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Updated: September 14, 2025
"So we will travel downstream for a while," answered Mehmet Ali and crossed his arms. After a while the gipsy chief who had reckoned that they must be fully five miles away from his home across the water made a new offer. "A woman, Mehmet Ali, is a woman. They are all alike after you have known them.
He will look somewhere else, where his offer might not be scorned. That offer of Mehmet had upset him. He had never thought of Fanutza other than as a child. Of course he was marrying her to Stan but it was more like giving her a second father! Suddenly the old gipsy looked at the Tartar who had lifted his oars from the water and brought the boat to an abrupt standstill.
He was marrying her off so soon to Stan, although it was the customary age for gipsies, against his desire, but because of his will to see her in good hands and to give to Stan the succession to the leadership of his tribe. Only a few hours ago! What had brought about the change? Was it in him or in her? That cursed Tartar, Mehmet Ali, with his silly offer of twenty gold pieces!
At last, after about eight months of anxious waiting, the Armenian and the Jew were summoned to appear before the court. Mehmet Ali Pasha, in opening the case, called in the Public Weigher and had them weighed again. On this occasion it was found that the Armenian had decreased, now only weighing fifty okes, for worry makes a man grow thin; but the Jew, on the contrary, had put on several okes.
The Turks, deeming all safe, sent a second detachment to assist in bringing out the booty, and they met with a similar fate. Then Mehmet began to suspect that something was wrong, and made preparations for a bombardment; but it was too late. A brigade of pursuing Montenegrins had come up. They fell upon him from flank and rear, and a horrid slaughter ensued.
The last few words of Mehmet Ali, "Not to me," were the sweetest music she had ever heard. Marcu waited until it was dark enough for the Tartar not to see, when pressing significantly his daughter's foot, he said: "So be it as you said. Row us across." "It is not one minute too soon," Mehmet answered. "Only a short distance from here, where the river splits in three forks, is a great rock.
And after he had reflected on the Tartar's words, why, after he had refused to buy all the silks and linen on that reflection, not a very clear one at first, why had he not told Mehmet to row across alone and deliver the fodder and food. He could have passed the night in Anastasidis' inn and hired another boat the following morning if the river had not frozen meanwhile!
"Allah il Allah," Mehmet assured Marcu. "And who is he whom you have chosen from amongst your men?" "I am old, Mehmet, I would otherwise have chosen a younger man for my daughter; but because I fear that this or the following winter will be the last one, I have chosen Stan, whose orphaned daughter is Fanutza's own age. He is good and true and strong. Young men never make careful chiefs."
But did he do it only for her sake or wasn't it because of Stan, because of himself? And as she thought again of Mehmet's "Not to me," she remembered the fierce bitterness in her father's voice when he had yelled, "All women are alike." That was not true. If it were true why would Mehmet Ali want her and her only after having seen her only once? Then, too, all men must be alike!
It was not so at all! Why! Mehmet Ali was not at all like Stan. And he offered a hundred pieces of gold. No. Stan was of the kind who think all women are alike. That was it. All her people were thinking all women were alike. That was it. Surely all the men in the tribe were alike in that. All her father had ever been to her, his kindness, his love was wiped away when he said those few words.
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