(W)hich would you have me obey--the petty maxims that guide my enemies, or the dictates of my own free soul?
Usbek is defending his decision to leave Persia suddenly. He presents his free soul's dictates as a higher sort of morality than the social standards, laws, and rules that others around him obey. He values freedom for himself, and he values freedom in theory, but when he sees it put into practice in ways that do not advance his interests or that make him uncomfortable he actively and gratuitously restricts the freedom of other people, particularly his wives.
They loved their wives, and were beloved most tenderly. Their utmost care was given to the virtuous training of their children. They kept before their young minds the misfortunes of their countrymen, and held them up as a most melancholy example. Above all, they led them to see that the interest of the individual was bound up in that of the community; that to isolate oneself was to court ruin; that the sot of virtue should never be counted, nor the practice of it regarded as troublesome; and that in acting justly by others, we bestow blessings on ourselves. They soon enjoyed the reward of virtuous parents, which consists in having children like themselves.
Usbek is relating the story of the Troglodites, a tribe of people who, having been decimated by a plague after years of self-interested government wherein every man did as he wished, developed a desire to live a virtuous life. They perpetuated their values of mutual aid and community through the generations by teaching it to their children. According to Usbek, virtuous parents produce virtuous children.
It is not, Roxana, that I believe they carry their encroachment on virtue as far as such conduct might be expected to lead them, or that their debauchery extends to such horrible excess as the absolute violation of their conjugal vow – a thought to make one tremble. There are very few women so abandoned as to go to that length: the hearts of all of them are engraved from their birth with an impression of virtue, which education weakens, but cannot destroy. Though they may be lax in the observation of the external duties which modesty requires; yet, when it is a question of the last step, their better nature revolts. And so, when we imprison you so closely, and have you watched by crowds of slaves, when we restrain your desires so forcibly lest they break beyond bounds; it is not because we fear the final deed of infidelity, but because we know that purity cannot be too immaculate, and that the slightest stain would soil it.
Usbek is describing the flirtatious behavior of the French women, who are not imprisoned the way she is but who are nonetheless loyal to their husbands. Usbek claims that by imprisoning Roxana and her fellow wives he is actually showing them love, because they are so fragile that their purity may be somehow stained if another man caught sight of them even from a distance.
He might have the best people in Paris at his table, if he could make up his mind never to eat in his own house.
Usbek is describing a man he met at a party, a "farmer-general" or newly rich man who is wealthy enough to hire an excellent cook and to offer good entertainments. Yet he lacks the graces and manners common to people of wealth, and it makes him odious to his fellow wealthy Parisians. So the only way the "best" parts of society would attend his parties would be if he himself were not present.
Nature, diligent in the service of men, has been no niggard in her dowry of desire; to women also she has not been unkind, and has destined us to be the living instruments of the enjoyment of our masters; she has set us on fire with passion in order that they may live at ease; should they quit their insensibility, she has provided us to restore them to it, without our ever being able to taste the happiness of the condition into which we put them. Yet, Usbek, do not think that your situation is happier than mine; I have experienced here a thousand pleasures unknown to you. My imagination has labored without ceasing to make me conscious of their worth; I have lived, and you have only languished.
Even in this prison where you keep me I am freer than you. You can only redouble your care in guarding me, that I may rejoice at your uneasiness; and your suspicions, your jealousy, your annoyance, are so many marks of your dependence. Continue, dear Usbek, to have me watched night and day; take no ordinary precautions; increase my happiness in assuring your own; and know, that I dread nothing except your indifference.
Zelis, Usbek's loyal wife who has borne him at least one child, asserts that both men and women have passions and desire. Usbek has imprisoned and abandoned his family in the seraglio, but she has found ways to satisfy herself. Whether these are intellectual pursuits or something that provides sexual satisfaction, she does not say. Coldly furious at Usbek's lack of trust and the constant harassment from the eunuchs who guard and restrict her, she challenges Usbek to continue being jealous, insecure, and controlling. As Usbek taunted his wives in his earlier letters, describing their helplessness, she takes a turn taunting him. The only thing Zelis fears is if Usbek loses interest in the exchange: locked up in the seraglio, the wives will all starve to death if they are not fed.
“Ah!” said she, “how much better it would be for me if it were not true! I have made too great a sacrifice for it, not to believe in it; and if my doubts. . . .” At these words she became silent. “Yes, my sister, your doubts! They are well founded, whatever they may be. What can you expect from a religion which makes you miserable in this world, and leaves you no hope for the next?
Ibben, from Smyrna, is relating the story of Apheridon and his sister Anais, who belong to the Guerbre tribe in which sibling marriage is considered right and holy. Though they love each other passionately, they are kept apart by circumstance and accept great risk and sacrifice so they can be together. Under the rules of Islam, the religion mentioned in the quote, their marriage is forbidden.
Anais, who speaks first, has been sent into service of a sultana or princess, where she has been forced for years to follow Islamic rules and customs. She has sacrificed much of her identity. When asked whether she truly believes the faith she has been forced to assume, she says that she has sacrificed to much for it to not believe in it.
Morality makes better citizens than law.
Usbek is debating government and morality with one of his friends. In Usbek's opinion, a strong sense of duty or morality is a better guide of character, and creates a better society, than law, rules, and punishments. He believes this only in an abstract sense, because in his own household and seraglio he ensures that his wives are restricted with hundreds of rules and arbitrary laws. They are not allowed to trust their own sense of morality in any way. When it comes to law and freedom, Usbek does not actually practice what he preaches. This statement, coming from Usbek, is extremely ironic.
Men act unjustly, because it is their interest to do so, and because they prefer their own satisfaction to that of others. They act always to secure some advantage to themselves: no one is a villain gratis; there is always a determining motive, and that motive is always an interested one.
Usbek is offering a theory about why people do what they do. He doesn't believe anyone deliberately sets out to behave unjustly, and that they act out of self-interest and not deliberate malice. This, in the context of the seraglio, is provably untrue. The eunuchs and the women torment one another because they enjoy it, not because they have anything to gain from it.
On this account violence prevails amongst the French; for these laws of honor require a gentleman to avenge himself when he has been insulted; but, on the other hand, justice punishes him unmercifully when he does so. If one follows the laws of honour, one dies upon the scaffold; if one follows those of justice, one is banished for ever from the society of men: this, then, is the barbarous alternative, either to die, or to be unworthy to live.
Usbek is describing a paradoxical Catch-22 situation. If a man's honor is offended, he has two choices: to act in accordance with the "rules of honor", fight a duel, and either die or be executed for it... or to ignore the rules of honor, let the law figure it out, and be held in contempt by his peers making him "unworthy to live".
When a man lacks a particular talent, he indemnifies himself by despising it: he removes the impediment between him and merit; and in that way finds himself on a level with those of whose works he formerly stood in awe.
Usbek describes a very common human behavior: when people encounter something excellent that they cannot understand or duplicate, they despise it. Instead of being in awe of greatness, they seek to pull it down to their own level.
