IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS
This night of terrors proved my last adventure in Turkey. Soon
afterwards events began to force me to feel that in order to live my
own life, as seemed right to me, I must flee from all I knew and loved
to an unknown, alien land. It is a hard fate: it involves sacrifices
and brings heartaches. After all, what gives to life sweetness and
charm is the orderliness with which one develops. To grow on the home
soil, and quietly to reach full bloom there, gives poise to one’s life.
It may be argued that this orderly growth rarely produces great and
dazzling results; still it is more worth while. People with restless
dispositions, people to whom constant transplanting seems necessary,
even if they attain great development, are rather to be pitied than to
be envied; and, when the transplanting produces only mediocre results,
there is nothing to mitigate the pity.
By nature I was a social revolutionist, and I liked neither the
attitude of the men towards the women nor of the women towards life,
among the people of my race. I have learned better since, and know now
that social laws exist because society has found them to be wise, and
that little madcaps like me are better off if they respect them. But at
that time I had more daring than wisdom, and longed to go where people
lived their lives both with more freedom and with more intensity.
Moreover, I wanted to “do something”--like so many feather-brained
girls all the world over--just what, I did not know, for I had no
especial talents.
With a fairly accurate idea of my own worth, I knew that I was
intelligent, but I was fully aware that I was the possessor of no gifts
that would place me among the privileged few and outside the ranks of
ordinary mortals. Brought up on books and nourished on dreams, I had a
poor preparation with which to fight the battle of life, particularly
in a foreign country, where everything was different, and difficult
both to grasp and to manipulate. The only factor in my favour was my
Greek blood, synonymous with money-making ability; for we Greeks have
always been merchants, even when we wore _chlamidas_ and reclined
in the _agora_, declaiming odes to the gods, talking philosophy,
or speculating on the immortality of our souls.
Knowing my race as I did, and aware that it succeeded in making money
in climates and under conditions where other races failed, I was
confident that I could earn my own living. There is something in us
which justifies the tale of Prometheus. Even before I was fifteen I was
quietly planning to leave Turkey, to go and seek what fortunes awaited
me in new and strange lands--a course which my imagination painted
very attractively. America beckoned to me more than any other country,
perhaps because I thought there were no classes there, and that every
one met on an equal footing and worked out his own salvation.
We are all the possessors of two kinds of knowledge: one absorbed
from experience, books, and hearsay, which we call facts; the other,
a knowledge that comes to us through our own immortal selves. This
last it is impossible to analyse, since it partakes of the unseen
and the untranslatable. We feel it, that is all. This subconscious
knowledge--to which many of us attach far greater importance than we do
to cold facts--is usually as remote as a distant sound, though at times
it may be so clear as to be almost palpable. This secondary knowledge
told me I must go to America--America that rose so luminous, so full of
hope and promise on the never-ending horizon of my young life.
I had not the remotest idea of how my dream of going there could be
realized; but I believe that if one keeps on dreaming a dream hard
enough, it will eventually become a reality. And so did mine. A Greek
I knew was appointed consul to New York, and was shortly to sail with
his family to the United States. I had a secret conference with them,
offering to accompany them as an unpaid governess, and to stay with
them as long as they stayed in America. They accepted my offer.
This I regarded merely as a means of getting away from home. After
I left them my real career would begin. That I was prepared for no
particular vocation, that I did not even know a single word of English,
disconcerted me not at all. Accustomed to having my own way, I was
convinced that the supreme right of every person was to lead his life
as he chose. I do not think so any longer. On the contrary, I believe
that the supreme duty of every individual is to consider the greatest
good of the greatest number. That I succeeded in my rash enterprize is
more due to the kindness of Providence than to any personal worth of
mine.
