These leading events of his Odyssey being known, the more private facts and deeds of the life of Barbassou-Pasha are lost in obscurity. As for his physical characteristics, you will remember the great Marseillais six-foot high, with sinewy frame and muscles of steel; your mind's eye can picture still the formidable, bearded face, the savage and terrible eye, the rough voice, the complete type in short of "the pirate at his ease," as you used to say, when laughing sometimes at his quiet humour. After all, an easy-going soul, and the best of uncles!
As for my own recollections, so far back as they go, the following is all I have ever known of him. Being continually at sea, he had placed me at school quite young. One year, while at his château at Férouzat, he sent for me during the holidays. I was six years old, and saw him for the first time. He held me up in his arms to examine my face and features, then turning me gently round in the air, he felt my sides, after which—satisfied, no doubt, as to my build—he put me down again with great care, as if afraid of breaking me.
"Kiss your aunt!" he said.
I obeyed him.
My aunt at that time was a very handsome young woman of twenty-two to twenty-four, a brunette with great black, almond-shaped eyes, and fine features on a perfect oval face. She placed me on her knees and covered me with kisses, lavishing on me the most tender expressions, among which she mingled words of a foreign language which sounded like music, so sweet and harmonious was her voice. I conceived a great affection for her. My uncle let me do just as I liked, and allowed no hindrances to be put in my way. Thus it happened that at the end of my holidays I did not want to return to school again, and should certainly have succeeded in getting my way, if it had not been that Barbassou-Pasha's ship was waiting for him at Toulon.
You may imagine with what joy I returned to Férouzat the next year. My uncle welcomed me with the same delight, and betook himself to the same examination of my physical structure. When his anxieties were satisfied, he said to me—
"Kiss your aunt!"
I kissed my aunt: but, as I kissed her, I was rather surprised to find her very much altered. She had become fair and pink-complexioned. A certain firm and youthful plumpness, which suited her remarkably well, gave her the appearance of a girl of eighteen. Being more bashful than at our former interview, she tendered me her fresh cheeks with a blush. I noticed also that her accent had undergone a modification, and now very much resembled the accent of one of my school-fellows who was Dutch. As I expressed my surprise at these changes, my uncle informed me that they had just returned from Java. This explanation sufficed for me, I did not ask any more questions, and henceforth I accustomed myself every year to the various metamorphoses of my aunt. The metamorphosis which pleased me the least was that which she contracted after a voyage to Bourbon, from which she returned a mulattress, but without ceasing still to be remarkably handsome. My uncle, it should be mentioned, was always very good to her, and I have never known a happier household.
Unfortunately Barbassou-Pasha, being engaged in important affairs, stayed away three years, and when I returned to Férouzat, he kissed me and received me by himself. When I asked after my aunt, he told me that he was a widower. As this misfortune did not appear to affect him very seriously, I made up my mind to treat it with the same indifference that he did.
Since that time I never saw any woman at the château, except once in an isolated part of the park, where I met two shadowy beings, closely and mysteriously veiled. They were taking a walk, accompanied by an old fellow of singular aspect, clothed in a long robe with a tarbouch on his head, who greatly excited my curiosity. My uncle told me that this was His Excellency, Mohammed-Azis, one of his friends at Constantinople, whom he had taken in with his family after they had undergone persecution at the hands of the Sultan. He lodged him in another little château adjoining Férouzat, in order that they might be able to live more comfortably in Turkish style: those young persons were two of his daughters.