Eight days have passed since the dramatic events, of which I have related to you the singular termination. Here I am involved in a regular conspiracy of deceit; I have a secret intrigue with one of my wives. Kondjé-Gul plays her part of estrangement in a most curious fashion, with an affectation of melancholy, combined with haughtiness, and the silly creature is delighted with her efforts. After two or three days of seclusion, she reappeared, talked cynically of her approaching departure, and rejoiced over it. We treat each other like spouses definitely divorced from each other, who are nevertheless paying each other, as well-bred people should do, a final tribute of strict politeness after the irreparable breach. Hadidjé, Nazli, and Zouhra, confident in a dominion which appears to them henceforth assured, admire my great qualities as a dispenser of justice.
My dear Louis, do you wish me to confess to you the most remarkable consequence of this business? Yes, of course you do. I promised that this psychological study should be conducted with sincerity, and that nothing should be shirked. Well then, in the course of my analytical observations, this mystery with Kondjé-Gul, these tastings of forbidden fruit, form certainly the most exquisite experience I have met with. You may tell me, if you like, that I am a pandour, and that my taste has been perverted by a life of unbridled Epicureanism; you may tell me that the charms of duplicity, of falsehood, and of this connivance in the guise of a childish deception, are exercising a morbid fascination over my demoralized heart. You may be right. I would only ask you to express yourself somewhat less bluntly. At any rate, you will not, I presume, expect me to account for the frailties of our mortal nature. I guess what you are thinking—out with it!
Notwithstanding my fine array of principles and the strict vows I made to myself to distribute my affections equally between my cadines, it certainly looks very much as if I have selected a favourite. Have I fallen to this extent? I don't know. What is the good, moreover, of arguing about it? Is it true that undisturbed possession is the rock upon which love splits, and that constraint, on the contrary, acts as a spur to it? Instead of arguing aimlessly about such inconsistencies in human nature, it seems to me much simpler to recognise in them, as Kondjé-Gul does, a decree of Fate. Can you blame me for sacrificing futile theories to the higher motives by which I am guided?
The fact is that this necessity for dissimulation, these deceptions, and these clandestine interviews, have produced between Kondjé-Gul and me a sort of spring-tide of delightful expansion of the affections. You should see us in the daytime, both of us as stiff as starch in the presence of the others. You should see the manoeuvres we perform in order to exchange a sly smile or a shake of the hands out of sight. You should see also what pretty little airs of disdain she puts on for her rivals, who are slumbering in their paradise of illusion! If we are alone by chance, she says,
"Quick! your wives are not here," and throws herself into my arms.
Those words coming from her lips, will reveal to you quite a new order of sentiments, a strange form of love, which could only spring from the education of the harem. Although civilised already at heart, Kondjé-Gul being still backward in her ideas and traditional associations, does not trouble herself about my other wives. She could not conceive of my being reduced to such a singular state of destitution as that of a poor or a miserly man, who abstains from the luxury of a few odalisques. In her eyes, Hadidjé, Zouhra, and Nazli, form part of my establishment, and of my daily routine; while she possesses me in secret. For her sake, I am unfaithful to them, I enter her chamber at night by the window, which I climb up to when all are asleep.
All this, you will tell me, is folly on my part. Ah, my dear fellow, our pleasure in life is only made up of such trifles, which our imagination generally provides for us. In those secret interviews I discovered in Kondjé-Gul, who was certainly endowed with a frank and straightforward mind, a number of graces which I had never been able to detect before during our intercourse in the harem. Nothing could be stranger or more fascinating than the love of this poor slave-sweetheart, still so humble and timid, and dazzled as it were by the brilliancy of her dream. Her oriental ideas and the superstitions of her childhood, mingled with the vague notions which she has acquired of our world and of a truer ideal, form within her heart and in her mind a most original collection of contrasts. One is reminded of a bird suddenly surprised at feeling her wings, but not yet venturing to launch out into the open. Add to all these attractions the impulses of a passion, exalted perhaps by solitude or by satisfaction at her victory over her rivals, and, even if you blame my conduct, you will at least understand the seductions which precipitated my fall.
At Férouzat we have great news: the camels have been discovered! A letter from Captain Picklock informed us of this. My uncle is quite jubilant; and we have planned a trip to Marseilles to meet them. Another piece of news is that my aunt has undertaken with Doctor Morand, without appearing to have a hand in it, a great philanthropic work. I must tell you that a few years ago the doctor discovered here a hot spring of ferruginous water, the effects of which upon the few patients whom he was able to induce to visit this hole, have been simply marvellous. What is wanted now is to establish there some sort of hospital for convalescents. My aunt at once decided that she, my uncle, and I should find the funds for it. A hundred thousand francs are more than sufficient for the modest foundation which we contemplate. But from motives of delicacy, and in order to avoid any appearance of ostentation, we arranged with the mayor and the vicar to open a subscription, in order that the enterprise might appear to be supported by public charity, and that all personal liberality should be concealed by associating the whole district with it. The consequence was that Férouzat has had a visit from the Prefect of the Department, accompanied by several members of the General Council, and that, in addition to this, my aunt has organised a committee of the leading inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Of course I am her secretary, and I leave you to guess whether her activity overworks me. I assure you my aunt has in her the making of a statesman.