Halil the Pedlar: A Tale of Old Stambul by Mór Jókai (reading an ebook txt) 📕

Halil listened with the utmost composure till greybeard Vuodi had delivered his discourse concerning the joys of Paradise.

"All that you say is very pretty and very true no doubt, but let your mind also dwell upon what the Prophet has revealed to us concerning the distribution of rewards and punishments. When the angel Azrael has gently separated our souls from our bodies, and we have been buried with the double tombstone at our heads, on which is written: 'Dame Allah huti ale Remaeti,'[10] then will come to us the two Angels of Judgment, Monker and Nakir. And they will ask us if we have fulfilled the precepts of the Prophet. What shall our trembling lips reply to them? And when they ask us whether we have defended the true faith, whether we have defended our Fatherland against the Infidels, what shall we then reply to them? Blessed, indeed, will be those who can answer: 'I have done all which it was commanded me to do,' their spirits will await the final judgment in the cool abodes of the Well of Ishmael. But as for those who shall answer: 'I saw the danger which threatened the Osmanli nation, it was in my power to help and I did it not,' their bodies will be scourged by the angels with iron rods and their souls will be thrust into the abyss of Morhut there to await the [Pg 226]judgment-day. And when the trump of the angel Israfil shall sound and the Marvel from the Mountain of Safa doth appear to write 'Mumen'[11] or 'Giaour'[12] on the foreheads of mankind; and when Al-Dallaja[13] comes to root out the nation of the Osmanli, and the hosts of Gog and Magog appear to exterminate the Christians, and drink up the waters of the rivers, and at the last all things perish before the Mahdi; then when the mountains are rent asunder and the stars fall from Heaven, when the archangels Michael and Gabriel open the tombs and bring forth the trembling, death-pale shapes, one by one, before the face of Allah, and they all stand there as transparent as crystal so that every thought of their hearts is visible—what then will you answer, you in whose power it once stood to uphold the dominion of Mahomet, you to whom it was given to have swords in your hands and ideas in your heads to be used in its defence—what will you answer, I say, when you hear the brazen voice cry: 'Ye who saw destruction coming, did ye try to prevent it?' What will it profit you then, old Vuodi and ye others, to say that ye never neglected the Abdestan, the Güzül, and the Thüharet ablutions, nor the five prayers of the Namazat, that ye have kept the fast of Ramazan and the feast of Bejram, that ye have richly distributed [Pg 227]the Zakato[14] and the Sadakato,[15] that you have made the pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca so many times, or so many times, that you have kissed the sin-remitting black stone, that you have drunk from the well of Zemzem and seven times made the circuit of the mountain of Arafat and flung stones at the Devil in the valley of Dsemre—what will it profit you, I say, if you cannot answer that question? Woe to you, woe to everyone of us who see, who hear, and yet go on dreaming! For when we tread the Bridge of Alshirat, across whose razor-sharp edge every true believer must pass on his way to Paradise, the load of a single sin will drag you down into the abyss, down into Hell, and not even into the first Hell, Gehenna, where the faithful do penance, nor into the Hell of Ladhana, where the souls of the Jews are purified, nor into the Hell of Hotama wherein the Christians perish, nor into the Hell of Sair which is the abode of the Heretics, nor into the Hell of Sakar wherein the fire-worshippers curse the fire, nor yet into the Hell of Jahim which resounds with the yells of the idol-worshippers, but into the seventh hell, the deepest and most accursed hell of all, whose name is Al-Havija, where wallow those who only did God lip-service and never felt the faith in their hearts, for we pray lying prayers when we say that we [Pg 228]worship Allah and yet allow His Temple to be defiled."

These words deeply moved the hearts of all present. Every sentence alluded to the most weighty of the Moslem beliefs; the meshes of the net with which Halil had taken their souls captive were composed of the very essentials of their religious and political system, so they could but put their hands to their breasts, bow down before him, and say:

"Command us and we will obey!"

Then Halil, with the inspiration of a seer, addressed the men before him.

"Woe to us if we believe that the days of threatening are still far off! Woe to us if we believe that the sins which will ruin the nation of Osman have not yet been committed! While our ancestors dwelt in tents of skin, half the world feared our name, but since the nation of Osman has strutted about in silk and velvet it has become a laughing-stock to its enemies. Our great men grow gardens in their palaces; they pass their days in the embraces of women, drinking wine, and listening to music; they loathe the battlefield, and oh, horrible! they blaspheme the name of Allah. If among the Giaours, blasphemers of God are to be found, I marvel not thereat, for their minds are corrupted by the multitude of this world's knowledge; but how can a[Pg 229] Mussulman raise his head against God—a Mussulman who has never learnt anything in his life save to glorify His Name? And what are we to think when on the eve of the Feast of Halwet we hear a Sheik, a descendant of the family of the Prophet, a Sheik before whom the people bow reverently when they meet him in the street—what are we to think, I say, when we hear this Sheik say before the great men of the palace all drunk with wine: 'There is no Allah, or if there is an Allah he is not almighty; for if he were almighty he would have prevented me from saying, there is no Allah!'"

