This was the breach which was fixed between Nikola and Kallirhoe—apparently a hopeless case, for Nikola had sisters, and brothers, and poverty-stricken parents; he never could so much as hope to call a spade his own; during all his life he would have to drudge and slave for others. They could not run away; that idea never occurred to them, for the only escape from Sikinos was by the solitary caique. “I had heard rumors,” continued Nikola, “of how men from other islands had gone to far-off countries and returned rich, but how could I, who had never been off this rock in all my life?
“I should have had to travel by one of those steamers which I had seen with their tail of smoke on the horizon, and about which I had pondered many a time, just like you, sir, may look and ponder at the stars; and to travel I should require money, which I well knew my father would not give me, for he wanted me for his slave. My only hope, and that was a small one, was that the priest, Papa Manoulas, Kallirhoe’s father, would not be too hard on us when he saw how we loved each other. He had been the priest to dip me in the font at my baptism; he always smoked a pipe with father once a week; he had known me all my life as a steady lad, who only got drunk on feast-days. ‘Perhaps he will give his consent,’ whispered my mother, putting foolish hopes into my brain. Poor old woman! she was grieved to see her favorite looking worn and ill, listless at his work, and for ever incurring the blame of father and brothers; only when I talked to her about Kallirhoe did my face brighten a little, so she said one day, ‘Papa Manoulas is kind; likely enough he may wish to see Kallirhoe happy.’ So one evil day I consented to my mother’s plan, that she should go and propose for me.”
Some explanation is here necessary. At Sikinos, as in other remote corners of Greece, they still keep up a custom called προξενία. The man does not propose in person, but sends an old female relative to seek the girl’s hand from her parents; this old woman must have on one stocking white and the other red or brown. “Your stockings of two colors make me think that we shall have an offer,” sings an island poem. Nikola’s mother went thus garbed, but returned with a sorrowful face. “I was made to eat gruel,” said he, using the common expression in these parts for a refusal, “and nobody ate more than I did. Next day Papa Manoulas called at our house. My heart stood still as he came in, and then bubbled over like a seething wine vat when he asked to speak to me alone. ‘You are a good fellow, Kola,’ he began. ‘Kallirhoe loves you, and I wish to see you happy;’ and I had fallen on his neck and kissed him on both cheeks before he could say, ‘Wait a bit, young man; before you marry her you must get together just a little money; I will be content with 1,000 drachmas (£40). When you have that to offer in return for Kallirhoe’s dower you shall be married,’ ‘A thousand drachmas!’ muttered I. ‘May the God of the ravens help me!’” (an expression denoting impossibility), “and I burst into tears.”
The men of modern Greece when violently agitated cry as readily as cunning Ulysses, and are not ashamed of the fact.
“I remember well that evening,” continued Nikola. “I left the house as it was getting dusk, and climbed down the steep path to the sea. I wandered for hours amongst the wild mastic and the brushwood. My feet refused to carry me home that night, so I lay down on the floor in the little white church, dedicated to my patron saint, down by the harbor, where we go for our annual festival when the priest blesses the waters and our boats. Many’s the time, as a lad, I’ve jumped into the water to fetch out the cross, which the priest throws into the sea with a stone tied to it on this occasion, and many’s the time I’ve been the lucky one to bring it up and get a few coppers for my wetting. That night I thought of tying a stone round my own neck and jumping into the sea, so that all traces of me might disappear.
“I could not make up my mind to face any one all next day, so I wandered amongst the rocks, scarcely remembering to feed myself on the few olives I had in my pocket. I could do nothing but sing ‘The Little Caique,’ which made me sob and feel better.”
The song of “The Little Caique” is a great favorite amongst the seafaring men of the Greek islands. It is a melancholy love ditty, of which the following words are a fairly close translation:—
In a tiny little caique
Forth in my folly one night
To the sea of love I wandered,