In honour of a woman, a jewelled palace in marble and gold was being built, and from the opposite side of the Bosphorus the captives watched it coming into existence with ever-increasing wonderment.
For a woman, had been prepared rose and gold caïques all carpeted with purple velvet. From a magnificent little Arabian kiosk especially built Ottoman troops from all corners of the Empire passed in review before a woman; even her bath sandals were all studded with priceless gems; no honour was too high, no luxury too great for this woman. The Sultanas could think of nothing else; in the land of Islam great honour had been rendered to a woman.
It was after the visit of the Empress Eugénie that the women of the palace and the wives of the high functionaries copied as nearly as they could the appearance of the beautiful Empress. They divided their hair in the middle, and spent hours in making little bunches of curls. High-heeled shoes replaced the coloured babouches;[11] they even adopted the hideous crinolines, and abandoned forever those charming Oriental garments, the chalvar[12] and enturi,[13] which they considered symbols of servitude, but which no other fashion has been able to equal in beauty.
As might be supposed, the middle class soon followed the example of the palace ladies and adopted Western costume. Then there was a craze for everything French. The most eccentric head-dresses and daring costumes were copied. To these Oriental women were given more jewels than liberty, more sensual love than pure affection, and it mattered little, until they found out from reading the foreign papers that there was something else except the beauty of the body—the beauty of the soul.
The more they read and learnt, the greater was their suffering. They read everything they could lay their hands on—history, religion, philosophy, poetry, and even risqué books. They had an indigestion of reading, and no one was there to cure them.
This desire for everything French lasted until our generation. No one seemed to understand how harmful it was to exaggerate the atmosphere of excitement in which we were living.
With the craze for the education of the West, French governesses came to Constantinople in great numbers; for it was soon known what high salaries the Turks paid, and how hospitable they were.
If you had seen the list of books that these unfortunate Turkish girls read to get a knowledge of French literature, I think you would agree with me they must have been endowed with double moral purity for the books not to have done them more harm.
For nearly thirty years this dangerous experiment went on. No parents seemed to see the grave error of having in one’s house a woman about whom they knew nothing, and who in a very short time could exert a very disastrous influence over a young life. It was only when catastrophe after catastrophe[14] had brought this to their notice, they began to take any interest in their daughters’ governesses, and occupy themselves a little more seriously about what they read.
When I look back on our girlhood, I do feel bitterly towards these women, who had not the honesty to find out that we had souls. How they might have helped us if only they had cared! How they might have discussed with us certain theories which we were trying to apply disastrously to our Eastern existence! But they said to themselves, no doubt, Let us take advantage of the high salary, for we cannot stand this tedious existence too long. And the Turkish women went on reading anything that came within their reach.