For the last three days that unworthy girl Zouhra has been on her way to
Rhodes.
Well, what does that matter? I admit that I have only three wives left,
that's all. And what of that? Is it fitting that you, my dearest friend,
should try to make me feel ashamed of it?
While exercising your facetiousness, it seems to me that you especially
level your irony at certain other worries necessarily occasioned by the
position of Kondjé-Gul and what you call the wooing of the "fierce
Kiusko." Ye Gods! so I have a rival. Really, you make me laugh!
I fancy, however, that all this will inevitably end in a duel between
us, which indeed, as time goes on, seems to me quite unavoidable.
One evening when I arrived rather late at Téral House by reason of one
of those tedious dinners with which Anna Campbell's leaves-out were
celebrated, I found Kondjé-Gul quite downcast, and her eyes red with
crying. I had left her a few hours before in the best of spirits, and
delighted about a pretty little pony which I had given her in the
morning, and which we had been trying. Surprised and alarmed at such a
sudden grief as she evinced, and which had caused her to shed tears, I
anxiously questioned her about it.
Directly I began speaking to her I saw that she wanted to conceal from
me the cause of her affliction: but I pressed her.
"No, it's nothing," she said, "only a story which mamma told me."
But when she tried to smile, a sob broke out from her lips, and,
bursting into tears, she threw her arm round my neck, nestling her head
on my bosom.
"Good heavens! what's the matter, dear?" I exclaimed, quite alarmed.
"Tell me all about it, I entreat you. What has happened? And why are you
crying like this?"
She could not answer me. Her bosom heaved, and she seized my hand and
covered it with kisses, as if in order to demonstrate her love for me in
the midst of her distress.
I succeeded in calming her; and then, making her sit down by my side,
with her hands in mine, I pressed her to confess her troubles to me. Her
hesitation increased my alarm: she turned her eyes away from me, and I
could see that she feared to reply to me. At last, quite frantic with
anxiety, I resorted to my marital authority.
Then, with childlike submission, she related to me the following strange
story, which filled me with astonishment.
After luncheon her mother had joined her in the drawing-room, when in
the course of a general conversation she began to speak about their
native country and their family, and about the pleasure it would be for
them to revisit them after so long an absence. Kondjé-Gul let her go on
in this strain, thinking that she was just indulging in one of those
dreams of a far-off future which the imagination is fond of cherishing,
however impossible their realisation may be. But soon she was very much
surprised by noticing that her mother was discussing this scheme as one
which might be carried out at an early date. She then questioned her
about it. At last, after a lot of fencing, Madame Murrah informed her
that she had learnt a marriage was arranged between me and Anna
Campbell, who had been betrothed to me for a long while past; also that
this marriage would take place in six months' time, and that I should
have to go away with my wife the day after the wedding.
The end of all these arrangements would be the abandonment of
Kondjé-Gul.
I was dismayed by this unexpected revelation. The plan of my marriage
with Anna had remained a family secret, known only to my uncle, to
herself, to my aunt, and to me. How had it got to Madame Murrah's ears?
I was unable to conceal my uneasiness.
"But this marriage is true then?" continued my poor Kondjé with an
anxious look in my face.
"Nothing is true but our love!" I replied, distressed by her fears;
"nothing is true but this, that I mean to love you always, and always to
live with you as I do now."
"But this marriage?" she again repeated.
It was impossible for me to escape any longer from the necessity of
making a confession which I had intended to have prepared her for later
on.
"Listen, my darling," I said, taking her by the hands, "and above all
things trust me as you listen to me! I love you, I love no one but you;
you are my wife, my happiness, my life. Do you believe me?"
"Yes, dear, I believe you. But what about her?" she added in a tremble.
"What about Anna Campbell? Are you going to marry her?"
"Come," I said, wishing to begin by soothing her fears; "if, as so often
happens in your own country, I were obliged, if only in order to assure
our own happiness, to make another marriage, would not you understand
that this was only a sacrifice which I owed to my uncle if he required
it of me--a family arrangement, in fact, which could not separate us
from each other? What have you to fear so long as I only love you? Did
you trouble yourself about Hadidjé or Zouhra?"
"Oh, but they were not Christians! Anna Campbell would be your real
wife; and your religion and laws would enjoin you to love her."
"No," I exclaimed, "neither my religion nor my laws could change my
heart or undo my love for you. It is my duty to protect your life and
make it a happy one; for are not you also my wife? Why should you alarm
yourself about an obligation of mine which, if we lived in your country,
would not disturb your confidence in me? Anna Campbell is not really in
love with me: we are only like two friends, prepared to unite with each
other in a conventional union, such as you may see many a couple around
us enter upon--an association of fortunes, in which the only personal
sentiments demanded are reciprocal esteem. My dear girl, what is there
to be jealous of? Don't you know that you will always be everything to
me?"
Poor Kondjé-Gul listened to these somewhat strange projects without the
least idea of opposing them. Still under the yoke of her native ideas,
those Oriental prejudices in which she had been brought up were too
deeply grafted in her mind to permit of her being rapidly converted by
acquaintance with our sentiments and usages--very illogical as they
often appeared to her mind--to a different view of woman's destiny.
According to her laws and her religion, I was her master. She could
never have entertained the possibility of her refusing to submit to my
will; but I could see by the tears in her eyes that this very touching
submission and resignation on her part was simply due to her devoted
self-control, and that she suffered cruelly by it.
"Come, why do you keep on crying?" I continued, drawing her into my
arms. "Do you doubt my love, dear?"
