Veiled Women quotes

“Inshallah, truly!” answered Hind, with vehemence. “Fear nothing, O beloved; God is greatest! Their freedom is from Satan, their liege lord—the curse of Allah on him! It is a travesty of God’s work, like all he does.

Is it not known when Allah made the cow, he tried his best to do the same, but got no farther than the water-buffalo?

All Heaven mocked him. Our charter, when it comes, will be perfection.”

“Her tale is nonsense! She is making game of us,” exclaimed Gulbeyzah, breaking out in laughter. “She was not gone five minutes, that is known. Thou shalt be paid full measure, little poison-flower! Confess now that thy story is all lies!”

The marvel was that every word proved true.

Is not that plain? Beat her! It is thy sacred duty. No, no, she will not cry against thee to the Qadi. She will hide her fault. All women look to men for government, and if it is withheld, have cause of grief.

Trust me, beloved, there is no good woman who would not rather suffer stripes occasionally than grow for lack of them into a shrieking harridan.

Fitnah Khânum is my durrah, and I love her truly, as the mother of our darling children, and for many virtues. Still I say to thee on this occasion: beat her soundly. Bestow on her a perfect beating, O my soul!”

“Well, then, God bless you, dear, among the Muslims, and may you always bear the standard of true Christian womanhood!”

With that two-edged blessing in her ears, the renegade, a bowed and shrinking figure, traversed the garden in the blue of twilight.

She felt guilty and unnerved, irresolute, until she saw the Pasha’s carriage waiting in the lane, when pride returned. The tears yet wet upon her cheeks, she stood erect and sniffed the evening air.

The dust kicked up by donkeys’ hoofs, by people’s footsteps, rose greenish like wood-smoke. Some wayfarers already carried lighted lanterns which made coloured circles in the gloaming like the peacock’s eyes.

A life of passionate adventure lay before her, most curious and rich and warm with human failings, much better worth than that which she had left behind.

Sawwâb the eunuch held the carriage door for her, and murmured “Praise to Allah!” as he shut her in. She saw him merely as a well-trained servant, having as yet no inkling of his grim significance.

“

The Europeans have degraded love and made life banal.

They spread life’s agitation over a vast surface and account it progress; we value depth and stillness. Enlarging each life’s pool, they make it shallow. A woman’s life is of the feelings which are dulled, not quickened, by extensive interests.

“The Europeans have degraded love and made life banal. They spread life’s agitation over a vast surface and account it progress; we value depth and stillness.

Enlarging each life’s pool, they make it shallow.

A woman’s life is of the feelings which are dulled, not quickened, by extensive interests. Their men too suffer, growing superficial, flippant, without depth of character.”

The crone expostulated, coaxed, entreated, and at length, when all proved vain, informed the husband, who, to her utter consternation, laughed.

“Ghandûr?” he cried; “Ghandûr is my right foot,” and immediately applied that member to the beldame’s person.

The old woman did not dare to speak again to Barakah, though the latter plagued her mercilessly, crying “Ghandûr!” here and “Ghandûr!” there, for the treat of seeing her curvet and wring her hands.

“Great God!” the Pasha gasped, with eyes upturned. “

Does anybody walk for pleasure here in Egypt?

The natives have a proverb: ‘Better ride on beetles than walk upon rich carpets.’ Well, well, there!” He shrugged as giving up a hopeless puzzle. “You walked. A lady dressed as you were had never been seen walking in this world before.

though Hamdi was the true Egyptian adolescent, still but half awake, a slave to every breeze, to every odour, and fascinated by the sight of gleaming objects.

He would sit still for hours in contemplation of a sunlit blade of grass; at other times he would walk miles, drawn on invisibly, with great brown eyes which seemed to harbour visions.

Barakah found him gentle and obedient. In truth, his only wickedness that she could see consisted in resentment of shrill interruptions. At such times he would battle blindly with assailants, cursing them, and crying out, in his despair:

One twang of the lute, and then the magic voice arose from out the shadow of the trees.

It gave a living spirit to the starlight, a soul to all the nights that ever were or would be.

