The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

by E. F. Benson

The weather was hot and stifling beyond description, and the Mainats who were on the south felt all day the reflected glare and heat from the walls as from a furnace. In that week of waiting Petrobey lost all the confidence of the clan, for they alone were blameless of this outrageous traffic, that had sprung up again, and they were waiting while Petrobey let it go on. He had asked the advice of men who were without principle or honor, who were filling their pockets at the expense of the honor of others, and though he himself was without stain, yet his weakness at this point was criminal. It seemed that he refused to believe what the army knew, and persisted in judging the whole by the behavior of the clan themselves. Nicholas appealed to him in vain, but Petrobey always asked whether he had himself seen evidence of the scandal, and being in the Mainat corps, he had not. In vain Nicholas pointed out that a week ago they knew that famine was preying on the besieged, yet a week had gone and the famine seemed to have made no impression. How was it possible that the town could hold out unless it was being supplied? And how could a commander know what was going on among the hordes of peasants who flocked to the camp? Now that the evil was so wide-spread and universal, a whole regiment perhaps profited by the traffic; and where was the use of any man informing his captain?—for the captains were the worst of all.

Meantime, inside, Suleima watched at her latticed window and looked for Mitsos. A week ago she had watched the men streaming down from Trikorpha to the plain, and had hardly been able to conceal her joy, while round her the other women wailed and lamented, saying that they would all fall into the hands of the barbarous folk. On the other side, away from the wall, the windows of the harem looked out onto a narrow, top-heavy street, the eaves of the houses nearly meeting across it, and on the top again was a large, flat roof, where they often went to sit in the evening and chatter across the street to the women on the house opposite. By day a ribbon of scorching sunlight moved slowly from one side to the other, and often Suleima would sit at the window which overhung the foot-path, watching and watching, but seeing, perhaps, hardly a couple of passengers in as many hours, for this was only a side street where few came. By leaning out she could just catch a glimpse of a main thoroughfare which led into the square, but only Turks passed up and down. The others looked at her with wonder and pity, thinking her hardly in her right mind to be smiling and happy at such a time, for close before her lay the trial and triumph of her sex, and the Greeks were at the door. The harem generally, and also the chief wife, whose slave she was, knew her condition, but from a feeling partly of pity and affection—for she was a favorite with all—partly from indifference, had not accused her to Abdul. Abdul himself, in the excitement and preoccupation of the siege, had not been in the harem more than twice in as many months, and thus her state had escaped detection.

So she went about with her day-dream and snatches of song, painting in her mind a hundred pictures as to how Mitsos would come. Should she see him stalking up the narrow street, then looking up and smiling at her, bringing the news that the town had capitulated and he had come to claim her? There would be a step on the stair and he would come in, bending to get through the door; and then, oh, the blessedness of talk and tears that would be hers! Or would there come a shout and the sound of riot and confusion, and streaming up the street a fighting crowd? He would be there in the middle of it all, slashing and hewing his way to her. He would look up—that he would always do—and see her at the window, and then get to work again, dealing death to all within reach. Perhaps he would be hurt, not much hurt, but enough to make her lean over him with anxious face and nimble, bandaging hands, and the joy of ministering to him leaping in her heart. It was towards this vision that she most inclined, to Mitsos, fighting and splendid as fresh from the dust and the ecstasy of struggle, coming to her—the mistress and lady of his arm—lover to lover. Or would he come by night silently beneath the stars, as he had come before, or with a whispered song which her heart had taught her ears to know, and take her away while the house slept, out of this horrible town, and to some place like in spirit to the lonely sea-scented beach near Nauplia, into remoteness from all things else? In these half-formulated dreams there was never any hitch or disturbance—doors yielded, men slept, or men fell, and through all like a ray of light came Mitsos, unhindered, irresistible.

But after three or four days her mood changed, and from her eyes looked out the soul of some timid, frightened animal. Why did he not come—by night or in peace or in the shout of war? What meant this sudden increase in their food, for now for more than a week they had lived but on sparing rations? Yet the fresh meat and new bread revolted her; she was hungry, yet she could not eat. The women were kind to her, and Zuleika used to make her soup and force her with firm kindness to drink it; they were always plaguing her, so she thought, not to prowl about so much, to rest more and to eat more, and when she understood why, she obeyed them. For a few nights before she had slept but lightly, and her sleep was peopled with vivid things—now she would be moving in a crowd of flying fiery globes, she one of them; now the dark was full of gray shapes that glided by her windily with a roar of the remote sea, but at the end they would disperse and leave her alone, and out of the darkness came Mitsos, and with that she would dream no more. But waking and the hours of the day changed place with the night, and it seemed that she moved in a nightmare until she slept again.

But when she understood the reason for which they pressed her to rest and eat, she quickly regained the serenity of her health, and during the last two days of waiting, though her fears and anxieties crouched in the shade ready to spring on her again, they lay still, and the claws and teeth spared her.

But one morning—it was the 3d of October—there was suddenly a tumult in the streets, and cries that the Greeks had come in, and Suleima went up to the house-top to see if she could find out where they were entering, prepared to run out into the street to meet them, crying to them as her deliverers, as Mitsos had told her. In the brightness of that sudden hope that the end had come, she felt no longer weary or ill, and she looked out over the town with expectant eyes. But by degrees the tumult died down again, and, bitterly disappointed, she crept back to the room of the harem where the women were sitting to ask what this meant. None knew, but in a little time they heard a renewed noise from the street, and running to look out, they saw a small body of Turkish soldiers advancing, and in the middle a very stout lady riding a horse. Behind her came two servants driving horses with big panniers slung on each side, and the stout lady talked in an animated manner to the soldiers, pointing now to one house and then to another. Then looking up at the window of Abdul Achmet's house, out of which Suleima was leaning, she shouted some shrill question in Turkish, which Suleima did not catch, and the procession turned up into the main street, seeming to halt opposite the door leading into the front court-yard.

In a little while Abdul Achmet, with a eunuch, came in, at whose entrance Suleima drew back behind the other women and wrapped her bernouse round her. He wore a face of woe, and behind they could hear the voice of the stout lady, who found the stairs a little trying. She entered the room with a shining, smiling face, and sat down puffing on a sofa.

"And when I've got my breath again," she said, volubly, as if still in the middle of a sentence, "I'll tell you who I am, and what I am going to do, and what you are going to do. A hot morning it is, and there's no denying it, and though I've seen many pretty faces in my day, sir, I can't remember that I ever set eyes on anything so nice as your little lot. And what may your name be, my dear?" she said, turning to Suleima, who shrank from her without knowing why; "but whatever your name is, it was a fine day for your kind master when he first set eyes on you."

She looked at Suleima more closely, and waiting till Achmet and the eunuch had left the room: "Poor lamb! and so young, too," she said, kindly enough; "and now I've got my breath a bit, I'll tell you my business. I'm a Greek by birth, though you can hear I talk Turkish like the Sultan himself, and as for my name, why, it's Penelope."

Suleima suddenly burst into a helpless fit of laughter at this funny old woman, though she was not funny at all, she thought, but simply a fat, disgusting old hag. Penelope stopped short at this unseemly interruption, and for a moment seemed disposed to resent it; but some womanly feeling came to her aid, and she pulled a great bottle of some strong-smelling stuff out of her pocket and applied it to Suleima's nose as she sat rocking herself backward and forward with peals of laughter.