This journalist was my undoing. I did not see what he wrote about me until I returned to Sofia, a few weeks later, and found myself completely ignored by the very Bulgars who had been most attentive. Officers who had toasted me when I started for the frontier would not return my salute; newspaper men who had interviewed me now slunk by in the street, and statesmen and politicians barely nodded when I lifted my hat. This was undoubtedly deliberate; the Bulgarians could not have forgotten me so soon. I sought my friend the officer who spoke American, and inquired of him if he knew in what way I had offended his fellow-countrymen. He did not hesitate a minute. The Vitcherna Posta, he informed me, had shown me up. The paper had discovered that I had come out to the Balkans pledged to support the Turks, and my pretended ignorance was simply a bluff. The proprietor of my paper, who would probably condemn another man for accepting a monetary bribe, had been bought with a paltry decoration from his Sultanic Majesty. No news but such as was favourable to the Turk and hostile to the Bulgar would be published in my paper. In proof of this statement the ‘Vampire Post’ called attention to the fact that I had paid frequent visits to the Turkish Agency before my late departure.
The young officer did not tell me this in the offensive manner of a candid friend; he delivered the accusations straight from the shoulder, and on concluding offered me a native drink, as if I could have no mitigating argument; he was satisfied of my guilt, but when he was in America my countrymen had treated him well.
‘The Bulgarians are not very politic,’ I observed; to which the officer assented and signed to me to drink, implying by a gesture: this disagreeable explanation is over, but you are my guest.
The Sofia journal had mistaken me; I was not the correspondent of the paper whose proprietor had been decorated by the Sultan. Nor were the numerous visits I had paid to the Turkish Commissioner due to any but legitimate reasons. The Sultan’s representative, indeed, accused me of making a suspicious number of calls on Bulgarian officials and of receiving too many revolutionists at my hotel; and when I applied to him for permission to proceed to Macedonia I found many visits and much persuasion all of no avail. He had an antidote prepared for me, an immediate trip to Constantinople, where the diplomatic atmosphere is sympathetic with the Sultan. Thus, by trying to maintain the friendship of both Bulgar and Turk, I had incurred, at the very outset of my mission, the hostility of both.
The Bulgarians are suspicious people. They excuse this trait in their character by explaining that they lived under the Mohamedan for five hundred years. This is their favourite excuse for all their sins. But they have also acquired at least one of the Turk’s good points; they are dignified and can control themselves; they seldom lose their tempers and generally act cautiously. They are somewhat obstinate, which is a Slav characteristic, and this, with a childlike sensitiveness due to their youth as a nation, makes for pride.
An Englishman who spends any length of time among the Bulgarians generally likes them. The strong strain of barbarism in the Bulgar finds sympathy in the breast of the Britisher, and the Bulgar’s respect for the ultra-civilised chord in the other man also wins its reward. The Bulgar never approaches an Englishman, who, he knows, resents approach; he never becomes friendly, fearing a rebuff; and he maintains for ever a dignity and distance in the presence of the stony one. Now, the Bulgar doesn’t know it, but this is exactly the way to gain the esteem of the Englishman, who recognises a diamond in the man who can cut him.
The Bulgarians are most anxious for the favour of Great Britain. They aspire to become a great nation and to annex the conquerable territory to their south. They see that their friends, if they have any, are the Western Powers, and not Austria and Russia; and ‘their gratitude is chiefly a sense of favours to come.’
When a voivoda is killed in Macedonia a high mass for the repose of his soul is celebrated the next Sunday or fête day at the cathedral in Sofia. Small boys, hired by the revolutionary committee, hold crayon portraits of the dead heroes, draped in mourning, for the people to see as they enter church. After mass the congregation gathers in the vast open space before the cathedral to hear addresses by members of the revolutionary committee, who sometimes speak from the cathedral steps. The speeches are generally quite sane, often contain advice to foster British friendship, but never suggest the release of Russia’s hand.
THE CATHEDRAL, SOFIA.