Usbek to his Friend Nessir, at Ispahan.
AT the distance of one day’s journey from Erivan we quitted Persia, and entered those territories subject to the Turks. Twelve days after we reached Erzeron, where we continued three or four months. I must confess to thee, Nessir, I suffered a secret concern when I lost sight of Persia, and found myself surrounded by faithless Osmanlins; and, as I advance into the country of the profane, I think I become such myself: my country, my family, my friends, present themselves to my mind, my tenderness is revived; a certain uneasiness hath completed my sorrow, and makes me sensible that I have ventured too much for my quiet. But my wives are my chief affliction; I cannot think of them but I am swallowed up in grief. It is not, Nessir, that I love them; with respect to that, I am in a state of insensibility, which leaves me no desires. The number of women I saw in the seraglio hath prevented love, and I have defeated him by himself, but this coldness itself is a kind of secret jealousy that devours me. I behold a number of women trusted almost to themselves; for I have none but some base spirited wretches to answer for their conduct. I should scarcely think myself secure though my slaves were faithful; how would it be then if they should not be so? What distressing accounts may I receive in the distant countries through which I am to pass! It is a malady for which my friends can afford no remedy; the causes of my disorder arise from a place, the melancholy secrets of which they ought to be ignorant of; and, if they could discern them, what could they do? Had not I a thousand times better let them die with silence and impunity, than make them public by correction? In thy heart, my dear Nessir, I confide all my griefs, which is the only consolation that remains to me in my present state.