A BULL-FIGHT
Guess, my dear, where I have been this afternoon. Guess, guess! I, a Turkish woman, have been to a bull-fight! There were many English people present. They are, I am told, the habitués of the place, and they come away, like the Spaniards, almost intoxicated by the spectacle.
This is an excitement which does not in the least appeal to me. Surely one must be either prehistoric or decadent to get into this unwholesome condition of the Spaniards. Is the sight of a bull which is being killed, and perhaps the death of a toreador, “such a delightful show,” to quote the exact words of my American neighbour? He shouted with frenzy whilst my sister and two Poles, unable to bear the sight of the horses’ obtruding intestines, had to be led out of the place in an almost fainting condition.
As for myself, I admit to having admired two things, the suppleness of the men and the brilliant appearance of the bull-ring. The women of course lent a picturesque note to the ensemble with their sparkling jewels, their faces radiant as those of the men, their dark eyes dancing with excitement, and their handsome gowns and their graceful mantillas. But shall I ever forget the hideous sight of the poor horse staggering out of the ring, nor the roars of the wounded bull? It was a spectacle awful to look upon. What a strange performance for a Turkish woman, used to the quiet of our harem life!
Perhaps, however, for those to whom life has brought no emotion or sorrow, no joy or love, those who have never seen the wholesale butchery to which we, alas! had almost become accustomed—perhaps to these people this horrible sight is a necessity. Spanish writers have told me they have done their best work after a bull-fight, and before taking any important step in life they needed this stimulus to carry them safely through. I can assure you, however, I heaved a sigh of relief when the performance was over, and not for untold gold would I ever go to see it again.
After leaving the scene I have described to you, we followed the crowd to a little garden planted with trees, which is situated in the Calle Mayor and stretches along the side of the stream till it meets the Bidassoa. This is the spot where, on cool evenings, men and maidens meet to dance the Fandango. Basque men with red caps are seated in the middle to supply the music. On the sandy earth, which is the ballroom, the couples dance, in and out of the gnarled trees, to the rhythm of dance music, that is strange and passionate and at the same time almost languishing.
The music played was more Arabian than anything I have yet heard in the West, but unfortunately the modern note too was creeping into these delightful measures. The Basques with their red caps, bronzed faces, white teeth, and fine manly figures, the women with their passionate and supple movements and decorated mantillas, and the almost antique frame of Fontarabia, proud of its past, hopeful for its future, were all so new and so different to me.
But it is dark now, the dancing has ceased, the crowd has dispersed. How good it is to be out at this hour of the evening. I, who am free (or think I am), delight in the fact there are no Turkish policemen to question me as to what I am doing.
*****
But alas! alas! I spoke of my freedom a little too soon. Even in this quiet city can I not pass unobserved?
“Have you anything to declare?” a Custom House officer asks me.
“Yes,” I replied, “my hatred of your Western ‘Customs,’ and my delight at being alive.”—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
CHAPTER XVI
THE MOON OF RAMAZAN
Hendaye, August 1907.
You ask me to describe the life a Turkish woman leads during Ramazan.
The evenings of Ramazan are the only evenings of the year when she has the right to be out of doors; the time when she seizes every opportunity of meeting her friends and arranging interesting soirées; the time when she goes on foot or drives to the Mosques to hear the Imams explain the Word of the Prophet.
Need I remind you, unlike the women of the lower and middle classes, who go out every evening, the more important the family to which a woman belongs, the more difficult is it for her to go out.
It is for the evenings of Ramazan that most amusements are arranged, and our husbands, fathers, and brothers usually patronise the travelling circus, Turkish theatre, performances of Karakheuz.[19] The women on their side have their dinners, Oriental dancing, and conversation which lasts deep into the night.
Amongst my most delightful remembrances of Constantinople are the Ramazan visits to St. Sophia and the Chah-zade Mosque. From the height of a gallery reserved for women, which is separated from the rest of the church by a thick wooden lattice-work, hundreds of “Believers” are to be seen, seated on the ground round the Imam, who reads and preaches to them. All the oil lamps are lighted for the thirty days, and the incense burning in the silver brasiers rises with the prayers to Heaven. Not a voice is to be heard save that of the Imam (preacher), and the most wonderful impression of all is that created by the profound silence.
And yet children are there—little ones asleep in their mother’s arms, little girls in the women’s gallery, whilst boys over eight are counted men, and sit beside their fathers on the ground, their little legs tucked under them.
Turkish Ladies Paying a Visit
Every visitor is given coffee and cigarettes on arriving. The three ladies shown are Zeyneb, Melek, and a friend seated between them. A verse from the Koran hangs on the wall.
On returning home supper is ready for three o’clock, and an hour later the cannon announce the commencement of a fresh day of fasting. After a short prayer in one’s own room, sleep takes possession of us until late the next day, sometimes until almost four o’clock, when everyone must be up and again ready for the firing of the cannon which gives permission to eat and drink and smoke.
With us fasting[20] is more strict than it is in the West. From sunrise to sunset, no one would dare to touch a mouthful of food or even smoke.
When we are lucky enough to have Ramazan during the winter months the fasting hours are shorter, but when it comes in the month of August “Believers” have to fast for sixteen hours, and the labourers suffer much in consequence.
Imagine how long a soirée can be, when you begin dinner at half-past four! What must we not think of to amuse our guests, for no one dines alone! The Oriental hospitality demands that every evening friends should assemble, and acquaintances come without even letting you know. When people are known to be rich, the poor and complete strangers come to them to dinner. I remember being at one house which was filled to overflowing with women of all classes, most of whom had never before even seen the hostess.
At the Palaces a special door is built, through which anyone who wants to dine can enter, and after the meal money is distributed. You can understand while this patriarchal system exists there is no reason for the poor to envy the rich. Turkey is the only country in Europe which in this respect lives according to Christ’s teaching, but no doubt in the march of progress all these beautiful customs will disappear.
I have often thought when in a Western drawing-room, where one stays a few minutes, and eats perhaps a sandwich, how different are our receptions in the East. We meet without being invited, talk till late in the night, and a proper supper is served.
It surprises me, too, in the West to meet such poor linguists. In Turkey it is quite usual to hear discussions going on in five European languages without one foreigner being present.
Wait till you have taken part in some of these Ramazan gatherings, and have seen what hospitality really is, then you will understand my rather slighting remarks about your Western society.
*****
I am constantly being asked how a Turkish woman amuses herself. I have a stock answer ready: “That depends on what you call amusement.”
It sounds futile to have to remind my questioners that amusement is a relative quality, and depends entirely on one’s personal tastes. The Spaniards are mad with delight at the sight of a bull-fight—to me it was disgusting; and yet, probably, were those bull-fights to take place in Turkey, I should enjoy them. We used to have in the country exhibitions of wrestling at which whole families were present. Travelling circuses were also a favourite amusement, but during the last years of Hamid’s reign Turkish women have been forbidden the pleasures of going to a travelling theatre and Karakheuz, the most appreciated of all the Eastern amusements.
Tennis, croquet, and other games are impossible for us, neither is rowing allowed: to have indulged in that sport was to expose myself to the criticism of the whole capital.
Although the people of the West are so fond of walking as a recreation, the pleasure that a Turkish woman can obtain from a walk is practically non-existent, and most of us would be insulted if asked, as I have been in Paris, to walk for two hours.