Of America actually I knew almost nothing, and what I thought I knew
was all topsy-turvy. The story of Pocohontas and Captain John Smith
had fallen into my hands when I was twelve years old. I wept over it
and surmised that the great continent beyond the seas was peopled by
the descendents of Indian princesses and adventurers. My second piece
of information was gathered from a French novel, I believe, in which a
black sheep was referred to as having gone to America “where all black
sheep gravitate.” And my third source of information was “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,” the book which makes European children form a distorted idea of
the American people, and sentimentalize over a race hardly worth it.
This made up my encyclopædia of American facts. That all those who
emigrated thither succeeded easily, and amassed untold wealth, I
ascribed to the fact that being Europeans they were vastly superior to
the Americans, who at best were only half-breeds. You who read this may
think that I was singularly ignorant; yet I can assure you that to-day
I meet many people on my travels in Europe who are not only as ignorant
as I was, but who have even lower ideas about the Americans.
We landed in New York in winter, and went directly to Hotel Martin, at
that time still in its old site near Washington Square.
What did I think of America at first? This indeed is the most difficult
question to answer. I was so puzzled that I remained without thoughts.
To begin with, the people, for half-breeds, were extremely presentable.
The redskin ancestral side was quite obliterated. Then the houses, the
streets, the whole appearance of the city was on a par with Paris. What
appalled us all was the dearness of things. I remember the day when we
gave a Greek street vendor one cent for some fruit, and he handed us
one little apple. “Only this for a cent?” we cried; and so indignant
were we that we reclaimed our cent and returned him his apple.
We managed to do ridiculous things daily. At our first evening meal at
the hotel, a tall glass vase stood in the middle of the table filled
with such strange flowers as we had never seen before. They were pale
greenish white, with streaks of yellow. We thought it very kind of the
proprietor to furnish them for us, and each of us took one and fastened
it on our dress.
The waiters glanced at us in surprise, but it was nothing to the
sensation we created when we rose to go out of the dining-room. People
nudged each other and stared at us. Of the French maid who came to
unfasten my dress I asked:
“Do we seem very foreign?”
“No, indeed,” she replied, “I should have taken Mademoiselle for a
French girl, except that she wears her hair loose on her back.”
“Then why did the people in the dining-room stare at us so?”
She suppressed a giggle. “Yes, I know, Mademoiselle, I have heard about
it. It is the flower Mademoiselle is wearing.”
“What is the matter with it?”
“Nothing, except that it is not a flower--it is a vegetable, called
celery.”
I do not know how many more absurd things we did during the three
weeks we stayed at the hotel. Then we took a flat near Riverside Drive
the rent of which staggered us, but when it came to the servants we
almost wept. Four pounds a month to slovenly girls who were only
half-trained, who made a noise when they walked, and who slammed the
doors every other minute.
I was anxious to start my English studies at once, for as yet I could
only say “All right,” a phrase which everybody used, _à propos_ of
nothing, it seemed to me. I went to the Normal College to inquire about
the conditions for entering it. The president received me. He was the
first American man with whom I talked. He had lovely white hair, and
a kind, fatherly face. He spoke no French, and sent for a student who
did; and when she translated to him what I wanted, he explained that I
could not enter college until I knew English and could pass my entrance
examinations. The young girl who translated offered to teach me English
for a sum, which, to me, coming from the East and cheap labour and
possessor of small financial resources, seemed preposterous. Still I
liked her eyes: they were dark blue, and green, and grey, all at once,
with long and pretty lashes; so I accepted her offer. That very evening
she gave me my first lesson, and proposed that instead of paying her I
should improve her French in exchange for her English lessons, an offer
that I was very glad to accept. She was my first American friend, and
remains among my very best.
We had only been a few months in New York when my Greek friends
were obliged to return to Turkey. I resolved to remain behind. I
must confess at once that I did so out of pride alone. New York had
frightened me more than the capture by the brigands, the earthquake,
and an Armenian massacre in which I once found myself, all put
together. Yet to go back was to admit that I had failed, that the world
had beaten me, and after only a very few months.
