Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/140

 separate house to live in, had given her many female slaves, and was keeping her in grand state.

Meanwhile the poor Christian bridegroom bought his wines and returned home with joy, without having the slightest idea of what had become of his bride in his absence. When he approached Constantinople the sad and sorrowful news was broken to him that his bride was already disposed of; at which he was exceedingly heart-stricken, and with great weeping bewailed his treacherous misfortune, above all things lamenting that she had married a Turk, accepted the Mahometan faith, and lost her soul. On his return to the city of Galata, her father and mother made known to him with tears what had become of her, and how it had happened, and proved by witnesses that they had been constrained to do as they had done, and compelled to give her to the chiaous. She, too, on learning that her lover had returned home, wrote him immediately a sorrowful letter, bewailing her great misfortune in having been obliged to take another, contrary to her own and her parents’ wishes, and begging him touchingly not to be angry with her. He wrote to her an answer, and this was the purport of his letter:—“Since thou hast forgotten thy soul and become a Turk, I know nothing else to say thereto save to bewail thy loss, and finally, as far as I possibly can, to remove thee from my memory, although this comes hard to me, since I have loved thee above all things in the world.”

In answer to this she sent him another letter:—“Although I am supposed to be a Mahometan, yet I remain a Christian in heart, as I was before, and perform my customary devotions.” She also begged him not to