Part 17

A half hour before the appointed time two companies of soldiers wearing the uniform of zouaves stationed themselves in the square to keep the way cleared for the Sultan’s passage, and before long the spectators began to arrive in crowds. It is always amusing to take note of the queerness and variety of the people who assemble on such occasions. Here and there elegant private carriages were drawn up to one side, filled with Turkish great ladies, the gigantic form of a mounted eunuch standing guard at each door, immovable as pieces of marble; there were hired open turnouts containing English ladies, groups of tourists with opera-glasses hanging at their sides, among whom on this occasion I recognized the languishing face of the irresistible youth from the Hôtel de Byzance, come, no doubt, cruel charmer! to crush with one triumphant glance his powerful but unhappy rival. A few long-haired individuals wandering about the outskirts of the crowd with portfolios under their arms I took to be artists animated by a faint hope of being able to make a hasty sketch of the imperial features. Near the band-stand was a strikingly beautiful French woman, whose conspicuous dress and free, hardened bearing suggested a cosmopolitan adventuress come hither to attract the eye of the Sultan himself, especially as I seemed to read in her glance the “fearful joy of a mighty enterprise.” There was also a sprinkling of those old Turks, fanatical and suspicious subjects of the empire, who never fail to be present whenever their Padishah appears in public, in order that they may be assured by the evidence of their own senses that he is alive and well for the glory and prosperity of the universe. It is, in fact, precisely that his people may have this proof of his continued existence that the Sultan thus shows himself every Friday, since it might easily happen again, as it has before, that his death, brought about either by violence or from natural causes, would through some intrigue of the court be concealed from the populace. Then there were beggars, and Mussulman dandies, and eunuchs out of employment, and dervishes, among the last-named of whom I noticed one tall, old, lean specimen who stood motionless gazing with fierce eyes and a most sinister expression at the door of the palace, exactly as though he only awaited the Sultan’s appearance to plant himself in his path and fling in his teeth the words addressed by the dervish of the _Orientals_ to Pasha Ali of Tepeleni: “Accursed one! you are no better than a dog.” But such examples of inspired candor have gone out of fashion since the famous sabre-thrust of Mahmûd. Then there were numbers of Turkish women standing apart and looking like groups of masks, and the usual gathering like a stage chorus which makes up a Constantinople crowd. All the heads were thrown out in relief against the blue background of the Bosphorus, and every mouth at that moment was probably whispering the same thing. It was just then that rumors were beginning to be circulated about the extravagant doings of Abdul-Aziz. For some little time stories had been told of his insatiable greed for money. People would say to one another, “Mahmûd had a passion for blood; Abdul-Mejid for women; Abdul-Aziz has for gold.” All those hopes built upon him when as prince imperial he felled an ox at a single blow, exclaiming, “Thus will I destroy ignorance,” had died out some time before. The tastes he had evinced in the early years of his reign for a simple and severe mode of life, caring, as was said, for only one woman, and cutting down with an unsparing hand the enormous expenses of the Seraglio, were now but a distant memory. Probably it had been many years as well since he had finally abandoned those studies in legislation and military tactics and European literature about which he had made as much noise as though the entire regeneration of the empire was to be effected through them; now he thought only of himself, and hardly a day passed that some new anecdote was not set in circulation about his bursts of wrath against the minister of finance, who either would not or could not give him as much money as he demanded. At the least opposition he would hurl the first object on which he could lay his hands at his unfortunate Excellency, repeating from beginning to end and at the top of his voice the ancient formula of the imperial oath: “By God, the Creator of heaven and earth, by the prophet Mohammed, by the seven variations of the Koran, by the hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets of God, by the soul of my grandfather and by the soul of my father, by my sons and by my sword! give me money or I will have your head stuck on the point of the highest minaret in Stambul.” And by one means or another he always succeeded in getting what he wanted, sometimes gloating over the money thus acquired like a common miser over his hoard, at others scattering it to the winds in the indulgence of all manner of puerile fancies. To-day he would take a sudden interest in lions, to-morrow in tigers, and agents would be despatched forthwith to India and Africa to purchase them for him; then for a whole month five hundred parrots stationed in the imperial gardens made them resound with one single word; then he was seized with a mania for collecting carriages, and for pianos, which he insisted upon having played supported upon the backs of four slaves; then he took to cock-fighting--would witness the combats with enthusiastic interest, and himself fasten a medal around the neck of the victor, driving the vanquished into exile beyond the Bosphorus; then he had a passion for play, then for kiosks, then for pictures: it was as though the court had gone back to the days of the first Ibrahim.

