CHAPTER XI. TENOS.
Like a roseate jewel in a circle of sapphire, with opal and mauve and purple lights struck from it by the sun’s rays, lies Tenos upon the deep and variable bosom of the Ægean waters. The Greek islands seen from the sea are untiringly, unspeakably beautiful. Shadow and shine, delicate hues and strong ones melt into an inextricable haze, as do the sensations of the spectator, incapable of analysis as he watches them. Energy oozes out through the finger-tips, the pulses quiet in lazy delight, and the eye is filled for once with seeing. But the heart is tranquil, unutterably content, and of speech there is no need. Here at last is forgetfulness of sorrow and unrest. Here is the Eastern sage’s dream realised, out of the reach of the envenomed shafts of Fate,—floating indolently on a just stirred field of liquid blue, all land and sky and water is a harmonious blending of the purest tints. An infinitude of azure melts by tranquil degrees into milk-white; a flame as bright as the heart of a pomegranate and blinding as unshaded carmine, steals insidiously into the mountains of mauve, and changes them to pink.
But it is only when your barque draws nigh the sleepy little hollow of a very sleepy little town, that you are shaken out of your exquisite dream of Paradise. You see the harsh subdued contrast of the white houses and their green jalousies, looking as if they had fallen asleep in the Middle Ages, and nobody had remembered to awake them since,—a break of dim barbaric life upon a background of desolate rocks and empty mountain sides. Tenos is certainly not Paradise. It has a little pier, and is a perfect maze of misshapen arches, and filthy lanes, calculated to make the least fastidious stranger shudder in mingled fear and disgust. There are unsavoury little cafés, outside which, at all hours of the day, uncouth men, in dirty costumes, sit drinking and smoking narghiles, which the café-clods carry from one to the other with the long tubes between their lips, and then pass it to the lips of their customers, who are vivaciously, and in passionate earnest, discussing the affairs of Europe, while Providence and the womenfolk are equal partners in the care of their own.
But the town, as you skirt the lanes and arches that crowd down upon the sea-line, has a charm exclusively its own. The tiny streets, when they are paved, are paved with marble; and the houses on either side have a cheerful conversational way of reaching across to shake hands and exchange other amenities. An occasional palm tree lifts itself up against the pure sky, as do the sails of wind mills, circled like monster spiders webs. There is music in the trickling descent of the mountain rills flowing over the marble and silver stones, in and out of which the lizards, quick with life and the joy of the sunshine, are ever coming and going. Then there is that singular construction, the great shrine and pilgrimage of the Virgin of the East, a marble building containing an expansive courtyard, a square of cloisters and pilgrim-houses and a curious semi-Byzantine church, full of monstrous treasures in gold and silver. Over the little town it towers in glistening splendour, on the top of an inclined street, called “Virgin Street,” enframed in silver olives and stately palms, and elegantly paved outside and inside. The sloping way that runs from it right down to the sea, might be ground of shining snow; it is moss embroidered, and lit by the double geraniums that look like roses, and shaded by the gloomy cypress.
