CHAPTER III
THE PARTING
It is only in the larger of the Turkish cities, where you hardly know your next-door neighbor, and where people of the same religious faith collect in quarters, that the Moslem and the Christian cannot live in peace together. In the country village, where everybody knows the secret thoughts of his neighbor, the feeling is no less kindly than between the members of the different churches of a Christian country town. The Moslem peasant counts his beads; the Christian, like the Moslem, prostrates himself in prayer. Allah and Elohim were originally the same name of the same God, revealed to the one through the prophet Mohammed, to the other through Christ. The Christian children play with the little Moslems in the courtyard of the mosque, and the little Moslems join their Christian comrades in their games about the holy well, and drink the holy water. The Moslem buys his goods of the Christian merchant, and the merchant trusts him when he cannot pay. Moslem and Christian work together in the field, and when their labor is over, sit side by side in the inn to listen to the story-teller. The one never asks the other whether he be Moslem or Christian; and the friendship existing between them is often quite as enduring as if they worshiped together.
All this was true of the people of Ak Hissar, and their unity of purpose and unity of labor brought flourishing days to the little village. Herant had his full share in the general prosperity; for his mulberry trees throve, his business increased, and he became known throughout the country, even as far as Constantinople, as a successful raiser and buyer of cocoons. It was he who produced the silk for the beautiful rugs and hangings for the Sultan’s palace at Yildiz, and for the presents which His Majesty was pleased to bestow upon visiting foreign princes. The Sultan recognized the services which he rendered, honored him with a decoration, and invited him to the capital, to become the manager of the various silk factories throughout the Empire.
The prospect of living in Constantinople appealed strongly to Takvor, for he was studious, and had long ago absorbed the teachings of the simple village school. Now at the age of fourteen, it was his one great hope that in some way or other he might fulfill his first and greatest ambition of becoming a physician. His single unhappiness was that of leaving Armenouhi. Perhaps he should never see her again. Although she was but ten years of age, she was far more developed than a Western girl of those years, and already had been asked for in marriage by the young money changer Badiark, who offered a suitable dowry; but, contrary to custom, he was told that when she was older she might answer for herself. The rejected suitor, seeing her the constant companion of another, knew full well what that answer would be.
Armenouhi was greatly depressed by the thought of losing Takvor. Naturally the few remaining days were spent together in their favorite haunts. For the day preceding Takvor’s departure, the village priest arranged a farewell picnic, to which all the children were invited. Early in the morning the party climbed the eastern mountain, and upon reaching the summit at noonday the priest’s good wife spread the long white cloth upon the ground and heaped it with food for their hungry mouths. Takvor was given the seat at the head of the table.
“Who shall be the lady of honor to sit with Takvor?” asked the priest.
“Armenouhi!” shouted the children, in concert, as if there could be no other answer.
It was a happy party, and their peals of laughter rang over the hillside. Takvor and Armenouhi alone were sad.
“Come,” he whispered, when dinner was over and the children began to play; and the two wandered away from the others and sat down in the shade of a tree, where the silence of the gentle spring day was broken only by the distant voices of their playmates and the tinkling bells of the sheep grazing on the mountain slopes.
The field was dotted with white anemones, and Takvor began to pick them.
“Oh, there is a happy omen for us,” cried Armenouhi, and she pointed to a magpie hopping about in the grass.
“But yonder comes his mate, and the good omen is turned to bad,” replied Takvor; “and there is a third magpie, and that foretells calamity.”
“But what evil can be greater for us than your going on the morrow?”
There was no answer this time, and Armenouhi sat in silence and watched Takvor picking the little white blossoms. As if to help, she occasionally picked a flower and gave it to him.
Takvor made a wreath of the flowers and was placing it on her head, when the red ribbon that held her hair became loose and fell. Both reached for it, and for an instant both held it; they pulled, and the ribbon parted. With her piece Armenouhi rearranged her hair; Takvor put the other in his pocket.
That evening at home, when nobody was by to see her, Armenouhi selected the largest and best of the blossoms, bound them together with the ribbon from her hair, and laid them away between the leaves of a book.