Zeyneb with a Black Face-veil thrown back.Zeyneb with a Black Face-veil thrown back
Zeyneb with a Black Face-veil thrown back
In the reading-room, where I spent my evening, I met those same people, who spoke in whispers, wrote letters, and read the daily papers. The silence of the room was restful, there was an atmosphere almost of peace, but it is not the peace which follows strife, it is the peace of apathy. Is this, then, what the Turkish women dream of becoming one day? Is this their ideal of independence and liberty?
Were you to show my letter to one of my race she would think that I had a distinct aversion for progress, or that I felt obliged to be in opposition to everything in the countries where I was travelling. You know enough of my life, however, to know that this is not the case. What I do feel, though, is that aLadies’ Clubis not a big enough reward for having broken away from an Eastern harem and all the suffering that has been the consequence of that action. A club, as I said before, is afterall another kind of harem, but it has none of the mystery and charm of the Harem of the East.
How is one to learn and teach others what might perhaps be called “the tact of evolution”—I mean the art of knowing when to stop even in the realm of progress?
I cannot yet either analyse or classify in a satisfactory way your methods of thinking, since in changing from country to country even the words alter their meaning. In Servia, Liberal means Conservative, and Freemason on the Continent has quite a different meaning from what it has here; so that the interpretation I would give to an opinion might fail to cover my real meaning.
Do not think that this evening’s pessimism is due to the fog nor to my poor dinner. It is the outcome of disillusions which every day become more complete. It seems to me that we Orientals are children to whom fairy tales have been told for too long—fairy tales which have every appearance of truth. You hear so much of themirageof the East, but what is that compared to themirageof the West, to which all Orientals are attracted?
They tell you fairy tales, too, you women of the West—fairy tales which, like ours, have all the appearance of truth. I wonder, when the Englishwomen have really won their vote and the right to exercise all the tiring professions of men, what they will have gained? Their faces will be a little sadder, a little more weary, and they will have become wholly disillusioned.
Go to the root of things and you will find the more things change the more they are the same; nothing really changes. Human nature is always the same. We cannot stop the ebb or flow of Time, however much we try. The great mass of mediocrity alone is happy, for it is content to swim with the tide. Does it not seem to you, that each of us from the age when we begin to reason feels more or less the futility and uselessness of some of our efforts; the little good that struggling has brought us, and the danger we necessarily run, in this awful desire to go full speed ahead? And yet, this desire to go towards something, futile though it be, is one of the most indestructible of Western sentiments.
When in Turkey we met together, and spoke of the Women of England, we imagined thatthey had nothing more to wish for in this world. But we had no idea of what the struggle for life meant to them, nor how terrible was this eternal search after happiness. Which is the harder struggle of the two? The latter is the only struggle we know in Turkey, and the same futile struggle goes on all the world over.
Happiness—what a mirage! At best is it not a mere negation of pain, for each one’s idea of happiness is so different? When I was fifteen years old they made me a present of a little native from Central Africa. For her there was no greater torture than to wear garments of any kind, and her idea of happiness was to get back to the home on the borders of Lake Chad and the possibility of eating another roasted European.
*****
Last night I went to a banquet. It was the first time that I had ever heard after-dinner speeches, and I admired the ease with which everyone found something to say, and the women spoke quite as well as the men. Afterwards I was told, however, that these speeches had all been prepared beforehand.
The member of Parliament who sat on myright spoilt my evening’s enjoyment by making me believe I had to speak, and all through the dinner I tried to find something to say, and yet I knew that, were I actually to rise, I could not utter a sound. What most astonished me at that banquet, however, was that all those women, who made no secret of wanting to direct the affairs of the nation, dared not take the responsibility of smoking until they were told. What a contradiction!
Since I came here I have seen nothing but “Votes for Women” chalked all over the pavements and walls of the town. These methods of propaganda are all so new to me.
I went to a Suffrage street corner meeting the other night, and I can assure you I never want to go again. The speaker carried her little stool herself, another carried a flag, and yet a third woman a bundle of leaflets and papers to distribute to the crowd. After walking for a little while they placed the stool outside a dirty-looking public-house, and the lady who carried the flag boldly got on to the stool and began to shout, not waiting till the people came to hear her, so anxious was she to begin. Although she did not look nervous in the least she possibly was,for her speech came abruptly to an end, and my heart began to beat in sympathy with her.
