The Broken Road

by Patrick Leigh Fermor

  10th February, St Panteleimon

  I slept very late and lay a long while in the sunlight in a rare and delicious state of semi-consciousness.

  The winding road over the cliffs was pleasant walking, shaded from the sun by olive trees, among which occasional flocks cropped the grass to the piping of their shepherd. After an hour, the roofs of Daphni appeared below, and beyond, each smaller in the distance, the monasteries of Xeropotamos and Panteleimon.

  Daphni, that sunny, dead little village, seemed fast asleep with only the lapping of the waves on the pebbles to break the silence. The few members of the population visible were all sleeping with their caps over their eyes. I found my way to Vrettas’s abode, just such another whitewashed room, with two windows facing seaward, as at Lavra; and there was Vrettas lying on his back in his shirtsleeves, smoking and reading a Greek satirical weekly. He seemed pleased to see me. I lay on the spare bed, and so we chatted and read all the afternoon, and towards evening walked down to the diminutive quay, where we watched the sun setting, then went on into the inn and found the chief of police and the customs officer – ‘la fleur de la société de Daphni’, as Vrettas sarcastically dubbed it – and drank glass after glass of raki, with cheese and olives. We all got very amusing, especially Vrettas and I, who were feeling slightly tight by the time his servant came along to tell us dinner was ready. This was a jolly meal, with Vrettas and me and another sprig of the Daphni elite. We were all in good form, laughing a good deal, and drinking lots of some Macedonian wine that reminded me of Tokay. In the end, we all sang.

  Vrettas and I talked far into the night: he is a real cynic, and sneers at everything. He says the religion on Mount Athos is a farce – ‘elle n’a aucun rapport avec le Bon Dieu!’[17] I didn’t agree at all. On hearing I was off to Panteleimon in the morning, he told me of its present poverty compared with its affluence in the days of Imperial Russia – champagne and caviar every night, he said, which I take with a huge pinch of salt. He referred to Father Basil, the governor of the Caucasus’s son, of whom I had heard so much, and he said he was astonished how such a man could become a monk. He told me he spoke perfect English, Greek, German and French, and was very intelligent. ‘Mais’, he finished, ‘il devient mystique, ce type-là, et quand un Russe est ainsi, je vous assure, c’est trop pour moi!’[18]

  We slept very late this morning. Then Vrettas and his pal and I had luncheon in the open behind the inn, under a trellis of brown leaves. Afterwards, chairs were set on the quay by the low, broad sea wall, and there we sat chatting with a few village cronies over Turkish coffee and cigarettes, relapsing into frequent silences, the only sound beyond that of the waves being the rattle of beads, as somebody flicked the amber beads of his komboloi between his fingers.

  I got the impression that all the inhabitants of Daphni are bored to extinction, the same faces and conversation every day, being jarred by the same things continually, with a choice of twenty or twenty-five inhabitants, of whom most seem odd in some way, blockheads or halfwits. I don’t know what Vrettas does, being an intelligent chap, with such company year in year out. When I left, they were still contemplating the sea in silence, playing with their beads.

  For some time my track followed the one I had taken on my first day on Mount Athos, branching off towards Xeropotamos about half way. From there the road got more desolate and melancholy with every step. The wind through the trees, and the very streams among the rocks seemed to murmur in sorrow. Underfoot the bruised leaves of the evergreens filled the air with an aromatic flavour. Just such scenery as I have always pictured for the Mount of Olives and the garden of Gethsemane. The wind brought the tinkling of the bells of St Panteleimon, and soon I saw rambling walls by the sea, green Muscovite domes, and glittering Russian crosses above the treetops.

  I soon saw the monks. Many were tall, and unlike all the others they were clothed in blue frocks, and wore heavy knee-boots, and underneath their black hats and wild hair their pale Slav faces appeared childlike and simple, many with the slightly slanting eyes and high cheekbones that one’s mind probably wrongly associates with Siberia. Some of their beards straggle like those of Macedonians. They bowed their heads in greeting, and one led me to the arhondaris, who has all strangers in his care. His face was a mixture of guilelessness, sadness and quiet humour. He led me to my whitewashed room, and brought some Russian tea, with a slice of lemon floating in it.

  After I had drunk it, he led me across the huge courtyard to see the Father Basil of whom I had heard so much. We went up flight after flight of wooden stairs, and eventually tapped on the door of his cell. Father Basil was almost invisible, owing to the darkness of the cloisters and the fading daylight, but when he addressed me quietly in English my heart bounded with joy. It was balm after the jerky cacophonies of returning émigrés from America, and each word of his soft unearthly voice was music.

