May this description of all that surrounds me, the smiling scene that I gaze on while writing these lines, here in Khios, in the Carina Palace, remain on these unseen pages as a faithful picture of a charming reality.
No doubt these details would seem childish to any other than myself, but it is a portrait I wish to paint, and a portrait by Holbein, seen and painted with scrupulous fidelity; for, if ever I should happen to regret this happy period of my life, every stroke of the brush would be of inestimable value to me.
CHAPTER VI
DAYS OF SUNSHINE—THE PALACE
Like all palaces of modern Italy, the Palace of Carina, built by the Genoese when the island of Khios was one of their possessions, the Palace of Carina is immense. The apartments are splendid, but unfurnished. The Mussulman who occupied it before me had furnished one wing of the vast building after the Oriental fashion.
It is that wing that I live in. It is there that I retire during the burning heat of the day, for the windows open towards the north, and there is a delightful breeze.
Window-screens of fragrant bamboo half close the windows and permit me to enjoy the view while remaining in a soft obscurity.
The walls are covered with a silvery stucco, which glimmers like white satin, and are divided into panels of alternate lilac and green, where can be read in golden letters several verses of the Koran. The ceiling is richly painted, and divided into panels of lilac and green, with borders of golden arabesques.
A thick Persian carpet covers the floor. At the end of this room, a fountain of limpid water gushes from a basin of Oriental jasper, and falls in cascades with a gentle murmur. Great blue and gold vases, filled with flowers on which some tame doves come and perch, surround the fountain, and the aromatic perfume of the flowers reaches me in a fragrant mist.
Must I admit this fact? The pleasures of the senses are dear to me, and I delight in their satisfaction.