Territet, Jan. 1907.

I am thinking of a sad spring morning of long ago. I was twelve years old, but the constant terror in which I had lived had increased my tendency towards uneasiness and melancholy. The life I was forced to lead had nothing in common with my nature. Ever since I can remember, I had loved the bright light, open horizons, galloping on horses against the wind, and all my surroundings were calm and monotonous.

As time went on, I put off every day the moment for wakening, because I had to open my eyes in the same room, and the same white muslin curtains were always there to greet me.

How can I explain to you my jealousy at seeing how contentedly all the furniture lay in the soft light which filtered through the latticed windows of our harems? A heavy weight was pressing on my spirit! How many times when the governess came into my room did she not find me in tears!

“What is the matter, my darling?” she would ask, and under the influence of this unexpected tenderness I would sob without even knowing the cause of my sorrow.

Then I dressed myself slowly, so that there should be less time to live. How was it, I wondered, that some people feared death? Death would have been such a change—the only change to which a Turkish woman could look forward.

In our house there was scarcely a sound; hardly were the steps of the young Circassian slaves heard as they passed along the corridors.

Our mother was kind but stern, and her beautiful face had an expression of calm resignation. She lived like a stranger amongst us, not being able to associate herself with either our thoughts or our ideals.

The schoolroom where we worked the greater part of the day looked on to a garden thick with trees and perfumed with the early roses. Its furniture consisted of a big oak table and chairs, shelves full of books, a globe, and three busts in plaster of Paris, of Napoleon, Dante, and Mozart. What strange thoughts have those three men, so different and yet so interesting, not suggested to me! What a curious influence they all three had on my child mind!

It was in this schoolroom, twice a week, that we studied the Koran; but before the lesson began an old servant covered up the three great men in plaster. The Hodja10 must not see these heathenish figures.

When the Imam arrived, my sister and I went to the door to meet him, kissing his hand as a sign of respect. Then he used to pass his bony fingers over our hair, saying as a greeting, “May Allah protect you, my children.”

With the Hodja Effendi came into our schoolroom a perfume of incense of burnt henna and sandal-wood. His green tunic and turban, which showed he had visited the Holy Tomb at Mecca, made his beard so white and his eyes so pale, that he seemed like a person from another world—indeed he reminded me, not a little, of those Indian Fakirs, who live on prayers.

From the moment he sat down at the table, my sorrows seemed to vanish for a while, and an atmosphere of calm and blessed peace took possession of my soul.

“Only God is God,” he began.

“And Mahomet is His Prophet,” we responded, as we opened the Koran at the place he had chosen for the lesson.

“Read, my child,” he said.

I took the book, and began to read the prayer, which is a rhythmed chant. The Imam read with me in a soft, low voice, and when the chapter was finished he murmured, “You read well, Neyr; may Allah protect you.”

Then he questioned us on the prayers we had learnt, on the good we had to do and the evil to avoid, and his voice was so monotonous that each sentence sounded like a prayer.

When we had finished, he asked, as he always did, to see our governess. I went to find her in the garden, and she came at once.

As the Hodja could not speak English, he asked us to say to her, “You have a fine face. Allah loves the good and the kind and those who go the way they should go. He will be with you.” And before he went away, taking with him the delightful perfume of incense, he shook the hand of the Englishwoman in his.

Another day he came, and after the lesson he said to me, “Neyr, you are twelve years old; you must be veiled. You can no longer have your hair exposed and your face uncovered—you must be veiled. Your mother has not noticed you have grown a big girl, I therefore must. I teach you to love Allah, you are my spiritual child, and for that reason I must warn you of the danger henceforward of going out unveiled. Neyr, you must be veiled.”

I was not even listening to the Imam! An awful agony had seized and numbed my soul; the words which he had uttered resounded in my brain, and little by little sank into my understanding—“Neyr, you must be veiled”—that is to say, to be forever cloistered like those who live around you; to be a slave like your mother, and your cousins, and your elder sister; to belong henceforth to the harem; no longer to play in the garden unveiled; nor ride Arabian ponies in the country; to have a veil over your eyes, and your soul; to be always silent, always forgotten, to be always and always a thing.

“Neyr, you must be veiled,” the old Hodja began again.

I raised my head. “Yes, I know, Hodja Effendi, I shall be veiled, since it is necessary.” Then I was silent.

The old Imam went away, not understanding what had happened to me, and without my having kissed his hand. I remained in the same place, my elbows on the table. I was alone. All around was deadly still.

Suddenly, however, Miss M. opened the door; her eyes were red. Gently shutting the door and coming towards me, she said:

“Neyr, I have seen the Imam, and I understand that from to-morrow you must be veiled.”

I saw the pain stamped on her face, but I could say nothing. Already she had taken me in her arms and carried me into her room at the end of the corridor, murmuring all the while, “The brutes!”

Together we wept; I, without unnecessary complaints, she without useless consolation.

Once my sorrow had passed a little, I questioned my governess.

“You are English, are you not?”

“Yes, dear, I am English.”

“In England are the women veiled, and the children free?”

“The women and children are free.”

“Then I will go to England.”

“Silence, Neyr, silence.”

“Take me to England.”

“I cannot, Neyr,” she answered.

But all that day and all that night I dreamt of dear, free England, I longed to see.

*****

The country house where we lived was large, with big rooms, long corridors, and dark halls. Now and again carriages passed, bringing excursionists to the neighbouring wood, and when we heard the wheels rumbling over the uneven road, we rushed to the latticed windows to see all we could.

Sometimes we used to go with Miss M. to see Stamboul, which was on the opposite shore. Miss M. loved the town, and used to take us there as often as possible. Sometimes we used to ride with my brother in the country, and I loved to feel the wind blowing through my untidy hair, but all that would be over now. Sometimes my father would take me to see friends of his—foreigners they were—and the girls and boys played together, and I laughed and played with them. But I understood that I was only on the margin of their great life, that each day part of my right to existence would be taken from me, a veil would soon cover my face, and I would only be a Moslem woman, whose every aspiration and emotion would be trampled under foot.

That moment had come.

*****

We were to go out with mother that afternoon. On my bed in the monotonous room I disliked so much, a black mantle, a cape, and a veil were placed.

Several persons had come to see me veiled for the first time. Awkwardly I placed the pleated skirt round my waist, the cape over my shoulders, and the veil over my face; but, in order that the tears which were falling should not be seen, I did not lift it up again.

“Neyr,” asked mother, “are you ready?”

“Yes,” I answered, and followed her with my head up in spite of this mourning. And from that day, from that moment, I had determined on revolt.

Melek (N. Neyr-el-Nirsa).