Читать книгу Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys - Дени Дидро, Дені Дідро, Denis Diderot - Страница 4

Mirzoza had already fixed Mangogul for some years. These lovers had said, and a thousand times repeated, all that a violent passion suggests to persons who have the most wit. They were got as far as confidences, and they would impute it to themselves as a crime, to conceal the most minute circumstance of their lives from each other. These singular suppositions, "If heaven, which has placed me on the throne, had given me an obscure low birth, would you have deign'd to descend down to me, would Mirzoza have crown'd me?" "Should Mirzoza happen to lose the few charms which she is thought to have, would Mangogul love her still?" These suppositions, I say, which exercise the fancy of ingenious lovers, which sometimes make tender lovers quarrel, and frequently oblige the most sincere lovers to tell untruths, were quite worn out between our pair.

The favorite, who possess'd in a supreme degree, the necessary and uncommon talent of making a good narrative, had drained the scandalous history of Banza. As she had not the best constitution, she was not always disposed to receive the Sultan's caresses, nor he always in the humour of offering them. In short, there were some days, in which Mangogul and Mirzoza had little to say, hardly any thing to do, and in which, without any diminution of love, they amused themselves but indifferently. Those days were rare indeed, but there were some; and this was one of them.

The Sultan was carelessly stretch'd on a sopha, opposite to the favorite, who was knotting in silence. The weather did not permit them to take a walk. Mangogul would not venture to propose a party of piquet; and this posture had lasted near a quarter of an hour, when the Sultan, yawning several times, said, "It must be allowed, that Geliotta sung like an angel." "And that your highness is tired to death," answered the favorite. "No, Madam," replied Mangogul, endeavouring to smother a yawn, "the minute that one sees you, is not that of tiresomeness." "If that is not a polite compliment, 'tis no body's fault but your own," rejoin'd Mirzoza: "but you ponder, you are absent, you yawn. Prince, what ails you?" "I know not," said the Sultan. "But I guess," continued the favorite. "I was eighteen, when I had the good fortune to please you. It is full four years since you began to love me. Eighteen and four make twenty-two. Therefore I am now very old." Mangogul smiled at this calculation. "But if I am no longer worth any thing for pleasure," added Mirzoza, "I will at least demonstrate that I am very good for advice. The variety of amusements which attend you, has not been able to secure you against disgust. You are disgusted. Prince, there is your disease." "I do not allow, that you have hit it off," says Mangogul: "but supposing you have, do you know a remedy?" Mirzoza answered the Sultan, after a moment's pause, that his highness seem'd to take so much pleasure at the narratives she made him of the gallantries of the town, that she was sorry she had no more to relate to him, or that she was not better informed of those of the court; that she would have tried that expedient, till she thought of somewhat better. "I think it a good one," says Mangogul: "But who knows the stories of all those fools; and tho' they were known to any, who could relate them like you?" "Let us learn them however," replied Mirzoza. "Whosoever it be that tells them, I am certain that your highness will gain more by the matter, than you will lose by the form." "I shall join with you, if you please, in fancying the adventures of the court ladies very diverting," says Mangogul: "but tho' they were to be a hundred times more so, what does that avail, if it be impossible to come at them?" "There may be a difficulty in it," answers Mirzoza, "but in my opinion, that is all. The Genius Cucufa, your relation and friend, has done greater things. Why do you not consult him?" "Ah, joy of my heart!" cried the Sultan, "you are an admirable Creature. I make no doubt but the Genius will employ all his power in my favour. This moment I shut myself up in my closet, and invoke him."

Accordingly Mangogul arose, kissed the favorite on the left eye, pursuant to the custom of Congo, and departed.