The Moonlit Way: A Novel
PROLOGUE
CLAIRE-DE-LUNE
There was a big moon over the Bosphorus; the limpid waters off Seraglio Point glimmered; the Golden Horn was like a sheet of beaten silver inset with topaz and ruby where lanterns on rusting Turkish warships dyed the tarnished argent of the flood. Except for these, and the fixed lights on the foreign guard-ships and on a big American steam yacht, only a pale and nebulous shoreward glow betrayed the monster city.
Over Pera the full moons lustre fell, silvering palace, villa, sea and coast; its rays glimmered on bridge and wharf, bastion, tower arsenal, and minarette, transforming those big, sprawling, ramshackle blotches of architecture called Constantinople into that shadowy, magnificent enchantment of the East, which all believe in, but which exists only in a poets heart and mind.
Night veiled the squalour of Balat, and its filth, its meanness, its flimsy sham. Moonlight made of Galata a marvel, ennobling every bastard dome, every starved façade, every unlovely and attenuated minarette, and invested with added charm each really lovely ruin, each tower, palace, mosque, garden wall and balcony, and every crenelated battlement, where the bronze bulk of 2 ancient cannon slanted, outlined in silver under the Prophets moon.
Tiny moving lights twinkled on the Galata Bridge; pale points of radiance dotted Scutari; but the group of amazing cities called Constantinople lay almost blotted out under the moon.
Darker at night than any capital in the world, its huge, solid and ancient shapes bulking gigantic in the night, its noble ruins cloaked, its cheap filth hidden, its flimsy Coney Island aspect transfigured and the stylographic-pen architecture of a hundred minarettes softened into slender elegance, Constantinople lay dreaming its immemorial dreams under the black shadow of the Prussian eagle.
The German Embassy was lighted up like a Pera café; the drawing-rooms crowded with a brilliant throng where sashes, orders, epaulettes and sabre-tache glittered, and jewels blazed and aigrettes waved under the crystal chandeliers, accenting and isolating sombre civilian evening dress, which seemed mournful, rusty, and out of the picture, even when plastered over with jewelled stars.
Few Turkish officials and officers were present, but the disquieting sight of German officers in Turkish uniforms was not uncommon. And the Count dEblis, Senator of France, noted this phenomenon with lively curiosity, and mentioned it to his companion, Ferez Bey.
Ferez Bey, lounging in a corner with Adolf Gerhardt, for whom he had procured an invitation, and flanked by the Count dEblis, likewise a guest aboard the rich German-American bankers yacht, was very much in his element as friend and mentor.
For Ferez Bey knew everybody in the Orient knew 3 when to cringe, when to be patronising, when to fawn, when to assert himself, when to be servile, when impudent.
He was as impudent to Adolf Gerhardt as he dared be, the banker not knowing the subtler shades and differences; he was on an equality with the French senator, Monsieur le Comte dEblis because he knew that dEblis dared not resent his familiarity.
Otherwise, in that brilliant company, Ferez Bey was a jackal and he knew it perfectly but a valuable jackal; and he also knew that.
So when the German Ambassador spoke pleasantly to him, his attitude was just sufficiently servile, but not overdone; and when Von-der-Hohe Pasha, in the uniform of a Turkish General of Division, graciously exchanged a polite word with him during a moments easy gossip with the Count dEblis, Ferez Bey writhed moderately under the honour, but did not exactly squirm.
To Conrad von Heimholz he ventured to present his German-American patron, Adolf Gerhardt, and the thin young military attaché condescended in his Prussian way to notice the introduction.
Saw your yacht in the harbour, he admitted stiffly. It is astonishing how you Americans permit no bounds to your somewhat noticeable magnificence.
Shes a good boat, the Mirage, rumbled Gerhardt, in his bushy red beard, but there are plenty in America finer than mine.
Not many, Adolf, insisted Ferez, in his flat, Eurasian voice not ver many anywere so fine like your Mirage.
I saw none finer at Kiel, said the attaché, staring at Gerhardt through his monocle, with the habitual insolence and disapproval of the Prussian junker. To 4 me it exhibits bad taste he turned to the Count dEblis particularly when the Meteor is there.
Where? asked the Count.
At Kiel. I speak of Kiel and the ostentation of certain foreign yacht owners at the recent regatta.
Gerhardt, redder than ever, was still German enough to swallow the meaningless insolence. He was not getting on very well at the Embassy of his fellow countrymen. Americans, properly presented, they endured without too open resentment; for German-Americans, even when millionaires, their contempt and bad manners were often undisguised.
