A STUDY IN CONTRASTS
NICE, _March_ 1907.
There are habits, my dearest friend, which cannot be lost in the
West any more than they can be acquired in the East. You know what
a terrible task it is for a Turkish woman to write a letter—even a
Turkish woman who pretends to be Western in many ways. Can you, who
belong to a race which can quietly take a decision and act upon it,
understand this fault of ours, which consists of always putting off
till the morrow what should be done the same day? Thanks to this
laziness, we Turks are where we are to-day. Some people call it
_kismet_; you can find it in almost all our actions. Since we started,
now a year ago, I have been expecting an answer to a letter sent the
day after my arrival here. It will come; Allah knows when, but it will
come.
But I am as bad as my friend, you will say. Three weeks ago I began
this letter to you, and it is not finished yet, for all I am doing is
so strange and curious, I feel I must let you know all about it.
It was at Monte Carlo that I first saw and heard the wonderful operas
of Wagner. When I heard they were performing _Rheingold_, in spite of
medical advice not to go into a theatre, I could not keep away. Since
my childhood, I had longed to hear an orchestral interpretation of the
works of this genius. I seemed to have a presentiment that it would be
to me an incomparable revelation, and I was not disappointed.
Do you know what it is, to have loved music all your life and never
to have an opportunity of hearing a first-class concert? My father
used to invite the distinguished women artistes, passing through
Constantinople, to come to sing and play for us. He, too, was
passionately fond of music. But what I longed above all to hear was a
full orchestra, and Wagner! So that, when I was actually at Monte Carlo
listening to the entrancing work of this Master, it was as though I had
been blind all my days and had at last received my sight.
It was wonderful! It was magnificent! It moved my very soul! Why
should we regret having left our country when such masterpieces as this
are yet to be heard?
I did not want to stir. I wanted to remain under the spell of that
glorious music! But the theatre authorities thought differently, and in
a little while the beautiful performance of _Rheingold_ became one of
my most happy memories.
* * * * *
The scene changes. From my first beautiful impression of music I
came to look upon that most degrading spectacle of your Western
civilisation—I mean gambling. I had never realised till now that
collective robbery could be so shameful! That a poor, unintelligent,
characterless being can come to Monte Carlo, ruin himself and his
family, and kill himself without anyone taking the trouble to
pity him a little or have him treated like a sick man, is to me
incomprehensible. When I told the lady and gentleman, who accompanied
me, the impression that their gaming-tables had on me, they smiled;
indeed they made an effort not to laugh.
I remained long enough to study that strange collection of heads round
the table with their expressions all so different, but the most hideous
which I have ever seen.
I had received that day two new and very different impressions; one the
impression of the highest form of art and the other the impression of
perhaps the saddest of all modern vices.
The whole night through I was torn between these two impressions.
Which would get the better of me? I tried to hum little passages of
_Rheingold_, and fix my attention on Wagner’s opera and the joy it had
been to me, but in spite of my efforts my thoughts wandered, and I was
far away in Turkey.
In our cloistered homes I had heard vague rumours of magic games, the
players at which lost their all or made a colossal fortune according
to the caprice of fate. But I did not pay much attention to this fairy
tale. Now, however, I have seen and believe, and a feeling of terrible
anxiety comes over me whenever I think of the honest men of my own
country, who are concentrating all their energies on the acquirement
of Western civilisation. They will not accept Europeanism in moderate
doses— they will drain the cup to the very dregs—this awful vice, as
well as drunkenness and all your other weaknesses.
In the course of time I fell asleep. I was back in Turkey enduring the
horrors of the Hamidian régime. _Rheingold_ was forgotten, and the
azure of the Mediterranean Sea, the flowers, and the summer dresses. I
went from scene to scene, one more awful than the other, but everywhere
I went and to everything I saw were attached the diabolical faces I had
seen at the Monte Carlo gaming-tables.—Your affectionate
ZEYNEB.