_Which may be regarded as the first of this history._
Mirzoza had already fixed Mangogul for some years. These lovers had
said, and a thousand times repeated, all that a violent passion
suggests to persons who have the most wit. They were got as far as
confidences, and they would impute it to themselves as a crime, to
conceal the most minute circumstance of their lives from each other.
These singular suppositions, "If heaven, which has placed me on the
throne, had given me an obscure low birth, would you have deign'd to
descend down to me, would Mirzoza have crown'd me?" "Should Mirzoza
happen to lose the few charms which she is thought to have, would
Mangogul love her still?" These suppositions, I say, which exercise the
fancy of ingenious lovers, which sometimes make tender lovers quarrel,
and frequently oblige the most sincere lovers to tell untruths, were
quite worn out between our pair.
The favorite, who possess'd in a supreme degree, the necessary and
uncommon talent of making a good narrative, had drained the scandalous
history of Banza. As she had not the best constitution, she was not
always disposed to receive the Sultan's caresses, nor he always in
the humour of offering them. In short, there were some days, in which
Mangogul and Mirzoza had little to say, hardly any thing to do, and
in which, without any diminution of love, they amused themselves but
indifferently. Those days were rare indeed, but there were some; and
this was one of them.
The Sultan was carelessly stretch'd on a sopha, opposite to the
favorite, who was knotting in silence. The weather did not permit
them to take a walk. Mangogul would not venture to propose a party
of piquet; and this posture had lasted near a quarter of an hour,
when the Sultan, yawning several times, said, "It must be allowed,
that Geliotta sung like an angel." "And that your highness is tired
to death," answered the favorite. "No, Madam," replied Mangogul,
endeavouring to smother a yawn, "the minute that one sees you, is not
that of tiresomeness." "If that is not a polite compliment, 'tis no
body's fault but your own," rejoin'd Mirzoza: "but you ponder, you
are absent, you yawn. Prince, what ails you?" "I know not," said the
Sultan. "But I guess," continued the favorite. "I was eighteen, when
I had the good fortune to please you. It is full four years since you
began to love me. Eighteen and four make twenty-two. Therefore I am
now very old." Mangogul smiled at this calculation. "But if I am no
longer worth any thing for pleasure," added Mirzoza, "I will at least
demonstrate that I am very good for advice. The variety of amusements
which attend you, has not been able to secure you against disgust. You
are disgusted. Prince, there is your disease." "I do not allow, that
you have hit it off," says Mangogul: "but supposing you have, do you
know a remedy?" Mirzoza answered the Sultan, after a moment's pause,
that his highness seem'd to take so much pleasure at the narratives she
made him of the gallantries of the town, that she was sorry she had no
more to relate to him, or that she was not better informed of those of
the court; that she would have tried that expedient, till she thought
of somewhat better. "I think it a good one," says Mangogul: "But who
knows the stories of all those fools; and tho' they were known to any,
who could relate them like you?" "Let us learn them however," replied
Mirzoza. "Whosoever it be that tells them, I am certain that your
highness will gain more by the matter, than you will lose by the form."
"I shall join with you, if you please, in fancying the adventures of
the court ladies very diverting," says Mangogul: "but tho' they were to
be a hundred times more so, what does that avail, if it be impossible
to come at them?" "There may be a difficulty in it," answers Mirzoza,
"but in my opinion, that is all. The Genius Cucufa, your relation and
friend, has done greater things. Why do you not consult him?" "Ah, joy
of my heart!" cried the Sultan, "you are an admirable Creature. I make
no doubt but the Genius will employ all his power in my favour. This
moment I shut myself up in my closet, and invoke him."
Accordingly Mangogul arose, kissed the favorite on the left eye,
pursuant to the custom of Congo, and departed.