Men and birds are at ease in Santa Sophia. Doves have made their home in the holy place. They fly under the long arcades, they circle above the galleries, they rest against blocks of cool marble the color of which their plumage resembles. And all day long men pass in through the gateways, and become at once little, yet strangely significant in the vastness which incloses and liberates them. They take off their shoes and carry them, or lay them down in the wooden trays at the edges of those wide, railed-in platforms covered with matting, called masbata, which are characteristic of mosques, and which are supposed to be for the use of readers of the Koran, and then they are free of the mosque. Some of them wander from place to place, silently gazing; others kneel and pray in some quiet corner; others study or sing or gossip or sink into reverie or slumber. Many go up to the masbata, take off their outer garments, and hang them over the rails, hang their handkerchiefs beside them, tuck their legs under their bodies, and remain thus for hours, staring straight before them with solemn eyes, as if hypnotized. Children, too, go to the masbata, settle cozily down, and read the Koran aloud, interspersing their study with gay conversation. On one of them I found my singing boy. Small, fanatical, with head thrown back and the fez upon it, he defiantly poured forth his tune, while an older companion, opposite to him and looking not unlike an idol in its shrine, stared impassively, as if at the voice.
Santa Sophia is mystical in its twilight beauty. Its vastness, its shape, its arrangement, its beautifully blended colors, the effects of light and of sound within it, unite in creating an atmosphere that disposes the mind to reverie and inclines the soul to prayer. Along the exquisite marble walls, in the mellow dimness, while Stamboul just outside is buying and selling, is giving itself to love and to crime, the murmur of Islam’s devotion steals almost perpetually, as mysterious as some faint and wide-spread sound of nature. The great mosque seems to be breathing out its message to the Almighty, and another message to man. The echoes are not clear, but as dim as the twilight under the arches of marble and beneath the ceilings of gold. They mingle without confusion in a touching harmony, as all things mingle in this mosque of the great repose.
And yet not all things.
One day I saw standing alone in the emperor’s doorway a child in blood-colored rags. The muezzin had called from the minaret the summons to the midday prayer, and far off before the mihrab, and the sacred carpet on which the prophet is said to have knelt, the faithful were ranged in long lines: pilgrims on the way to Mecca; Turks in quilted coats and in European dress; two dervishes with small, supple limbs and pale faces smoldering with reverie; and some hard-bitten, sun-scorched soldiers, perhaps bound for the battle-fields of the Balkan War. Moving almost as one man, they bent, they kneeled, they touched the floor with their foreheads, leaned back, and again bowed down. Their deep and monotonous voices were very persistent in prayer. And the echoes, like secret messengers, bore the sound along the arcades, carried it up into the vast space of the dome, under the transverse arches and the vaulted openings of the aisles, past the faint Christ on the wall, and the “Hand of the Conqueror,” with horrible outspread fingers, the Sweating Column, and the Cradle of Jesus, to the child in the blood-red rags. He stood there where Theophilus entered, under the hidden words, “I am the Light of the World,” gazing, listening, unaware of the marvelous effect his little figure was making, the one absolutely detached thing in the mosque. The doves flew over his head, vanishing down the marble vistas, becoming black against golden distances. The murmur of worship increased in power, as more and more of the faithful stole in, shoeless, to join the ranks before the mihrab. Like incense from a thurible, mysticism floated through every part of the mosque, seeming to make the vast harmony softer, to involve in it all that was motionless there and all that was moving except the child in the emperor’s doorway, who was unconsciously defiant, like a patch of fresh blood on a pure-white garment. The prayers at last died away, the echoes withdrew into silence; but the child remained where he was, crude, almost sinister in his wonderful colored rags.
Close to Santa Sophia in the Seraglio grounds is the old Byzantine church of Saint Irene, now painted an ugly pink, and used by the Turks as an armory and museum. It contains many spoils taken by the Turks in battle, which are carefully arranged upon tables and walls. Nothing is disdained, nothing is considered too paltry for exhibition. I saw there flags riddled with bullets, but I saw also odd boots taken from Italian soldiers in Tripoli, caps, belts, water-bottles, blood-stained tunics and cloaks, saddles, weapons, and buttons. Among relics from Yildiz Kiosk was a set of furniture which once belonged to Abdul-Hamid, and which he is said to have set much store by. It shows a very distinctive, indeed, a somewhat original taste, being made of red plush and weapons. The legs of the tables and chairs are guns and revolvers. As I looked at the chairs, I could not help wondering whether ambassadors were invited to sit in them, after they had been loaded to their muzzles or whether they were reserved for subjects whom the ex-sultan suspected of treachery. Near them were several of Abdul-Hamid’s favorite walking-sticks containing revolvers, a cane with an electric light let into the knob, his inkstand, the mother-of-pearl revolver which was found in his pocket, and the handkerchief which fell from his hand when he was taken prisoner by the Young Turks, who have since brought their country to ruin.
In a series of galleries, under arches and ceilings of yellow and white, stands, sits, reclines, and squats, in Eastern fashion, a strange population of puppets, dressed in the costumes of the bygone centuries during which Turkey has ruled in Europe. Those fearful ex-Christians, the Janizaries, who were scourges of Christianity, look very mild now as they stand fatuously together, no longer either Christian or Mussulman but fatally Madame Tussaud. Once they tucked up their coats to fight for the “Father” who had ravished them away from their fathers in blood. Now, even the wicked man, who flees when no one pursueth, could scarcely fear them. Near them the chief eunuch, a plump and piteous gentleman, reclines absurdly upon his divan, holding his large black pipe, and obsequiously attended by a bearded dwarf in red and by a thin aide-de-camp in green. The Sheik ul Islam bends beneath the coiled dignity of his monstrous turban; a really lifelike old man, with a curved gray beard and a green-and-white turban, reads the Koran perpetually; and soldiers with faces made of some substance that looks like plaster return blankly the gaze of the many real soldiers who visit this curious show.
One day, when I was strolling among the puppets of Saint Irene, some soldiers followed me round. They were deeply interested in all that they saw, and at last became interested in me. Two or three of them addressed me in Turkish, which, alas! I could not understand. I gathered, however, that they were seriously explaining the puppets to me, and were giving me information about the Janizaries, and Orkhan, who was the founder of that famous corps. I responded as well as I could with gestures, which seemed to satisfy them, for they kept close beside me, and one, a gigantic fellow with pugnacious mustaches, frequently touched my arm, and once even took me by the hand to draw my attention to a group which he specially admired. All this was done with gravity and dignity, and with a childlike lack of self-consciousness. We parted excellent friends. I distributed cigarettes, which were received with smiling gratitude, and went on my way to Seraglio Point, realizing that there is truth in the saying that every Turk is a gentleman.
Tint plates made for THE CENTURY by H. Davidson and H. C. Merrill
THE ROYAL GATE LEADING TO THE OLD SERAGLIO