Five or six weeks after our intimacy began, Yusuf asked me one day whether I was married.
"I am not," I answered.
The conversation turned upon several moral questions, and at last fell upon chastity.
"Chastity," he said, "can be called a virtue only when it means total abstinence. Even then, I do not see how it can be pleasing to God."
"Why not?"
"Because it transgresses against the very first precept He had given to man."
He continued, "I would like to know, for instance, what name can be given to the chastity of your knights of Malta. They take a vow of chastity, but it does not mean that they will renounce women altogether, they renounce marriage only."
"That is true."
"Their chastity, and therefore chastity in general, is violated only by marriage; yet I observe that marriage is one of your sacraments. Therefore, those knights of Malta promise not to give way to lustful incontinence in the only case in which God might forgive it, but they reserve the license of being lustful unlawfully as often as they please, and whenever an opportunity may offer itself."
I could not help smiling.
He went on.
"And that immoral, illicit license is granted to them to such an extent, that they are allowed to acknowledge legally a child which can be born to them only through a double crime! The most revolting part of it all is that these children of crime, who are of course perfectly innocent themselves, are called natural children, as if children born in wedlock came into the world in an unnatural manner!"
The remark was too just not to amuse me.
He leaned back, his pipe resting between his fingers.
"In one word, my dear son, the vow of chastity is so much opposed to Divine precepts and to human nature that it can be agreeable neither to God nor to society, nor to those who pledge themselves to keep it, and being in such opposition to every divine and human law, it must be a crime."
He asked me again whether I was married.
"No," I said. "And I have no idea of ever getting married."
He looked at me with surprise.
"What!" he exclaimed; "I must then believe that you are not a perfect man, or that you intend to work out your own damnation; unless you should tell me that you are a Christian only outwardly."
"I am a man," I answered, "in the very strongest sense of the word, and I am a true Christian. I must even confess that I adore women, and that I have not the slightest idea of depriving myself of the most delightful of all pleasures."
"According to your religion, damnation awaits you."
"I feel certain of the contrary, because, when we confess our sins, our priests are compelled to give us absolution."
"I know it," Yusuf said, "but you must agree with me that it is absurd to suppose that God will forgive a crime which you would, perhaps, not commit, if you did not think that, after confession, a priest, a man like you, will give you absolution. God forgives only the repenting sinner."
"No doubt of it, and confession supposes repentance; without it, absolution has no effect."
Yusuf considered me for a moment. His eyes had that calm persistence which made evasion difficult.
"Is onanism a crime amongst you?"
"Yes, even greater than lustful and illegitimate copulation."
"I was aware of it," he replied, "and it has always caused me great surprise, for the legislator who enacts a law, the execution of which is impossible, is a fool. A man in good health, if he cannot have a woman, must necessarily have recourse to onanism, whenever imperious nature demands it, and the man who, from fear of polluting his soul, would abstain from it, would only draw upon himself a mortal disease."
"We believe exactly the reverse," I said, "we think that young people destroy their constitutions, and shorten their lives through self-abuse. In several communities they are closely watched, and are as much as possible deprived of every opportunity of indulging in that crime."
"Those who watch them," Yusuf said, "are ignorant fools, and those who pay the watchers for such a service are even more stupid, because prohibition must excite the wish to break through such a tyrannical law, to set at naught an interdiction so contrary to nature."
"Yet it seems to me that self-abuse in excess must be injurious to health," I said, "for it must weaken and enervate."
"Certainly, because excess in everything is prejudicial and pernicious; but all such excess is the result of our severe prohibition. If girls are not interfered with in the matter of self-abuse, I do not see why boys should be."
"Because girls are very far from running the same risk," I answered, "they do not lose a great deal in the action of self-abuse, and what they lose does not come from the same source whence flows the germinal liquid in men."
"I do not know," he said, "but we have some physicians who say that chlorosis in girls is the result of that pleasure indulged in to excess."
After many conversations of this kind, in which Yusuf seemed to consider me as endowed with reason and talent, even when I was not of his opinion, he surprised me one day by a proposal I could never have expected.
He had been speaking quietly, as usual. Then he looked at me for a while, as if some resolution had ripened in him.
"My son," he said, "I have two sons and a daughter. I no longer think of my sons, because they have received their share of my fortune. As far as my daughter is concerned she will, after my death, inherit all my possessions, and I am, besides, in a position while I am alive to promote the fortune of the man who may marry her."
I listened without yet understanding where he wished to lead me.
"Five years ago," he continued, "I took a young wife, but she has not given me any progeny, and I know to a certainty that no offspring will bless our union. My daughter, whose name is Zelmi, is now fifteen; she is handsome, her eyes are black and lovely like her mother's, her hair is of the colour of the raven's wing, her complexion is animated alabaster; she is tall, well made, and of a sweet disposition.
"I have given her an education which would make her worthy of our master, the Sultan. She speaks Greek and Italian fluently, she sings delightfully, and accompanies herself on the harp; she can draw and embroider, and is always contented and cheerful. No living man can boast of having seen her features, and she loves me so dearly that my will is hers."
Then he said the words which struck me.
"My daughter is a treasure, and I offer her to you."
I must have shown my astonishment, for he raised his hand gently, as if to stop any answer before it was born.
"If you consent, you will go for one year to Adrianople, to live with a relative of mine. He will teach you our religion, our language, and our manners. You will return at the end of one year, and as soon as you have become a Mussulman my daughter shall be your wife.