"Oh, no!" she replied quickly. "How could I mistrust you?"
"Well, then, away with those tears!"
"Yes," she said, giving me a kiss, "you are right, dear: I am very
silly! What can you expect of me? I am still half a barbarian, and am
rather bewildered with all I have learnt from you. There are still some
things in my nature which I can't understand. Why it is that I feel more
jealous of Anna Campbell than I was of Hadidjé, of Nazli, or of Zouhra,
I can't tell you; but I am afraid--she is a Christian, and perhaps you
will love her better than me. I feel that the laws and customs of your
country will recover their hold over you and will separate us. That
odious law which you once told me of, which would enfranchise me, so you
said, and make me my own mistress if I desired to leave you, often comes
back to my mind like a bad dream. It seems to me that this imaginary
liberty, which I don't want at any price, would become a reality if you
get married."
I reassured her on this point. There is a much more persuasive eloquence
in the heart than in the vain deductions of logic. During this
extraordinary scene, in which my poor Kondjé-Gul's mind was alarmed by
the conflict going on between her own beliefs and what she knew of our
society, I was quite sincere in my illusions concerning the moral
compromise which, I fancied, was imposed upon me as an absolute duty.
Singular as it may all appear to you, I had already been subjected too
long to the influence of the harem not to have become gradually
permeated by the Oriental ideas. The tie which bound me to Kondjé-Gul
had acquired a kind of sacred and legitimate character in my eyes.
However this may have been, her revelation disclosed an impending
danger. It was clear to me that the news of the marriage arranged
between Anna Campbell and myself could only have reached Madame Murrah
through Kiusko. His relationship with my aunt had made him a member of
our family, and he had been acquainted with our projects. I could easily
understand that his jealous instincts had penetrated one side of the
secret between Kondjé and myself. He had at least guessed that she loved
me, and that I was an obstacle to the attainment of his desires. He was
following up his object. He wished to destroy Kondjé-Gul's hopes in
advance, by showing her that I was engaged to marry another.
With my present certitude of his mean devices, I began to wonder whether
everything had been already let out through slips of the tongue made by
Madame Murrah, in the course of those interviews which he had obtained
with her either by chance or by appointment. For several days past I
fancied I had remarked in him an increased reserve of manner. It was
possible that, being convinced now of the futility of his hopes, his
only object henceforth was to revenge himself on his rival by at least
disturbing his feeling of security.
Yes! you are quite right: I love her! Why should you imagine I would
wish to deny it, or dissemble it as a weakness? Did I ever tell you that
the consequence of indulgence in the pleasures of harem loves would be
to drown the heart, the soul, and the aspirations towards the ideal for
the sole advantage of the senses? Where you seem to see the defeat of
one vanquished, I find the triumph of my happiness and the enchantment
of a dream which I am realizing during my waking hours. Compare with
this secret and charming bond of union which attaches me to Kondjé-Gul,
the prosaic and vulgar character of those common intrigues which one
cynically permits the whole world to observe, or of those illicit
connections which the hypocritical remnant of virtue with us constrains
us to conceal, like crimes, in the darkness. Deceptive frenzies they
are, the enjoyment of which always involves of necessity the degradation
of the woman and the contempt of the lover! You may preach and dogmatise
as much as you like in your endeavours to uphold the superiority of our
habits over those of the East, which you declare to be barbarous; you
will never succeed in doing anything more than entangling yourself in
your own paradox.
The fact is that in the refined epoch, so-called, in which we live,
every description of non-legitimized union in love becomes a
libertinage, and the woman who abandons herself to it becomes a profane
idol. Whether she be a duchess, or a foolish maid, you may write verses
over her fall, but you cannot forget it. The worm is in the fruit. My
love for Kondjé-Gul knows no such shame, and needs no guilty excuses.
Proud of her slavish submission, she can love me without derogating in
the least from her own self-respect. In Kondjé's eyes, her tender
embraces are legitimate, her glory is the conquest of my heart. I am her
master, and she abandons herself to me without transgressing any duty.
Being a daughter of Asia, she fulfils her destiny according to the moral
usages and the beliefs of her native land: to these she remains faithful
in loving me: her religion has no different rule, her virtue no
different law.
That is why I love her, and why my heart is possessed by such a frank
and open loyalty towards her. You speak to me about the future, and ask
me what will happen when the time comes for my marriage to Anna
Campbell? Well, the future is still in the distance, my dear fellow;
when it comes upon me we will see what I will do! Meanwhile I love and
content myself with loving!
Will that satisfy you? Oh yes, I confess my errors, I abjure my pagan
vanities, and my sultanic principles. I give up Mahomet! I have found my
Damascus road. True love has manifested itself to me in all its glory,
shining through the clouds; it has inspired me with its grace, and my
false idols lie prostrate in the dust----Would you like me to make you a
present of my harem? If this offer suits you, send me a line, and I will
forward what remains of it to you with all despatch: you shall then give
it my news, for it is six weeks now since I have seen my two sultanas.
Only make haste--in eight days' time they are to return to
Constantinople. The blessings of civilization are decidedly banes to
these little animals. Liberty in Paris would soon ruin them. I have
provided for them, and am sending them away.
I mention all this to show you in what happiness I bask. Reassured by my
affection, and confident in the future, my Kondjé-Gul has recovered that
sweet serenity which makes our love such a delicious dream. As the
fierce Kiusko is now unmasked, we laugh at his foolish plots as you may
well imagine!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]