PAGE 2
Inconsistencies
by
“I am beginning to understand,” replied the Turk. “The husbands and brothers of these women guard them very carefully. Those men I see out there in the dark are doubtless with their wives and sisters, protecting them from the advances of other men. Am I right?”
“Of course you’re not right,” I snapped out, beginning to lose my temper at his obtuseness. “No husband would dream of talking to his wife in public, or of sitting with her in a corner. Every one would be laughing at them. Nor could a sister be induced to remain away from the ball-room with her brother. Those girls are ‘sitting out’ with young men they like, indulging in a little innocent flirtation.”
“What is that?” he asked. “Flirtation?”
“An American custom rather difficult to explain. It may, however, be roughly defined as the art of leading a man a long way on the road to-nowhere!”
“Women flirt with friends or acquaintances, never with members of their family?”
“The husbands are those dejected individuals wandering aimlessly about over there like lost souls. They are mostly rich men, who, having married beautiful girls for love, wear themselves out maintaining elaborate and costly establishments for them. In return for his labor a husband, however, enjoys but little of his wife’s society, for a really fashionable woman can rarely be induced to go home until she has collapsed with fatigue. In consequence, she contributes little but ‘nerves’ and temper to the household. Her sweetest smiles, like her freshest toilets, are kept for the public. The husband is the last person considered in an American household. If you doubt what I say, look behind you. There is a newly married man speaking with his wife, and trying to persuade her to leave before the cotillion begins. Notice his apologetic air! He knows he is interrupting a tender conversation and taking an unwarrantable liberty. Nothing short of extreme fatigue would drive him to such an extremity. The poor millionnaire has hardly left his desk in Wall Street during the week, and only arrived this evening in time to dress for dinner. He would give a fair slice of his income for a night’s rest. See! He has failed, and is lighting another cigar, preparing, with a sigh, for a long wait. It will be three before my lady is ready to leave.”
After a silence of some minutes, during which he appeared to be turning these remarks over in his mind, the young Oriental resumed: “The single men who absorb so much of your women’s time and attention are doubtless the most distinguished of the nation,-writers, poets, and statesmen?”
I was obliged to confess that this was not the case; that, on the contrary, the dancing bachelors were for the most part impecunious youths of absolutely no importance, asked by the hostess to fill in, and so lightly considered that a woman did not always recognize in the street her guests of the evening before.
At this moment my neighbor’s expression changed from bewilderment to admiration, as a young and very lovely matron threw herself, panting, into a low chair at his side. Her décolleté was so daring that the doubts of half an hour before were evidently rising afresh in his mind. Hastily resuming my task of mentor, I explained that a décolleté corsage was an absolute rule for evening gatherings. A woman who appeared in a high bodice or with her neck veiled would be considered lacking in politeness to her hostess as much if she wore a bonnet.
“With us, women go into the world to shine and charm. It is only natural they should use all the weapons nature has given them.”
“Very good!” exclaimed the astonished Ottoman. “But where will all this end? You began by allowing your women to appear in public with their faces unveiled, then you suppressed the fichu and the collarette, and now you rob them of half their corsage. Where, O Allah, will you stop?”