When the other lady began to speak quite a big crowd of men and women assembled: degraded-looking ruffians they were, most of them, and a class of man I had not yet seen. All the time they interrupted her, but she went bravely on, returning their rudeness with sarcasm. What an insult to womanhood it seemed to me, to have to bandy words with this vulgar mob. One man told her that “she was ugly.” Another asked “if she had done her washing,” but the most of their hateful remarks I could not understand, so different was their English from the English I had learned in Turkey.
Yet how I admired the courage of that woman! No physical pain could be more awful to me than not to be taken for a lady, and this speaker of such remarkable eloquence and culture was not taken for a lady by the crowd, seeing she was supposed “to do her own washing” like any women of the people.
The most pitiful part of it all to me is the blind faith these women have in their cause, and the confidence they have that in explaining their policy to the street ruffians, who cannot evenunderstand that they are ladies, they will further their cause by half an inch.
I was glad when the meeting was over, but sorry that such rhetoric should have been wasted on the half-intoxicated loungers who deigned to come out of the public-house and listen. If this is what the women of your country have to bear in their fight for freedom, all honour to them, but I would rather groan in bondage.
*****
I have been to see your famous Houses of Parliament, both the Lords and the Commons. Like all the architecture in London, these buildings create such an atmosphere of kingly greatness in which I, the democrat of my own country, am revelling. The Democracy of the East is so different from that of the West, of which I had so pitiful an example at the street corner.
I was invited to tea at the House of Commons, and to be invited to tea there of all places seemed very strange to me. Is the drinking of tea of such vital importance that the English canneverdo without it? I wonder if the Turks, nowtheirParliament is opened, will drink coffee with ladies instead of attending to the laws of the nation!
What a long, weary wait I had before they would let me into the Houses of Parliament. Every time I asked the policeman where the member of Parliament was who had invited me, he smilingly told me they had gone to fetch him. I thought he was joking at first, and threatened to go, but he only laughed, and said, “He will come in time.” Only when I had made up my mind that the tea-party would never come off, and had settled myself on an uncomfortable divan to study the curious people passing in and out, did my host appear. I thought it was only in Turkey that appointments were kept with such laxity, but I was reminded by the M.P. who invited me that I was three-quarters of an hour late in the first place.
A Corner of a Turkish Harem of To-day.A Corner of a Turkish Harem of To-dayThis photograph was taken expressly for a London paper. It was returned with this comment: “The British public would not accept this as a picture of a Turkish Harem.” As a matter of fact, in the smartest Turkish houses European furniture is much in evidence.
A Corner of a Turkish Harem of To-day
This photograph was taken expressly for a London paper. It was returned with this comment: “The British public would not accept this as a picture of a Turkish Harem.” As a matter of fact, in the smartest Turkish houses European furniture is much in evidence.
Turkish Women and Children in the Country.Turkish Women and Children in the CountryThey are accompanied by the negress.
Turkish Women and Children in the CountryThey are accompanied by the negress.
I was conducted through a long, handsome corridor to a lobby where all sorts of men and women were assembled, pushing one another, gesticulating and speaking in loud, disagreeable voices like those outside of the Paris Bourse. Just then, however, a bell rang, and I was conducted back past the policeman to my original seat. What curious behaviour! What did it all mean? I spoke to the friendly policeman, buthis explanation that they were “dividing” did not convey much to my mind. As I stood there, a stray member of Parliament came and looked at me. He must have been a great admirer of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, for he wore a monocle and an orchid in his buttonhole.
“Are these suffragettes?” he asked the policeman, staring at me and the other women.
“No, sir,” answered the policeman, “ladies.”
It was too late for tea when my host returned to fetch me, but the loss of a cup of tea is no calamity to me, as I only drink it to appear polite. I was next taken up to the Ladies’ Gallery, and was sworn in as one of the relations of a member who had given up his ladies’ tickets to my host. The funny part of it was, that I could not understand the language my relation spoke, so different was his English from the English I had learnt in Turkey. But what a fuss to get into that Ladies’ Gallery! I had no idea of making a noise before it was suggested to my mind by making me sign a book, and I certainly wanted to afterwards. What unnecessary trouble! What do you call it? Red tapeism! One might almost be in Turkey under Hamid and not in Free England.
