THE LEVANTINE
The wish—which ages have not yet subdued
In man—to have no master save his mood.
BYRON
YOU come across a queer medley of races, languages, and nationalities in
the narrow streets of Pera, somewhat trying to the nerves in its
promiscuous incongruity. Almost with a shock you see the name of
Pericles over a grocer’s shop, Demosthenes over that of a tailor or a
barber, and Socrates or Euripides staring you in the face as the name of
a bootmaker. Enter a café or brasserie and you find Germans, Austrians,
French, Greeks, Italians, and Armenians at one and the same table
playing dominoes or tric-trac. One of such a group, to whom I had
mentioned that I should go mad if I lived for long in such kaleidoscopic
surroundings, retorted: “We are accustomed to it here. Indeed, I should
feel depressed unless I could express myself in half a dozen languages
before I went to bed. When I get home to-night, I shall converse in
Hungarian with my father-in-law, in German with my wife, in Greek with
my children, and in English with their governess. And I shall probably
wind up by addressing my servants in Roumanian or Turkish.”
I have known a Levantine civil pasha married to an Austrian lady whose
three-year-old son would prattle in English, German, Greek, and Turkish.
Nor am I quite sure that this list of the prodigy’s accomplishments is
complete. Such polyglot proficiency as is to be met with among the
Levantine element is calculated to impress the monolingual Anglo-Saxon;
but in the long run it is not without its drawbacks. Never was the
saying, “Qui trop embrasse mal étreint,” more applicable than here.
Listening to superficial, aimless small talk, defectively conveyed in
half a dozen different languages, is apt at last to irritate even the
most hardened and indulgent listener. For it goes without saying that
these are spoken indifferently, and when put to paper written
ungrammatically. According to Continental standards of mental culture,
the level of the Levantine is not a high one. The artisan class in this
as in other respects are, I should say, decidedly superior to their
social betters, and lead a healthier life generally. You may meet
individual cases of excellent musicians in Pera society; but the
gramophone, not to say the French horn, and third-rate French music-hall
entertainments more correctly indicate the average taste of the
community. I found it impossible to obtain the songs of Schumann or
Franz, and only a poor selection of the works of other great composers
was to be had in any of the music-shops of Pera. Whatever taste for
belles-lettres may exist partakes of a second-rate French order. The
lack of a definite nationality acts unfavourably in the direction of the
cultivation of intellectual pursuits, with the possible exception of the
Greek colony, which maintains a touch with the literature of ancient
Hellas. This defect also shows itself in the nondescript character of
the cookery at the principal hotels and restaurants, as already stated.
A strange and wondrous world this, and, what is equally remarkable, a
free-and-easy one into the bargain. To all appearances it is Liberty
Hall right round the compass. More particularly does this apply to the
stranger within the gates. And all are strangers here who by their
pseudo-nationality can claim to come under the privileges of the
Capitulations which the Sultans, even in the plenitude of their power,
tolerantly allowed to continue in force. Strangers pay no taxes either
as individuals or as house-owners. It was only quite recently, and with
the greatest difficulty, that the Turkish Government succeeded in making
foreigners pay a small stamp duty for receipts on bills, etc. There is
full liberty to revile the authorities as much as you please, and even
now and then to introduce bombs and explosives with the connivance of a
certain Great Power. No wonder that the late Sultan was driven in
self-defence to keep a huge staff of professional spies in his service.
Nevertheless, there are no police to be seen, and no regulations in
force when to close or when to open your business, whatever its nature.
If you sit in a café or a brasserie, there is really no valid reason why
you should ever get up, unless to go to the hospital, of which there are
any number—to die! No boards are to be seen informing you that you will
be prosecuted in case of trespass, no walls (except those round the
Imperial Palace) to shut out the sight of the beautiful country, which
apparently belongs to all alike. Indeed, there seems no reason why the
mule-driver with his load of bricks should not unload where he stands
and begin to erect a palazzo of his own on the spot, for the land would
appear to belong to anybody, to judge by the absence of enclosures.
There is also liberty to cheat to your heart’s desire and go bankrupt ad
libitum. An English financier who had lived in Constantinople for years
once told me that the one thing he regretted on leaving the city was the
sense of unlimited personal freedom he had enjoyed there.
