“Ah, a good race,” said the older man. “One of our best.”
IV
The next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took the Embros to the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.
Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”
“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.
“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”
The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.
“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli[7] with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”[8]
“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”