Constantinople, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

Nor is the practice of such arts as these the only occupation by which they seek to enliven the deadly monotony of the greater number of lives passed in a harem—a monotony resulting not so much from the absence of employment and distractions as from their all being so much alike, just as certain books are tiresome from their uniformity of style, while their subjects may be entirely different. They do everything in their power to combat ennui: the whole day is often nothing but a prolonged struggle with this dreaded enemy. Seated upon rugs and cushions, with their slaves grouped around them, they hem innumerable little handkerchiefs to give away to their friends; embroider night-caps and tobacco-pouches as presents for their husbands, fathers, and brothers; tell the beads of the tespi a hundred times; count as high as they know how; spend hours at a time watching the movements of the ships on the Bosphorus or Sea of Marmora from the small round windows of their elevated apartments; or weave interminable romances of love and liberty and riches as they watch the smoke from their cigarettes curl upward in blue wreaths. Tired of their cigarettes, they betake themselves to the chibuk and inhale the “blond hair of Latakia,” then a cup of Syrian coffee and a few sweetmeats, or some fruit or an ice, which they can spend half an hour in eating; then comes a little more smoking, the narghileh this time, perfumed with rose-water, and after it a piece of mastic gum, which they suck to get rid of the taste of the smoke; then some lemonade to do away with the taste of the mastic. They dress and undress, try on all their costumes, make experiments with all the colors in their little boxes, put on and take off patches cut like stars and crescents; and arrange a dozen or so mirrors and hand-glasses in such a way that they can see themselves on all sides; finally, when they are tired out, two young slaves will dance for their amusement accompanied by tambourine and tabor, while a third repeats the well-known song or fairy-tale that every one can say by heart, or the usual couple of mascottes dressed like acrobats perform the regular wrestling-match, which always ends in a stamp on the floor and an artificial, mirthless laugh. Sometimes a troupe of Egyptian dancers will present themselves, and this event is made the excuse for a little fête, or a gypsy comes and the hanum must have her fortune told from the palm of her hand, or purchase a talisman that will preserve her youth, or a decoction to bring her children, or a love-philter. She will pass hours with her face pressed against the window-grating watching the people and dogs pass in the street below, or teaching the parrot a new word; then go to the garden to swing: returning to the house, she says her prayers or throws herself upon the divan to play a game of cards; then a visitor is announced and she jumps up to receive her, and there follows the customary round of coffee, tobacco, lemonade, and sweetmeats, of empty laughter and tremendous yawns, until, the visitor having departed, the eunuch appears in the doorway, saying in a low voice, “The effendi.”—“At last! Really, Providence has sent him; I don’t care if he were the ugliest husband in Stambul.”

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Such is the life in a harem where there is at least peace, if nothing more, but there are others in which the dulness is relieved, not to say annihilated, by the storms of passion which sweep across them, and there the life is something altogether different. All is peaceable enough in a harem where there is but one wife whose husband loves her, pays no attention to the slaves, and has no outside intrigues. There is also, if not happiness, quiet, in those where the several wives are equally cold or indifferent, none of them caring particularly for the husband, who on his part does not distinguish among them, but bestows upon each in turn a sufficient amount of attention—where no one is impelled by love or jealousy or ambition to try to supersede the others. These good-natured wives have for a common object the getting as much money as possible out of the effendi; they occupy the same house, never quarrel, call each other sister, and join in one another’s amusement. The boat is made after the devil’s pattern, but it goes ahead all the same, and there is peace or the semblance of it, in a harem where the wife, finding herself set aside to make room for another, accepts the situation in a spirit of resignation, and, while declining the shreds of love her husband is still willing to allow her, continues to live in his house on friendly terms with him and the other inmates, consoling herself in a sort of dignified retirement with the society of her children. But when, as is sometimes the case, it is a question of a woman of high spirit and fiery passions, it is an altogether different matter. She declines to submit quietly to her rival’s triumph or to the shame of desertion, and will not consent without a fight to see her children set aside to make room for those of a new-comer. Life in one of these harems is a fore-taste of the infernal regions. There are weeping and lamentation, breaking of crockery and glass; slaves die from having long pins driven into them; plots are hatched, crimes contemplated, and sometimes committed—stabbing, poisoning, or throwing vitriol in the face of the enemy. Existence is nothing but a series of persecutions, implacable hatreds, fierce and deadly acts of revenge. The man, in short, who has several wives must either, if he loves one, sacrifice his peace, or else care for them equally and purchase quiet at the expense of love; in either case he usually walks straight to his ruin. If his wives are not jealous by reason of their love for him, they are from motives of ambition and rivalry in luxury and dress. So, then, if he gives his favorite a piece of jewelry or a carriage or a villa on the Bosphorus, he has to do the same for each of the others, or he soon has the house down about his ears, and so buys his peace for its weight in gold. And the same difficulties extend to the children, those of the neglected mother being filled with hatred and envy for those of the favorite; and it is not hard to imagine what sort of training they must get, brought up in harems whose very air is heavy with violence and intrigue, surrounded by slaves and eunuchs, with no help from their fathers, no examples set them of application or self-control, in that sensual, enervating atmosphere, the little girls in especial being taught from earliest infancy to build all their hopes of future success upon their ability to arouse a sentiment for which “love” seems too lofty a title, and receiving the necessary training partly from their own mothers, partly from slaves, and mostly from Kara-Gyuz.