  We went for a walk down by the sea. I don’t quite know what Vrettas meant when he described him as a mystic; but the tall, pale forehead, the high-bridged, formally classical nose, and sculptured, sensitive features discernible through his auburn monastic beard did seem fraught with sadness and mystery; and the surprising thing about him was his youth, that waxen face without a wrinkle, yet touched with the sorrows of the world, as though my presence had brought him out of a dusky forest of meditation.

  His English, like that of many white Russians, was perfect, and his German and French too. We spoke of Western Europe, and people we both knew – the charming Professor Whittemore, and Mark Ogilvie-Grant,[19] who came here some years ago with Robert Byron[20] and David Talbot Rice[21] when they were preparing their book about the Holy Mountain. His company was delightful to me, famished as I was, after an uninterrupted stretch of peasant company, for some shades of human intercourse subtler than saying I come from London, and giving the number of inhabitants, and answering enquiries then about my father, mother, sister (people seemed sorry I had no brothers) and as to whether I had done my military service.

  It was an evening full of charm. After returning, we had a second tea in my room, then went over to the chapel where vespers were ending. The monks were singing in a ring, among a forest of candles and gilding, in deep, Slavonic voices. I saw my two Caucasians kissing the ikons with a self-conscious devoutness that was very noticeable amid this slow-moving, abstracted company. When it was finished, I met the deputy abbot (the abbot himself was ill in bed), and then, bidding goodnight to Father Basil, ran across the flagged courtyard, to a good supper of borscht, boiled eggs (from the mainland, I suppose), oranges and a very dark wine.

  It is late now, and my window is directly above the advancing and retreating sea; its subdued murmur will go on all night. A few minutes ago, there was a noise in the passage; an old monk, bowed with age, and dragging his heavy knee-boots, was shouting cryptic condemnation, talking of powers unseen and waving his heavy stick at the air; his blue slit-eyes blazed, and his mouth worked under his wisps of beard. Several monks turned up, and laughing softly like children, persuaded him back to his cell.

  11th February, my 20th birthday, St Panteleimon

  Woke up this morning, the weight of my twenty years heavy upon me, wondering how many people at home were wishing me many happy returns and whether the waves of their well-wishing would reach me through the air. The arhondaris, with whom I have made great friends, brought me tea and jam and bread. He seems to have taken me under his wing, as I’m his only guest.

  After dressing, I was just setting out in quest of Father Basil, when I met him on the threshold, coming to visit me. So we sat talking in my room, and then we set off to look round the chapel, where the ikons and frescoes were all new, and though not unpleasant, not very interesting. The gilding in the upper chapel is all recent, and some of the stencilling on the wall awful, and luckily not very obvious. The two-storey library is enormous, with long, pleasant rooms packed full of books in expensive cases. It is very poor in manuscripts however, except for one with the gospels fo
r each day of the year, which has fascinating illustrations, a Nativity where the interest and adoration in the eyes of the animals is really wonderful, and another of the Baptism of Christ, naked in Jordan, with the devil, or some evil water sprite, in a posture of submarine thwartedness. The soft-voiced librarian spoke affectionately of Professor Whittemore, and consented to my taking Robert Byron’s The Station, which Father Basil had presented, back to my cell. Then I bade Basil goodbye, and he returned to his cell, I to mine, he dragging his heavy boots behind him, and giving the impression, in his youthfulness, of a schoolboy dressed up in a flowing beard and hair, tall hat and long robes.

  The rest of the morning I read The Station. It’s a splendid book (the fly-page bears the words ‘to Father Basil, with best wishes from Colin Davidson,[22] 64 Curzon Street, London W1’). I kept breaking into laughter, making the cloisters echo with solitary mirth, and it was amusing to read a description of Father Charalampi, while he laid my lunch before my eyes. The description of Basil under the name of Father Valentine is a masterpiece, and the types and the spirit of Athos are caught brilliantly all through.

