Tancred - Benjamin Disraeli (little readers txt) 📗

people have believed too much or too little in a future state, have been too much engrossed by the present, or too much absorbed in that which was to come. But there is not a form of government which Damascus has not experienced, excepting the representative, and not a creed which it has not acknowledged, excepting the Protestant. Yet, deprived of the only rule and the only religion that are right, it is still justly described by the Arabian poets as a pearl surrounded by emeralds.

Yes, the rivers of Damascus still run and revel within and without the walls, of which the steward of Sheikh Abraham was a citizen. They have encompassed them with gardens, and filled them with fountains. They gleam amid their groves of fruit, wind through their vivid meads, sparkle-among perpetual flowers, gush from the walls, bubble in the courtyards, dance and carol in the streets: everywhere their joyous voices, everywhere their glancing forms, filling the whole world around with freshness, and brilliancy, and fragrance, and life. One might fancy, as we track them in their dazzling course, or suddenly making their appearance in every spot and in every scene, that they were the guardian spirits of the city. You have explained them, says the utilitarian, the age and flourishing fortunes of Damascus: they arise from its advantageous situation; it is well supplied with water.

Is it better supplied than the ruins of contiguous regions? Did the Nile save Thebes? Did the Tigris preserve Nineveh? Did the Euphrates secure Babylon?

Our scene lies in a chamber vast and gorgeous. The reader must imagine a hall, its form that of a rather long square, but perfectly proportioned. Its coved roof, glowing with golden and scarlet tints, is highly carved in the manner of the Saracens, such as we may observe in the palaces of Moorish Spain and in the Necropolis of the Mamlouk Sultans at Cairo, deep recesses of honeycomb work, with every now and then pendants of daring grace hanging like stalactites from some sparry cavern. This roof is supported by columns of white marble, fashioned in the shape of palm trees, the work of Italian artists, and which forms arcades around the chamber. Beneath these arcades runs a noble divan of green and silver silk, and the silken panels of the arabesque walls have been covered with subjects of human interest by the finest artists of Munich. The marble floor, with its rich mosaics, was also the contribution of Italian genius, though it was difficult at the present moment to trace its varied, graceful, and brilliant designs, so many were the sumptuous carpets, the couches, sofas, and cushions that were spread about it. There were indeed throughout the chamber many indications of furniture, which are far from usual even among the wealthiest and most refined Orientals: Indian tables, vases of china, and baskets of agate and porcelain filled with flowers. From one side, the large Saracenic windows of this saloon, which were not glazed, but covered only when required by curtains of green and silver silk, now drawn aside, looked on a garden; vistas of quivering trees, broad parterres of flowers, and everywhere the gleam of glittering fountains, which owned, however, fealty to the superior stream that bubbled in the centre of the saloon, where four negroes, carved in black marble, poured forth its refreshing waters from huge shells of pearl, into the vast circle of a jasper basin.

At this moment the chamber was enlivened by the presence of many individuals. Most of these were guests; one was the master of the columns and the fountains; a man much above the middle height, though as well proportioned as his sumptuous hall; admirably handsome, for beauty and benevolence blended in the majestic countenance of Adam Besso. To-day his Syrian robes were not unworthy of his palace; the cream-white shawl that encircled his brow with its ample folds was so fine that the merchant who brought it to him carried it over the ocean and the desert in the hollow shell of a pomegranate. In his girdle rested a handjar, the sheath of which was of a rare and vivid enamel, and the hilt entirely of brilliants.

A slender man of middle size, who, as he stood by Besso, had a diminutive appearance, was in earnest conversation with his host. This personage was adorned with more than one order, and dressed in the Frank uniform of one of the Great Powers, though his head was shaven, for he wore a tarboush or red cap, although no turban. This gentleman was Signor Elias de Laurella, a wealthy Hebrew merchant at Damascus, and Austrian consul-general _ad honorem_; a great man, almost as celebrated for his diplomatic as for his mercantile abilities; a gentleman who understood the Eastern question; looked up to for that, but still more, in that he was the father of the two prettiest girls in the Levant.

