Well! what of that?—My uncle is a Mussulman, you know; and, being a man of principle, his duties are more onerous than yours, that's all!
My services were required to take a little house at Passy, where she is to live. I wonder whether it is my aunt Gretchen, my aunt Euphrosine, or my aunt Cora? He has not given me the slightest hint on this point.
While awaiting this addition to our family, Barbassou-Pasha pursues his eccentric career in a manner that beats description. This visit to Paris has brought out more than ever the quaint independence of his character. One is reminded of a man who stands on a bridge watching the river flow by, but now and then takes a header into it to cool himself. The other day at the club, he lost sixty-three thousand francs to me at baccarat, just for a little distraction. The evening after, he was entertaining at our house his late Lieutenant Rabassu, whom he always speaks of as "the cause of his death," and who has come here upon some business. He won eleven francs from him at piquet, playing for a franc the hundred points. For the moment I felt quite alarmed for the poor victim! But my mind was soon set at ease; for Rabassu, who is used to his captain's play, knows how to cheat as cleverly as his master. Their losses soon balanced each other.
Putting aside little dissipations of this kind, I should add that "the late Barbassou" is really very steady-going for a man of his temperament. He takes everything which comes in the routine of our fashionable life so naturally, that nobody would imagine he had spent several years at the hulks in Turkey.
My aunt Eudoxia, of whom he stands in wholesome awe, and who keeps him in check, forces him to cultivate the vanities of this world. He escorts her to balls and fêtes with all that ceremony with which you are familiar; and quitting the lofty regions of his own philosophical existence, without however permitting anything to disturb his self-possession, he goes forth into the gay and hurried throngs of Paris with as little concern as he would into any village street. In short, he is in exquisite form, and—but for the legal disabilities which deprive him of his rights of citizenship—you would find him still exactly what he was when you knew him five years ago.
However, the other day he received a little shock in connection with a very simple incident, which might have been perfectly anticipated.
We were in my aunt's box at the Opera. The pasha, seated by her side, was listening to a singer who was rather more buxom than elegant; and he appeared to be calculating what her nett weight would be, after making deduction for her queen's crown and robes of state. After a minute or so, he seemed to have solved this equation and lost all further interest in the problem, for he began to examine the audience. All of a sudden he shouted out, quite forgetting himself, in his Provençal brogue:
"Té! What's that I see?"
"Hush!" said my aunt, nudging him with her elbow, without turning round.
"But, bagasse! it's Mohammed!" he added, in a lower tone.