  I remembered Father Giorgios and the Abbot of Xeropotamos, who had been so nice in presenting me with his book; so, taking the staff that the woodman at Pantocrator had given me, I started off over the rocks and stones, and up the steep path to Xeropotamos, less than an hour distant from Russiko.[23] The wind was like a gale, and the climb uphill was a hard struggle. The Albanian janitor was pleased to see me again, and addressed me as before in Russian, knowing I knew Bulgarian better than Greek; he led me inside and gave me a raki and coffee, not the official welcoming one, but a personal nip. Asked if he remembered ‘Mr Byron’ he shook his head, but his face lit up with recognition at the second, Mark Ogilvie-Grant[24] – ‘ὁ Μάρκος!’ – and he held forth what a nice young gentleman he was, and how well he dressed. When I asked after Father Giorgios, he led me to his cell. From the sounds along the passage, I could hear he was practising. He greeted me warmly, his French bubbling over, his mobile eyes dancing and his gold teeth flashing. His cell was bare and small, every available table and chair cluttered with sheet music, his bed unmade since jumping out of it for early Mass, and many oranges ranged in the window to ripen.

  He said he had had a very entertaining time reading the Contes drolatiques, which I had given him, and said he would leave the monastery, if only he could get hold of a piano. I wonder if, through my agency, Balzac has planted these improper desires in his breast. He seemed a bit forlorn, sitting on his bed, his bearded chin cupped in his hands, recalling better days in Paris – ‘Comme j’ai gaspillé des sous, hé-hé!’[25] He gave me a couple of oranges despondently. Then we went to see the abbot, who had been so kind on my last visit, giving me his autographed book. He was in conference with an archimandrite from the mainland but appeared delighted to see me, and over glyco, coffee and raki, asked me all about my activities, what monasteries I had visited, and what my impressions had been. He and Father Giorgios besought me to stay the night in the monastery, but as it would have been a bit awkward at Panteleimon, I excused myself as best I could. When I got up to bid the abbot farewell, Giorgios whispered, ‘Baisez la main, baisez la main!’[26] and I bent with a flourish over the Abbot Evdokios’s hand. The old man appeared charmed at this apparent knowledge of ecclesiastical manners in a barbarian, and his benedictions followed me from the room. Father Giorgios came a little along the path, his monastic frock blown up like an agitated balloon by the gale-wind. Holding his hat to his head, he bade me goodbye, beseeching me to write, which I promised to do.

  Aided by the wind, I ran most of the way back, feeling fleeter than Hermes, and waving my long peasant’s staff overhead like the Mercurial caduceus. Over stones, streams and rocky clefts and valleys I sped, and the grey-white leaves of the olive trees streamed with me, like a silver head of hair. It was nearing dusk when I reached Russiko again, and I found my way up to the cloisters and Basil’s cell. He was there in the dusk, poring over a huge theological tome, looking like an etching of a mediaeval necromancer seeking the philosopher’s stone. When I was seated, he removed the chimney of his oil lamp, and set a match to the ragged wick, dispelling the twilight in a soft golden light, shaded by a green shield. As we talked, he prepared cups and saucers and the samovar, and soon we were chatting over Russian tea, and looking round his simple room, with its plank bed, and his desk piled high with a disorder of huge dictionaries. His life seemed an enviable one. He reminded me of those pictures of St Jerome in his cell. We talked of the coenobitic and anchoritic lives, I saying that surely the latter was preferable, owing to the clashes, jealousies and squabbles inevitable in a large community. He seemed to agree with me, saying that he considered the life of a coenobite monastery a stepping-stone to solitary eremitism, as it was a large jump to make all at once. Thence his conversation led to Jerome, Augustine of Hippo and St Simeon Stylites.

  I felt slightly depressed as the conversation continued, owing to the realization that I was talking to someone for whom all the vanities and selfishness to which I am prone were non-existent. I had an unusually strong desire to be at my best in his presence, and suffered agonies when I thought that I said anything jarring or with a false ring. It was immediately apparent to me against the quiet conversation of Father Basil. He has a most peculiar personal charm, and his company here is a blessed stroke of good fortune. I eventually bade him goodnight, as he had to go to his abbot’s chamber to read vespers, and I took my way to the church.

  Today is the vigil of the prazdnik celebrating SS Basil, Gregory and John Chrysostom (the Three Hierarchs), and I came into the chapel at the beginning of the all-night service of eight hours, which heralds the holy day. Basil, before leaving, led me to a throne-like stall, quite alone before a pillar. The chapel was in almost complete darkness, save for the candles and oil lamps, twinkling like glow-worms before the ikons, their reflections reiterated a thousandfold in the gold and silver encrusting the altar screen and the holy pictures. The monks in their stalls were black shadows in the gloom, the whole church sunk in silence, broken only by the occasional entrance of a brother, the scrape of his huge boots on the floor, making his obeisance before the Virgin; a monk flitted ghost-like round the church, a taper lighting the insides of his cupped hands as he tended the hanging silver lamps.

