Europe — I Loved Her... In Her Is an Image of Grandeur and Beauty

A promenade for the eyes... a swing for the soul... travel! Travel is a great school... would that I might never graduate from it...

Neither boredom nor tedium did I know aboard the small dancing steamer... the Samsun... everything about her was sweet... even the Turkish phrases that met us right and left without our understanding a word of them... for of Turkish we command only the words... bey... and pasha... and efendim... and hanum...!

Alexandria was the first land my feet touched after Beirut... and I felt no burning of exile there, for in Alexandria all you need do is soften the "jim" and lighten your accent as you hear it from the mouths of the people of Studio Misr, for instance, to make yourself understood by everyone!

Every touring visitor must pass along the beaches of Alexandria and her long, broad corniche... and he must also make the round of her palaces and stand a long while in one of them... Ras el-Tin Palace, listening to the guide tell him the story of a day... on which a throne collapsed and a king fled — a king whose life had been the life of the Thousand and One Nights.

A young servant there spoke to me at length about his master the king... how he used to strut through the palace till its corners shook with the echo of his guffaws... yet they loved him, though he never once spoke to them... they loved him, though he paid them no heed... they loved him, because their affection too was in bondage...

This young servant told me the story of that historic day when despair and gloom settled over the palace and its inhabitants, and everyone wept, even the servants... their master went away and left them, and they remain within its vast precincts and sumptuous halls... they were servants, and they became the guards of a museum...

A single visit to Ras el-Tin Palace brings us close to the spirit of the revolution... the revolution of deprivation against wanton luxury!

And after Marseilles, Paris was where the baggage came to rest!

In Paris you feel as though the hand of man were cooperating with nature to create beauty, to root it and strengthen it, here and there and everywhere.

They say she is crowded and noisy... yes, but she is Paris, and she will remain Paris, wrapped and cloaked in her unique character — that character which broods over all that is ancient... enduring... defying the storms of time and its vicissitudes... Paris remains modern, and the age cannot surprise her with its changes and alterations... Paris remains a bride in Europe, though her quarters and squares and halls are fragrant with age!

The wedding-feast of art is forever in Paris... Good Lord, how I envied it there, enthroned in her palaces, in her museums, in her clubs, in her exhibitions... and in the hall of the Opéra, where it struts and leaps high, high, on a splendid stage in a frame of gold! The eye is bewildered where to alight and rest — on the walls whose height it can scarcely follow, or the sumptuous seats that fold you in their embrace, or the ceiling — say rather the ceilings — from which hang shapes and colors of gleaming, glittering lamps... or the stage itself, where art has set down its baggage and settled...

Good Lord — a night at the Opéra, by which honor was done to everyone who ever opened a window or a breach for beauty to look out upon us through — in poetry and prose, in music, in acting, in song...

And in Paris I spent hours visiting the graves... of dogs... I was not moved to laughter by the sight of the women bowing in reverence to lay bouquets of flowers on a grave... nor by what I read carved on every tomb... We are not accustomed to loving animals and treating them gently...

In Paris there are wonders and marvels... in Paris a dog dies like people do!

Switzerland did not make me forget the perfume of Paris, but I loved that self-sufficient, gentle, beautiful country, and I wondered why it did not remind me of Lebanon — that country to which they compare it always and forever... But enough of all this! Lebanon is truly a unique piece in the mosaic of the map!

In Geneva, on one of her great streets, is Lebanon's tourism office, directed by Mr. Izzat Ibrahim al-Hayek. I used to hurry to that office — say rather that little Lebanese pavilion — whenever my legs disobeyed me, or whenever the roads tangled and knotted before me... I used to hurry to Mr. Hayek's office to obtain the key to the problem.

And the editor-in-chief of the "Tribune de Genève" whispered in my ear that our office is the most splendid and most beautiful tourism office they have. Here I was at a loss whom to thank: shall I thank Lebanon for its good choice, or thank our delegate for representing us so well?

There, at a cocktail party, I met the delegates of the world's various countries gathered at the Palais des Nations; the party was given in their honor by Mr. Mustafa Hassan, head of the Egyptian delegation to the Economic and Social Council in session there.

Truly, it was one of the evenings of a lifetime, spent in the company of my friend Samira Hibr at the "Pearl of the Lake," the loveliest pleasure-haunt in the world, on the shore of Lake Léman...

And many people thought we belonged to the diplomatic corps...

No harm done, at any rate...!

And on the second day, at the luncheon to which His Excellency the Ambassador of Ecuador to the United States, its delegate extraordinary to the United Nations, invited us, questions rained down upon us about our country and the people of our country — and Samira's enthusiasm rose to such a pitch that she nearly improvised an oratorical lecture on her Lebanon, surveying every village in it, down to "Bhamdoun the village," to which she went back to spend the rest of the summer season...

I came back from the "Pearl of the Lake" reviewing figures and personalities among the women of Lebanon, moved to make the comparison... No — the Lebanese woman is not their inferior in grace and intelligence, praise God... no — the Lebanese woman is far more elegant than they! And here I did not know whether to thank God for it or not!

And what shall I say of hot, clamorous Italy? Italy, who holds in her arms the most beautiful, the oldest, the most splendid things the fingers and hands of man have produced. What shall I say of the Church of Saint Peter, the most splendid church in the world and the vastest... what shall I say of the little great kingdom of the Vatican... what shall I say of the museums whose walls are studded with canvases growing in value day after day... what shall I say of the power of faith that we touch in every monument and in every temple... that power which harnessed hands and minds and forces and produced what it produced... what shall I say of the statues of Rome, standing in the streets and gardens and at the entrances of palaces, mansions, and public buildings?

No great one in Europe is lost, though circumstances were harsh with him in his lifetime and wronged him... he who gives must be thanked... he who spends himself must be immortalized.

In the streets — whether in France, or in the cities of Italy, or even in Switzerland — you are met by statues of the great, the likes of Goethe and Corneille and Garibaldi and Cavour and Bernini and others... as though they were living alongside you, forming for you a link that joins the past to the present!

As for Venice — oh, her sweetness... the sweetness of her beauty, mellowed in her water and her houses and her palace, whose halls yield nothing in beauty to the halls of Versailles, and her piazza, which never ceases to be a stage for the doves and the tourists alike... The piazza of Venice — Napoleon described it as the most beautiful salon in the world.

And the gondola... how shall I forget it, when it is far more beautiful than any Buick or Cadillac... why blame Abdel Wahab if he laments, among all he laments, at the memory of its nights?

And I remembered my own country the moment I reached Naples...

Strange, how that Italian city resembles Beirut! For she joins together what is old and what is modern... what is grand and what is wretched... In Naples there is a Long Souk, and a Souk Sursock, and a quarter like the Karantina quarter, where rags are on display, spread out over roofs and windows and balconies... and a quarter for "their Sursocks" on lofty hills... and in Naples too there is a corniche they call the road of "Memories"!

What passed, passed... and behold me, on an evening I know not how to describe, returning to the Samsun, I and my companions of the party... Whither? To Beirut... Beirut, with all my heart — but how quickly the days of joy run out!

And so I folded up a long, many-colored page, to come back and fill pages such as I have so often filled!

Europe — I loved her! In her I came to know images of grandeur and beauty I had not known in my own country. And yet... among us are better than they... but it is outside our country that they shine... a secret to make one laugh and weep!!