French and Oriental Love in a Harem

When the meal was over, the same Greek servants cleared the tables.

Night-time arrived and they lighted the chandeliers. Through the closed

shutters there came to us perfumes of myrtle and lilac. Cigarettes were

brought: Zouhra took one, lighted it, and after drawing a few mouthfuls,

offered it to me. I abandoned myself to their caprices.

Now, Louis, can you picture your friend luxuriously reclining on

cushions, and surrounded by these four daughters of Mahomet's Paradise,

in their lovely sultana's costumes, frolicking and prattling, and all

four of them so beautiful that I don't know which I should have

presented with the apple if I had been Paris? I assure you, it required

an effort to convince myself that all this was real. After a little

while I noticed that Mohammed Azis was no longer present; but thanks to

Kondjé-Gul, who had quite become my interpreter, our conversation became

brisk and general. Hadidjé taught me a Turkish game which is played with

flowers, and which I won't try to describe to you, as I hardly

understood it.

If I were to tell you all that happened that evening, I should be

relating a story of giddy madness and intoxication. I taught them in

return the game of "hunt the slipper;" you know it, don't you? We played

it as follows: there was a ribbon knotted at both ends, which we held,

sitting on the floor in a circle, and on which slips a ring, which one

of the players must seize in his hands. This, upon my word, finished me

up. What laughter, and what merry cries! Each of them, caught in her

turn, chose me of course as her mark. Every moment I found myself seized

and held prisoner in their naked, snowy arms. Upon my soul, it was

maddening!

It was nearly midnight when His Excellency returned. I had lost all

reckoning of the time; now I felt I must really make off. While I was

getting ready and saying a few words to Kondjé-Gul, Mohammed Azis spoke

to Zouhra, Nazli, and Hadidjé. I fancied that he was questioning them,

and that they replied in the negative. Then he spoke at greater length

to Kondjé-Gul; he appeared to me to be pressing her to give him an

account of my conversation with her, and that the result did not please

him. I was annoyed with myself at the thought that, maybe, I had been

the cause of her being reprimanded. At last he certainly ordered them to

retire, for they came to me, one after the other, and each of them, as

on entering, bowed to me in a respectful manner, saluting me with her

hand to her forehead, and kissed my hand; after this they went out,

leaving me in a frame of mind disordered beyond description.