25. CHAPTER XXV.
[OMITTED]
islands in Mardi, the Begum was surprised that he could
have thus hazarded his life among the barbarians of the
East. She desired to know whether his constitution was not
impaired by inhaling the unrefined atmosphere of those remote
and barbarous regions. For her part, the mere thought of
it made her faint in her innermost citadel; nor went she
ever abroad with the wind at East, dreading the contagion
which might lurk in the air.
Upon accosting the three damsels, Taji very soon discovered
that the tongue which had languished in the presence
of the Begum, was now called into active requisition, to
entertain the Polysyllables, her daughters. So assiduously
were they occupied in silent endeavors to look sentimental
and pretty, that it proved no easy task to sustain with them
an ordinary chat. In this dilemma, Taji diffused not his
remarks among all three; but discreetly centered them upon
O. Thinking she might be curious concerning the sun, he
made some remote allusion to that luminary as the place of
his nativity. Upon which, O inquired where that country
was, of which mention was made.
“Some distance from here; in the air above; the sun that
gives light to Pimminee, and Mardi at large.”
She replied, that if that were the case, she had never
beheld it; for such was the construction of her farthingale,
that her head could not be thrown back, without impairing
its set. Wherefore, she had always abstained from astronomical
investigations.
Hereupon, rude Mohi laughed out. And that lucky
laugh happily relieved Taji from all further necessity of entertaining
the Vowels. For at so vulgar, and in Pimminee, so
unwonted a sound, as a genuine laugh, the three startled
nymphs fainted away in a row, their round farthingales falling
over upon each other, like a file of empty tierces. But
they presently revived.
Meanwhile, without stirring from their mats, the polite
young bucks in the aigulettes did nothing but hold semitransparent
leaves to their eyes, by the stems; which leaves
they directed downward, toward the disordered hems of the
farthingales; in wait, perhaps, for the revelation of an ankle,
and its accompaniments. What the precise use of these
leaves could have been, it would be hard to say, especially
as the observers invariably peeped over and under them.
The calamity of the Vowels was soon followed by the
breaking up of the party; when, evening coming on, and
feeling much wearied with the labor of seeing company in
Pimminee, we retired to our mats; there finding that
repose which ever awaits the fatigued.
