CHAPTER XXTHE END OF THE DREAM

Melek on the Veranda at Fontainebleau.Melek on the Veranda at Fontainebleau

Melek on the Veranda at Fontainebleau

“All her existence she had the same hopes and the same illusions. Only when she came to the evening of her life did she understand that it was the distance that lent the mountains their hue—but it was too late to go back, and she perished in the cold, biting snow.”

*****

I do not know if there is another country inthe world where foreigners can be as badly treated as they are here; at any rate they could not be treated worse. They are criticised, laughed at, envied, and flattered, and they have the supreme privilege of paying for all those people whose hobby is economy.

Everything is done here by paradox; the foreigner who has talent is more admired than the Frenchman, yet if he does anything wrong, there is no forgiveness for him.

An Englishwoman I knew quarrelled with a Frenchwoman, and the latter reproached her with having accepted one luncheon and one dinner. The Englishwoman (it sounds fearfully English, doesn’t it?) sent her ex-hostess twelve francs, and the Frenchwoman not only accepted it but sent a receipt. If I had not seen that receipt I don’t think I could have believed the story!

Another lady, whose dressmaker claimed from her a sum she was not entitled to, was told by that dressmaker, unless she were paid at once, she would inform the concierge. Tell me, I beg of you, in what other country would this have been possible? In what other country of the world would self-respectingpeople pay any attention, far less go for information, to the vulgar harpies who preside over the destinies of the fifteen or twenty families who occupy a Paris house?

When I have been able to get my ideas and impressions a little into focus, I intend to write for you, and for you only, what a woman without any preparation for the battle of life, a foreigner, a woman alone, and last but not least, a Turk, has had to suffer in Paris.

You who know what our life is in Turkey, and how we have been kept in glass cases and wrapt in cotton wool, with no knowledge of the meaning of life, will understand what the awful change means, and how impossible for a Turkish woman is Western life.

Do you remember the year of my arrival? Do you remember how I wanted to urge all my young friends away yonder to take their liberty as I had taken mine, so that before they died they might have the doubtful pleasure of knowing what it was to live?

Now, I hope if ever they come to Europe they will not come to Paris except as tourists; that they will see the beautiful things there are to be seen, the Provence with its fine cathedrals andits historic surroundings; that they will amuse themselves taking motor-car trips and comparing it with their excursions on a mule’s back in Asia; that they will see the light of Paris, but never its shade; and that they will return, as you have returned from Constantinople, with one regret, that you couldn’t stay longer.

If only my experience could be of use to my compatriots who are longing as I longed six years ago for the freedom of the West, I shall never regret having suffered.—Your affectionate friend,

Zeyneb.

Marseilles,5th March,1912.

Itis to-morrow that I sail. In a week from to-day, I shall again be away yonder amongst those whom I have always felt so near, and who I know have not forgotten me.

In just a week from to-day I shall again be one of those unrecognisible figures who cross and recross the silent streets of our town—some one who no longer belongs to the same world as you—some one who must not even think as you do—some one who will have to try and forget she led the existence of a Western woman for six long, weary years.

What heart-breaking disappointments have I not to take away with me! It makes me sad to think how England has changed! England with its aristocratic buildings and kingly architecture—England with its proud and self-respecting democracy—the England that ourgreat Kemal Bey taught us to know, that splendid people the world admires so much, sailing so dangerously near the rocks.

I do not pretend to understand the suffragettes or their “window-smashing” policy, but I must say, I am even more surprised at the attitude of your Government. However much these ill-advised women have over-stepped the boundaries of their sex privileges, however wrong they may be, surely the British Government could have found some other means of dealing with them, given their cause the attention they demanded, or used some diplomatic way of keeping them quiet. I cannot tell you the horrible impression it produces on the mind of a Turkish woman to learn that England not only imprisons but tortures women; to me it is the cataclysm of all my most cherished faiths. Ever since I can remember, England had been to me a kind of Paradise on earth, the land which welcomed to its big hospitable bosom all Europe’s political refugees. It was the land of all lands I longed to visit, and now I hear a Liberal Government is torturing women. Somehow my mind will not accept this statement.

