The Prince had decided that the fête given in honour of the Khedive should take place in the division of the palace where the Vice-Queen Dowager, his mother, lived.
The widow of Méhémet Ali was still imposing and beautiful, and had the grand air of an autocratic sovereign, and Ismaël never felt quite at his ease in her presence. She was widow of the chief of the dynasty, and blamed the Khedive openly for his tyranny towards the fellahs, and warned him repeatedly of the inevitable difficulties which the disorder of his government would bring.
The day before the fête, the first lady of the household, who always arranged the functions, summoned the treasure-keepers, those who brought coffee, and chibouk-bearers, the singers and musicians and waiting-servants, and the role of each group was carefully made out according to custom. The eunuchs (important personages - for they are the sole intermediaries between the harems and outside life) walked watchfully about the apartments. They looked on at all these preparations, smiling and making fun of the airs and graces of the women. The chief of them, Billal Agha, looked carefully after the jewels, and was much exercised in his mind as to whether he ought to receive the Vice-Queen on the second or third step of the grand staircase. The fear of possible exile for his Prince inspired a new humility in this proud man. The chief eunuch of the Imperial Palace has a rank equivalent to that of a grand vizier, and all ministers are doubtful and a little afraid of his intrigues. In forty or fifty years they will no longer fear them, as there will be no more eunuchs, not even in the Sultan's court, for it is a luxury which is already beginning to pass away.
The women, ready for the part they are to play, group themselves in the apartment of the Queen Dowager. The musicians tune their instruments, whilst the leader of the orchestra, a beautiful Circassian woman aged twenty-five, tells them the names of the pieces that are to be played. The musical memory amongst Turkish women is remarkable, and they can easily reproduce any piece they have heard three or four times; but an European professor, who would teach them according to his methods, would never succeed in making anything of them, and they are best left to their primitive methods and to their natural gift. The chibouk-bearers fill the pipes with amber mouth-pieces, covered with jewels. Those that are studded with big rubies are to be presented to the Viceroy and Vice-Queens, and those with diamonds to the Princes and Princesses of the second rank.
The salvers on which were carried the long chibouks were of marvellous beauty. On each awas a representation of a garden; in the centre stood a palm-tree, round which twined a snake in emeralds and diamonds, the dates on the palm being rubies, and at the base of the palm there glittered a stream of diamonds. Amongst the treasures of the Prince there were twelve of these dishes.
Already the chibouk-bearers, according to their rank, followed each other, preceded by a eunuch who made a way through the crowd of slaves. The coffee-bearers arranged their silk cloths embroidered with pearls and gold and diamond dust, and their gold trays thickly studded with sapphires. Each cup placed on one of these trays must be carried a distance of at least thirty paces without spilling a drop.
The dancers bent themselves backwards as low as possible, giving their whole bodies a little tremulous movement. All the jewels of the treasury were scattered over them, and they looked like living flowers.
The singing women were silent, with the idea of strengthening their contralto voices. They were dressed in pure white, shot with silver thread, and on their bare necks wore strings of fine pearls. Over their hair they had white tarlatan veils embroidered with jasmine.
One by one the great silver palm-trees were lit up, and at the base of the white marble columns one could see the pious slaves at prayer on their orange velvet carpets. The immense fountain gave a gentle murmur with the water that flowed into it from mouths of marble lions and strings of amber chained silver goblets to the jaws of the lions, where young slaves came and drank furtively, looking with large eyes at their own reflection in the fountain. A long day passed in the bath having given a new freshness to their satin skins; and their eyes, carefully enlarged with rastec and sarmé, sparkled with extraordinary brightness. The fear of making some slight error in presenting the coffee to the princes, made them tremble slightly.
Suddenly a eunuch passed close to them crying "Destour!" "Destour!" ("attention"), and then twenty or thirty eunuchs followed running and uttering the same cry, and the slaves drew themselves up in line, with their arms crossed on their breasts.
The sais, the runners of the Vice-Queens, stopped abruptly at the foot of the grand staircase, their resin torches covering the façade of the palace with a purple glow. One heard the noise of their heavy breathing, and one of them, with his mouth open, with mad eyes and convulsed face, fell fainting; he was quickly carried away, and a stain of blood was on the floor.
Crushed with the weight of their jewels, the Vice-Queens, supported by the eunuchs, made their entry into the Salle des Fêtes. The first twelve women were wearing the finest jewels of the treasury, and wore high white satin boots, each button of which was a large single diamond - a detail when being later reported to the Sultan, he decided to increase the taxation he had already imposed on the Viceroy of Egypt.
Ismaël escorted by the princes then came, and the women's orchestra received him with a beautifully played piece, followed by the songs of the Arab and Turkish singers.
Dinner was announced by twenty-four young women with gold-embroidered napkins on their arms, and served French fashion. On the table were massive gold centre-pieces set with jewels, and the slaves, with their long hair down their backs and bare shoulders served the feast.
