CHAPTER XIII. REINEKE’S ARRIVAL AT XINARA.
It was a bright December afternoon when Reineke was left by the Iris upon the little pier at Tenos. Aristides, the “young man of confidence,” who had safely deposited Inarime at her aunt’s at Mousoulou, was sent by Selaka to meet him. Gustav inquiringly scanned his conductor’s face. He disliked its inquisitiveness and keenness, and was repelled by the familiarity with which the fellow held out his hand. But he took the hand, and coldly expressed his satisfaction with his new acquaintance, who explained to him volubly that it would be advisable to rest a little in the town before ascending to Xinara. Aristides then proceeded to guide the stranger to a little café, and Reineke’s visible weakness made even a rest in such a locality grateful. He sat quietly waiting for some coffee, and looked around. Being an Eastern, he felt less shuddering repugnance to the place than an Englishman or Frenchman would have felt. Besides, there was an acute pleasure to be derived from watching the light flash upon the blue waters, and gleam upon the lifted oars until they looked like shining spears. He inferred that Aristides was the son of his host, and conjectured that he would not be likely to draw very largely upon such resources for intellectual enjoyment. And then, personally, he disliked the Greeks, as we know. He was not restless or particularly active, so that he could comfortably get through a couple of hours in this indolent contemplation. But it was with a sense of relief that he saw Aristides approach with a mule upon which he was invited to mount, and slowly they made the difficult ascent. To a strong man such a ride would be discomposing in the extreme; to a man still in the clutch of an intermittent fever it was positive torture. It seemed to Reineke that the attitude of the beast was a constant perpendicular, now with its head for apex and now with its tail and this sort of motion continued a good hour and a half. The musical flow of the torrent beds and the echo of distant waterfalls were heard mingling with varied bird-notes. But how to take æsthetic pleasure in these sounds when one is momentarily expecting to be hurled into eternity, or, at least, in peril of leaving various limbs about the precipices and ravines; now frantically clutching forward and then almost prone backwards to preserve one’s balance!
Little by little, however, his senses began to recover, and he was able to take occasional glimpses of the strange landscape through which he was being hurled. The gathering twilight was dimming the pure air, but had not yet struck out the colours that lay upon the land. The meadows were full of wild flowers, and he noted how beautiful some of the weeds were. The bloom of the fields and the gray mist of the olives, and the purple haze that lay upon the fig branches, tracing their intricate pattern across the silent hills and making their own pathway for the shadows, charmed him. The sparkle and murmur of water, the departing smile of sunshine from the darkening heavens, the early stir of shepherd life, an air so fine that every scent from valley and hillside was discernible from the mingled whole, filled him with a sense of exquisite content. And when he saw the beautiful valley of Kolymvithra unfolded like a panorama under the village of Xinara, and the great purple Castro lost in evening shade, he felt that his perilous ride had not been in vain.
As they rode up the little village street, Demetrius and his satellites were standing outside the blacksmith’s den. The presence of a stranger naturally diverted their thoughts from the rascalities of the Prime Minister at Athens, which they had been discussing.
“That, I suppose, is an Englishman,” said the handsome Demetrius, removing his cigarette, and staring hard at Reineke with an air of ill-concealed discontent, as he addressed himself inclusively to Michael, the contemplative carpenter, and Johannis, the blacksmith.
“He is too dark for an Englishman; it is most likely he’s an Italian,” suggested the carpenter, in a tone of apologetic protest.
“You fool! do you think that every Englishman is yellow-haired and white and red?” retorted Demetrius, snappishly. “But you are not going to deny, I hope, that the man has the conceited air of an Englishman? No other people carry themselves as if the world belonged to them, and those that are not English do not count. And what is all this pride for, pray? Ten of their heroes would not make one of ours.”
“Very true, Demetrius,” concurred Michael, conciliatorily. “If England had produced one Miltiades, we might all go hang ourselves, for no other nation would be allowed to exist. Now here are we good-natured Greeks, who count our heroes by the hundred, and know ourselves to be the point upon which the world, both occidental and oriental, turns, quietly smoking our cigarettes, and willing to allow others a part of the pathway. Whereas an Englishman, when he goes abroad, walks down other people’s streets as if he thought himself merciful in only knocking the owners into the shade instead of crushing them.”
“Well, I can’t say I am for England either,” said Johannis, diving his hands into the pockets of his blue cotton pantaloons. “I always thought she was too fond of helping herself to parts of the globe which she had no right to, and of battering others into submission. But it cannot be denied that she is very rich and sufficiently attentive to the affairs of Greece. London, I hear on first-class authority, is a wonderful place. You know Marengo, the captain of the Iris, stayed there a week; but he never once ventured out of the hotel alone, so frightened was he by the noise and the people. He solemnly swears he saw fifty trains steaming in and out of the station at the same time. It sounds incredible, but Marengo is positive. He counted thirty, but his head grew dizzy, though he saw he had only got through half the number. When driving he had to keep his eyes and ears closed, expecting every minute to be killed by the thousand cabs that whizzed round him as quick as lightning. He could not understand how the people managed to cross the streets, some of them a mile in width!”