"You will find a house ready furnished, slaves of your own, and an income which will enable you to live in comfort. I have no more to say at present. I do not wish you to answer me either to-day, or to-morrow, or on any fixed day. You will give me your decision whenever you feel yourself called upon by your genius to give it, and you need not give me any answer unless you accept my offer, for, should you refuse it, it is not necessary that the subject should be again mentioned."
"I do not ask you to give full consideration to my proposal," he continued, "for now that I have thrown the seed in your soul it must fructify. Without hurry, without delay, without anxiety, you can but obey the decrees of God and follow the immutable decision of fate."
He rose and took both my hands.
"Such as I know you, I believe that you only require the possession of Zelmi to be completely happy, and that you will become one of the pillars of the Ottoman Empire."
Having said this, he embraced me with great affection and left me alone, carefully denying me the chance to answer.
I remained where I was, stunned.
I left without knowing very well how I had taken leave.
When I reached the Venetian embassy, I could not have told by what streets I had returned. The baili noticed my silence.
"You seem pensive," they said. "Has something happened?"
"Nothing," I answered.
I did not feel disposed to gratify their curiosity.
I found that Yusuf had spoken truly. His proposal was of such importance that it was my duty, not only not to mention it to anyone, but even to abstain from thinking it over, until my mind had recovered its calm sufficiently to give me the assurance that no external consideration would weigh in the balance and influence my decision.
I had to silence all my passions; prejudices, principles already formed, love, and even self-interest were to remain in a state of complete inaction.
The next morning, when I woke, I began to think.
I soon discovered that the more I thought, the less capable I became of deciding. Each argument called another; each objection brought its brother; every advantage carried a danger in its shadow.
My mind turned like a wheel, and the wheel carried me nowhere.
This was truly a case for the 'sequere Deum' of the Stoics.
I did not visit Yusuf for four days.
On the fifth, I went to him. He received me as usual, with tenderness and serenity. We spoke cheerfully of ordinary things, and neither of us mentioned his proposal even though it was very evident that we were both thinking of it.
We remained thus for a fortnight, without ever alluding to the matter which engrossed all our thoughts.
Our silence, however, was not caused by dissimulation, or by any feeling contrary to our mutual esteem and friendship.
One day, Yusuf suggested,
"You must have likely communicated my proposal to some wise friend, in order to obtain good advice."
"That is not the case," I answered at once. "In a matter of so delicate a nature I thought I ought not to ask anybody's advice."
"I have abandoned myself to God, dear Yusuf, and, full of confidence in Him, I feel certain that I shall decide for the best, whether I make up my mind to become your son, or believe that I ought to remain what I am now. In the meantime, my mind ponders over it day and night, whenever I am quiet and feel myself composed and collected. When I come to a decision, I will impart it to you alone, and from that moment you shall have over me the authority of a father."
At these words, the worthy Yusuf's eyes filled.
He placed his left hand on my head, and touched my forehead with the first two fingers of his right hand.
"Continue to act in that way, my dear son," he said, "and be certain that you can never act wrongly."
His tenderness moved me.
"But one thing may happen," I said. "Zelmi may not accept me."
"Have no anxiety on that point. My daughter loves you."
"Loves me?"
"She sees you every time we dine together. My wife, her nurse, and Zelmi are able to observe us without being seen. She listens to you with pleasure."
"Does she know that you are thinking of giving her to me as my wife?"
"She knows that I ardently wish you to become a true believer, so as to enable me to link her destiny to yours."
I was silent for a moment. The hidden girl, listening behind some screen, suddenly became more real to me than when Yusuf had described her beauty.
"I am glad," I said at last, "that your habits do not permit you to let me see her, because she might dazzle me with her beauty, and then passion would soon have too much weight in the scale; I could no longer flatter myself that my decision had been taken in all the unbiased purity of my soul."
Yusuf's face brightened.
He was delighted to hear me speak so, and I spoke in perfect sincerity.
The mere thought of seeing Zelmi made me shudder.
I knew myself too well.
Had I seen her and loved her, I might have become a Mussulman in order to possess her. And once the step was taken, repentance might have followed quickly.
The religion of Mahomet, as it then appeared to my eyes and mind, offered me nothing agreeable, either for this life or the next.
As for wealth, I did not think it worth so immense a sacrifice.
Riches could be found in Europe stamping my forehead with the shameful brand of apostasy.
I cared too much for the esteem of the distinguished persons who knew me. I did not wish to make myself unworthy of it.
Besides, I had an immense desire for reputation among civilized and polite nations. Whether in the fine arts, in literature, or in some honourable profession.
I could not reconcile myself to the idea of abandoning to my equals the triumph which I might win if I lived amongst them.
It seemed to me then, and I still think so, that the turban befits only a Christian despairing of himself and at the end of his wits, and fortunately I was not lost in that predicament.
My greatest objection was the year I would have had to spend in Adrianople learning a language for which I felt no liking.
Without love for a language, one learns it but imperfectly. And how, at my age, could I renounce the privilege, so dear to my vanity, of being considered a fine talker?
Wherever I was known, I had already secured that reputation. To become silent, clumsy, and dependent on interpreters would have been for me a poverty no fortune could repair.
Then I would often think that Zelmi, who was the eighth wonder of creation in her father's eyes, might not appear so in mine.
That alone would have made me miserable.
Yusuf might live twenty years longer, and gratitude, as much as respect, would never have allowed me to wound that excellent man by ceasing to appear a devoted and faithful husband to his daughter.
Such were my thoughts, and, as Yusuf could not guess them, it was useless to make a confidant of him.