Prince Halim, who was decidedly a gourmet, had a famous French chef called Bernard, who on this occasion surpassed himself. Everything was perfectly carried out, and dinner was prolonged slightly beyond the limits prescribed by etiquette.
The illuminations in the gardens of Choubra for a short time amused the Khedive, who showed considerable impatience to see a young Circassian dancing-girl called Cehere, whom it was said Prince Halim had recently bought.
She was to dance for the first time, and though she was not exactly pretty she had a great charm about her. She had many hopes of pleasing the Khedive, and thought that if this were so, her master would offer her as a present to Ismaël. She entered the Salle du Divan in charge of a eunuch, who pointed out to her the Khedive, the princes and princesses who were in the centre of a brilliant circle. She stood still, apparently both agitated and nervous for a moment, and everyone looked at her with considerable curiosity, her breast rising and falling tumultuously, making the sequins and jewels with which she was covered sparkle in the light. Suddenly her eyes lit up, and shaking her shoulders, she advanced with the undulating movement of a snake to the very feet of the Khedive, and throwing her body backwards with wonderful grace, she inundated the carpet with her beautiful hair, which floated out and sank round her like a shadow.
Ismaël let fall the ashes of his cigar into the silver cup, and looking fixedly at the dancer, said to her, "Afferim kez" ("brave girl"), which surprised everyone.
She raised herself slowly and danced gradually further away with wonderful undulations, sometimes letting her head rest on her shoulder, and with gestures that seemed to say "Come - follow me!"
Suddenly she stopped, and with a quick movement of her castanets, she fled with all the lightness of a gazelle. In an instant she was back again, dancing feverishly with an ever increasing movement, which had a great effect on hhea onlooking princes, who all, as a sign of admiration, drew their fezes lower over their eyes.
But what was fated was bound to happen, and the truth is that Cehere - who was exerting herself to her best that she might be given as a present to the Khedive - was, at the same time, examining her master, Prince Halim, with curiosity, whom till this moment she had never seen; and, with the real Circassian temperament, she instantly changed her mind, and was quite convinced that she had fallen madly in love with him. These sudden passions, which are not uncommon amongst Turkish women, often change their ambitious dreams into quite modest realities. It was otherwise with Cehere, who was unable to realise her passionate caprice, for she had captivated the Khedive, and the Prince begged him to accept her; and being hastily covered with a blue silk haick, was taken off to the Khedive's palace.
The dancer thus given over to the service of the Khedive, took from the moment of her entry into the harem her turn of night duty. But she swore to herself that she would resist as much as possible this man whom she did not love, little thinking that unconsciously she was deciding the exile of the Prince for whom she had conceived so great a passion.
To the first questions put to her by Ismaël, who was inspired by a great fancy for her, she answered that she could never love any other man than Prince Halim.
This annoyed the Khedive, and this jealousy, added to a good many former ones, resulted in a thousand vexatious acts against the Prince, to which one day he answered by a letter which has since become famous.
The next day he was forced to quit Choubra and become an exile, leaving behind him his mother, his children, and their mothers, and a legitimate wife to whom he was devoted.
Ismaël behaved infamously to those poor women, who in their misery only wished to die. He gave orders that the bare necessaries of life should be denied them. The mother of the Prince died, killed more by sorrow than privations, and before death prophesied the future exile of the persecutor of her son.
On disembarking at Constantinople the Prince installed himself in a house at Stamboul, which house, thanks to the persistent anger of the Khedive, took fire. But the Prince and his suite escaped this third generous attempt of Ismaël. They were then obliged to seek a palace big enough to lodge the Egyptian Prince, and that of Keurfesse was chosen.
The impossibility of ruining the Prince made the Khedive a little more reasonable, and by degrees things arranged themselves in Egypt. A soi-disant polish Prince, a spy in the pay of Ismaël, attached to the person of Prince Halim, persuaded him that it were better to renounce all idea of returning to. Cairo, and to accept an income of sixty thousand pounds a year which Egypt agreed to pay.
The loss of his Choubra property was the most cruel blow to the Prince, and he hesitated for a long time in accepting the proposition. At last the Khedive had the pleasure of seeing the affair terminate in the way he wished, and he presented the Pole with one hundred and twenty thousand pounds as backseesh.
A crowd of slaves and mamelukes therefore left Choubra, some of them joining their master in his palace in Stamboul, and others going to establish themselves in a palace in Cairo, inhabited by a divorced wife of the Prince, but for whom he still kept up an establishment.
When the royal yacht which brought the eldest daughter of the Prince, followed by all those who had the happiness to share the exile of their master, dropped anchor in the little gulf, the band on board played the Egyptian March, which brought tears to the eyes of the master and the slaves.
The unhappy Princess, whose beauty, elegance, and generosity were proverbial throughout Egypt, notwithstanding her great pride, could not play the part of a sovereign on leaving the ship, and cried like the humblest fellahine.
This disembarkation of the entire harem and the immense cases containing the clothes and treasures was a curious sight; it lasted three days.
