n, she sets
about ensnaring him, makes eyes at him, invites him with
gestures, sings for him ... drinks the wine he left in his
cup, throws kisses with her hands, till she has the poor
fellow in her net and he is enamoured. ... Then she sends
messages to him and continues her crafty arts, lets him
understand that she is losing sleep for love of him, is
pining for him; maybe she sends him a ring, or a lock of her
hair, a paring of her nails, a splinter from her lute, or
part of her toothbrush, or a piece of fragrant gum (chewed
by her) as a substitute for a kiss, or a note written and
folded with her own hands and tied with a string from her
lute, with a tearstain on it; and finally sealed with
Ghalija, her ring, on which some appropriate words are
carved."
Having captured her victim, she makes him give her valuable presents
till his purse is empty, whereupon she discards him.
Was Count Moltke, then, wrong? Have we here, after all, the
sentimental symptoms of romantic love? Let us apply the tests provided
by our analysis of love--tests as reliable as those which chemists use
to analyze fluids or gases. Did the Baghdad music-girl prefer that man
to all other individuals? Did she want to monopolize him jealously?
Oh, no! any man, however old and ugly, would have suited her, provided
he had plenty of money. Was she coy toward him? Perhaps; but not from
a feeling of modesty and timidity inspired by love, but to make him
more ardent and ready to pay. Was she proud of his love? She thought
him a fool. Were her feelings toward him chaste and pure? As chaste
and pure as his. Did she sympathize with his pleasures and pains? She
dismissed him as soon as his purse was empty, and looked about for
another victim. Were his presents the result of gallant impulses to
please her, or merely advance payment for favors expected? Would he
have sacrificed his life to save her any more than she would hers to
save him? Did he respect her as an immaculate superior being, adore
her as an angel from above--or look on her as an inferior, a slave in
rank, a slave to passion?
The obvious moral of this immoral episode is that it is not
permissible to infer the existence of anything higher than sensual
love from the mere fact that certain romantic tricks are associated
with the amorous dalliance of Orientals, or Greeks and Romans.
Drinking from the same cup, throwing kisses,
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