“You may believe half of what Marengo says, Johannis,” cried Demetrius, “he is an unconscionable liar. However, I have certainly been assured that London is a largest kind of town, perhaps a little more extensive than Athens, but then I never believe all I hear. I like to judge things for myself. Not that I have seen Athens either; but I believe it to be the finest city in the world. Why, was not Athens founded long before London or Paris were heard of? Do not people come every day from America to see it, and guardians have to be placed about the Acropolis to prevent strangers robbing its stones or relics? I would be glad if you could name a Greek who would go to London or America for a relic!”
Demetrius looked as if he had sufficiently clinched the matter. If travellers come to Greece for a purpose which certainly does not inspire the Greeks to go to foreign parts, it clearly proves the advantage on the side of Greece.
“True enough, Demetrius,” assented Michael, “and do we not know that Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister of England, is more anxious for our safety than that of his own people? And he would gladly exchange London for Athens to-morrow if he could, and mind you, he has seen both places. If we go to war this year, depend upon it, Mr. Gladstone will send us men enough to smash the Turks.”
“We will accept England’s aid when we need it,” said the village Lothario, condescendingly, with a dramatic gesture, as he threw away the end of his cigarette. “But we know very well that three hundred Greeks are more than a match for ten thousand Turks, as they were for the Persians in the olden days.”
Demetrius, you will perceive, was learned, and that was why he was president of the clubs.
“Where are you going shooting to-morrow?” asked Johannis, who knew nothing about the Persians, and resented their introduction with the unreasonable jealousy and bigotry of ignorance.
“I am going to shoot round Koumara,” said Demetrius, testily.
“It’s poor shooting you’ll get there,” remarked Johannis. “I am going to Mousoulou. I shot a lot of wild pigeons there last Sunday and bagged larks and sparrows by the dozen.”
In the meantime, through a running fire of continual comment, and under the gaze of every pair of eyes the village possessed, Reineke, conducted by the cheerful and voluble Aristides, was led down the torrent and round by the windmill upon the brow of the hill, to the little postern gate which led into Selaka’s vineyard. He was so exhausted that in dismounting he had to lean heavily upon Aristides, and slowly walked up the sloping path to the gate. It was opened by Annunziata, who flashed him a delightful smile of welcome, and at that moment Selaka himself hastened forward, and shook him cordially by the hand. But Reineke was too weak and fatigued to do more than smile faintly, and murmur some unintelligible phrase, upon which he was helped into the house, and there collapsed at once upon the sofa. Here we will leave him in the sleep of complete exhaustion, feeling shattered and bruised and as if a week’s sleep would be insufficient to recuperate him.
CHAPTER XIV. (From Reineke’s Note Book.)
MUTE ELOQUENCE.
Contrary to my expectations, I awoke on the morning after my arrival at Xinara refreshed, with only that sensation of fatigue in the limbs that makes it delightful to lie perfectly still and revel in the luxury of homespun and lavender-perfumed sheets. The bed was the softest I ever slept on, the room the prettiest and freshest I ever wakened in. Such light, such a cheerful display of linen as everywhere greeted my eyes! In the garden, by the drawn blind, I could see Persian lilacs, in which the birds had evidently built their nests, and down among the trees of the orchards thousands of others seemed to have congregated. The effect of their aubade on this lovely winter morning was curious. It began by a soft twitter, which gradually deepened its volume, until it swelled upon mighty waves and beat frantically against the silver gates of the morning in a shower of sound. It shook the closed shutters like hail that lashes the earth outside. In the half haze of troubled sleep, I imagined, at first, that the heavens had suddenly opened in an unwonted downpour, but as soon as I was thoroughly awake, and glanced upon the dim world which slowly unfolded beneath the light of the breaking day, I understood and recognised the cause of this patter against the panes. The increasing red of the east began to sweep across the pallid sky, washed the lingering moon white, and enriched the zenith with a dash of warm blue. I got up and opened the nearest window, and then lay back to follow the movement of that impetuous swell of music, sustained with exquisite orchestral harmony. The sound seemed to travel round and round in a circle, continuously gathering force, and then burst into a flood of song. An indistinguishable tumult of wave with ever this strange, perpetual, circuitous movement, as if all the birds of all the gardens and woods had met, and were whirling round and round this spot of earth in some mad dance of wing. I think I must have slept again, or perhaps I lay in an open-eyed dream for some time. When I looked once more out of the window, I saw the bright pleasant little woman, who had welcomed me the night before, walk sturdily down the path that leads to the village, with her red water jar placed on her shoulder, one muscular brown arm flung round her head to support it. What a pleasure it was to watch her! She looked so secure, so contented, so seriously active, and there was a light in her eye which betrayed something more than cheerfulness,—a sense of humour, and a kind of still laugh just traced the faintest sympathetic line round the mouth. I supposed her to be the mother of that intolerable youth who had led my mule last night, and who served me as guide in my most memorable ride.
My restful solitude was broken by the entrance of Annunziata, carrying a little tray with coffee, an inviting roll called Koulouria, and some cigarettes. She placed it beside me, and then touched my hand softly, and stood and smiled upon me with maternal benignity.
“You are rested, Kyrie?” she asked.
“Quite fresh, and ready for another ride,” I answered, laughing.
