New-York tribune., 1921-10-02

A stout Greek business man IN Palm Beach
SUIT. Tommles very pink and stiff Thick
j. ed gobs playing with small, maggot-likc
6eggar children Pale-faced Levantines with
sinking eyes and hooked noses Armenians
with querulous mouths and great gold brown
eyes In the bright sun and the violent shad-
oWs faces blur and merge as they pass
People have faces smooth and yellow like
melons, steely like axes, pimpled like winter
squash, faces like deaths heads and Jack o,
lanterns, cocoanuts, sprouting potatoes They
merge slowly in the cruel white sunlight.
brown faces under fezzes, yellow faces under
straw hats, pale northern faces under khaki
caps, INTO one face, brown, sullen and con-
tracted, eyes black with suffering, skin taut
over the cheeb bones, hungry lines about the
corners of = mouth, lips restless envious.
angry lustfu.. The face of man not quite
starved out
They are the notes. these faces twanged on
the trembling strings Of this skcin of frustrate
lives that is Pera SO many threads out Of
the labyrinth. If one could only follow back
into the steep dilapidated streets where the
black wooden houses overhang and women
witch thick ankles look down with kohl red
eyes at the porters who stumble under their
huge loads up the uneven steps, sweating so
that the red out Of their fezzes runs in streaks
down their hnobbed and shaggy faces; through
The sudden plane-sha lanes that give occa-
sionally unbelievable blue distances of sea or
umbrr distances of hills seen through the tilt
ing and delicatey carved tombposts Ct Turk
ish cemeteries and lead out into the painless
heaps of masonry of burnt-over places. where
side it gnawled minaret, where sneak thieves
and homeless peop.e I've in the remnants of
houses in abandoned cisterns or down
through the waterfront streets Of Galata with
their fruit stand and heir Greek women
glggng in doorways and their sailors caf :
full of the jingle of mechanical pianos or the
brassy trombone music Of an orchestra, where
the dancing of ill-assoltod close-hugged couples
has a sway Of the to it; or through the
cool bazars Of Stamboul where IN the half
darkness under the azure decorated vault
Persian and Greek and Jewish and Armenian
merchants spead cat print cloths and Man
chester goods which an occasional beam of
dusty sunlight sets into a fame Of colors; or
into the ruined palaces along the Bosporus
where refugees from one place or another
into the gorgeous tinsel furnished anartments
just off the Grande Rue de Pera. where Greek
milionares and Syrian war profteers give
dinners to generais; or to the yards and door
ways, where the Russians sleep huddled like
sheep in snow storm. somewhere. some day
might find the core. the key to decipher this
intricate vivid arabesque scrawed eareessy
on ground of sheer pain
This afternoon can only sit slipping douzico
mace opal white with water. ears drowsy wiz
the strangely sat,atvlng monotony oil the Turk
ish orche stra 5 anes,..'s~- plairtive music The
cool north wind off the back Sea has come up
and is making dust and paper dance in whrl
winds across raXim Square.
Along the line of taxis, abolishing them
abolishing the red trolley cars and the vic
torous puttces of Greek officers his head il
embroidered cap bowed against the wind, hi.
almond eyes closed to dark Sits against tn,
dust, taking little steps in his black embroid
cred slippers. the great sleeves of his flowing
crimson silk gown Tapping in the wind, walk
a mandarin of China.
Cathay.