One day, when she was passing through the souks, all the people rose at her approach, as at the passing of the Sultan. Her heart swollen with victorious joy, she advanced slowly, she advanced regretfully, into that fairyland, which was soon going to disappear for always. Shining silks, brocades wrought with salmon-pink roses, veils of Baghdad, cloths of Hama, damask with silver flowers, slippers of red leather, Arab saddles decorated with mother-of-pearl and tawny studs, carpets in warm and palpitating tones.... And, eagerly, she saw pass by, standing out on this strange scene like living chains which bound her to the dream, the tall Bedouins draped in their brown abayes, fierce of aspect and supple as panthers of the jungle, the Jews with their dirty curls and their bent figures, hiding a clandestine booty from the tax-gatherer, the Turks, embroidered and re-embroidered with gold over all the seams, and the Christians, neutral and sad, and the Druses in half-mourning, and the Maronites.... From time to time an Aga broke through the crowd, with protruding chest, full-blown and fat body in his furred pelisse, like a pot of lard surrounded by dust, followed by fifteen slaves carrying his narghileh and his smoking apparatus. Long lines of veiled women under the guardianship of a duenna or of an old eunuch, flight of swans led by a duck.
It was Ramadan. So soon as the sun, in his daily farewell, had stained with blood the sand-dunes outside the town, life took possession of Damascus. Immediately the lamps were lit in the most beautiful mosques, for in this Orient which is all violence, shock and contrast one knows not the delicate charm of the mauve hours in which the twilight is born. Lady Hester sauntered through the crowded by-streets. The waters of the Barada reflected in commas of gold the illuminations of the little cafés which opened on to its steep banks. Songs rose from the moucharabys, whose distant lights traced the designs of legends. Behind a mysterious wall viols lamented, those seven-stringed viols which retain for a long time the melancholy notes. The shops of the vendors of eatables were in a wild ferment: plates loaded with cakes dripping with honey and grease, juicy halawys, loaves flat as handkerchiefs, little skewers of birds roasted whole. On the threshold of his kingdom, naked down to the waist, a fat negro rolled without shame forcemeat balls on his belly. Odour of grilled mutton, of fresh pasties, of burned almonds, of ginger, of canella!
Tumult of buyers! Confusion at the crossways! Theatre of Chinese shadows recounting the inevitable story: illness of a lady, her desire to have a Frank doctor, thoughtlessness of the doctor, jealousy of the husband and speedy catastrophe.
In the cafés, the Damascenes, gravely squatting in a heap on rustic carpets, smoke the narghileh or suck in the tiny cups of coffee perfumed with ambergris. If the customers were thirsty, they stopped on his way a water-carrier, a djoullab seller or a vendor of raisins. Sometimes a storyteller presented himself and began a story of "The Thousand and One Nights," in which figured marvellous houris and one-eyed giants. He went, came, gesticulated, varying his voice with an infinite art, transforming the expressions of his face with a skill which the most famous of our actors would not attain. Sometimes they listened to him, sometimes he talked for himself alone, and his pleasure was as keen as though he were playing before the Sultan. Ah! who will restore to Lady Hester those long luminous nights of Ramadan with the charm of new scenes and exotic perfumes never lost later?
One evening, Lady Hester was informed that the pacha awaited her. Rash enterprise for a woman who had a soul less firm. She passed with an assured step—with an assured stride—through the ante-chambers of the palace, where the flames of the torches shone on the weapons of the soldiers and the motionless guards. She entered an immense hall, walking through a double hedge of officers and janissaries in full dress, naked scimitars in their hands. Silence terrible and oppressive. The steel threw flashes of light. And, at the very end, on a sofa of crimson satin, a little man with an air haughty and glacial, who, without rising, signed to her to be seated. Lady Hester was in no way disconcerted, and all these glances of men, ardent and sombre, did not displease her. By her side stood the Jew Malem Rafael—brother of Malem Hazm—and M. Bertrand. Little Giorgio, who had been brought to check the translations of the interpreters, had been stopped at the door because he carried arms, a discourtesy as notorious as to wear boots on an official visit in England.
M. Bertrand was far from being as much at his ease as was his intrepid mistress. He would certainly have preferred to be the other Bertrand, he who was travelling on the road to Aleppo; his teeth chattered with fear, and he was a long time before being able to speak intelligibly.
Lady Hester presented Sayd Soliman Pacha with a very valuable snuff-box, and withdrew at the end of a reasonable time, which seemed mortally long to her interpreter. The pacha sent her a horse shortly afterwards. After all these visits, her stable was beginning to be supplied.
Scarcely had she returned, when her janissary Mohammed said to her:
"Her ladyship's reception has been great."
"Yes, but all that is only vanity," answered she.