CHAPTER X

THE TRUE DEMOCRACY—THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SNOBBERY IN TURKISH LIFE

The two fugitives left Switzerland for Nice. Melek was in perfect health, and still delighted with her Western liberty.

Zeyneb, although better, began more and more to see her new life lose its glamour. But it was too late—there was no going back.

I wonder which of the two suffers more—the person who expects much and is disappointed; or the person of whom much is expected and feels she has disappointed. It seemed to me so often, I could often read in Zeyneb’s eyes, “Was it worth it?” Was she like the woman of her own country, counting the cost when the debt had already been incurred. I, who thought I saw this, suffered in consequence.

Perhaps, as elder sister and ringleader in the preparations for their flight, Zeyneb was feeling her responsibility. Would the younger sister, when the glamour of freedom had passed, reproach her for the step they had taken? That was a question that had to be left to the uncertain answer of the Future.

A little while after they were installed at Nice, Zeyneb resumed her correspondence with me.

NICE, 15_th Feb._ 1907.

For a week now we have had the sun shining almost as in the East. After the mountains and the snow of Switzerland, how good it is to be here! I just love to watch the blue sky, the flowers and the summer dresses! And I am warm again for a little while.

We are living at Cimiez, well up the hill, in a little villa surrounded by a big garden full of flowers and exotic plants and a few cypress trees; the only sad note in our whole surroundings, except for us its name, the Villa Selma, for curiously enough our villa has a Turkish name—the name of a friend for whom the sadness of life had been too great, and who is now sleeping under the shade of the cypress in a _comfortable cemetery_[17] in our own land. How strange that fate should have directed our steps to a villa that bears her name, and surrounded us with trees that remind us day and night of her past existence.

Hardly had we arrived at Nice, when in a restaurant we met a lady friend from Turkey, a friend whom the Sultan, in a fit of madness, or shall I call it prudence, allowed to come to Nice with her husband and children for a change of air. Our departure, no doubt, has made this great despot think, and in order to prove to all his subjects how great was his generosity, he had allowed this woman to travel alone as she wished.

But we did not waste time discussing the psychology of Hamid’s character, we were only too delighted to see one another. How many things had we not to talk about! how many impressions had we not in common! If only a snapshot had been taken of us and sent to Constantinople what a very bad impression it would have made on our poor captive friends away yonder. How they would have envied us!

Imagine! the next day we all three lunched together at Monte Carlo, and that _without our friend’s husband_! We were seated on the terrace overlooking the blue sea, and the newcomer was breathing in the “free air” for the first time, whilst we, old refugees of a year, were pleased to see her enthusiasm.

“When I think,” she said, “that only three of us are enjoying this liberty compared to the thousands of poor women who have not any idea of what they have been deprived, it makes me unhappy.”

But the weather was too fine for such sad thoughts. Near us a Hungarian band was playing, and it seemed so in harmony with the surroundings. Not one of the faces round us betrayed the least suspicion of sadness. Could they all be happy, these unknown people? It really matters so little—we are happy as prisoners to whom liberty has been given, and it is at a moment like this that we appreciate it most.

At dessert, after having discussed many questions, we finally spoke of the dear country which only she of us three would see again, and now, a certain melancholy overshadows the table where a while ago we were so gay.

The Orient is like a beautiful poem which is always sad, even its very joy is sadness. All Eastern stories end in tragedy. Even the landscape which attracts by its beauty has its note of sorrow, and yet one of the many women writers who was introduced to us, and welcomed as our guest, said to me: “I never laughed anywhere as I laughed in Constantinople.” That was quite true, for I was witness of her delightful merriment, always caught from one of us; for no one can laugh like a Turkish woman when she takes the trouble.

The foundation of our character is joyous, persistently joyous, since neither the monotony of our existence, nor the tragedy of the Hamidian régime, nor the lamentable circumstances of our life has been able to utterly crush laughter out of life. There is no middle course in Turkey.

But I told you that it was from studying the customs of Western Europe that I was beginning to better understand the land I had left. If the joys of freedom have been denied to Turkish women, how many worries have they been spared. Are not women to be sincerely pitied who make “Society” the aim and object of their existence? No longer can they do what they feel they ought for fear of compromising a “social position.” Is not the _gaiety_ of their lives worse even than the _monotony_ of ours? Ofttimes they have to sacrifice a noble friendship to the higher demands of social exclusiveness. How strange and narrow and insincere it all seems to a Turkish woman.

