"What crime has this slave-girl committed that she should be treated so
scurvily?"

"Halil Patrona!" answered the public crier, "it will be all the better
for my tongue and your ears if I do not answer that question. I simply
do what I have been told to do. I unveil this odalisk, I proclaim what
she can do, to what use she can be put. I neither belittle her nor do I
exalt her. I advise nobody to buy her and I advise nobody not to buy
her. Allah is free to do what He will with us all, and that which has
been decreed concerning each of us ages ago must needs befall." And with
these words he whisked away the veil from the head of the odalisk.

"By the Prophet! a beauteous maid indeed! What eyes! A man might fancy
they could speak, and if one gazed at them long enough one could find
more to learn there than in all that is written in the Koran! What lips
too! I would gladly remain outside Paradise if by so doing I might gaze
upon those lips for ever. And what a pale face! Well does she deserve
the name of Gül-Bejáze! Her cheeks do indeed resemble white roses! And
one can see dewdrops upon them, as is the way with roses!--the dewdrops
from her eyes! And what must such eyes be like when they laugh? What
must that face be like when it blushes? What must that mouth be like
when it speaks, when it sighs, when it trembles with sweet desire?"

Halil Patrona was quite carried away by his enthusiasm.

"Carry her not any further," he said to the public crier, "and show her
to nobody else, for nobody else would dare to buy her. Besides, I'll
give you for her a sum which nobody else would think of offering, I will
give five thousand piastres."