Ioulia D. Dragoume

“ Before one arrived at Yoryi’s house, there was a whole street of low broad steps which Mattina descended slowly one by one, for her back was beginning to ache. When she reached the little blue-washed house she dumped down her load of sticks beside the oven in the courtyard with a great sigh of relief.
She found Zacharia whimpering before a half-eaten “koulouri”—a sort of doughnut with a hole in the middle—which someone had amused himself by tying to a nail in the wall, so that it dangled just out of reach of the child’s little arms. ”

“ Mattina tried to tell her; but talking about Poros was like relating a dream which has seemed so long and which one still feels so full and varied, but which somehow can only be told in the fewest and barest of words. [45]
“Is that all?” exclaimed Antigone, “just trees, and rocks, and sea, and fisher folk, and boatmen? It would say nothing to me! But each one to his taste. Why do you not go back to it and work there?”
“I cannot; each one works for himself on the island; there are no houses in which to serve, there is no money to earn.” ”

“ How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. ”

“ Everyone knows how one’s nice things feel nicer when they are shown to a stranger for the first time, and how even old things of which one has tired regain something of their first charm. The Four were very proud and very fond, each in his or her different way, of their house, and their hill and their sea; so it seemed as though they would never tire of showing little things to Pavlo. ”

“ Mattina wiped her hands on her apron and ran upstairs to her mistress’s bedroom. She found her struggling with Taki’s stiffly starched sailor collar, while Bebeko sitting on the unmade bed, with unbuttoned boots, was howling for his hat which had been placed out of his reach.
“How many more hours are you going to be, cleaning those aubergines, lazy one? How do you want me to dress two children and myself? Have I four hands do you think? Fasten the child’s boots and make him stop that crying.” ”

“ Mattina, with never a look at the two women, who went on talking, ran out of the passage to the open street door. All the music she had ever heard in her life had been the harsh tuneless tunes which men sang sometimes in Poros at the tavern after they had been drinking, or at best the little folk songs which the officers of the Naval School sang to the accompaniment of a guitar on moonlight nights. ”

“ The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.
Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.
A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—
“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”
Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master. ”

“ She thought of the good times when her “babba,” as she called her father, came home from a long absence with the sponge-divers—filling the room with his laugh, the little bare clean room with the big pot of sweet basil on the window seat—telling all that had happened: [43] how this one had not been able to stay so long under water, and that one, the lazy dog, had pretended to be ill, and how the captain had called on him again and again—“Come then, you, Aristoteli! I would rather work with you alone than with ten others; you are always ready to get your head into the helmet.” ”

“ And Aleko answered:—
“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”
And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.
He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. ”

“ Up one narrow steep street, a turn to the left, along a still narrower street almost like a Poros one but far, far dustier, and they came to a stop before a small baker’s shop. On the open slab of the window were quantities of ring-shaped loaves, and heaped up piles of oven-cakes covered with squares of pink muslin. A man was counting some smaller loaves in the dimness of the back of the shop, and a tidy stout woman in a big blue apron was standing at the door. ”

“ They have the gift of beauty. If you live in New York or Boston or Chicago, or any other city where there is an Art museum, no doubt you often go on Saturday afternoons to see the casts of famous statues in the museum,—there may even be a cast hanging on your school-room wall,—and you know that the most beautiful statues, and the most famous, are those which the Greeks made, hundreds of years ago. With all our added years of skill and knowledge we have never been able to make any statues more beautiful than those early Grecian ones. ”

“ If the Greeks bring us this gift of beauty, surely America must some day be a beautiful place to live in, free from crowded tenements, and lovely with fair dwellings.
And the gift of wisdom is theirs; for no philosophers [xvi] are greater than those ancient Greeks, Socrates and Plato; no poets are greater than Homer, who told the story of Ulysses, or Æschylus who wrote a play about how Prometheus brought fire from heaven and gave it to man. Some day I hope you will read some of this Greek poetry and philosophy; you will never be a really well-educated man, or woman, unless you do. ”

“ A note is easily slipped up a sleeve. Is it such a big thing? Well, when I could not find it I said to myself that doubtless Theophani must have taken it, and forgotten to tell me before he went out. You know how absent-minded he is. And when I met him in the square, I forgot to ask him, and never remembered till late this afternoon; and when he said he had never touched it, of course I knew at once it could only have been Mattina who had stolen it. Who else? And I, the stupid one, who have such confidence in people and never lock things up! ”

“ And how good it was the next morning to awake at sea, with the sun high above the horizon on a blue September day, to feel safe and free, to lean over the side of the boat, munching the hunk of bread and the piece of “touloumi”29 cheese which one of the sailors had [94] given her, while she watched the swish and sparkle of the water as the tall prow of the caique divided it, and listened to Capetan Thanassi’s loud orders to his men, as they tacked round by the lighthouse.
Ah! and how good it was, as soon as they turned the corner, to see in the distance the white houses of Poros! ”