When I had partaken of this sober fare, she begged me to be still awhile, and held a light and a cigarette for me. I am fond enough of a recumbent attitude, and nothing loth, accepted the proffered sedative. Then she trotted off with her inimitable air of sturdy serenity, and hardly had she left me to my own contented thoughts when the door opened, and in walked Aristides. Is it not unreasonable to dislike a man, for no other reason than that his exterior and certain tricks of manner revolt you? The fellow is really a decent fellow, but he has a way of lifting the pressure of his lithe frame from one foot to another, and of running his forefinger along his shapely nose, that provokes me to the verge of exasperation. I watch for these tricks with an unaccountable impatience, and when they come, I am invariably harassed with the suppressed impetuosity of physical rage, and expect before long to fling something at him. He entered the room with an air of polished familiarity, took a chair, uninvited, as if he were a prince of the blood whose condescension singularly honoured me, and smiled in large affability and tolerance as he began to roll a cigarette. After a pause he remarked casually, with a very apparent desire to set me at ease:
“Vera nice counthry, Ingland, like vera much I do Ingleesh—large place, I hear.”
I nodded, and patiently waited to learn why I should be attacked in execrable English.
“I knew Ingleeshman in Smyrna. He vera nice man, touch vera well piano. You touch piano?”
I admitted an innocent weakness that way, and continued to smoke complacently, tickled by the humour of the situation.
“You are Ingleesh, sarr?”
“I have not that honour.”
“Ah, vous êtes Français?”
I failed to claim that great and much belauded nationality, whereupon Aristides, indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge, and anxious to confound me with his linguistic skill, burst out radiantly:
“Sie sind Deutsch.”
“If you will condescend to speak your own language and spare me your exasperating murder of Continental tongues, it may be of some slight advantage to you and me,” I cried.
My unaccustomed violence in nowise discomposed him. He proved his philosophic superiority by blandly smiling, as if to turn aside a wrath he considered childish and inconsequent, rolled another cigarette, leant forward, lit it, and observed, with an air of casual approval, that it was a pleasing surprise to meet a foreigner who could speak Greek. He then proceeded to question me with the savage candour and curiosity of his race. He was eager to learn my income, its source, the cost of the clothes I wore, if they were purchased in Paris or in London, if I admired the Greeks and Greece, if I were married, or disposed to marry a Greek, if my parents were alive, and how many brothers and sisters I had. To those singular questions I replied curtly, contemptuously resolved to see how far he would push his indiscreet investigations. Then when I grew tired, I proceeded to obtain a little information on my own account. From the communicative Aristides I learned that the amiable doctor, who so wisely recommended me the bosom of nature and innocence, is for inscrutable reasons recognised as the King of Tenos, that he is a member of King George’s Parliament, and by claim of obstruction unillumined by a rushlight of intelligence or motive, is called the Parnell of Greece.
My host, it appears, is a more interesting character. His attitude towards the moderns is that of unsparing contempt. He lives with the ancients, and entertains a very lively horror of that superior people, the French. His daughter is reputed to be a handsome and cultivated young woman, to whose hand every unmarried male of the island aspires. She has an exquisite name, Inarime. When I got rid of Aristides, I lay back and conjectured a variety of visions of the owner of such a name. In turn I dismissed from my mind the amiable maiden, the attractive peasant girl, the chill statue and the haughty pedant, the Arab, the Turk, the Italian of the Levant. Not one of these seemed to fit in with my ideal of Inarime, and the thought that she had left Xinara before my arrival fretted me strangely with a sense of baffled desire.
“Just an old pagan philosopher,” Aristides had said, speaking of Selaka, “who keeps the handsomest girl of Tenos locked away from everyone, as if a glance were a stain. He seems to regard her as a goddess, and nobody here worthy to look upon her divinity. That is why he sent her away before you came. He distrusts you and every other Christian. Now, if you happened to be a Pagan, I have not the slightest doubt he would be willing to marry you right off to Inarime.”
Why should this impertinent suggestion of Aristides have shot the blood of anger and shame into my face? And yet it did, and the heat remained after the fellow had left me to my own reflections. I do not think that I am specially nervous or sensitive, but the shock of that idea touched me with a force that made me shrink as from a prophecy. I dreaded to meet Inarime, and almost resented her exile on my account. There may be something flattering to our masculine vanity in the fact that a beautiful girl has been sent into banishment on our account, but this balsam did not heal a certain dull ache of dismay and resentment.
In this unreasonable mood Selaka found me. He inquired after my health with measured courtliness, and suggested a variety of additions to my comfort. I was dressed now, and reclining on a sofa. Without hesitation I followed his advice to breathe the air of the terrace awhile. The broad sunshine and the open-air serenity of the scene soothed and calmed me, and I felt I could have been content to sit thus for hours watching the flapping shadows of the windmills upon the sunny hills, under the spell of the noon-day silence of nature. My host sat beside me, the inevitable cigarette between his fingers, with a sharp but kindly glance turned occasionally upon me. I imagine the question of my nationality was perplexing him, and he was, perhaps, seeking an occasion to elicit direct information from me on this point. But this did not conceal from me that the normal expression of his fine dark eyes showed the glow of an impersonal enthusiasm, doubtless lit by his long devotion to the ancients. By reason of his rough-hewn and unfinished features, he looked rather a simple good-natured peasant, removed from the sordid conflict and merely animal sensations of husbandry, than a learned pedagogue or an earth-removed philosopher; a man fond of questioning the stars and his own soul, but not indifferent to the delights of shepherd-life; capable of sparing a daisy and stepping out of the way of a burdened ant, when he walked abroad with Plato or Thucydides in his hand. It struck me that Inarime could be no vulgar glittering jewel to be thus carefully shielded from the irreverent gaze by this sage of Tenos.