  All was still at last, and a stoled priest issued from the sanctuary, swinging a censer in his hands. He turned his back on the people, and gravely censed the ikons of Jesus, the Virgin and Child, St John the Baptist and then the saints one after the other, all round the church, silent save for the clang, clang, clang. In the obscurity of the nave, all that was visible was the glowing fiery bowl of the thurible, and the iridescent blue clouds that issued from it; then he censed the monks one by one, each bowing gravely in his stall, finishing with me, when he returned to the tabernacle, leaving the church again in deep silence, which was soon broken by soft, unearthly singing, harmonies of a quality and weirdness that set my pulses throbbing. Gradually the chanting grew in volume, and several of the monks, all black in their veils and gowns, filed up both sides into the chancel where they stood in a group about a many-faceted lectern under a hanging lantern, joining their voices to the harmony, with a volume, richness and mystery quite new to me. All my landmarks were lost, it was as unlike the familiar Bulgarian, Rumanian and Greek liturgy as it could be, and looking at the inscrutable, expressionless moujik faces, it condensed for me the spirit of those snowbound steppes, conjuring up visions of the many-domed Kremlin, of Siberian villages among the pines and the lullaby of howling wolves.

  Slowly the church lit up with the burning of tapers, and the masses of goldwork and the twirling columns lost all their garishness in the kindly light. Another robed priest issued from the tabernacle, the choir formed a semicircle, the singing changed, mounted, descended, always preserving its unreality. Ceremony succeeded ceremony, the ikon of the three saints was displayed on a veiled tripod, the service shi
fted from one wing of the church to the other. All this time the wind howled outside, sometimes echoing the thunder’s pitch as it roared through the wires of the crosses overhead. The singing became a litany, and three fantastic harmonies sank to an infinitely sorrowful and exquisite ‘Lord, have mercy, Lord’.

  How many hours I leant in a semi-trance in the darkness I don’t know, but I was roused by a touch on the shoulder, and turning, saw Father Basil, a candle in his hand. He advised me to go to bed, as it was late and he said the litany would continue for many hours longer, and there was a great Mass tomorrow which I could attend. Reluctantly I descended the cloister steps with him, the singing growing faint in the distance, and the wind gaining mastery. I left him at the head of the steps leading down to the courtyard, and there below, the domes of the chapel gleamed in the night, and the branches of a palm tree lashed wildly in the gale. Suddenly, for no reason, I felt that prickling which we call hair standing on end, and took to my heels across the flagstones as fast as I could go, never halting till I was in my cell.

  It has been a wonderful day, and I could not have wished for anything better for my birthday. Just a year ago, I was in a schloss in upper Austria, sleeping after a dinner and evening with Count and Countess Trautmannsdorff.

  12th February, St Panteleimon

  I sat up so late last night that I quite failed to rise in time for the Mass of the Three Saints, the absent-minded Charalampi bringing my tea, bread and sladkoe an hour after it was finished. Looking out of the window, I saw that the gale last night had brought on a snowfall, as the whole beach was deep in white, and the windowsill outside piled high. It was a depressing scene, the leaden, rough-surfaced sea and the white flakes swirling down in fierce whorls and eddies. It was out of the question to leave Russiko that day.

  Buttoning my coat high under my chin, I set out across the six-inch deep courtyard, the falling snow capping my head and covering my shoulders with white. I had hoped that I might be in time for the tail-end of the Mass, and seeing a little procession issuing from the church, bearing candles that were immediately blown out, I followed them through the huge doors under the belfry just opposite, and to my embarrassment found myself in the monks’ refectory, where hundreds of monks sat about their tables. I beat a hasty retreat back to my cell, where Charalampi was laying the table for lunch. He helped me out of my snowy overcoat, repeating over and over again his word ‘снег’ – snow. He is an excellent man, the only monk besides Basil who has ever knocked on my door before entering, and he doesn’t bombard me with endless questions about my family, and how much money my father has got, and the size of London, respecting my privacy as much as I his. There is a twinkle in his small eyes, that shows that though few words may be spoken, we understand each other very well. A change from the garrulity of the Greeks.