We are fond of swimming, but how is this taste to be indulged when women are only allowed to swim in an enclosed place, surrounded by a high wall? Surely the only charm of swimming is to be in the open sea.
Those who are fond of music have either to go without, learn to play themselves, or take the terrible risk of disguising themselves as Europeans and go to a concert.
Towards 1876 we began playing bezique, but that craze did not last long, and a short time afterwards cards were considered bad form. The Perotes,[21] however, still remain faithful to card-playing, and have more than one reason to prefer this pastime to all the others in which they might indulge. Unlike the Perotes, we Turkish women never played cards for money.
You might think from my letters that travelling in the country was quite an ordinary event for women of our class: on the contrary, it is quite exceptional, and perhaps only ten families in all Turkey have travelled as we travelled in our own country.
So you see a Turkish woman is not very ambitious for “amusement” as you Western people understand the word. When she is allowed to travel in foreign countries as she likes, I believe she will be more satisfied with her lot.
All the Turks I have met since I came to Europe are of my opinion, but we shall see what will happen when their theories are put into practice.
Since it has been my privilege to meet my countrymen I have found out what fine qualities they possess. Indeed it is wrong for custom to divide so markedly our nation into two sexes and to create such insuperable barriers between them. We shall never be strong until we are looked upon as one, and can mix freely together. The Turks have all the qualities necessary to make good husbands and fathers, and yet we have no opportunity of knowing even the men we marry until we are married.
How I wish that nine out of every ten of the books written on Turkey could be burned! How unjustly the Turk has been criticised! And what nonsense has been written about the women! I cannot imagine where the writers get their information from, or what class of women they visited. Every book I have read has been in some way unfair to the Turkish woman. Not one woman has really understood us! Not one woman has credited us with the possession of a heart, a mind, or a soul.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
*****
The year of 1908 was a year of mourning for Zeyneb and Melek. For them began that bitter period, when a woman has the opportunity of judging independence at its true value, without a father and a substantial income as buffers between them and life.
*****
During that year, too, Melek married.
Zeyneb remained alone.
CHAPTER XVII
AND IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM?
London, Nov.-Dec. 1908.
About a week ago,[22] whilst you were writing your first letter to me and speaking of the beautiful Eastern sun that was shining through your latticed window, what a different experience was mine in London. I was walking by myself in the West End, when suddenly, the whole city was shrouded in one of those dense fogs to which you no doubt have become accustomed. I could not see the name of the streets nor the path at the opposite side, so I wandered on for a little while, only to discover that I had arrived back at the same place.
There was no one to show me the way, and the English language that I had spoken from infancy seemed of no use to me, since no one took any notice of my questions.
I looked in vain for a policeman. Your London policemen are so amiable and clever. Whatever difficulty I have, they seem to be able to help me, and the most curious of all curious things is, they will not accept tips! What wonderful men! and what a difference from our policemen in Constantinople! In Constantinople, I trembled almost at the sight of a policeman, but here I cannot imagine what I should do without them.
However, after losing myself and getting back always to the same point, I finally struck out in a new direction, and walked on and on until, when I was least expecting it, I found that just by chance I was safe in front of my club. You can perhaps imagine my relief. It seemed to me as if I had escaped from some terrible danger, and I wonder more and more how you English people manage to find your way in one of these dense fogs.
When I got into my club, I found your letter waiting me, and the Turkish post-mark cheered me just a little, and made me forget for a while the hideous black mantle in which London was wrapt.
On those evenings when I dine at “my club” (see how English I have become!) I eat alone, studying all the time the people I see around me. What a curious harem! and what a difference from the one in which you are living at present.
The first time I dined there I ordered the vegetarian dinner, expecting to have one of those delicious meals which you are enjoying (you lucky woman!), which consists of everything that is good. But alas! the food in this harem has been a disappointment to me. Surely I must not accept this menu as a sample of what English food really is.
On a little table all to myself, I was served with, first of all, rice which was cooked not as in Turkey, and as a second course I had carrots cooked in water! After sprinkling on them quantities of salt and pepper I could not even then swallow them, so I asked for pickles, but as there were none, that dish was sent away almost untouched to join the first. Next I was served with a compote of pears without sugar, but that also did not come up to my expectations. I ate up, however, all my bread and asked for more. Then the waiter kindly went from table to table to see how much he could collect, brought just a handful, and informed me he really could not give me any more. But I told him it was not enough. “I want a very large piece,” I said, so finally he decided to consult the butler, went to the kitchen, and brought me back a loaf to myself.
All this while, the curious people around me had been staring at me devouring my loaf, but after a while they wearied of that exciting entertainment, their faces again resumed their usual calm expression, and they went on once more talking to one another. Sometimes, but not often, they almost got interested in their neighbour’s remark, but as soon as the last words were uttered again they adopted a manner which seemed to me one of absolute indifference.
As you know, I do not swear by everything Turkish, but you must now admit from experience that when once the Danube is crossed the faces to be seen do express some emotion, either love or hate, contentment or disappointment, but not indifference. Since I left Belgrade, I have tried, almost in vain, to find in the Western faces the reflection of some personality, and so few examples have I found that their names would not certainly fill this page. Here in London I met with the same disappointment. Have these people really lost all interest in life? They give me the impression that they all belong to the same family, so much alike are they in appearance and in facial expression.
Zeyneb with a Black Face-veil thrown back
In the reading-room, where I spent my evening, I met those same people, who spoke in whispers, wrote letters, and read the daily papers. The silence of the room was restful, there was an atmosphere almost of peace, but it is not the peace which follows strife, it is the peace of apathy. Is this, then, what the Turkish women dream of becoming one day? Is this their ideal of independence and liberty?
Were you to show my letter to one of my race she would think that I had a distinct aversion for progress, or that I felt obliged to be in opposition to everything in the countries where I was travelling. You know enough of my life, however, to know that this is not the case. What I do feel, though, is that a Ladies’ Club is not a big enough reward for having broken away from an Eastern harem and all the suffering that has been the consequence of that action. A club, as I said before, is after all another kind of harem, but it has none of the mystery and charm of the Harem of the East.
How is one to learn and teach others what might perhaps be called “the tact of evolution”—I mean the art of knowing when to stop even in the realm of progress?
I cannot yet either analyse or classify in a satisfactory way your methods of thinking, since in changing from country to country even the words alter their meaning. In Servia, Liberal means Conservative, and Freemason on the Continent has quite a different meaning from what it has here; so that the interpretation I would give to an opinion might fail to cover my real meaning.
Do not think that this evening’s pessimism is due to the fog nor to my poor dinner. It is the outcome of disillusions which every day become more complete. It seems to me that we Orientals are children to whom fairy tales have been told for too long—fairy tales which have every appearance of truth. You hear so much of the mirage of the East, but what is that compared to the mirage of the West, to which all Orientals are attracted?
They tell you fairy tales, too, you women of the West—fairy tales which, like ours, have all the appearance of truth. I wonder, when the Englishwomen have really won their vote and the right to exercise all the tiring professions of men, what they will have gained? Their faces will be a little sadder, a little more weary, and they will have become wholly disillusioned.
