The love of our native land forms an indelible part of our souls. A mad joy possessed me all the way from New York to Genoa; a delirium from Genoa to the Dardanelles; and from the straits to the harbour I was speechless with emotion. How wonderful my empress city looked, when the mist gradually lifted and disclosed her to my homesick eyes. Up to that moment I had thought never to see her enchanting face again; yet there I was, standing on the promenade deck of a commonplace steamer, while she was giving me—me, her runaway child—all her smiles and all her glory.
We must be very strong, that we do not sometimes die of joy.
When the little tender docked at the quay of Galata, how I should have loved to have escaped the customs bother, the many and one greetings, and the hundred and several more stupid words one has to say on disembarking. Yet having acquired a little wisdom, I was patient with the custom-house men, and polite to the people who had been sent to meet me. Obediently even I entered the carriage which was to take me up, up on the seven hills where we Christians live.
Not till several days afterwards was I free to start on my pilgrimage; and as I walked up and down the main streets, and in and out of the narrow, crooked, dirty lanes, which lead one enticingly onward—often to nowhere—I was aware that my pilgrimage had a double aim. First, I wanted to recognize my old haunts, and second, to find that part of myself which had once lived within those quarters. Alas! if the streets were the same, I was not. Where was the girl, full of enthusiasm and dreams, who had trod these same streets? Something within me had changed. Was it my faith in mankind, or my faith in life itself?
As I walked on, unconsciously I was picturing these same streets, clean, full of life and bustle, were Turkey to belong to America. I could see the trolleys they would have here, the terraces they would build there, the magnificent buildings they would erect, and all the civilized things they would bring to my mother country. My eyes, Americanized by the progress of the new world, kept seeing things that ought to be done, and were left undone, for no other reason than that they had been left undone for hundreds of years. The saddest of all sad things is when one begins to see the faults and failings of one’s own beloved, be it a person or a country. I hated myself for finding fault with Turkey because she was clad in a poor, unkempt garb.
Before the Galata Tower, just where the streets form a cross, I turned to the left, and walked to the next street. At its entrance the leader of a band of dogs rose from his slumbers and barked at me angrily. I started, and then stood still. This was a street where once I had lived, and the canine leader barking at me was the same as six years ago, only older, more unkempt, and filthier. It hurt me to have him bark at me. It meant that he did not know me—or did he with his doggish intuition feel that I was disloyal in my heart to the old régime?
“Why, Giaour!” I cried, “don’t you know me? We used to be friends, you and I.”
He stood rigidly on his old legs, his band alert to follow his lead. These dogs, which were anathema to the stranger, had a double duty to perform in their unhappy city. They were not only scavengers, but the defenders of her defenceless quarters. The stranger only saw their scarred bodies and ugly appearance; but we who were born in Constantinople knew how they formed their bands, and how they protected us. Each quarter had some twenty dogs, and they guarded it both against other dogs, and against strangers. The young ones, as they grew up, had to win their spurs, and their position was determined by their bravery and skill, both in fighting and in commanding. I had seen Giaour win his leadership, a month or so before I left Constantinople. He had been nicknamed Giaour by a Turkish kapoudji, because he had a white cross plainly marked on his face.
To my entreaties he only stood growling. “Come, Giaour,” I begged, “I have changed, I know, but I am still enough myself for you not to bark at me.”
He listened, mistrustfully watching every movement I made, and because of this I perpetrated a shameful deed. I retreated to Galderim Gedjesi, bought a loaf at the baker’s, and with the bribe in my hand returned. The band was now lying down, but Giaour was still standing, his pantallettes shaking in a ruffled and disturbed fashion. In his heart, perhaps, he was not pleased with himself for having barked at me.