Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/91

611 woman to a man was something which could be worked only once in a magician's lifetime, and was accordingly high-priced. Moreover, by dealing with these outcasts he had put his soul in jeopardy. However that might be, the work was done, I had become a woman—and one to make men's hearts a tesselated pavement for her feet, he admitted after a long, critical survey. I was to take his daughter's place and marry his old friend Foulik Bey who had, of course, never seen his bride-to-be. Meantime I must be schooled to play the part in which I had been cast; I must be letter-perfect by the marriage day, and letter-perfect I should be, if he had to kill me in the process of rehearsal. There was no better way for me to start my schooling than by assuming the rôle of a meek, submissive child, as Allah had intended womankind to be from the creation of the world.

My Arabic was limited to the patois of the bazar, and I had to learn the classic tongue which was the court language of the old Moslem aristocracy; so a teacher was engaged for me. He was a gentle, doddering old man, more than old enough to be my great-grand-father, but when I went to meet him I was draped from head to foot in a voluminous faradje with a Turkish yashmak covering my entire face. When the teacher left I was upbraided for immodesty. I had worn no gloves and he had seen my naked hands.

Embroidery was a required subject in the Egyptienne's curriculum, and I think I was more surprised than my instructresses when I found my fingers took to it naturally. It seemed to me that not the least uncanny part of the strange business was the aptitude of my new body for some things, its utter clumsiness in others. I'd always been a fair pianist, and I found that I had lost none of my skill. Indeed, I played far better, for my woman's fingers were more flexible and agile, though the smallness of my hands proved something of a handicap, since I found it very difficult to reach an octave. I learned to play the one-stringed guitar easily, for I'd played both mandolin and banjo as a lad; but when I practised shadow boxing privately I found I'd lost all skill at it. My wrists turned in, I couldn't seem to shut my fists correctly, my punches had no semblance of precision.

The niceties of daintiness which women in the West have just begun to practise have been common in the East since before the Crusades. Twice each week I spent four hours in the hot room of the bath, and this was followed by a vigorous massage and "flower bath." The slaves took down my hair, filled it with rose petals and rubbed them vigorously into my scalp. Afterward they did the same to my entire body, so that in a little while the room was filled with rose-scent, and when I dropped off to sleep following the massage I dreamt of flowers. Once each three weeks I was shaved. A eunuch barber rubbed me with a scented soapy paste all over, then ran his razor lightly over me, and the body-hair came off like cold cream wiped away with tissue, leaving me as smooth as ivory from my neck to my feet.

, last month of the Moslem year, arrived, and with it came my wedding day. I spent the morning at the bath, being sweated, massaged, rubbed with flowers. After that I slept for several hours, and when I woke, the women came to dress me. My face was painted like a doll's, a penciled line joined my eyebrows above my nose; jewels were hung and draped