had just sent forth into space, addressed Faringhea, without looking at him, and said to him in the language, as hyperbolical as concise, of Orientals: 'Time passes. The old man with the good heart does not come. But he will come. His word is his word.'
'His word is his word, my lord,' repeated Faringhea, in an affirmative tone. 'When he came to fetch you, three days ago, from the house whither those wretches, in furtherance of their wicked designs, had conveyed you in a deep sleep—after throwing me, your watchful and devoted servant, into a similar state—he said to you: 'The unknown friend, who sent for you to Cardoville Castle, bids me come to you, prince. Have confidence, and follow me. A worthy abode is prepared for you.'—And again, he said to you, my lord: 'Consent not to leave the house, until my return. Your interest requires it. In three days you will see me again, and then be restored to perfect freedom.' You consented to those terms, my lord, and for three days you have not left the house.'
'And I wait for the old man with impatience,' said Djalma, 'for this solitude is heavy with me. There must be so many things to admire in Paris. Above all.'
Djalma did not finish the sentence, but relapsed into a reverie. After some moments' silence, the son of Radja-sing said suddenly to Faringhea, in the tone of an impatient yet indolent sultan: 'Speak to me!'
'Of what shall I speak, my lord?'
'Of what you will,' said Djalma, with careless contempt, as he fixed on the ceiling his eyes, half-veiled with languor. 'One thought pursues me—I wish to be diverted from it. Speak to me.'
Faringhea threw a piercing glance on the countenance of the young Indian, and saw that his cheeks were colored with a slight blush. 'My lord,' said the half-caste, 'I can guess your thought.'
Djalma shook his head, without looking at the Strangler. The latter resumed: 'You are thinking of the women of Paris, my lord.'
'Be silent, slave!' said Djalma, turning abruptly on the sofa, as if some painful wound had been touched to the quick. Faringhea obeyed.
After the lapse of some moments. Djalma broke forth again with impatience, throwing aside the tube of the hookah, and veiling both eyes with his hands: 'Your words are better than silence. Cursed be my thoughts, and the spirit which calls up these phantoms!'
'Why should you fly these thoughts, my lord? You are nineteen years of age, and hitherto all your youth has been spent in war and captivity. Up to this time, you have remained as chaste as Gabriel, that young Christian priest, who accompanied us on our voyage.'
Though Faringhea did not at all depart from his respectful deference for the prince, the latter felt that there was something of irony in the tone of the half-caste, as he pronounced the word 'chaste.'
Djalma said to him with a mixture of pride and severity: 'I do not wish to pass for a barbarian, as they call us, with these civilized people; therefore I glory in my chastity.'
'I do not understand, my lord.'
'I may perhaps love some woman, pure as was my mother when she married my father; and to ask for purity from a woman, a man must be chaste as she.'
At this, Faringhea could not refrain from a sardonic smile.
'Why do you laugh, slave?' said the young prince, imperiously.
'Among civilized people, as you call them, my lord, the man who married in the flower of his innocence would be mortally wounded with ridicule.'
'It is false, slave! He would only be ridiculous if he married one that was not pure as himself.'
'Then, my lord, he would not only be wounded—he would be killed outright, for he would be doubly and unmercifully laughed at.'
'It is false! it is false. Where did you learn all this?'
'I have seen Parisian women at the Isle of France, and at Pondicherry, my lord. Moreover, I learned a good deal during our voyage; I talked with a young officer, while you conversed with the young priest.'
'So, like the sultans of our harems, civilized men require of women the innocence they have themselves lost.'
'They require it the more, the less they have of it, my lord.'
'To require without any return, is to act as a master to his slave; by what right?'
'By the right of the strongest—as it is among us, my lord.'
'And what do the women do?'
'They prevent the men from being too ridiculous, when they marry, in the eyes of the world.'
'But they kill a woman that is false?' said Djalma, raising himself abruptly, and fixing upon Faringhea a savage look, that sparkled with lurid fire.
'They kill her, my lord, as with us—when they find her out.'
'Despots like ourselves! Why then do these civilized men not shut up their women, to force them to a fidelity which they do not practise?'
'Because their civilization is barbarous, and their barbarism civilized, my lord.'
'All this is sad enough, if true,' observed Djalma, with a pensive air, adding, with a species of enthusiasm, employing, as usual, the mystic and figurative language familiar to the people of his country; 'yes, your talk afflicts me, slave—for two drops of dew blending in the cup of a flower are as hearts that mingle in a pure and virgin love; and two rays of light united in one inextinguishable flame, are as the burning and eternal joys of lovers joined in wedlock.'
Djalma spoke of the pure enjoyments of the soul with inexpressible grace, yet it was when he painted less ideal happiness, that his eyes shone like stars; he shuddered slightly, his nostrils swelled, the pale gold of his complexion became vermilion, and the young prince sank into a deep reverie.
Faringhea, having remarked this emotion, thus spoke: 'If, like the proud and brilliant king-bird of our woods, you prefer numerous and varied pleasures to solitary and monotonous amours—handsome, young, rich as you are, my lord, were you to seek out the seductive Parisians—voluptuous phantoms of your nights—charming tormentors of your dreams—were you to cast upon them looks bold as a challenge, supplicating as prayers, ardent as desires —do you not think that many a half-veiled eye would borrow fire from your glance? Then it would no longer be the monotonous delights of a single love, the heavy chain of our life—no, it would be the thousand pleasures of the harem—a harem peopled with free and proud beauties, whom happy love would make your slaves. So long constrained, there is no such thing as excess to you. Believe me, it would then be you, the ardent, the magnificent son of our country, that would become the love and pride of these women—the most seductive in the world, who would soon have for you no looks but those of languor and passion.'
Djalma had listened to Faringhea with silent eagerness. The expression of his features had completely changed; it was no longer the melancholy and dreaming youth, invoking the sacred remembrance of his mother, and finding only in the dew of heaven, in the calyx of flowers, images sufficiently pure to paint the chastity of the love he dreamed of; it was no longer even the young man, blushing with a modest ardor at the thought of the permitted joys of a legitimate union. No! the incitements of Faringhea had kindled a subterraneous fire; the inflamed countenance of Djalma, his eyes now sparkling and now veiled, his manly and sonorous respiration, announced the heat of his blood, the boiling up of the passions, only the more energetic, that they had been hitherto restrained.
So, springing suddenly from the divan, supple, vigorous, and light as a young tiger, Djalma clutched Faringhea by the throat exclaiming: 'Thy words are burning poison!'
'My lord,' said Faringhea, without opposing the least resistance, 'your slave is your slave.' This submission disarmed the prince.
'My life belongs to you,' repeated the half-caste.
'I belong to you, slave!' cried Djalma, repulsing him. 'Just now, I hung upon your lips, devouring your dangerous lies.'
'Lies, my lord? Only appear before these women, and their looks will confirm my words.'
'These women love me!—me, who have only lived in war and in the woods?'
'The thought that you, so young, have already waged bloody war on men and tigers, will make them adore, my lord.'
'You lie!'
'I tell you, my lord, on seeing your hand, as delicate as theirs, but which has been so often bathed in hostile blood, they will wish to caress it; and they will kiss it again, when they think that, in our forests, with loaded rifle,