“I think you cannot be French,” he said, at last.
“Reineke is a German name,” I answered, evasively, for it was not my wish to court coldness by an avowal of my nationality.
“Ah, it is well. I do not like the French.”
“And yet your countrymen adore them,” I said, and laughed.
“So they do, so they do—to their sorrow and shame.”
“How can that be? Is France not admittedly the first nation of the civilised world?” I exclaimed.
“That depends upon what is understood by civilisation. If you mean humbug, vice, vanity and bluster, infamous plays and vaudevilles, immoral literature generally, you may crown France with a triple crown of shameless glory. But if you mean truth, good manners, purity, sense and honourable restraint in all things, as the old world understood it, then France is below all other countries to-day. It is because Greece is so infatuated with France that I completely despair of her future.”
“It seems to me that you are charging an innocent country with the vices of a depraved town. France is not Paris, and Paris is the sinner.”
“Paris! France! It is one. The country looks on complacently, and approves the nameless follies of the city. It makes no effort to impede her fatal career, and is not dismayed to see her, with her band of lascivious poets and novelists, dance madly towards her doom, in the degradation of decay, with a weak and dissolute smile on her worn lips.”
“Do you condemn all her writers?”
“Upon moral and artistic grounds I condemn all unreservedly. You are one of those who, perhaps, call Victor Hugo great. I do not. ‘Words, words, words,’ as Hamlet says, and nothing to come at them. Chip away all the superfluous decorations and excrescences of ‘Notre Dame,’ and measure it by the severe restrictions of Greek Art. You have twenty pages, strengthened, purified, with only essential action and speech, instead, of two long volumes of intolerable verbiage. No, sir; France’s sentence has been pronounced. One day Germany will sweep her away, with her vices and her graces, and they, I admit, are many. She is in a debilitated and anæmic state, starting up in spasms of febrile vitality, and the sooner her destiny is accomplished, the better for us and all other such feebly imitative peoples. Have you stayed long in Athens?”
“No, in fact I have seen nothing as yet of the town.”
“Ah, then you have yet to learn why I, and every true lover of Greece, should hate the name of France. The men and women in Athens speak bad Greek, though there is no reason why their speech should not be as pure as Plutarch’s. Every one chatters in bad French, with what object it would puzzle the Lord himself to discover. The women rave about Ohnet, a vulgar writer whose style even I can know to be execrable. Like the illustrious Hugo, the men read Zola, and are thereby much improved. There are French vaudevilles and cafés-chantants; our army is superintended by Frenchmen, who draw large salaries for the privilege of laughing at us. Paris condescends to send our women its cast-off fashions at enormously disproportionate prices. Athens is, in fact, a small, dull, feeble Paris,—Paris in caricature, without the fascination of its many-sided life.”
He stopped suddenly, half-ashamed and slightly flushed after his burst of indignation. When we had smoked a cigarette apiece, I made careless mention of his brother, and asked about his family. Constantine, he told me, had long ago married a handsome Levantine who, after a few months of conjugal discord, had attempted to shoot him, and then betaken herself to Constantinople with a native of Syra. This disaster had naturally tended to convince Constantine of the nothingness of marriage, and he had since remained in single inconsolation. Pericles himself had been blessed with a wife, picked up at Ischia, as lovely in soul as in body, but here again was demonstrated the singular fleetingness of wedded bliss. This pearl among wives melted away in the crucial test of childbirth—and Selaka was left, bereaved and truly forlorn, with a baby girl upon his hands.
Later on in the afternoon Selaka joined me, just as my senses were lazily shaking themselves out of the thrall of siesta. He asked me if I were interested in the study of ancient Greek, and upon my enthusiastic affirmative, his face brightened and his manner immediately assumed a cordiality and a pleasure that charmed me. He invited me to accompany him in his walk through his orchard and vineyard; and truly a delight it was to me to be brought face to face with a nature so simple and a mind so exquisitely cultivated as his. Perhaps it would be thought that such exclusive recognition of the past and such a profound and unutterable contempt for the present were narrow and pedantic. That it tended to lessen his interest in humanity cannot be denied. But how very precious, from sincerity and undecorated speech, were the thoughts to which he gave expression during our leisurely walk! Much as I delighted, however, in the ancients, and deeply interesting as was any discussion upon the old Greek writers, I could not get out of my head the one word “Inarime.” I was haunted with the wish, nay, almost the need, to hear something of her, and at last, after a pause in our conversation, I hazarded the question:
“Is your daughter married?”
Selaka fixed me with a quick, suspicious glance, and said, coldly,
“My daughter is young; it will be time enough yet to think of marrying her!”
“Then she does not live with you?” I persisted, with pardonable indelicacy.
“She is at present staying with her aunt at Mousoulou,” said Selaka.
I ought to have let the subject drop upon these strong hints, but I went on:
“I am told she is very beautiful.”
“You have been told the truth,” said Selaka.