Go to the root of things and you will find the more things change the more they are the same; nothing really changes. Human nature is always the same. We cannot stop the ebb or flow of Time, however much we try. The great mass of mediocrity alone is happy, for it is content to swim with the tide. Does it not seem to you, that each of us from the age when we begin to reason feels more or less the futility and uselessness of some of our efforts; the little good that struggling has brought us, and the danger we necessarily run, in this awful desire to go full speed ahead? And yet, this desire to go towards something, futile though it be, is one of the most indestructible of Western sentiments.
When in Turkey we met together, and spoke of the Women of England, we imagined that they had nothing more to wish for in this world. But we had no idea of what the struggle for life meant to them, nor how terrible was this eternal search after happiness. Which is the harder struggle of the two? The latter is the only struggle we know in Turkey, and the same futile struggle goes on all the world over.
Happiness—what a mirage! At best is it not a mere negation of pain, for each one’s idea of happiness is so different? When I was fifteen years old they made me a present of a little native from Central Africa. For her there was no greater torture than to wear garments of any kind, and her idea of happiness was to get back to the home on the borders of Lake Chad and the possibility of eating another roasted European.
*****
Last night I went to a banquet. It was the first time that I had ever heard after-dinner speeches, and I admired the ease with which everyone found something to say, and the women spoke quite as well as the men. Afterwards I was told, however, that these speeches had all been prepared beforehand.
The member of Parliament who sat on my right spoilt my evening’s enjoyment by making me believe I had to speak, and all through the dinner I tried to find something to say, and yet I knew that, were I actually to rise, I could not utter a sound. What most astonished me at that banquet, however, was that all those women, who made no secret of wanting to direct the affairs of the nation, dared not take the responsibility of smoking until they were told. What a contradiction!
Since I came here I have seen nothing but “Votes for Women” chalked all over the pavements and walls of the town. These methods of propaganda are all so new to me.
I went to a Suffrage street corner meeting the other night, and I can assure you I never want to go again. The speaker carried her little stool herself, another carried a flag, and yet a third woman a bundle of leaflets and papers to distribute to the crowd. After walking for a little while they placed the stool outside a dirty-looking public-house, and the lady who carried the flag boldly got on to the stool and began to shout, not waiting till the people came to hear her, so anxious was she to begin. Although she did not look nervous in the least she possibly was, for her speech came abruptly to an end, and my heart began to beat in sympathy with her.
When the other lady began to speak quite a big crowd of men and women assembled: degraded-looking ruffians they were, most of them, and a class of man I had not yet seen. All the time they interrupted her, but she went bravely on, returning their rudeness with sarcasm. What an insult to womanhood it seemed to me, to have to bandy words with this vulgar mob. One man told her that “she was ugly.” Another asked “if she had done her washing,” but the most of their hateful remarks I could not understand, so different was their English from the English I had learned in Turkey.
Yet how I admired the courage of that woman! No physical pain could be more awful to me than not to be taken for a lady, and this speaker of such remarkable eloquence and culture was not taken for a lady by the crowd, seeing she was supposed “to do her own washing” like any women of the people.
The most pitiful part of it all to me is the blind faith these women have in their cause, and the confidence they have that in explaining their policy to the street ruffians, who cannot even understand that they are ladies, they will further their cause by half an inch.
I was glad when the meeting was over, but sorry that such rhetoric should have been wasted on the half-intoxicated loungers who deigned to come out of the public-house and listen. If this is what the women of your country have to bear in their fight for freedom, all honour to them, but I would rather groan in bondage.
*****
I have been to see your famous Houses of Parliament, both the Lords and the Commons. Like all the architecture in London, these buildings create such an atmosphere of kingly greatness in which I, the democrat of my own country, am revelling. The Democracy of the East is so different from that of the West, of which I had so pitiful an example at the street corner.
I was invited to tea at the House of Commons, and to be invited to tea there of all places seemed very strange to me. Is the drinking of tea of such vital importance that the English can never do without it? I wonder if the Turks, now their Parliament is opened, will drink coffee with ladies instead of attending to the laws of the nation!
What a long, weary wait I had before they would let me into the Houses of Parliament. Every time I asked the policeman where the member of Parliament was who had invited me, he smilingly told me they had gone to fetch him. I thought he was joking at first, and threatened to go, but he only laughed, and said, “He will come in time.” Only when I had made up my mind that the tea-party would never come off, and had settled myself on an uncomfortable divan to study the curious people passing in and out, did my host appear. I thought it was only in Turkey that appointments were kept with such laxity, but I was reminded by the M.P. who invited me that I was three-quarters of an hour late in the first place.
A Corner of a Turkish Harem of To-day
This photograph was taken expressly for a London paper. It was returned with this comment: “The British public would not accept this as a picture of a Turkish Harem.” As a matter of fact, in the smartest Turkish houses European furniture is much in evidence.
Turkish Women and Children in the Country
They are accompanied by the negress.
I was conducted through a long, handsome corridor to a lobby where all sorts of men and women were assembled, pushing one another, gesticulating and speaking in loud, disagreeable voices like those outside of the Paris Bourse. Just then, however, a bell rang, and I was conducted back past the policeman to my original seat. What curious behaviour! What did it all mean? I spoke to the friendly policeman, but his explanation that they were “dividing” did not convey much to my mind. As I stood there, a stray member of Parliament came and looked at me. He must have been a great admirer of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, for he wore a monocle and an orchid in his buttonhole.
“Are these suffragettes?” he asked the policeman, staring at me and the other women.
“No, sir,” answered the policeman, “ladies.”
It was too late for tea when my host returned to fetch me, but the loss of a cup of tea is no calamity to me, as I only drink it to appear polite. I was next taken up to the Ladies’ Gallery, and was sworn in as one of the relations of a member who had given up his ladies’ tickets to my host. The funny part of it was, that I could not understand the language my relation spoke, so different was his English from the English I had learnt in Turkey. But what a fuss to get into that Ladies’ Gallery! I had no idea of making a noise before it was suggested to my mind by making me sign a book, and I certainly wanted to afterwards. What unnecessary trouble! What do you call it? Red tapeism! One might almost be in Turkey under Hamid and not in Free England.
But, my dear, why have you never told me that the Ladies’ Gallery is a harem? A harem with its latticed windows! The harem of the Government! No wonder the women cried through the windows of that harem that they wanted to be free! I felt inclined to shout out too. “Is it in Free England that you dare to have a harem? How inconsistent are you English! You send your women out unprotected all over the world, and here in the workshop where your laws are made, you cover them with a symbol of protection.”
The performance which I saw through the harem windows was boring enough. The humbler members of the House had little respect for their superiors, seeing they sat in their presence with their hats on, and this I am told was the habit of a very ill-bred man. Still perhaps this attitude does not astonish me since on all sides I hear complaints of the Government. It is a bad sign for a country, my dear. Are you following in Turkey’s footsteps? Hatred of the Government and prison an honour! Poor England!
I was very anxious to see the notorious Mr. Lloyd George. Since I have been in London his name is on everyone’s lips. I have heard very little good of him except from the ruffians at the street corner meeting, and yet like our Hamid he seems to be all-powerful. For a long time, I could not distinguish him in the crowd below, although my companion spared no pains in pointing him out. I was looking for some one with a commanding presence, some one with an eagle eye and a wicked face like our Sultan, some one before whom a whole nation was justified in trembling. But I still wonder whether I am thinking of the right man when I think of Mr. Lloyd George.
