CHAPTER X HOPES DEFERRED

Having duly “wiped the dust of the Sublime Threshold with his face”—a Turkish figure of speech not far removed from a literal statement of fact—Sir John expected that the Capitulations would forthwith be handed to him. There was not, in his mind, the shadow of an excuse for putting him off longer. But when he applied to the Kehayah, he found that, instead of everything being settled, as he had been led to believe, the Grand Vizir and his Ministers had only just begun to study the Articles. Indeed, the draft which he had sent in two and a half months ago had been lost during the festal confusion, and, after a long search (the Kehayah and the Rais Effendi each saying that the other had it), was but lately discovered in the hands of a page of the Grand Vizir’s.[139] So all those messages about the Articles being read over, considered, passed, etc. etc., had been from beginning to end a tissue of poetic inventions! The trick was gross, but not unusual. Nor, fairly viewed, was it undeserved: the Turks had begun by telling Sir John frankly that no business could be transacted during the Feasts; as he went on pestering them, they had no alternative but to lie—politeness forbade any other course towards a man whose wine they drank.

Although unspeakably disgusted, our Ambassador would fain suppress his mortification: he was old enough, and man of the world enough, to know that, where one cannot strike, one must smile. But never was smiling more difficult. The Plague from Adrianople now travelled to Karagatch, and first seized the daughter of our Chaplain’s landlady.

Up to that moment the English had dwelt there as happily as might have been expected. In spite of the Grand Signor’s edicts, the village was a notorious resort for citizens in quest of liquid solace. Every now and then the Aga of the Janissaries came to see that the law was observed; but, as he made at least 10,000 dollars a year by its breach, he gave at least one hour’s notice of his raids. The greatest purveyor of spirituous consolation in the locality was Covel’s friend, the village priest, who used to secure his stock by hiding it in the church. Englishmen could not, of course, let themselves be outdone by Turks and Greeks. It has always been the way of our race to develop its greatest capacity in the hour of sternest need. So they drank deeply to find joy, more deeply still to drown fear: trying all the while to appear outwardly unconcerned. The Rev. John wrote home that he frequently went into Adrianople, and had become so inured to funerals that he minded no more meeting a dead man than a dead calf. That may be; but when the little girl with whom he had been prattling died, it was not so pleasant.

In a few days the epidemic spread through the whole village, and drove the Ambassador and his party out into the fields, where they set up their tents, and waited.

The Articles, once recovered from the Vizir’s page, were studied by the pashas, revised by the Rais Effendi, and brought to the Ambassador in what he understood to be their final form. When they were read over to him, Sir John heaved a sigh of relief: this time there could be no doubt that his ordeal was at an end. But alas! when they were shown to the Grand Vizir, he caused some of them to be straightway incorporated in the Capitulations, but the financial clauses to be submitted to the Tefterdar for his opinion, and the Article regarding Englishmen turning Turks to be referred to the Mufti. So the pudding that had for a moment appeared ready to be served up, was once more in the pot.[140]

The situation might have been amusing, but for the fact that Sir John did not think it so. Sir John felt intensely unhappy, and when Sir John was unhappy nobody connected with him could be happy. How those wretched Dragomans must have blessed him!

A fresh series of conferences ensues. First the Dragomans are sent to the Tefterdar, who wishes to know what do we want these new clauses for, and why the Capitulations may not stand as they are. They reply that the reason is very simple: we want to be certain and not fall every day into disputes with ignorant and impertinent Custom-House officials. The Tefterdar smiles: That, he says, is not the true reason: we intend to start importing a finer cloth and want to pay no more duty than for the cheaper. The Tefterdar has hit the mark with wonderful accuracy; but the Dragomans repudiate the vile insinuation. Then again, he goes on: that Aleppo Hattisherif—why can it not remain as it has been for so many years: why must it needs be put into the Capitulations now? However, in the end, he declares himself satisfied and promises to pass everything.[141]