Write to me often, very often, dear girl.You know exactly where I shall be away yonder, and exactly what I shall be doing. You know even the day when I shall again begin my quiet, almost cloistered existence as a Moslem woman, and how I shall long for news of that Europe which has so interested and so disappointed me.

Do you remember with what delight I came to France, the country of Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité? But now I have seen those three magic words in practice, how the whole course of my ideas has changed! Not only are my theories on the nature of governments no longer the same, but my confidence in the individual happiness that each can obtain from these governments is utterly shattered.

But you will say, I argue like a reactionary. Let me try to explain. Am I not now a woman of experience, a woman of six years’ experience, which ought to count as double, for every day has brought me a double sensation, the one of coming face to face with the reality, and the other, the effort of driving from my mind the remembrance of what I expected to find?

You know how I loved the primitive soul of the people, how I sympathise with them, andhow I hoped that some scheme for the betterment of their condition would be carried out.

But I expected in France the same good honest Turks I knew in our Eastern villages, and it was from the Eastern simplicity and loyalty that I drew my conclusions about the people of the West. You know now what they are! And do not for a moment imagine that I am the only one to make this mistake: nine out of ten of my compatriots, men and women, would have the same expectation of them. Until they have come to the West to see for themselves and had some of the experiences that we have had, they will never appreciate the calm, leisurely people of our country.

How dangerous it is to urge those Orientals forward, only to reduce them in a few years to the same state of stupidity as the poor degenerate peoples of the West, fed on unhealthy literature and poisoned with alcohol.

You are right: it is in the West that I have learned to appreciate my country. Here I have studied its origin, its history (and I still know only too little of it), but I shall take away with me very serious knowledge about Turkey.

But again I say, what a disappointment theWest has been. Yes, taking it all round I must own that I am again adésenchantée. Do you know, I am now afraid even of a charwoman who comes to work for me. Alas! I have learned of what she is capable—theft, hatred, vengeance, and the greed of money, for which she would sell her soul.

I told the editor of a Paris paper one day that I blushed at the manner in which he encouraged dirty linen to be washed in public. “All your papers are the same,” I said. “Take them one after the other and see if one article can be found which is favourable to your poor country. You give the chief place to horrible crimes. Your leading article contains something scandalous about a minister, and from these articles France is judged not only by her own people but by the whole world.”

He did not contradict me, but smiling maliciously, he answered, “Les journalistes ontà cœurd’être aussi veridique que possible.” (“Journalists must try to be as truthful as possible.”) A clever phrase, perhaps, but worse than anything he could have written in the six pages of his paper.

But perhaps I am leaving you under the impression,désenchantéethough I be, that nothing has pleased me in the West. Not at all! I have many delightful impressions to take back with me, and I want to return some day if the “Kismet” will allow it.

Munich, Venice, the Basque Countries, the Riviera, and London I hope to see again. Art and music, the delightful libraries, the little towns where I have worked, thought, and discovered so many things, and a few friends “who can understand”—surely these are attractions great enough to bring me back to Europe again.

The countries I have seen are beautiful enough, but civilisation has spoiled them. To take a copy of what it was going to destroy, however, civilisation created art—art in so many forms, art in which I had revelled in the West. It was civilisation that collected musical harmonies, civilisation that produced Wagner, and music to my mind is the finest of all its works.

But there are books too, you will say, wonderful books. Yes, but in the heart of Asia there are quite as many masterpieces, and they are far more reposeful.

6th March.

This morning early I was wakened by the sun, the advance-guard of what I expect away yonder. From my window I see a portion of the harbour, and the curious ships which start and arrive from all corners of the earth. Again I see the Bosphorus with its ships, which in my childish imagination were fairy godmothers who would one day take me far, far away ... and now they are the fairy godmothers who will take me back again.