But, my dear, why have you never told me that the Ladies’ Gallery is a harem? A harem with its latticed windows! The harem of the Government! No wonder the women cried through the windows of that harem that they wanted to be free! I felt inclined to shout out too. “Is it in Free England that you dare to have a harem? How inconsistent are you English! You send your women out unprotected all over the world, and here in the workshop where your laws are made, you cover them with a symbol of protection.”
The performance which I saw through the harem windows was boring enough. The humbler members of the House had little respect for their superiors, seeing they sat in their presence with their hats on, and this I am told was the habit of a very ill-bred man. Still perhaps this attitude does not astonish me since on all sides I hear complaints of the Government. It is a bad sign for a country, my dear. Are you following in Turkey’s footsteps? Hatred of the Government and prison an honour! Poor England!
I was very anxious to see the notorious Mr. Lloyd George. Since I have been in Londonhis name is on everyone’s lips. I have heard very little good of him except from the ruffians at the street corner meeting, and yet like our Hamid he seems to be all-powerful. For a long time, I could not distinguish him in the crowd below, although my companion spared no pains in pointing him out. I was looking for some one with a commanding presence, some one with an eagle eye and a wicked face like our Sultan, some one before whom a whole nation was justified in trembling. But I still wonder whether I am thinking of the right man when I think of Mr. Lloyd George.
There is not much excitement in your House of Commons, is there? I prefer the Chamber of Deputies, even though some one fired at M. Briand the day I went there. There at least they are men of action. Here some members were so weary of law-making, that they crossed their legs, folded their arms, and went to sleep whilst their colleagues opposite were speaking. I thought it would have been more polite to have gone out and taken tea, as the other members seemed to be doing all the time. It would have given them strength to listen to the tiresome debate.
To me, perhaps, the speaking would have been less unbearable if the harem windows had not deadened the sound, which, please notice, is my polite Turkish way of saying, they all spoke so indistinctly.
The bell began to ring again. The members of Parliament all walked towards the harem to this curious direction, “Eyes to the right and nose to the left.”23And at last my friend took me away.
*****
We went to see a performance ofTrilbyat His Majesty’s Theatre the other night. I liked the acting of the terrible Svengali, but not the piece. As a great treat to me, my friend and her husband had us invited to supper in the roof of the theatre with the famous Sir Herbert Tree. I could not help saying, “I preferred not to go, for Sir Herbert Tree frightened me.”
However, we went all the same, and had a delightful supper-party. For some reason or other the manager was our host, and I was thankful not to eat with Sir Herbert Tree. As we came away my friend asked if I was still frightened now we had eaten with him.
“But we have not eaten with him,” I said.
“Indeed we have,” she said.
“Is the person with whom we had supper the horrid Svengali?” I asked.
“Why, of course,” she answered, laughing.
As you know, this is not my first experience of a theatre, so there is no excuse for me. But I can assure you no one would ever dream that Svengali was made up. What a pity it would have been for me to have gone through life thinking of your famous actor as Svengali. I think that when actors have to play such disagreeable parts, they should show themselves to the public afterwards as they really are, ornotput their names on the programme.
*****
I saw another play at His Majesty’s in which the principal rôles were played by children. You cannot imagine how delightful I found it, and what a change it was from the eternalpièce à thèsewhich I had become accustomed to see in Paris. The scenery indeed was a fairy panorama, and the piece charmingly interpreted. What astonished me was to see that both men and women took as much delight in it as the young folks. Only mothers in Paris would have brought their children to see such a moral play.
Ah, but I must tell you I have at last seen an Englishwoman who does not look weary of life. She is Miss Ellen Terry. How good it was to see her act. She was so natural and so full of fun, and enjoyed all she had to say and do, that her performance was a real joy to me. I wish I could have thanked her.
*****
I just love your hansom cabs. If I had money enough I would buy one for myself and drive about seeing London. You get the best view of everything in this way. When I first stepped into one I could not imagine where the coachman sat; he called out to me from somewhere, but I could not find his voice, until he popped his fingers through a little trap door and knocked off my hat, for I cannot bear to pin on my hat.
