My harem is on strike.
You will ask me how this storm came to break upon me just as I was settling down into the most innocent and tranquil frame of mind? It can only be explained by a retrospective survey of certain domestic circumstances, which the changes that have been going on at Férouzat had caused me to overlook.
You will not have forgotten the terrible commotion caused in my harem by the news of my uncle's resurrection. My poor houris, dreading some fatal drama of the usual Turkish character, had indeed passed through a cruel time of distress and anguish. When their alarms were dissipated, a revival of animation soon manifested itself in their spirits; but, as ill-luck would have it, and as I have told you, one little detail of this day's proceedings, unimportant as it appeared at the time, was destined to disturb their harmony, so perfect hitherto, and to arouse their jealousies. Kondjé-Gul had been to the château, and a silly ambition to attempt the same freak had got into the heads of Nazli and Zouhra. I at once expressed a decided opposition to this childish scheme; but, of course, from the moment it met with opposition, it developed into a fixed purpose.
Within the limited circle of ideas in which they move, their imaginations had been excited—curiosity, the attractions of forbidden fruit. The long and the short of it was that, at the sight of their genuine disappointment—a disappointment aggravated by continual and jealous suspicions of a preference on my part for Kondjé-Gul—I had almost made up my mind to yield for one occasion, when my aunt arrived, which at once put an end to any thought of such good-natured but weak concessions.
I imagined myself to be armed now with an overwhelming reason for refusing their request, but it turned out quite otherwise. When they heard that my uncle's wife was at the château, they asked to be allowed to make her acquaintance. They said that they were really bound as cadines, according to Turkish custom, to pay their respects to my uncle's wife, "whom her position as legitimate spouse places hierarchically above us." I got over this difficulty by telling them that my aunt, being a Christian, was forbidden by her creed to have any intercourse with Mussulmans.
What especially distinguishes the Turkish woman, my dear Louis, from the woman whose character has been fashioned by our own remarkable civilisation, is the instinctive, inborn respect which she always preserves and observes towards man. Man is the master and the lord, she is his servant, and she would never dream of setting herself up as his equal. The Koran on this point has hardly at all modified the biblical traditions. Unfortunately for me, I must confess that in my household I have disregarded the law of Islam. Inspired by a higher ideal, you will understand, without my mentioning it, that my first object has been to abolish slavery from my harem, by inculcating into the minds of my houris principles more in conformity with the Christianity which I profess. I wished, like a modern Prometheus, to kindle the divine spark in these young and beautiful barbarians, whose minds are still wrapped up in their oriental superstitions. I wished to elevate their souls, to cultivate their minds, and in short, to make them my free companions and no longer my helots.
I may assert with pride that I have been partially successful in my task. Three months of this treatment had hardly elapsed before all traces of servile subordination had disappeared. With this faculty for metamorphosis existing in them, which all women possess, but which is for ever denied to us men, and thanks above all to the revelations of our customs and habits contained in novels of my selection, which Kondjé-Gul read to them during my hours of absence, and to which they listened with admiration (for they were eager to know all about this world of ours, which was as yet unknown to them), I soon obtained a charming combination. Their strange exotic mixture of oriental graces, blending happily with efforts to imitate the refinements of our civilisation, their artless tokens of ignorance, their coquettish and feline instincts, their voluptuous bearing in process of attempted transformation into bashful reserve, all these phenomena afforded me the most delightful subject for study ever entered on by a philosopher.
Nevertheless, I must admit that the education of their intellects did not keep pace with the cultivation of their ideas, but rendered them still liable to commit a number of solecisms. I had an interest, moreover, in keeping them in a certain degree of ignorance of the actual laws of our own world. Imbued with their native ideas, their credulity accepted without hesitation, everything which I chose to tell them about "the customs of the harems of France," and they conformed to them without making any pretence to further knowledge of them. None the less, there began to grow up in their minds ideas of independence and self-will, the natural consequences of the elevation effected in their sentiments. The notion of a truer and more tender love was used by them henceforth as a weapon against my absolute authority. Only too happy to be treated as a lover rather than a master, I did not feel any loss in this respect: love is kept alive by these numberless little stratagems of a woman, who loves and desires—yet desires not—and so forth. And then, you must remember, I had four wives.
They on their part, having no aims, no ambitions, but to please me, the sole object of their common love, each tried to effect my conquest in order to obtain the advantage over her rivals—an emulation of which I experienced all the charms. Notwithstanding the fact that I distributed my affections with a rare impartiality, I could not always prevent the occurrence of jealous quarrels among them. Afterwards ensued regrets tender reproaches, and clouds of sadness melting into tears. Peace was restored amid foolish outbursts of mirth. But you cannot realise what a task it has been for me to preserve the harmony of a well-regulated household among creatures with their impulsive imaginations, which have ripened under the heat of their native oriental sun. They have mixed up their superstitions with those higher principles of which I have endeavoured to inculcate a notion into their minds, and which they often interpret in quite a different sense. All this has been the occasion for the display of charming eccentricities. My little animals have grown into women, and along with the development of a more intelligent love, I have seen manifestations of a coquettish mutinous spirit, upon the slightest evidence of partiality on my part, which they have thought to detect in me.