There is not much excitement in your House of Commons, is there? I prefer the Chamber of Deputies, even though some one fired at M. Briand the day I went there. There at least they are men of action. Here some members were so weary of law-making, that they crossed their legs, folded their arms, and went to sleep whilst their colleagues opposite were speaking. I thought it would have been more polite to have gone out and taken tea, as the other members seemed to be doing all the time. It would have given them strength to listen to the tiresome debate.
To me, perhaps, the speaking would have been less unbearable if the harem windows had not deadened the sound, which, please notice, is my polite Turkish way of saying, they all spoke so indistinctly.
The bell began to ring again. The members of Parliament all walked towards the harem to this curious direction, “Eyes to the right and nose to the left.”[23] And at last my friend took me away.
*****
We went to see a performance of Trilby at His Majesty’s Theatre the other night. I liked the acting of the terrible Svengali, but not the piece. As a great treat to me, my friend and her husband had us invited to supper in the roof of the theatre with the famous Sir Herbert Tree. I could not help saying, “I preferred not to go, for Sir Herbert Tree frightened me.”
However, we went all the same, and had a delightful supper-party. For some reason or other the manager was our host, and I was thankful not to eat with Sir Herbert Tree. As we came away my friend asked if I was still frightened now we had eaten with him.
“But we have not eaten with him,” I said.
“Indeed we have,” she said.
“Is the person with whom we had supper the horrid Svengali?” I asked.
“Why, of course,” she answered, laughing.
As you know, this is not my first experience of a theatre, so there is no excuse for me. But I can assure you no one would ever dream that Svengali was made up. What a pity it would have been for me to have gone through life thinking of your famous actor as Svengali. I think that when actors have to play such disagreeable parts, they should show themselves to the public afterwards as they really are, or not put their names on the programme.
*****
I saw another play at His Majesty’s in which the principal rôles were played by children. You cannot imagine how delightful I found it, and what a change it was from the eternal pièce à thèse which I had become accustomed to see in Paris. The scenery indeed was a fairy panorama, and the piece charmingly interpreted. What astonished me was to see that both men and women took as much delight in it as the young folks. Only mothers in Paris would have brought their children to see such a moral play.
Ah, but I must tell you I have at last seen an Englishwoman who does not look weary of life. She is Miss Ellen Terry. How good it was to see her act. She was so natural and so full of fun, and enjoyed all she had to say and do, that her performance was a real joy to me. I wish I could have thanked her.
*****
I just love your hansom cabs. If I had money enough I would buy one for myself and drive about seeing London. You get the best view of everything in this way. When I first stepped into one I could not imagine where the coachman sat; he called out to me from somewhere, but I could not find his voice, until he popped his fingers through a little trap door and knocked off my hat, for I cannot bear to pin on my hat.
“Here I am,” he answered to my query, and he thought he had a mad-woman for a fare.
*****
One night when I returned to my club after the theatre, there was one lonely woman seated in the reading-room near the fire. She seemed to me to be the youngest of all the ladies, although you may say that was no guarantee against middle age. I don’t know how it was we began to speak, since no one had introduced us, but she imagined I was a Frenchwoman, hence probably the explanation of the liberty she had taken in addressing me. Yet she looked so sad.
“You French,” she said, “are used to sitting up a good deal later than we do here.”
“I thought,” I said, “the protocol did not bother about such trifles.”
“Ah, now you are in the country of protocols and etiquette,” she answered.
She must have been asking me questions only as an excuse to speak herself, because she took really no interest in my answers, and she kept on chattering and chattering because she did not want me to go away. She spoke of America and India and China and Japan, all of which countries she seemed to know as well as her own. Never have I met in my travels anyone so fond of talking, and yet at the same time with a spleen which made me almost tired.
I concluded that she was an independent woman, whose weariness must have been the result of constant struggling. She was all alone in the world; one of those poor creatures who might die in a top back-room without a soul belonging to her. Her mind must have been saturated with theories, she must have known all the uncomfortable shocks which come from a changed position, and yet she was British enough to tremble before Public Opinion.
“But do you know why I travel so much?” at last I had the opportunity of asking her. “Like Diogenes who tried to find a Man, I have been trying to find a Free woman, but have not been successful.”
I do not think she understood in the least what I meant.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CLASH OF CREEDS
London, Jan. 1909.
I am indeed a désenchantée. I envy you even your reasonable illusions about us. We are hopelessly what we are. I have lost all mine about you, and you seem to me as hopelessly what you are.
The only difference between the spleen of London and the spleen of Constantinople is that the foundation of the Turkish character is dry cynicism, whilst the Englishman’s is inane doggedness without object. In his fatalism the Turk is a philosopher. Your Englishman calls himself a man of action, but he is a mere empiric.
I quite understand now, however, that you do not pity my countrywomen, not because they do not need pity, but because for years you have led only the life of the women of this country, women who start so courageously to fight life’s battle and who ultimately have had to bury all their life’s illusions. Now, I see only too well, there are beings for whom freedom becomes too heavy a burden to bear. The women I have met here, seem to have been striving all their lives to get away from everything—home, family, social conventions. They want the right to live alone, to travel as they like, to be responsible for their own lives. Yet when their ambition is realised, the only harvest they reap after a youth of struggle is that of disenchantment.
Yet I ask myself, is a lonely old age worth a youth of effort? Have they not confused individual liberty, which is the right to live as one pleases, with true liberty, which to my Oriental mind is the right to choose one’s own joys and forbearances?
*****
Is it not curious that here, in a Christian country, I see nothing of the religion of Christ? And yet commentaries are not lacking. Every sect has the presumption to suppose its particular interpretation of the words of Christ is the only right interpretation, and Christians have changed the meaning of His words so much, and seen Christ through the prism of their own minds, that I, primitive being that I am, do not recognise in their tangled creeds the simple and beautiful teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the carpenter Joseph.
Sometimes it seems to me that the religion of Christ has been brought beyond the confines of absurdity. Would it not be better to try and follow the example of Christ than to waste time disputing whether He would approve of eating chocolate biscuits on fast-days and whether wild duck is a fasting diet, whilst duck of the farmyard is forbidden? To me, all this seems profanely childish.
The impression these numerous creeds make on me is like that of members of the same family disputing with one another. What happens in the case of families happens in the case of religion. From these discussions over details follow, first mistrust, then dislike, then hatred, always to the detriment of the best interest of them all.
I went to a Nonconformist chapel the other evening, but I could not bring myself to realise that I was in a chapel at all. There was nothing divine or sacred either in the building or the service. It was more like a lecture by an eloquent professor. Nor did the congregation worship as we worship in the East. It seemed to me, as if it was not to worship God that they were there, but to appease the anger of some Northern Deity, cold, intolerant, and wrathful—an idea of the Almighty which I shall never understand.
It astonished me to hear the professor calling those present “miserable sinners,” and as I was one of the congregation I was not a little hurt, for I have nothing very serious on my conscience. But the Catholics, in this respect, err as much as the Protestants. Why this hysteria for sins you have not committed? Why this shame of one’s self, this exaggerated humility, this continual fear? Why should you stand trembling before your Maker?
The Balcony at the back of Zeyneb’s House
The house is covered with wistaria.
Zeyneb and Melek
The Yashmak is exceedingly becoming, the white tulle showing the lips to great advantage.