Im going to get out of this, growled Gerhardt, who held a good position socially in New York and in the fashionable colony at Northbrook. Ive seen enough puffed up Germans and over-embroidered Turks to last me. Come on, dEblis
Ferez detained them both:
Surely, he protested, you would not miss Nihla!
Nihla? repeated dEblis, who had passed his arm through Gerhardts. Is that the girl who set St. Petersburg by the ears?
Nihla Quellen, rumbled Gerhardt. Ive heard of her. Shes a dancer, isnt she?
Ferez, of course, knew all about her, and he drew the two men into the embrasure of a long window.
It was not happening just exactly as he and the German Ambassador had planned it together; they had intended to let Nihla burst like a flaming jewel on the vision of dEblis and blind him then and there.
Perhaps, after all, it was better drama to prepare her entrance. And who but Ferez was qualified to prepare that entrée, or to speak with authority concerning the history of this strange and beautiful young girl who had suddenly appeared like a burning star 5 in the East, had passed like a meteor through St. Petersburg, leaving several susceptible young men notably the Grand Duke Cyril mentally unhinged and hopelessly dissatisfied with fate.
It is ver fonny, dEblis une histoire chic, vous savez! Figurez vous
Talk English, growled Gerhardt, eyeing the serene progress of a pretty Highness, Austrian, of course, surrounded by gorgeous uniforms and empressement.
Whos that? he added.
Ferez turned; the gorgeous lady snubbed him, but bowed to dEblis.
The Archduchess Zilka, he said, not a whit abashed. She is a ver great frien of mine.
Cant you present me? enquired Gerhardt, restlessly; or you, dEblis cant you ask permission?
The Count dEblis nodded inattentively, then turned his heavy and rather vulgar face to Ferez, plainly interested in the histoire of the girl, Nihla.
What were you going to say about that dancer? he demanded.
Ferez pretended to forget, then, apparently recollecting:
Ah! Apropos of Nihla? It is a ver piquant storee the storee of Nihla Quellen. Zat is not er name. No! Her name is Dunois Thessalie Dunois.
French, nodded dEblis.
Alsatian, replied Ferez slyly. Her fathaire was captain Achille Dunois? you know ?
What! exclaimed dEblis. Do you mean that notorious fellow, the Grand Duke Cyrils hunting cheetah?
The same, dear frien. Dunois is dead his bullet head was crack open, doubtless by som ladees angree 6 husban. There are a few thousan roubles not more to stan between some kind gentleman and the prettee Nihla. You see? he added to Gerhardt, who was listening without interest, Dunois, if he was the Gran Dukes cheetah, kept all such merry gentlemen from his charming daughtaire.
Gerhardt, whose aspirations lay higher, socially, than a dancing girl, merely grunted. But dEblis, whose aspirations were always below even his own level, listened with visibly increasing curiosity. And this was according to the programme of Ferez Bey and Excellenz. As the Hun has it, according to plan.
Well, enquired dEblis heavily, did Cyril get her?
All St. Petersburg is still laughing at heem, replied the voluble Eurasian. Cyril indeed launched her. And that was sufficient yet, that first night she storm St. Petersburg. And Cyrils reward? Listen, dEblis, they say she slapped his sillee face. For me, I dont know. That is the storee. And he was ver angree, Cyril. You know? And, by God, it was what Gerhardt calls a raw deal. Yess? Figurez vous! this girl, déjà lancée and her fathaire the Grand Dukes hunting cheetah, and her mothaire, what? Yes, mon ami, a andsome Géorgianne, caught quite wild, they say, by Prince Haledine! For me, I believe it. Why not?.. And then the beautiful Géorgianne, she fell to Dunois on a bet? a service rendered? gratitude of Cyril? Who knows? Only that Dunois must marry her. And Nihla is their daughtaire. Voilà!
Then why, demanded dEblis, does she make such a fuss about being grateful? I hate ingratitude, Ferez. And how can she last, anyway? To dance for the German Ambassador in Constantinople is all very 7 well, but unless somebody launches her properly in Paris shell end in a Pera café.
Ferez held his peace and listened with all his might.
I could do that, added dEblis.
Please? inquired Ferez suavely.
Launch her in Paris.
The programme of Excellenz and Ferez Bey was certainly proceeding as planned.
But Gerhardt was becoming restless and dully irritated as he began to realise more and more what caste meant to Prussians and how insignificant to these people was a German-American multimillionaire. And Ferez realised that he must do something.
There was a Bavarian Baroness there, uglier than the usual run of Bavarian baronesses; and to her Ferez nailed Gerhardt, and wriggled free himself, making his way amid the gorgeous throngs to the Count dEblis once more.
