In Love With the Czarina, and Other Stories

by Mór Jókai

Raghib Pasha was a wise man, who knew how to keep such information secret. He thereby learned who his enemies were and managed to clear them out of his way. He got to know the wishes of the Sultan and could long before anticipate them. Everything he did was done in the name of the Sultan: the pomp and glory which he himself achieved he allowed people to ascribe to his Sovereign, and he even made Mustapha imagine that he ruled; whereas the feeble-hearted monarch was a mere puppet in the hands of his skilful Grand Vizier.

In his poems Raghib extolled the Sultan for his mighty and politic deeds—eulogised him for inspecting the navy and the military magazines, for increasing the nation's revenue by 6,000,000 piastres, and doing other things which Raghib himself had in fact done on his own account.

Throughout Turkey, throughout Europe, it was known well enough that, not the Sultan, but his Minister, ruled at Stamboul; it was only Mustapha who did not know it.

One day Raghib's enemies, Hamil Pasha, Bahir Mustapha, and Mohamed Emin, who were jealous of the Minister's great power, said to the Sultan:

"This man only calls you Sultan in mockery. He does everything without you, just as if the State were his. He has just concluded, without your knowledge, an alliance with the ruler of one of the infidel empires—an alliance which, although it may prove the destruction of other unfaithful nations, he should never have dared to make before obtaining the consent of his monarch, in whose presence he is nothing but dust." It was Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who, believing in the wisdom of the distinguished Minister, had invited his alliance, and the documents ratifying it had already been signed. Had that alliance been allowed to continue, perhaps the crescent of Turkey would have risen again. But the heart of Mustapha had been perturbed by these malicious whisperings. When the traitors had left him he said nothing, but simply ordered his bizeban to bring him his diary, wherein he proceeded to record his impressions of the day. Then, shutting the book and giving it to the bizeban, he went to evening prayers. On this occasion the hand appeared at the little window and made certain signs which Saliha watched intently. They said: "Escape, Raghib. The Sultan knows of your letter to the Prussian king. To-morrow your head will be cut off and your documents confiscated."

The Sultan returned from his profound devotions with a lightened heart. No one, he said to himself, knew his secret, and to-morrow morning he would send his executioner to fetch him Raghib's head. Yes, he longed to possess that head ignominiously severed from its trunk.

But when the executioner reached the Grand Vizier's residence, he found there his dead body, which could no longer be killed. On his table lay a letter addressed to the Sultan and enclosed in a velvet envelope. It was taken to the Sovereign with the news that the Minister had been found dead. The letter ran thus:

"Mustapha, the Omniscient has vouchsafed, in His mysterious providence, to let me know that you wished to kill me because, without your knowledge, I concluded, for the benefit of your dominion, an alliance with the King of Prussia. I did not run away from death; I simply anticipated it. I consider I have lived long enough in order to die fitly now, and long enough not to be forgotten. All the documents at my palace I have burned. You will see what I have done for your country; the rest will be said when we meet in presence of the great Prophet."

The Sultan was paralysed with wonder and fear. How could that secret, which had been locked up only in his own heart, have been divined by Raghib? First he accused the dsins (Christian prophets), then the Hindoo soothsayers, then the interpreters of dreams—then the very pen with which he had written. How could he dream that the deaf and dumb could speak?

When Mustapha endeavoured to further the alliance with the King of Prussia, this great ruler of the infidels replied that there had until recently been one wise man in Turkey, but that he did not now propose to do business with fools. This was a bitter humiliation to the Sultan—to think that his late slave could have procured an alliance which was contemptuously refused to the King of Kings!