We have settled our plan of life. Knowing the whole truth, as she does
now, about our social habits, she understands the necessity of veiling
our happiness under the most profound mystery. Confiding in the sanctity
of a tie which her religion legitimizes, she is aware that we must
conceal it from the eyes of the world, like any secret marriage.
Besides, what advantage would there be in lifting the veil of mystery,
and taking the poetry out of this romantic union--thus reducing it to
the vulgar level of an ordinary intrigue? If I were to treat my Kondjé
like a common mistress, would not that be degrading her?
When I tried to console her for the dulness which this constraint must
cause her, she exclaimed, with vehemence-"Be so good as not to calumniate my woman's heart! What do I care for
your country, and its laws, so long as you love me? I don't care to know
either your society, or its customs, or its conventionalities. I belong
to you, and I love you; that is all I see, all I feel. I am neither your
wife, nor your mistress. From the depths of my soul I feel that I am
more than either. I am your slave, and I wish to preserve my bonds.
Command me, do what you like with me; and when you love me no longer,
kill me, that's all!"
"Yes, dear!" I replied, laughing at her rhapsodies, "I will sew you up
in a sack, and go and throw you in the Bosphorus some evening!"
She received this remark with a peal of childish laughter.
"Goodness me!" she said, in her confusion; "why, I was quite forgetting
that I am civilised!"
Count Téral's house has been quite a find for us; it seems just as if it
had been built expressly for Kondjé-Gul and her mother. On the
ground-floor, approached by a short flight of eight steps, is a
drawing-room, which opens into a sort of hall, resembling an artist's
studio. The latter serves as picture-gallery, library, and concert-room.
Above the wainscoting the eye is relieved by silk hangings, of a large
grey-striped pattern on white ground, in contrast with which is the rich
garnet of a velvet-covered suite of furniture. There are some curious
old cabinets in carved ebony, set out with statuettes, vases, flowers,
and nick-nacks. The general effect is lively, enchanting, and luxurious;
in fact, just what the home of a young lady of patrician birth, who
confines herself to a small circle of friends, should be. On the first
floor are the private apartments, and on the second the servants' rooms.
The establishment is maintained on the elegant, yet simple scale, which
seems proper for members of good society; they keep three horses, and a
neat brougham: nothing more. Their luxuries, in short, are all in the
well-considered style suitable for a rich foreign lady and her daughter,
who mix in Parisian society with the reserve and delicate taste of two
women anxious to avoid attracting too much attention.