Tityros had in fact become another man. Since the day he had murdered his pretty, boorish brother-in-law he had begun to undergo a transformation. He now knew that the whole secret of manhood did not consist in pos sessing a great strong body. One must have in one’s soul the strength of decision! A horsefly with decision could fell an ox. Manhood was soul, not body. The day he had understood that, Tityros had begun to change. Gradually his body, too, gained strength. He no longer stooped, he ate with appetite and drank wine. His cheeks grew red. Andgreatest surprise of allhe caught fire and went after women. Now that he traveled from village to village to speak about the fatherland, he had made himself god father to various children and had established a family tie with their parents; in this way he could always count on shelter for the night. It happened that one of these new relatives, a woman in Kasteli whose husband was absent, had a sense of fun. One night, after a gay conversation, they found themselvesthey themselves did not know howin bed together and in each other’s arms. Since then, Tityros had passed through Kasteli often and had slept with his relativewhom God, he hoped, would protect!
“You too are at war, schoolmaster,” said Captain Polyxigis, filling his glass for him. “Your learning is oming to a captain, and carries a flag with the alphabet embroidered on it.”
“I hope I’ll soon get hold of a gun as well,” answered the schoolteacher with a laugh. “The alphabet is good as an appetizer. But the meat dish is the Turk.”
Emine propped her apple cheek on her hand and gazed at him. That’s Captain Michales’ brother, she thought. A schoolmaster like that … And she tried -hard to discover in his face the fierce, cruel features of the captain.
Chrysanthe got up and went out. She could not look at the schoolmaster. The two corpses rose from the earth and sat down opposite her at the table.
“Will you have the kindness, schoolmaster, to come to the baptism on our crowning-day?” Captain Polyxigis asked. “Emine is going to be baptized and become Eleni. That same evening there’ll be the wedding, too.”
“That’s just why I’ve come, Captainabout the baptism. As he was digging in his field near Kasteli, old Mavrolias found a splendid pottery basin. He asked me to come and see it. He thought it was old. And truly, God alone knows how many thousand years old it is. On the outside it’s covered with decorationsa grape and coral design. I’m not sure what all the decorations are. And in the bottom of the basin I found a handful of Egyptian beans, which have become like charcoal from the long time … by my soul, that basin comes from the time of Minos!”
“Well … ?” Captain Polyxigis asked. “What’s your idea?”
“Don’t you see, Captain? A font! The village pope couldn’t think what vessel he was to baptize her in! The church font is much too small. And now God, in the moment of need, makes a splendid basin rise up out of the earth! A good omen, Captain! By my faith, soon Constantinople will be Christian again!”
He stood up, for he was in a hurry. At his godsister’s the table was laid and she was waiting for him.
Captain Polyxigis said, with a laugh, “Your brain is pregnant, schoolmaster, it brings forth. Emine, what do you think?”
But she said nothing. She gazed at the schoolteacher, but her soul had shaken free from her body and had swept far away from Christ and fonts.
The godsister had in fact laid the table and filled the wine bottles and was waiting for her godbrother. She was a man-woman, square, with long white teeth and a thick black mustache. Her broad face was sown with pock-marks. It was just this ugliness that had made the schoolmaster lose his wits. Strange world: if she had not been pock-marked, she would not have kindled the schoolmaster’s blood, and he still would have been too timid to embrace a woman.
Tityros wished her good evening. His godchild, still s. baby, was lying in the cradle. Another small son was asleep on a little sofa. The husband was a peddler and was now making the round of the villages. Godbrother and godsister were quite alone hi the house. They ate hastily, emptied then: bottles, crossed themselves, covered up the icons to prevent them from looking on, and hurled themselves into the heaped-up bed.
Next morning the schoolmaster found an excited crowd ki the village square with its three gnarled poplars. Hearing the shouting, peasants were rushing barefoot out of the houses. A monk had just arrived. His chest was bare, he was gasping, and blood trickled from his feet.
“Brothers,” he shouted, “I’ve been sent by the fathers of the Monastery of Christ the Lord. Hassan Bey, the t general, has marched out of Megalokastro with a strong ‘ force of soldiers and invaded the monastery! Where is the captain of the village? Help us, brothers! To arms!”
