“Fi donc, mademoiselle!” laughed Naimeh Khanum. “You don’t think that Safieh Khanum’s parents would ever have allowed such a thing? Besides, in no case would she be allowed to come near you, or under your influence. They would be afraid of your making her a Christian.”
“But Azim Bey is always with me,” objected Cecil.
“That is different,” said Azim Bey’s sister; “he is a boy. They know that there is no danger for him. But what has Islam for a woman?”
“Have you felt this, Khanum?” asked Cecil, in surprise.
“How can I help it? I have read your books, I have seen the difference between your life and ours,” said Naimeh Khanum. “Our people think justly that there is little need for fear in the case of boys like my brother. They read of Christianity, they see your laws and their results, they think it is all very good. They are also taught our religion, and they say: ‘It is destiny. I was born a Mussulman. My father and all my ancestors were good Moslems. Why should I change a religion that was good enough for them?’ In this way they agree together to dismiss the subject. They have many things to occupy their thoughts, and if in their secret hearts they know that Christianity is better, it does not trouble them themselves, and they say nothing to any one else. They have all they want, but with us it is different. All the long, long hours—what can we do but think and wish? They should not have educated us, have let us read about your beautiful life in Frangistan, if they wished us to remain contented with what satisfied our grandmothers. We are tired of our jewels, and our novels, and our embroidery; tired of making sweetmeats and eating them; we are so tired—you cannot imagine how tired—of being shut up always in the same rooms, with the same faces round us. We are not like birds or wild animals, to be kept in cages, we have minds and hearts, and we want to be able to go out in the world with our husbands, and enter into all they do.”
“But couldn’t you do that now—partially at least?” suggested Cecil, diffidently, surprised by this passionate outburst from languid-eyed, contented Naimeh Khanum.
“How can we?” she asked. “Our husbands go out into society without us. They meet the Frangi ladies, talk to them, dance with them, and then come home to us, poor ignorant creatures, who cannot talk to them of the things they care for, and don’t know how to please them when we are most anxious to do it. Our husbands are the sun to us; we are less than the moon to them.”
“But how can any one help you if you don’t help yourselves?” asked Cecil.
“What are we to do?” asked Naimeh Khanum. “They say that our rights are secured to us by law, but what we want is the sole right to our own husbands. With that we might be able to do something, but how dare a woman be anything but submissive when she may find herself divorced, or set aside for another wife, on account of the slightest effort for freedom? We need martyrs in our cause; but who will be the first? How can a woman who loves her husband, slight as her hold is on him, alienate herself from him deliberately?”
“But you cannot fear anything of the kind with Said Bey,” said Cecil, losing sight of the general question in this particular case. “He would never set you aside for another wife.”