hung with Indian
drapery, with purple figures on a gray ground, just relieved by a
few threads of gold. The ceiling, towards the centre, is concealed by
similar hangings, tied together by a thick, silken cord; the two ends
of this cord, unequal in length, terminated, instead of tassels, in two
tiny Indian lamps of gold filigreed-work, marvellously finished. By one
of those ingenious combinations, so common in barbarous countries,
these lamps served also to burn perfumes. Plates of blue crystal, let
in between the openings of the arabesque, and illumined by the interior
light, shone with so limpid an azure, that the golden lamps seemed
starred with transparent sapphires. Light clouds, of whitish vapor rose
incessantly from these lamps, and spread all around their balmy odor.

Daylight was only admitted to this room (it was about two o'clock in the
afternoon) through a little greenhouse, on the other side of a door of
plate-glass, made to slide into the thickness of the wall, by means of a
groove. A Chinese shade was arranged so as to hide or replace this
glass at pleasure. Some dwarf palm tress, plantains, and other Indian
productions, with thick leaves of a metallic green, arranged in clusters
in this conservatory, formed, as it were, the background to two large
variegated bushes of exotic flowers, which were separated by a narrow
path, paved with yellow and blue Japanese tiles, running to the foot of
the glass. The daylight, already much dimmed by the leaves through which
it passed, took a hue of singular mildness as it mingled with the azure
lustre of the perfumed lamps, and the crimson brightness of the fire
in the tall chimney of oriental porphyry. In the obscurity of this
apartment, impregnated with sweet odors and the aromatic vapor of
Persian tobacco, a man with brown, hanging locks, dressed in a long robe
of dark green, fastened round the waist by a parti-colored sash, was
kneeling upon a magnificent Turkey carpet, filling the golden bowl of
a hookah; the long, flexible tube of this pipe, after rolling its folds
upon the carpet, like a scarlet serpent with silver scales, rested
between the slender fingers of Djalma, who was reclining negligently on
a divan. The young prince was bareheaded; his jet-black hair, parted on
the middle of his forehead, streamed waving about his face and neck of
antique beauty--their warm transparent colors resembling amber or topaz.
Leaning his elbow on a cushion, he supported his chin