The captain was lying in Circassian arms. When he heard the noise, he leaped up, dressed and stuck his pistols into his leather belt. Then he ran hi the direction of the voices. He seized the monk by the arm.
“Don’t shout like that! Don’t upset my people!” he said, and pushed him into his house, shut the door and ave him something to eat and drink. The monk regained his breath.
“Now spec.!c,” Captain Polyxigis ordered. “And none of your whimpering before me. They’re only Turks, you silly monk! The devil will get them!”
CHAPTER 9
GOD BROUGHT THE DAY. The heights were touched by the torches of the light. It glided down the slopes and flooded the plains. Then it shot shafts over the indigo clouds and poured down upon the tortured body of Crete. If God had now had the notion to look at Crete, He must have felt pity at the sight of the burning houses, wailing women and orphaned children around the feet of the naked and hungry mountains. And pity for the men whotoo wild to prayclung to the passes and the peaks and, holding up. a bit of cloth with a cross embroidered on it, went into battle, barefoot, without bread and without ammunition, with nothing but their miserable patched-up guns. For how many generations had they raised their hands and implored God? When had God ever leaned down and listened to them? Heaven was deaf, God had changed faith. They tightened their grip on their guns.
The first gleam of morning found Captain Polyxigis busy with preparations for war. The evening before, he had sent a runner to Captain Michales with the news that the Turks were besieging the celebrated monastery. Now let him fly the banner: Freedom or Death! Speeches and debates should be ended; the real voice of Crete, the gun, must speak.
“Hey, Captain Michales,” he had added to his letter, “to the devil with our little feuds and concerns. They’ve eaten into both of us. ‘Who are you afraid of?’ someone once asked the lion, ‘the elephant? the tiger? the buffalo?’ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘the louse.’ The louse has bitten both of us, Captain Michales. Sometimes we called it pleasure, sometimes worry. But it was always a louse. The devil take it! Crete calls. Give me your hand, brother!”
Emine came out and leaned against the doorpost. Her eyes were ringed with blue; her lips were bitten. The captain turned to her at last. His mind was still stirred by the proud words he had sent to Captain Michales yesterday evening, and his face was severe.
“Where’s your mind strayed to?” the Circassian woman asked fiercely. “I’m here and you don’t give that thought.”
He was just hanging a double bag embroidered in colors from the saddle. He had filled one part of the bag with cartridges, oilcloth and balsam, and in the other had put a loaf of bread, a soft cheese and a bottle of wine. How should he answer the woman who stood there in the doorway watching his departure? Since he had written those words to his wild comrade in arms, it had become “.clear to him, as never before in his life, where woman belonged and where Crete, and where the real duty of a an lay.
“I must tell you a secret,” said the Circassian, coming closer to him. She stroked the mare’s neck, bending her head so that her hair fell over her neck like the mare’s mane and nearly touched the ground. The yard filled with he scent of musk.
“A secret?” asked Polyxigis, and his hands stiffened and remained motionless in the air.
“Yes, and I’m telling it to
you so that you won’t say afterwards that you did not know. Sometimes I get news from Megalokastro. One of these days Nuri’s relatives mean to attack Kasteli with soldiers and seize me. And if I don’t return to my faith they’ll kill me. So go to the
Monastery of Christ the Lord! But keep your wife in mind also, Captain Polyxigis!”
He stood there for a moment, wavering. Outside a multitudinous din was audible. Wives were bidding their husbands farewell, old women wept and men tore themselves loose. “Good-by,” they shouted, and gathered around Captain Polyxigis’ flag at the three poplars in the village square.
When the Circassian saw that her man remained silent, she said, “A woman’s a citadel, too. She has to be taken.”
“I’m not forgetting,” the man answered at last. “Good-by!”
He folded her in his arms. He felt her firm bosom, and his senses reeled. The world could come to grief if only this thrilling body might never leave his arms. The woman closed her eyes, raised herself gently on her toes and reached his mouth. His knees gave way.
