for Fuad Bey and his fellow inmates in Vetluga - language
lessons and money matters.//
1 September 1916 Friday
I got up neither early nor late. The
weather is nice. After morning tea
Halis and I worked on German. Then Şerif came and we chatted. I
read
a story in a French book and he wrote the important parts. In the
afternoon we had a
French lesson. Later Halis and I went outside for
a walk. We looked around and watched the
ferries that have come
over the past couple of days and a motor boat cruising on the
river.
Although a lot of goods and sugar are coming to Vetluga these days
the people, and
especially the grocers, are selling sugar to us because
the city has put a price of 28 kopeks on sugar
and the people don’t
want to give it to us for less. They say ‘rather than the prisoners eating
for less, we Russians will eat.’ Before dinner we had a German lesson.
Kör Mehmet came just at
this time and left because it was dinner time.
At night Selahaddin nearly feinted while going
to the toilet because he
became ill. His unconsciousness lasted for quite a while. We put him
in his bed right away and sprinkled water on him. We comforted him.
Again tonight I awoke
shaking in the face of news of a calamity I saw
in a dream.
2 September 1916 Saturday
I got up a bit early. The weather is rather
nice. In the afternoon we
went to the Command to get our salary. I didn’t go because I couldn’t
put my boot on as the result of the sore on my foot. Again, we got
50 rubles each. I’ve gotten 240.5
rubles in total from the Russian
Government. We don’t have any debts but since we need money for
our daily lives, Halis and I wrote a note to Osman asking him to loan
us some money. He lent
us 25 rubles. Today I was mad at myself for
giving that fool, scatterbrained Kazim, two
rubles. Because although
he’s up to his neck in debt he doesn’t think about giving money to
table
d’hote for food. He won’t give up extravagance and always
wants to act like a big shot. May
God set him straight. Today we
didn’t study French but we had German at the regular time. Şerif
came again and we chatted. This month we gave 15 rubles for table
d’hote and one ruble each
to the servants. I lent Salah a ruble. Salah
went to the hospital but the illness he had last
night has gone away.
At night I sat for quite a while and went to bed late. Today Hikmet
was very
distraught over not having any money. I wanted to
console him myself, not because others
would tell me to do so. But
this time I wasn’t able to do it.
3 September 1916 Sunday
I got up rather early. It was dark outside.
The weather is bad, fog
everywhere, rain, storm, everything at once. There’s a coldness
just like the
coldness we feel in the dead of winter in our country.
Today I wrote a new German notebook for myself.
It’s a good was
to keep myself busy. We had our French and German lessons at the
appointed times.
I’m making good progress in German. In late
afternoon Şerif came and he paid me back the ten
rubles he borrowed
from me two months ago. Without me knowing, Halis and Salah had
an argument
toward evening. I happened to look and see that Halis
was down and out. I asked him why and with
difficulty I was able to
find out. I comforted him right away. Again in the evening Halis was
lost in
thought. I struggled but was able to console him and I advised
him not to feel bad with regard to silly
thoughts generated because of
the people he’s surrounded by in this environment. Ah, evil destiny!
I
wish you hadn’t bound me with iron chains.
4 September 1916 Monday
I woke up a bit late. After tea I went to
the market by myself. Halis
went to the bath. I bought a razor and cologne, along with some other
things.
When I got back I went to the bath right away and washed
myself thoroughly. Again we
weren’t able to have a French lesson.
In mid-afternoon Şerif came. We studied the French book. We
had
our German lesson on time. We’re now getting down to basics,
delving into the fine
points. In the afternoon Halis went to the market
and got material for a heavy shirt and some other
cloth, along with a
few other things. We gave Salah another five rubles today so he owes
us a
total of six rubles. We gave Captain Hakkı one ruble, too. We
asked Tahir for 130 kopeks for
today’s sugar. At night I wrote in the
notebook and worked a bit. We chatted as well. This morning at
the
market Captain Hakkı stole something. I hadn’t noticed. He
apparently took two packages of
tobacco from the Tatar’s store but
only paid for one of them. The Tatar’s son told this to Ethem
and he
to the Captain. He was found out and first denied it but then paid the
money. What
shameful things!
5 September 1916 Tuesday
The weather is bad, raining now and then. I
worked until lunch time
trying to turn Halis’s pants inside out. We decided not to have French
lessons anymore. Hikmet objected but he was in the minority so he
gave up. At mid-afternoon
Halis went to the market and I went to the
other side to write German. Today we got the tenses of
the German
verbs for to be. The cold is quite fierce. Even if the sun is shining
during the day
we can’t dress lightly and certainly not at night. Halis
bought some socks from the market. We gave
the heavy cloth we
bought to Captain Hakkı for him to sew it and he brought it to his
house. Today Salah and Istanbul Hakkı fought about, probably,
the table d’hote problem. They
weren’t able to hit each other. Salah
made some crude remarks and started to cry from
nervousness. But
he was in the wrong. Tonight for some reason I felt uncomfortable
but it didn’t
last long.
6 September 1916 Wednesday
The weather is bad but there’s no rain. I
made Halis mad because
of something I said without thinking. He wasn’t right to get mad but
neither was I. In any
event, I was able to mollify him. The Captain
sewed a heavy shirt from one of the
printed cloths we gave him
yesterday and the heavy cloth came, as well. The heavy shirt was
nice but the sleeves were a little short. Today I tried to finish Halis’s
pants. We had a German
lesson today, too. Right now we’re working
on the case endings, which are considered the soul of
German. We
haven’t got the hang of them yet. Today the old table d’hote
committee resigned
officially (probably over yesterday’s fight). Yes,
that was it. Anyway, a new committee was elected
– Burhan and
Hikmet.
//END of PART XLII//
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