The pallikaria arrived, bearing the saint, and preceded by a monk from his monastery. When they brought him into my room, though I was very weak, I was raised from my bed and placed at the foot of the icon. It was quite large, and painted on wood. The face alone was visible: all the rest had been covered with gold and silver, tokens of gratitude from those whom the saint had cured. Rings, ear-rings, bracelets, and other jewellery were also hanging from the icon, while hundreds of gold and silver bells were festooned about it.
My room was filled with the members of my family, and a few of the most intimate and pious of our friends. Candles were lighted, and mass was solemnly sung. Afterwards everybody went away, and I was left to the care of St George of the Bells.
Owing to the distance, the icon and the monk could not return to the monastery the same day, and were to spend the night at our house. I was then twelve years old, and as I have said, beginning to be sceptical of the religious superstitions about me. Yet the ceremony had impressed me deeply; and in the solemn hours of the night, with only the light of the kandilla burning before the icon, a certain mysticism took possession of me. I was shaken out of my apathy, and believed that St George could save me, if he wanted to, and if I prayed to him—and pray I did, too, most fervently, though I should have been ashamed to confess it after the daylight brought back to me my juvenile pride in being a sceptic.
In the morning, when the pallikaria came to fetch the icon, one of the powerfully built creatures, a man whose hair was already growing white about the temples, approached my bedside and said with great solemnity:
“Kyria, mou, he means to cure you. I have not carried him for twenty years without learning his ways. Why, when we went to take him from his place he fairly flew to our arms. I know what that means. You will get well, for he wanted to come to you. Sometimes he is so heavy that we can hardly carry him a mile an hour—and I have known him to refuse to be moved at all.”
The old pallikari was right. St George did cure me. In a few months I was stronger than I had ever been in my life. It was then that my mother—partly out of gratitude, partly in order that he might continue to look after me—resolved to sell me to St George.
For three days she and I fasted. Early on the morning of the fourth day we started, barefooted, for the mountains and St George’s monastery, carrying wax torches nearly as tall as I. At first I was ashamed to meet people in my bare feet, until I noticed with elation that they all reverently uncovered their heads as we passed.
It was a long, weary walk. Up the mountains it seemed as if we were climbing for heaven. The road zigzagged steeply upward, now revealing, now hiding the monastery from our eyes. At last we reached the huge rocks that surrounded it like a rampart.
Everything was ready for our arrival. The Hegoumenos, the head monk, received us. I was taken to a little shrine, bathed in holy water, and put to bed, after receiving some soupe-maigre; for I was to fast three days longer. My little bed was made up on the marble floor of the church. At night, another was arranged beside it for my mother, since I could not be induced to sleep alone in the church.
During the three days spent in the mountains I forgot completely that I was a person holding advanced ideas, and that I did not believe in superstitions. There was something in the atmosphere of the place which forbade analysis and called only for devotion.