Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys. Dénis Diderot
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not be so much neglected as his own had been, sent betimes for all the great men in Congo; as, painters, philosophers, poets, musicians, architects, masters of dancing, mathematicks, history, fencing, &c. Thanks to the happy dispositions of Mangogul, and to the constant lessons of his masters, he was ignorant in nothing of what a young prince is wont to learn the first fifteen years of his life; and at the age of twenty he could eat, drink, and sleep, as completely as any potentate of his age.
Erguebzed, whose weight of years began to make him feel the weight of his crown, tired with holding the reins of the empire, frighted at the disturbances which threatened it, full of confidence in the superior qualifications of Mangogul, and urged by sentiments of religion, sure prognostics of the approaching death or imbecility of the great, descended from the throne, to seat his son thereon: and this good prince thought he was under an obligation of expiating, by a retirement, the crimes of the most just administration, of which there is any account in the annals of Congo.
Thus it was, that in the year of the world 15,000,000,032,000,021, of the empire of Congo 390,000,070,003, began the reign of Mangogul, the 1,234,500 of his race in a direct line. Frequent conferences with his ministers, wars carried on, and the management of affairs, taught him in a very short time what remained for him to know at getting out of the hands of his pedagogues; and that was somewhat.
However, in less than ten years Mangogul acquired the reputation of a great man. He gained battles, stormed towns, enlarged his empire, quieted his provinces, repaired the disorder of his finances, restored arts and sciences, raised edifices, immortalized himself by useful establishments, strengthened and corrected the legislative power, even founded academies; and, what his university could never comprehend, he executed all these great things, without knowing one word of Latin.
Mangogul was not less amiable in his Seraglio than great on the throne. He did not take it into his head to regulate his conduct by the ridiculous customs of his country. He broke the gates of the palaces inhabited by his women; he drove out those injurious guards of their virtue; he prudently confided in themselves for their fidelity: the entrance into their appartments was as free for men as into those of the canonesses of Flanders; and doubtless their behaviour as decent. Oh! how good a Sultan he was! There never was his equal, but in some French romance. He was mild, affable, chearful, gallant, of a charming figure, a lover of pleasures, cut out for them, and contained more wit and sense in his head, than had been in those of all his predecessors put together.
'Tis easy to judge that, with such uncommon merit, a number of the sex aspired to make him their conquest: Some few succeeded. Those who miss'd his heart, endeavour'd to console themselves with the grandees of the court. Young Mirzoza was of the number of the former. I shall not amuse myself with detailing the qualities and charms of Mirzoza: the work would be without end, and I am resolved that this history shall have one.
CHAP. III.
Which may be regarded as the first of this history.
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.
Evocation of the Genius.
CHAP. IV.
Evocation of the Genius.
The Genius Cucufa is an old hypochondriac, who fearing lest the concerns of the world, and dealings with the rest of the genii, might prove an obstacle to his salvation, took refuge in the Void; in order to employ himself quite at leisure on the infinite perfections of the great Pagoda, to pinch, scratch and make notches in his flesh, to fret himself into madness, and starve himself to death. In that place he lies on a straw mat, his body tuck'd up in a sack, his flanks squeez'd with a cord, his arms crossed on his breast, and his head sunk into a hood, which suffers nothing to issue but the end of his beard. He sleeps, but one would think him in contemplation. All his company is an owl which nods at his feet, some rats which gnaw his mat, and bats which hover round his head. The manner of evoking him, is, by repeating, to the sound of a bell, the first verse of the nocturnal office of the Bramins: then he lifts up his hood, rubs his eyes, puts on his sandals, and sets out. Figure to yourself an old Camaldolian Monk carried in the air by two large horn-owls, which he holds by the legs. In this equipage it was, that Cucufa appear'd to the Sultan. "May the blessing of Brama be within these walls," says he, bowing. "Amen," answered the prince. "What do you want, my son?" "A very small matter," says Mangogul; "to procure me some pleasure at the expence of the court ladies." "Oh, my son!" replied Cucufa, "you have a larger appetite than a whole monastery of