Usbek to Nessir, at Ispahan.
HAPPY the man, who being fully convinced of the value of a life of ease and tranquility, deposits his heart in the midst of his own family, and never knows any country but that in which he was born. I live in a barbarous country, whatever offends me being present, whatever I have a regard for being at a distance from me: a deep melancholy seizes upon me; I sink into a most shocking depression of spirits: I think myself almost annihilated; and I do not become sensible of my existence, till a dismal jealousy comes to kindle and produce in my heart, fear, suspicions, hatred and regret. You know me, Nessir, you are as well acquainted with my heart as your own. You would pity me, if you knew in how deplorable a condition I am. Sometimes I am obliged to wait six whole months for news from the seragho; I reckon every moment as it passes, my impatience makes them appear to me of a tedious length; and when the long expected moment is approaching, a sudden revolution arises in my heart; my hand trembles at opening the fatal letter; that anxiety which made me despair, I look upon as the happiest state I can be in, and I dread being forced from it, by a stroke that would, to me, be more cruel than a thousand deaths. But whatever reasons I may have had to leave my country, though I owe my life to absenting myself, I can no longer, Nessir, bear this dismal banishment. Must I not die equally a victim to my grief? I have a thousand times importuned Rica to quit this foreign country: but he thwarts all my resolutions; he confines me here upon a thousand pretexts: he seems to have quite forgot his country; or rather he seems to have forgot me; so insensible does he seem to my uneasiness. Unhappy wretch that I am, I wish to see my country again, yet perhaps it is to become still more unhappy: What can I do there? I shall expose my life again to my enemies. This is not all, I shall enter the seraglio; I must there exact an account of what passed in the fatal time of my absence; and if I find my wives guilty, what will become of me? If the very idea is insupportable to me at this distance, what must the effect be, when my presence renders it so much more lively? How great must my trouble be, if I am obliged to see and hear what I cannot even think of without shuddering? How dreadful will it be, if punishments, which I must myself cause to be inflicted, should be the eternal marks of my confusion and despair? I shall go and shut myself up within walls, more terrible to me than to the women who are there confined;
I shall carry with me all my suspicions, the ardour of their caresses will not in the least diminish them; in my bed, in their very arms, I shall feel all my inquietudes; at a time so improper for reflections, jealousy will be a constant source of the most uneasy ones. Worthless out-casts of human nature, vile slaves, whose hearts are for ever shut to all the sentiments of love; you would no longer lament your condition, if you knew the misery of mine.