I saw that further questioning would be indiscreet. However discursive he might be upon the subject of the ancient Greeks, his reticence upon the subject of Inarime was not to be shaken.
Thus passed my three first days in Xinara. Aristides invariably wounded and offended me by his impertinent freedom and his still more impertinent confidences. It appears Aristides is one of Inarime’s admirers, and being promoted to the rank of chief muleteer to his mistress, naturally regards himself as having scored above all his rivals. The early morning was generally spent by me in exploring the neighbouring hills alone. In the afternoon I accompanied Selaka round his small estate. A tranquil, healthy existence it was, and under its influences my late fever and languor left me. With recurrent health I gained in vitality and spirits, and had I not been pursued by an indefinable curiosity—a sense of baffled hope,—I should ere this have been measuring my forces for a return to Athens.
* * * * * * *
It was the fourth day since my arrival from Tenos, when I opened the door of the bright sitting-room with the intention of passing an hour or two among Selaka’s choice books. Looking out upon the desolate Castor,—seeming the more desolate because of the cruel joy of the sunshine that so ruthlessly exposed its empty flanks, my ear was attracted by the sound of hysterical sobbing and half-angry expostulation, that came from the courtyard through the opposite open window. I walked across the room, wondering what could have happened to disturb the active serenity of Annunziata. My eyes fell upon a village woman, whose withered, sunburnt face was lifted in tearful prayer to another, who sat with her back to me, leaning over a little table. There was something exquisitely youthful and gracious in the attitude,—of majestic youth in the line of the figure clad, as I could see, in some dark yellow stuff. But the small head was completely hidden in a muslin kerchief of spotless white, with a Turkish border of yellow and crimson.
There was a restraint and firmness—an unconscious grace in the pose, and I felt my pulses quicken with eagerness to see the face. Could this be a young judge measuring awful depths of iniquity in a criminal? A cold Diana reproving undue tenderness, a wise Athena rebuking folly? I listened. The villager’s brogue and voluble utterances were difficult to follow. But I gathered that there was question of a letter that had been written, and that the dictator’s mind had altered, and that she now wanted one written in an entirely different spirit.
“I am so sorry, Kyria. He will never come back to me if he gets that letter, and what does anything matter to me as long as he remains away? Tell him that I am not angry with him; that I will bear anything rather than that he should not come back to me. If he would only leave her and come away from Smyrna! Tell him anything, young lady, that will touch him,—I am so lonely, so weary of waiting for him!” I heard the woman say.
“But, my poor woman, what proof have I that, if I rewrite the letter in this new mood, you will not be sorry for the leniency in another hour, and implore me to write an angrier letter for you?” The voice was clear and soft, with a curious throat sound that somehow carried with it the idea of velvet. Something in it seemed to draw me with an ache of desire to see the speaker. I acted upon an unaccountable and irresistible impulse. It compelled me in a kind of dreamy expectation down the marble steps, and, standing with my hand upon the top of the pillar, close to her, my intense gaze was an equal compulsion to her.
She moved her head round slowly, and our eyes met. Was it the shock of recognition, the awful bliss of surprised surrender, the force of revelation, undreamed, unawaited, yet not the less complete because of its suddenness, that held our glances in a steady dismay?
I laid down my arms at once happy, contented, prone, in a sacred servitude; but she, I could divine, with the delicate instinct of maidenhood, strove to struggle and release her soul. But no effort of even her imperious will could move her eyes from mine, upon which they rested in the mute eloquence of dazzled entreaty, shining as if they were filled with light. And then slowly their golden hue faded into a wistful brown, and slowly, grudgingly drooped their lids,—and mine, as if by instinct, dropped. It was only afterwards that I could remember the glory of her resplendent youth, and dwell upon the flash of her great beauty.
She laid her hand upon the head of the kneeling, sobbing woman, and said:
“I cannot write your letter to-day, Katinko, but come to me at Mousoulou,” and then turning, looked at me again, this time with less trouble and dismay through the unfathomable tenderness of her gaze,—looked at me steadily, commandingly, unconsciously reminding me that she was sovereign lady, and that not one inch of her sovereignty would she forego for me. I humbly accepted the dismissal of her eyes, without a word of protest or prayer, though the pulses of my body rang with frantic urgence for both. I stood to let her pass me, and was strong enough to resist the temptation to touch her hand as a suppliant might, to prostrate myself before her as a servant. But no; our attitude must be that of equals, something told me. If she be queen then must I be king; sovereign, too. Not servant, Inarime. King of you, as you, beloved, are henceforth queen of me!
I went to my room and tried to think. But thought was vain as action—I could only feel. Feel that I had seen Inarime; that my soul had touched hers; that there was henceforth no life apart for either of us. While I sat thus, dismantled of reality, and full of an overpowering joy, I heard the harsh voice of Aristides checking the impetuosity of his mule, and the words “Kyria” and “Mousoulou” caught my wandering attention.
I drew near to the window in a thrill of alarm. Inarime was seated on the mule, with no other shelter from the beating sunbeams than the white kerchief bound round her head. A strong impulse swept through me to forbid this departure, to cry out passionately against the injustice of flight and desertion. But this folly would but imperil my position. What right had I to usurp authority and claim upon the surprised declaration of her eloquent eyes? And there came upon me a sense of the perfect tact of her action, its true fitness in accord with the dignity of her sex. Pursuit was for me,—not flight, but a delicate, cold aloofness was hers by divine privilege. Not other would I have her than sensitively alive to the gracelessness of serene and easy conquest. And I was not hurt, was I, by this withdrawal from the new light of day, for her will must ever now be my own.
