We were accompanied by a Greek lady, who talked French and Turkish and acted as our interpreter; but never a smile or more than a word could be drawn out of the cross little thing. She simply stared in front of her with an expression of acute boredom in her beautiful eyes. A good-natured, elderly serving-woman, who stood at the door, explained matters. She had been very much pampered at home, and she had had a good time; she saw all her young friends at the baths, the social resort for Turkish ladies. The rich merchant had been considered a great parti; but already she had had enough of it. She never went out except for an occasional drive in a closed carriage. She was tired of embroidery work, she was tired of eating sweets, she was tired of smoking, she was tired of her fine dresses. "Aman, but it would come all right-and the serving-woman winked and nodded, and stroked her mistress's listless hand.
"Is it always like this?" we asked the Greek lady.
"Ah, mon Dieu! not at all! This man is very jealous, and she may not see her friends. He heaps on her what money can buy and thinks that is enough. But with the poor it is different. You will see. There is a wedding to-day in a poor family. I will arrange for you to go. Mon Dieu! no, it is not always thus. La pauvre petite."
The room in which we sat was draped in the usual Turkish manner with magnificent curtains in rich Eastern colourings. Round three walls ran low divans covered in the same way. There was not such a room in Eskishehr we were told. Had the decorations stopped there, and we had been able to forget the unfortunate prisoner, the general effect would have been decidedly pleasing. But as we sat there our eyes were kept glued, by some horrible attraction, on the glitter of a cheap gilt frame of the gaudiest description, containing a crude coloured print of the German Emperor; below this stood a gimcracky little table covered with a cheap tinselled cloth, on which was placed a glass and silver cake-basket in the vilest of European taste. It hit one terribly in the eye. It was a jarring note in the Monster's work.
We took leave of the sulky little lady, and left her once more to her sweets and her embroideries in the long, weary hours of lonely splendour.
We had only seen the second act of this bit of Turkish drama; when the curtain went down for us we had had enough of it.
But we were about to see Act I. in different surroundings. The Greek lady kept her word, and in due course we found ourselves ushered into the house of the bridegroom. The preliminary ceremonies had already begun-in fact they had been going on all day. There sat the bride at the end of a room which had been cleared of everything except the low stool which she occupied alone. She was a lumpy looking girl of seventeen or so, and sat there motionless with downcast eyes. On the floor sat dozens of women, packed as tight as the room could hold. The bride might neither look up nor speak, which seemed hard, for every woman in the room was both looking at her and speaking about her; the hubbub was terrible.
She rose as we entered and kissed our hands; this much is apparently allowed on the arrival of strangers. The Greek lady explained that she was obliged to stand until we asked her to sit down again, and that she might not look at us. This was a good deal to ask on such an occasion; European ladies are not, as a rule, guests at the wedding of the Turkish poor, and we caught one or two surreptitious peeps from under her long eyelashes. We joined the throng on the floor and continued to gaze at her as every one else did. Marriage customs in general, and her own affairs in particular, were discussed for our benefit, the Greek lady interpreting in torrents of voluble French.
"She may not speak to her husband for forty-eight hours. When he comes in he will lift the veil and see his bride for the first time. Then he puts a girdle round her waist and it is finished. His mother chose her for him. If he does not like her, no matter, he can choose another, for he is getting good wages, and can afford to keep two."
By and by a large tray was brought in, piled up with rounds of native bread and plates of chicken. It was placed on a low stool in the centre of us all, and, following everybody's example, we grabbed alternate bits of chicken and bread. Then followed hunches of cake made of nuts and honey.
We were still eating when we heard a noise of singing and musical instruments outside; it became louder and louder, and finally stopped by the house.
"They are singing 'Behold the bridegroom cometh,'" said the Greek lady; "the man is being brought in a procession of all his friends."