But with it all the unfortunate prince was unable to find peace; he was moody and taciturn, and only succeeded in alternating between utter weariness of soul and the most wretched state of apprehension. As though with an uneasy foreboding of the tragic fate awaiting him, he would sometimes be possessed with the idea that he was going to be poisoned, and for a while, mistrusting every one about him, would refuse to eat anything but hard-boiled eggs. Then, again, he would be haunted by such a dread of fire that he would have everything in his apartments, made of wood, removed, to the very frames of the mirrors; it was even said that at these times he would read at night by the light of a candle placed in a basin of water. And yet, notwithstanding all these follies, which were supposed to have their origin in a cause of which there is no necessity to speak here, he preserved to the full the original strength of his indomitable will, and knew how to make himself both obeyed and feared by the most independent spirits around him. The only person who exerted any influence over him at all was his mother, a vain, foolish woman, who in the early years of his reign used to have the streets through which he must pass on his way to the mosque spread with brocaded carpets, which she would give away the following day to the slaves who were sent to take them up.

In the midst of all the turmoil of his restless life Abdul-Aziz found time as well for the most trivial whims, such as the having a door painted after a particular design, combinations of certain fruits and flowers, and, after giving the most minute directions, would spend hours watching every stroke of the artist’s brush, as though that were the main business of life.

All these eccentricities, exaggerated--who knows to what extent?--by the thousand tongues of the Seraglio, were in every one’s mouth; and possibly from that time on the threads of the conspiracy which two years later was to hurl him from the throne were woven more and more closely about the unhappy prince. According to the Mussulmans, his fall had already been determined upon and judgment passed upon him and upon his reign--a judgment which does not differ in any essential point from that applicable to any other one of the later sultans. Imperial princes, attracted toward a European civilization by a liberal but superficial education, their youthful imaginations all on fire with dreams of reform and glory, before mounting the throne they indulge in visions of the great changes they are to bring about, and form resolutions, no doubt perfectly sincere at the time, to dedicate their entire lives to that end, leading an existence of struggle and self-denial. Then they come to the throne, and after some years of ineffectual resistance, confronted by thousands of obstacles, hemmed in by customs and traditions, balked and opposed by men and things, appalled at the immensity of the undertaking, of which they had formed no true idea, they become discouraged, lapse into indolence, grow suspicious, and finally turn to pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence for that distraction which seems to be denied them in the successful carrying out of their designs, and, leading an utterly sensual life, lose little by little even the memory of their early ambitions, as well as the consciousness of their own deterioration. Thus it happens that every new reign is ushered in with the most hopeful prognostications, and not without reason; only these are as invariably succeeded by disappointment.

Abdul-Aziz did not keep us waiting: at the hour fixed there was a flourish of trumpets, the band struck up a warlike march, the soldiers presented arms, a company of lancers made their appearance suddenly in the gateway, and after them the Sultan on horseback, advancing slowly and followed by the members of his court. He passed so close in front of me that I had an excellent opportunity of examining his features attentively, and of finding how singularly incorrect was the picture I had formed of him in my mind. The “king of kings,” the prodigal, violent, capricious, imperious Sultan, then about forty-four years old, had the air of an extremely good-natured Turk who had found himself a sultan without quite knowing why. He was stout and robust, with good features, large calm eyes, and a short, close-cut beard, already somewhat grizzled: his countenance was open and placid, his bearing easy, almost careless, and in his calm, indifferent expression no trace of consciousness of the thousand eyes fixed upon him could be discovered. He rode a handsome gray horse with gold-mounted trappings, led by the bridle by two gorgeous grooms. The long distance at which the retinue followed would have pointed him out as the Sultan if nothing else had. He was very plainly dressed, wearing a simple fez, long dark coat buttoned close up under the chin, light trousers, and leather shoes. Advancing very slowly, he looked around on the spectators with an expression of mingled benevolence and weariness, as though saying, “Ah, if you did but know how sick of it all I am!” The Mussulmans all bowed profoundly, and many Europeans raised their hats, but he took no notice of any one’s salutation. Passing in front of us, he gave a glance at a tall officer who saluted with his sword, another at the Bosphorus, and then a much longer look at two young English ladies who were watching him from a carriage, and who turned as red as cherries. I noticed that his hand was white and well formed: it was, by the way, the right hand, the same with which two years after he opened the vein in the bath. After him followed a crowd of pashas, courtiers, and prominent officials on horseback, for the most part sturdy, black-bearded men, simply dressed, and as silent, grave, and taciturn as though they were part of a funeral cortége: then came a group of grooms leading splendid-looking horses; then more officers, these on foot, their breasts covered with gold braid: when these last had passed the soldiers lowered their muskets, the crowd began to scatter over the square, and I found myself standing gazing at the summit of Mt. Bulgûrlû, revolving in my mind the extraordinary situation in which a sultan of Stambul must find himself now-a-days.

