And now begone, thou inhospitable outer world! thou oppressive mountain panorama! thou desolate horizon!
Appear, ye fairy realms! ye earthly counterfeits of the paradise of dreams! Permit us one glance into the sanctuary of mysterious joys, of stifled kisses, of glowing sighs, where Love and Love's satellites alone do dwell and live!
We see before us a gorgeous circular saloon. Its spacious walls are made of mirrors, the perpetual reflection of which lends a peculiar lustre to every object, nowhere suffering a shadow to fall. The sky-blue cupola of the domed ceiling is supported by slender, dark-red porphyry columns, half concealed by clusters of exotic flowers, which, heaped profusely together in rose-coloured porcelain vases, scatter the gold-dust of their velvet blossoms on the floor. The floor itself is covered with silk carpets—only here and there does the mosaic pavement shimmer forth. In the midst of the room, in a basin of rose-coloured marble, bubbles a crystal-clear fountain, from the centre of which springs a jet glistening with all the hues of the rainbow, and falling back in showers of liquid pearls. The water of this fountain is introduced into the fortress through a secret passage by hidden pipes. All along the walls extend rows of velvet divans with cylindrical, flowered cashmere cushions; and on every side of us are fairies, laughing young girls dancing on the carpets, romping on the divans, and splashing one another with the water of the fountain. One odalisk swings a cymbal above her head, and dances with audacious leaps and bounds among the rest, who, winding their hands together, weave a magic circle around her. Three Nubian eunuchs accompany the dancers, singing love-lorn lays to the music of their simple pipes.
The veils of these fairy forms flutter left and right, revealing faces whose youthful charms no eye of man has ever gazed upon. The patter of their tiny feet is scarcely audible on the soft carpets. They seem to fly. Their light muslin robes ill conceal their youthful forms, and their tresses, escaping from their turbans, writhe down their snow-white shoulders like tame serpents.
A black slave is playing with the little gold fish that dart about in the basin of the fountain, and laughs aloud whenever any of the nimble little animals wriggle out of her hands. Her white, embroidered robe is held together by a golden girdle, and as she sits there on the rosy marble, the hemispheres of her ebony-black bosom and her plump round arms glisten in the sunbeams. The glow of youth shines through her dark features, and her coral lips, radiant with mirth and joy, allow us a glimpse at rows of the purest pearly teeth, as, with childish glee, she laughs at her own simple sport.
At the end of this oval saloon, raised a few feet above the floor, stands a purple ottoman. The rosy-coloured damask curtains, which form a baldachin over it, are tied to the branches of enormous jasmine trees by heavy golden tassels. Oriental butterflies, with ultramarine wings, flutter round about the silvery jasmine blossoms; and at the head of the ottoman, on a perch in a golden cage, two little inseparable paroquets, with emerald wings and carmine heads, nestle close together and kiss each other perpetually.
Stretched out to her full length upon the ottoman lies Corsar Beg's favourite odalisk[21] Azrael. Beneath her snow-white elbows, left bare by the loose-falling, laced sleeves of her ample kaftan, lies a living panther, like a bright speckled cushion, licking his glossy skin, and playing like a young kitten with his mistress's jasper-black locks which descend upon his head.
[21] Odalisk, from Turkish Odalyk = chamber-maid. Applied particularly to the chief concubines of the Sultan.
The young lady has well chosen her companion. She too is as slender and as supple as he; her limbs are just as flexible as his; her slight figure has the same undulating motion, and in her languid eyes burns just the same savage, half-quenched fire which we see in the eyes of the half-tamed beast of prey. She lies supine on the ottoman. The amber mouthpiece of her fragrant narghily droops from her listless hand. Close by, on a little ivory table, spiced sherbet exhales from a golden bowl. There too, on Japanese dishes, lie heaps of luscious fruit—golden, warty melons; pine-apples; the red fruit of the palm; fragrant clusters of grapes—and, dripping down upon a little silver platter, snow-white comb-honey, gathered by the bees in the days of the acacia's bloom.