I never made the acquaintance of the disease “snobbery” in my own land. Here, for the first time, I have an opportunity of studying its victims. There may be something wanting in my Turkish constitution to prevent my appreciating the rare delight of a visit from a great _personage_. Ambitious people I have often met—in what country do they not thrive? There are many in Turkey, and that is only natural when it is remembered the very limited number of ways for individuality to express itself. But snobs! How childish they are! Can they really believe I am a more desirable person to have at a tea-table since I have been noticed by an ex-Empress? Only by inflicting their society on people who obviously do not want them, and by “bluff”—another word which does not exist in the Turkish language—can they be invited at all. Not a single woman in the whole of Turkey would put so low an estimate on her own importance! So snobbery would never get a foothold with us.

You cannot know how this simple black veil, which covers our faces, can completely change the whole conditions of the life of a nation.

What is there in common between you and us?

“The heart,” you will say.

But is the heart the same in the East as in the West? And what a difference there is between our method of seeing things, even of great importance. Ambition with us does not seek the same ends; pride with us is wounded by such a different class of actions; and individuality in the East seeks other gratifications than it does in the West.

How would it be possible for “snobbery” to exist in a country where there is no society, and where the ideal of democracy is so admirably understood; where the poor do not envy the rich, the servant respects his master, and the humble do not crave for the position of Grand Vizier?

I said there were ambitious people in my country, yes; but they are still more fatalists. If a man has been unsuccessful, he blames his “written destiny,” which no earthly being can alter. Is not this resignation to the yoke of the tyrannical Sultan a proof of fatalism? What other nation would, for thirty-one years, have put up with such a régime?

It is only since I have seen other Governments and other peoples that I can fully realise the passionate fatalism of the Turks.

Those “discontents,” whom I knew, were the true “Believers,” for at least they knew how to distinguish between belief and useless resignation. Their number, fortunately, grows every day. More and more impatiently am I waiting for the result of a Revolution intelligently arranged, the aim of which will be the Liberty of the Individual, and the uplifting of the race.

* * * * *

And yet a _revoltée_ though I was, I think I envied my grandmother’s calm happiness.

“My poor little girls,” she used to say, “your young days are so much sadder than mine. At your age I didn’t think of changing the face of the world, nor working for the betterment of the human race, still less for raising the status of women. Our mothers taught us the Koran, and we had confidence in its laws. If one of us had less happiness than another, we never thought of revolting; ‘it was written,’ we said, and we had not the presumption to try to change our destiny.”

“Grandmother,” I asked her, “is it our fault if we are unhappy? We have read so many books which have shown us the ugly side of our life in comparison with the lives of the women of the West. We are young. We long for just a little joy; and, grandmother,” I added slowly, and with emphasis, “we want to be free, to find it ourselves.”

Did she understand? That I cannot tell, for she did not answer, but her eyes were fixed on us in unending sadness; then suddenly she dropped them again on to her embroidery.

In the autumn or in the spring our darling grandmother came to fetch us to stay with her in her lovely home at Smyrna. I must add, to point out to you another beautiful feature of our Turkish life, that this woman was not my father’s own mother. She was my late grandfather’s seventh and only living widow, but she treated all my grandfather’s children with equal tenderness. Rarely is it otherwise in Turkey. She loved us, this dear, dear woman, quite as much, if not more, than the children of her own daughter, and we never supposed till we came to the West there was anything exceptional in this attachment. Just as a woman loves her own children, she cares for the children of a former wife, confident, when her time comes to die, her children will be well treated by her successor.

In our grandmother’s home life was just a lovely long dream; a life of peace unceasing—the life of a Turkish woman before the régime of Hamid and thoughts of Revolution haunted our existence. Every evening young women and girls brought musical instruments. First, there was singing, then one after another we danced, and the one who danced the best was applauded and made to dance until she almost fell exhausted.

Towards midnight we supped by the light of the moon, either in our garden or at friends’ houses; and we talked and danced and laughed, all so happy in one another’s society, and none of us remembering we were subjects of a Mighty Tyrant, who, had we been at Constantinople, would have stopped those festivities by order of the police.

The gatherings in this house, covered with wisteria and roses, and surrounded by an old-world garden, where flowers were allowed to grow with a liberty of which we were jealous, were moments of joy indescribable. It was good for us to be in a garden not trimmed and pruned and spoilt as are the gardens of the West, but whose greatest charm is that it can be its own dear natural self; to live in peace when the meaning of terror had been learnt, and comparative freedom when we had known captivity.

If ever you have a chance find out for yourself the difference between the harems in the town and those of the country, then I know you will understand the few really happy moments of my life.—Your affectionate friend

ZEYNEB.