The deed is done! We managed everything without the slightest hitch. I
write to you from Paris, from our house in the Rue de Varennes; it seems
like years since I was last there, so many things have happened during
the six months since I left it. All my surroundings belong to a life so
different from my present one, that it requires an exertion of thought
to identify myself and realise my position here.

My harem is established in the Rue de Monsieur--in the former "Parc aux
Cerfs" of my uncle--a splendid mansion, the gardens of which reach to
the Boulevard des Invalides. My uncle has absolutely the genius of an
ancient Epicurean transferred by accident into our own century. To look
at the street, with its cold and deserted aspect, one might imagine
oneself in a corner of aristocratic Versailles. My mystery is safely
hidden away there. Mohammed while at Paris is no longer an exiled
Minister, but simply a rich Turk who has acquired a taste for European
civilisation. His name is Omer-Rashid-Effendi, a name under which he has
already passed here twice.

My houris are astonished with all they see, and their pleasure is
indescribable. Of course my first care was to Europeanise their
toilettes. In pursuance of my orders (for, as you may be sure, I do not
appear in such matters) a fashionable dressmaker was sent for by
Mohammed. What a business it was! The difficulty was to avoid making
them, with their oriental styles and deportments, look stiff and awkward
when confined for the first time in the garb of our civilised
torture-house.