CHAPTER XV. (From Reineke’s Note Book.)
A SILENT BETROTHAL.
When I joined Selaka in his afternoon stroll, he appeared to notice something different in my step and in my eyes. I felt myself as if I sprang rather than walked, and my glance saw nothing distinctly that it rested upon: it was impeded and clouded by the intense illumination from within. Yet never before did the bare, sunny hills look to me more lovely; never did the Greek isles, rising above their happy waters like rose and mauve clouds upon a blue sky, seem more dreamily enchanting. I remember nothing of our conversation. I walked beside the old man, drunk with my own speechless bliss, and answered his questions at random. And all the while my soul sang aloud its pæan, and the whole earth seemed to smile upon me out of one girl’s grave luminous gaze. Inarime! It seemed to me that the sweet air trembled with the shaking impulses of my intemperate gladness.
Two days passed thus. Blind and absent as I was, I could remark the sullen suspicion of Aristides’ manner, no longer vexing with its impertinent familiarity, but repulsing me with insolent sullenness. I paid no heed to this childishness. But I was struck with the fellow’s extraordinary penetration. Whence could he have divined there was aught in me to fear or distrust? There was something of the extreme fineness and subtlety of the animal instinct in his intuition, which completely eluded my observation. But Annunziata simply attributed my restored strength and serene joy to the notoriously beneficial influences of mountain air. She always greeted me with her cordial smile, and sometimes ventured to pat my hand in a motherly way. I delighted in her noiseless activity, and in her sturdy self-reliance. Tears for self I should imagine had never dimmed her bright black eyes, and the lines time had traced upon her brown forehead were not lines of pain and mental travail, but the marks of healthy, contented labour. It was a lesson to watch her carry her water jar from the village fountain, or lay the table, without hurry or anxiety, with the perfect ease of punctuality and order. Selaka, I felt, was studying me, half in perplexity, half in alarm, yet with increasing approval. He liked me, and with the days grew his cautious esteem into precipitate affection.
On the third day from my meeting with Inarime, he joined me in the early morning, as I sat upon the terrace, smoking and revelling in the lovely air. My heart could no longer bear this silence and separation, and my tongue at last resolved to give utterance to its urgent claim.
“Will your daughter remain much longer at Mousoulou?” I asked, conscious that my voice was unsteady from eagerness.
“I have not yet decided,” said Selaka quietly.
“Kyrie Selaka, I have a favor to ask you—the very greatest one man can ask another.”
I looked round into his face as I spoke, and knew I was pale to the lips.
“You wish to see my daughter,” said Selaka gravely.
“Nay, I have seen her. I want you to take me to her.”
The old man sat for awhile motionless as a statue, then he rose, and paced the terrace in severe and anxious reflection.
After a pause, that seemed to me interminable, he stopped in front of me, and looked in silence into my eyes. He shook back his head, as if he had come to a supreme decision, placed one hand on my shoulder, and held his beard with the other.
“Why not?” he asked, and then sat down beside me.
“That is not worthily said, Kyrie Selaka,” I could not help exclaiming, reproachfully.
“I see. You think I should ask ‘why’ rather than ‘why not,’” said Selaka, smiling softly. “And you are right; it is ‘why?’”
“Why?” I cried, impetuously, “because I love her, because I am hers, and she, I know, is mine.”
“Gently, my son, gently,” he interposed, laying his hand soothingly upon mine. “It seems to me that for a German you possess a pretty lively and reckless temperament. That having looked upon my daughter, her beauty should fire your young blood with romantic aspirations, is but natural. That you should ardently wish to see her again, is as it should be. But that you should hurl yourself with desperate passion into this rash and unconsidered decision that you are hers and Inarime is yours—my son, my son, it is not thus that I desire Inarime should be loved. From stormy scenes and the tempestuous fluctuations of passion would I jealously guard her, as from other noxious influences. The state of romantic love I regard, in common with all serious thinkers, as the very worst and most degraded state of bondage into which man can fall. It is equally unreasonable in its sickening depressions and in its passionate anticipations. I can see that it is only fruitful in cruelty, in folly, in stupidity, in crime and reckless blunders. Its miseries are immeasurable, and grievously restricted is its circle of joys.”
“But surely, sir, it was with this kind of romantic love that you loved your wife, Inarime’s mother,” I retorted.
“It was not so, my son. I loved her with the priceless affection that is based upon tranquil knowledge, upon spiritual affinity and inalterable esteem. Had the Gods left her to me, very jealously would I have sought to preserve her from the wintry winds of sorrow and poverty, and harsh experiences. Dear to me was she, as a complete blessing, and profound was my grief when she was taken from me. But I did not pursue her with the unthinking ardour of a burning desire, nor was my soul consumed in its fires. I saw that she was good and serene, and her beauty was an added charm. I sought her in the noontide of life, as one seeks shade in the noontide of day.”
