The Broken Road

by Patrick Leigh Fermor

  2 hours later

  It’s quite dark now, and from the quarterdeck I watch the sun setting, and the glow fading from the white peak of Athos, until the snowy crest seems but a detached cloud in the deepening sky.

  Seven dolphins joined the ship, and are swimming just before the bows under the antique bowsprit. They are the most beautiful creatures, lithe, active and swift, sometimes leaping clean out of the water and sinking back again with the utmost grace. Their speed is really amazing, and to see them cutting their way through the green water is unforgettable. I hope they bring us luck, as the sailors say. They remind me of the Arion legend.[1]

  It is quite dark now, but the sky is ablaze with stars. The only constellation I can pick out is the Great Bear. It seems to have completely changed places since I noticed it in Bulgaria, and is oddly standing on its end.

  I have been reading the part of Don Juan where he is shipwrecked in the Aegean, eventually to be sold as a slave in Constantinople. We reach Daphni in another hour or two now.

  25th January, Xeropotamos

  I fell into an uneasy sleep leaning on the table in the cabin, despairing of reaching Daphni, but at one o’clock the steward shook me, and told me we were there, so I got my kit together, paid for my coffees, and went down the little ladder over the side, into a dinghy that was dancing up and down on the waves. It was pitch dark and cold, and the old whiskered fisherman who rowed me ashore looked very chilled in the lantern light. Daphni is a small fishing village, rather like a Devonshire one, with low stone buildings, thick walls and massive outdoor ladders and steps to the houses. I was the only person who disembarked here, and had to wake up the inn, where my bed was made up in a small, bare room overlooking the sea. They gave me some bread and cheese and red wine, before I turned in, and when I did, I slept like a log.

  I lay long abed this morning. The scene outside the window was glorious – little fishing boats were putting out to sea, one or two fishermen sitting and smoking on the low sea wall. The sea a resplendent blue. The mountains sloped steeply down on all sides, so that the two score houses cluster in a little semicircle facing the sea. To the left, the coast receded as far as one could see, with here and there a monastery perched like an eagle’s nest among the rocks; in the distance the blue coast of Sithonia was just visible.

  I went to the little sunlit police station on the quay – one of the policemen had taken my passport last night – and one of them wrote my name down in the book, and told me I could collect my passport whenever I left. The road to Xeropotamos lay along the coast, climbing along the hillside. It was all cobbled with a low deep wall facing the sea, a luxuriant growth of slender trees making it shady and pleasant. The whole atmosphere is exotic – trees with smooth, glazed leaves whose names I don’t know, inland the tree-covered hills sloping steeply upwards, and the road skirting many little combes and inlets; later it curved inland over a high-arched bridge, which crossed a little stream which tumbled down the mountain’s side half a mile off in a long white plume of water. It is a dry, rather sleepy land, with lizards basking on the sun-warmed rocks, and with grateful shade under gnarled cork trees. Halfway up the mountain I sat on the brink of a little stone spring and looked at a sailing vessel putting out from the bay of Daphni, now small in the distance. A monk passed me, leading two laden mules; he had a sweeping beard, and his hair was bound in a knot under his black cylindrical hat. The horses were both geldings of course, as not only are no women permitted on the Holy Mountain but as far as the monks are able, all female creatures are excluded too; for centuries, no mares, sheep, she-goats, bitches, cats etc. have lived here, and all the flocks that I saw cropping what grass they could among the rocks, watched by a shepherd boy with a flute, were of rams and billy-goats.

  After another half-hour’s climb, the high, sunny walls of Xeropotamos (named from the torrent that runs by its gates) came into view, with the jutting, beam-sprung upper storeys, tall chimneys, and gleaming cupolas of the chapel.

  A tall, grey-bearded monk was talking to a deacon in the courtyard when I entered, and seeing me he came and shook hands, and after some words of welcome in Greek, he led me to a little janitor’s lodge, and insisted on my taking off my rucksack, while several of the monks came in and sat round the fire. They seemed very interested, and the conversation went on through an Albanian monk, who spoke Russian and could translate from my Bulgarian into Greek. One of them pushed a little brass saucepan of Turkish coffee among the glowing cinders of the log fire, and, when prepared, gave it me in a little round handleless cup.

