Since the preceding evening Baïla was doubtful of her beauty; since then she cursed the existence to which she had been condemned, and regretted the days of her early youth. To remove from her mind the incessant idea which tormented her, she essayed to remount to the past. She found there, if not consolation, at least distraction.
The past of a young girl of seventeen is frequently but the paradise of memory—a radiant Eden, peopled with remembrances of her family, and sometimes of a first love. It was not so with Baïla; her family were indifferent to her, and her first love had been imposed upon her.
She was born in Mingrelia, of a drunken father and an avaricious mother. They, finding her face handsome and her body well proportioned, had destined her, almost from the cradle, for the pleasures of the Sultan. Her education had been suitable for her destined state. She was taught to dance and sing, and to accompany herself in recitative; nothing more had ever been thought of.
Although her parents professed externally one of the forms of the Christian religion, had they sought to develop the slightest religious instinct in her? What was the use of it? The morality of Christ could but give her false ideas and be entirely useless to her in the brilliant career which was to open before her.
But if the beautiful child only awakened toward herself feelings of speculation, if she was, in the eyes of her parents, but a piece of precious merchandise, she, at least, profited in advance by the privileges it conferred upon her.
Whilst her brothers were unceasingly occupied with the culture of their vineyard, with the gathering of grapes and honey—whilst her sister, as beautiful as herself, but slightly lame, was condemned to assist her mother in household cares, Baïla led a life of indolence. Could they allow her white and delicate hands to come in contact with dirty furnaces, or her well-turned nails to be bruised against the heavy earthen ware, or her handsome feet to be deformed by the stones in the roads? No—it would have been at the risk of injuring her, and of deteriorating from her value.
Thus, under the paternal roof, where all the rest were struggling and laboring, she alone, extended in the shade, having no other occupation than singing and dancing, passed her life in indolence, or in regarding with artless admiration the increase and development of her beauty, the wealth of her family.
The common table was covered with coarse food for the rest; for her, and her alone, are reserved the most delicate products of fishing and hunting. Her brothers collected carefully for her those delicate bulbs, which, reduced to flour, make that marvelous salep, at once an internal cosmetic and a nutritive substance, which the women of the East use to aid them in the development of their figures, and to give to their skin a coloring of rosy white.
If they were going to any place, Baïla traveled on the back of a mule, in a dress of silk, whilst the rest of the family, clothed in coarse wool or serge, escorted her on foot, watching over her with constant solicitude. Truly, a stranger meeting them by the way, and witnessing all these cares and demonstrations, would have taken her for an idolized daughter, guarded against destiny by the most tender affections.
If her father, however, approached her, it was to pinch her nose, the nostrils of which were a little too wide; and her mother, as an habitual caress, contented herself with pulling her eyebrows near the temples, so as to give the almond form to her eyes.