Was it possible without appearing unpatriotic to make her understand that the lovely Palace in which she had stayed, the Palace which had echoed with the sounds of Eastern music and dancing and singing, was now being put to a very different usage? During Hamid’s reign Palaces are not required for festivity, but captivity. Many unfortunate souls have only known Beylerbei as the stepping stone to Eternity!
I should have liked to remind the Empress, had I dared, of the impression her beauty had made on the women.
Yashmak and Mantle (Feradjé)
She is an old lady now, but she did not seem so to me. I was looking at the Empress my countrywomen had admired, the Empress for whom they had sacrificed their wonderful Eastern garments; I saw the curls they had copied, the little high-heeled shoes she wore, and even the jewels she had liked best.
“Are the women still as much veiled as when I was in Constantinople?” asked the Empress; and when I told her that a thick black veil had taken the place of the white Yachmack, she could hardly believe it. “What a pity!” she said, “it was so pretty.”
The home in which I saw the Empress, reminded me of one of our Turkish Islands. The sea was as blue and the sky as clear, and the sun, which forced her to change her place several times, was almost as intense. With an odour of pine wood was mixed a fragrant perfume of violets, and the more I looked at it, the more Oriental did the landscape become.
Having spoken so much about the past and the people and the country we have left for ever, it seemed to me that all of us had given way to the inevitable Oriental sadness, yet we fought against it, for there were other visitors there.