"My tastes are those of a simple bachelor."
Observe moreover that, out of regard for probability, no less than from
respect for local colouring, I was obliged to decide upon a somewhat
simple harem, and to confine it within the strictly necessary limits.
Like a school-boy, falling in love with the heroine he has put into his
story, I found myself so charmed with my fancy, that in order to further
enjoy my pleasures of illusion, I determined not to overstep the limits
of a perfectly realisable adventure.
But since I abandoned myself to this folly, does it not seem to you,
reconsidering the matter, that a great deal would have been lost if such
a romance had never occurred to me? And above all if it had stopped
short at the first page? Is it not astonishing that no author had
thought of writing such a thing before? Would not this have been just
the work for a moralist and a philosopher, worthy at once of a poet and
of a scholar? This poor world of ours, madam, moves in a narrow circle
of passions and sensations, so limited that it seems to me as if every
soul rather more lofty than the average must continually feel itself
imprisoned. What felicity it must be, by a single flight of the
imagination, to escape from this prison locked by prejudice! To fly away
into the regions of dreamland! Slave of our civilized conventions, what
bliss to run away unfettered into the shady paths of the pagan world,
peopled with its merry, enchanting nymphs! Or again to wander, like a
happy child of Asiatic climes in gardens of sycamores, where young
sultanas bathe and disport themselves in basins of porphyry. The Bois de
Boulogne is a charming place, no doubt, madam; but you will admit that
it is inferior to the Valley of Roses, and that the painted and
bedizened young women you see there will bear no comparison with my
houris.
What, then? Does my thirst after the ideal merit any censure? Do not you
consider, you who read novels, that it would, on the contrary, be an
instructive as well as a curious study to follow up the strange
incidents which would necessarily result from such a very natural
conjunction of oriental love transferred to the midst of our own world?
What contrasts they would provoke, and what strange occurrences! Does
not the absence of such a study leave a void in our illustrious
literature?
But I divine upon your lips a word which frightens me--"Immoral!
Immoral!" you say.
Madam, this word shows me that you are strangely mistaken about my pure
intentions. You are a woman of considerable intelligence; let us
understand each other like philosophers or moralists. Suppose my name
to be Hassan. You would read without the least ruffle on your brow the
very simple narrative of my pretended amours, and if they were hindered
by any untoward obstacles, you would perhaps accord them a small tribute
of tears, such as you have doubtless shed over the misfortunes of poor
Namouna. The question of morality therefore, is in this case simply a
question of latitude, and the impropriety of my situation would
disappear at once if I inhabited the banks of the Bosphorus, or some
palace at Bagdad.