They were still deeply moved by the poem when my brother spoke to them.
“Pallikaria, you have just heard the little girl reciting to you what can only be learned in an educated home.” He turned to the leader: “You cannot now believe that the child’s unfortunate accent is an affectation, acquired in the last few months. Pallikaria, you cannot for a moment think that my little sister is the Spiropoulo girl, coming out of a parvenu home, with money the only tradition.”
Again he turned to the leader:
“I take it that you speak French. Speak to her and to me in it, and satisfy yourself that we know it. Some of your men here are from Albania, and undoubtedly they know Italian. She can talk with them in that language. Will not all this prove to you that she has lived out of Anatolia all her short life?”
“Who are you then?” cried the leader, but before we could answer he ordered us to remain quiet. He disappeared behind a sheep-skin, and returned with a paper and pencil, which he handed to my brother. “Write here your name and that of the little girl. Write also from where you come, and whither you are going.”
My brother wrote all he was asked to, and returned the paper to the leader.
The latter read it, surprise and anger mingling on his face. He turned to me:
“Your name?”
I gave it.
“Your brother’s?”