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There are, besides the peaceful and tempestuous, two other types of harem—that of the young and liberal-minded Turk, who encourages his wife in the cultivation of European ideas, and that of the Turk of the old school, who is either strict by nature or else is under the influence of relatives, especially of an old mother if she happens to be one of those inflexible Mussulman women sternly opposed to change of any sort, and determined that he shall manage his house according to her ideas. Nothing can exceed the contrast between the two. The former has the air of a European lady’s house: there is a piano on which the hanum is being taught to play by a Christian music-mistress; there are work-tables, straw chairs, a bedstead, and writing-desk; a good crayon portrait of the effendi by an Italian artist of Pera hangs on the wall; in one corner stands a small bookcase containing two or three dozen books, among which may be found a little French and Turkish dictionary and the last number of La Mode illustrée, which is sent to the mistress by the wife of the Spanish consul after she has done with it; moreover, there is a complete box of water-colors, with which the hanum paints fruits and flowers, and she assures her friends that she never suffers for a moment from ennui. Among other things, she is writing her memoirs, and at a certain hour of the day her French master arrives to practise French conversation with her (of course it must be understood that he is old and bent and feeble). Sometimes a German female photographer comes from Galata to take her photograph. When she is ill a European doctor attends her, who may even be young and handsome, her husband not being such a jealous beast as some of his more antiquated friends; and now and then a French dressmaker is summoned to cut and fit a costume in the very latest style as it is given in the fashion-plates, so that she may give her husband a charming surprise on the following Thursday evening, that being the special feast-day of Mussulman couples, when the effendi pays particular court to his “rose-leaf.” And then the effendi, being a person of high position, has promised that she may watch the first large ball given at the English embassy during the following winter from the crack of some retired doorway. In short, the hanum is a European lady of the Mussulman faith, who says to her friends with intense satisfaction, “I live like a Cocona”—a Christian. And her friends and relatives, though they may be unable to do the same, would like to; and among themselves they talk of the fashions and theatres, telling each other stories of the “superstitions,” the “pedantries,” and the “bigotry” of Old Turkey, winding up every discourse with the remark, “And it is high time that we should change all this and begin to lead lives more like rational human beings.”

But that other harem! Here there is nothing that is not severely Turkish, from the costume of the mistress to the smallest article of furniture—not a book except the Koran, the only newspaper the Stambul. Should the hanum fall ill, instead of a doctor, one of those innumerable Turkish doctresses, with a miraculous specific for every kind of disease, is summoned. If her parents have become tainted with the European craze, they are only permitted to see their daughter once a week. Every door and window in the house is furnished with bars and bolts: absolutely nothing European but the air is allowed to enter the household, unless the mistress has unfortunately been taught a little French in her girlhood, in which case the mother-in-law is perfectly capable of thrusting a coarse romance of the worst type into her hands, so as to be able to say, “There! you see now what fine sort of people these are you are so crazy to imitate! what pretty things they do and say! what a beautiful example they set!”

