The two men galloped toward each other and exchanged courteous greetings, and then the new troop took over leadership. The caravan turned off the trail and headed into the brush, traveling this way until well into the night. Eventually they made camp on the floor of a small valley, from where they could hear the distant drumming of a mountain torrent. They built fires, ate hastily, and then fell asleep like the dead. Home English Online. Read Book Download Book. Published by North Atlantic Books P.
Afterword About the Author About the Translator. Bittersweet Revenge by J. The Christmas Wish by Katy Regnery. Send by Patty Blount. Tiddas by Anita Heiss. The Last Rain by Edeet Ravel.
Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest.
Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. In the French capital, he met with the Slovene literary critic Josip Vidmar , who introduced him to the story of Hassan-i Sabbah. A further stimulation for the novel came from the assassination of Alexander I of Yugoslavia perpetrated by Croatian and Bulgarian radical nationalists, on the alleged commission of the Italian Fascist government.
When it was originally published, the novel was sarcastically dedicated to Benito Mussolini. The maxim of the novel is "Nothing is an absolute reality; all is permitted". Uploaded by HermetischeGarage on September 15, Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo. Her eyes shone, her mood improved, and she began to speak openly.
The girls sat around her, some doing embroidery, others sewing, and they began asking her questions. Meanwhile, Miriam had pressed a metal mirror into her hand and started painting her cheeks and lips with blush and her eyebrows and lashes with black dye. They laughed again.
She had a cute, rounded chin and warm, velvety eyes. Who was your master before this? And all of you … stop distracting her. She glowed with satisfaction. She inspected herself in the mirror with obvious satis- faction and continued. He had two daughters, but their suitors cheated him out of them. He had a son too, but he disappeared, probably killed by robbers or soldiers. As far back as I can remember, I lived in the house of the merchant Ali. As long as his son was still at home, we managed to get by.
But then the bad times came. The master would moan, pull out his hair, and pray. His wife told him to take me to Bukhara and sell me there. This one swore by the beard of the Prophet that I would live like a princess. Ali settled on a price, and when they took me away he started crying out loud.
So did I. But now I can see that the merchant was right. I really do feel like a princess here. When I was little some Turks abducted me and took me to their grazing lands. I learned to ride and shoot with a bow and arrow like a boy. They were all curious because I had blue eyes and golden hair. People would come from far away to look at me.
I was about ten years old at the time. He fell in love with me and took me into his harem as a real wife. But the sultan took everything away from us, and my master went wild.
He beat us every day, but he refused to submit to the sultan. Then the chieftains made peace. Merchants came and started to trade. One day an Armenian noticed me and started to dog my master about me. He offered him livestock and money. Finally the two of them came into the tent. But the merchant held him back, and then they closed the deal. I thought I was going to die. The Armenian took me to Samarkand. He was revolting.
It was there that he sold me to Sayyiduna. What do you mean? I was bare- ly ten years old when I had to become his wife. He swore by all the martyrs that he would destroy us both. He let both of his former wives beat me too. Take this stick and wash your teeth with it. Halima quickly understood its function. They brought her a dish with water in it, and when she had finished this task, they took her to a bedroom.
The bedroom floor was covered with soft, colorful carpets. Carpets covered the walls and were hung between the low-lying beds, which were covered with tastefully embroidered pillows. Beside each bed was an artfully carved dressing table with a large silver mirror affixed to it. A five-candled gilt candelabra with strange, twisted shapes hung from the ceiling.
The girls dressed Halima in a long white gown of delicate silk. They tied a red cord around her waist and sat her down in front of the mirror. She could hear them whispering about how sweet and pretty she was. Like a real princess. She lay down on her bed and the girls put pillows under her head. They covered her with a feather quilt and left on tiptoe. She buried her head in the soft pillows and, in a state of fairy-tale happiness, fell blissfully to sleep. The first rays of daylight shining through the window awoke her.