The isle of Tenos has pretensions of its own that it were idle for us to dispute. It is divided into sixty-two villages, some of which consist of three churches and four houses, and none show less than three churches for the accommodation of every dozen inhabitants. It will be satisfactory for the law-loving reader to learn that these villages are apportioned into four mayoralties, governed by one mayor and three justices of the peace, and that,—late crown of representative existence, until M. Tricoupis cruelly brought in a bill a year or two ago, which affiliated this “tight little island” with her near neighbour Andros,—it actually sent three members to Parliament, to look after its interests in King George’s Boulé at Athens. But all glory is evanescent. It has been proved by history that it is idle to place any trust in ministers or princes. Heaven knows why Tenos was shorn of her parliamentary splendour, but alas! what is to be expected of an economic minister, who prefers to consider the debts of Hellas rather than her greatness, and who rashly decided that the work left undone by three Members of Parliament may be efficiently accomplished by one? The chief and most exasperating neglect of these late illustrious persons is the formation of roads. There is not a single road throughout the island, and only two level spots, the lovely plain of Kolymvithra, and a quarter of a mile round the great purple Castro, where once the Venetians held their seat of government, their solitary fortress towering over the ruined little town of Borgo. This oasis of pathway, in a desert of precipices and rocky altitudes, runs from the top of the episcopal village of Xinara to the Greek monastery in the village of San Francisco. It is unknown whether it is a remnant of Venetian civilisation or of Turkish barbarism. But it is quite certain that it is not the result of the crown of triple representatives Tenos until lately wore. For the rest of the time, the rider is conducted by an unmanageable mule, which indulges a lively weakness for the dizzy verge of a ravine, along which he phlegmatically picks his way. From almost perpendicular escarpments he drops into awful depths of rock and furze and nettle, to trail his anxious and unhappy burden through the musical bed of a torrent, and damage irretrievably a new pair of boots by forcing them into an inconvenient affinity with rough walls and jutting branches.
After a while, when the frame becomes physically inured to the sensational extremities of this kind of exercise, the traveller discovers that, however dreadful the eccentricities of his mule, the brute is very sure, if leisurely, and that though his position be invariably a discomposing ascent or descent, no harm to his head or his limbs will come of it. He gradually learns to take his troubles philosophically, and look about him with perfect security. If it is evening, he will note the heavenliest sky, and watch the soft mist burn out the sapphire stealingly, while the strata of gold and rose fade to pink and pearly opal. He will delight in the contrast of marble mountain and purple thyme, cyclamens waving the meadows mauve, or poppies covering them in scarlet flakes, and the tall daisies white above the green like the foam of the sea, or anemones making a delicate haze upon the landscape. There will be patches of white heath over the hill curves, and poignant scents to stir the senses. And in and out of the twilit gray of the olives, the darkening glance and sparkle of the sea that is never out of sight,—now laughing through a network of fig branches, then through the stiff spikes of the cactus, or the graceful foliage of the plane, and white villages studding the orchards and gardens like jewels. Over all hangs a strange note of happy indifference, a rude naturalness that seeks no concealment and cares not for shadow, hymns the smiles of blue water and the glory of the sky; the sharp broad beauties of seashore and mountain and valley.
The people are as simple as their landscape. Their lives are spent in Arcadian ignorance and unaccomplished simplicity, as unconscious of the evils of destitution as of the temptation of wealth. They dislike work, and manage to shirk it, for every one owns a garden, a few fruit trees, a goat, a pig, and perhaps a donkey. Dirty in their persons, their houses are invitingly clean, and stand always open.
Leaving the pleasing altitudes of a general survey, the reader is invited to fix his gaze upon the little village of Xinara. Two things strike the observer on entering its single street; the quantity of pigs and unwashed children, and the signs of desolation and pre-existence upon the blackened ruins in suggestive proximity with the comparatively new houses and cottages. Near bright flowers and trellised verandahs, stand broken walls with fig branches and weeds struggling through a dismantled window, and curious Venetian symbols and legends wrought in marble, now black with age and exposure, above the doors and windows that have long since served the pigeons as convenient shelter. With the pigs and poultry peeping through the wooden chinks, you see blocks of marble crusted with gold and silver stones scintillating like flashes of light. Beside a little glaring church, jaunty in its hideousness, stand a row of houses burnt yellow and black, as if they had sustained all the sieges of the Middle Ages, and pierced with pigeon holes like a face with small-pox.
The street is divided in two by a dark stone arch. Instead of the provincial inn, there are three clubs, the blacksmith’s den, the carpenter’s rude workshop, and the single general store. This is kept by the village Lothario, Demetrius, a splendid fellow inclining to corpulency, who wears a ring, a fez, and even goes to the length of washing his hands and face and combing his hair once a day. One is not a village Lothario for nothing. He is married, and hence he adds a disappointed and hopeless air to his fascinating crimson tie whenever he serves or chats with a woman under forty. But he draws the line at forty. Kyria Demetrius has attained that respectable age.