“ Now I need not take the steamer for Athens to go and search for you.”
“For me?”
“For who else? Do you think I mean to return to America all alone, and leave my brother’s daughter working for strange folk in strange houses!” [102]
Mattina was beyond speech.
The young man put his arm round her shoulders.
“So you do not know me? Your uncle Petro? Truly how should you? You were a babe in swaddling clothes when I left the island. But look at me! Look at me, then! Have I not the same face as your father—the blessed one? All have told me so.” ”

“ Have you not enough to eat in your house? I should be glad to have your luck.”
Two little ears were cocked on one side of Aleko’s arm and a short tail wagged frantically on the other.
“I wonder how it happens that you are out alone? Has Anneza lost you?”
Just then, coming out on the Kolonaki Square, Aleko descried a young woman carrying a basket, who was looking all around her and peering under the bushes of the enclosure seemingly in great distress. He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled sharply.
“Anneza! Eh! Here is your dog! It is I who have him!” ”

“ The moment poor Iason had been pulled back into the cave, Pavlo suddenly remembered the speck of light in the wall that he had noticed as they were coming out, and without saying a word to anyone, he ran back into the depths of the cave to see if he could find the spot. Almost at once he came upon it, like a little white star in the dark wall of the cave.
Now Pavlo’s mind was of the kind that grown-up people call “logical,” which means that he knew that something could not exist without a reason for it; therefore he argued [178] that if there was a light, there must be an opening ”

“ It was a long way; if the “boya’s” cart only stopped a few moments at the Police Station, it might almost be there before him; so he hurried on, quickening his pace, and now and then breaking into a little run.
He must get there in time! He must! Poor little Solon! Poor little warm, white creature, so full of life! “As clever as a Christian,” as he had told Kyr Themistocli the other day. At this point, he looked at the paper bag of coffee still unconsciously clutched in one hand.
“The old man will eat his bread dry this morning after all; well, what is to be done? It is a small evil.” ”

“ There was the master of the Red House, tall and broad, who looked, Pavlo thought, like an officer without his uniform, and there were four children, two little girls and two smaller boys; there was a big black poodle, a fox-terrier, and a little white dog, of no particular [126] breed, with pointed ears. He was the special property of the eldest girl, and when Pavlo first caught sight of him, he had got hold of her skirt between his teeth and was shaking it vigorously, which he always did whenever he felt excited. ”

“ Now currants grow very well in Greece, and the eager Greeks immediately set to work to raise them for the French market. But they were so eager that they did a foolish thing: they neglected their other crops for the sake of the currants; they put all their eggs in one basket—as the saying goes; and when after many years and much experimenting, France at last got rid of her grapevine pest and no more currants were needed to make French wine, the Greek farmers were left with their currants on their hands. ”

“ You must not fear to ask for whatever your heart desires.”
“My uncle, there is Zacharia too ....”
“What? The little one? I saw him at Kyra Kanella’s. He is very little.” Just for a second the young man hesitated, then—
“Can you care for him on the journey, my maid? A journey of many days, mind you, with a sea which may make you ill; a rough green sea with waves as high as houses; not like this blue joy here. Can you?”
“Surely,” said Mattina, “I can do many things.”
Her uncle looked at the sturdy little figure, and at the strong firm little chin. ”

“ Well! Life to you! It is a dirty world! With whom do you live now?”
“I serve at a house.”
“You have no one in Athens?”
“I have my uncle Anastasi the baker, and my Aunt Demetroula, but they live far from here near the Kolonaki.”16
“Ah, Anastasi Mazelli, your mother’s brother; I know him. A good man! When you see him give him my salutations. Say they are from Capetan Thanassi Nika of Poros, and he will know.”
“I will say it to him,” answered Mattina.
“Well, the good hour be with you, little compatriot!”
Mattina walked back to the house very slowly, with her eyes fixed on the pavement. ”

“ When I take him out he is always straying and making me go cold with fright for fear the ‘boya’3 should catch him.”
“The ‘boya’ only takes dogs who belong to no one. He would not take yours,” said Aleko, turning Solon over on his back with his foot as he spoke.
“Do I know? Now, in this hot weather when dogs go mad, they say that the ‘boya’ gets paid one drachma for every dog he catches; and all he can lay hand on are thrown into his cart. If I had my way the dog should never stir out, but the master says he must have exercise, and if he sees me out without Solon, bad luck for me!” ”

“ The banker gathered his eyebrows together thoughtfully.
“What are your earnings, a year, do you know?” he asked Aleko.
“The ‘big one’ sends one hundred and fifty drachmæ to my mother; he feeds me, and I give him all I earn.”
“What would you do if you were free?”
“I want to learn.”
“To learn what?”
“To learn many things.”
“And out of the many,” said the old schoolmaster, “will grow the one; the one that fills [288] the life of a man. It is well. ”

“ But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight. ”

“ But she knew it was not likely that either of them would be requiring a new serving maid just then. People here did not change their servants like shirts as they did in Athens. In Poros, one took a little girl, one did not even call her a servant, but a “soul-child”; one taught her, one fed her, one dressed [99] her, and in due time one prepared her dowry for her. The doctor, she knew, had got Panouria, the widow’s daughter, as a “soul-child.” No, it was not at all likely; and Mattina heaved a big sigh as she filled her hands with cyclamen for Zacharia. Poros had its troubles too. ”