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.