“But, sir, I beseech you, do not judge us all by this high and inhuman ideal. We cannot all be sages. The passions will speak with terrible insistence in youth, however heavy a chain of habit and restraint may encompass them, and I cannot think there is aught unworthy or degrading in their petulant voice. We love not the less nobly and purely because passion is the font from which our love springs. If it prompts imperious exactions, may it not be that it urges sublime devotions? Man has nobly died for the sake of that romantic love you condemn, and what sacrifice can be finer than a woman’s surrender to it?”
“There should be neither sacrifice nor death. Reasonable beings should strive to meet and fulfil the decrees of destiny, in measure and calm acceptance of the laws of nature; not upon any violent urgence of the emotions, allow themselves to be swept away and precipitated into depths like powerless leaves whipped by the blast.”
“But if I recognise the decree of destiny that commands me to love Inarime, must I not obey it?”
“Be temperate; that is all I ask of you. Be just, too, and as little foolish and indiscreet as it is possible for a young man so blinded as you are,” said Selaka, and I thought he did not look extremely offended or discomposed by my impulsiveness.
“And when will you consent to put my discretion and my wisdom to the proof?” I persisted.
“To-morrow morning we will go to Mousoulou.”
To-morrow, Inarime, to-morrow! That was all I could think of as I sat and counted the hours, and my heart now sank within me in the complete prostration of yearning, and then rose to intoxicating heights upon the splendid wings of promise. I walked up and down the terrace all night, and watched the stars, as glorious and varied as the hopes that sprang and wavered and clamoured around me. Oh, the stillness, the soft yet sharp enchantment of a night-watch upon an Ægean island! The distant murmur of the restless sea breaks the silence of the land, and the shadowy hills fall into the dense veil of the valleys. The charm enters the soul like a pang, and it works upon the quickened senses with the subtle mingling of exasperation, of poignant and tranquil feelings. I felt chill as the twilight crept slowly over the night, and the stars began to pale and drop, one by one, out of the dim sky, like extinguished lamps, tracing a faint milky-way where their blue and golden illumination had been. Then quickly shot into the eastern horizon an arch of blood-red cloud, and showed the sea silver beneath it, and over this scarlet bridge appeared the sun, like a ball of living light ready to explode upon the pallid scene. And then the birds of the orchard began their piercing harmonies, and the wide spears of the grasses glistened with their crystal gathering of the night-dews. Day had come; my day, Inarime, and yours.
Contact with cold water did duty for sleep. I felt quite refreshed when I entered the little sitting-room where the coffee and Koulouria were served.
“You are early,” said Selaka, greeting me with an intangible smile, “and yet I am not wrong in believing you were walking on the terrace long after every one had gone to bed.”
I nodded, and drank my coffee as if it were nectar. I almost choked myself in my eagerness to dispatch my Koulouria, and hugely pleased Annunziata by begging another cup of her excellent coffee. One has not just recovered from a fever and held a tryst with the stars without serious result to one’s appetite.
After breakfast, under a delicately-clouded sky, we rode through the episcopal village of Xinara, this time, to my satisfaction, unaccompanied by Aristides. The narrowness of the passage compelled us to ride in single file until we had passed the bishop’s palace and all the gardens and pigeon-holed hamlets with their bright terraces and flowers. We turned up off the path round the great Castro, which, near, looks even more impressive than afar, burnt red and brown with the sun and rain, the wild thyme making a purple and scented haze upon its enormous flanks. Skirting the ruins of Borgo, all the valleys and vine plantations and orchards, girdled with hill beyond hill, burst upon our view in a magnificent panorama. Everywhere the sharp contrast of silver, olive and blue sea, and beneath us a vein of humid light flashed and twisted itself like quicksilver through the plain, until a bar of rocks broke it into an impetuous descent of foam. Silence lay upon the land, and alternately soft and glowing colours were swept across the empty hills by the wind-pursued clouds and the variations of sun-fire. Here and there little petulant torrents dashed noisily down the precipices, to twine themselves in the valleys and resume their wild course, wherever the rocks rose and shot them into frothy music. As we rode through each village, the curs came out, and stood near a group of pigs to examine us with a depressed and listless air, or bark at us from the ledge of a rock in a half-hearted way. Children with matted hair and glances of dull curiosity, surveyed us gravely, and whispered their opinions, and the villagers stared at us with inconvenient candour and solemnity. As we neared Mousoulou, a fine mist began to fall from the upper peaks, like a thin veil gradually thickening until it enveloped the landscape in a grey pall. I enjoyed the prospects of damp mountain scenery, but I could see that Selaka, like all Greeks, was made unhappy and nervous by it.
We reached Mousoulou drenched. A lover may be permitted to shrink from presenting the front of a water-dog to his mistress, and I was keenly relieved to learn that Inarime and her aunt were out when we arrived. An old woman welcomed us, and offered Selaka one sofa of honour and me another. We were administered a glass of cognac, then Selaka left me to listen to the wind howling furiously against the windows, bending the heads of the flowers on the terrace, and freezing my feet as it blew in under the chinks of the five doors that opened off the room. Undeterred by the rain, the villagers came in batches to inspect the stranger—men, women and children. It was a kind of theatrical entertainment for them, with the agreeable merit of being free of charge, and they availed themselves of the occasion with great good-will. The delighted old woman stayed and did the honours of the spectacle, explained me and appraised me with refreshing candour, and after a burst of exclamations, they all stood round perfectly calm, a row of offensive statues.