I used to stroll through narrow streets into which the sun never enters,
though in the summer months it may burn the roofs of the houses. You
hear loud shouting across the road from an obscure beer-house, and fancy
the place is on fire; which would be no joke in such exiguous
surroundings. But it is only a few Germans with beaming faces shouting
“Hoch! Hoch! Hurrah!” unable to restrain their delight over the
excellent beer Herr Kusch provides for his customers and anxious to give
an expression to their unbroken fidelity to the German Emperor. Further
up the street, peering through a small damp window, you can see a
middle-aged man sitting by a lamp writing a letter. He is a grandfather,
but in Constantinople this need not clip the wings of amorous fancy. He
is writing a passionate letter to an English girl. He has only seen her
a couple of times in his life, and will probably never see her again,
for she has gone away to Egypt. But he wants to tell her that she is a
“houri”—the ideal of his dreams. It can only be in Constantinople that
old men indulge in such fancies, and it is wondrous strange how they are
received and reciprocated at times. In a beautifully appointed konak on
the hill there dwells a haughty beauty, one of the loveliest women in
the Empire. She sails into the room and tosses her empty little
thoroughbred head in lofty disdain as she passes her Greek servant. But
he does not lower his gaze. On the contrary, the flash of his dark eyes
betrays that he has no need to do so. There is no impassable gulf here
between high and low born, no helot-bred menial race marked with an
abject inferiority, physical, mental, and moral, by the ruthless
inbreeding of generations. Beneath an outward veneer of self-control
there is a deal of the unbridled, unbroken master man of the Middle Ages
left in this population. The slums of Constantinople have before now
sent forth lovers for queens and wives for emperors. The Greek valet has
the same pride in his veins as the more highly placed, for people in his
humble station of life, men and women alike, still possess that sense of
unsubdued personality the loss of which is one of the dark shadows which
cloud our more “civilized” communities. There may be little education or
character here in the conventional sense, and not overmuch reliability
perhaps in any sense, but there is plenty of unrestrained human nature.
This it is which the high-born lady pines and sighs for, and when she
leaves Constantinople she will take her Greek servant with her, to while
away the time for her and enliven the dreary surroundings of her
aristocratic home, for she has grown to loathe the sight of her
uninteresting money-grabbing husband with his sordid interests.
Each nationality, except such as belong to the artisan class, keeps more
or less to itself in the Turkish capital and has its separate cliques.
The English merchant class long resident in Turkey make an exception in
associating and occasionally intermingling with the better Greek
families. This exclusiveness is partly a result of the insurmountable
barrier of language, so that Europeans may live in Constantinople for
years without coming into contact with a Turk above the status of an
arabadji. My friend Hugo Avellis was an exception to this rule. Few
Europeans had mixed more with other nationalities, more especially with
Turks of every class, in the course of a residence of thirty years in
Constantinople. What he did not know about Constantinople, the habits,
customs, and ways of thinking of its inhabitants, was not worth knowing.
Many are the pleasant hours I used to spend listening to his stories and
gaining information from him on subjects which were far more interesting
to me than the dancing or howling dervishes, the gossip of drawing-rooms
in Pera, or the intrigues of the Palace or the Embassies.
A German by birth, educated at one of the excellent Berlin classic
gymnasia, Avellis, like many of his countrymen, had already become
acclimatized in the land of his adoption. He retained, however, an
inborn instinct for thoroughness in his vocation, and with this a strong
love of literature, mingled with a thoroughly German idealism in its
sanest and best acceptation. German thus by thoroughness and
intellectual interests, he had become almost a Turk in his humane
recognition and love of his fellow-men. “Bravo!” he would impulsively
exclaim on hearing of a generous action.
“If you would judge of the fibre of a man,” says a French aphorist,
“inquire of his dentist.” This dictum applies equally to the doctor or
surgeon; and my friend’s experiences as a member of the Red Cross during
the Russo-Turkish campaign gave him rare opportunities for observing the
Turk there, where he is seen at his best: in his silence, in his
capacity for patient suffering and self-denial. Avellis was present at
the siege of Plevna. He saw the harrowing scenes depicted by the brush
of Vereschagin, and witnessed the surrender of Ghazi Osman to the
Russians. He came to Constantinople after the war, where his business as
maker of surgical instruments, together with the practical experience of
surgery gained in the field hospitals during the war, brought him from
time to time into contact with all classes of the community, from
Imperial Princes and Grand Viziers, the present Sultan included, down to
the humble water-carrier. Even the mysteries of the harem are not quite
hidden from those of his calling. The high-class Turks value a
fellow-man independently of his station in life, and often honour him
with their confidence, though his social status be far beneath their
own. The “medicine man” in particular has often played a great part in
Eastern intrigue. Dr. Mavrogeni, the Sultan’s physician in the
seventies, was not without political influence. He intrigued against the
German Ambassador, Count Hatzfeldt, and fell into disgrace in
consequence.
