Abstract: The narrator’s Journey to the Orient ends his trip in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, in front of which he feels like he is standing before a theater. The Arabian Nights serve as a key to access the backstage of the scene : the text is used to defamiliarize the reader and help him pierce the plain surface that the city opposes to the traveler’s gaze. Hence, it reveals the magic of a secret Constantinople and allows Nerval’s mythology to diffuse itself in the structure of the travelogue.
