As to my houris of El-Nouzha, I need hardly tell you that the coming journey has been the subject of a most extraordinary enthusiasm on their part. The idea of seeing Paris has quite turned their heads, and caused them to forget their proposed visits to Férouzat. In order to put all conjectures off the scent, Mohammed is going to start to-morrow ostensibly for Marseilles, as if he were returning to Turkey. The cool November weather having set in, nothing could be more natural than this return to his native land. The end of his journey, however, will be the Faubourg St. Germain, to which he will direct his course by a circuitous route, and where I shall rejoin him on my arrival at Paris next week.
CHAPTER VII.
The deed is done! We managed everything without the slightest hitch. I write to you from Paris, from our house in the Rue de Varennes; it seems like years since I was last there, so many things have happened during the six months since I left it. All my surroundings belong to a life so different from my present one, that it requires an exertion of thought to identify myself and realise my position here.
My harem is established in the Rue de Monsieur—in the former "Parc aux Cerfs" of my uncle—a splendid mansion, the gardens of which reach to the Boulevard des Invalides. My uncle has absolutely the genius of an ancient Epicurean transferred by accident into our own century. To look at the street, with its cold and deserted aspect, one might imagine oneself in a corner of aristocratic Versailles. My mystery is safely hidden away there. Mohammed while at Paris is no longer an exiled Minister, but simply a rich Turk who has acquired a taste for European civilisation. His name is Omer-Rashid-Effendi, a name under which he has already passed here twice.
My houris are astonished with all they see, and their pleasure is indescribable. Of course my first care was to Europeanise their toilettes. In pursuance of my orders (for, as you may be sure, I do not appear in such matters) a fashionable dressmaker was sent for by Mohammed. What a business it was! The difficulty was to avoid making them, with their oriental styles and deportments, look stiff and awkward when confined for the first time in the garb of our civilised torture-house.
By a happy compromise between fashion and fancy, the clever artiste has contrived for them costumes which are marvels of good taste and simplicity. Nothing could be more successful than this metamorphosis; their coiffures complete the picture, and I can hardly recognise my almées under the bewitching little hats worn by our Parisian women. I assure you it is a transfiguration replete with surprises and unexpected charms. Attired like our women of fashion, their striking and original beauty, which was my admiration at El-Nouzha, impresses me in quite a novel manner, which I seem to understand better as I compare them by the side of our own women. Like young foreign ladies of distinction habited in the costumes of our civilisation, they seem to shed around them wherever they go a sort of exotic fragrance.
Everything, of course, had to be changed now that they are in Paris; they could no longer follow the routine of their former existence within the four walls of the harem. They were now at liberty to go out walking, and take little trips; but here at once appeared a most serious difficulty for them to overcome. How could they show themselves in the streets, the Champs Elysées, or the Bois, without their veils just like infidels? That was a serious question! It was impossible for them to make up their minds to such a shameful breach of Mussulman law; and, if I must admit it, I myself experienced a strange sort of revulsion at the thought of it. Yes, to this have I come! Nevertheless, on the other hand, it was quite out of the question for them to shew themselves out of doors enshrouded in their triple veils, attracting wherever they went the remarks of the idle crowd.