Constantinople, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

It is not altogether easy to define the beauty of the Turkish women. In thinking of them, I may say I always see a very white face, two black eyes, a crimson mouth, and a sweet expression. But then they almost all of them paint, whiten their skin with almond and jasmine paste, lengthen their eyebrows with India ink, color their eyelids, powder their necks, draw dark circles around their eyes, and put patches on their cheeks; but in all this they employ taste and discretion, unlike the belles of Fez, who use whitewash brushes to beautify themselves with. Most of them have pretty oval contours, noses a little arched, lips somewhat thick, round, dimpled chins—many of them have dimples in their cheeks as well—handsome necks, long and flexible, and tiny little hands, generally covered—more’s the pity!—by the sleeves of their mantles. They are usually plump, and many of them above the medium height. One rarely sees the dumpy or scrawny type of our countries. One universal defect they have—their manner of walking; they shuffle and stumble along like big children who have grown too fast: this, it is said, comes from a weakness of limb resulting from the abuse of the bath, and also, in a measure, from the wretched shoes they wear. Elegant-looking women, whose feet must be very small indeed, may sometimes be seen wearing men’s slippers or long, wide, wrinkled shoes, such as a European peasant-woman would scorn. But even that ungainly walk has something child-like about it that, once you are accustomed to it, appeals to you. There are none of those stiff-looking individuals, like the figures in fashion-plates, whom we see in our cities going along with little mincing steps like pieces on a chess-board. They have not yet lost the free, careless gait natural to the Oriental, and when they do, although they may gain in dignity, they will be less attractive. Occasionally one sees a face of great beauty, and not always the same type either, since there is Circassian, Persian, and Arabian blood mingled with the Turkish. There is the matron of thirty, whose ample form the ferajeh cannot entirely conceal, very tall, with great dark eyes, protruding lips, and delicate nostrils, the kind of hanum who makes a hundred slaves tremble at her glance, and the mere sight of whom turns into ridicule the boast made by Turkish gentlemen that they are four times the husband. Then there are others, chubby little ladies with everything round about them—face, eyes, nose, mouth—and such a guileless, childish, kindly air of entire and sweet resignation to their lot, which is that of never being anything more than a plaything and source of recreation, that you feel tempted to slip a sugar-plum into their mouths in passing. And there are the slender, graceful figures of sixteen-year-old brides, vivacious and passionate, whose bright coquettish eyes arouse a sentiment of pity in one’s breast for the poor effendi who has undertaken the care of them, and the unfortunate eunuch whose duty it is to mount guard over them.

The city is wonderfully adapted to form a background and framework for the beauty of the women and the picturesque style of their dress. You should see, for instance, one of those graceful figures, with its white veil and crimson ferajeh, seated in a käik on the surface of the blue Bosphorus, or extended on the grass surrounded by the vivid green of some cemetery, or, better still, coming toward you down one of the steep lonely side-streets of Stambul, closed in at the end by a great plane tree, when the wind is blowing and veil and ferajeh flutter about and reveal neck and foot and ankle. I can assure you that if the indulgent decree of Suleiman the Magnificent were in force at such a moment, levying a fine upon every kiss given to the wife or daughter of another, even the avarice of a Harpagon would receive a severe shock. And even when the wind is high the Turkish women do not feel called upon to struggle very hard to keep down the ferajeh, their modesty not including their ankles, and sometimes stopping quite short of them.

It is at first somewhat astounding to see how they look at you, laughing too in a manner which certainly encourages the taking of liberties. It not infrequently happens that a young European, looking attentively at a Turkish lady even of rank, finds his gaze smilingly returned, sometimes by an actual laugh, or, again, a pretty hanum driving by in her carriage waves a graceful salute behind the eunuch’s back to some good-looking Frank who has struck her fancy. Occasionally in a cemetery or some retired street a lively young woman goes the length of tossing a flower as she goes by or dropping it on the ground, with the manifest intention of having it picked up by the young gentleman who is walking behind her. Hence it follows that a fatuous traveller is sometimes betrayed into making grave mistakes, and more than one fool of a European is quite saddened at the close of his month’s visit to Constantinople at the thought of the hundred or so unfortunates whose peace of mind he has destroyed for ever. No doubt there is in some of these carryings on a frank avowal of preference, but they are chiefly dictated by a spirit of rebellion nursed in the heart of Turkish women and born of their hatred of the subjection in which they are kept. This they give vent to at every opportunity, and these little mischievous acts of secret spite toward their masters are more the result of childishness than coquetry. What coquetry they have is of a most singular kind, a good deal like the first experiments of young girls when they begin to find people looking at them. It consists of a great deal of laughing, gazing up with the mouth open as though very much astonished, pretending that they have hurt their head or foot, certain gestures of impatience with the ferajeh, which is in their way, and various other school-girl tricks, which certainly seem to be done more to make one laugh than with any view of fascinating. They never pose as if for a photograph or the drawing-room; what little art of that kind they possess is of the most rudimentary kind. It is plain to be seen that they have not, as, Tommaseo would say, many veils to lift, that they are unaccustomed to long courtships—to being “surrounded by the pack” like Giusti’s hieroglyphical women; and when they take a fancy to any one, instead of wasting time in sighs and languishing glances, they would like to say quite frankly, “Christian, I like you.” Being unable to say the actual words, they make their meaning clear with equal frankness by displaying two shining rows of pearls or laughing outright in your face. They are just pretty tamed Tartars.

Lemonade Seller.