  They pulled out their spectacles and examined the Patriarch’s introductory letter with interest. One of them took my kit, and led me through several flagged courtyards, and up several flights of stairs, into a sunny wing obviously reserved for guests.

  One of the brothers, with a clever, sensitive face, gold teeth and straggly black beard, and somehow unmonastic air, told me in perfect French that my letter had been taken to the abbot who would come himself in a moment. He came a bit later, an elderly man, with a venerable white beard and hair and a fine presence. He was very kind indeed, and we sat down, and he asked me all about myself. A brother brought a tray, with the usual spoonful of preserved fruit, Turkish coffee and glass of fruit-spirit, the ratification of welcome all over south-east Europe. We all three got on very well, and he seemed very interested on hearing I was keeping a journal about it all, and produced a book, with illustrations, that he had written himself about Mount Athos. I was very interested, and he suddenly astonished and delighted me by presenting me with it. I thanked him profusely and meant it, though it was limited to a repetition of efharisto poli. He wrote something in the flyleaf, and then produced his visitors’ book for me to sign. There were several other English names in it. The Crown Prince of Sweden was the name directly before mine.

  The French-speaking monk and I had a long chat sitting on the deep windowsill, overlooking the Aegean, and he told me he had been many years in Paris studying music, but had finally abandoned it, owing to poverty. He is an extraordinarily nice man, who seems to have been told to look after me. We had supper together, brought by one of the monks, an odd-looking one, young, with a huge jet-black beard and moustache, and large dark, tragic eyes under curving black brows, and smooth pale olive skin. An extraordinary being. Our meal was very simple: beans, fried potatoes, bread and red wine – mavro krassi – but very good.

  The very black-haired monk had taken my kit into one of the cells reserved for guests, a nice light one, with whitewashed walls, a big luxurious bed laid with clean sheets, a sofa, table and chair; he was just putting some more logs into the blue-painted stove, and the lighted oil lamp on the table made the room look very snug. The embrasure of the window is very deep, owing to the thickness of the walls, and looks down on to a deep well of cloisters, across whose cobbles a monk occasionally walks by in his sweeping black robes.

  It is very late now, as the French-speaking monk and I sat by the fire chatting for quite a while after supper, since when I’ve been sitting and writing by lamplight. My first day at Mount Athos has been splendid, and I am surprised by the real solicitude and kindness of these hospitable monks, who seem to be really delighted to have guests, and to take endless trouble for their happiness.

  26th January, Koutloumousiou

  I read Don Juan pretty late last night, and so woke up at almost ten this morning, having slept gloriously. The black-bearded monk soon turned up, with some coffee and bread which he put on my table, after wishing me kalimera, ‘good day’. Father Giorgios, the French-speaking monk, came just as I was finishing shaving, and we had a chat together over a cigarette, and in the end I decided to make my way to Karyai that day, in order to report to the Chapter of Monasteries, and get an official letter to all the monasteries.

  The two monks, after lunch, wished me farewell, and I set off up the lonely stone track winding through rather sad woods of ilex and acacia, looking rather like bible woodcuts of the Mount of Olives. Th
e road climbed steadily, past many small streams and boulders, and, with increasing height, the trees all became firs, with traces of snow still on their branches. The sun gleamed on the roofs and painted walls of Xeropotamos, among its terraced vineyards and cypresses not far below. A monk on a mule soon overtook me, and hung my rucksack and overcoat on his wooden saddle. He dismounted several times, to try and make me take his place, and was very sorry that I wouldn’t take it. The monks really are true models of unselfishness.

  After about an hour’s climb, we reached the top of the slender peninsula with the blue Aegean on both sides. Directly below lay the little town of Karyai. This is the centre of the holy peninsular government. As we descended the cobbled streets, which seemed surprisingly full of people, not nearly all monks, I couldn’t help wondering at the population. Owing to the exclusion of women, none of them can have been born here, none have wives here, and yet they had all the appearance of a settled population. Do they go away to the mainland and return with their sons, or do just confirmed bachelors and misogynists come to work here, tired of an evil world? It’s a mystery to me.