“Here I am,” he answered to my query, and he thought he had a mad-woman for a fare.
*****
One night when I returned to my club after the theatre, there was one lonely woman seated in the reading-room near the fire. She seemed to me to be the youngest of all the ladies, although you may say that was no guarantee against middle age. I don’t know how it waswe began to speak, since no one had introduced us, but she imagined I was a Frenchwoman, hence probably the explanation of the liberty she had taken in addressing me. Yet she looked so sad.
“You French,” she said, “are used to sitting up a good deal later than we do here.”
“I thought,” I said, “the protocol did not bother about such trifles.”
“Ah, now you are in the country of protocols and etiquette,” she answered.
She must have been asking me questions only as an excuse to speak herself, because she took really no interest in my answers, and she kept on chattering and chattering because she did not want me to go away. She spoke of America and India and China and Japan, all of which countries she seemed to know as well as her own. Never have I met in my travels anyone so fond of talking, and yet at the same time with aspleenwhich made me almost tired.
I concluded that she was an independent woman, whose weariness must have been the result of constant struggling. She was all alone in the world; one of those poor creatures who might die in a top back-room without a soulbelonging to her. Her mind must have been saturated with theories, she must have known all the uncomfortable shocks which come from a changed position, and yet she was British enough to tremble before Public Opinion.
“But do you know why I travel so much?” at last I had the opportunity of asking her. “Like Diogenes who tried to find aMan, I have been trying to find aFreewoman, but have not been successful.”
I do not think she understood in the least what I meant.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
London,Jan.1909.
I amindeed adésenchantée. I envy you even your reasonable illusions about us. We are hopelessly what we are. I have lost all mine about you, and you seem to me as hopelessly what you are.
The only difference between the spleen of London and the spleen of Constantinople is that the foundation of the Turkish character is dry cynicism, whilst the Englishman’s is inane doggedness without object. In his fatalism the Turk is a philosopher. Your Englishman calls himself a man of action, but he is a mere empiric.
I quite understand now, however, that you do not pity my countrywomen, not because they do not need pity, but because for years you have led only the life of the women of this country, women who start so courageously to fight life’s battle and who ultimately have had to bury alltheir life’s illusions. Now, I see only too well, there are beings for whom freedom becomes too heavy a burden to bear. The women I have met here, seem to have been striving all their lives to get away from everything—home, family, social conventions. They want the right to live alone, to travel as they like, to be responsible for their own lives. Yet when their ambition is realised, the only harvest they reap after a youth of struggle is that of disenchantment.
Yet I ask myself, is a lonely old age worth a youth of effort? Have they not confused individual liberty, which is the right to live as one pleases, with true liberty, which to my Oriental mind is the right to choose one’s own joys and forbearances?
*****
Is it not curious that here, in a Christian country, I see nothing of the religion of Christ? And yet commentaries are not lacking. Every sect has the presumption to suppose its particular interpretation of the words of Christ is the only right interpretation, and Christians have changed the meaning of His words so much, and seen Christ through the prism of their own minds, that I, primitive being that Iam, do not recognise in their tangled creeds the simple and beautiful teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the carpenter Joseph.
Sometimes it seems to me that the religion of Christ has been brought beyond the confines of absurdity. Would it not be better to try and follow the example of Christ than to waste time disputing whether He would approve of eating chocolate biscuits on fast-days and whether wild duck is a fasting diet, whilst duck of the farmyard is forbidden? To me, all this seems profanely childish.
The impression these numerous creeds make on me is like that of members of the same family disputing with one another. What happens in the case of families happens in the case of religion. From these discussions over details follow, first mistrust, then dislike, then hatred, always to the detriment of the best interest of them all.
I went to a Nonconformist chapel the other evening, but I could not bring myself to realise that I was in a chapel at all. There was nothing divine or sacred either in the building or the service. It was more like a lecture by an eloquent professor. Nor did the congregationworship as we worship in the East. It seemed to me, as if it was not to worship God that they were there, but to appease the anger of some Northern Deity, cold, intolerant, and wrathful—an idea of the Almighty which I shall never understand.
