orcelain and
with a pencil paints Fatima's lips redder than the coral which the Hindu
dealers sell in the bazaar. Then the eyebrows are not dark enough, so
they are blackened with Indian ink.

When Fatima is tired of examining her own features in the mirror she
puts back her ornaments into the chest and locks it securely. A
staircase leads down from her room to the garden. There she saunters for
a time, enjoying the perfume of roses and jasmine, and stands before the
cage of singing birds to amuse herself with them. One of the other wives
comes down to the harem garden and calls out to her: "You are as ugly as
a monkey, Fatima; you are old and wrinkled and your eyes are red. Not a
man in all Stambul would care to look at you." Fatima answers: "If Emin
Effendi had not been tired of you, old moth-eaten parrot, he would not
have brought me to his harem." And then she hurries up to her room again
to ask the mirror if it is true that her eyes are red.

In order to forget her vexation she decides to go over to the great
bazaar in Stambul. The slave envelops her in a voluminous _kaftan_[2]
in which her white hands with yellow-stained nails disappear among the
folds. She slips into her shoes, which are like slippers with turned-up
points, and puts on the most important garment of all--the veil. Its
upper part covers the head and the forehead down to the eyebrows, while
the lower part hangs down over the chin, mouth, and part of the nose. A
woman does not show her face to any man but her husband. Of late years
many women transgress this rule and let the lower part of the veil fall
so low that most of the face is seen. Fatima, however, does not go with
the new fashion. She shows only her eyes, but her glances are enough to
let the man in the street perceive that she is beautiful. None of them
is so impertinent as to look at her or speak to her. Only Europeans she
meets turn round.

The slave does not go with her. She stops at the quay where the
_caiques_, or long rowing-boats, lie. The boatmen rise and scream
together. Each one extols with words and gestures the excellences of his
boat. She makes her choice, and steps in and sits down on the cushions.
The _caique_ is narrow and sharp as a canoe, painted white, with a gold
border on the gunwale. Two powerful men take their oars, and the
_caique_ darts over the blue waters of the Bosporus. Half-way between
Scutari and Stambul, Fatima looks eagerly down the Sea of Marmora. She
lo