  I found the police up a rickety flight of wooden stairs, and the sergeant there bade me a friendly good day and gave me a chair and a cigarette, while he was writing out my form to send to the Council of Monasteries. Everyone seems to be imbued with the same spirit of kindness on Mount Athos, and in this completely unmaterialistic atmosphere the innate goodness of human nature is given a chance to breathe. Time has stood still here and the whole Sacred Mountain seems a relic of some era, aeons ago, when men lived in a sweet air of peace and goodwill.

  One of the police led me along cobbled lanes till we arrived at the chapter house, where we were admitted by a heavily whiskered kavass in a flowing shirt, a black velvet kilt, tasselled cap with the silver badge of Athos, white stockings and pompom shoes. He looked splendid. All the monastery servants are similarly clad.

  I was led into the council chamber, where an obviously important elder sat writing at a desk. He took off his spectacles to look at me, shook hands, and courteously asked me to sit down. He gave my papers to a young monk, including my beautiful letter from the Patriarch of Constantinople with its elegantly tangled calligraphy and handsome seals. We had a chat in French, and a kavass brought me the ritual coffee, liqueur and jam. The room was of interest, as it was obviously the official council chamber. A seat ran all round three walls, and above each place was a little brown plate, bearing the name of a monastery, and here the representative sits at the thrice-weekly parliaments of the little community. The Megisti Lavra was in the middle, as the senior monastery, and the others were all carefully graded according to precedence. On the fourth side stood an imposing throne on a dais, and a tall ebony staff, tipped with silver, a sort of emblem of office for the president.

  Elders began to come in one by one, taking their places after crossing themselves three times before the ikon at the end of the room. (They cross themselves differently to the Catholics, making the cross-bar from right to left.) They all let their white beards and hair flow free and are forbidden to cut it. The surprising thing about them all is the complete integrity of their faces, which speak of a simple and happy life. They made a fine picture, sitting round in groups, talking together, in their deep seats, with the background, outside the windows, of the descending mountainside and the sea.

  My friend read out the Patriarch’s letter sonorously, and they all laughed at the adjective σπουδαῖος[2] which His Beatitude had applied to me in his letter. The abbot read it well, ending with the resounding formula: Ή δὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ χάρις, καὶ τὸ ἄπειρον ἔλεος εἴη μετὰ τῆς ὁσιότητος ὑμῶν.[3]

  When my papers were ready, they all shook hands with me and wished me Godspeed.

  I first went to the small post office and then, as evening was drawing in, bethought me of Father Giorgios’s advice to spend the night at the monastery of Koutloumousiou, whose walls I could see not far down the hill.

  Koutloumousiou is one of the smaller monasteries, and not so rich as some, but the monks received me very kindly and led me to a guest chamber, the luxury of whose appointment is in striking contrast to the austerity of the stone cloisters and chill passages outside. It is a relic of the time when Macedonia was under the Turkish yoke, and Constantinople its centre of culture. The long windows are curtained with rich stuff, and all round the walls runs a wide low seat, hung with cloth down to the floor and richly cushioned and spread with bright tapestry. The effect is exotic.

  They immediately lit the stove, made up a bed on the divan, and laid the table for an evening meal. Of this I could hardly eat a mouthful, as it consisted entirely of vegetables, cooked and soaked in oil, so I ate lots of bread and sugar, and several oranges. Not wishing to offend the monks I wrapped most of it up in paper, and clandestinely disposed of it later.

  The room is very snug and warm now, and I am sitting writing this before the open stove. It was a bit depressing sitting alone in the slowly darkening room as the sun set, watching the monks walk across to vespers in the chapel, their black cylinder hats hung with the sweeping veils they always put on for church. Later I could hear the deep plainsong chants, and strange Orthodox antiphony and, with the last streaks of daylight fading behind the cupolas and the red and white masonry of the chapel, I felt suddenly terribly sad. It was quite dark soon, with just the sombre outline of the mountain discernible. At such times I nearly always remember England, and London and the hooting of cars in Piccadilly, or soft English fields which (after a long absence) come so blessed in memory.

