The President’s wife met us at the entrance door and led us into her private apartments, furnished in Turkish style with low sofas all round the walls, on which sat, cross-legged, five Bayadères dressed in green and pink robes; their faces were painted white and red, and their nails dyed with henna juice. After a slight collation, which consisted of coffee and different sorts of preserves served in silver vases, the Bayadères began to dance, clinking castanettes. Four music-girls sat on the floor and played the daira, a sort of cithern. Brandy and champagne was offered to the Bayadères to put them into still more depraved spirits, and they began to dance unlike anything I had ever seen. The master of the house who sat in the next room with a score of male friends left his door ajar, and the sight of these men inflamed the dancing-girls still more, and they took such liberties that I didn’t dare to raise my eyes from the carpet. When the Bayadères approached Helena, making indecent gestures, my poor old nurse pushed them back, her eyes flashing indignantly. Her speechless horror amused me enormously, and it was a mercy that from the place where I sat I hadn’t Mme. Gilbert to exchange glances with, or I couldn’t have remained serious. Our hostess seemed astonished at Helena’s repulse and asked why she did it, and if it was contrary to her religion? Anyone who reads this will suppose that I am describing a house of ill fame, but, on the contrary, it is one of the most respectable houses in Erzeroum, and all these enormities are of the exigencies of harem life. The little son of our hostess, aged twelve, an awfully vicious brat, was incapable of concealing the ardour with which he was gazing upon the contortions of the Bayadères; he hardly heard when he was spoken to.