Twenty Years of Balkan TangleDurham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
History
Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle
Durham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel; Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
etc.--for an article on Montenegro for the catalogue. Every morning
he said: "To-morrow without fail I will give you all the figures."
And every evening: "Mon Dieu, it is impossible. I am tired!" He had
two hours free at midday and all his evenings. At the last minute,
when told the thing must go to press, he said: "But why all this
anxiety about facts, Mademoiselle? Write what you please. I am sure
it will be charming!" I wrote an essay, which necessarily contained
no point of commercial importance, and insisted that he must hear it
before it was sent as an official Montenegrin production. "But I
have a headache," said Petar. "What does that matter?" said I, and I
made him hear it. He said it was admirable, and added no single
fact. And he was one of the Intelligentzia upon whom the fate of
Europe later depended.
At this time I was daily teaching English to one of the
schoolmasters, an interesting task, as it showed me the total lack
of discipline there is in the education of the average Near Eastern.
He had a good deal of brain power and a certain amount of
information, but was totally unable to make himself do anything he
disliked, even when he knew it to be necessary. Would not begin with
simple things because he was not a child. And when he could not
understand difficult ones, flung the papers on the floor and stamped
on them, vowing he would never do English again. I smiled and said:
"Very well. Don't. It does not matter to me. Goodbye." To which he
would exclaim: "Good God, what fish blood. But with your sangfroid
you are a born Professor. I lose my temper with my class twenty
times a day." He had the impossible Near Eastern ideas of Liberty.
Briefly: "Do as you please, and damn the rest!" Was an ardent "Great
Serbian," but was not a Montenegrin, and when "freedom" was attained
hoped to force Montenegro into the correct path. His idea of
education was primitive. He despised every form of game, exercise,
and gymnastics as waste of time, and had never done any himself.
"That is why you are so absurdly neurotic and you have never learnt
to keep your temper." I chaffed him. He retorted: "Fishblood,
fishblood." An interesting specimen of the Intelligentzia.
Meanwhile Prince Nikola became anxious about Earl's Court. He sent
for me, took a gold medal from his breeches pocket, and gave it to
me with the request that I would go to England, see the managers of
the exhibition, and keep an eye on the exhibition when opened. A
staff of Montenegrins was to come over and manage the section.
Meanwhile, in order that it should become widely known, he thought
it would be a good thing if I told all my friends there was going to
be an exhibition, and ask them to tell theirs. Thus the news might
be spread through London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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