I looked at him with growing suspicion, never having seen him so carried away by his own words, and I could not but feel that for all his seeming candor he did not mean to reveal more than suited his own schemes.
“But,” I began doubtfully. “But-”
I found no more to say, and there we left it. In the meantime I had my safe house on the Bosphorus, and in revulsion from a troublous world I slipped into indifference, drifting passively with the tide in the knowledge that were I to muster all my strength and resolution I could not alter the preordained course of events.
The fright I had had reminded me that my fortune and possessions were but a loan of which a defeat or a whim of the Sultan might deprive me at any time. Fortune had come too easily for me to believe that it could last, and thus it was that I took to visiting the great mosque where, beneath the celestial dome and surrounded by the Emperor Justinian’s porphyry pillars, I would spend hours of quiet meditation.
Returning home one day I witnessed a curious incident. Stillness reigned in the garden and no slaves were to be seen, but when I stepped softly indoors so as not to disturb Giulia’s customary midday rest, I heard Alberto’s hoarse shout on the floor above, and Giulia’s voice quivering with rage. I hurried up the stairs and as I drew aside the curtain I heard a sharp slap and a scream of pain. I stepped in to see Giulia bending sideways in fear, with tears streaming down her face. She held both hands to her cheeks, which were red from the blow, while Alberto stood before her with feet apart and hand uplifted, like an angry master chastising his slave. I stood petrified and incredulous, never having seen Giulia so meek and helpless. But perceiving that Alberto had really dared to strike her, I was filled with blinding rage and looked about for a weapon with which to slay this insolent slave. At sight of me they both started, and Alberto’s face from being black with fury now turned ashy pale. I lifted a costly Chinese vase, meaning to bring it down on his head, but Giulia sprang between us, crying, “No, no, Michael! Don’t smash that vase-it was a present from Sultana Khurrem. And this is all my fault. Alberto is innocent and meant no harm. It was I who angered him.”
As I stared at her she took the vase from my hands and set it down carefully upon the floor. At first I thought I must have had a touch of the sun, so preposterous did it seem that Giulia of all people should permit a slave to strike her in the face, and then defend his action. We stood all three staring at one another. Then Alberto’s face relaxed and with a meaning look at Giulia he turned and hurried out, ignoring my call to him to return. Giulia threw herself at me, stopped my mouth with her hand, and with tears still running down her swollen cheek she panted, “Are you out of your mind or drunk, Michael, to behave so? Let me at least explain. I should never forgive you if you wronged Alberto through a misunderstanding, for he’s the best servant I ever had, and quite innocent.”
“But,” I said, rather flustered, “he’ll get away before I can catch him. I mean to give him a hundred good lashes on the soles of his feet and send him down to the bazaar to be sold. We cannot keep a raving madman in the house.”
Giulia seemed ill at ease, and said, “You don’t understand, Michael, and you’d better be quiet. It’s I who owe Alberto an apology; I lost my temper and struck him for some trifle that I’ve already forgotten-and don’t stand there staring like an idiot! You madden me. If my face is swollen it’s from toothache and I was on my way to the Seraglio dentist when you came in and interfered-slinking in to spy on me, though God knows I’ve nothing to hide. But if you lay a finger on Alberto I shall go to the cadi and in the presence of witnesses declare myself divorced. Alberto has suffered enough from your bad temper, though he’s a proud, sensitive man and not baseborn like you.”
At this I flew into a passion and seizing her by the wrists I shook her and shouted, “Are you really a witch, then, Giulia-a devil in human shape? For my own sake I would not believe it, but even the strongest pitcher can go to the well too often. Never do I want to think ill of you, for I love you still. But to let a slave strike you and go unpunished is unnatural. I don’t know you. Who are you, and what have you to do with that miserable wretch?”
Giulia burst into violent weeping; she flung her arms about my neck and stroked my cheek with her hair. Then with downcast eyes she said faintly, “Ah, Michael, I’m only a foolish woman and of course you know best. But let us go into our room to talk it over. It’s not fit that our slaves should hear us quarreling.”
She grasped my hand and I followed her unresisting to our bedchamber where, having dried her tears, she began abstractedly to undress.
“You can talk while I change my clothes. I must go to the dentist and cannot show myself at the Seraglio in this old rag. But you may go on talking and reproach me to your heart’s content for being so bad a wife to you.”
As she spoke she removed everything but the thin shift that she wore next her skin, and took out one gown after another to decide which best became her. Truth to tell it was long since she had accorded me the joys of marriage, and was most often assailed by a violent headache when I approached her. Therefore when I beheld her naked in the clear light of day I was spellbound by her alluring white skin, the soft curves of her limbs, and the golden hair curling freely over her bosom.
She noticed that I was staring at her, and sighed plaintively, “Ah, Michael, you’ve only one thought in your head! Don’t glare at me so.”
She crossed her arms over her breast and looked sideways at me with those strange eyes that in my unreason I could not forbear loving. My ears sang, my body glowed, and in a tremulous voice I begged her to wear the green velvet gown embroidered with pearls. She took it up, then let it fall again and instead chose a white and yellow brocade with a jeweled girdle.
“This yellow dress is more slimming to the hips-”
Her face took on a soft expression as she stood there with the gown in her hands, and she said, “Michael, tell me truly. Are you weary of your wife? Since you’ve taken to entertaining those new friends of yours you seem less close to me than you once were. Be honest with me. You’ve only to go to the cadi to be divorced from me. How should I force upon you the love your indifference has so often wounded?” She sobbed, and after a pause went on, “The love of women is a capricious thing and must ever be wooed afresh. It’s long since you brought me flowers or showed me any other attention. No, you push a purse into my hand and tell me to buy what I want, and this coldness has hurt me deeply. That’s why I have been so irritable-and perhaps that’s why I struck Alberto, who bears only good will to both of us. So you see it has all been your fault, Michael, and I cannot remember when last you took me in your arms and kissed me as a man kisses the woman he loves.”
Her wild and groundless accusations took my breath away, but shyly she drew near me and pressed her warm white body against me, saying, “Kiss me, Michael! You know you’re the only man I ever loved-the only man whose kisses really satisfy me. Perhaps in your eyes I seem old and worn out, and like all Moslems you desire a new and younger wife. But kiss me!”
I kissed her treacherous lips, and what ensued need not be told, for the wise man will guess and for the fool all explanations are vain. All I can say is that barely an hour later I went readily down to Alberto to beg his pardon on Giulia’s behalf because she had so exasperated him as to make him strike her. I asked him to overlook the hard words I had flung at him, and ended by giving him two ducats. Alberto listened without betraying by the flicker of an eyelid what he was thinking, but he took the money and confessed freely that his behavior had been most unbecoming. Peace reigned in the house once more. Giulia hid her somewhat weary eyes behind a thin veil and was rowed to the Seraglio. May a wiser man rebuke my blindness; I cannot. A man in love is always blind, be he the Sultan himself or the meanest of slaves, and it is easy for a landsman to be wise about a shipwreck. Let the clever man cast a glance at his own marriage before sneering at mine.