"Who is Calcraft?"
"The Headsman of London."
At these words, Dimitri, Christodule's son, reddened to the roots of his hair. "Pardon, Monsieur," he said to John Harris, "there is a great difference between a headsman and a brigand. The business of a headsman is infamous; the profession of a brigand is honored. The government is obliged to guard the headsman of Athens in the fort Palamede or he would be assassinated; while no one wishes evil to Hadgi-Stavros, and the most respectable people in the kingdom would be proud to shake hands with him."
Harris opened his mouth to reply, when the shop bell rung. It was the servant who had entered with a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, dressed like the latest fashion-plate in the Journal des Modes. Dimitri said, as he rose from his chair: "It is Photini!"
"Messieurs," said the pastry-cook, "talk of something else, if you please. Histories of brigands are not for young girls to hear."
Christodule presented Photini to us as the daughter of one of his companions-in-arms, Colonel Jean, commanding at Nauplie. She called herself then, Photini; daughter of Jean, according to the custom of the country, where there were, properly speaking, no family names.
The young maid was ugly, as were nine-tenths of the Athenian girls. She had pretty teeth and beautiful hair, but that was all. Her thick-set body did not look well in a Parisian corset. Her feet, which were large, thick, and ill-shaped, were made for wearing Turkish slippers, and not to be compressed into the shoes of the fashionable boot-maker, Meyer. She was as dull-looking as if an imprudent nurse had committed the fault of sitting down on her face, when an infant. Fashion is not becoming to all women; it made the poor Photini almost ridiculous. Her flounced dress, extended over a huge crinoline, accentuated the clumsiness of her body and the awkwardness of her movements. Jewels from the Palais Royal with which she was decked seemed like exclamation points, destined to point out the imperfections of her body. You would have said that she was a stout and coarse servant-girl, masquerading in her mistress' clothes.
We were not astonished to see the daughter of a simple Colonel so extravagantly and gorgeously arrayed, come to pass Sunday at a pastry-cook's. We knew enough of the country to fully realize that dress was the incurable evil of Greek society. Country girls pierced silver pieces, strung them together and wore them upon the head on gala days. They carried their dowries on their heads. The city girls spent their money in the shops and carried their dowries on their backs.
Photini was in a boarding-school at Hétairie. It is, as you know, a school established on the model of the Legion of Honor, but regulated by rules broader and more tolerant. Usually, only daughters of soldiers were taught there, sometimes, also, brigands' heiresses.
Colonel Jean's daughter knew a little French and a little English; but her timidity did not permit of her shining in conversation. I learned later, that her family counted upon us to perfect her in these foreign tongues. Her father, having learned that Christodule boarded honorable and educated Europeans, had begged the pastry-cook to allow her to pass her Sundays with his family, and he would see that he was recompensed. This bargain pleased Christodule, and above all, his son, Dimitri. The young man, working in a servant's place, devoured her with his eyes, while the heiress never perceived it.