I had just sixty dollars, and my courage--robbed a little of its
effervescence. Since I had had only two English lessons a week, and no
practice whatever, because all the people we met spoke French to us, my
vocabulary was very limited, but I managed to get about pretty well.
Once in a shop I asked for “half past three sho-es,” and obtained them
without trouble.
Before my friends left New York for Constantinople they gave me a
certificate saying that I was qualified to be a governess--for which
I was really as qualified as to drive an engine. Since I had had no
chance to modify my opinion about the origin of Americans, I still
looked upon them as inferiors, and considered myself quite good enough
for them. Taking a small room in a small hotel, I applied to an agency
for a position. It did not prove quite so easy to obtain as I had
thought it would. In the first place, I was not French born; secondly,
I was ridiculously young looking; and then of course I had to admit
that I had been a governess in a way only.
How amusing it was to be presented as a governess! Most of the ladies
spoke such comical French, and asked questions which I thought even
funnier than their French. I could have found a place at once, if I
had been willing to accept twenty-five dollars a month as a nursery
governess, and eat with the servants.
Meanwhile most of my money was spent, and to economize I walked miles
and miles rather than take the street cars; and then came the time when
all my money was gone, and I was in arrears with my rent, and had no
money for food.
I do not wish anyone to suppose that I was miserable. On the contrary,
I liked it: I was at last living the life I had so often read about. I
was one of the great mass of toilers of the earth, whom in my ignorance
I held far superior to the better classes. I had romantic notions about
being a working girl, and my imagination was a fairy’s wand which
transfigured everything. Besides, I was a heroine to myself. Those who
have even for one short hour been heroes to themselves can understand
the exaltation in which I lived, and can share with me in the glory of
those days.
At this time I happened to apply to the Greek newspaper for a position,
not because I thought there was any chance for me, but because it was
so interesting to apply for work. Every time I applied to a new person,
it was a new adventure; and I had applied so many times, and been
rejected so often, that I did not mind it any more. I knew that if the
worst came to the worst I could for a time become a servant. I was well
trained in domestic work and could cook pretty well; for, when we Greek
girls are not at school, a competent person is engaged to come into the
house and train us systematically in all branches of housekeeping. The
idea of becoming a servant, of entering an American home and obtaining
a nearer view of my half-breeds within their own walls appealed to me.
What I objected to, was being hired as a governess and treated as a
servant.
To my surprise, the Greek newspaper, a weekly then, took me at once on
its staff. I was delirious with joy, not so much because I was going
to earn money as at the idea of working on a newspaper. It seemed so
glorious, so at the top of everything.
Just at this time--at the agency, I think--I heard of a French home,
far out on the West Side in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, where
French working girls stayed while seeking positions. I went there, and
made arrangements to stay a few months; and from there sought my hotel
proprietor. I told him that the Greek newspaper had engaged me at a
salary which did not permit me to live at his hotel, and what was more
that I could not at the moment pay him what I owed him--three weeks’
rent, I believe--but that I would pay him as soon as possible. He was
very nice about the matter, and said it would be “all right,” though I
doubt very much if he ever expected to see his money.
My work on the newspaper was hard and tedious. I am a bad speller, and
can write a word in five different ways on one page without discovering
it. On account of this failing I was often taken to task by the editor
in chief, who was the proprietor, and had some black moments over it,
until one of the type-setters quietly suggested to me that I should
pass over my stuff to him and he would correct the spelling before the
editor saw it, which I did ever after, and was very thankful to him.
My newspaper work was not only of long, long hours, but it absorbed
all my time, as well as my energy and strength, and shortly after
undertaking it I had to give up my English studies. I was too worn out
physically and mentally to continue them.
