By Sempad Shahnazarian

Chapter Six 

onstantinople!  What a different environment for a boy who had never seen people other than Armenians, Turks and Kurds and who had never heard languages other than those.

  Constantinople is the meeting point of Europe and Asia with their peculiar characteristics, physical as well as ethical.

  In this entirely foreign atmosphere, the Armenian students who had come from far-flung provinces and not being able to breathe with ease and comfort, began looking for each other's company. They were able to succeed, very quickly, in creating a social environment similar to, as much as possible, that of their own villages.

  It was, of course, impossible to fully resist the pressures of their new life but they did everything to stay away from the corruptive customs and inclinations.

  Their school work occupied them intensely and they had to work very hard in the Turkish and French languages. Only then would they be able to conform with the boys who were born in Constantinople.

  Gradually they became acquainted with students from the higher ranks who were already members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ARF, the leaders of which had received their education in the universities of France, Germany and Russia. These leaders visited their Chapters regularly to stimulate the members in their efforts to solve the Armenian National Cause -- Freedom and Independence from Turkish rule.

  The European press had already begun to publish articles in favor of this movement, encouraging them to work harder toward the realization of their objectives.

  This interest did not overlap with their school work. On the contrary, it gave them more insight, vigor and maturity to transform their dreams into reality.

  At the end of every week, they attended lectures given by well-known sociologists, poets and writers who electrified the atmosphere. This made the new students try their talents in poetry and other branches of literature. 

  With consistent studying, Sempad soon overcame his difficulties in French and earned an above average grade on his final examination, in his first semester.

  How glad he was! He could now read simple stories in French and enjoy himself.

  In his second year he could already read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, with help from a dictionary, of course.

 The journal Azadamard of the ARF represented the dreams and tendencies of the Armenian intellectuals in the field of their national strife for liberty.

  Well-known writers contributed to its valuable content.

   Literature was such a captivating branch of education for the boys. They even founded their own monthly booklet to which Sempad contributed a piece in the form of a poetic representation of his memories at the Monastery.

  Life in Constantinople was completely different from what the boys had expected it to be.

  The ARF had started organizing gatherings where new members could become acquainted with one another.

  One night a group of Moushetzi from Moush students, in company with Sempad, was huddled in a corner watching dancers with their eyes bulging out in surprise. 

  They had never seen that kind of dancing before in their lives...boys and girls dancing together! Their faces were almost touching and they were smiling. The thin space between them gradually disappeared and their bodies were touching! This was all revolting!

  All of these things were strange to the boys and were contrary to their ways of thinking.

  As the music trilled pleasantly the boys and girls, in the grip of their sensual fever, were unable to even rhythmically pace themselves and almost stood still, intoxicated.

  Souren, a dear friend of Sempad’s, from Boulanuk cast a look of astonishment and bewilderment at Sempad, who could not believe what he was seeing. To him, that kind of dancing was a sacrilege and was against their ancestral customs.

  They kept sitting and watching how everybody enjoyed each other’s way of dancing.

  Souren broke their silence, and said: “I know what is on your mind, Sempad. It’s the same as mine. It’s strange though, a sudden shift of thinking is shaking me...I don’t think we can remain the same all the time.  Life in Moush is different from what we have here. We must undergo certain changes gradually. I don’t mean to say that we should alienate ourselves from our old customs and traditions but we must copy certain things that the people here do without becoming degenerated.”

  At this point, a girl (tall and ugly) approached us and asked Souren to dance with her. He was so dumbfounded he couldn’t clearly articulate:  “...But!..I...can’t...dance!..”

  “I’ll show you how,” she said. She remained standing there until Souren, got up hesitatingly, yielding to her insistence. They walked out to the center of the floor. He was holding her hand. He put his other arm around her waist and began to walk with her! 

  Sempad and all of the other Moushetzi students died laughing! They could not believe their eyes!

  They danced for a while, and when the music stopped, Souren wanted to come back to join us but, with her insistence, he remained standing there for the next dance.

  They danced three dances, one after another. At intermission, he came over and implored: “Sempad, please!  Save me from her!”

  “If she were not so ugly I might help you,” he answered, laughing.

  At midnight, the dancing was over and the boys walked home.

   One day, two senior students asked Sempad to be their guest at the Parisiana cabaret. They were from Constantinople and were familiar with the way of life there.

  At about nine o’clock that night he met them in front of the cabaret and walked in after paying the admission fee.

  For Sempad, it was a real adventure. He had never been in a place like that before. It was an ordinary looking hall with dozens of tables and chairs placed around in circles. 

  In the rear of the hall was a medium size stage with an orchestra, made up of five musicians, standing in front of it on the main floor.

  Soon the tables were occupied and the orchestra began to play the overture of the program.

  Suddenly an undertone filled the air. From behind the coulisse a flimsily dressed girl came onto the stage with the express idea of displaying the beautiful curves of her young and robust body rather than the art of her dancing.

  What she was doing consisted only in meaningful contortions of her mid-section to arouse and inflame the sensual feelings of the audience.

 Waitresses now began moving around exposing their nudity. They were only covered with three small pieces of silken material, above and below.

  Even their way of walking implied wicked games with never fading smiles on their faces.

  One of the waitresses, a very young and charming girl, came over and took our order -- two glasses of whiskey and a glass of wine. The wine was Sempad’s. The hosts tasted the whiskey and excitedly watched the second dancer on the stage.

