“Je suis né libre au fond du golfe aux belles lignes,
Où l’Hybla plein de miel mire ses bleus sommets.”
An architect once pointed out to me that one of the most striking instances of the Greek fastidiousness in matters of art is to be found in the pavement of the Parthenon, which is not quite flat, but which is made on a slight curved incline, so that the effect of perfect flatness to the eye should be complete. The curve cannot be detected unless the measurements are taken, showing, as the architect said to me, that the Greeks aimed at the maximum of effect with the minimum of advertisement.
While I was at Athens there was a scaffolding on the pediment of the Parthenon. One could climb up and examine in detail the marbles spared by Lord Elgin, the wonderful horses and men which were wrought in the workshop of Pheidias. I bought photographs of all this part of the frieze, and I used to have them later in my little house in London, which made my servant, who had been in the 10th Hussars, remark to a lady who was doing some typing for me, that there were some very rum pictures in the house.
From Athens we went to Sunium, the whitest and most beautifully placed of the temples, and thence to the Greek islands—Scyra, Delos, and Paros. The skipper of the yacht, who was like one of Jacobs’ characters, made an elaborate plan for taking in Professor Krumbacher, whom he used to call “Crumb-basket.” We were to go to Rhodes later, and the skipper, by misleading him on the chart, led him to think the yacht was arriving at Rhodes when in reality we were arriving at Candia in Crete. The Professor believed him so absolutely and greeted the pretended Rhodes with such certainty of recognition that it was difficult to undeceive him. I had to leave the expedition at Scyra, to get back to Rome, which I did by taking a passage in the only available steamer, a small, rickety, and extremely unreliable-looking craft, like a tin toy-boat. It was bound for some port not far from the Piræus. It had no accommodation to speak of, and it was overloaded with soldiers and with sheep, and both the sheep and the soldiers were sea-sick without stopping.
It was a rough passage and lasted all night and all the next morning. I stood on the little bridge the whole time, which was the only place where there was space to breathe. I was deposited somewhere on the coast, where the only train had left for Athens. A tramp steamer called later, which was going on to the Piræus, and I got a passage in that. I stayed two more days in Athens by myself. One afternoon while I was at the Acropolis I met a peasant and had a little talk with him. I had with me in a little book Sappho’s “Ode to Aphrodite,” and I asked him to read it aloud, which he did, remarking that it was in patois.
I went back to Rome by Corfu, where I stopped to see the Todten-Insel and the complicated classical villa of the German Emperor.
As the summer progressed, I went for one or two delightful expeditions in the environs of Rome. One was to Limfa, which I think is the most magical spot I have ever seen. A deserted castle rises from a lake, which is entirely filled with water-lilies, tangled weeds, and green leaves. It was deserted owing to the malaria that infested it, but it is difficult to imagine it haunted by anything except fairies or water-nymphs.
In Rome itself I often went for walks with Vernon Lee. She used to stay with Countess Pasolini, and take me to see out-of-the-way sights and places rich with peculiar association. I remember on one walk passing a little low wall by a stream, with an image of a river god, which she said might have been the demarcation between two small kingdoms, the kind of limit that divided the kingdoms of Romulus and Remus; one afternoon we went to the Pincio, and in the walks and trees of that enchanted garden we spoke of the past and the future and built castles in the air, or smoked what Balzac called enchanted cigarettes, that is to say, talked of the books that never would be written.
Lord Currie went away before the summer, and Rennell Rodd was left in charge of the Embassy. I got to know a quantity of people: Russians, Romans, Americans, Germans, Austrians; and a stream of foreigners and English people poured through Rome. I went on taking Russian lessons and also lessons in modern Greek, and slowly and gradually I made my first discoveries in Russian literature written in the Russian language. I read Pushkin’s prose stories aloud, some of his poems, and Alexis Tolstoy’s poems, and some of Tourgenev’s prose.