IT was a patriarchal home, this first harem into which I entered. It consisted of the oldhanoum, who was the first wife, and head of the women’s part of the household, six other wives, whom she called her sisters, several married daughters, the wives of some of the sons, and two married grand-daughters. Among them they were the mothers of numerous babies—indeed, there were babies all over the house; and since each lady had several slaves there must have been at least a hundred women and children.
Djimlah happened to be the only child of her age. They were all sorry for her, and said so constantly while doing their best to amuse her.
There was little furniture in the house, just rugs and hard sofas, and small tables upon which were always sorbets or sweets, and cushions of all colours piled up on the rugs, where babies or grown-ups were always lying slumbering. Various small musical instruments were also among the cushions, and at any time some person would pick one of these up to play and sing, so thatmost of the time, on the floor, there were both people slumbering, and people playing and singing. And since the long, curtainless windows were latticed, and the upper part entirely hidden by creeping vines growing from pots, the whole place seemed to me like a play-box, transformed into a fairy house, from which discipline, like a wicked fairy, was banished.
All the cooking was done in the men’s part of the house, and brought in by eunuchs. At mealtimes we sat around small, low tables, on cushions, and ate most of the things with our fingers, except rice and soup, which we ate with pretty wooden spoons.
The amount they permitted me to eat was incredible. Even to this day I wonder what prevented me from becoming ill.
Djimlah and I practically owned the house. We slid on the banisters; we climbed on the backs of the slaves, who, at any time, were ready to play horse with us; and we ate candy whenever and in whatever quantities we pleased.
No one said “No” to us, whatever we did, and the oldhanoumlet us ruffle her beautiful clothes and disturb her even when she was asleep. We slept on a little bed, made up at the foot of hers, in her own room, and it was she who said our prayer, which we repeated, and then kissed us good-night.
The day had passed so rapidly, and had beenso crowded with events and candy that I had had no time to think. Once in bed, after Djimlah put her arms around me and kissed me and then sweetly fell asleep, I had plenty of time to review the day. It seemed preposterous that I, my uncle’s grand-niece, should be here in a Turkish household, and in the same bed with a Turkish little girl—a little girl I liked and should hate to kill. Yet my uncle’s teachings were strongly with me and his dark, fiery eyes seemed to pierce my heart. I tried to focus my mind on the bad side of this household. There was the fact of the several wives, and if it was bad for Arif Bey to have two wives, it must be terribly bad to have seven, as had Djimlah’s grandfather, who did not even have the excuse, to my thinking, of being young, handsome and Olympian. On the other hand, the oldhanoumliked those other wives, and called them Sister, and Djimlah spoke of them lovingly. Impelled by my uncle’s eyes I tried to dislike the Turks. I felt disloyal to him, whom I could feel very close that night; but when I fell asleep at last, my rest was not troubled, and on awakening again Djimlah was leaning over me, cooing and laughing, and I began to laugh too.
The tears, which I had had the courage not to shed when my father said that I might stay with Djimlah, flowed copiously when the time came to leave her. I cried hard and loud, and so didDjimlah and because we two cried some of the slaves joined in, and then the oldhanoumsaid:
“Now, younghanoum, that you have come once, you will like to come again, and prove to us that we have made your stay happy.”
“I’m ready to come this minute,” I sobbed. At this she laughed, and we began to laugh, too; and thus I bade them good-bye.
The first words I said on reaching my own home were that the Turks were the nicest people in the world. My father was amused, but my mother was horrified, and had she had her way I believe my first would have been my only visit. As it was, eight days later I was again with Djimlah; and thus it came about that from that early age I became a constant visitor not only to Djimlah’s home, but also to that of other little girls whom I met through her, and otherwise.
As I grew older, the vast contrast between my race and theirs became more and more clear to me; and I had the distinct feeling of partaking of two worlds, mine and theirs.
In my home there were duties for me from my babyhood, duties which had rigidly to be performed; and things to be learned, remembered, and to be guided by. The words duty and obligation played a great rôle in my Greek home, and these two words, so stern, so irreconcilable with pleasure, were absent from the Turkish homes.
For me there was a tremendous Greek history to be learned and understood; and the more one studied it, the more one had to suffer because of the present; for in my home we lived with the past, we talked of the past, and of the obligations which the past imposed upon our present and future.
In the Turkish homes there was no history to be learned. All they seemed to know was that they were a great conquering race, that they had come from Asia and had conquered all Europe, because they were brave and the Europeans were cowards. There was no past or future in their lives. Everything was ephemeral, resting on the pleasure of the day, or better yet, on the pleasure of the moment; unconscious of the morrow, and indifferent to the moment after the present.
In entering a Turkish home, especially as I grew older, I felt as if I were leaving my own life outside. They were different from us, these women, these children of the Turks. They were so different, indeed, that I rarely spoke to them of the things I felt or thought about at home. I came to them ready to enjoy them, and to enjoy life with them; and yet, as the years went by, deep down in my heart I felt glad to be a Greek child, even though I belonged to the conquered race; and I began to return to my home with greater satisfaction than I had at first, and to put into my studies a fervour and a willingnesswhich might have been less, had I not been a visitor to these Turkish households.
Yet curiously, too, as I grew older, I liked the Turks more and more, though in my liking there was a certain amount of protective feeling, such as one might feel for wayward children, rather than for equals.
I learned to see what was noble, charming, and poetical in their lives; but I also became conscious that in spite of the faults of my race, in spite of the limitations of our religion, our civilization was better than theirs, because it contained such words as discipline, duty, and obligation. And dimly I felt that we were a race that had come to the world to stay and to help, while theirs was perhaps some day to vanish utterly.