It was not so bad during the cold weather, but suddenly, without the
slightest warning, the cold gave place to burning heat. There was no
spring. That lovely transition period in which all is soft, both in
air and in colours, did not exist in that American year. The summer
burst fiercely over the city and scorched it in a few days. It grilled
the pavements; it grilled the houses; it multiplied and magnified
the noises of horse and elevated cars, of street-hawkers and yelling
children--and these noises in turn seemed to accentuate the heat. Every
morning I took the Sixth Avenue elevated train at Twenty-Third Street,
and all the way to the Battery there was hardly a tree or a blade of
grass to meet the tired eye, to soothe the over-wrought nerves, nothing
but ugly buildings--ugly and dirty. And as the train whizzed along,
the glimpses I had of the people inside these buildings were even
more disheartening than the ugliness and dirtiness of the buildings
themselves.
And this was my America, the country of the promised land. It seemed
to me then as if my golden dream had turned into a hideous nightmare
of fact--a nightmare which threatened to engulf me and cast me into
that unrecognizable mass continually forming by the failures of life.
That I did not sink down into it was, because, in spite of the hideous
reality, I remained a dreamer, and those who live in dreams are rarely
quelled by reality. In that fearful, hot, New York summer I began to
dream another dream which made the heat more tolerable. Daily, as
the elevated train noised its way to the Battery, I imagined myself
having succeeded, having amassed wealth, from which I made gifts to the
thousands of toilers in that scorched city. I planted trees for them
everywhere, along the streets, along the avenues; and wherever there
was a little vacant plot of land I converted it into a tiny park. There
I saw the people sitting under the shade of my trees, and so real did
my dream become that I began actually to live it, and suffered less
from the heat myself; for I was constantly on the look out for new
spots where I could plant more trees.
At luncheon time I used to go out for a little stroll on the Battery,
and there I used to see immigrant women, dressed partially in their
native costumes, and surrounded by numbers of their little ones,
jabbering in their own lingo. One day I sat down near a solitary woman,
unmistakably an Italian peasant.
“Hot to-day, isn’t it?” I said in her own tongue.
From the sea, slowly she raised her eyes to me. I smiled at her, but
received no response.
“You look very tired,” I said, “and so am I. I suppose you are thinking
of your own country, of fields and trees, are you not?”
“How did you know?” she demanded sullenly.
“Because I do the same myself. I also am an immigrant. You look across
the sea with the same yearning in your eyes as is in my heart, for we
are both homesick.”
She was no longer cross, after this, and because another woman was
sharing in her misery that misery became lighter. She began to tell me
of her sorrow. She had buried her second baby in two weeks, because of
the heat. Her lap was now empty. She spat viciously on the water. “That
is what I have in my heart for America--that!” and again she spat.
I volunteered an account of my own disillusionment about America; and
there we sat at the edge of the Battery, two sad immigrants, telling
each other of the beauties we had left behind, and of the difficulties
we had to fight in the present. If I had then known a little of the
history of America, I might have told her of the first immigrants,
of how much they had to suffer and endure, and for what the present
Thanksgiving Day stood. I might have told her more of their hardships,
and how they had had to plant corn on the graves of their dear ones,
so that the Indians should not find out how many of them had died--but
I was as ignorant as she, and we only knew of our own homesickness and
misery.
The heat had started early in May, and it kept on getting hotter and
hotter, with only sudden and savage thunderstorms, which passed over
the city like outraged spirits, and deluged it for a few hours with
rain that became steam as soon as it touched the scorched pavements.
Occasionally some fresh wind would penetrate into the city, as if bent
on missionary work; but it was soon conquered by the demons of heat. It
grew hotter and hotter. It seemed as if the city would perish in its
own heat--and then came the month of August!
I shall never forget that August. Even now, wherever I am during
that month, my spirit goes back to that desolate city to share in
the sufferings of its poor people who have to work long hours in hot
offices, and then at night try to sleep in small, still hotter rooms,
with the fiendish noise of the city outside. And it is then again that
my dream comes back to me, to give trees all along the streets and all
along the avenues, and shady open spaces to breathe in.