There is a fountain close by, where the women gather with red earthen jars to draw water and indulge in cheerful social intercourse. It is enclosed in a deep, damp arch, black and lichen-grown, with heavy beams of wood supporting its roof, and higher up is the public laundry, a tank with a sloping stone under it, where the laundresses scrub their linen kneeling round, and converse in a dull undertone, varied by an occasional tendency to scream.
The houses are reached by a small flight of marble steps, and are always confined to one floor with a pretty terrace outside, and underneath is stabling for the mules and donkeys and other live stock.
Beyond the archway lies the Catholic Cathedral, with the Bishop’s Palace and Garden. The Church is of respectable size, but ugly, and the Palace a dreary yellow building enlivened by the red tiles of the pectinated roof. But the Bishop’s garden is charming. Goldfinches sing in the Persian lilacs, and the rippling rills are never silent. In the centre, there is a big stone tank and a sun-dial, and the oranges swing like gold balls against the dark cypress. The valley upon which it looks down is indeed a vale of delight. Olives paint a silver mist upon the sunny landscape, and the fig and mulberry foliage lend it colour. The girdling mountains of the neighbouring isles rise sharply against the sky, and in and out their curves, opening upon the roseate shores of Eubœa, breaks the sea like lapidescent blue, while through the moist, grassy plain of Kolymvithra twists and swirls a vein of silver water. The other side of the picture is a view of gloomy mountain, bare grey rock and broken blocks of marble, rising above the tangle of village gardens and trellised verandahs, with their showy display of geraniums, carnations, roses and cactus drapery, from whose bed of peaked leaves gleam large magenta stars. And here and there the windmills make gigantic shadows upon the earth, flocks of pigeons shoot like spots of illuminated snow through the sunlit air, and goats browse amongst the scented furzes of the rocks, in easy companionship with mules and kine.
To reach the house of Pericles Selaka, on the other side of the village, the traveller must make his own pathway with the loose stones in the bed of a minute down-flowing stream. The water is crystal-clear, and nothing can be more engaging than its gurgle and sparkle, but damp feet are the inevitable consequence of its acquaintance. After a wet passage through the torrent-bed, more or less torn and troubled by the neighbourhood of blackberries, thorny hedgerows and tall reeds, he will have to cut his way through a stony meadow, jump the low, loose walls that separate each field, tangle his limbs in a multiplicity of straggling branches and uncultivated growths, and trample ruthlessly upon the pretty heads of the wild flowers. Every shade in foliage, and every hue and odour in flower will charm him: the delicacy of the plane sets off the polished darkness of the oleander and myrtle leaf, the moist glitter of the maidenhair enriches the ferns that spread themselves like fans upon the rocks, and along the vine-branches the shooting leaves begin to uncurl. From the hedges there will be the song of the linnets and goldfinches, and under them the musical lapping of water against stones.
Pericles Selaka’s house had originally belonged to a Venetian noble family, and still showed the coat-of-arms wrought in marble on either side of the gate, with a Latin inscription under a Venetian gondola. It stood above the village, overlooking the two lovely valleys that divide the flanks of the empty encircling hills,—hills bare of all but the glory of their own tint, and the wavering clouds that sweep, soft and shadowy, over the everlasting sunshine. Behind it the mighty Castro, proud in its purple and grey desolation, bereft of its old splendour, but still dominating the island like an acropolis, and in through the openings of its crags, cleft in nature’s fury, runs the sea as through a frame. The courtyard into which the gate opened was gemmed with flowers. In the middle there was a well, and on either side a palm tree with wooden seats under its shade.
It was winter, so the vine-roofed verandah was a flood of sunshine. A short flight of marble steps led to the terrace above, whence Syra, Delos and Naxos might be seen, as well as the sloping fields that drop into the torrent below, and Selaka’s orchard and vineyard, which, at that time, showed pale, slim lines of green just opening upon the brown earth. A watch-dog dozing in view, lazily observed the regular rise and fall of the digger’s spade, and only wakened to sharp activity whenever a venturesome sheep or goat thrust itself upon his notice. An oppressive silence lay upon the land, and there was silence in the house whence the terrace opened.
