Fordham


IHSP


Main SourcebooksAncientMedievalModern


Subsidiary SourcebooksAfricanEast AsianGlobalIndianJewishIslamicLesbian/GayScienceWomen


About IHSP Help Page IHSP Credits

Islamic History Sourcebook

Demetra Vaka:

Aïshé Hanoum, c. 1888


The next morning, I had just finished my morning toilet when a slave came to conduct me to Aishe Hanoum, from whom she presented me with an indoor veil. I arranged it on my hair, to show my appreciation of the gift, and followed the slave to the floor below, where her mistress lived.

When I entered her apartments, I found her kneeling before an easel, deep in work. As the slave announced me, she rose from the ground and came to me with outstretched hand. It struck me as curious that she offered to shake hands, instead of using the temena, the Turkish form of salutation, since I knew her to be extremely punctilious in the customs of her nation. I suppose she did this to make me feel more at home. "Welcome, young hanoum," she said, after kissing me on both cheeks.

"Do you paint?" I asked, going toward the easel, disguising my surprise at meeting with such disregard of Mussulman customs in this orthodox household.

No, not painting, just playing. It is only an impression, not a reproduction of one of Allah's realities." Good Mussulmans do not believe in "reproducing Allah's realities"; yet there stood on the easel a charming pastel. Even orthodox Moslems, I saw, were not above beating the devil round the stump. "How very beautiful!" I exclaimed. "Aishe Hanoum, you are an artist."

"Pray! pray! young hanoum," she protested, a little frightened, I thought, "pray do not say such things. I am not an artist. I only play with the colors." "Let me see some more of your playing," I persisted. Rather reluctantly, though wishing to comply with her guest's desires, she brought out a large portfolio, containing several pastels and water-colors, and we sat down on a rug to examine them. Whether they were well done or not I cannot tell; but they were full of life and happiness. The curious part was that, whenever she painted any outdoor life, she painted it from her window, and on the canvas first was the window, and then through it you saw the landscape as she saw it.

The more I looked at her work, the more enthusiastic I grew. "You must be very talented," I said, turning to her. "It is a pity that you cannot go abroad to study." "But I have studied many years here."

"That is all very well," I said, still busy looking at the pictures. "Just the same you ought to go to Paris to study." "What for?" she asked. "Because I think you have a great deal of talent which unfortunately is wasted in a harem." As I spoke, I raised my eyes.

Ordinarily I am not a coward, though I do run from a mouse; but when my eyes met her finely penciled ones, there was a curious look of anger in them that made a shiver go down my back. "If I have said anything to offend you," I said, "I beg you to forgive me. Believe me, it was my enthusiasm." She smiled in a most charming way. If she had been angry, it had gone quickly by. "But why do you wish me to go to Paris?" she asked again.

"I don't know," I said, "except that Paris is nearer Turkey than any other great center, and I feel that you ought to have the advantage of being where you could get all the help possible." "What for?" she inquired. I began to feel uncomfortable. I knew her very little, and this was the first time I ever visited a former seraigli (one who has been an inmate of the imperial palace). "Because," I answered lamely, "when a person has talent she generally goes to Paris or to some other great artistic center."

"What for?" again insisted the question.

If I had not been in a harem, and in the presence of a woman of whom I was somewhat afraid, my answer would have been, "Well, if you are foolish enough not to know, why, what is the use of telling you? " Instead, while that exquisite hand was lying on my arm and those big almond-shaped eyes were holding mine, I tried to find a way of explaining. "If you were free to go, you could see masterpieces, you could study various methods of painting, and if it were in you, you might become great in turn." "What for?" was the calm inquiry.

She was very beautiful; not of the Turkish type, but of the pure Circassian, with exquisite lines and a very low, musical voice, and of all things on this earth I am most susceptible to physical beauty. At that particular moment, however, I should have derived great pleasure if I could have smacked her pretty mouth. "Well," I said calmly, though I was irritated, "if you had a great talent and became very famous, you would not only have all the money you wanted, but glory and admiration." "What for?" she repeated, with inhuman monotony.

"For Heaven's sake, Aishe Hanoum," I cried, "I don't know what for; but if I could, I should like to become famous and have glory and lots of money. " "What for?" "Because then I could go all over the world and see everything that is to be seen, and meet all sorts of interesting people." "What for?"

"Hanoum doudou," I cried, lapsing into the Turkish I had spoken as a child. "Are you trying to make a fool of me, or---" She put her palms forward on the floor, and then her head went down and she laughed immoderately. I laughed, too, considerably relieved to have done with her "what for 's." She drew me to her as if I were a baby, and took me on her lap. "You would do all these things and travel about like a mail-bag because you think it would make you happy, don't you, yavroum?" she asked.

"Of course, I should be happy." "Is this why you ran away from home---to get famous and rich?"

She was speaking to me precisely as if I were a little bit of a thing, and was to be coaxed out of my foolishness. "I have neither fame nor riches," I answered, "so we need not waste our breath." "Sorry, yavroum, sorry," she said sympathetically. "I should have liked you to get both; then you would see that it would not have made you happy. Happiness is not acquired from satisfied desires." "What is happiness, then?" I asked. "Allah kerim [God only can explain it]. But it comes not from what we possess, but from what we let others possess; and no amount of fame would have made me leave my home and go among alien people to learn their ways of doing something which I take great pleasure in doing in my own way." She kissed me twice on the cheek and put me down by her. "You are a dear little one," she said.


Source

From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Vol. VI: Russia, Austria-Hungary, The Balkan States, and Turkey, pp. 579-582.

Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton.

Note: Many Western sources about Islamic countries exhibit what has come to be known as orientalism. The terms used ("Mohammedan" for instance rather than "Muslim"), and the attitudes exhibited by the writers need to be questioned by modern readers.

This text is part of the Internet Islamic History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.

Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.

© Paul Halsall, November1998
[email protected]



The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of  Fordham University, New York. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies.The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in providing web space and server support for the project. The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University.  Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.

© Site Concept and Design: Paul Halsall created 26 Jan 1996: latest revision 11 March 2024 [CV]