The Sunday we called on them the immense rooms of their magnificent house were crowded to full capacity. Foreign officers of high rank in resplendent uniforms, members of the different high commissions and distinguished visitors of all nations were elbowing each other and alas also quite a few Levantine, Greek and Armenian business men whose standing in the business community had forcibly made a place for them in this cosmopolitan clique of Constantinople. Of course the crowd here was not representative of Turkish society, but rather of the cosmopolitan society that one meets in every principal center of Europe. Only a very few Turks were present, mostly old friends of the family who had come more with a desire to show their esteem and respect for the charming hostesses than mixing with the international crowd they were sure to meet there.
The three daughters of the family were doing the honors with a tact and courtesy only possible in scions of old families whose breeding in etiquette has extended to so many generations that it has finally become second nature. They were assisted in their duties by two granddaughters of Mahmoud Pasha, two young Turkish debutantes, who were so earnestly endeavoring to overcome their natural shyness and act like their elders that their charming awkwardness was really delightful to watch. It amused my wife greatly to make a mental comparison between this refreshing shyness of the Turkish debutantes and the self-confidence and forwardness of their American sisters. To this day I don’t know which of the two schools my wife really approved of!
Most humorous note
Of course the brothers and husbands of our hostesses were also there, circulating from group to group and introducing the guests to each other. And to me the most humorous note of the whole afternoon was given when the husband of one of our hostesses a middle-aged gentleman, very serious and very widely learned confided to me that for him entertainments and social functions of this kind were terrible bores but that he had to go through with them just to please his wife. Husbands are the same all over the world! . . . As I did not contradict him he took me in the quietest corner we could find and we had a long and interesting talk on subjects which took us far away from our surroundings.
Nevertheless I could not help but agree entirely with my wife when she told us, on our return to Emirghian, that she had found the whole thing “somewhat too stiff,” and I believe Madame Ismet Bey was also of our opinion and felt that we were sincere when we told her that we much preferred her own small at homes and the unpretentious little parties to which she had taken us on the previous days.
Historical Ottoman 