He
wrote immediately, using his knee for want of a table, pressed his
signet ring upon the letter, and gave it to me; but told me
laughingly not to say anything to his mother about his having drank
wine.
After meal time, I asked the prince whether he would allow me to pay
a visit to his wife,--I had already learned that one of his wives
was with him. My request was granted, and I was led immediately
into a building, near which had formerly been a small mosque.
I was here received in a cool arched apartment by a remarkably
handsome young creature. She was the most beautiful of all the
women I had ever yet seen in harems. Her figure, of middling
proportions, was most exquisitely symmetrical; her features were
noble and truly classical; and her large eyes had a melancholy
expression: the poor thing was alone here, and had no society but
an old female servant and a young gazelle. Her complexion, probably
not quite natural, was of dazzling whiteness, and a delicate red
tinted her cheeks. The eyebrows only, in my opinion, were very much
deformed by art.
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