But Sir John, whose soul has been stirred to most dismal scepticism, cannot rest. “What troubled me most,” he says, “was for the three Articles referrd’ to the Tefterdar which were of the greatest concern, knowing that he was a Judicious, sower, severe man, and in His apprehension very quick also.” What harm might not this shrewd Turk work? Full of misgivings, next morning the Ambassador goes once more into Adrianople and seeks a personal interview with the Kehayah. At this conference he surpasses himself: “I muster up all the Arguments that I could think of.” After listening to his Excellency’s oration, the Kehayah, suave as ever, says: “Ambassadour, all things by the Grace of God will be well, for I will stand by you to the outmost, but send not your Druggermen to the Tefterdar till I advise you the hour.”[142] This speech brings sweet balm to the soul of Sir John, who then proceeds to touch upon the title, Padishah. He is very proud to have been the first to give His Majesty this title before the Grand Signor; but that was only planting the seed: the fruit had yet to be plucked. He receives assurances that, as the Kehayah thinks the claim just and reasonable, he will move the Vizir again about it. Further, our Ambassador mentions the question of the Latin friars, and on this point also the Kehayah is eager to oblige: only he needs a Petition (Arz) for the Vizir. Sir John, who has the paper ready, hands it to him, and departs recomforted.[143]

The Cordeliers had all this time been with Sir John, filling his ears day and night with the tale of their misfortunes, exaggerating them, and laying the chief blame for them upon the French Ambassador. They had received him at Jerusalem with all honour imaginable and at great cost, expecting wonders from his protection, and he had caused their ruin. The object of these tirades obviously was to inspire Finch with the desire to capture the position which Nointel had forfeited; and Finch would very much like to do so. But he was cautious. He defended Nointel, telling the Friars that the noble Marquis certainly did intend nobly, according to his power; but the inexpedient murder of the Greek Caloyers, added to Ahmed’s dislike of the French, had made the Grand Vizir implacable. Of course, he would do all he could for them. But the Ambassadors of France and Venice were their official protectors. Therefore he advised them to inform those Ambassadors that he was disposed to protect them, but that he would be more earnest in it if they who had orally solicited his aid before he left Constantinople would repeat their request in writing. The “good Fathers” did as they were bidden; but the result was negative. The Venetian replied that, for certain reasons, he could not write to Sir John to undertake their protection, and that he verily believed his undertaking it would not be pleasing to the French Ambassador. The French Ambassador did not reply at all. While both diplomats wished to make use of the Englishman as an auxiliary, neither wanted to be supplanted by him. Sir John understood the position perfectly: “if a Hattesheriffe had bin procurd’ by me in favour of the Fathers it must have runn in the King my Masters name, which the Fathers Protection being in both their Capitulations had bin a slurr to them.”[144] Nevertheless, he pursued his way, and after that most satisfactory interview with the Kehayah he had great hopes of success.

Meanwhile he thought it advisable, plague or no plague, to go into Adrianople again and pay his respects to the Mufti, upon whose decision depended one at least of the new Articles. He found the “Wisest of the Wise” sitting cross-legged, with a coarse kind of linsey-woolsey blanket over his knees and three or four books beside him: a swarthy, good-natured elderly gentleman, who received the Ambassador with the same ceremony as the Grand Vizir. There was no conversation worth mention. After some formal compliments, Sir John hurried back to his rural retreat.[145]

There was another personage that Sir John would have been well advised to cultivate even at some personal risk: a certain Mustafa Pasha, the Grand Vizir’s brother-in-law, who, having already acted as Ahmed’s Deputy, was destined to rise at no distant date to the highest post open to a Turkish subject. But Sir John, whose energy was limited and whose fear of the Plague was unlimited, contented himself with sending to that pasha his Dragomans with a present and an excuse. No doubt, he felt that by calling on the Mufti he had done his part. It was now Sir Thomas’s turn to do his. Had they not always hunted in couples?