It seemed illumination, yet was all of mystery; it gave the listener a sense of floating disembodied.

And she managed him, I can assure thee. Ah, she fooled him perfectly—exclaiming ever at his wisdom, bowing to his lightest word.

It is thus we subtle ones beguile the world⁠—the great strong simpleton!⁠—never opposing, lest he knock us down.

By Allah, I must ask thy pardon for thus prattling; but ladies condescend to find my talk amusing. I can recount the origin of all that is, being most learned in religious matters.

Of this dole Umm ed-Dahak claimed her share.

If she required a garment or a gift of money, she did not beg for it, but told some tortuous and lengthy story which ended in a present as snakes end in tails.

When Barakah saw through the artifice, she was in no way disconcerted. She merely smiled and praised her quick intelligence.

But Umm ed-Dahak answered, “True, wallahi. What dismays thee?

A woman’s task is to produce. We leave the rest to Allah.

”

The child, with bright eyes, drank in all she said, but God alone knew what his mind could make of it; for

Barakah’s opinions were a tangle as of angry serpents, their utterance as incoherent as the cries of battle.

She heard him once hurl “Englishwoman!” at a slave who had enraged him. The girl laughed back: “Thy mother is an Englishwoman,” when he replied: “A noble race and warlike—the Muslimîn among them, like my mother.

It is not right that one so delicate as thou art should have a rough, ill-mannered boy to vex her.”

He loved her more than ever, it appeared, but thought her not much wiser than himself.

Her fear of the stern rules of El Islam was tamed by reverence.

There was one Englishwoman in particular who often passed her, driving a light dogcart with a Nubian groom behind—straight as a lance and trim of waist, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes under grizzled hair.

A creature of free air and open sunlight, the shuttered, perfumed shade could not produce her like.

A jealousy near hatred stirred in Barakah.

“It is his right, by Allah,” answered the old woman; “and no slight to thee, if thou wouldst view it fairly, and throw aside the silly fiction of the Franks.

It is the nature of a man to have more wives than one, and a woman should no more resent his doing so⁠—always provided he does not defraud her⁠—than blame a cat for having several kittens at a birth.

Ibrahîm, the father of the faithful, Mûsa—all the prophets till the crown of them (God bless and save him) married more than one. Polygamy was in the customs of the Jews and Christians until they fell away from El Islam.

Everyone was kind. The tender sympathy of Yûsuf, though himself hard stricken, might well have won her heart had she possessed one.

Her heart was dead and buried in the grave.

The ladies and her servants tried at first to cheer her; but when they found their efforts useless, let her be. Only Umm ed-Dahak remained with her constantly. Discreet as ever, she kept silence for long hours, watching her mistress with a doleful mow.

Soon the sunset reddened all the plain, stretching their shadows far before them on the dyke.

The citadel upon its height was hotly flushed one minute, the next ash-grey and lifeless like a skull.

It lived in her imagination as a monstrous spider which held her with its web and drew her in.

And then the song soared up to heights of praise, or hovered over depths of sorrow; she was lost in it. Uprising from the fount of hope in sadness, it soared to certainty of endless joy.

The sound was no made music, but a soul poured forth in glorious melody, as spontaneous and unerring as the song of birds.

The greatest singer in the world stood there unseen in the suspended gallery, and sang his heart out to the praise of the Creator, watching the dawn’s first gleam above the eastern hill.

On Barakah the song fell like a voice from heaven. She beheld great light. Her grief, her terrors, became natural shadows. There was one God for Christian and for Muslim.

Beyond the striving and the hatred waited peace and love.

The professional muezzin on the ground behind her was rocking with enjoyment, gasping, sobbing: “Enough, O Tâhir! Of thy kindness, stop! Wouldst kill me quite? I faint, expire! It is too much of rapture! See me die!

The men have promise of a certain paradise; we have no certitude of what awaits us. Yet are we not dejected, for we know God’s mercy, and leave the future gladly in His hands.

We women are not bargainers, we serve for love; and the mercy of the Highest cannot fail.

Thou hast been brought up otherwise to prouder thoughts. Humble thy soul if thou wouldst find relief.”