I must say I was quite disappointed at the way he took things. I was quite miserable about it, and might have become morbid—for I liked to cling to the big dreams of the future—had it not been for my half-brother. He was fourteen years older than I, and he, too, like my uncle lived in the past. His past, however, went beyond my uncle’s past; and from him I was to learn, not of the woes of Greece, but of the glory of Greece, of her golden age, and of the time when she, Queen of the World, was first in civilization.
My horizon was gilded also by the Greek mythology—that wonderful Greek mythology, which to my brother was living, not dead. He spoke one day in such a way of Olympus that I exclaimed:
“You talk as if Olympus really existed, and were not only mythology.”
“Of course, it exists,” he replied. “I used to live there myself, until they punished me by sending me down here. I cannot tell you all the particulars, because, when Zeus is about to exile one, one is given a potion which puts him to sleep, and while asleep he is carried beyond the limits of the Olympian realm, and is left outside to live the life of a man. But though he forgets a great deal—as, for example, how to find his way back—he is left with the memory of his former existence. That is his punishment. After his death, however, he is forgiven and returns to Olympus again.”
I stared at my brother, but his calm assurance, and the faith I had in him, made me implicitly believe him—and to-day I think he really more than half believed it himself.
After this I was not surprised to have him tell me that the gods of Greece were not dead, but forced to retire on the mountains of Olympus, because Christianity had to come first. “You see, little one, you will presently learn the Old Testament, as you are now being taught the New—and as I am teaching you Mythology. You will find out, as you grow older, that you need all three to balance things up.”
From him I heard not only the names of the great Greek writers, but he read to me by the hour from them. At first they were very hard to understand, since the Greek we speak is so much simpler than the Greek of Aristophanes and Sophocles; but since, after all, it is the same language, I learned to recite it pretty well before even I knew how to read and write.
It was from my brother, too, that I learned to know the Greek Revolution as our great modern poets sang of it; and before the year was over I could recite the “Chani of Gravia” and other celebrated poems, as American children recite “Mother Goose.”
One day there came into our garden, where my brother and I sat, a handsome young man, saying: “They told me you were in the garden, so I came to find you.” He sat down by us and plunged into a conversation about a certain game they were getting up, and of which my brother was the captain. We escorted him to the gate, when he left us, and after he was out of ear-shot I asked my brother who he was, as he had forgotten to introduce us.
“It is Arif Bey,” he replied rather curtly.