The room into which you stepped from the terrace was simplicity itself. White everywhere; white sofas, white curtains and white chair covers, with a purple table-cloth edged with wonderful Byzantine embroidery. On a black cabinet there was a goodly display of old Greek jars and lamps; and inside, a tray of antique coins and exquisitely carved silver. These heirlooms are to be found in the poorest Teniote cottages. I have been served by a cottager with water and jam on a heavy silver tray, the water in a delicate Venetian glass with armorial bearings wrought in colours into the glass, and the jam in a costly silver chalice. In a recess there were shelves fitted with the Greek classics, from which the Latin writers were jealously excluded. Your scholarly Greek despises Latin. Sitting at a side table beside a window that looked out upon the Castro, was an old man bent over one of these classical tomes. He was reading in a leisurely, familiar way, as a connoisseur sips his port. Occasionally he lifted his eyes from his book, and removed his black cap, all the while unconsciously and swiftly rolling up cigarettes, and puffing with the same deliberate appreciation noticeable in his manner of reading. He was a keen, thoughtful-looking man, with a curious mingling of black and white in hair and beard.
His solitude was interrupted by the entrance of an old woman, dressed in a garment that may best be described as a black sack. She was a serene little woman, very tidily built, with an indefatigable and sturdy air, and in her brown face sparkled two preternaturally black eyes. She wore a Turkish kerchief of red muslin wound round her head, and outside this an enormous plait of false hair, as is the ungraceful habit of the Island women. This was Selaka’s housekeeper and servant in one. She was called Annunziata.
“This, Kyrie, has just been brought up from the town,” she said, handing him a telegram.
Pericles took the telegram, opened it in his leisurely way,—one naturally grows sleepy on a sleepy island. It was from his brother in Athens announcing Reineke’s coming. Pericles frowned, and looked more thoughtful than ever as he read the communication. As may be imagined, it was neither very delicate nor very wise. It referred to a possible desirable solution of Inarime’s future.
“Humph,” said Pericles, and crushed the missive in his hand, “my brother is sending us a visitor, Annunziata,” he explained, curtly.
“A visitor! Has your brother taken leave of his senses? Surely the visitor who proposes to come here cannot be other than a madman,” said Annunziata, who appropriated the privilege of speaking her mind to her master.
“He was always a fool,” assented Pericles; “however, it is essential that we should sustain our reputation for hospitality; so, my dear woman, you will be good enough to prepare a room for the guest.”
“And why should I prepare? Don’t you know that my rooms are always prepared?” protested Annunziata, hurt in her honour as a housekeeper.
“Yes, yes, but there will be sheets to air, and flowers and such things to put in the room. He is an invalid; and sick men are proverbially difficult to please. They require as much spoiling as a woman,” said Pericles, dismissing the subject with a majestic wave of his hand.
The subject, however, would not be dismissed from his mind, and he sat there with his open book, his eyes persistently wandering from one window to another, looking now out on the bright terrace and then on the gloomy Castro behind. It was hardly human for a father not to speculate upon the coming of this stranger, and its possible consequences. A husband for Inarime! Nonsense! it was not to be imagined that any stray adventurer, whom his brother might choose to pick up, could possibly prove a worthy or desirable mate for that pearl among girls. Besides, he was not prepared to give her to any man who could not indisputably claim to be a Greek scholar. He knew the sort of scholars Europe habitually sends to Greece. Self-sufficient young men or tottering archæologists with a barbaric pronunciation and a superficial acquaintance with Homer and Plato. These were not the scholars he desired to know, nor the sort who, under any circumstances, could prove congenial to him. As for Inarime, she was likely to be still more fastidious. Her beauty and her great gifts entitled her to contempt for less gifted mortals. While thinking thus, a shadow crossed the light of the terrace, and a girl’s form stood framed in the doorway.