tonishing that I felt
bound to demand some explanation. It was the first time I had heard of
any one fleeing from America to seek liberty in the Sultan's dominions.
'Why,' said Mrs. Sarafov, 'you can't do a thing in America without you
get soaked for it, some way. And the prices! A dollar don't go any
distance at all. My husband, he says, 'Yes, but you are handling the
money, though.' That's like a man!'

"They were astonishing. They sat there, those three extremely handsome
females, easy and uncorseted, their white teeth gleaming, their perfect
complexions glowing, their dark eyes and hair shining in the lamplight,
and contradicted all the conventional notions I had ever held about
American emigrants. They had no animus against America, you must
remember, but they possessed something for which even the western
republic cannot supply a substitute--a traditional love of the land of
their ancestors. They had a perfectly steady and unsentimental grip upon
realities. Liberty for them was not a frothy gabble of insincere
verbiage, but a clear and concrete condition of body and soul. I suppose
the perfectly healthy have no dreams. Their vitality, like the vitality
of so many of the people in these regions, was extraordinary. It was
like a radiance around them. They seemed independent of everything
peculiar to our boasted western civilization. Neither patent medicines
nor cosmetics nor municipal enterprise came into their lives at all.
There were no books in the house. They produced figs in syrup, and
sherbet and cognac, and a smooth red wine that was a most generous
cordial. They gave me bread and raisins. They had all the things we read
of, and strive to imitate, and which we imagine we buy in cans. They had
no manners, for they ate with their fingers and licked them vigorously
afterward; yet they conveyed the impression that their civilization was
older than the ruined turrets above the city. They sat and moved with
the poised rhythm and dignity of the larger carnivora. The girls
reclined with an easy and assured relaxing of the limbs upon a settee of
violet plush, and their grouping made me think instantly of ancient
sculptural forms. They were without that _nuance_ and stealthy deception
which gives us such a feeling of manly superiority over our own women,
and without which masculine humour would die out. Perhaps it was
because, not only did they dispense with what are called breakfast
foods, but with breakfast itself, t