Persian Letters. Montesquieu

I passed my miserable youth, with no confidant but my own bosom. Wearied with longing and sad as night, there was nothing left but to endure in silence. I was forced to turn the sternest glances on those very women whom I would fain have regarded with looks of love. It would have undone me had they read my thoughts: how they would have tyrannised over me! I remember one day, as I attended a lady at the bath, I was so carried away that I lost command of myself, and dared to lay my hand where I should not. My first thought was that my last day had come. I was, however, fortunate enough to escape a dreadful death; but the fair one, whom I had made the witness of my weakness, extorted a heavy price for her silence: I entirely lost command of her, and she forced me, each time at the risk of my life, to comply with a thousand caprices.

      At length, the fire of youth burnt out, I grow old and become, in that particular, at peace with myself. Women I regard with indifference, I pay them back for all their contempt, and all the torments which I suffered through them. I never forget that I was born to command them, and in the exercise of my authority I feel as if I had recovered my lost manhood. I hate women now that I can regard them without passion, and detect and discuss all their weaknesses. Although I guard them for another, I experience a secret joy in making myself obeyed. When I take all their pleasures from them, I feel as if it were at my behest alone; and that always gives me satisfaction more or less direct. The seraglio is my empire; and my ambition, the only passion left me, finds no small gratification. I mark with pleasure that all depends on me, and that my presence is required at all times: I willingly incur the hatred of these women, because that establishes me more firmly in my post. And they do not hate me for nothing, I can tell you: I interfere with their most innocent pleasures; I am always in the way, an insurmountable obstacle; before they know where they are they find their schemes frustrated; I am armed with refusals, I bristle with scruples; not a word is heard from me but duty, virtue, chastity, modesty. I make them desperate by dinning them with the weakness of their sex, and the authority of our master. Then I lament the necessity which requires me to be so severe, and lead them to believe that my only motives are their truest interests and my profound attachment to them.

      Do not suppose that in my turn I have not to suffer endless unpleasantness. Every day these women seek occasions to repay me with interest, and their reprisals² are often terrible. Between us there goes on a constant interchange of ascendancy and obedience. They are always putting upon me the meanest services; they affect a sublime contempt; and, regardless of my age, they force me to rise ten times during the night for the merest trifle. I am worn off my feet with endless commissions, orders, employments, and caprices; one would think that they take turn about in inventing occupations for me. They often amuse themselves by making me doubly vigilant; they give me imaginary confidences. Sometimes I am told that a young man has been seen prowling round the walls, or a startling noise has been heard, or some one is about to receive a letter. All this bothers me, and amuses them; they are delighted when they see me tormenting myself. Sometimes they station me behind the door, and keep me standing there night and day. They well know how to pretend to be ill, to swoon away, to be frightened out of their wits: they are never at a loss for some pretext to work their will on me. When they are in this mood, implicit obedience, unquestioning compliance are my only resources: a refusal from such a man as I am would be a thing unheard of; and if I were to hesitate in obeying them, they could punish me at their discretion. I would sooner die, my dear Ibbi, than submit to such humiliation.

      But this is not all. I am never for an instant sure of my master's favour; for each of his wives is an enemy who never ceases to hope for my ruin. They take advantage of certain snatches of time when I cannot be heard, when he can refuse them nothing, and when I am always in the wrong. I conduct to my master's bed women whose spite is roused against me: do you imagine that they will move a finger in my behalf, or say a single word in my favour? I have everything to fear from their tears, their sighs, their embraces, from their very pleasures; it is their time of triumph; their charms are arrayed against me: their present services obliterate in a moment all those rendered by me in the past; and nothing can plead for me with a master who is no longer himself.

      Many a time I lie down high in my master's favour, and awake to find myself disgraced. The day on which they whipped me so ignominiously round the seraglio, what had I done? I leave a woman in my master's arms: when she sees him impassioned she bursts into a torrent of tears, and pours out complaints so skilfully that they become more anguished in proportion as the love she causes grows vehement. What could I do to defend myself at a crisis of that kind? When I least expected it, ruin overtook me; I was the victim of an amorous intrigue, of a treaty sealed with sighs. Behold, dear Ibbi, the wretched plight in which I have always lived.

      What happiness is yours! Your duties are confined to attendance on Usbek. It is easy for you to please him, and to retain his favour to your dying day.

       The Seraglio at Ispahan, the last day of the moon of Saphar, 1711.

      Letter 10

       Mirza to his friend Usbek, at Erzeroum

      You alone could recompense me for the absence of Rica, and it is only Rica who could console me for yours. We miss you, Usbek; you were the very life of our circle. How hard it is to break away from those attachments in which both the heart and the mind are engaged!

      We have great debates here; our talk turns principally on morality. We disputed yesterday whether true happiness consists in pleasure and sensual gratification, or in the practice of virtue.

      I have heard you often affirm that men were made to be virtuous, and that justice is as indispensable to existence as life itself. I beg you to explain to me what you mean by this.

      I have spoken of this to the mollahs¹, but they exasperate me with their quotations from the Koran; for I do not consult them as a true believer, but as a man, a citizen, and the father of a family. Farewell.

       Isaphan, the last day of the moon of Saphar, 1711.

      Letter 11

       Usbek to Mirza, at Ispahan

      You waive your own judgment in deference to mine;¹you even deign to consult me; you to profess your belief in my ability to instruct you. My dear, Mirza if there is one thing which flatters me more than your good opinion of me, it is the friendship which prompts it.

      In the fulfillment of the task you have prescribed me, I do not think there is any necessity for argument of an abstruse order. There are certain truths which it is not sufficient to know, but which must be realized: such are the great commonplaces of morality. Probably the following fable will affect you more than the most subtle argument:

      One upon a time there dwelt in Arabia a small tribe called Troglodites, descendents of the ancient Troglodites, who, if historians are to be believed,² were liker beasts than men. They were not, however, counterfeit presentments of the lower animals. They had not fur like bears; they did not hiss like serpents; and they did possess two eyes:³ but they were so malicious, so brutish, that they lacked all notion of justice and equity.

      A king of foreign origin reigned over them. Wishing to correct their natural wickedness, he treated them with severity; but they conspired against him, slew him, and exterminated his line.

      They then assembled to appoint a governing body. After many dissensions, they elected magistrates. These had not been long in office, when they found them intolerable, and killed them also.

      Freed from this new yoke, the people were swayed only by their savage instincts. Every man determined to do what was right in his own eyes; and in attending to his own interests, the general welfare was forgotten.

      The unanimous decision gave universal satisfaction. They said: “Why should I kill myself with work for those in whom I have no interest? I will only think of myself: how should the welfare of others affect me: I will provide for my own necessities; and, if these are satisfied, it is not concern of mine though all the other Troglodites live in misery.”

      Each man said to himself in seed-time, “I shall till no more land than will supply me with corn enough for my wants. What use have I for any more? I am