Even in the practice of “the rights of the strong” a little more tact could have been exercised. Surely it is not permissible in the twentieth century to act as savages did—at least those we thought savages.
In a few years from now, we shall be able to see more clearly how the Italian Government of 1911 was able to step forward and take advantage of a Sister State, whose whole efforts were centred on regeneration, and no one protested. What a wonderful account of the history of our times!
When I think that it is in Christian Europe that such injustice passes unheeded, and that Christian Europe dares to send us missionaries to preach this gospel of Civilisation—I curse the Fate which has forced me to accept the hospitality of the West.
*****
Paris, Feb. 1912.
Two chapters more seem necessary to my experience of the West. I submit in silence. Kismet.
Hardly had I returned from Brussels than I became seriously ill. Do not ask me what was the matter with me. Science has not yet found a name for my suffering. I have consulted doctors, many doctors, and perhaps for this reason I have no idea as to the nature of my illness. Each doctor wanted to operate for something different, and only when I told them I had not the money for an operation have they found that after all it is not necessary. I think I have internal neuralgia, but modern science calls it “appendicitis,” and will only treat me under that fashionable name. At Smyrna, I remember having a similar attack. My grandmother, terrified to see me suffering, ran in for a neighbour whom she knew only by name. The neighbour came at once, said a few prayers over me, passed her magic hands over my body, and in a short time I was healed.
Here I might have knocked up all the inhabitants of Paris: not one would have come to help me.
“The progress of modern science” was my last illusion. Why must I have this final disappointment? Yet what does it matter? Every cloud has a silver lining. And this final experience has brought me to the decision, that I shall go back to Turkey as soon as I can walk. There at least, unless my own people have been following in the footsteps of modern civilisation, I shall be allowed to be ill at my leisure, without the awful spectre hovering over me of a useless operation.
One night I was suffering so much that I thought it advisable to send for the doctor. It was only two o’clock in the morning, but the message the concierge sent back was, “that one risked being assassinated in Paris at that hour,” and he refused to go.