I left Gerhardt planted, he remarked with satisfaction; by God, she is uglee like camels the Baroness von Schaunitz! Nev mind. It is nobility; it is the same to Adolf Gerhardt.
A homely woman makes me sick! remarked dEblis. Eh, mon Dieu! one has merely to look at these ladies to guess their nationality! Only in Germany can one gather together such a collection of horrors. The only pretty ones are Austrian.
Perhaps even the cynicism of Excellenz had not realised the perfection of this setting, but Ferez, the nimble witted, had foreseen it.
Already the glittering crowds in the drawing rooms were drawing aside like jewelled curtains; already the stringed orchestra had become mute aloft in its gilded gallery.
The gay tumult softened; laughter, voices, the rustle 8 of silks and fans, the metallic murmur of drawing-room equipment died away. Through the increasing stillness, from the gilded gallery a Thessalonian reed began skirling like a thrush in the underbrush.
Suddenly a sand-coloured curtain at the end of the east room twitched open, and a great desert ostrich trotted in. And, astride of the big, excited, bridled bird, sat a young girl, controlling her restless mount with disdainful indifference.
Nihla! whispered Ferez, in the large, fat ear of the Count dEblis. The latters pallid jowl reddened and his pendulous lips tightened to a deep-bitten crease across his face.
To the weird skirling of the Thessalonian pipe the girl, Nihla, put her feathered steed through its absurd paces, aping the haute-école.
There is little humour in your Teuton; they were too amazed to laugh; too fascinated, possibly by the girl herself, to follow the panicky gambols of the reptile-headed bird.
The girl wore absolutely nothing except a Yashmak and a zone of blue jewels across her breasts and hips.
Her childish throat, her limbs, her slim, snowy body, her little naked feet were lovely beyond words. Her thick dark hair flew loose, now framing, now veiling an oval face from which, above the gauzy Yashmaks edge, two dark eyes coolly swept her breathless audience.
But under the frail wisp of cobweb, her cheeks glowed pink, and two full red lips parted deliciously in the half-checked laughter of confident, reckless youth.
Over hurdle after hurdle she lifted her powerful, half-terrified mount; she backed it, pirouetted, made 9 it squat, leap, pace, trot, run with wings half spread and neck stretched level.
She rode sideways, then kneeling, standing, then poised on one foot; she threw somersaults, faced to the rear, mounted and dismounted at full speed. And through the frail, transparent Yashmak her parted red lips revealed the glimmer of teeth and her childishly engaging laughter rang delightfully.
Then, abruptly, she had enough of her bird; she wheeled, sprang to the polished parquet, and sent her feathered steed scampering away through the sand-coloured curtains, which switched into place again immediately.
Breathless, laughing that frank, youthful, irresistible laugh which was to become so celebrated in Europe, Nihla Quellen strolled leisurely around the circle of her applauding audience, carelessly blowing a kiss or two from her slim finger-tips, evidently quite unspoiled by her success and equally delighted to please and to be pleased.
Then, in the gilded gallery the strings began; and quite naturally, without any trace of preparation or self-consciousness, Nihla began to sing, dancing when the fascinating, irresponsible measure called for it, singing again as the sequence occurred. And the enchantment of it all lay in its accidental and detached allure as though it all were quite spontaneous the song a passing whim, the dance a capricious after-thought, and the whole thing done entirely to please herself and give vent to the sheer delight of a young girl, in her own overwhelming energy and youthful spirits.
Even the Teuton comprehended that, and the applause grew to a roar with that odd undertone of animal 10 menace always to be detected when the German herd is gratified and expresses pleasure en masse.
But she wouldnt stay, wouldnt return. Like one of those beautiful Persian cats, she had lingered long enough to arouse delight. Then she went, deaf to recall, to persuasion, to caress indifferent to praise, to blandishment, to entreaty. Cat and dancer were similar; Nihla, like the Persian puss, knew when she had had enough. That was sufficient for her: nothing could stop her, nothing lure her to return.
Beads of sweat were glistening upon the heavy features of the Count dEblis. Von-der-Goltz Pasha, strolling near, did him the honour to remember him, but dEblis seemed dazed and unresponsive; and the old Pasha understood, perhaps, when he caught the beady and expressive eyes of Ferez fixed on him in exultation.
Whose is she? demanded dEblis abruptly. His voice was hoarse and evidently out of control, for he spoke too loudly to please Ferez, who took him by the arm and led him out to the moonlit terrace.
Mon pauvere ami, he said soothingly, she is actually the propertee of nobodee at present. Cyril, they say, is following her quite ready for anything marriage