He listened to me, stroking his beard with the somewhat derisive phlegm
of a practical man, who is not sorry to find that he has some companions
in misfortune. It even seemed to me that I could detect a touch of
malicious satisfaction, as if he still resented my conduct as an heir.
When I had finished he quietly remarked: "What an old stupid you are! You should have let her get married without
saying anything! In that way you would have saved us the expense of
sending her back home again."
"Well, unfortunately it's too late now for that, uncle," I answered.
To be brief, as the Turkish law does not allow the desertion or
dismissal of a cadine unless she be provided for, Zouhra is to be exiled
to Rhodes. The pasha has established there for his own use, a kind of
Botany Bay, which is a place both of retirement and rustication for his
invalided wives who have lost their freshness with age. The place is an
old abbey with spacious gardens planted with mimosas and orange trees,
and was purchased by auction for some ten thousand francs. The island is
delightful, and provisions are to be had there for nothing, according to
what my uncle tells me. Judge for yourself: fowls cost twopence each,
and everything else is to be had at correspondingly low prices. There
are already eleven women there, and it does not cost more than nine
thousand francs a year to keep them all on a proper footing, including
the board and wages of their servants.
Find me among our own boasted institutions any one to be compared with
that of my uncle--an institution established to provide for similar
contingencies, and the arrangements of which are equally good.