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It is from thence we get our rulers and our treasurers, and if now and then Fate causes a hero to plump down among them he also grows black like a drop of water that has fallen upon soot; for the treasures, palaces, and odalisks of the fallen magnates are transferred to the new favourite, and ruin him as quickly and as completely as they ruined his predecessors; and so long as these palaces stand by the Sweet Waters more curses than prayers will be heard within the walls of Stambul, so that if ye want to save Stambul, ye must burn down these palaces, for as sure as God exists these palaces will consume Stambul."
The only army that he now has eyes for is the army of the odalisks and slave-girls, who seize their tambourines and mandolines, and weave the light dance around the happy imperial couple, singing sweet songs of enchantment, while outside through the streets of Stambul gun-carriages are rattling along, and the mob, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, clamours for a war of extermination against the invading Shiites.
On the day of the feast of Halwet all the damsels discard their veils, without which at all other times they are not permitted to walk about the streets. Then it is that the odalisks of one harem go forth to call upon the odalisks of another.
The furious mænads fell upon their assailants, flung them to the ground, and the next instant had seized the bridles of the steeds of the odalisks. The Kizlar-Aga was fully alive to the danger which threatened the Sultana. The whole square was thronged with angry women who, with faces flushed and sparkling eyes, were rushing upon the odalisks.
Half a thousand odalisks, the lovelinesses of every province in the Empire, for whom the youths of whole districts have raved in vain, in garments radiant with pearls and precious stones, mounted on splendid prancing steeds gaily caparisoned. And in the midst of them all the beautiful Sultana, with the silver heron's plume in her turban, whose stem flashes with sparkling diamonds.
I'll wager that Sultan Achmed, poor fellow! felt far less contented when he rose from his gorgeous and luxurious sofa, though the tables beside it were piled high with fruits and sweetmeats, and two hundred odalisks danced and sang around it. "And now let us go to sleep!" said Halil Patrona to his guest. "I know that slumber is the greatest of all the joys which Allah has bestowed upon mankind.
"Thine, thine, Halil!" thundered the obsequious crowd, and with that they rushed upon the palace, burst open the doors, and Patrona, with his wife still clasped in his arms, forced his way in, and seeking out the harem of the Grand Vizier, commanded the odalisks of Ibrahim to bow their faces in the dust before their new mistress, and fulfil all her demands.
It seemed as if the representatives of all nations had come together to greet the heroic young king. Greeks and Turks were there in gold-embroidered, bejewelled apparel. Odalisks, Spanish, Russian, and German peasant women in every variety of costume; glittering fairies, sorceresses, and fortune-telling gypsies; grave monks, ancient knights in silver armor, castle dames, and veiled nuns.
The Aga of the Janissaries withdrew to his kiosk; the Kapudan Pasha had himself rowed through the canal to his country house at Chengelköi, having just received from a Dutch merchant a very handsome assortment of tulip-bulbs, which he wanted to plant out with his own hands; the Reis-Effendi hastened to his summer residence, beside the Sweet Waters, to take leave of his odalisks for the twentieth time at least; and the Kiaja returned to Stambul.
And all the author's trappings the celery stand full of fresh roses and honeysuckle, last year's calendar on the wall, the dictionary, and a little bag of chocolates to nibble between inspirations. Dear girl! I sat me to work. The wall paper is patterned with arabesques or odalisks or perhaps it is trapezoids. Upon one of the figures I fixed my eyes. I bethought me of humor.
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