The mare whinnied. The captain mastered his dizziness and leaned against the doorpost. He freed himself from her mouth and softly pushed her from him, caught hold of the horse’s mane and swung himself into the saddle.
“Good-by!” he said, and without turning rode through the outer door and galloped to the village square.
That same morning Captain Michales stood in the grandfather’s huge yard at Petrokefalo, surrounded by his best palikars. He had confided to the keeping of Thodores his bannerthe black cloth with the red letters. Beside him, armed, were his sometime drinking companions, Kajabes and Furogatos. Vendusos had gone out to make arrangements for his family. Bertodulos had stayed with the women.
Captain Michales turned to his wife, who stood silently on the threshold with folded arms. “Good-by, wife,” he said.
“God be with you, Captain Michales,” she replied calmly. “God be with you, palikars!” she added, while her eyes glided earnestly over her husband’s young comrades in arms.
The grandfather came out. His cheeks glowed red in the early morning light.
“Forward, children, with my blessing!” he cried, raising his heavy hand. “Go with God’s blessing! You’re fighting for Crete, and that’s no joke! Happy the man who lays down his life in the service of Crete!” He went on: “On this day it seems to me betterI couldn’t say whyto be killed in her service than to live in her service.”
The noise forced its way into Thrasaki’s sleep. He guessed that his father was setting out for war, and leaped from his bed, to appear on the doorstep wrapped in a red embroidered rug. His father looked at the boy, still half encompassed by dreams as he bobbed up between his grandfather and his mother, and laughed.
“Good-by, Thrasaki, till you’re old enough!” he said, and jumped on his mare. He crossed himself. “In God’s name!”
The village emptied itself of men.
The celebrated Monastery of Christ the Lord had been founded in ancient times, before the fall of Constantinople, before the coming of the Venetians to Crete, -when the Byzantine emperors still ruled in the East and far into the. West.
The story went that it had been built by the Emperor Nikiforosthat great, dark soul who had been led astray by a woman’s beautiful body and had missed plunging to Hell by a hair’s breadth. But he had managed to grasp hold of God and make him listen. And God had heard him and placed him in Paradise, together with the other sinful and sorely tormented emperors.
He had gained mastery of the world, landed in Crete, stamped down the Saracens, overthrown the Crescent, and set up over the scorched fields and plundered towns the banner of Christ. And one evening, the story went, he was passing through a ravine. Here, under a lemon tree, he thought he would sleep and, as soon as God made day come, press on toward Chandaka (that was Megalokastro’s name then). It was the month of May: the moon was full, and the night air quivered with the song of the nightingale. The emperor saw Christ the Lord approaching, barefoot, faint from long journeying. Christ the Lord stopped under the lemon tree. He did not see Nikiforos, and stretched Himself on the ground with a sigh. He took a stone for a pillow and said, “How tired I am.” Then He folded His arms, shut His eyes and went to sleep.
All night the emperor felt a sweet, ineffable happiness. It was the gift neither of the moon, nor of the nightingale, nor of slumber. He had entered Paradise.
Waking up at dawn, Nikiforos said, “This tree, where Christ has slept, is hallowed.” He commanded that the holy lemon tree be surrounded by a monastery. And that, they say, is how the Monastery of Christ the Lord was founded.
The Byzantine emperors died, the Turks took Constantinople, the Venetians overran Crete, the Ottomans subdued it. The monastery was destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again. And now, beleaguered by the Turks, its bells rang mournfully and cried their message to the countryside: “All you believers, come and-help!”
The abbot was arming himself in the church, the monks were digging up the guns from under the sacred altar. The abbot knelt down before the huge icon of Christ near the iconostasis.
“Lord Christ,” he cried aloud, that all might hear him, “forgive me, the fault is mine, I am the one to blame! And now the dogs have come to avenge the blood.”
He was in fact responsible. On the first of September, the beginning of the ecclesiastical accounting year, the abbot of Christ the Lord had been on his way back from Megalokastro. He had gone there to be confessed by the Metropolitan and to lay at his feet the monastery’s yearly contribution. He had also begged him to take the monastery under his protection, to use his influence with the pasha to make him prevent the Turks from attacking it again. How many more times would they burn the monastery down? “Have pity!” he had pleaded. “I’ve grown ld, Bishop. My wounds hurt. I haven’t the strength left for defending it!”