It astonished me to hear the professor calling those present “miserable sinners,” and as I was one of the congregation I was not a little hurt, for I have nothing very serious on my conscience. But the Catholics, in this respect, err as much as the Protestants. Why this hysteria for sins you have not committed? Why this shame of one’s self, this exaggerated humility, this continual fear? Why should you stand trembling before your Maker?
The Balcony at the back of Zeyneb's HouseThe Balcony at the back of Zeyneb’s HouseThe house is covered with wistaria.
The Balcony at the back of Zeyneb’s HouseThe house is covered with wistaria.
Zeyneb and Melek.Zeyneb and MelekThe Yashmak is exceedingly becoming, the white tulle showing the lips to great advantage.
Zeyneb and MelekThe Yashmak is exceedingly becoming, the white tulle showing the lips to great advantage.
While I was still inside the chapel, a lady came up and was introduced to me. We walked down the street together, and in the course of conversation she discovered I was not even a Nonconformist, nor a Roman Catholic, but a heathen. And she at once began to pity me, and show me the advantages of her religion. But what could she teach me about Christ that I did not already know? Unfortunately for her she knew nothing of the religion of Mahomet,nor how broad-minded he was, nor with what admiration he had spoken of the crucified Jesus, and how we all loved Christ from Mahomet’s interpretation of His life and work.24
*****
As usual here, as in other Christian countries, marriage seems an everlasting topic of interest. I was hardly seven years old when I was taken for the first time to a non-Turkish marriage. It was the wedding of some Greek farm-people our governess knew. We were present at the nuptial benediction, which took place inside the house and which seemed to me interminable. After that, everyone, including the bride, partook of copious refreshments. Then, when we had been taken for a drive in the country, we returned to dinner, which was served in front of the stable. After the meal we danced on the grass to the strains of a violin, accordion, and triangle. That is the only Christian marriage I had seen till 1908, and I was astonished to find how different a Christian wedding is here.
What is the use of an organ for marryingpeople? And twelve bridesmaids? The bridal pair themselves look extremely uncomfortable at all this useless ceremonial, to which nobody pays any particular attention. Every bride and bridegroom must know how unnecessary are all these preparations, and how marriages bore friends. Yet they go on putting themselves to all this useless trouble, and for what?
Each person invited, I am told, has to bring a present. What a wicked expense to put their friends to. Oh, vanity of vanities!
How is it possible not to admire the primitive Circassians, who when they love one another and wish to marry, walk off without consulting anyone but themselves?
*****
I am also disappointed at the manner in which divorce proceedings are conducted in England. What a quantity of unkind words and vile accusations! What a low handling and throwing of mud at each other, what expense, what time and worry! And all simply to prove that two people are not suited to live together.
To think that, with the possibility of such a life of tragedy, there are still people who have the courage to get married! It seems to methere are some who take marriage too seriously, others who do not take it seriously enough, and that others again only take it seriously when one of the partners wants to be liberated.
How sad it is! And what good can be said of laws, the work of human beings, which not only do not help us in our misfortunes, but extend neither pity nor pardon to those who try to suffer a little less.
During the time I lived away yonder and suffered from a total absence of liberty, I imagined that Europe respected the happiness and the misfortunes of individuals. How horrible it is to find in the daily papers the names of people mercilessly branded by their fellow-men for having committed no other fault than that of trying to be less unhappy, for having the madness to wish to repair their wrecked existence. To publish the reports of the evidence, the sordid gossip of menials, the calumnies, the stolen letters, written under such different circumstances, in moments of happiness, in absolute confidence, or extreme mental agony, in which a woman has laid her soul bare, is loathsome. Is it not worse than perjury to exact from a friend’s lips what he only knowsin confidence? Poor imprudent beings! They have had their moments of sincerity: for this your sad civilisation of the West makes them pay with the rest of their broken lives.
*****
For a long time I have wanted to make the acquaintance of Mr. W. T. Stead, who is known and respected in the East more perhaps than any Englishman. I had no particular reason to go and see him except that he knew my father at the first Hague Conference. So, one day I was bold enough to jump into a hansom and drive to his office. I was asked whom I wanted. I asked for Mr. Stead.
“Who wants him?” I was asked.
“I do,” I replied.