He is, said I, a Mohammedan monarch, and his royal palace stands in the shadow of a Christian city, Pera, which towers above his head. He is an absolute sovereign, holding sway over one of the largest empires in the world, and yet here in his capital and not far away there live in those great palaces which overlook his Seraglio four or five ceremonious foreigners who lord it over him in his own house, and who in their intercourse with him conceal under the most respectful language a constant menace, which he acknowledges and fears. He has power over the life and property of millions of his subjects, and the means of gratifying every whim, no matter how extravagant, and yet could not, if he wanted to, alter the fashion of his own headgear. Surrounded by an army of courtiers and body-guards, who, if required, would kneel down and kiss his footprints, he stands in constant fear of his life and that of his sons. Absolute master of a thousand among the most beautiful women on earth, he alone among all Mussulmans in his dominions cannot bestow his hand in marriage upon a free woman, can only have sons of slaves, and is himself termed “the son of a slave” by the same people who call him “the shadow of God.” The sound of his name is feared and reverenced from the farthermost confines of Tartary to the uttermost bounds of Maghreb, and in his own capital there is an ever-increasing number of persons over whom he can claim no shadow of control, and who laugh at him, his power, and his religion. Over the entire surface of his immense domain, among the most wretched tribes of the most distant provinces, in the most isolated mosques and monasteries of the wildest regions, fervent prayers are constantly ascending for his safety, health, and honor, and yet he cannot make a journey anywhere in his empire that he does not find himself surrounded by enemies who execrate his name and call down the vengeance of God upon his head. In the eyes of that part of the world which lies outside his palace-gates he is one of the most august and imposing monarchs upon earth; to those who wait at his elbow he seems the weakest, most pusillanimous, and wretched being that ever wore a crown. A resistless current of ideas, beliefs, and forces, all directly opposed to the traditions and spirit upon which his power rests, sweeps over him, transforming before his very eyes, underneath his feet, all about him, customs, habits, laws, the very men and objects themselves, without his assistance or consent. And there he is between Europe and Asia, in his huge palace washed by the sea-waves as though it were a ship ready to set sail, in the midst of an inextricable confusion of ideas and things, surrounded by fabulous luxury and misery unspeakable, _neither two nor one_--no longer a real Mussulman, nor yet a complete European; reigning over a people changed, though only in part, barbarians at heart, with a whitewash of civilization; two-faced like Janus; worshipped like a god, watched like a slave; adored, deceived, beguiled, while every day that passes over his head extinguishes a ray of the halo that surrounds him and removes another stone from the pedestal upon which he stands. It seems to me, were I in his place, weary of such a condition of things, satiated with pleasure, disgusted with adulation, and outdone with the constant surveillance and suspicion to which I was subjected, I would lose all patience with a sovereignty so onerous and unstable, a rule over conditions so hopelessly at war with themselves, and some time at night, when the entire Seraglio was buried in slumber, would jump in the Bosphorus like a fugitive galley-slave, and, swimming off to Galata, pass the hours till dawn in some mariners’ tavern, with a glass of beer and a clay pipe, shouting the Marseillaise in chorus.

A half hour later the Sultan returned, driven rapidly by, this time in a closed carriage, followed by a number of officers on foot; and the show was over. I think, on the whole, that what impressed me most vividly was the sight of those officers, attired in full dress, running and skipping after the imperial equipage like so many lackeys: I have never witnessed a similar prostitution of the military uniform.