Paul Patoff | Page 6

which promised success. The result was that, although Paul never outgrew a certain ungainliness of appearance, due to his large and bony frame, he nevertheless acquired a perfection of manner, an ease and confidence in conversation, which, in the end, might well impress people who knew him more favorably than the bearing of Alexander, whose soft voice and graceful attitudes began to savor of affectation when he had attained to mature manhood. As they stood together on the quay at Buyukdere, one could guess that, in the course of years, Alexander would be an irritable, peevish old dandy, while Paul would turn out a stern, successful old man.
They stood looking at the water, watching the ca?ques shoot out from the shore upon the bosom of the broad stream.
"Have you made up your mind?" asked Paul, without looking at his brother.
"Oh, yes. I do not care where we go. I suppose it is worth seeing?"
"Well worth seeing. You have never seen anything like it."
"Is it as fine as Easter Eve in Moscow?" asked Alexander, incredulously.
"It is different," said Paul. "It corresponds to our Easter Eve in some ways. All through the Ramaz��n they fast all day--never smoke, nor drink a glass of water, and of course they eat nothing--until sunset, when the gun is fired. During the last week there are services in Santa Sophia every night, and that is what is most remarkable. They go on until the news comes that the new moon has been seen."
"That does not sound very interesting," remarked Alexander, languidly, lighting a cigarette with a bit of yellow fuse that dangled from his heavy Moscow case.
"It is interesting, nevertheless, and you must see it. You cannot be here at this time and not see what is most worth seeing."
"Is there nothing else this evening?" asked Alexander.
"No. We have to respect the prejudices of the country a little. After all, we really have a holiday during this month. Nothing can be done. The people at the palace do not get up until one o'clock or later, so as to make the time while they fast seem shorter."
"Very sensible of them. I wonder why they get up at all, until their ridiculous gun fires, and they can smoke."
"Whether you like it or not, you must go to Santa Sophia to-night, and see the service," said Paul, firmly. "You need not stay long, unless you like."
"If you take me there, I will stay rather than have the trouble of coming away," answered the other. "Bah!" he exclaimed suddenly, "there is that ca?que again!"
Paul followed the direction of his brother's glance, and saw a graceful ca?que pulling slowly upstream towards them. Four sturdy Turks in snow-white cotton tugged at the long oars, and in the deep body of the boat, upon low cushions, sat two ladies, side by side. Behind them, upon the stern, was perched a hideous and beardless African, gorgeously arrayed in a dark tunic heavily laced with gold, a richly chased and adorned scimiter at his side, and a red fez jauntily set on one side of his misshapen head. But Alexander's attention was arrested by the ladies, or rather by one of them, as the ca?que passed within oar's length of the quay.
"She must be hideous," said Paul, contemptuously. "I never saw such a yashmak. It is as thick as a towel. You cannot see her face at all."
"Look at her hand," said Alexander. "I tell you she is not hideous."
The figures of the two ladies were completely hidden in the wide black silk garments they wore, the eternal ferigee which makes all women alike. Upon their heads they wore caps, such as in the jargon of fashion are called toques, and their faces were enveloped in yashmaks, white veils which cross the forehead above the eyes and are brought back just below them, so as to cover the rest of the face. But there was this difference; that whereas the veil worn by one of the ladies was of the thinnest gauze, showing every feature of her dark, coarse face through its transparent texture, the veil of the other was perfectly opaque, and disguised her like a mask. Paul Patoff justly remarked that this was very unusual. He had observed the same peculiarity at least twenty times; for in the course of three weeks, since Alexander arrived, the brothers had seen this same lady almost every day, till they had grown to expect her, and had exhausted all speculation in regard to her personality. Paul maintained that she was ugly, because she would not show her face. Alexander swore that she was beautiful, because her hand was young and white and shapely, and because, as he said, her attitude was graceful and her head moved well when she turned it. Concerning her hand, at