The Mesdemoiselles de Laurella, Therese and Sophonisbe, had just completed their education, partly at Smyrna, the last year at Marseilles. This had quite turned their heads; they had come back with a contempt for Syria, the bitterness of which was only veiled by the high style of European nonchalance, of which they had a supreme command, and which is, perhaps, our only match for Eastern repose. The Mesdemoiselles de Laurella were highly accomplished, could sing quite ravishingly, paint fruits and flowers, and drop to each other, before surrounding savages, mysterious allusions to feats in ballrooms, which, alas! no longer could be achieved. They signified, and in some degree solaced, their intense disgust at their present position by a haughty and amusingly impassable demeanour, which meant to convey their superiority to all surrounding circumstances. One of their favourite modes of asserting this pre-eminence was wearing the Frank dress, which their father only did officially, and which no female member of their family had ever assumed, though Damascus swarmed with Laurellas. Nothing in the dreams of Madame Carson, or Madame Camille, or Madame Devey, nothing in the blazoned pages of the Almanachs des Dames and Belle Assemblee, ever approached the Mdlles. Laurella, on a day of festival. It was the acme. Nothing could be conceived beyond it; nobody could equal it. It was taste exaggerated, if that be possible; fashion baffling pursuit, if that be permitted. It was a union of the highest moral and material qualities; the most sublime contempt and the stiffest cambric. Figure to yourself, in such habiliments, two girls, of the same features, the same form, the same size, but of different colour: a nose turned up, but choicely moulded, large eyes, and richly fringed; fine hair, beautiful lips and teeth, but the upper lip and the cheek bones rather too long and high, and the general expression of the countenance, when not affected, more sprightly than intelligent. Therese was a brunette, but her eye wanted softness as much as the blue orb of the brilliant Sophonisbe. Nature and Art had combined to produce their figures, and it was only the united effort of two such first-rate powers that could have created anything so admirable.

This was the first visit of the Mesdemoiselles Laurella to the family of Besso, for they had only returned from Marseilles at the beginning of the year, and their host had not resided at Damascus until the summer was much advanced. Of course they were well acquainted by reputation with the great Hebrew house of which the lord of the mansion was the chief. They had been brought up to esteem it the main strength and ornament of their race and religion. But the Mesdemoiselles Laurella were ashamed of their race, and not fanatically devoted to their religion, which might be true, but certainly was not fashionable. Therese, who was of a less sanguineous temperament than her sister, affected despair and unutterable humiliation, which permitted her to say before her own people a thousand disagreeable things with an air of artless frankness. The animated Sophonisbe, on the contrary, was always combating prejudice, felt persuaded that the Jews would not be so much disliked if they were better known; that all they had to do was to imitate as closely as possible the habits and customs of the nation among whom they chanced to live; and she really did believe that eventually, such was the progressive spirit of the age, a difference in religion would cease to be regarded, and that a respectable Hebrew, particularly if well dressed and well mannered, might be able to pass through society without being discovered, or at least noticed. Consummation of the destiny of the favourite people of the Creator of the universe!

Notwithstanding their practised nonchalance, the Mesdemoiselles Laurella were a little subdued when they entered the palace of Besso, still more so when they were presented to its master, whose manner, void of all art, yet invested with a natural dignity, asserted in an instant its superiority. Eva, whom they saw for the first time, received them like a queen, and in a dress which offered as complete a contrast to their modish attire as the beauty of her sublime countenance presented to their pretty and sparkling visages.

Madame Laurella, the mother of these young ladies, would in Europe have been still styled young. She was a Smyrniote, and had been a celebrated beauty. The rose had since then too richly expanded, but even now, with her dark eyelash charged with yamusk, her cheek touched with rouge, and her fingers tipped with henna, her still fine hair exaggerated by art or screened by her jewelled turban, she would have been a striking personage, even if it had not been for the blaze of jewels with which she was suffused and environed. The existence of this lady was concentred in her precious gems. An extreme susceptibility on this head is very prevalent among the ladies of the Levant, and the quantity of jewels that they accumulate far exceeds the general belief. Madame Laurella was without a rival in this respect, and resolved to maintain her throne; diamonds alone did not satisfy her; immense emeralds, rubies as big as pigeons' eggs, prodigious ropes of pearls, were studded and wound about every part of her rich robes. Every finger glittered, and bracelets flashed beneath her hanging sleeves. She sat in silent splendour on a divan, now and then proudly moving a fan of feathers, lost in criticism of the jewels of her friends, and in contemplation of her own.

A young man, tall and well-looking, dressed as an Oriental, but with an affected, jerking air, more French than Syrian, moved jauntily about the room, speaking to several persons for a short time, shrugging his shoulders and uttering commonplaces as if they were poignant originalities. This was Hillel Besso, the eldest son of the Besso of Aleppo, and the intended husband of Eva. Hillel, too, had seen the world, passed a season at Pera, where he had worn the Frank dress, and, introduced into the circles by the lady of the Austrian Internuncio, had found success and enjoyed himself. He had not, however, returned to Syria with any of the disgust shared by the Mesdemoiselles Laurella. Hillel was neither ashamed of his race nor his religion: on the contrary, he was perfectly satisfied with this life, with the family of Besso in general, and with himself particularly. Hillel was a little philosophical, had read Voltaire, and, free from prejudices, conceived himself capable of forming correct opinions. He listened smiling and in silence to Eva asserting the splendour and superiority of their race, and sighing for the restoration of their national glory, and then would say, in a whisper to a friend, and with a glance of epigrammatic airiness, 'For my part, I am not so sure that we were ever better off than we are.'

He stopped and conversed with Therese Laurella, who at first was unbending,