“Give me your card.” But as I had no card I wrote on a slip of paper: “The daughter of a Turkish friend of the Hague Conference will be so pleased to see you.”
He received me at once. There was so much to talk about. He spoke so nicely of my poor dead father, questioned me about the Sultan, about the country I had left, about the Balkans, about Crete, and the Turks themselves. More than an hour we talked together, and whenfinally I rose to go he said to me: “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No,” I said, thanking him very kindly.
“Then it was simply to see me,” he went on, “that you came.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is a friendly visit.” He laughed heartily.
“Do you know,” he said, “that is the first time that this has happened in my life.”
Then he was kind enough to send for tea, and the tray was put down on the table among the papers and the journals, and he showed me signed portraits which he had collected during his travels, among them the one that my dear father had given him at The Hague. He then gave me his own, and signed it, “To my only Turkish lady friend.”
*****
I saw him for a little while in Paris on his return from Constantinople, and he came back really enthusiastic. He was much in sympathy with the Young Turks, though he had much also to find fault with. He despised but pitied Abdul Hamid, and hoped that anententebetween England and Turkey could be arranged, but his ideas were quite unpractical. His policywas purely sentimental, and his suggestions impossible.
*****
I have had the pleasure, since I have been here, of seeing two diplomatists with whose voices I was familiar for many years in Constantinople. My father highly esteemed them both; they often came to see him. When they had drunk their coffee, sometimes my father sent for us to come and play and sing to them, and from behind a curtain they courteously thanked us for our performance.
Although I had so often heard their voices I never had an opportunity of seeing a photo of either of them, and I can’t tell whether I was agreeably surprised or not. Have you ever tried putting a body to a voice?
*****
What a magnificent city London is! If you English are not proud of it, you ought to be. It is not only grand and magnificent but has an aristocratic look that despises mere ornament.
Here in London I have a feeling of security, which I have had nowhere else in the world. It is the only capital in Europe I have so far seen that gives me a sense of orderliness notdependent on authority. It seems to me as if English character were expressed even in the houses of the people. You can tell at a glance what kind of people dwell in the house you are entering. How different is Paris! What a delight to have no concierge, those petty potentates who, as it were, keep the key of your daily life, and remedy there is none.
For the first time since I left Turkey I have had here the sensation of real home life. As you know, we have no flats in Turkey, and have room to move about freely—room for your delightful English furniture, which to me is the most comfortable in the whole world.
Like ours, the houses here are made for use, and their wide doors and broad passages seem to extend a welcome to you which French houses hardly ever do. In France you smell economy before you even reach the door-mat.
You who are in Turkey can now understand what I have suffered from this narrowness of French domestic life. You can imagine my surprise when, the morning after my arrival here, a big tray was sent into my room with a heavy meal of eggs, bacon, fish, toast, marmalade, and what not. I thought I must havelooked ill and as if I needed extra feeding, and I explained to my hostess that my white skin was not a sign of anæmia but my Oriental complexion: all the eggs and bacon in the world would not change the colour of my skin. She was not aware that the Mahometan never eats pork, and like so many others, seemed to forget that bacon, like pork, came from a forbidden source.
I do not find London noisy, but what noise there is one feels is serving a purpose. Life seems so serious; everyone is busy crowding into twelve hours the work of twenty-four. We Turks take no heed of the passing hours.
The Englishmen remind me of the Turks. They have the same grave demeanour, the same appearance of indifference to our sex, the same look of stubborn determination, and, like the Turk, every Englishman is a Sultan in his own house. Like the Turk, too, he is sincere and faithful in his friendships, but Englishmen have two qualities that the Turks do not possess. They are extremely good business men, and in social relations are extremely prudent, although it is difficult to say where prudence ends and hypocrisy begins.
The Drawing-room of a Harem showing a Bridal Throne.The Drawing-room of a Harem showing a Bridal ThroneOn the Bridal Throne the Turkish woman sits on her wedding day to receive her friends’ good wishes. It remains the chief seat in the harem; in the Imperial Palace it is a fine throne, in poor houses only a glorified chair, but it is always there.
The Drawing-room of a Harem showing a Bridal Throne
On the Bridal Throne the Turkish woman sits on her wedding day to receive her friends’ good wishes. It remains the chief seat in the harem; in the Imperial Palace it is a fine throne, in poor houses only a glorified chair, but it is always there.