She opened her eyes and saw the designs on the wall hangings, woven in bright colors. At first she thought she was still with the caravan. On the wall she saw a lance-bearing hunter on horseback chasing an ante- lope. Beneath him a tiger and a buffalo faced off, while a black man carrying a shield shoved the point of his spear at a raging lion. Beside them a leopard stalked a gazelle.
Halima looked at her and was astonished. Her hair poured over her shoulders in ample locks and shone in the sunlight like pure gold. Enraptured, she returned her greeting. She looked toward the other bed, where Sara was sleeping, half naked, her full dark limbs shining like ebony. The conversation woke her too, and she slowly began to open her eyes. They glinted like two dark, white-irradiated stars. She fixed them on Halima and smiled at her oddly.
Then she lowered them again quickly, like a feline confused by a human stare. She could also see the light down that covered her upper lip. Sara devoured Halima with her eyes. She glanced furtively toward Zainab. Zainab was already seated at her mirror, combing her hair. They immersed her in a wood- en bathtub and splashed her playfully. She shrieked, dried herself with a towel, and then slid into her clothes with a pleasant, refreshed feel- ing.
They ate breakfast in a long dining hall. Each of them had her own place, and Halima counted twenty-four in all, including herself. And what about verse making? You will be no exception. And let me warn you about one other thing. Still, she sensed that the older girl liked her. For breakfast they had milk and sweet pastries made with dried fruit and honey. Then each of them was given an orange. Lessons began after breakfast.
They went into the glass-ceilinged hall with the pool that Halima had admired the day before. They sat around on pillows, each of them with a black tablet resting on her crossed legs. They got their slate pencils ready and waited. Miriam pointed to a place for Halima to sit and handed her her writing imple- ments.
A giant Moor holding a thick book entered the room. He was dressed in short striped trousers and a cloak that reached to his feet but was left open in front. He was shod in plain sandals and had a thin red turban wrapped around his head. He let himself down onto a pil- low prepared for him and sat facing the girls, his weight resting on his knees.
I see a new young student among you, clear-eyed and avid for learning, hungry for knowledge and pleasing to the spirit. Halima recognized his voice immediately. The whole time he spoke she valiantly resisted an urge to laugh.
Then she recited several other passages by heart. You must also blow all childishness out of your heart and listen intently to what my holy learning reveals to you, so that you can be happy both here and in the afterlife.
The chalk squeaked across the tablets. The lesson came to an end and Halima caught her breath. Everything had struck her as so silly and so strange, as though none of it had been real. As you do this, you must also instruct this sweet quail, your new companion, in the ways of holy learning and convert her ignorance into knowledge.
He rolled his eyes portentously, leaving the schoolroom with great dignity. Maybe he seems a bit strange to you at first, but he has a heart of gold and he would do anything for us. Sayyiduna also has tremendous confidence in him.
Sara led Halima into the bath to wash her hair. First she brushed her hair out, then she undressed her down to the waist. Her hands trem- bled slightly as she did this, which made Halima slightly uncomfort- able, but she tried not to think about it. Her curiosity had finally gained the upper hand. Sara was instantly ready to oblige. And you have to like me. Do you promise? Tell me! Do you know who is first after Allah among the living? Sayyiduna is first after Allah. One of us knows him well.
All she wanted now was confirmation. Miriam is kind and likes us. But Apama is mean and hates us. She knows Sayyiduna well too. Halima was embarrassed but pretended not to have heard anything. There was so much more she needed to find out about. Then she brushed her hair out. She would also have liked to hug and kiss her, but Halima cast such a menacing look up at her that she was afraid to.
She led her from the washroom out into the sun so that her hair could dry faster. A group of the girls weeding flower beds nearby noticed them and approached. Halima lowered her eyes, but Sara responded volubly. When the other girls left, Sara scolded her. She was surrounded by sheer mysteries. Just the opposite.
She had found her balance in this fairy-tale world quite well. For one thing, there was plenty of fodder for her imagination. Sara had provided her with more than enough riddles to keep her mind busy. Miriam, whom she had gotten to know as kind and good, now had another, mysterious face.
What did it mean that she and Sayyiduna were close? She turned down a path and started encountering new things.
0コメント