While I was still inside the chapel, a lady came up and was introduced to me. We walked down the street together, and in the course of conversation she discovered I was not even a Nonconformist, nor a Roman Catholic, but a heathen. And she at once began to pity me, and show me the advantages of her religion. But what could she teach me about Christ that I did not already know? Unfortunately for her she knew nothing of the religion of Mahomet, nor how broad-minded he was, nor with what admiration he had spoken of the crucified Jesus, and how we all loved Christ from Mahomet’s interpretation of His life and work.[24]
*****
As usual here, as in other Christian countries, marriage seems an everlasting topic of interest. I was hardly seven years old when I was taken for the first time to a non-Turkish marriage. It was the wedding of some Greek farm-people our governess knew. We were present at the nuptial benediction, which took place inside the house and which seemed to me interminable. After that, everyone, including the bride, partook of copious refreshments. Then, when we had been taken for a drive in the country, we returned to dinner, which was served in front of the stable. After the meal we danced on the grass to the strains of a violin, accordion, and triangle. That is the only Christian marriage I had seen till 1908, and I was astonished to find how different a Christian wedding is here.
What is the use of an organ for marrying people? And twelve bridesmaids? The bridal pair themselves look extremely uncomfortable at all this useless ceremonial, to which nobody pays any particular attention. Every bride and bridegroom must know how unnecessary are all these preparations, and how marriages bore friends. Yet they go on putting themselves to all this useless trouble, and for what?
Each person invited, I am told, has to bring a present. What a wicked expense to put their friends to. Oh, vanity of vanities!
How is it possible not to admire the primitive Circassians, who when they love one another and wish to marry, walk off without consulting anyone but themselves?
*****
I am also disappointed at the manner in which divorce proceedings are conducted in England. What a quantity of unkind words and vile accusations! What a low handling and throwing of mud at each other, what expense, what time and worry! And all simply to prove that two people are not suited to live together.
To think that, with the possibility of such a life of tragedy, there are still people who have the courage to get married! It seems to me there are some who take marriage too seriously, others who do not take it seriously enough, and that others again only take it seriously when one of the partners wants to be liberated.
How sad it is! And what good can be said of laws, the work of human beings, which not only do not help us in our misfortunes, but extend neither pity nor pardon to those who try to suffer a little less.
During the time I lived away yonder and suffered from a total absence of liberty, I imagined that Europe respected the happiness and the misfortunes of individuals. How horrible it is to find in the daily papers the names of people mercilessly branded by their fellow-men for having committed no other fault than that of trying to be less unhappy, for having the madness to wish to repair their wrecked existence. To publish the reports of the evidence, the sordid gossip of menials, the calumnies, the stolen letters, written under such different circumstances, in moments of happiness, in absolute confidence, or extreme mental agony, in which a woman has laid her soul bare, is loathsome. Is it not worse than perjury to exact from a friend’s lips what he only knows in confidence? Poor imprudent beings! They have had their moments of sincerity: for this your sad civilisation of the West makes them pay with the rest of their broken lives.
*****
For a long time I have wanted to make the acquaintance of Mr. W. T. Stead, who is known and respected in the East more perhaps than any Englishman. I had no particular reason to go and see him except that he knew my father at the first Hague Conference. So, one day I was bold enough to jump into a hansom and drive to his office. I was asked whom I wanted. I asked for Mr. Stead.
“Who wants him?” I was asked.
“I do,” I replied.
“Give me your card.” But as I had no card I wrote on a slip of paper: “The daughter of a Turkish friend of the Hague Conference will be so pleased to see you.”
He received me at once. There was so much to talk about. He spoke so nicely of my poor dead father, questioned me about the Sultan, about the country I had left, about the Balkans, about Crete, and the Turks themselves. More than an hour we talked together, and when finally I rose to go he said to me: “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No,” I said, thanking him very kindly.
“Then it was simply to see me,” he went on, “that you came.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is a friendly visit.” He laughed heartily.
“Do you know,” he said, “that is the first time that this has happened in my life.”
Then he was kind enough to send for tea, and the tray was put down on the table among the papers and the journals, and he showed me signed portraits which he had collected during his travels, among them the one that my dear father had given him at The Hague. He then gave me his own, and signed it, “To my only Turkish lady friend.”
*****
I saw him for a little while in Paris on his return from Constantinople, and he came back really enthusiastic. He was much in sympathy with the Young Turks, though he had much also to find fault with. He despised but pitied Abdul Hamid, and hoped that an entente between England and Turkey could be arranged, but his ideas were quite unpractical. His policy was purely sentimental, and his suggestions impossible.
*****
I have had the pleasure, since I have been here, of seeing two diplomatists with whose voices I was familiar for many years in Constantinople. My father highly esteemed them both; they often came to see him. When they had drunk their coffee, sometimes my father sent for us to come and play and sing to them, and from behind a curtain they courteously thanked us for our performance.
Although I had so often heard their voices I never had an opportunity of seeing a photo of either of them, and I can’t tell whether I was agreeably surprised or not. Have you ever tried putting a body to a voice?
*****
What a magnificent city London is! If you English are not proud of it, you ought to be. It is not only grand and magnificent but has an aristocratic look that despises mere ornament.
Here in London I have a feeling of security, which I have had nowhere else in the world. It is the only capital in Europe I have so far seen that gives me a sense of orderliness not dependent on authority. It seems to me as if English character were expressed even in the houses of the people. You can tell at a glance what kind of people dwell in the house you are entering. How different is Paris! What a delight to have no concierge, those petty potentates who, as it were, keep the key of your daily life, and remedy there is none.
For the first time since I left Turkey I have had here the sensation of real home life. As you know, we have no flats in Turkey, and have room to move about freely—room for your delightful English furniture, which to me is the most comfortable in the whole world.
Like ours, the houses here are made for use, and their wide doors and broad passages seem to extend a welcome to you which French houses hardly ever do. In France you smell economy before you even reach the door-mat.
You who are in Turkey can now understand what I have suffered from this narrowness of French domestic life. You can imagine my surprise when, the morning after my arrival here, a big tray was sent into my room with a heavy meal of eggs, bacon, fish, toast, marmalade, and what not. I thought I must have looked ill and as if I needed extra feeding, and I explained to my hostess that my white skin was not a sign of anæmia but my Oriental complexion: all the eggs and bacon in the world would not change the colour of my skin. She was not aware that the Mahometan never eats pork, and like so many others, seemed to forget that bacon, like pork, came from a forbidden source.
I do not find London noisy, but what noise there is one feels is serving a purpose. Life seems so serious; everyone is busy crowding into twelve hours the work of twenty-four. We Turks take no heed of the passing hours.
The Englishmen remind me of the Turks. They have the same grave demeanour, the same appearance of indifference to our sex, the same look of stubborn determination, and, like the Turk, every Englishman is a Sultan in his own house. Like the Turk, too, he is sincere and faithful in his friendships, but Englishmen have two qualities that the Turks do not possess. They are extremely good business men, and in social relations are extremely prudent, although it is difficult to say where prudence ends and hypocrisy begins.
The Drawing-room of a Harem showing a Bridal Throne
On the Bridal Throne the Turkish woman sits on her wedding day to receive her friends’ good wishes. It remains the chief seat in the harem; in the Imperial Palace it is a fine throne, in poor houses only a glorified chair, but it is always there.
A Corner of the Harem
This Turkish lady collected the ribbons of the battleships on the Bosphorus, and they are hanging on the wall.