  Sempad hadn’t even drunk half of his wine, as he was immersed into reminiscences of...his home...the green pasture lands...the undulating wheat fields...mountains with their crests in the blue sky...the heavenly purity of his parents...the innocent look of his sister and those of his brothers...the majestic posture of their church and that of its priest...his father.

  He seemed to hear voices from all of these mental pictures; voices of disapproval and alarm...he felt himself being neglected by his friends who had been emptying glass after glass and were continually playing with the half-naked waitresses.

  Their drunkenness didn’t bother him at all as he was carried away most of the time by his memories.

  Suddenly, he got up and with a tremulous voice thanked his friends and walked away.

  “Try to preserve the sanctity, Sempad,” he murmured to himself as he walked away all alone with a torrent of sensations tormenting his awakening heart.

  It was midnight!

  After school, he was walking to his room with a stack of books under his arm, absorbed in thoughts...For the last nine years he had been away from home and hadn’t enjoyed the atmosphere of parental love and attention...Four years in the Monastery and five years at Ketronagan Varjaran in Constantinople.

  His visit home, the past summer had provoked an immense craving to be with his father and mother, brothers and sister and with all of his friends. He wanted to grow with them, to breathe the same air, to see the same glorious sunrises and sunsets. He wanted to enjoy the beauty of the pulsating wheat fields and the wooded mountains with their rocky ridges.

  “I am getting to be an old man,” he thought. “Nineteen years of age, and I haven’t yet had a glimpse of life.  All I have had was school work...assignments, compositions, readings in history and philosophy...constant studies.”

  Ideas of writers, poets and philosophers had cluttered his mind and had struggled to replace the impulses of reality...

  Due to the lack of actual mountains, highlands, streams and plains where he would have liked to stroll constantly, his imagination had created in him an impalpable world of ideas, pictures and colors. He breathed in that atmosphere and grew up with no sense of reality.

  With all of these deliberations he was on his way to his room. He walked through a maze of cobblestone streets, stopping in front of an old frame house.

  While putting the key in the keyhole, a female voice called from within. “Who is it?”

  “It is I,” answered Sempad. When he opened the door, his landlady was standing before him with a mysterious smile on her face. She said, “There is someone in your room waiting for you.”

“Who can it be?” he exclaimed. He ran up the stairway and into his room where his father -- an impressive looking priest, young and swarthy, dressed in a black robe -- was sitting at the table reading something.

  “Hairig! Dad,” he exclaimed, excitedly and ran into his arms. “What brought you here?”

  “You! You brought me here!” he said smilingly, hugging and kissing him with emotion. “How are you Sempad?  How are you getting along with your studies?”

  “All right, Hairig! One more year and I’ll be home, for good,” he said with excitement.

  “That’s good! That’s good! That’s what we all have been waiting for. You know, Sempad, I have already sent Kegham and Arshavir to the United States. There are more opportunities over there than anywhere else. Why didn’t you write to let us know that you were coming home, so we could have stayed and enjoyed the summer together. I took your brothers to Etchmiadzin, to put them in school, but I didn’t succeed.”

  “Well, I didn’t let you know that I was coming, because I wanted to surprise you. On the contrary, I was the one who was surprised and disappointed when I got home and didn’t find you there.”

  “How is everybody at home?” Der Kerope asked.

  “Just fine, Hairig. I enjoyed my vacation. We strolled around with Arsen, Satenik and the boys. We went to the prairies to collect mushrooms and to Meghraked Honey River to swim and catch fish and climbed the mountains in search of partridge eggs. I got sick for a while...had a fever...I remember mother crying and saying, I wish you hadn’t come! I wish you hadn’t come! One morning, before sunrise, Seto went to Sourp Stepanos’ woods, picked a load of tender willow branches with dewy leaves, made me lie down and covered me with them. Mother was watching over me. I soon began to perspire and felt as though I was in a tub of warm water. I became drowsy and fell asleep. That afternoon, I felt fine.

   The following day was the day of pilgrimage of the Harkavnentz Bible. I rode our horse Diliboz and with Kamar and Seto we went to Harkavank. There, outside the village, we saw a crowd of people watching an equestrian exhibition. Famous Armenian and Kurdish horsemen were competing. I didn’t dare try and was wondering what to do, when Boghos Altikhatian  (a distant relative) pulled me down from the horse, embraced me and exclaimed: “Sempad! When did you come?”

 ‘About three weeks ago.’ ‘You look fine. Why don’t you give it a try?’ he said, pointing to the horsemen.

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘I’ll ride, then.’

  ‘All right, go ahead!’ He mounted the horse. What a rider he was! Diliboz snorted and gamboled joyously, then controlling himself dashed on like a shooting star onto the field where the horsemen tried in vain to outrun him. Several times Boghos raced with the notorious Kurdish horsemen and several times he won. Sensing the mounting hostility, he got off Diliboz and told me to take him away. We returned home without any incident.

  As the time drew near for me to return to school, we were all emotionally upset.
 

  “Don’t stay any longer, Sempo. Just one more year,” said Satenik, while mother’s eyes were getting damp.

  “Hairig, you wanted to know how I enjoyed my pilgrimage to Sourp Garabed. Thousands of us went there on Navassartian Day. The Monastery had the appearance of a medieval fortress instead of a holy place of worship.”