LETTER LXXIX. The Chief black Eunuch to Usbek, at Paris.

SOME Armenians, yesterday, brought to the seraglio a young Circassian slave, whom they desired to sell. I made her enter the private apartments, there I undressed her, I examined her with the eyes of a judge, and the more I observed her, the more beauties I discovered. A virgin modesty seemed to conceal them from my view; I saw how much it cost her to submit; she blushed at seeing herself naked, even before me, who, exempt from those passions which might alarm her modesty, am unmoved under the empire of that sex; and who, the minister of modesty, in the freest actions, bring only chaste looks, and can inspire nothing but innocence. From the moment I judged her worthy of thee, I bent my eyes downwards; I threw a scarlet mantle over her; I put upon her finger a ring of gold; I prostrated myself at her feet; I adored her as the queen of thy heart. I paid the Armenians; I shut her up from every eye. Happy Usbek, thou possessest greater beauties than are enclosed in all the palaces of the east. What pleasure to thee, to find at thy return, all that Persia hath most delightful! and to see in thy seraglio all the graces re-born, as fast as time and possession labour their destruction.

From the seraglio at
Fatme, the 1st of the moon of the 1st Rebiab,
1715.