[In two scenes]
The Minister for Fine Arts (to whose Department had been lately
added the new sub-section of Electoral Engineering) paid a business
visit to the Grand Vizier. According to Eastern etiquette they
discoursed for a while on indifferent subjects. The minister only
checked himself in time from making a passing reference to the
Marathon Race, remembering that the Vizier had a Persian grandmother
and might consider any allusion to Marathon as somewhat tactless.
Presently the Minister broached the subject of his interview.
"Under the new Constitution are women to have votes?" he asked
suddenly.
"To have votes? Women?" exclaimed the Vizier in some astonishment.
"My dear Pasha, the New Departure has a flavour of the absurd as it
is; don't let's try and make it altogether ridiculous. Women have
no souls and no intelligence; why on earth should they have votes?"
"I know it sounds absurd," said the Minister, "but they are
seriously considering the idea in the West."
"Then they must have a larger equipment of seriousness than I gave
them credit for. After a lifetime of specialised effort in
maintaining my gravity I can scarcely restrain an inclination to
smile at the suggestion. Why, out womenfolk in most cases don't
know how to read or write. How could they perform the operation of
voting?"
"They could be shown the names of the candidates and where to make
their cross."
"I beg your pardon?" interrupted the Vizier.
"Their crescent, I mean," corrected the Minister. "It would be to
the liking of the Young Turkish Party," he added.
"Oh, well," said the Vizier, "if we are to do the thing at all we
may as well go the whole h- " he pulled up just as he was uttering
the name of an unclean animal, and continued, "the complete camel.
I will issue instructions that womenfolk are to have votes."
* * *
The poll was drawing to a close in the Lakoumistan division. The
candidate of the Young Turkish Party was known to be three or four
hundred votes ahead, and he was already drafting his address,
returning thanks to the electors. His victory had been almost a
foregone conclusion, for he had set in motion all the approved
electioneering machinery of the West. He had even employed
motorcars. Few of his supporters had gone to the poll in these
vehicles, but, thanks to the intelligent driving of his chauffeurs,
many of his opponents had gone to their graves or to the local
hospitals, or otherwise abstained from voting. And then something
unlooked-for happened. The rival candidate, Ali the Blest, arrived
on the scene with his wives and womenfolk, who numbered, roughly,
six hundred. Ali had wasted little effort on election literature,
but had been heard to remark that every vote given to his opponent
meant another sack thrown into the Bosphorus. The Young Turkish
candidate, who had conformed to the Western custom of one wife and
hardly any mistresses, stood by helplessly while his adversary's
poll swelled to a triumphant majority.
"Cristabel Columbus!" he exclaimed, invoking in some confusion the
name of a distinguished pioneer; "who would have thought it?"
"Strange," mused Ali, "that one who harangued so clamorously about
the Secret Ballot should have overlooked the Veiled Vote."
And, walking homeward with his constituents, he murmured in his
beard an improvisation on the heretic poet of Persia:
"One, rich in metaphors, his Cause contrives
To urge with edged words, like Kabul knives;
And I, who worst him in this sorry game,
Was never rich in anything but--wives."
_________
-THE END-
[H.H. Munro] Saki's short story: A Young Turkish Catastrophe
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