Next, out of consideration for your poor intellect, let me inform you also that under the blessed skies of Turkey the wife has no such presumptuous ambition as that of possessing a husband all to herself. Reared with a view to the harem, the young girl aims no higher in her ambitious fancy than to become the favourite and outshine her rivals; but never, never in the world, does she conceive the outlandish notion of becoming the sole object of the affections of lover, master, or husband. The ideal of girls like Zouhra, Nazli, Hadidjé, and Kondjé-Gul, is the life which I am now giving them; they abandon themselves to it, as to the realisation of their hopes. Their notions respecting the destiny of woman do not go beyond this happiness, which they now possess, of pleasing their master and being loved in this way by him. It is no use, therefore, for you to string together a lot of conventional abstractions with a view to drawing from them any deductions applicable to the laws of the Kingdom of Love.
The truth is that Hadidjé, Nazli, and Zouhra burst into transports of joy when Kondjé-Gul repeated to them my promise to be "faithful to all four of them."
My dear fellow, there is a great deal of the child remaining in these creatures, who seem to have been only created to expand their beauty, as flowers are to exhale their perfume. Cloistered in the life of the harem, their ideas do not reach beyond the horizon of the harem. Their hearts and their minds have only been cultivated by recitals of wonderful legends and of superstitious romances of love; they know nothing else.
You may say, if you like, that they are just pretty little animals without souls—but you would be wrong. Again I repeat, most of our so-called refined and civilised ideas about sentiment, virtue, propriety, and modesty, are conventional ideas, differing according to place, climate, and habits; and this you will see clearly by following my story, which I may with good reason call natural history, for when I take the instincts of my little animals by surprise, they display for a moment bold impulses which bear much more resemblance to genuine innocence of mind than do certain affectations of modesty practised by the young ladies of our educated society.
The slipper being nearly dry, Kondjé-Gul put it on her little arched foot, with its famous light green silk stocking, and we recommenced our course through the park. I will say nothing about a row we took in a boat on the lake, with great willows on its banks. The swans and the Mandarin ducks followed us in procession.
Mohammed, like a wise man, had foreseen that I should stay at the Kasre. The dinner this time was served in the French style. He did not sit down with us as he had done the day before; I had no longer need of him, and he returned to the obscure position which he was henceforth to occupy during my visits. I sat down to table, therefore, with my houris; and this meal, in which everything was new to them, became a veritable feast. They nibbled and tasted a bit of everything with exclamations of surprise, with careful investigations, and with little gourmandish airs of inexpressible charm. I should tell you that my cook only won their unanimous approbation at dessert, when they commenced to make a sort of second dinner of sweets and cakes, creams and fruit. The champagne pleased them above all things, and would have ended by turning their little heads, but for my careful attention. Whilst they vied with each other in merriment and gay prattle, I was thinking of that oriental meal of the night before in which I had seated myself by them in the reserved attitude of a stranger. What a dream fulfilled! What fairy's wand had produced this magical effect? I tell you it was a regular transformation scene. At dessert Hadidjé bent her head down to me with a mischievous look, and laughed as she spoke some Turkish word.
"Sana yanarim!" I replied, emphasizing the sentence with a kiss on her hand. I had learnt from Kondjé-Gul that it means "I love you," or more literally, "I am burning for you."
You may guess how successful this was, and with what shouts of joy it was received. Of course there followed a little make-believe scene of jealousy on the part of the others.
"Kianet! ah, Kianet!" they repeated, laughing, and threatening me with uplifted fingers. This expression signifies "ungrateful."
When evening arrived I took them into the park to calm the warmth of their emotions down a little. It was a splendid moonlight night, and the long black shadows of the trees stretched over the walk. As we passed these dark places the timid creatures pressed close about me.