LETTER XXII.
The Maid of Athens—Romance and Reality—American Benefactions to Greece—A Greek Wife and Scottish Husband—School of Capo d’Istrias—Grecian Disinterestedness—Ruins of the Most Ancient Temple—Beauty of the Grecian Landscape—Hope for the Land of Epaminondas and Aristides.
Island of Ægina.—The “Maid of Athens,” in the very teeth of poetry, has become Mrs. Black of Ægina! The beautiful Teresa Makri, of whom Byron asked back his heart, of whom Moore and Hobhouse, and the poet himself, have written so much and so passionately, has forgotten the sweet burthen of the sweetest of love songs, and taken the unromantic name, and followed the unromantic fortunes, of a Scotchman!
The commodore proposed that we should call upon her on our way to the temple of Jupiter, this morning. We pulled up to the town in the barge, and landed on the handsome pier built by Dr. Howe (who expended thus, most judiciously, a part of the provisions sent from our country in his charge), and, finding a Greek in the crowd, who understood a little Italian, we were soon on our way to Mrs. Black’s. Our guide was a fine, grave-looking man of forty, with a small cockade on his red cap, which indicated that he was some way in the service of the government. He laid his hand on his heart, when I asked him if he had known any Americans in Ægina. “They built this,” said he, pointing to the pier, the handsome granite posts of which we were passing at the moment. “They gave us bread, and meat, and clothing, when we should otherwise have perished.” It was said with a look and tone that thrilled me. I felt as if the whole debt of sympathy which Greece owes our country, were repaid by this one energetic expression of gratitude.
We stopped opposite a small gate, and the Greek went in without cards. It was a small stone house of a story and a half, with a rickety flight of wooden steps at the side, and not a blade of grass or sign of a flower in court or window. If there had been but a geranium in the porch, or a rose-tree by the gate, for description’s sake.
Mr. Black was out—Mrs. Black was in. We walked up the creaking steps, with a Scotch terrier barking and snapping at our heels, and were met at the door by, really, a very pretty woman. She smiled as I apologised for our intrusion, and a sadder or a sweeter smile I never saw. She said her welcome in a few, simple words of Italian, and I thought there were few sweeter voices in the world. I asked her if she had not learned English yet. She coloured, and said, “No, signore!” and the deep spot in her cheek faded gradually down, in teints a painter would remember. Her husband, she said, had wished to learn her language, and would never let her speak English. I began to feel a prejudice against him. Presently, a boy of perhaps three years came into the room—an ugly, white-headed, Scotch-looking little ruffian, thin-lipped and freckled, and my aversion for Mr. Black became quite decided. “Did you not regret leaving Athens?” I asked. “Very much, signore,” she answered with half a sigh; “but my husband dislikes Athens.” Horrid Mr. Black! thought I.
I wished to ask her of Lord Byron, but I had heard that the poet’s admiration had occasioned the usual scandal attendant on every kind of pre-eminence, and her modest and timid manners, while they assured me of her purity of heart, made me afraid to venture where there was even a possibility of wounding her. She sat in a drooping attitude on the coarsely-covered divan, which occupied three sides of the little room, and it was difficult to believe that any eye but her husband’s had ever looked upon her, or that the “wells of her heart” had ever been drawn upon for anything deeper than the simple duties of a wife and mother.
She offered us some sweetmeats, the usual Greek compliment to visitors, as we rose to go, and laying her hand upon her heart, in the beautiful custom of the country, requested me to express her thanks to the commodore for the honour he had done her in calling, and to wish him and his family every happiness. A servant-girl, very shabbily dressed, stood at the side door, and we offered her some money, which she might have taken unnoticed. She drew herself up very coldly, and refused it, as if she thought we had quite mistaken her. In a country where gifts of the kind are so universal, it spoke well for the pride of the family, at least.