The deed is done! We managed everything without the slightest hitch. I
write to you from Paris, from our house in the Rue de Varennes; it seems
like years since I was last there, so many things have happened during
the six months since I left it. All my surroundings belong to a life so
different from my present one, that it requires an exertion of thought
to identify myself and realise my position here.
My harem is established in the Rue de Monsieur--in the former "Parc aux
Cerfs" of my uncle--a splendid mansion, the gardens of which reach to
the Boulevard des Invalides. My uncle has absolutely the genius of an
ancient Epicurean transferred by accident into our own century. To look
at the street, with its cold and deserted aspect, one might imagine
oneself in a corner of aristocratic Versailles. My mystery is safely
hidden away there. Mohammed while at Paris is no longer an exiled
Minister, but simply a rich Turk who has acquired a taste for European
civilisation. His name is Omer-Rashid-Effendi, a name under which he has
already passed here twice.
My houris are astonished with all they see, and their pleasure is
indescribable. Of course my first care was to Europeanise their
toilettes. In pursuance of my orders (for, as you may be sure, I do not
appear in such matters) a fashionable dressmaker was sent for by
Mohammed. What a business it was! The difficulty was to avoid making
them, with their oriental styles and deportments, look stiff and awkward
when confined for the first time in the garb of our civilised
torture-house.
By a happy compromise between fashion and fancy, the clever _artiste_
has contrived for them costumes which are marvels of good taste and
simplicity. Nothing could be more successful than this metamorphosis;
their _coiffures_ complete the picture, and I can hardly recognise my
almées under the bewitching little hats worn by our Parisian women. I
assure you it is a transfiguration replete with surprises and unexpected
charms. Attired like our women of fashion, their striking and original
beauty, which was my admiration at El-Nouzha, impresses me in quite a
novel manner, which I seem to understand better as I compare them by the
side of our own women. Like young foreign ladies of distinction habited
in the costumes of our civilisation, they seem to shed around them
wherever they go a sort of exotic fragrance.
Everything, of course, had to be changed now that they are in Paris;
they could no longer follow the routine of their former existence within
the four walls of the harem. They were now at liberty to go out walking,
and take little trips; but here at once appeared a most serious
difficulty for them to overcome. How could they show themselves in the
streets, the Champs Elysées, or the Bois, without their veils just like
infidels? That was a serious question! It was impossible for them to
make up their minds to such a shameful breach of Mussulman law; and, if
I must admit it, I myself experienced a strange sort of revulsion at the
thought of it. Yes, to this have I come! Nevertheless, on the other
hand, it was quite out of the question for them to shew themselves out
of doors enshrouded in their triple veils, attracting wherever they went
the remarks of the idle crowd.
At last, after a great many hesitations, Zouhra, who is the bravest of
them all, ventured to go out with me, buried in the recesses of a
brougham, and protected by a very thick kind of mantilla, which after
all was hardly any less impenetrable than a _yashmak_. Then they grew
bolder, and impelled by curiosity, their coquetry getting the better of
their bashful timidity, they took a drive one day in a landau to the
Bois with Mohammed. I mounted on horseback and met them, without
appearing to know them. Everything went off as well as could be.
The carriage which I had purchased is severely simple in style, as is
suitable for a foreigner of distinction. In his European disguise
Mohammed maintains that expression of serene dignity which so
excellently suits his part of a father escorting his three daughters.
There is, in short, nothing about the latter to excite attention. If a
dark pair of eyes is sometimes distinguishable through the embroidered
veils, the fashion, at any rate, permits the features to be sufficiently
disguised to conceal the beauty of my sultanas from over-bold glances.
Of course poor Kondjé-Gul, still living away from the others, does not
take part in these frolics; but we thus gain some hours of liberty. On
the second day, while my _wives_ were driving in the Bois, we took our
opportunity of going out, like true lovers, arm in arm; it was most
delightful!
We went on foot to the Boulevards. You may guess what raptures
Kondjé-Gul was in each step we took. It was the first time she had been
out with me alone, the first time she had felt herself free and released
from the imprisonment of the harem. Many an inquisitive fellow, seeing
us pass, and struck with her dignified manner, stopped of a sudden, and
tried to distinguish her features through the veil. We quietly laughed
at his disappointment.
