you the full significance of the amazing events through
which I have passed during these four months. I don't know of a single
mortal who has experienced more original adventures. The dreadful letter
from the notary, my installation at Ferouzat, my uncle's will, the harem
tumbling down upon me from Turkey, the entering into complete
possession of my fortune, and the whole crowned by the return of the
deceased. Certainly you will agree with me that these are incidents
which one does not meet with in everyday life. Nevertheless, if you want
to know my ideas about them, I confess that they seem to me at the
present moment to be nothing but the Necessary and the Contingent of
philosophers, in their simplest application. I would go so far as to
assert that, to a nephew of my uncle, things could not fall so to
happen, for it would show a want of training in the most elementary
principles of logic, to exhibit surprise at such little adventures, when
once Barbassou-Pasha has been introduced on the scene as Prime Cause.
The substratum of my uncle so powerfully influences my destiny, that to
my mind it would seem quite paradoxical to expect the same things ever
to happen to me as to any other man. Cease being astonished, therefore,
at any strange peculiarities in my life, even if they be eccentric
enough to shock a rigidly constituted mind. Like those erratic planets
which deviate occasionally from their course, I move around the
remarkable star called Barbassou-Pasha, and he draws me into his own
eccentric orbit. In spite of a semblance of romantic complications among
the really simple facts which I have related to you, I defy you to
discover in them the slightest grain of inconsistency. They can be
perfectly well accounted for by the most natural causes and the most
ordinary calculations of common sense. Cease your astonishment,
therefore, unless you wish to fall into the lowest rank in my
estimation.

Having postulated the fact that I am the nephew of my uncle, I will now
return to the summarising of my situation. Well, my late uncle had come
to life again, but he wanted to keep all the advantages of his status as
a dead man, by obliging me to remain in possession of his property. I
had just said "good night" to him, while he was dreaming about his
camels. Nothing could be less complicated than that. If all that is not
in strict conformity with the character of Barbassou (Claude Anatole), I
know nothing about him. Nevertheles