How I Found London

Miss Intisar Tabash describes the capital of the English after her visit there, so vividly that the reader seems to accompany her on her rounds, hand in hand: from street to street, from museum to museum, and from shop to restaurant...

The first thing that greets you as you cover the road from the airport to the city is those great streets bordered by trim houses. I imagined myself in paradise... what are these beautiful sights? You would think you had suddenly been transported from earth to heaven, for this is a beauty that has no connection with the sons of men.

Here are the landmarks of the city appearing from afar... Here are motorcars passing before us without making any noise or clamor... There the great double-decker omnibuses move along the road as though flying on two wings. What is this quiet? London is a great, spacious city governed by order, ruled by stillness, and shaded by peace.

Now you have arrived, rested from the fatigue of travel, and begun to inquire about a house to live in — and you are surprised to find a large company charged with buying it for you, while you pay the price in fixed installments. Then if you come to buy furniture for the house, you find everything you want at modest prices, paid at regular intervals. And if you come looking for fruit and vegetables, you find them in great quantities sold at cheap prices — though London has not yet freed itself from rationing (that is, the provisioning system), which covers sugar, eggs, meat, butter, and other things.

Come with me now, let us walk through the streets of London and see its public parks, crossed by streams and artificial ponds, where birds of every kind abound. Here are children playing, and there mothers reading, and all are silent and calm, making no movement that might disturb anyone else. How many times was I surprised by a crowd standing in the middle of one of the squares, while a speaker appeared in their midst flinging out words to right and to left. If you come across one of these in London, do not let him trouble you: he is either a missionary preaching the teachings of his religion, or calling men to a holy struggle, or crying out for liberty.

What are these throngs entering and leaving through this wide door? Come forward with me to find out what is happening. What a wonder — it is a library!... And this is the first manifestation of culture in London... The libraries here are beyond counting, and all of them are like this — you always see them crowded with people, all come to seek knowledge through books, a thirst never quenched, a need never satisfied.

Then how can I fail to mention the many museums spread through every part of London?... They all invite the people to add to their learning. Come with me into the Tate Gallery, where an exhibition was lately held of the modern artist Degas — here is a small child whose mother has brought him with her and begun explaining each picture to him one by one; you see him take in her words with a listening ear and an attentive eye, that he may grow up loving art and understanding its meanings. And here is an aged old man, worn down by the long years, come to compare the classical art and its heroes, from Leonardo da Vinci to Michelangelo, with the modern art that Degas represents in his special exhibition. And so with numerous individuals of different ages and varied circles — all have come to drink in the fundamentals of culture through pictures. And what may be said of this place may be said of the other places of antiquities.

Come, I shall take you this evening to the Royal Festival theater, to see one of the ballet performances given by one of the world's companies, headed by Anton Dolin, Nathalie Leslie, Sonia Arova, Belinda Wright, and others. Today's program is made up of the piece Petrushka, by Stravinsky and Benois; then the piece Les Sylphides, to music by Chopin; then Symphony for Fun, by Don Gillis. Truly it is a delightful evening — one wishes it could last a lifetime.

As for the English woman, I shall let my pen dwell at length on her affairs, for it had never occurred to me that I should see her thus in reality before me.

Enter a restaurant to take your lunch, and you see the woman waiting on you... Go to buy some fruit and vegetables, and you see the woman before you. Board the railway or the big omnibuses, and you are surprised by the woman clipping your ticket and working beside the man. Enter one of the stores to buy clothes and household goods, and you feel the woman behind you, guiding you to everything. And last but not least: I had come to suppose that the English woman worked at everything, after meeting her in all these places — yet I had never once imagined I should see her carrying the street-sweeper's broom, going along collecting the refuse and putting it in its place... Believe me, I was stunned; I stood astonished before this sight. And how did I see her?... In her full adornment: having put a white smock over her dress and gathered her hair back in a net, she set about hauling the refuse, neither disdaining it nor recoiling from its smell. What manner of creature is she? And what else besides? I saw her walking through the streets carrying a camera, photographing the passers-by; then I saw her in the big offices, working side by side with the man — whose appearance alongside her I came to regard as one of the wonders of London.

As for social life, it is utterly nonexistent among English women: you see no visits or receptions among them, and if one of them wishes to meet her friend, it is in some public place or in one of the restaurants... Everyone in London minds his own business; no one seeks to know another, or to ask after him, or to concern himself with him.

I met some of the women who work, and asked them about their wages, how they spend them, and where they pass their leisure hours. One of them, who works as a maid in a hotel, answered me:

I draw each week the equivalent of thirty Lebanese lira, most of which I spend on buying clothes, and some of it on amusements. As for my free time, I pass it in the company of a friend, either at the cinema, or at a theater, or in a public park, or looking at the show-windows of the great shops that adorn London at night.

A woman works forty-eight hours a week, and she works to help her husband bear the responsibilities of life, so that the two live together an independent, contented life. When the English girl reaches eighteen years of age she begins to work, and can then live a life independent of her parents, learning thereby self-reliance, and how to face life with a leaping spirit and a soul that strives toward the heights.

And if you go out to stroll through the streets of London at night, you feel as though you were in broad daylight, for the electric lamps light every place... The shop-fronts are hidden by no screen from people's eyes — they are closed with glass alone, lit by lights from within... The restaurants are full of people... Here are the streets before you, thronged with passers-by, everyone wanting to enjoy the world of London and to gaze at its bewitching lights. And all this goes on in an atmosphere ruled by tranquility, over which quiet and order preside. No motor horns, no children screaming, no collisions, no blaring radios.

Truly London is the land of wonders; one who lives in Lebanon and then sees these phenomena cannot imagine that they are tangible facts. For twenty days I was away from Lebanon, and I felt my need of its air, its scenery, its sky, and its soil... But I found compensation for all this in that stillness and that quiet which preside over London... How I wish I might one day see all this transported to Beirut, so that I might feel once more that I am a human being living according to a human being's requirements... so that my soul might be at ease, and the mind of my kinsman be at rest — he who so often drew my attention to all that went on around me. Twenty days have passed — would that this beautiful experience might come back to me!..