Yes, my friend, we ourselves have lived that life of constant fear and dissimulation, of hopes continually shattered, and revolt we dared not put into words.
Yet never did the thought occur to us that we might adapt ourselves to this existence we were forced to lead. We spent our life in striving for one thing only—the means of changing it.
Could we, like the women of the West, we thought, devote our leisure to working for the poor, that would at least be some amusement to break the monotony. We also arranged to meet and discuss with intelligent women the question of organising charity, but the Sultan came down upon us with a heavy hand. He saw the danger of allowing thinking women to meet and talk together, and the only result of this experiment was that the number of spies set to watch the houses of “dangerous women” was doubled.
Then it was that we made up our minds, after continual failure, that as long as we remained in our country under the degrading supervision of the Hamidian régime, we could do nothing, however insignificant, to help forward the cause of freedom for women.
I need not tell you again all the story of our escape; it is like a nightmare to me still, and every detail of that horrible journey will remain clearly fixed in my mind until death. Shall I tell you all that has happened to us since? But so much has been said about us by all sorts and conditions of men and women, that you will no doubt have already had an overdose. Yet I thought I understood, from the sympathetic interest you showed us the other afternoon, that there was much you would still like to hear. Have I guessed rightly? Then there is nothing you shall not know.—Your affectionate
Zeyneb.
What a long and interesting letter! and from a Turkish woman too! Several times I read and re-read it, then I felt that I could not give my new friend a better proof of the pleasure that it had given me, than by writing her at once to beg for more. But I waited till the next day, and finally sent a telegram—“Please send another letter.”