She had on a night-dress made of light brown cambric, with yellow and red flowers on it. Her hair was tied at the top of her head with a yellow ribbon, from which was dangling a charm against the evil eye. It came over me how unlike a Greek child she was, and how very Turkish.
“Djimlah!” I cried, “you are not, and you shall not be my equal before God.”
She crossed her hands on her breast and became lost in meditation. After awhile she said:
“There is no other God but God—and we are all His children. So they told me and I believe it, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “There is Allah, and there is God,” I replied. “And I am a Greek, and you are a Turk—and the Turks are very cruel people.”
“Have we been cruel to you, all this long time you have come to see us?”
“No,” I had to admit, “but you are cruel just the same. If you will read history you will know how cruel you are; for when you took Constantinople, for days and nights you were killing our people and burning our homes.” I was ready to weep over our past wrongs, and my blood was boiling. “I don’t love you any more—and God doesn’t love you either.”
Djimlah’s eyes opened wide open. “I don’t understand. Let’s go to grandmother: she will explain things to us.”
“I don’t want them explained. I shall go home to-morrow, and never, never, so long as I live, shall I again speak to you, or to any Turkish child.”
At this Djimlah began to cry: at first softly, then yelling at the top of her lungs. This brought not only the old hanoum but a bevy of the younger ones.