“How old do you suppose God has grownyet He can still lay fresh burdens on ten saints!” answered the Metropolitan, with a laugh. “Go with my blessing, and stop worrying.”
The abbot had taken the Metropolitan’s blessing with him as he rode his mule through the Hospital Gate. In the sunset light he looked at the blue, shimmering mountains in front of him, at the harvested fields, the vineyards generous with clusters, the olive trees loaded with fruit, and at the sea. His heart flew upward.
“It’s beautiful, this false world,” he murmured. “Crete is beautiful, God is great.”
He kept close to the shore, crossed the red sand of the river bed, drank a raki at the widow’s inn, then started up Cruel Mountain. His mule carefully trod the narrow goat path along the precipice. A light breeze was sighing. The abbot saw the sea down below, darkening as he watched. He crossed himself and repeated out of a heart filled with happiness, “It’s beautiful, this false world. Crete is beautiful….”
Three powerful young Turks, who had been lying in wait for him, hidden behind a rock, rushed on him with their knives. They had decided to avenge the many graying hanums still living whom the warlike monk had widowed in the 1866 rising.
The mule started and very nearly threw the abbot into the abyss. He forgot he was an old man covered with forty scars, and leaped to the ground with the suppleness of a wildcat. “In Christ’s name!” he shouted, drawing his knife.
Above the abyss the four bodies whirled, entwined. The small, bony but very agile abbot laid about him in all directions. His blood kindled, his youth came back, and all his forefathers who had fallen in battle against Turkey rose up in him. It was not only he doing battle, but all Cretans together.
Night broke over them, and down below the sea lay dark. The stars in the high heavens seemed incongruously gay. A night bird squatted up above on a cliff, watching the four forms in their dance of death.
“In Christ’s name!” shouted the abbot again, and with an immense effort he freed himself for a moment from the clutches of the six pairs of limbs. Then he hurled himself with all his strength against the human bundle, to ram it over t
he precipice. It began to slide. For a moment it held on, but a last mighty push broke its resistance, and the three Turks fell bellowing down the abyss, into the sea.
The abbot leaned against the mountain and crossed himself. Blood was streaming over his head and chest; his monk’s habit was torn. He bound his wounds with strips of stuff, and called his mule.
“Give me strength, O Christ,” he prayed, “to get to the monastery. After that, do what Thou wilt.”
He clenched his teeth and with great pain climbed into the saddle. “God is great,” he murmured and rode on.
Next day Megalokastro echoed with the new exploit of the Turk-gobbling abbot. Three Turkish women, new victims of Charos, united in the wailing for the dead. Accompanied by a crowd, they hurried to the place of the fall, climbed down to the wild shore, picked up the bodies and buried them in the sand. The men struck their knives into the mound of the grave and swore that they would build the monument out of the ashes of the accursed monastery. And that was why, one morning, the ravine before the Monastery of Christ the Lord was filled with red fezzes.
On the same morning fresh bands set out from the Hospital Gate against the besieged monastery and against the big Turkish village of Kasteli, which the giaours had occupied. The nephews, cousins and friends of Nuri, with the ferocious muezzin at their head, pressed forward as if possessed. In Megalokastro the Christians through shuttered windows watched them as they streamed by with pistols and daggers and plunged their knives into Greek doors.
That morning, on the other side of the sea, Athens awoke. From the columns of the Parthenon the light g adually spread to the plain, on which the city made famous by intellect and beauty was beginning ‘to awaken, powerfully assisted by the throats of the milkman, the newsboy and the vegetable vendor. From the vacant school buildings, storerooms and cellars where they had been given scanty quarters, the Cretan refugees emerged silently. They held tins and bowls in their hands and took up their positions in front of an open door, through which one could see into a yard containing several large caldrons. They waited for an hour in the queue to get their couple of spoonfuls of lenten soup. At first they had been ashamed, because they were not used to begging but hunger had compelled them.
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