Djimlah’s grandmother was desirous that we four girls should have some of our lessons together, and my mother, from the distance, could only acquiesce in this. Thus I saw them daily; and the more frequent contact brought forth more frequent causes for warfare between us. When they were all together, the fact of their being Turks became more emphasized, and within me there burned the desire to dazzle them with what the Greeks really had been in the world.
The way to do this came to me one night when sleep deserted me, and in its stead Inspiration sat by my pillow. Since they knew absolutely nothing of Greek History, I would tell it to them as a story. Feverishly I sketched it all out in my head. I would begin at the very beginning, showing them how Prometheus stole the divine fire to create the Greeks. The Turks should come into the tale under the name of Pelasgians—yes, I would call them Pelasgians, while the Greeks should be called Prometheans. I could tell a story very well, at the time, and I hugged my pillow fervently at the thought of my three companions breathlessly listening to the recital of the great deeds of the Greeks—and loathing the Turks for all their misdoings. And when I had them properly moved, I should explain to them that this was not a story, but real history: that the Prometheans were the Greeks, and the Pelasgians were the Turks. And I should conclude: “You may call yourselves the proud Osmanlis, and you may think that you are the chosen people of Allah, but this is what history thinks of you—that’s what you are to the world.”
I was so excited to begin my work that I slept no more that night. Yet on the very next day I learned that my most inconsiderate parents had decided to go for a few months to the Bosphorus. It always struck me as the worst side of grown-ups that they never considered the plans of the little ones. They will teach you, “It is not polite to interrupt papa or mamma with your affairs when they are busy”—while papa or mamma are only talking silly, uninteresting stuff which might very well be interrupted. Yet how often, when I was intently watching a cloud teaching me his art of transforming himself from a chariot to an immense forest or from a tiger to a bevy of birds, mamma would interrupt without even apologizing; and were I to say to her, “Just wait a minute,” as mamma thousands of times said to me, I should be called a rude little girl.
Thus it happened that, when my life’s work was unfolded before my eyes by an inspiration, I was snatched away to that outlandish place, the Bosphorus.
And there, about a quarter of a mile from the house we took, with nothing between us but fields and gardens, lived a Turkish general and his family. I do not recall his name, for every one spoke of him as the Damlaly Pasha, which means “the pasha who has had a stroke.”
His was a modest house, surrounded by a garden, the wall of which had tumbled down in one place, offering a possible means of ingress to a small child of my activity. Some day I meant to avoid the vigilance of the elders and to penetrate into the heart of that unknown garden; for the opening was for ever beckoning to me. But, though I had not yet been able to do so, I had already managed to peep into it; and had seen a young woman who seemed to me the embodiment of a fairy queen picking flowers there.
Every Friday morning the general went over to Constantinople, to ride in the Sultan’s procession, as I afterwards learned. He wore his best uniform, and his breast was covered with medals. A eunuch and a little girl always accompanied him to the landing, and their way led past our house.
Being lonely at the time, I took a great interest in the happenings on our road, and I learned to wait every Friday morning for the queer trio: the gorgeously uniformed and bemedalled old general, painfully trailing his left foot; the old, bent eunuch, in a frock coat as old and worn-out as himself, and the fresh little girl, with all her skirts stuffed into a tight-fitting pair of trousers.
I thought her quite pretty, in spite of the ridiculous trousers. Her hair was light, as is the colour of ripe wheat, and her eyes were as blue as if God had made them from a bit of his blue sky. I nicknamed her Sitanthy, and used to make up stories about her, and was always wondering what her relationship was to the old general. Once I heard her call him father, but I felt sure he could not be that. To my way of thinking a father was a tall, slim, good-looking person. The other species of men were either uncles, or grandfathers, or, worse yet, bore no relationship to little girls, but were just so many stray men.
I never contemplated talking to the little girl—she was to me almost a fictitious character, like one of the people I knew and consorted with in our Greek Mythology—until fate brought us together.