A Corner of the Harem.A Corner of the HaremThis Turkish lady collected the ribbons of the battleships on the Bosphorus, and they are hanging on the wall.
A Corner of the HaremThis Turkish lady collected the ribbons of the battleships on the Bosphorus, and they are hanging on the wall.
But if Englishmen remind me of Turks, I can find nothing in common between English and Turkish women. They are in direct contrast to one another in everything. Perhaps it is this marked contrast that balances our friendship. A Turkish woman’s life is as mysterious as an Englishwoman’s life is an open book, which all can read who care. Before I met the suffragettes, I knew only sporting and society women. They were all passionately absorbed in their own amusements, which as you know do not in the least appeal to me. I suppose we Turkish women who have so much time to devote to culture become unreasonably exacting. But everywhere I have been—in England, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain—I have found how little and how uselessly the women read, and how society plays havoc with their taste for good books.
Englishwomen are pretty, but are deficient in charm. They have no particular desire and make no effort to please. You know the charm of the Turkish woman. The Englishwoman is pig-headed, undiplomatic, brutally sincere, but a good and faithful friend. The Turkish woman—well, you must fill that in yourself! I am too near to focus her.
But now that I have seen the women of most countries, you may want to know which I most admire.
Well, I will tell you frankly, the Turkish woman. An ordinary person would answer, “Of course,” but you are not an ordinary person, so I shall at once give you my reasons. It is not because I am a Turkish woman myself, but because, in spite of the slavery of their existence, Turkish women have managed to keep their minds free from prejudice. With them it is not what people think they ought to think, but what they think themselves. Nowhere else in Europe have I found women with such courage in thinking.
In every country there are women—though they may be a mere handful—who are above class, above nationality, and dare to be themselves. These are the people I appreciate the most. These are the people I shall always wish to know, for to them the whole world is kin.—Your affectionate friend,
Zeyneb.
Venice,Oct.1911.
Youwill say perhaps I am reminded of the Bosphorus everywhere, just as Maurice Barres is reminded of Lorraine in every land he visits. Yet how would it be possible not to think of the Bosphorus in Venice, especially when for so many years I have had to do without it? Here, there is the same blue sky, the same blue carpet of sea, the same sunset, and the same wonderful sunrise—only gondolas have taken the place of caïques.
All day and part of the evening I allow myself to be rowed as my gondolier wishes from canal to canal, and I am indignant I did not know sooner there was a place in Europe where one could come to rest. Why do the French and Swiss doctors not send their patients here? They would be cured certainly of that disease from which everyone suffers nowadays, the fatigue of the big towns.
But since so many illustrious poets have sung the praises of Venice what is there for me to say? I prefer to glorify it as the Brahmins worship their Deity, in silence.
The Venetians do not appreciate Venice any more than I appreciated Constantinople when I lived there. They have no idea how lovely Venice is, but prefer the Lido, where they meet the people of all nations, whose buzzing in the daytime replaces the mosquitoes at night.
On our way here, the train went off the rails, so we had to alight for some time: then one of the party suggested that we should visit Verona, and I was very delighted at this happy idea.
It was midnight. We walked along the narrow streets of the deserted city. The town was bathed in a curious, indescribable light, and it was more beautiful than anything we could have seen in the daylight, when perhaps the noise would have killed its charm. I hope that fate has not decreed that my impression of that silent sleeping city shall ever be destroyed.
I travelled to Venice in a compartment marked “Ladies only,” not because I have any particular affection for those “harem” compartments, but because there was not a seat for mewith my friends. An old English spinster was my companion. She welcomed me with a graciousness that I did not appreciate, and at once began a very dull and conventional conversation.
Presently, however, two Italian officers came in, and politely excusing themselves in their language, sat down. They said they had been up all night, had been standing from Milan, and had to go on duty when they reached Venice, and begged the old lady politely to allow them a quarter of an hour’s rest.
The spinster did not understand, so I translated.
“Disgraceful,” she said and ordered them out. But still the officers remained. Then turning to me she said, “You who must be Italian, please tell them what I think of them.”
I told her, “It was not my rôle to interpret such uncharitable language.”
