fter a few minutes, with the
intention of not visiting him again, but I was compelled to do so, as I
will explain by-and-by.

When I saw M. de Bonneval I told him what had happened and he said that,
according to Turkish manners, Ismail had intended to give me a great
proof of his friendship, but that I need not be afraid of the offence
being repeated. He added that politeness required that I should visit him
again, and that Ismail was, in spite of his failing, a perfect gentleman,
who had at his disposal the most beautiful female slaves in Turkey.

Five or six weeks after the commencement of our intimacy, Yusuf asked me
one day whether I was married. I answered that I was not; the
conversation turned upon several moral questions, and at last fell upon
chastity, which, in his opinion, could be accounted a virtue only if
considered from one point of view, namely, that of total abstinence, but
he added that it could not be acceptable to God; because it transgressed
against the very first precept He had given to man.

"I would like to know, for instance," he said, "what name can be given to
the chastity of your knights of Malta. They take a vow of chastity, but
it does not mean that they will renounce women altogether, they renounce
marriage only. Their chastity, and therefore chastity in general, is
violated only by marriage; yet I observe that marriage is one of your
sacraments. Therefore, those knights of Malta promise not to give way to
lustful incontinence in the only case in which God might forgive it, but
they reserve the license of being lustful unlawfully as often as they
please, and whenever an opportunity may offer itself; and that immoral,
illicit license is granted to them to such an extent, that they are
allowed to acknowledge legally a child which can be born to them only
through a double crime! The most revolting part of it all is that these
children of crime, who are of course perfectly innocent themselves, are
called natural children, as if children born in wedlock came into the
world in an unnatural manner! In one word, my dear son, the vow of
chastity is so much opposed to Divine precepts and to human nature that
it can be agreeable neither to God nor to society, nor to those who
pledge themselves to keep it, and being in such opposition to every
divine and human law, it must be a crime."

He enquired for the second time whether I was married; I replied in the
negative, and added that I had no idea of