Can any reader, not experienced, possibly conjecture the nameless irritation of thus being silently, mercilessly stared at, and what black thoughts of murder may rush through the excited brain under it? I think not. When at last I had reached the white-heat of exasperation under this awful Greek gaze, I rose and turned my back on my tormentors.
The landscape was now folded in a grey mist, broken by the lines of the walls, the spires and perforated belfries. Out of this grey picture showed patches of brown earth and dark rock below the draped head of Mount Elias, and the trees looked like ghosts. The sky was a field of colourless cloud, and the flower-heads on the terrace pierced the opaline vapour with eyes of brilliant reproach. On a distant hill-curve a group of animals were shivering, and near by the raindrops made big pools upon the marble pavement. And soon the grey grew to opaque white, and rushed from the brow of Mount Elias like a swift cloud blotting out the meadows and valleys. Where was the glory of the morning? And where was the warmth of my heart?
“Do you know, sir, that I am inclined to think that I have been quite long enough on view?” I cried, when Selaka returned.
Selaka smiled, and I burst into an irritable laugh, which seemed to impress the audience in the light of a new act. They pressed nearer, and broke into inarticulate sounds of wonder and grave approval. I thought they meditated a general embrace, but they contented themselves with keeping the air from me, poisoning the atmosphere, and expectorating profusely.
“Don’t you think, sir, that it would be possible to hint politely that the entertainment is over?” I piteously implored.
Upon a word and gesture of authority, the audience straggled out, and doubtless held a parliament elsewhere to discuss the remarkable phenomenon.
“Surely your daughter is not out in this rain?” I asked, as soon as we were left to ourselves.
“No, she is sheltering in Steni. She accompanied her aunt on a visit to a sick woman.”
I looked round the large nude room, so chill and cheerless after Selaka’s pretty sitting-room. The floor was marked with the wet clogs of the recent explorers, and small rivers traversed it, flowing from our umbrellas. The beams of the ceiling were supported by white arches, and vulgar Italian pictures hung upon the whitewashed walls. It was the dreariest place possible in which to await one’s beloved, and then the sense of dampness, the deafening patter of rain against the windows, the wind roaring and rising in frantic gusts, and earth and sky one inextricable sea of grey! Most utterly wretched did I feel. I had much to do to keep the tears of acute disappointment from my eyes, and depression settled upon me as heavy as the impenetrable vapours outside.
The noonday dinner was served, and like a philosopher Selaka enjoyed the vermicelli soup, the pilau, and dish of larks stewed in tomatoes. I ate, too, mechanically, with my glance and ear strained in feverish intensity for the slightest premonition of Inarime’s return. And as we sat drinking our coffee I could see with rapture that the colourless mist was rolling rapidly off the earth, and above, delicately-tinted clouds were beginning to show themselves upon the slate ground. The sun peeped out through a blurred and ragged veil, and looked as if he intended to dry the deluged world, and pale gold streaked the jagged banks of red and yellow haze. Down the village street came the sound of hoofed feet, and Selaka rushed forward.
I went and stood at a window, and made a screen of the curtain. Selaka had promised, upon my insistent prayer, to leave me but one moment alone with Inarime before introducing me to her aunt. I saw a tall massive woman, wrapped in a blue cloak, enter, and deposit her wet umbrella in an opposite corner with maddening slowness. I glanced behind her, and here stood Inarime enveloped in some brown garment with a knot of red ribbon at her throat. She wore a red hood, and the moist air and quick ride had left the glow of a pomegranate flower upon her cheek. She stood in the middle of the room, and looked grave inquiry at her father. He nodded reassuringly, told her to wait for him there, and took his sister’s arm to lead her into the inner room.
I came out of my hiding-place. There was something so solemn, so ineffable in the moment, that I rejected all speech as inadequate. I simply stood there looking at Inarime as I have never yet looked at any woman, and then I said:—“Inarime!”
I held out both hands. She turned, and without making any movement towards me looked at me. Again her eyes gave me the impression of eyes that are dazzled with light. They were clear as amber, crystal as her soul, and held mine in willing bondage. Before then my pulses had throbbed with expectation and hope; now they were quieted, numbed almost by sheer intensity of feeling in the trace of gazing silence.
“Inarime!” I said again, and this time my voice dropped to a whisper.
Unconsciously she seemed drawn to me, and while our hands met and clasped, our eyes dwelt on each other in grave delight.
“You have not spoken to me, Inarime,” I said.
“Who are you?” she asked, as a wondering child might.
“Has your heart not told you, Inarime?”
Something like fear and humble pleading strove with the mastery of her proud restrained expression. It was so new and perilous to her, that she hardly knew to what she might not have silently pledged herself. She hastily withdrew her hands, but still her eyes rested on mine and sought solution in their depths.
“Oh, I am afraid,” she murmured, and a wave of intangible pain swept over her strong face.
“Not of me, Inarime; not of me,” I entreated, and drew near to gather her hands again.
Before either of us could realise or stay the volcanic influences that impelled us in an irresistible shock, my arms were round her and our lips were one.
* * * * * * *
Here Reineke’s note book, of which I was glad to avail myself, grows too incoherent and impassioned for further use. The author will try to tell the rest of his story.