I discovered that our
American police are not so _very_ different from Russian police after
all, even if they _are_ Irish!
We caught the steamer--the dear, clean, lovely _Nickolai II._, with
the stewardess a Greek named Aspasia, and I persisted in calling the
steward Pericles, just to have things match.
Then we crunched our way out of the harbor through the ice into the
Black Sea, and sailed away for Constantinople.
IX
CONSTANTINOPLE
Constantinople had three different effects upon me. The first was to
make me utterly despise it for its sickening dirt; the second was when
I forgot all about the mud and garbage, and went crazy over its
picturesque streets with their steep slopes, odd turns, and bewitching
vistas, and the last was to make me dread Cairo for fear it would seem
tame in comparison, for Constantinople is enchanting. If I were a
painter I would never leave off painting its delights and spreading
its fascinations broadcast; and then I would take all the money I got
for my pictures and spend it in the bazaars, and if I regretted my
purchases I would barter them for others, because Constantinople is
the beginning of the Orient, and if you remain long you become
thoroughly metamorphosed, and you bargain, trade, exchange, and haggle
until you forget that you ever were a Christian.
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