French and Oriental Love in a Harem

I had already come to the conclusion that it would be better to calm

their minds, and thus avoid all inconvenient enquiries. I therefore gave

them an account, which after all was not far from the truth, namely,

that Omer-Rashid-Effendi was a rich Turk, "whose acquaintance I had the

honour of making at Damascus, and who had come to stay at Paris with his

family." I thus insured myself against any suspicion of mystery arising

in connection with my visits to the house in the Rue de Monsieur, in the

event of these coming to light by any chance.

Our relations, you will see, were thus defined once for all. This new

life is nothing but a succession of delights to my almées; and I have

really now attained the ideal in the way of harems, through the absence

of that monotony which is the inevitable result of the system of rigid

seclusion. Under the influence of our civilized surroundings, the ideas

of my houris are undergoing a gradual transformation. They have French

lady's maids, and their study of our refinements of fashion has opened

out quite a new world of coquettish charms to them. My "little animals"

have grown into women: this single word will convey to you the whole

delicious significance of this story of mine, the secret of which you

alone in the whole world possess.

As we had decided, Kondjé-Gul has been separated from her over-jealous

companions. Hadidjé, Zouhra, and Nazli have taken this measure to be a

confirmation of her disgrace, and knowing that she lives in a

sequestered corner of the house, they fancy their triumph more assumed

than ever. I can place implicit confidence in the discretion of my

servants--who wait on us like mutes in a seraglio: consequently

Kondjé-Gul and I are as free as possible. When I want to go out with

her, I pay a short visit to my wives, and after a quarter of an hour's

talk, leave them and go off in my carriage, in the recesses of which my

darling reclines. Now you see what a simple device it is and how

ingenious; still it involves a certain amount of constraint for me, and

an isolation hard to endure for Kondjé-Gul. She reads and devours

everything that I bring her in the way of books; but the days are long,

and Mohammed, with his time taken up by the others, cannot accompany her

out of doors. I therefore conceived the idea of taking her away from the

harem altogether, and thus relieving her of the contemptuous insults

which my other silly women still find opportunities of inflicting upon

her. The difficulty was to procure a chaperon for her, some kind of

suitable and reliable duenna whom I could leave with her in a separate

establishment; this duenna has been found.