Page 109 - Life of Gertrude Bell

ASIA MINOR 95
your house/ she tells her cousin, ‘a very exceptional tiling for me
to do and enjoyed myself so much that having gone for a moment,
I stayed for three hours. A most pleasant party ...I had an
amusing dinner the other day sitting between Lord Peel and the
Aga Khan. Do you know who he is? He is a direct descendant of
die Prophet, supreme head of half the Shia world, an English
subject, enormously rich (his sect allows him £180,000 a year)
and a pretender to the throne of Persia ...He explained to
Gilbert Russell, whom he knows very well, that he was so rich
diat £2,000 was to him as 6d is to other people. “Then”, said
Gilbert, “could you change me a shilling?’ ■> 5
She had been taken ill during a stay at Redcar and the doctor
diagnosed anaemia, but she was not subdued for long. In Novem­
ber 1904 she left for Paris with Sylvia Stanley and there met
Salomon Reinach die director of the Museum at St Germain, and
the French explorer Dussaud. T had a most enchanting evening
widi Reinach. I got there at 7.30 and left at 11.30 and we talked
widiout ceasing all the dme ... This morning I went to the
Bibliodi£que Nationale. Reinach gave me a letter to one of the
directors and I was received with open arms ... I looked at two
wonderful Greek MSS—illuminated—from 12 to 3.30! and I am
going back there to-morrow to see ivories and more precious
MSS ... It is perfectly delightful.’ On November 10th: ‘To-day I
went to the Louvre in the morning then at 12 with Reinach to
St Germain ... Now I’m going to dine with him and spend the
evening in his library. He wishes me to review a new book of
Strzygowski’s for the Revue Archeologique —I think I might as
well try my prendee hand ... ’
Reinach’s commission was to have a profound effect on the
course of her life from then on. In early January 1905 she was
sailing towards Beirut aboard the s.s. Ortona, wishing that Hugo
was with her for she began to reflect nostalgically on his kind and
considerate manner, despite the brushes of their long voyage.
But Hugo was now preparing to take holy orders. His sister’s
sustained attack on his faith had not shaken his belief, and not
even an offer from The Times to become its music cridc had
changed his mind about the ministry. From Beirut she reported
on January 18th that she was ‘deep in the gossip of the East’,
and she went on to Haifa in that state of intoxication which always
overcame her as soon as she set foot on the soil of the Middle
East. She arrived at Haifa on February 1st and from there rode