But if Englishmen remind me of Turks, I can find nothing in common between English and Turkish women. They are in direct contrast to one another in everything. Perhaps it is this marked contrast that balances our friendship. A Turkish woman’s life is as mysterious as an Englishwoman’s life is an open book, which all can read who care. Before I met the suffragettes, I knew only sporting and society women. They were all passionately absorbed in their own amusements, which as you know do not in the least appeal to me. I suppose we Turkish women who have so much time to devote to culture become unreasonably exacting. But everywhere I have been—in England, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain—I have found how little and how uselessly the women read, and how society plays havoc with their taste for good books.
Englishwomen are pretty, but are deficient in charm. They have no particular desire and make no effort to please. You know the charm of the Turkish woman. The Englishwoman is pig-headed, undiplomatic, brutally sincere, but a good and faithful friend. The Turkish woman—well, you must fill that in yourself! I am too near to focus her.
But now that I have seen the women of most countries, you may want to know which I most admire.
Well, I will tell you frankly, the Turkish woman. An ordinary person would answer, “Of course,” but you are not an ordinary person, so I shall at once give you my reasons. It is not because I am a Turkish woman myself, but because, in spite of the slavery of their existence, Turkish women have managed to keep their minds free from prejudice. With them it is not what people think they ought to think, but what they think themselves. Nowhere else in Europe have I found women with such courage in thinking.
In every country there are women—though they may be a mere handful—who are above class, above nationality, and dare to be themselves. These are the people I appreciate the most. These are the people I shall always wish to know, for to them the whole world is kin.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
CHAPTER XIX
IN THE ENEMY’S LAND
Venice, Oct. 1911.
You will say perhaps I am reminded of the Bosphorus everywhere, just as Maurice Barres is reminded of Lorraine in every land he visits. Yet how would it be possible not to think of the Bosphorus in Venice, especially when for so many years I have had to do without it? Here, there is the same blue sky, the same blue carpet of sea, the same sunset, and the same wonderful sunrise—only gondolas have taken the place of caïques.
All day and part of the evening I allow myself to be rowed as my gondolier wishes from canal to canal, and I am indignant I did not know sooner there was a place in Europe where one could come to rest. Why do the French and Swiss doctors not send their patients here? They would be cured certainly of that disease from which everyone suffers nowadays, the fatigue of the big towns.
But since so many illustrious poets have sung the praises of Venice what is there for me to say? I prefer to glorify it as the Brahmins worship their Deity, in silence.
The Venetians do not appreciate Venice any more than I appreciated Constantinople when I lived there. They have no idea how lovely Venice is, but prefer the Lido, where they meet the people of all nations, whose buzzing in the daytime replaces the mosquitoes at night.
On our way here, the train went off the rails, so we had to alight for some time: then one of the party suggested that we should visit Verona, and I was very delighted at this happy idea.
It was midnight. We walked along the narrow streets of the deserted city. The town was bathed in a curious, indescribable light, and it was more beautiful than anything we could have seen in the daylight, when perhaps the noise would have killed its charm. I hope that fate has not decreed that my impression of that silent sleeping city shall ever be destroyed.
I travelled to Venice in a compartment marked “Ladies only,” not because I have any particular affection for those “harem” compartments, but because there was not a seat for me with my friends. An old English spinster was my companion. She welcomed me with a graciousness that I did not appreciate, and at once began a very dull and conventional conversation.
Presently, however, two Italian officers came in, and politely excusing themselves in their language, sat down. They said they had been up all night, had been standing from Milan, and had to go on duty when they reached Venice, and begged the old lady politely to allow them a quarter of an hour’s rest.
The spinster did not understand, so I translated.
“Disgraceful,” she said and ordered them out. But still the officers remained. Then turning to me she said, “You who must be Italian, please tell them what I think of them.”
I told her, “It was not my rôle to interpret such uncharitable language.”
Then the officers turning to me, said in Italian, “Although English, you are much kinder than your companion; please tell her we only want to stop a quarter of an hour, and there is absolutely no danger for her.”
Rising, the old spinster looked for the alarm signal, but finally decided to call the guard, who ordered the officers out. Before they went, however, they pulled out their watches and asked me to thank her for her kind hospitality: they reminded me that they had what they wanted, a quarter of an hour’s rest.
Luckily our arrival at Venice meant good-bye to this disagreeable old creature, whose type flourishes all over the Continent, even in Constantinople, and who sacrifices on the altar of respectability everything, even charity.
*****
Now I understand the enthusiasm of those who have spoken of Italy. Nothing one can say is sufficient eulogy for this land of sunshine and poetry and tradition.
I am told by the people of the north I shall be disappointed when I see the south, but that does not disturb my impression of the moment. I am worshipping Venice, and everything there pleases me.
A Caïque on the Bosphorus
Turkish Women in the Country
To me it seems almost as if it were the home of the ancient Greeks, with all their artistic instincts and roguery, all their faults, and all their primitive charm. From my open window, which looks into a canaletto, I heard the song of a gondolier. His voice was the sweetest I have ever heard; no opera singer ever gave me greater pleasure. Now that I know the number of his boat, I have engaged him as my gondolier, and every evening after dinner, instead of wasting my time at Bridge, I go on to the canal, leaving it to the discretion of my guide where he takes me; and when he is tired of rowing, he brings me back. All the time he sings and sings and I dream, and his beautiful voice takes me far, far away—away from the unfriendly West.
Amongst its other attractions, Venice has an aristocracy. They are poor certainly, but, with such blood in their veins, do they need riches? And surely their charm and nobility are worth all the dollars put together of the vulgar Transatlantics who have bought the big historic palaces of Venice. I feel here as I felt in London, the delight of being again in a Kingdom, and I can breathe and live. How restful it is, after the nervous strain of the exaggerated Democracy of France.
*****
Brussels, Nov. 1911.
I have had this letter quite a fortnight in my trunk. I did not want to send it to you. Somehow I felt ashamed to let you see how much I had loved Italy—Turkey’s enemy.
I left Venice the day after the Declaration of War, if such a disgraceful proceeding would be called a Declaration of War. For a long time I could not make up my mind that that nation of gentlemen, that nation of poetry and music and art, that nation whose characteristics so appealed to my Oriental nature, that nation whom I thought so civilised in the really good sense of the word, could be capable of such injustice.
Even in the practice of “the rights of the strong” a little more tact could have been exercised. Surely it is not permissible in the twentieth century to act as savages did—at least those we thought savages.
In a few years from now, we shall be able to see more clearly how the Italian Government of 1911 was able to step forward and take advantage of a Sister State, whose whole efforts were centred on regeneration, and no one protested. What a wonderful account of the history of our times!
When I think that it is in Christian Europe that such injustice passes unheeded, and that Christian Europe dares to send us missionaries to preach this gospel of Civilisation—I curse the Fate which has forced me to accept the hospitality of the West.
*****
Paris, Feb. 1912.
Two chapters more seem necessary to my experience of the West. I submit in silence. Kismet.
Hardly had I returned from Brussels than I became seriously ill. Do not ask me what was the matter with me. Science has not yet found a name for my suffering. I have consulted doctors, many doctors, and perhaps for this reason I have no idea as to the nature of my illness. Each doctor wanted to operate for something different, and only when I told them I had not the money for an operation have they found that after all it is not necessary. I think I have internal neuralgia, but modern science calls it “appendicitis,” and will only treat me under that fashionable name. At Smyrna, I remember having a similar attack. My grandmother, terrified to see me suffering, ran in for a neighbour whom she knew only by name. The neighbour came at once, said a few prayers over me, passed her magic hands over my body, and in a short time I was healed.
