Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/68

52 feast, and some days later heard from Yusuf this story of what befell him.

"'When I entered my wife's room, I pronounced the traditional words, and she answered with the usual "Insh Allah." Then I begged her to perform the act of unveiling herself and to hear what I had to say. However, I did not succeed in persuading her to remove the haik and mendil with her own hand and was forced to yield to the established custom and do it myself. Then I explained to her what our marriage must be and that we must be equal in everything. The daughter of Assudi could not understand my meaning; she wept, tore her hair in some superstitious terror and prostrated herself at my feet—she, more beautiful than the pictures we saw in the Louvre but having the heart and mind of a slave! During the whole night I tried to show her that a slave is to be had for the price of ten or twelve rams and to persuade her that I did not want a slave, but a wife, a friend and the joy of my whole life. In the morning she ceased weeping but was deeply offended. She was ashamed to go out of her room or to show herself before her parents. In the evening I discovered her putting some sort of powder in my food, refused to eat it and finally forced her to own that her old grandmother had given her some potion to light love in my heart. The poor little maid did not realize that her beauty had fired my love from the very moment that I saw her charming face, but that I did not want it to be an animal, brutal, elemental love.

"'Two days and two nights passed in this way, in tears, complaints and prayers. Then I did what every