When we arrived at the Rue de la Paix, we went into some of the
well-known jewellers' shops. At the sight of so many marvels, you may
guess how she was dazzled. She felt as if in a dream. We spoke in
Turkish; and the puzzled shop-keepers gazed in astonishment upon this
strange display of Asiatic charms, which they had evidently met with for
the first time. All this amused us; and it is unnecessary to add that I
quitted these haunts of temptation with a considerably lighter purse
than when I entered them.
We have already had several of these little sprees, and nothing can be
more fascinating than Kondjé-Gul's childish delight; everything is new
to her. Transported, as if by magic, from her monotonous existence at
El-Nouzha into the midst of these splendours, this free life, and this
animated world, she feels like one walking in a dream; the whole
atmosphere intoxicates her.
We form plans innumerable. In the first place we have decided that her
position in regard to my wives shall be definitely fixed, and that she
shall live henceforth separated from them in another part of the house,
where she shall have private attendants. We shall thus be able to see
each other without any constraint, and she will no longer be subjected
to the sneers of my silly houris, who have been treating her apparent
disgrace too brutally since our arrival at Paris. My proud Kondjé-Gul,
in the consciousness of her ascendency over me, would be sure to make a
scene with them some day.
Besides, as I have already told you, she furnishes me every day with a
more and more engrossing subject of study. I should like you to
understand what sweet and seductive labour this progressive initiation
is; I am watching the development of a mind which I am myself forming.
There is no subject in regard to her, not even her receptive
intelligence, which fails to afford me innumerable surprises. Sometimes
I discover original views and opinions of hers upon matters connected
with our European civilisation, at the correctness of which I am
absolutely amazed. Her progress is surprising, and she wishes to learn
everything, knowing how much is required in order to become "civilised,"
as she calls it.
My uncle and my aunt are in Paris.
A month without any news, you say. And you talk sarcastically about my
leisure, and rally me upon the subject of that famous system, which I
used to boast was a simplification of life. If I might judge from your
twaddle, you imagine me to be saddled with the very cares and worries
from which I justly boasted that I was exempt. You picture me running
backwards and forwards, and incessantly occupied with my four wives, so
that I have not even time to write to you.
Absurd fancy: this is my real situation.
As soon as my four wives were settled down in their new home, they
permitted me much more freedom than did the least burdensome of my
former amours. No anxieties now, no jealousies, no fears for the future.
They are not like some of those feminine taskmasters who take entire
possession of you, forcing you to follow the adored object to the
theatre, or take it to the ball, in order to have the pleasure of
watching it flirting bare-shouldered with some intimate friend, who will
perhaps be its next lover. No, in my _rôle_ of sultan my amours are
modestly hidden from profane eyes in the recesses of my harem, and there
I am always welcome whenever I choose to come. I keep the key in my
pocket. At any hour of the day or night I can go there in my quality of
owner without having to leave my club, my friends, my work, or my
amusements a moment earlier than I desire.
Such, then, is the "anxious existence" which you attribute to me. Find
me a husband who can act in the same way.
Still, as might have been foreseen, great changes have taken place in
the internal arrangements of my household, where it became necessary
that the Turkish elements should be partially replaced by others more
adapted to the exigencies of western civilization.
A memorable event has occurred.
Hadidjé, Nazli, and Zouhra went the other day to the opera. It is
needless to say that I was there. I must admit that their nervousness
was so extreme at making this bold experiment that, watching them from
my own stall as they came in, I thought for a moment that they were
going to run away again.
Already in their walks they were getting into training, and in regard to
their veils exhibited a certain amount of coquetry; but now it became
necessary to disregard the law of Mahomet entirely. They had never seen
the inside of a theatre before, so you can imagine that when they found
themselves in the box, with their unveiled faces exposed to the gaze of
a multitude of infidel eyes, all the bold resolutions which they had
made for this decisive effort were put to the rout. Strange as such
Mohammedan bashfulness may seem to us, they felt, as they afterwards
told me, that appearing there unveiled, was "just like exhibiting
themselves naked."
However, as soon as this first impression was overcome, thanks chiefly
to the exhortations of Mohammed, who was almost at his wits' ends to
manage them, they succeeded in putting on sufficient assurance to
dissemble their very sincere dread, so that at a distance it looked
merely like excessive shyness. The lifting of the curtain for the first
act of "Don Juan" fortunately changed the current of their emotions.
During the _entr'acte_ their box became the object of attraction to the
subscribers and the frequenters of first night's performances. Their
indolent, oriental type of beauty, notwithstanding the partial disguise
effected by their present costumes, could not fail to produce a
sensation.
