Notwithstanding my fine array of principles and the strict vows I made
to myself to distribute my affections equally between my cadines, it
certainly looks very much as if I have selected a favourite. Have I
fallen to this extent? I don't know. What is the good, moreover, of
arguing about it? Is it true that undisturbed possession is the rock
upon which love splits, and that constraint, on the contrary, acts as a
spur to it? Instead of arguing aimlessly about such inconsistencies in
human nature, it seems to me much simpler to recognise in them, as
Kondjé-Gul does, a decree of Fate. Can you blame me for sacrificing
futile theories to the higher motives by which I am guided?
The fact is that this necessity for dissimulation, these deceptions, and
these clandestine interviews, have produced between Kondjé-Gul and me a
sort of spring-tide of delightful expansion of the affections. You
should see us in the daytime, both of us as stiff as starch in the
presence of the others. You should see the manoeuvres we perform in
order to exchange a sly smile or a shake of the hands out of sight. You
should see also what pretty little airs of disdain she puts on for her
rivals, who are slumbering in their paradise of illusion! If we are
alone by chance, she says, "Quick! your wives are not here," and throws herself into my arms.
Those words coming from her lips, will reveal to you quite a new order
of sentiments, a strange form of love, which could only spring from the
education of the harem. Although civilised already at heart, Kondjé-Gul
being still backward in her ideas and traditional associations, does not
trouble herself about my other wives. She could not conceive of my being
reduced to such a singular state of destitution as that of a poor or a
miserly man, who abstains from the luxury of a few odalisques. In her
eyes, Hadidjé, Zouhra, and Nazli, form part of my establishment, and of
my daily routine; while she possesses me in secret. For her sake, I am
unfaithful to them, I enter her chamber at night by the window, which I
climb up to when all are asleep.
All this, you will tell me, is folly on my part. Ah, my dear fellow, our
pleasure in life is only made up of such trifles, which our imagination
generally provides for us. In those secret interviews I discovered in
Kondjé-Gul, who was certainly endowed with a frank and straightforward
mind, a number of graces which I had never been able to detect before
during our intercourse in the harem. Nothing could be stranger or more
fascinating than the love of this poor slave-sweetheart, still so humble
and timid, and dazzled as it were by the brilliancy of her dream. Her
oriental ideas and the superstitions of her childhood, mingled with the
vague notions which she has acquired of our world and of a truer ideal,
form within her heart and in her mind a most original collection of
contrasts. One is reminded of a bird suddenly surprised at feeling her
wings, but not yet venturing to launch out into the open. Add to all
these attractions the impulses of a passion, exalted perhaps by solitude
or by satisfaction at her victory over her rivals, and, even if you
blame my conduct, you will at least understand the seductions which
precipitated my fall.