The food was hastily removed, and all the guests were marshalled into an adjoining room, which already seemed as full as it could hold of babies and children and old hags, who presumably had been left to look after the younger ones. We were allowed to remain while the finishing touches were put on the bride. Her face was first plastered all over with little ornaments cut out of silver paper and stuck on with white of egg; then she was covered over entirely with a large violet veil. And so we left her sitting there, sheepish and placid in the extreme, in strange contrast to the voluble Greek lady and the excited friends. We met the bridegroom in the passage. He kissed his father, and stood first on one foot and then on the other. His mother took him by the shoulders, opened the door of the room we had just left, and shoved him in. Let us hope that the silver ornaments did their work and made his bride pleasing in his sight when he lifted the violet veil. What she thought of him need not concern us any more than it did her or her friends, for such thoughts may not enter the minds of Turkish brides.
The show was over. The curtain of the first act had gone down for us. It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had previously witnessed.
It is 267 miles or thereabouts from Eskishehr to Konia. It took us a good fifteen hours by rail. We were now on the summit of the tableland; the bounded river valley gradually gave way to long stretches where signs of cultivation were more apparent. We were getting into the great wheat-growing district, which the railway is causing to extend year by year. At Karahissar, a town of 33,000 inhabitants, a gigantic rock with straight sides and castellated top rises abruptly out of the plain, and from here another corn-growing valley merges into the great plain stretching away to the north. Mount Olympus, whose base we had skirted on leaving Brusa, could be very dimly discerned on the sky-line.
Then darkness set in, and the Monster ran steadily on with us into the unknown. Towards eight o'clock there was a sudden stop; it had come to the end of its tether.
We had left Calphopolos and Ibrahim at Eskishehr, and now only Constantin remained as a link with civilisation. Hassan had appeared at the station at Eskishehr, prepared to accompany us round the world if need be. He wore a brown suit of Turkish trousers and zouave under his sheepskin cloak. His pockets bulged rather, so did the wide leather belt which he used as a pocket, otherwise his worldly goods were contained tied up in a white pocket-handkerchief.
And so we arrived at Konia. Behind us was the railway, leading back to the things we knew, to the things we should hope to see again; before us was the plain, leading us to strange new things, things we should, perhaps, just see once and leave behind for ever.
The iron Monster had dumped us down and was no further concerned with us; if we would go further it must be by taking thought for ourselves.
There were horses and arabas to hire, there were provisions to lay in, there was the escort of Zaptiehs to be procured and the goodwill of the authorities to be obtained. We had letters of introduction to Ferid Pasha, then Vali of the Konia vilayet and since Grand Vizier of Constantinople. He was not as other Valis; he was called the great and the good, and had established law and order in his province. There need be no fear of brigandage while we were within the boundaries of his jurisdiction.
The Government building, the Konak, occupied one side of the square in which stood our hotel, and we sent Hassan across to pay our respects. But Ferid Pasha was away, which caused us great disappointment; we could only see his Vekil, the acting Governor.
Taking Hassan and Constantin with us, we went up the long flight of steps and down a corridor leading to the Vali's room. Peasants and ragged soldiers hung about the passage, and black-coated Jewish-looking men hurried in and out. A soldier showed us the way, holding back the curtains which concealed the entrance to various rooms, and from behind which the mysterious looking Jews were continually creeping.
The Vekil sat at a table covered over with official documents; a divan, higher and harder than those we had seen in private houses, ran round two walls, on which squatted several secretaries, holding the paper on which they wrote on the palms of their left hands. Beside the Vekil sat an old Dervish priest, and next him the Muavin, the Christian official appointed after the massacres to inform Valis of the wishes of Christians, and better known amongst those who know him as "Evet Effendi" (Yes, Effendi).
X was getting fluent in matters of Turkish greeting; she now reeled off a suitable string in reply to theirs. Hassan stood beside us, grave and dignified, and we noticed that all the men greeted him very courteously. X then endeavoured to explain our desire to travel to Mersina and requested the services of a suitable escort. Owing to limitations in her knowledge of the Turkish vocabulary, the nearest she could get to it was that the Consul at Mersina loved...