And, notwithstanding all their restrictions, Turkish women’s lives are full of plots and schemes and scandals to a degree that at first sight would seem impossible in a society where there is so little direct communication between the two sexes. In one household, for example, the old mother has made up her mind to prejudice her son against one of his wives, so that another, her favorite, may occupy the chief place. So she tries, among other things, to keep the first one’s children in the background and prevent them from being educated or made attractive in their father’s eyes, hoping that he may neglect them for those of the second. In another the deserted wife revenges herself upon her rival by throwing a beautiful slave, whom she has sought over land and sea, in the husband’s way, hoping to make him leave the second one, as he has her. Another with a genius for matchmaking manages so that one of her own family shall see and fall in love with a certain young girl of her acquaintance, and by marrying her himself balk her husband, whom she suspects of having views in the same direction. A number of wealthy women club together to purchase and present a handsome slave to the Sultan or the grand vizier, to further some private scheme they have on hand; other women of good family, by means of secret wirepulling and their influence over powerful relatives, can accomplish almost anything they want—the disgrace of a prominent official, the elevation of a friend, the divorce of this one, the dismissal of that to some distant province; and, although there is so much less social intercourse than among us, they do not know any less about one another’s affairs. A woman’s reputation for wit or insane jealousy or stupidity or a slanderous tongue extends far beyond the circle of her immediate acquaintances, while a clever speech or one of those plays upon words to which the Turkish language lends itself so admirably flies from mouth to mouth and is repeated far and wide. Births, marriages, circumcisions, fêtes, every little event which occurs in the European colony or the Seraglio, forms the subject of endless talk and gossip: “Have you seen the new bonnet of the French ambassadress?—Who knows anything about the pretty Georgian slave the Validêh Sultan is going to give the Pâdishah on the feast of Great Bairam?—Is it true that Ahmed-Pasha’s wife was seen the day before yesterday in European shoes trimmed with silk tassels?—Have the costumes for the ‘Bourgeois gentilhomme’ they are going to perform in the Seraglio theatre actually come at last?—Mahmûd Effendi’s wife has been going for a week past to the Bayezid mosque to pray for twins.—There has been a scandal in connection with such and such a photographer’s shop in the Rue de Pera, on account of Ahmed Effendi’s having found his wife’s picture among the photographs.—Madame Ayscé drinks wine.—Madame Fatima has ordered visiting-cards.—Some one saw Madame Hafiten go in a Frank shop at three o’clock, and she never came out till four.”

The chronicle of petty gossip and malicious tattle flies in and out among those innumerable little yellow and red houses with incredible rapidity, circulates about the court, crosses over to Skutari, proceeds along both banks of the Bosphorus as far as the Black Sea, and not infrequently, finding its way to the large provincial cities, returns from thence with each particular added to and embellished to provoke fresh mirth and gossip in the thousand harems of the great metropolis.