I like to watch this careless, boisterous, gay crowd of Marseilles. It is just a little like the port of Échelles du Levant with its variegated costumes, its dirt, which the sun makes bearable, and the continual cries and quarrelling among men of all nations.

All my trunks are packed and ready, and it is with joy and not without regret that I see I have no hatbox. Not that I care for that curious and very unattractive invention, the fashionable hat, but it is the external symbol of liberty, and now I am setting it aside for ever. Mytchatchaffis ready, and once we have passed the Piræus I shall put it on. How strange I shall feel clad again from head to foot in a blackmantle all out of fashion, for the Turks have narrowed theirtchatchaffsas the Western women have tightened their skirts. It will not be without emotion, either, that I feel a black veil over my face, a veil between me and the sun, a veil to prevent me from seeing it as I saw it for the first time at Nice from my wide open window.

Yet what anguish, what terrible anguish would it not be for me to put on that veil again, if I did not hope to see so many of those I have really loved, the companions of my childhood, friends I know who wanted me and have missed me. Even when I left Constantinople, you know under what painful circumstances, I hoped to return one day.

“The world is a big garden which belongs to us all,” said a Turkish warrior of the past; “one must wander about and gather its most agreeable fruits as one will.” Ah! the holy philosophy! yet how far are we from ever attempting to understand it! Will there ever come a personality strong enough, with a voice powerful enough to persuade us that this philosophy is for our sovereign being, and that without it we shall be led and lead others to disappointments?

During the time I was away yonder, I believed in the infallibility of new theories. I had almost completely neglected the books of our wise men of the East, but I have read them in the libraries of the West, where I have neglected modern literature for the pleasure of studying that philosophy, which shows the vanity of these struggles and the suffering that can follow.

I am longing to see an old uncle from the Caucasus. When we were young girls he pitied us because we were so unarmed against the disenchantment which inevitably had to come to us.

“You are of another century,” we said to him. “You reason with theories you find remarkable, but we want to go forward, we want to fight for progress, and that is only right.”

Ah! he knew what he was talking about, that old uncle, when he spoke of the disenchantment of life.

“You are arguing as I argued when I was a little boy, and my father gave me the answer that I have given to you. My children,” he continued, “life does not consist in always asking for more: believe me, there is more merit in living happily on as little as you can, than in struggling to rise on the defeat of others. I have fought in all the battles against theRussians, and had great experience of life, but I remind you of the fact merely lest you should think me a vulgar fatalist in the hands of destiny. I, too, have had many struggles, and it was my duty.”

What a lot I shall have to tell this dear old uncle! How well we shall understand each other now, how happy he will be to see that I have understood him! We shall speak in that language which I need to speak again after six long years. Loving the East to fanaticism as I do, to me it stands for all that glorious past which the younger generation should appreciate but not blame, all the past with which I find myself so united.

I will tell this dear old uncle (and indeed am I not as old and experienced as he?) that I love my country to-day as I never loved it before, and if only I may be able to prove this I shall ask nothing more of life.

*****

Naples.

I can only write you a few lines to-day. The sea has been so rough that many of the passengers have preferred to remain on board. Some one impertinently asked me if I wereafraid to go on shore, but I did not answer, having too much to say. Around me I hear the language which once I spoke with such delight; now it has become odious to me, as odious as that Italy which I have buried like a friend of the past.

Now there is a newspaper boy on board crying with rapture “Another Italian victory.” He offers me a paper. I want to shout my hatred of his country, I want to call from Heaven the vengeance of Allah on these cowardly Italians, but my tongue is tied and my lips will not give utterance to the thoughts I feel. I stand like one dazed.

Surely these accounts of victory are false. Are not these reports prepared beforehand to give courage to the Italian soldiers in their glorious mission of butchering the Turks, those fine valiant men who will stand up for their independence as long as a man remains to fight?

