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About nine o’clock next morning I set off to the house of the Armenian; I had never called upon him so early before, and certainly never with a heart beating with so much eagerness; but the situation of my affairs had become very critical, and I thought that I ought to lose no time in informing the Armenian that I was at length perfectly willing either to translate the Haik Esop under his superintendence, or to accept a seat at the desk opposite to the Moldavian clerk, and acquire the secrets of Armenian commerce.
It is a matter of more speculation as to what the courteous, solemn men, in turbans like carved snow, whom one meets walking along the beach telling their beads, or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low voice, steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from month to month; or the sleek sheikh a countryman of some means, with smooth coffee-coloured face and a haik whiter than an iced birthday cake perched between the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his hard, hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble.
She might have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The whole thing was possibly wild imagination on her part. At any rate Miss Z would understand her, and that we could not do. I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the woman really meant that S`lam had poisoned her. R. helped Tahara wind her long white woollen haik round her. In two minutes I was ready.
His son Selim was with him, a slim youth, with beautiful soft eyes glancing out from under a haik, striped with many colours, such as may have been the coat that marked Joseph as the heir.
The Armenian had occasionally reverted to the subject of the translation of the Haik Esop, which he had still a lurking desire that I should execute; but I had invariably declined the undertaking, without, however, stating my reasons.
The painter has been impressed by the savagery of fiords, by the prettiness of blouses and sabots, by the blue mountain in the distance and the purple mountain in the foreground, by the narrow shade of the street, and the solemnity of a burnous or the grace of a haik floating in the wind.
A queer-looking personage was he also, but very different in most respects from his companion, being shorter by a head at least, and less complete by one eye, for the left orb of vision was closed, leaving him, as the Spaniards style it, tuerto; he, however, far outshone the other in cleanliness of turban, haik, and trousers.
These women seldom go out of doors, or, if they do, nothing is to be seen of them except a figure in an immense creamy woollen haik from top to toe, heavily veiled: possibly a pair of haunting eyes and beautiful slippers suggest an attractive "beyond."
Since ferrying means money, and fording only a wetting, most of the market-goers ford. It was a sight to see the countrywomen wading through, one after another like a string of ducks, trying to keep dry: the water came just about up to their bodies, and the white haik and piece of towelling for a skirt could be bundled up somehow a very few wore short white cotton drawers.
My future prospects were gloomy enough, and I looked forward and feared; sometimes I felt half disposed to accept the offer of the Armenian, and to commence forthwith, under his superintendence, the translation of the Haik Esop; but the remembrance of the cuffs which I had seen him bestow upon the Moldavian, when glancing over his shoulder into the ledger or whatever it was on which he was employed, immediately drove the inclination from my mind.
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