  27th January, Iviron

  I left Koutloumousiou early yesterday, and started off downhill, the road winding beside a rushing torrent, breaking over great boulders, and dashing on in a lather of white foam. The peninsula here is entirely forested with evergreens, so that it is difficult to believe it’s only January; among the ilexes and oleanders are many olives, aspens, cypresses and cedar. The higher slopes are almost entirely fir.

  Coming round a corner I saw a funny little grey-haired man sitting on the edge of an old stone well, with some big brown paper parcels beside him. He wished me good day in French, and giving me a cigarette, began to tell me all about himself. He was from Kavalla, and had lived on the Holy Mountain for four years, making maps of it, and copying the ikons on wood. He showed me a few of these, and they were good.

  The sea soon came into sight round a bend, and the large monastery of Iviron, the high walls appearing above the trees. These walls are very lofty, and have the effect of being much higher than they are long, as they are divided into sort of rectangular bastions, rising sheer to quite a height without a single window, then suddenly branching out into an overhanging balcony, with undulating tiled roofs, and the plaster painted bright colours – red, blue, green, in crude designs.

  Several monks were sitting on benches in the big, sunny cobbled courtyard, half asleep, stroking their beards. A young deacon, with scarcely a beard yet, took charge of me, and led me to the reception room, where the faded portraits of many kings hung on the walls: George and Constantine of Greece, Peter the Great, Czar Nicholas II, Edward VII, and several Romanov grand dukes in breastplates and helmets topped with the two-headed Russian eagle.

  After coffee and the rest, I was taken to a big sunny guest room, white-washed, with a deep yellow window-seat running cushioned before the yard-deep window embrasure. Outside was the tree-clad mountainside (it is called Golgotha here). Below, among the aspens, neat plots of the monks’ gardens, and orange trees, with swordshaped, glazed leaves, heavy with golden fruit. Through the mountains and the treetops, whose highest twigs spread beneath the windows, a glittering triangle of the Aegean. The whole scene is so full of detail, it reminds one of the overfilled backgrounds of Italian primitives.

  I read Don Juan all the afternoon, lying in the sunny window-seat; later on I heard the bang bang bang of the wooden beam, which a monk carries round the monastery
, beating it to call the brothers to chapel; I went too.

  The church was typically Byzantine, with a densely worked gold altar screen, the walls a mass of frescoes, all the figures having gilded haloes, shining among the fading paint and plaster. Candles twinkled in the half-dark with gold and silver ikons, before which the monks prostrated themselves, crossed and kissed, on entering the church. It was vespers, and I leant in my carved stall among the black- and white-bearded and veiled monks all with their elbows crooked on the armpit-high arms of their miserere seats. The office was all in plainsong, booming, mystical chanting, interspersed with the clang of censers, the blue smoke curling up through the coloured but fading sunbeams. All the churches here have the same reek of old incense, burnt oil, and stale beeswax. Hundreds of little brass sanctuary lamps dangled from the scarcely discernible vaults overhead, and huge elaborate candelabra. To me there is something at once marvellously mystical, and a bit sinister and disturbing about the Orthodox liturgy.

  After vespers, an old monk took me round the library – masses of old Byzantine manuscripts, the parchment heavy with gilding and multicoloured allegories of devils, saints, virgins and martyrs, all wonderfully graphic. Psalters and bibles bound entirely with gold, clasped with rubies and diamonds, the gift of an emperor of Byzantium, sainted empress, or half-legendary voivode. The vestments too were of unimaginable splendour, cloth of gold stiff with precious stones, stoles studded with pearls, casket after casket full of chalices and holy vessels, crusted with amethysts and emeralds.

  I spent the evening in my room with Byron, very appropriate in Greece. About supper time the deacon came to summon me to table; we ate downstairs in the kitchen. There were two Greek traders there, who spoke French, and several monks, and one Bulgarian. We had a very well-done fowl, and there was lots of red wine; it was a very jolly party; the monks were all excellent chaps, especially one called Father Sophronios, and before long we were all singing. They sang some splendid Greek peasant songs.