At last I go and lock myself in my cabin, so as not to hear their hateful jubilation, but they follow me even to my solitude. Some one knocks. Reluctantly I open. It is a letter. But there must be some error. Who can have written to me when I particularly asked that I should have no letters until I arrived?

But the letter came from Turkey, and the Turkish stamp almost frightened me: for a long time I had not the courage to open it. When at last I slowly cut the envelope of that letter, I found it contained the cutting of a newspaper which announced the death of the dear old uncle whom more than anyone I was longing to see again.

Outside the conquerors were crying out, even louder than before, “More Turkish losses, more Turkish losses.” I folded up the letter and put it back in its envelope with a heart too bitter for tears.

*****

What did it all mean? What was the warning that fate was sending to me in this cruel manner?DésenchantéeI left Turkey,désenchantéeI have left Europe. Is that rôle to be mine till the end of my days?—Your affectionate friend,

Zeyneb.

1Yali = a little summer residence resorted to when it is too hot to remain in Constantinople itself.

2The Turkish women with whom I lived in Constantinople read the Bible by the advice of the Imam (the Teacher of the Koran) to help them in the better understanding of the Koran. I may add that Zeyneb’s knowledge of our Scriptures, and her understanding of Christ’s teaching, would put to shame many professing Christians in our Western Churches.

3French time.

4When I asked a Turkish friend to write in my album, to my surprise and pride she wrote from memory a passage fromShips that Pass in the Night.

5Prayer which all devout Moslems say before beginning a work.

6Hanoum = Turkish lady.

7The answer to such an observation is obvious, but I prefer to present the Hanoum’s anecdote as she gave it.—G.E.

8Tcharchafs = cloak and veil worn by Turkish women when walking out of doors.

9Muezzins = the religious teachers amongst the Mohammedans, whose duty it is five times a day to ascend the minaret and call the faithful followers of Mohammed to prayer from the four corners of the earth.

10Hodja = teacher of the Koran.

11Babouche = Turkish slippers without heels.

12Chalvar = Turkish pantaloons, far more graceful than the hideous harem skirts, which met with such scant success in this country.

13Enturi = the tunic, heavily embroidered, which almost covered the pantaloons.

14The Western governesses, in so many cases, took no interest in their pupils’ reading, and allowed them to read everything they could lay their hands on. With their capacity for intrigue, they smuggled in principally French novels of the most harmful kind. Physical exercise being impossible to work off the evil effects of this harmful reading, the Turkish woman, discontented with her lot, saw only two ways of ending her unhappy existence—flight or suicide; she generally preferred the latter method.

15Slaves.

16They were called “white” because they were originally attended by unmarried women only, and they all wore white dresses.—G. E.

17It sounds strange to the Western mind to speak of a “comfortable cemetery,” but the dead are very near to the living Turks; the cemetery is the Turkish woman’s favourite walk, and the greatest care is taken of the last resting-place of the loved ones.—G. E.

18The editor is not responsible for the ideas expressed in this book, which are not necessarily her own.

19Karakheuz = Turkish performance similar to our Punch and Judy Show.

20Zeyneb has forgotten that as well as Fridays and various fast days, every Catholic receives the Holy Communion fasting.—G. E.

21Inhabitants of Pera. There is no love lost between these ladies and the Turkish women proper. I personally found many of them very charming.—G. E.

22I received this letter in Constantinople, where I was staying in a Turkish harem, having travelled there in order to be present at the first debate in the newly-opened Turkish Parliament.—G. E.

23I leave my friend’s spelling unchanged—G. E.

24It may be reasonably urged in reply that Zeyneb’s criticism of our Christianity is far from adequate. But I have preferred to present the impressions of a Turkish woman.—G. E.

Printed byBallantyne, Hanson & Co.Edinburgh & London

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