And, after all, Turkish women are free—a discovery which the foreigner makes as soon as he lands. It is an exaggeration for Lady Mary Wortley Montague to say that they have more liberty than European women, but any one who has been to Constantinople cannot help but laugh when he hears people talk of their “bondage.” When a lady wishes to go out she tells the eunuch to order her carriage, and goes without asking any one’s permission, and stays as long as she wants to, provided, of course, she returns before nightfall. Formerly she was always accompanied by a eunuch or female slave or friend. The bolder spirits, when they wanted no one else, would at least take a child with them as a sort of passport to public respect. One of them appearing entirely alone in some retired spot would quite probably have found herself stopped by a city guard or a straight-laced old Turk, and subjected to a severe cross-examination: “Where are you going? Where have you been? Why is there no one with you? Is it thus that you respect your effendi? Go home at once.” But now-a-days all this has changed, and hundreds of Turkish women may be seen at all hours of the day quite alone in the Mussulman streets and suburbs, and in the Frankish cities as well. They pay each other visits from one end of Stambul to the other, spend half a day in the bath-houses, make excursions by water to the Sweet Waters of Europe on Thursday, and on Sunday to the Sweet Waters of Asia. On Friday they visit the cemeteries of Skutari, on the other days of the week the Isles of the Princes, Terapia, Buyukdereh, or Kalender, to eat luncheon in parties of eight or ten with their slaves. They say their prayers at the tombs of the pâdishahs and sultanas, visit the dervishes’ monasteries, and go to see the public exhibitions of wedding-outfits. And not a man would presume to join or follow one of them, or even so much as to accost her. For a Turk to be seen in some retired street in Constantinople, not arm-in-arm or walking beside, but merely pausing an instant to exchange half a dozen words with one of the “veiled,” would be considered most unseemly, even were it written on their foreheads that they were man and wife; or, to speak more correctly, it would be looked upon as an audacious piece of impudence, as though two individuals should select the centre of one of our crowded streets in which to make mutual declarations of love. In this sense, then, Turkish women really have more freedom than ours, and no one knows how highly they value it or how eagerly they grasp at the noise and crowd and open air and light of the streets and public resorts. In their own houses they see but one single man, while their windows and gardens are like those in convents; so it is perfectly natural to find them running about the city with all the enjoyment of liberated prisoners. It is great fun to follow one of them—at a safe distance—and see how she has mastered the art of chopping the joys of vagrancy into the smallest possible pieces. First she will drop into the nearest mosque to say her prayers and loiter under the arches of the courtyard for a quarter of an hour or so, chatting with a friend; next she will go to the bazâr, glance into half a dozen shops, turn one or two upside down, and finally, after purchasing some trifle, take the tramway down to the fish-market, cross the bridge, and examine at her leisure every wig and headdress in every hair-dresser’s shop in the Rue de Pera; next we find her in a cemetery, where, after settling herself comfortably on one of the tombs, she will sit for some time munching sweetmeats; then back to the city and down to the Golden Horn again, making numberless détours to right and left, and watching everything out of the corner of her eye—shop-windows, signs, posters, the other ladies who pass her, carriages, the open doors of theatres, advertisements; then she will buy a bunch of flowers, give a trifle to some beggar, drink a glass of lemonade from a water-carrier, and, recrossing the Golden Horn, in a käik this time, make some fresh excursions about Stambul; after which she will again take the tramway, alighting at her own door. But even on the threshold she is fully capable of turning back merely for the purpose of walking a little way up the street and making the circuit of a half-dozen houses or so before being shut in for the night, just as some young girl who has been allowed to go out for once alone tries to crowd a little of everything into that one short hour of liberty. A poor fat effendi who should undertake to follow and watch his wife to see if she were up to any mischief would certainly have a hard time of it: he would very probably find himself distanced at the end of the first half hour.

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To really get a good view of the Mussulman fair sex, you must go to the Sweet Waters of Europe, at the head of the Golden Horn, on one of the great feast-days, or to those of Asia, near the village of Anadoli-Hissar. These are two extensive public gardens, watered by two little rivers, and thickly sprinkled with trees, fountains, and cafés. There, on a vast grassy plain, beneath the shade of walnuts, terebinths, palm trees, and sycamores, forming a succession of leafy pavilions, through which not so much as a ray of sunshine can penetrate, may be seen thousands of women seated in circular groups surrounded by their slaves, eunuchs, and children, lunching and passing away half a day in each other’s company, while all around them crowds are coming and going. On arriving you are at once captivated by this scene, which resembles a festival in the Islam Paradise. The myriads of white veils and scarlet, green, yellow, and gray ferajehs; the groups of slaves dressed in every hue of the rainbow; the crowds of children in their fanciful costumes; the great Smyrna rugs spread on the grass; the gold and silver vessels passed from hand to hand; the Mussulman waiters from the cafés in gala dress running hither and thither carrying plates of fruit and ices; the gypsies dancing; the Bulgarian shepherds playing on their pipes; the horses with silk and gilded trappings stamping beneath the trees to which they are tied; the pashas and beys and young gallants who gallop along the river’s bank; the swaying of the distant crowd like the movement of the wind over a bed of tulips and hyacinths; the gayly-painted käiks and elegant carriages which every moment deposit fresh loads of color in that sparkling sea; and the mingled melody of flute and pipe and tambourine, of voices singing and children calling to one another; the play of light and shade across the grass and thick foliage of the trees and shrubs, with here and there a little glimpse of some distant view,—all combine to form an effect of light and color, sound and movement, so perfect that one’s first impulse is to clap his hands enthusiastically and cry, “Bravo! bravissimi!” as though it were a masterly production on the stage.

An Outing of the Women of the Harem.