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If you could only meet in Constantinople one of those walking society chronicles with which all European cities are provided, who know everything about everybody and are always quite willing to impart their knowledge, it would be beyond measure amusing and instructive to get him to station himself by your side at the entrance to the Sweet Waters of Europe on some great fête-day and whisper a word or two about every noteworthy person who passed by. There could certainly be no better method of obtaining an insight into Constantinople manners and customs. But, after all, what difference does it make whether we have his help or not? As long as the incidents are perfectly well known, we can imagine the people for ourselves: for my part, it is just as though I stood there looking and listening. The people stream by, and our Turkish gossip points and whispers: “Do you see that lady passing now? She has quarrelled with her husband and gone to Skutari to live: that, you know, is where they all go when they are discontented or have a falling out with their husbands. She is staying with a friend, and will wait until her effendi, who at bottom is really very fond of her, shall go and tell her that the slave who caused the trouble has been gotten rid of, and conduct her home again pacified.—This effendi is in the Foreign Office: he has just done what numbers of others do to avoid being pestered to death with relations-in-law and relations of relations-in-law—that is, married an Arabian slave: his sister is giving her her first lessons in Turkish.—That handsome woman over there is a divorcée. When Effendi So-and-so has succeeded in repudiating one of his four wives, she is to take her place, having been promised it some time ago.—That one just behind her has been divorced twice from the same man, and now she wants to marry him again, he wishing it as well. So she is about, in obedience to the law governing such cases, to marry some one else, whose wife she must be for twenty-four hours, after which the capricious fair one is free to marry her first husband for the third time.—The brunette yonder with the expressive eyes was an Abyssinian slave who was sent by a great lady of Cairo as a present to a great lady of Stambul; on dying the latter left her the post of mistress of the establishment.—That effendi is fifty years old, and has had ten wives, but the old lady near him dressed in green has done better yet, having been the lawful wife of no less than twelve husbands.—There goes a personage who makes her living by purchasing young girls of fourteen or so, and, after teaching them music, singing, dancing, and the manners of good society, resells them at a premium of five hundred per cent.—Now, there goes a very handsome woman whose exact value I happen to know: she is a Circassian bought at Topkhâneh for one hundred and twenty Turkish francs, and resold three years later for a bagatelle of four hundred.—This one near us, who is adjusting her veil, has had a somewhat checkered career. She began as a slave; then she was an odalisque; then she married, was divorced, and married again; at present she is a widow and is looking about for some fresh matrimonial venture.—Do you see that effendi? Well, you could hardly guess what has happened in his household: his wife has fallen in love with a eunuch, and they say that if he does not look out there will be something queer in his coffee one of these days, and she will be free to end her life in peace with the object of her choice; nor will it be the first time that that kind of thing has happened.—There is a merchant who has married his four wives with an eye to business: he keeps one in Constantinople, one in Trebizond, one in Salonika, and one in Alexandria. Thus at the end of each journey he finds a home awaiting him.—There is a handsome young pasha only twenty-four years old: a month ago he was nothing but a poor subaltern in the Imperial Guard, whom the Sultan promoted at a bound, so as to marry him to one of his sisters; but he is not an object of envy to the other men, for it is no joke to be the husband of one of the sultanas: as every one knows, they are as ‘jealous as nightingales.’ Probably were we to search through the crowd we would find a slave dogging his footsteps now, so as to note and report every one whom he either does or does not look at.—See that slender, graceful figure over there? One need not be very discriminating to know her at once for a flower from the Seraglio. She was one of the Sultan’s beauties: a few months ago an official of the War Office, who has managed to ingratiate himself at court, obtained her hand in marriage, and before long he will mount rapidly.—That little five-year-old girl was betrothed to-day to a youngster of eight. The groom elect was taken to see her, and, finding her to his taste, promptly flew into a violent passion because a small boy cousin about a yard high kissed her in his presence.—There goes an old hag who had two sheep killed the day before yesterday in gratitude to Allah for having removed a daughter-in-law whom she hated.—There goes the wife of a friend of mine with her face completely covered and wearing a lilac ferajeh: he is a Turk, but she is a Christian and goes to church every Sunday: don’t speak of it, though, to any one—on her account, not his. The Koran does not forbid such marriages: for one of the faithful to purify himself from the embrace of an unbeliever he has only to wash the face and hands.—Ah! what have we missed! One of the Seraglio carriages has just gone by with the Sultan’s third kaydyn inside: I recognized it by the rose-colored ribbon around the lackey’s neck. She was a present from the pasha of Smyrna, and is said to have the largest eyes and smallest mouth in the empire—a face very much on the order of that of the pretty little hanum with an arched nose who scandalized Christian and Mussulman alike the other day by flirting openly with an English artist of my acquaintance. Little wretch! When the two angels, Nekir and Munkir, come to judge her soul, she thinks she will be able to get out of it with the usual fib, saying her eyes were shut at the moment, so she did not see that it was an unbeliever.”