To the Knight’s lot fell a far more interesting figure—the much-honoured and fawned-upon Sheikh Vani Effendi, chief counsellor and preacher to the Grand Signor: a holy man who knew how to retain the Imperial favour by reassuring the Imperial conscience on such points as giving to hunting and to the harem what was meant for the Empire. Ahmed Kuprili had wisely avoided making a rival of this redoubtable saint by taking him as an ally. In personal appearance, the two had nothing in common. What Ahmed was like, we know. Vani, as painted by the Rev. John, was a repulsive old hunch-back with shrivelled flesh and one eye smaller than the other, as if it had shrunk in the washing: an uglier saint could not easily be imagined. Yet they shared a common passion. Ahmed was animated by a statesman’s love for political morality; Vani burned with a fanatic’s zeal for religious purity. It is hard to determine which of the two unclean things he hated most: Moslem heretics or Christian infidels. But it was amongst the latter that his fervour had found its choicest victims. As far back as 1661 he had announced that the decline of the Ottoman Empire was due to the excessive liberty permitted to its Christian subjects—the liberty to live amongst the Turks and to sell wine to them. The fires and plagues which afflicted Constantinople were likewise traced to divine anger at such unseemly tolerance. It was at his instigation that Imperial edicts were issued forbidding the reconstruction of ruined churches and the consumption of wine, and commanding all infidels to clear out of the capital. While the Sultan threatened wine-bibbers with death in this world, the Sheikh promised them eternal damnation in the next. Every Friday he fulminated in one mosque or another, and the Grand Signor himself was an assiduous listener to his sermons.

Nevertheless, one regrets to hear, Vani Effendi imbibed in his closet vast quantities of the liquor he cursed from the pulpit. It may be, of course, that, like other saints, he issued some kind of a special dispensation to himself in the matter. He certainly held that indulgences which in an ordinary man would be sinful were lawful to a saint. When one of his disciples asked him how he reconciled the anathemas he continually hurled against the use of gold and silver, of silk and pearls, and against certain other joys of the flesh, with his own marked predilection for such things, he replied: “Worldly goods are not evil in themselves; it is the manner they are got by and used that decides the cases in which and the persons to whom they may be permitted or forbidden.” For the holy nothing is impure.[146]

Benighted unbelievers looked upon the Sheikh as a ranting hypocrite—he reminded the English Cavaliers in Turkey of the Puritan Pharisees they knew at home. But among his own co-religionists Vani was above scandal. He was “more than a Pope amongst them,” says the Rev. John: nay, in a sense, “this old coxcomb” was more than the Grand Signor himself. For your Grand Signor could only put you to death. But your saint could put you in a particularly unpleasant corner of a particularly unpleasant place, where people had garments of fire fitted unto them, boiling water poured on their heads, and were beaten with maces of iron for ever and ever. Or, on the other hand, he could procure you an exceptionally comfortable pavilion in Paradise, furnished with green cushions and beautiful carpets, and couches of silk and gold; and a garden planted with shady trees full of all kinds of fruit growing close at hand; and rivers of milk and honey flowing conveniently by; and troops of fine black-eyed dancing girls with complexions like rubies and pearls, to ensure domestic peace and felicity. Either of these lots it was in Vani Effendi’s power to bestow, and he made a very good thing of it in the way of presents: a poor saint’s only recognised source of revenue.

From all this it is easy to understand the Knight’s anxiety to win over Vani Effendi.

One of Sir John’s Dragomans and the renegade Count Bocareschi were sent to solicit an interview. They returned with the answer that Sir Thomas would be welcome. He went and acquitted himself after a fashion which showed that he had not spent so many years in diplomatic circles for nothing. With exquisite tact he attacked the Sheikh on his weak side, putting to him a number of questions in the tone of one consumed with a violent thirst for illumination. Did women and children have souls of the same size as men’s? Could women go to heaven? What infidels might be suffered to live amongst True Believers? Had a good Christian a chance of salvation?

The Sheikh found some of these questions rather embarrassing, and met them with evasions; but on others he was as precise and positive as became one who had direct access to the Creator’s inmost secrets. He seemed very glad to parade his exclusive information, and very pleased with the man who gave him the opportunity. The crafty Knight followed up his advantage by becoming confidential. He told the Sheikh what kind of Christian he was: he would rather die than worship images, pictures, crosses, or the like abominations. He adored only one God, and he believed that a Mohammedan who lived up to his Law would undoubtedly be saved. For his part, he would never hurt a hair of a Mohammedan’s head on account of religious difference, but would rather help and cherish him in every possible way. On hearing this confession of faith, all the bystanders (needless to say, the saint had taken care that there should be a full house) cried out:

“Ey adam—a good man!”

Vani Effendi burst into tears, and said he had never thought any Christian could come so near to being a Mussulman. But—but there was no real perfection except in Islam. Would not Sir Thomas——?