A cry of horror arose from the assembled Mussulmans which only after a while died away in an angry murmur like a gradually departing gust of wind.

"Who was the accursed one?" exclaimed Mohammed dervish, shaking his clenched fist threateningly.

"It was Uzun Abdi, the Aga of the Janissaries," replied Halil, "who said that, and the others only laughed."

"Let them all be accursed!"

"Wealth has ruined the heart of the Osmanli," continued Halil. "Who are they who now control the fate of the Realm? The creatures of the Sultana, the slaves of the Kizlar-Aga, the Izoglani, whose licentiousness will bring down upon Stambul the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is from thence we get[Pg 230] our rulers and our treasurers, and if now and then Fate causes a hero to plump down among them he also grows black like a drop of water that has fallen upon soot; for the treasures, palaces, and odalisks of the fallen magnates are transferred to the new favourite, and ruin him as quickly and as completely as they ruined his predecessors; and so long as these palaces stand by the Sweet Waters more curses than prayers will be heard within the walls of Stambul, so that if ye want to save Stambul, ye must burn down these palaces, for as sure as God exists these palaces will consume Stambul."

"We must go to the Sultan about it," said the dervish Mohammed.

"Pulled down they must be, for no righteous man dwells therein. The whole of this Empire of Stone must come down, whoever is so much as a head taller than his brethren is a sinner. Let us raise up those who are lowest of all. Down from your perches, ye venal voivodes, khans, and pashas, who buy the Empire piecemeal with money and for money barter it away again! Let men of war, real men though Fame as yet knows them not, step into your places. The very atmosphere in which ye live is pestiferous because of you. For some time now, gold and silver pieces, stamped with the heads of men and beasts, have been circulating in our piazzas, although, as we[Pg 231] all know, no figures of living things should appear on the coins of the Mussulman. Neither Russia, nor Sweden, nor yet Poland pay tribute to us; and yet, I say, these picture-coins still circulate among us. Oh! ever since Baltaji suffered White[16] Mustache, the Emperor of the North, to escape, full well ye know it! gold and silver go further and hit the mark more surely than iron and lead. We must create a new world, none belonging to the old order of things must remain among us. Write down a long, long list, and carry it to the Grand Vizier. If he refuses to accept it, write another in his place on the list, and take it to the Sultan. Woe betide the nation of Osman if it cannot find within it as many just men as its needs require!"

The assembled Mussulmans thereupon drew up in hot haste a long list of names in which they proposed fresh candidates for all the chief offices of the Empire. They put down Choja Dzhanum as the new Kapudan Pasha, Mustafa Beg as the new Minister of the Interior, Musli as the new Janissary Aga; the actual judges and treasurers were banished, the banished judges and treasurers were restored to their places; instead of Maurocordato, who had been educated abroad, they appointed his enemy, Richard Rakovitsa, surnamed Djihan, Voivode of Wallachia; instead of [Pg 232]Ghyka they placed the butcher of Pera, Janaki, on the throne of Moldavia; and instead of Mengli Giraj, Khan of the Crimea, Kaplan Giraj, actually present among them, was called to ascend the throne of his ancestors.

Kaplan Giraj pressed Halil's hand by way of expressing his gratitude for this mark of confidence.

And, oddly enough, as Halil pressed the hand of the Khan, it seemed to him as if his arm felt an electric shock. What could it mean?

But now Musli stood up before him.

"Allow me," said he, "to go with this writing to the Grand Vizier. You have been in the Seraglio already, let mine be the glory of displaying my valour by going thither likewise! Do not take all the glory to yourself, allow others to have a little of it too! Besides, it does not become you to carry your own messages to the Divan. Why even the Princes of the Giaours do not go there themselves but send their ambassadors."

Halil Patrona gratefully pressed the Janissary's hand. He knew right well that he spoke from no desire of glorification, he knew that Musli only wanted to go instead of him because it was very possible that the bearer of these demands might be beheaded.

Once again Musli begged earnestly of Halil that[Pg 233] the delivery of these demands might be entrusted to him, and so proudly did he make his petition that it was impossible for Halil Patrona to deny him.

Now Musli was a sly dog. He knew very well that it was a very risky business to present so many demands all at once, but he made up his mind that he would so completely take the Grand Vizier by surprise, that before he could find breath to refuse the demands of the people, he would grant one of them after another, for if he swallowed the first of them that was on the list, he might be hoodwinked into swallowing the rest likewise.

The new Grand Vizier went by the name of Kabakulak, or Blunt-ear, because he was hard of hearing, which suited Musli exactly, as he had, by nature, a bad habit of bawling whenever he spoke.

At first Kabakulak would not listen to anything at all. He seemed to have suddenly gone stone-deaf, and had every single word repeated to him three times over; but when Musli said to him that if he would not listen to what he was saying, he, Musli, would go off at once to the Sultan and tell him, Kabakulak opened his ears a little wider, became somewhat more gracious, and asked Musli, quite amicably, what