Here I might have knocked up all the inhabitants of Paris: not one would have come to help me.
“The progress of modern science” was my last illusion. Why must I have this final disappointment? Yet what does it matter? Every cloud has a silver lining. And this final experience has brought me to the decision, that I shall go back to Turkey as soon as I can walk. There at least, unless my own people have been following in the footsteps of modern civilisation, I shall be allowed to be ill at my leisure, without the awful spectre hovering over me of a useless operation.
One night I was suffering so much that I thought it advisable to send for the doctor. It was only two o’clock in the morning, but the message the concierge sent back was, “that one risked being assassinated in Paris at that hour,” and he refused to go.
The next day I had a letter from my landlord requesting me not to wake the concierge up again at two o’clock in the morning. And this is the country of liberty, the country where one is free to die, provided only the concierge is not awakened at two o’clock in the morning.
This little incident seems insignificant in itself, but to me it will be a very painful remembrance of one of the chief characteristics of the people of this country—a total lack of hospitality.
If our Oriental countries must one day become like these countries of the West, if they too must inherit all the vices, with which this civilisation is riddled through and through, then let them perish now.
If civilisation does not teach each individual the great and supreme quality of pity, then what use is it? What difference is there, please tell me, between the citizens of Paris and the carnivorous inhabitants of Darkest Africa? We Orientals imagine the word civilisation is a synonym of many qualities, and I, like others, believed it. Is it possible to be so primitive? Yet why should I be ashamed of believing in the goodness of human beings? Why should I blame myself, because these people have not come up to my expectations?
This musing reminds me of a story which our Koran Professor used to tell us. “There was once,” he said, “in a country of Asia Minor, a little girl who believed all she heard. One day she looked out of her window, and saw a chain of mountains blue in the distance.
“‘Is that really their colour?’ she asked her comrades.
“‘Yes,’ they answered.
“And so delighted was she with this information that she started out to get a nearer view of the blue mountains.
“Day after day she walked and walked, and at last got to the summit of the blue mountains, only to find grass just as she would have found it anywhere else. But she would not give up.
“‘Where are the blue mountains?’ she asked a shepherd, and he showed another chain higher and farther away, and on and on she went until she came to the mountains of Alti.
Melek on the Veranda at Fontainebleau
“All her existence she had the same hopes and the same illusions. Only when she came to the evening of her life did she understand that it was the distance that lent the mountains their hue—but it was too late to go back, and she perished in the cold, biting snow.”
*****
I do not know if there is another country in the world where foreigners can be as badly treated as they are here; at any rate they could not be treated worse. They are criticised, laughed at, envied, and flattered, and they have the supreme privilege of paying for all those people whose hobby is economy.
Everything is done here by paradox; the foreigner who has talent is more admired than the Frenchman, yet if he does anything wrong, there is no forgiveness for him.
An Englishwoman I knew quarrelled with a Frenchwoman, and the latter reproached her with having accepted one luncheon and one dinner. The Englishwoman (it sounds fearfully English, doesn’t it?) sent her ex-hostess twelve francs, and the Frenchwoman not only accepted it but sent a receipt. If I had not seen that receipt I don’t think I could have believed the story!
Another lady, whose dressmaker claimed from her a sum she was not entitled to, was told by that dressmaker, unless she were paid at once, she would inform the concierge. Tell me, I beg of you, in what other country would this have been possible? In what other country of the world would self-respecting people pay any attention, far less go for information, to the vulgar harpies who preside over the destinies of the fifteen or twenty families who occupy a Paris house?
When I have been able to get my ideas and impressions a little into focus, I intend to write for you, and for you only, what a woman without any preparation for the battle of life, a foreigner, a woman alone, and last but not least, a Turk, has had to suffer in Paris.
You who know what our life is in Turkey, and how we have been kept in glass cases and wrapt in cotton wool, with no knowledge of the meaning of life, will understand what the awful change means, and how impossible for a Turkish woman is Western life.
Do you remember the year of my arrival? Do you remember how I wanted to urge all my young friends away yonder to take their liberty as I had taken mine, so that before they died they might have the doubtful pleasure of knowing what it was to live?
Now, I hope if ever they come to Europe they will not come to Paris except as tourists; that they will see the beautiful things there are to be seen, the Provence with its fine cathedrals and its historic surroundings; that they will amuse themselves taking motor-car trips and comparing it with their excursions on a mule’s back in Asia; that they will see the light of Paris, but never its shade; and that they will return, as you have returned from Constantinople, with one regret, that you couldn’t stay longer.
If only my experience could be of use to my compatriots who are longing as I longed six years ago for the freedom of the West, I shall never regret having suffered.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
CHAPTER XX
THE END OF THE DREAM
Marseilles, 5th March, 1912.
It is to-morrow that I sail. In a week from to-day, I shall again be away yonder amongst those whom I have always felt so near, and who I know have not forgotten me.
In just a week from to-day I shall again be one of those unrecognisible figures who cross and recross the silent streets of our town—some one who no longer belongs to the same world as you—some one who must not even think as you do—some one who will have to try and forget she led the existence of a Western woman for six long, weary years.
What heart-breaking disappointments have I not to take away with me! It makes me sad to think how England has changed! England with its aristocratic buildings and kingly architecture—England with its proud and self-respecting democracy—the England that our great Kemal Bey taught us to know, that splendid people the world admires so much, sailing so dangerously near the rocks.
I do not pretend to understand the suffragettes or their “window-smashing” policy, but I must say, I am even more surprised at the attitude of your Government. However much these ill-advised women have over-stepped the boundaries of their sex privileges, however wrong they may be, surely the British Government could have found some other means of dealing with them, given their cause the attention they demanded, or used some diplomatic way of keeping them quiet. I cannot tell you the horrible impression it produces on the mind of a Turkish woman to learn that England not only imprisons but tortures women; to me it is the cataclysm of all my most cherished faiths. Ever since I can remember, England had been to me a kind of Paradise on earth, the land which welcomed to its big hospitable bosom all Europe’s political refugees. It was the land of all lands I longed to visit, and now I hear a Liberal Government is torturing women. Somehow my mind will not accept this statement.
Write to me often, very often, dear girl. You know exactly where I shall be away yonder, and exactly what I shall be doing. You know even the day when I shall again begin my quiet, almost cloistered existence as a Moslem woman, and how I shall long for news of that Europe which has so interested and so disappointed me.
Do you remember with what delight I came to France, the country of Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité? But now I have seen those three magic words in practice, how the whole course of my ideas has changed! Not only are my theories on the nature of governments no longer the same, but my confidence in the individual happiness that each can obtain from these governments is utterly shattered.
But you will say, I argue like a reactionary. Let me try to explain. Am I not now a woman of experience, a woman of six years’ experience, which ought to count as double, for every day has brought me a double sensation, the one of coming face to face with the reality, and the other, the effort of driving from my mind the remembrance of what I expected to find?
You know how I loved the primitive soul of the people, how I sympathise with them, and how I hoped that some scheme for the betterment of their condition would be carried out.
