French and Oriental Love in a Harem

Perhaps you will say that we need not see in these irregularities

anything more than a sort of licensed depravity, tolerated for the sake

of maintaining a virtuous ideal. But consider the fatal consequences of

this hypocrisy. What becomes of our aspirations of the age of twenty, of

our dreams and poetic fancies, after we have plunged into these wretched

connections, these degrading, promiscuous attachments which form the

current of our present habits, and from which we emerge at the age of

thirty, sceptics, and with hearts and souls tarnished? What do we reap

from these frenzies of unhealthy passion, but contempt for woman, and

disbelief in anything virtuous?

For the Turk there is no such thing as illegitimate love, and woman is

the object of absolute respect. Never having more than one master, she

cannot fall in his esteem. Having been bought as a slave, she becomes a

wife directly she sets foot in the harem; her rights are sacred, and she

cannot any more be abandoned. The laws protect her; she has a recognised

position, a title; her children are legitimate, and if by chance-I suspend this philosophical digression, in order to inform you of a

momentous occurrence. El-Nouzha has just been the scene of a sanguinary

drama. A rebellion has broken out among my sultanas.

My harem is on strike.

You will ask me how this storm came to break upon me just as I was

settling down into the most innocent and tranquil frame of mind? It can

only be explained by a retrospective survey of certain domestic

circumstances, which the changes that have been going on at Férouzat had

caused me to overlook.

You will not have forgotten the terrible commotion caused in my harem by

the news of my uncle's resurrection. My poor houris, dreading some fatal

drama of the usual Turkish character, had indeed passed through a cruel

time of distress and anguish. When their alarms were dissipated, a

revival of animation soon manifested itself in their spirits; but, as

ill-luck would have it, and as I have told you, one little detail of

this day's proceedings, unimportant as it appeared at the time, was

destined to disturb their harmony, so perfect hitherto, and to arouse

their jealousies. Kondjé-Gul had been to the château, and a silly

ambition to attempt the same freak had got into the heads of Nazli and

Zouhra. I at once expressed a decided opposition to this childish

scheme; but, of course, from the moment it met with opposition, it

developed into a fixed purpose.

Within the limited circle of ideas in which they move, their

imaginations had been excited--curiosity, the attractions of forbidden

fruit. The long and the short of it was that, at the sight of their

genuine disappointment--a disappointment aggravated by continual and

jealous suspicions of a preference on my part for Kondjé-Gul--I had

almost made up my mind to yield for one occasion, when my aunt arrived,

which at once put an end to any thought of such good-natured but weak

concessions.