” they said, “which grants to every woman this delight in secret. Women can never truly be the friends of men; their soul is different. If thrown with men for long, they feel fatigue. They ask of men one thing—the gift of love. Here we consort with women, true companions, all day long; and in the night the bridegroom comes, and we are blest. Is not this better than the way of Europe, which sets at nought apparent truths—as that most men love more than one of us, whereas most women need but love itself, the hope of children?”
That was one of the occasions when Barakah would have given anything to have an Englishwoman present, and to watch her face. Another came a few days later when she called upon Gulbeyzah. Alighting from her carriage at the palace door, she saw a baby’s coffin being carried out, and thought at once of turning home again. But already smiling eunuchs stood before her bidding welcome, beseeching her to deign to follow them to the haramlik. Gulbeyzah met her with a kiss on either cheek.
“Come, help us to console Nasîbah,” she exclaimed. “Her baby died this night. She is distracted.”
She drew her friend into a chamber where the childless mother lay, face downward, moaning, while the others tried to soothe her.
“It is no matter,” was the burden of their consolations. “It is not as if thou wert left altogether desolate. Are we not one, we four? Thou hast two children left, since ours are thine, and in a day or two Gulbeyzah will present thee with a third, in sh´Allah!”
“In sh´Allah!” cried Gulbeyzah. “And it shall be thine entirely. Directly it is born it shall be sent to thee to nurse. I will forget it. And when it is thy turn again, thou wilt repay me. Is not that a good idea?”