Page:Kéraban the Inflexible Part 1 (Jules Verne).djvu/75

Rh at one time a town, more or less problematical, existed there under the name of "Odyssos," whence Odessa arose in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Odessa has been, is, and always will be, a commercial city. Its 500,000 inhabitants consist of Russians, Turks. Greeks, and Armenians—in fact a gathering together of all people who have business tastes. Now, if commerce makes merchants, it equally makes bankers; and amongst the latter, Selim, from modest beginnings, had risen to be one of the most wealthy and esteemed.

Selim belonged to the rather numerous class of monogamous Turks. He had never had but one wife: Amasia was his only daughter, now engaged to Ahmet, Kéraban's nephew. So Selim was the correspondent and intimate friend of the most obstinate Turk who ever wore a turban. The marriage of Amasia and Ahmet was to be celebrated at Odessa. She would be the sole wife of the young man, and return with him to his uncle's house in Constantinople.

People also knew that Amasia's aunt—her father's sister—had left by will to her niece an enormous sum of money, amounting to 100,000l. (Turkish), on the condition that she should marry before she was sixteen—a caprice of the old lady, who, never having been herself married, was determined that Amasia should lose no time—and the period fixed would expire in six weeks from the time we refer to. Failing this marriage, the money would go to collateral inheritors.

Amasia herself was charming even in the eyes of Europeans. Had her white muslin veil, her gold-embroidered head-dress, and the triple row of sequins across her forehead been removed, her beautiful hair would have been perceived in all its luxuriance. She was in no way indebted to art to heighten her beauty. No hanum pencilled her eye-brows, no kohl blackened her lashes, no henna darkened the eyelids. No bismuth or "rouge" improved her complexion: no carmine heightened the colour of her lips. A western woman of the present style would be found more painted than was Amasia. The elegance of her figure, her graceful mode of walking, and