Sir Thomas shook his curls, sadly. He was now over fifty-five years of age, he said; his bones were hardened to their shapes, and so were his opinions; it would be a difficult process, and one that would require some time, to unrivet his mind.

Vani did not despair of completing the education of so promising a pupil. He pressed him to come again, guaranteeing him full security and freedom of speech. The Knight went no more. If the way to Mohammed’s Paradise lay through the plague-stricken streets of Adrianople, he preferred to stay outside it. But he continued the discussion through the disreputable Count, until Vani (with better taste) intimated that Bocareschi was not a fit channel for divine truth, and desired the Knight, if he had any more questions, to put them down in writing, and he would answer in like manner. But the Knight had had enough.[147] By that time the necessity which had impelled him to brave the sickness and enter the lists of Moslem theology appeared to be over, or nearly over.

The Tefterdar, having made it quite clear that he was not duped by our diplomacy, passed the clauses submitted to him; and the Kehayah, having thus redeemed his pledge, reminded Sir John’s Dragomans of the bakshish they had promised. Sir John wasted no time. He gives twice who gives quickly; besides, the reminder was tantamount to an intimation that his deliverance was now actually at hand. In the plenitude of his gratitude, Sir John even proposed to bestow some of the Levant Company’s gold upon the Tefterdar, who had never asked for any. Then, contrary to every expectation, new difficulties sprang up; bringing with them fresh doubts and disquietudes.

When, on the appointed day, the Treasurer of the Levant Company and the Dragomans came to the Kehayah with the cash, that gentleman said he could not touch it before he had spoken with the Vizir. The Rais Effendi proved less coy. He very kindly pocketed his present and showed the bearers the Capitulations being drawn up fair. Fair they were, indeed, so far as calligraphy went; but the Dragomans noted that one Article—the Article about English factors turning Turks—had, in the process of copying, undergone a curious transmutation. In the draft read to Sir John, though the evidence of Christian witnesses was not granted, it had been conceded that the proofs of embezzlement should be derived from the Levant Company’s books and bills of lading: wherewith his Excellency was well satisfied. This concession had entirely vanished.[148] In Sir John’s own phrase, “the Mufti castrats the Article as to manner of Proofe,” or, “the Byshop had His foot in it.” However, the point was not worth fighting for—English factors were not likely to turn Turks every day. The thing that made Sir John uneasy was the Kehayah’s new-born repugnance to bribery. What did it mean?

Sir John was not left in doubt long. When his Dragomans went to the Kehayah for an answer to his Petition on behalf of the Latin Fathers, they brought back word that his Excellency would do well to give up all thoughts of that matter. The Vizir was inflexible: “He cannot deferr the Execution of the sentence any longer; for the messenger being now returnd’ from Jerusalem which He had employd’, He was resolvd’ to issue out the Gran Signor’s Command immediately in order to putt the sentence in execution.” Sir John bore this blow with comparative equanimity. He had at first been led to believe that the sentence involved expulsion of the Cordeliers from Jerusalem and confiscation of their convents. But two months’ close intercourse with the “good Fathers,” assisted perhaps by the wish to minimise in his own eyes the magnitude of his failure, enabled him to see things in their true proportions. “Now, Sir,” he tells the Secretary of State, “you will wonder that so great a noise should be made about so small a thing, the sentence being onely this, That the Latin Fathers who were in possession of the Luoghi Santi at Jerusalem are to be lookd’ upon as living in the Patriarchicall See of Jerusalem, and so under the Patriarch: which jurisdiction is onely to be shown in this, that when the Greek Easter and theirs fall on the same day, the Ceremony’s of Palme Sunday and Easter Day are to be performd’ first by the Greeks, and the Latins are to pay a small recognition besides in mony; Both which points the Latin Fathers look upon as renouncing the Pope’s Supremacy; For the rest they are to enjoy their convents and freedome of Mass as formerly.”[149]

It was less easy for our Ambassador to bear another disappointment. For months the Kehayah had nourished his hopes about the title of Padishah; and now he sent him word that this also was a thing that the Grand Vizir would not hear of: “He was loath that I above all should depart from this Court any wayes discontented, but He could not with safety alter the ancient style.”[150] Had mortal ever suffered such vexing frustrations? Why did the Turks tease him so—holding the cup to his lips only to snatch it away?