Who, it was asked, was this old gentleman with his three daughters of
such surprising beauty? In the Jockey Club's box, where I went to hear
the gossip, everyone was talking about them, as of some important
political event; Mohammed was an American millionaire, according to
some, a Russian prince, or a Rajah just arrived from India, according to
others. When I smiled in a significant manner (as I began to do, on
purpose), they immediately surmised that I fancied I knew more about the
matter than the rest of them, thereupon they surrounded me, and pressed
me with questions.
I had already come to the conclusion that it would be better to calm
their minds, and thus avoid all inconvenient enquiries. I therefore gave
them an account, which after all was not far from the truth, namely,
that Omer-Rashid-Effendi was a rich Turk, "whose acquaintance I had the
honour of making at Damascus, and who had come to stay at Paris with his
family." I thus insured myself against any suspicion of mystery arising
in connection with my visits to the house in the Rue de Monsieur, in the
event of these coming to light by any chance.
Our relations, you will see, were thus defined once for all. This new
life is nothing but a succession of delights to my almées; and I have
really now attained the ideal in the way of harems, through the absence
of that monotony which is the inevitable result of the system of rigid
seclusion. Under the influence of our civilized surroundings, the ideas
of my houris are undergoing a gradual transformation. They have French
lady's maids, and their study of our refinements of fashion has opened
out quite a new world of coquettish charms to them. My "little animals"
have grown into women: this single word will convey to you the whole
delicious significance of this story of mine, the secret of which you
alone in the whole world possess.
As we had decided, Kondjé-Gul has been separated from her over-jealous
companions. Hadidjé, Zouhra, and Nazli have taken this measure to be a
confirmation of her disgrace, and knowing that she lives in a
sequestered corner of the house, they fancy their triumph more assumed
than ever. I can place implicit confidence in the discretion of my
servants--who wait on us like mutes in a seraglio: consequently
Kondjé-Gul and I are as free as possible. When I want to go out with
her, I pay a short visit to my wives, and after a quarter of an hour's
talk, leave them and go off in my carriage, in the recesses of which my
darling reclines. Now you see what a simple device it is and how
ingenious; still it involves a certain amount of constraint for me, and
an isolation hard to endure for Kondjé-Gul. She reads and devours
everything that I bring her in the way of books; but the days are long,
and Mohammed, with his time taken up by the others, cannot accompany her
out of doors. I therefore conceived the idea of taking her away from the
harem altogether, and thus relieving her of the contemptuous insults
which my other silly women still find opportunities of inflicting upon
her. The difficulty was to procure a chaperon for her, some kind of
suitable and reliable duenna whom I could leave with her in a separate
establishment; this duenna has been found.
The other day Kondjé-Gul and I were talking together about a little
house which I had discovered in the upper part of the Champs Elysées,
and of an English governess, who seemed to me to possess the right
qualifications for a pretended mother:
"If you like," said Kondjé-Gul, "I can tell you a much simpler
arrangement."
"Well?" I replied.
"Instead of this governess whom I don't know, I would much rather have
my mother. I should be so happy at seeing her again!"
"Your mother?" I exclaimed with surprise; "do you know where she is
then?"
"Oh, yes! for I often write to her."
She then told me all her past history, which I had never before thought
of asking her, believing that she had been left alone in the world. It
afforded me a complete revelation of those Turkish customs which seem so
strange to us. Kondjé-Gul's mother, as I have told you, was a
Circassian, who came to Constantinople to enter the service of a cadine
of the Sultan. Kondjé-Gul being a very pretty child, her mother had, in
her ambitious fancy, anticipated from her beauty a brilliant career for
her. In order to realise this expectation, she left her at twelve years
old with a family who were instructed to bring her up better than she
could have done herself, until Kondjé-Gul was old enough to be sought
after as a cadine or a wife.
This hope on the part of her mother was accomplished, as you know, for
the girl was purchased for a good round sum by Mohammed. Thus poor
Kondjé-Gul fulfilled her destiny. Then she related to me how her mother,
several years ago, had found a better situation for herself with a
French consul at Smyrna, and had learnt French there.
Kondjé-Gul's idea was a happy one, and I was inclined to entertain it. I
consented to her writing to Smyrna, and some days later she received an
answer to the effect that in about a couple of months her mother would
be able to join her providing the requisite means were sent her for this
purpose. I have a house in view where they can live together. It is a
little house belonging to Count de Téral, who is on his way back to
Lisbon: one might really fancy he had got it ready on purpose for me.
What have you to say to this, you profound moralist?
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