But I expected in France the same good honest Turks I knew in our Eastern villages, and it was from the Eastern simplicity and loyalty that I drew my conclusions about the people of the West. You know now what they are! And do not for a moment imagine that I am the only one to make this mistake: nine out of ten of my compatriots, men and women, would have the same expectation of them. Until they have come to the West to see for themselves and had some of the experiences that we have had, they will never appreciate the calm, leisurely people of our country.
How dangerous it is to urge those Orientals forward, only to reduce them in a few years to the same state of stupidity as the poor degenerate peoples of the West, fed on unhealthy literature and poisoned with alcohol.
You are right: it is in the West that I have learned to appreciate my country. Here I have studied its origin, its history (and I still know only too little of it), but I shall take away with me very serious knowledge about Turkey.
But again I say, what a disappointment the West has been. Yes, taking it all round I must own that I am again a désenchantée. Do you know, I am now afraid even of a charwoman who comes to work for me. Alas! I have learned of what she is capable—theft, hatred, vengeance, and the greed of money, for which she would sell her soul.
I told the editor of a Paris paper one day that I blushed at the manner in which he encouraged dirty linen to be washed in public. “All your papers are the same,” I said. “Take them one after the other and see if one article can be found which is favourable to your poor country. You give the chief place to horrible crimes. Your leading article contains something scandalous about a minister, and from these articles France is judged not only by her own people but by the whole world.”
He did not contradict me, but smiling maliciously, he answered, “Les journalistes ont à cœur d’être aussi veridique que possible.” (“Journalists must try to be as truthful as possible.”) A clever phrase, perhaps, but worse than anything he could have written in the six pages of his paper.
But perhaps I am leaving you under the impression, désenchantée though I be, that nothing has pleased me in the West. Not at all! I have many delightful impressions to take back with me, and I want to return some day if the “Kismet” will allow it.
Munich, Venice, the Basque Countries, the Riviera, and London I hope to see again. Art and music, the delightful libraries, the little towns where I have worked, thought, and discovered so many things, and a few friends “who can understand”—surely these are attractions great enough to bring me back to Europe again.
The countries I have seen are beautiful enough, but civilisation has spoiled them. To take a copy of what it was going to destroy, however, civilisation created art—art in so many forms, art in which I had revelled in the West. It was civilisation that collected musical harmonies, civilisation that produced Wagner, and music to my mind is the finest of all its works.
But there are books too, you will say, wonderful books. Yes, but in the heart of Asia there are quite as many masterpieces, and they are far more reposeful.
6th March.
This morning early I was wakened by the sun, the advance-guard of what I expect away yonder. From my window I see a portion of the harbour, and the curious ships which start and arrive from all corners of the earth. Again I see the Bosphorus with its ships, which in my childish imagination were fairy godmothers who would one day take me far, far away ... and now they are the fairy godmothers who will take me back again.
I like to watch this careless, boisterous, gay crowd of Marseilles. It is just a little like the port of Échelles du Levant with its variegated costumes, its dirt, which the sun makes bearable, and the continual cries and quarrelling among men of all nations.
All my trunks are packed and ready, and it is with joy and not without regret that I see I have no hatbox. Not that I care for that curious and very unattractive invention, the fashionable hat, but it is the external symbol of liberty, and now I am setting it aside for ever. My tchatchaff is ready, and once we have passed the Piræus I shall put it on. How strange I shall feel clad again from head to foot in a black mantle all out of fashion, for the Turks have narrowed their tchatchaffs as the Western women have tightened their skirts. It will not be without emotion, either, that I feel a black veil over my face, a veil between me and the sun, a veil to prevent me from seeing it as I saw it for the first time at Nice from my wide open window.
Yet what anguish, what terrible anguish would it not be for me to put on that veil again, if I did not hope to see so many of those I have really loved, the companions of my childhood, friends I know who wanted me and have missed me. Even when I left Constantinople, you know under what painful circumstances, I hoped to return one day.
“The world is a big garden which belongs to us all,” said a Turkish warrior of the past; “one must wander about and gather its most agreeable fruits as one will.” Ah! the holy philosophy! yet how far are we from ever attempting to understand it! Will there ever come a personality strong enough, with a voice powerful enough to persuade us that this philosophy is for our sovereign being, and that without it we shall be led and lead others to disappointments?
During the time I was away yonder, I believed in the infallibility of new theories. I had almost completely neglected the books of our wise men of the East, but I have read them in the libraries of the West, where I have neglected modern literature for the pleasure of studying that philosophy, which shows the vanity of these struggles and the suffering that can follow.
I am longing to see an old uncle from the Caucasus. When we were young girls he pitied us because we were so unarmed against the disenchantment which inevitably had to come to us.
“You are of another century,” we said to him. “You reason with theories you find remarkable, but we want to go forward, we want to fight for progress, and that is only right.”
Ah! he knew what he was talking about, that old uncle, when he spoke of the disenchantment of life.
“You are arguing as I argued when I was a little boy, and my father gave me the answer that I have given to you. My children,” he continued, “life does not consist in always asking for more: believe me, there is more merit in living happily on as little as you can, than in struggling to rise on the defeat of others. I have fought in all the battles against the Russians, and had great experience of life, but I remind you of the fact merely lest you should think me a vulgar fatalist in the hands of destiny. I, too, have had many struggles, and it was my duty.”
What a lot I shall have to tell this dear old uncle! How well we shall understand each other now, how happy he will be to see that I have understood him! We shall speak in that language which I need to speak again after six long years. Loving the East to fanaticism as I do, to me it stands for all that glorious past which the younger generation should appreciate but not blame, all the past with which I find myself so united.
I will tell this dear old uncle (and indeed am I not as old and experienced as he?) that I love my country to-day as I never loved it before, and if only I may be able to prove this I shall ask nothing more of life.
*****
Naples.
I can only write you a few lines to-day. The sea has been so rough that many of the passengers have preferred to remain on board. Some one impertinently asked me if I were afraid to go on shore, but I did not answer, having too much to say. Around me I hear the language which once I spoke with such delight; now it has become odious to me, as odious as that Italy which I have buried like a friend of the past.
Now there is a newspaper boy on board crying with rapture “Another Italian victory.” He offers me a paper. I want to shout my hatred of his country, I want to call from Heaven the vengeance of Allah on these cowardly Italians, but my tongue is tied and my lips will not give utterance to the thoughts I feel. I stand like one dazed.
Surely these accounts of victory are false. Are not these reports prepared beforehand to give courage to the Italian soldiers in their glorious mission of butchering the Turks, those fine valiant men who will stand up for their independence as long as a man remains to fight?
At last I go and lock myself in my cabin, so as not to hear their hateful jubilation, but they follow me even to my solitude. Some one knocks. Reluctantly I open. It is a letter. But there must be some error. Who can have written to me when I particularly asked that I should have no letters until I arrived?
But the letter came from Turkey, and the Turkish stamp almost frightened me: for a long time I had not the courage to open it. When at last I slowly cut the envelope of that letter, I found it contained the cutting of a newspaper which announced the death of the dear old uncle whom more than anyone I was longing to see again.
Outside the conquerors were crying out, even louder than before, “More Turkish losses, more Turkish losses.” I folded up the letter and put it back in its envelope with a heart too bitter for tears.
*****
What did it all mean? What was the warning that fate was sending to me in this cruel manner? Désenchantée I left Turkey, désenchantée I have left Europe. Is that rôle to be mine till the end of my days?—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.