The Slaves of the Padishah

The S⁠⸺ family was one of the richest in Wallachia, and consequently one of the most famous. The head of the family dictated to twelve boyars, collected hearth-money and tithes from four-and-fifty villages, lived nine months in the year at Stambul, held the Sultan’s bridle when he mounted his steed in time of war, contributed two thousand landsknechts to the host of the Pasha of Macedonia, and had permission to keep on his slippers when he entered the inner court of the Seraglio.

In the year 1600 and something, George was the name of the firstborn of the S⁠⸺ family, but with him we shall not have very much concern. We shall do much better to follow the fortunes of the second born, Michael, whom his family had sent betimes to Bucharest to be brought up as a priest in the Seminary there. The youth had, however, a remarkably thick head, and, so far from making any great progress in the sciences, was becoming quite an ancient classman, when he suddenly married the daughter of a subdeacon, and buried himself in a little village in Wallachia. There he spent a good many years of his life with scarce sufficient stipend to clothe him decently, and had he not tilled his soil with his own hands, he would have been hard put to it to find maize-cakes enough to live upon.

In the first year of his marriage a little girl was born to him, and for her the worthy man and his wife spared and scraped so that, in case they were to die, she might have some little trifle.

Take but one case out of many. One day Kökényesdi, in his bunda, turned inside out as usual, with a round spiral hat on his head and a large knobby stick in his hands, appeared outside the entrenchment within which a closely-capped Kurd was guarding Haly Pasha’s favourite charger, Shebdiz.

“What a nice charger!” said the horse-dealer to the Kurd.

“Nice indeed, but not for your dog’s teeth.”

“Yet I assure you I’ll steal him this very night.”

“I shall be there too, my lad,” thought the Kurd to himself, and with that he leaped upon the horse and grasped fast his three and a half ells long spear; “if you want the horse come for it now!”

“I’m not going to fetch it at once, so don’t put yourself out,” Kökényesdi assured him. “You may do as you like with him till morning,” and with that he sat down on the edge of the ditch, wrapped himself up in his bunda, and leaned his chin on his big stick.

The Kurd durst not take his eyes off him, he scarce ventured even to wink, lest the horse-dealer should practise magic in the meantime.

He never stirred from the spot, but drew his hat deep down and regarded the Kurd from beneath it with his foxy eyes.

“We are robbers,” thereupon exclaimed the one interrogated, throwing aside the fold of his cloak, beneath which could be seen a belt crammed with daggers and pistols. “My name is Feri Kökényesdi,” said he, striking his breast.

Magyari thereupon leaped from his chair, which he immediately converted into a weapon; it at once occurred to him that he had an only daughter to defend, and he was ready to fight the robbers on behalf of her. But the father pulled him by the cassock and whispered: “Pray be quiet, your Reverence,” and then with an infinitely placid face he turned towards the robbers. “So that is the order to which you belong,” said he. “Still, if you have come as guests, sit down and eat what you desire.”

“But that is not sufficient. Outside this monastery there are 1700 of us, and all of them want to eat and drink, for it is only the ancient prophets who, when hungry, were content with the meat of the Word.”

“Let them also satisfy their desires.”

“However, the main thing is this: in your Reverence’s chapel is a whole lot of very nice gold and silver saints, who certainly befriend those who sigh after them, and as we cannot come running to them here every day in order to entreat their aid, we had better take them along with us, that they may be helpful to us on the road.”

“Thou hast a pretty mother-wit, frater! Who could refuse thee anything?”

“You have been filching from Paradise, Haji Baba!”

Haji Baba crossed his hands over his breast and shook his head humbly.

“All these girls are my pupils, sir. There is not one of them who resembles her dear mother. From their tenderest youth they have grown up beneath my fostering care; I do no business with grown-up, captured slave-girls, for, as a rule, they only weep themselves to death, grow troublesome, wither away before their time, and upset all the others. I buy the girls while they are babies; it costs a mint of money and no end of trouble before such a flower expands, but at least he who plucks it has every reason to rejoice. Look, sir, they are all equally perfect! Look at that slim lily there dancing on the angora carpet! Did you ever see such a figure anywhere else? How she sways from side to side like the flowering branch of a banyan tree! That is a Georgian girl whom I purchased before she was born. Her father when he married had not money enough for the wedding-feast, so he came to me and sold for a hundred denarii the very first child of his that should be born. Yes, sir, not much money, I know, but suppose the child had never been born? And suppose it had been a son! And how often too, and how easily I might have been cheated! I am sure you could not say that five hundred ducats was too much for her if I named that price. Look, how she stamps down her embroidered slippers! Ah, what legs! I don’t believe you could find such round, white, smooth little legs anywhere else! Her price, sir, is six hundred ducats.”

Yffim Beg listened to the trader with the air of a connoisseur.

As the princely pair stood on the castle battlements, the din of the town grew deeper, and suddenly the rumble of a carriage, driven at full tilt, broke upon the dreamy stillness of the castle courtyard, and dashing into it stopped before the staircase; the door of the coach was quickly thrown open and out of it rushed a pale woman, who, rallying her last remaining strength, ran up the staircase and collapsed at the feet of the Prince as he hastened to meet her, exclaiming as she did so:

“I am Mariska Sturdza.”

“For the love of God,” cried the agitated Prince, “why did you come here? You have destroyed the state and me; you have brought ruin on yourself and on us.”

The unfortunate lady was unable to utter another word. Her energy was exhausted. She lay there on the marble floor, half unconscious.

The Princess Apafi summoned her ladies-in-waiting, who, at her command, hastened to raise the lady in their arms and began to sprinkle her face with eau de cologne.

“I cannot allow her to be brought into my house,” cried the terrified Apafi; “it would bring utter destruction on me and my family.”

The Princess cast a look full of dignity upon her husband.

“What do you mean? Would you hand this unfortunate woman over to her pursuers? In her present condition, too? Suppose I was obliged to fly in a similar plight, would you fling me out upon the high road instead of offering me a place of refuge?”

“But the wrath of the Sultan?”