Avellis spoke Turkish fluently, though unable to read its written
characters. He was a good Latin scholar, and was familiar with both
ancient and modern Greek. With the devotion of a Hellenist he loved to
quote Homer in both versions. He also spoke French, Russian, English,
Roumanian, and Hungarian, his wife being a native of Hungary. With such
opportunities and accomplishments he became a rare judge of the Turk and
a reliable guide to the intricacies of Oriental life. I see him still in
the Passage Oriental, abutting on the Grande Rue de Pera, in his little
shop, over the doorway of which a large signboard announced that he was
“By Special Appointment Purveyor of Surgical Instruments to his Imperial
Majesty the Sultan.”
Quite a queer and characteristic nook of Constantinople is this Passage
Oriental, in which from early morn is heard the cry of the huckster, the
zazavatij, selling vegetables, and, in the autumn, luscious grapes and
oranges; the fishmonger extolling his red mullet, mackerel, turbot, and
swordfish. Opposite Avellis’ shop was a branch of the French post
office, on the top floor of which a French dressmaker plied her trade
and flirted with the Greek tailor and also with the Greek barber, both
of whom had their establishments a few doors off. Nor must I forget the
French book-shop, to which came the Perote lady to buy the latest French
novels on the sly.
I follow Avellis upstairs into his old-fashioned, musty consulting-room,
his sanctum—whither his patients of both sexes (veiled Turkish ladies
with the rest) came to consult “Monsieur le Docteur”—with its mysterious
bottles in which sundry medical viscera were preserved in spirits of
wine, its cases of stuffed birds, and its aquarium. Two photographs of
an Albanian peasant hung on the wall, one showing him deprived of his
upper lip, the other with artificial nose and moustache supplied by
Avellis by order of the Sultan, who subsequently took this man and many
others into his service in the Palace after they had been mutilated by
Christian Montenegrins in the great struggle of 1876.
When driving or walking through the city on a Sunday afternoon with
Avellis, it used to surprise me to see the number of people who returned
his greeting. Among them were some of the highest personages in the
land, and their marked cordiality was in striking contrast to the
treatment usually meted out in Europe to those of an inferior class.
Sauntering along the Grande Rue de Pera with him one Sunday afternoon,
we were passed by a State carriage, drawn by two magnificent black
horses, with that rich gilt harness peculiar to the Imperial family. It
contained the present Sultan of Turkey, at that time, by force of
circumstances, a do-nothing Prince under strict police and Palace spy
surveillance, but by no means an indoor prisoner, as was currently
reported. Avellis knew the Prince well, and gave me an interesting
account of his sadness, his all-absorbing care and anxiety regarding the
future of his country, his kind-hearted benevolence, and his unassuming
simplicity of manner and character. Carried away by his admiration for
the man, Avellis demonstratively took off his hat as the Prince drove
past, who returned the unusual attention with evident satisfaction,
though both actions were almost sure to have been noticed by spies and
reported to the Palace: a proceeding which might well result in Avellis
receiving a broad hint that a “Purveyor of Surgical Instruments to his
Imperial Majesty the Sultan” must be more careful in future in the
choosing of his friends.
It is true that all these people might have been brought into contact
with Avellis through business; but it was not only business. “C’est un
brave homme,” say Turks and Rajahs alike. This in itself is sufficient
to secure for a man the respect and goodwill of his fellow-citizens,
even though he may not have five pounds in the world to call his own.
And here it is only fair to mention that the Christian and Jewish
population in Constantinople join with Mohammedans in paying respect to
personal character. I have seen a crowd of hundreds of people—more than
would be likely with us to be present at the funeral of many a man of
worth and learning—follow one to his last resting-place, although during
his lifetime all that could have been said of him was, “C’est un brave
homme.”
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