On the other hand, the copying out of the Capitulations seems to be going on satisfactorily. The Dragomans daily report progress; they are engrossed; signed by the Rais Effendi; decorated with the Imperial cipher by the Nishanji-bashi; and so on. At last it is announced that they are in the hands of the Grand Vizir, who only waits for an opportunity to present them to the Grand Signor for signature. That opportunity seems to the sorely tried Ambassador very long in coming, and he thinks to accelerate matters by ordering his Dragomans to inquire into the Vizir’s pleasure concerning his bakshish. But here also the unexpected happens: the Dragomans are told that Ahmed Kuprili has never hitherto taken anything from any ambassador and will not now: what he did, he did purely for right and justice.[151] It was an astounding statement for a Grand Vizir to make, and the most astounding part of it was that it was true. Ahmed had never soiled his hands. His probity was notorious. Strange, that Sir John alone should never have heard of this peculiarity.

At any rate, it now became evident to him that the Vizir knew nothing of the demand made on his behalf by his underlings. It was another of their little tricks; and another lesson for Sir John in the mysteries of Ottoman procedure. He does not seem to have profited greatly by it. For he sends his Dragomans again to press the Kehayah about the title of Padishah. The Kehayah replies that he has done all he could, but without effect. Yet, that wily and oily one adds, the Ambassador need not despair: so desirous is he to oblige the English, and to spite the French, that he would gladly spend five purses (or 2500 dollars) of his own money to get this feather for the King of England. On whom was he to spend that money? The matter rested entirely with the Vizir, and the Vizir was proof against corruption. Obvious as these reflections were, they did not occur to Sir John. The Kehayah’s suave message, and the gentle hint it conveyed, spur him to fresh exertion: he immediately orders the Treasurer and the Dragomans to renew to the Kehayah their offer of bakshish, and moreover, since the Grand Vizir has so courteously refused money, to tell his Steward that the Ambassador has a copy of the Atlas which the Dutch Resident some time before had presented to the Grand Signor—a work in twelve volumes which had pleased the Sultan so much that he had commanded its instant translation into Turkish.[152] If the Kehayah thinks this gift would be acceptable, his Excellency will bring it to the Vizir together with some superfine vests of cloth at his final audience. The Kehayah undertakes to sound the Vizir, and meanwhile graciously signifies his own readiness to pocket the English gold without further delay.

Even bribery, however, did not run in Turkey smoothly. Early next morning the Treasurer and Dragomans carried the moneybags to the Kehayah’s house and waited for him to come out of the women’s apartments. After waiting for some time in vain, they were informed that he had taken horse at the door of his harem and was riding away to the Vizir’s. Swiftly they ran after him with the coin. He bade them deliver it to his Hasnadar or Treasurer. Back to the house they went and begged the Hasnadar to relieve them of their burden. But the Hasnadar absolutely refused to touch the money without a formal order from his master. He had many times suffered in such cases—the sum paid him proving less than it ought to have been. So the Dragomans went to the Vizir’s palace and spoke to the Kehayah of this new difficulty. He was kind enough to write two words on a scrap of paper, which removed the Hasnadar’s scruples. The transaction was concluded as if it had been payment of a debt: the Hasnadar bending and testing the pieces of gold and counting them twice over.[153]

By this time Sir John was fairly tired. Italian diplomacy was simple, transparent, and child-like beside this Ottoman maze with its supple turns and sudden twists, its infinite ambiguities and bewildering mutabilities. The game was much too elusive for Sir John’s grasp: the moment you thought your fish safe in the net, somehow it slipped through the meshes; the moment a concession seemed crystallised, it melted again. Nothing was ever fixed; everything was fluid. Our metaphors are rather perplexed; but so was Sir John’s mind: so would be anybody’s mind after several months of promises and refusals continually interchanging. He did not know what to think. “I am sensible enough,” he confesses, “that all buissenesse of moment is hardly done; but here the perplexity of doeing affayrs is still attended with more of difficulty and intrigue, by having to doe with a people who neither in language, custome, manners, or religion, have any affinity with us.”[154] He longs to leave this baffling scene of suave, slippery Kehayahs and be back in his peaceful house at Pera—that scene of retirement and wrens from which he set out—how long ago? But hitherto his fortitude has not been tried beyond easy endurance.