Then the officers turning to me, said in Italian, “Although English, you are much kinder than your companion; please tell her we only want to stop a quarter of an hour, and there is absolutely no danger for her.”
Rising, the old spinster looked for the alarm signal, but finally decided to call the guard,who ordered the officers out. Before they went, however, they pulled out their watches and asked me to thank her for her kind hospitality: they reminded me that they had what they wanted, a quarter of an hour’s rest.
Luckily our arrival at Venice meant good-bye to this disagreeable old creature, whose type flourishes all over the Continent, even in Constantinople, and who sacrifices on the altar of respectability everything, even charity.
*****
Now I understand the enthusiasm of those who have spoken of Italy. Nothing one can say is sufficient eulogy for this land of sunshine and poetry and tradition.
I am told by the people of the north I shall be disappointed when I see the south, but that does not disturb my impression of the moment. I am worshipping Venice, and everything there pleases me.
A Caique on the BosphorusA Caïque on the Bosphorus
A Caïque on the Bosphorus
Turkish Women in the Country.Turkish Women in the Country
Turkish Women in the Country
To me it seems almost as if it were the home of the ancient Greeks, with all their artistic instincts and roguery, all their faults, and all their primitive charm. From my open window, which looks into a canaletto, I heard the song of a gondolier. His voice was the sweetest Ihave ever heard; no opera singer ever gave me greater pleasure. Now that I know the number of his boat, I have engaged him as my gondolier, and every evening after dinner, instead of wasting my time at Bridge, I go on to the canal, leaving it to the discretion of my guide where he takes me; and when he is tired of rowing, he brings me back. All the time he sings and sings and I dream, and his beautiful voice takes me far, far away—away from the unfriendly West.
Amongst its other attractions, Venice has an aristocracy. They are poor certainly, but, with such blood in their veins, do they need riches? And surely their charm and nobility are worth all the dollars put together of the vulgar Transatlantics who have bought the big historic palaces of Venice. I feel here as I felt in London, the delight of being again in a Kingdom, and I can breathe and live. How restful it is, after the nervous strain of the exaggerated Democracy of France.
*****
Brussels,Nov.1911.
I have had this letter quite a fortnight in my trunk. I did not want to send it to you. Somehow I felt ashamed to let you see how much I had loved Italy—Turkey’s enemy.
I left Venice the day after the Declaration of War, if such a disgraceful proceeding would be called a Declaration of War. For a long time I could not make up my mind that that nation of gentlemen, that nation of poetry and music and art, that nation whose characteristics so appealed to my Oriental nature, that nation whom I thought so civilised in the really good sense of the word, could be capable of such injustice.
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 thatChristian 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. Theneighbour 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.
The next day I had a letter from my landlord requesting me not to wake the concierge up again at two o’clock in the morning. And thisis the country of liberty, the country where one is free to die, provided only the concierge is not awakened at two o’clock in the morning.
This little incident seems insignificant in itself, but to me it will be a very painful remembrance of one of the chief characteristics of the people of this country—a total lack of hospitality.
If our Oriental countries must one day become like these countries of the West, if they too must inherit all the vices, with which this civilisation is riddled through and through, then let them perish now.
If civilisation does not teach each individual the great and supreme quality of pity, then what use is it? What difference is there, please tell me, between the citizens of Paris and the carnivorous inhabitants of Darkest Africa? We Orientals imagine the word civilisation is a synonym of many qualities, and I, like others, believed it. Is it possible to be so primitive? Yet why should I be ashamed of believing in the goodness of human beings? Why should I blame myself, because these people have not come up to my expectations?
This musing reminds me of a story which our Koran Professor used to tell us. “There wasonce,” he said, “in a country of Asia Minor, a little girl who believed all she heard. One day she looked out of her window, and saw a chain of mountains blue in the distance.
“‘Is that really their colour?’ she asked her comrades.
“‘Yes,’ they answered.
“And so delighted was she with this information that she started out to get a nearer view of the blue mountains.
“Day after day she walked and walked, and at last got to the summit of the blue mountains, only to find grass just as she would have found it anywhere else. But she would not give up.
“‘Where are the blue mountains?’ she asked a shepherd, and he showed another chain higher and farther away, and on and on she went until she came to the mountains of Alti.