But suddenly we remember the sun is setting. To the cries of the frightened birds we hurry back quickly through the trees. How can a
Turkish woman dare to be out after sunset?... Ah! I see it all again now—those garden walls, those knotted trees, those jealous lattice-work windows which give it all an impression of distress! and I am looking at it without a veil and eyes that are free!
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Even as I write to you, young men and maidens pass and repass before me, and I wonder more than ever whether they are happy—yet what do they know of life and all its sorrows; sorrow belongs to the Turks—they have bought its exclusive rights.
In spite of our efforts not to have ourselves spoken about, the Sultan still interests himself in us. In all probability, he has had us reported as “dangerous revolutionists” whom the Swiss Government would do well to watch. And perhaps the Swiss authorities, having had so many disagreeable experiences of anarchists of late, are keeping their eyes on us! Yet why should we care? All our lives have we not been thus situated? We ought to be used to it by this time.
Around me I see people breathing in the pure air, going out and coming in, and no government watches their movements. Why should Fate have chosen certain persons rather than others to place under such intolerable conditions? Why should we have been born Turks rather than these free women who are here enjoying life? I ask myself this question again and again, and all to no purpose; it only makes me bitter.
Do you know, I begin to regret that I ever came in contact with your Western education and culture! But if I begin writing of Western culture, this letter will not be finished for weeks, and I want news of you very soon.—Au revoir, petite chérie,
Zeyneb.
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