A Child of the Orient

by Demetra Vaka

With a fairly accurate idea of my own worth, I knew that I was intelligent, but I was fully aware that I was the possessor of no gifts that would place me among the privileged few and outside the ranks of ordinary mortals. Brought up on books and nourished on dreams, I had a poor preparation with which to fight the battle of life, particularly in a foreign country, where everything was different, and difficult both to grasp and to manipulate. The only factor in my favour was my Greek blood, synonymous with money-making ability; for we Greeks have always been merchants, even when we wore chlamidas and reclined in the agora, declaiming odes to the gods, talking philosophy, or speculating on the immortality of our souls.

Knowing my race as I did, and aware that it succeeded in making money in climates and under conditions where other races failed, I was confident that I could earn my own living. There is something in us which justifies the tale of Prometheus. Even before I was fifteen I was quietly planning to leave Turkey, to go and seek what fortunes awaited me in new and strange lands—a course which my imagination painted very attractively. America beckoned to me more than any other country, perhaps because I thought there were no classes there, and that every one met on an equal footing and worked out his own salvation.

We are all the possessors of two kinds of knowledge: one absorbed from experience, books, and hearsay, which we call facts; the other, a knowledge that comes to us through our own immortal selves. This last it is impossible to analyse, since it partakes of the unseen and the untranslatable. We feel it, that is all. This subconscious knowledge—to which many of us attach far greater importance than we do to cold facts—is usually as remote as a distant sound, though at times it may be so clear as to be almost palpable. This secondary knowledge told me I must go to America—America that rose so luminous, so full of hope and promise on the never-ending horizon of my young life.

I had not the remotest idea of how my dream of going there could be realized; but I believe that if one keeps on dreaming a dream hard enough, it will eventually become a reality. And so did mine. A Greek I knew was appointed consul to New York, and was shortly to sail with his family to the United States. I had a secret conference with them, offering to accompany them as an unpaid governess, and to stay with them as long as they stayed in America. They accepted my offer.

This I regarded merely as a means of getting away from home. After I left them my real career would begin. That I was prepared for no particular vocation, that I did not even know a single word of English, disconcerted me not at all. Accustomed to having my own way, I was convinced that the supreme right of every person was to lead his life as he chose. I do not think so any longer. On the contrary, I believe that the supreme duty of every individual is to consider the greatest good of the greatest number. That I succeeded in my rash enterprize is more due to the kindness of Providence than to any personal worth of mine.

Of America actually I knew almost nothing, and what I thought I knew was all topsy-turvy. The story of Pocohontas and Captain John Smith had fallen into my hands when I was twelve years old. I wept over it and surmised that the great continent beyond the seas was peopled by the descendents of Indian princesses and adventurers. My second piece of information was gathered from a French novel, I believe, in which a black sheep was referred to as having gone to America “where all black sheep gravitate.” And my third source of information was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the book which makes European children form a distorted idea of the American people, and sentimentalize over a race hardly worth it.

This made up my encyclopædia of American facts. That all those who emigrated thither succeeded easily, and amassed untold wealth, I ascribed to the fact that being Europeans they were vastly superior to the Americans, who at best were only half-breeds. You who read this may think that I was singularly ignorant; yet I can assure you that to-day I meet many people on my travels in Europe who are not only as ignorant as I was, but who have even lower ideas about the Americans.

We landed in New York in winter, and went directly to Hotel Martin, at that time still in its old site near Washington Square.

What did I think of America at first? This indeed is the most difficult question to answer. I was so puzzled that I remained without thoughts. To begin with, the people, for half-breeds, were extremely presentable. The redskin ancestral side was quite obliterated. Then the houses, the streets, the whole appearance of the city was on a par with Paris. What appalled us all was the dearness of things. I remember the day when we gave a Greek street vendor one cent for some fruit, and he handed us one little apple. “Only this for a cent?” we cried; and so indignant were we that we reclaimed our cent and returned him his apple.

We managed to do ridiculous things daily. At our first evening meal at the hotel, a tall glass vase stood in the middle of the table filled with such strange flowers as we had never seen before. They were pale greenish white, with streaks of yellow. We thought it very kind of the proprietor to furnish them for us, and each of us took one and fastened it on our dress.