Childish Loves

by Benjamin Markovits

  He jumped up readily at this, and we went outside. It was a dry day and the courtyard was not muddy. I called through a window into the kitchen, asking for a bottle, and presently one was brought out. Then I set it on the wall and paced out twenty steps in the direction of the house (so as not to fire into it, but towards the lagoon); but Lukas protested that it was too far, and together we counted out twenty steps again, with my hand on his shoulder. Lukas fired first, but too quickly and closed his eyes a little against the smoke. There was only the sound of the gun, and no other, and afterwards the bottle was still standing on the wall.

  ‘The pistol is no good,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I will show you what may be done with it.’

  He watched me with one of his smiles (as my hand is not very steady), but after my shot rang out, there was another sound, and the bottle lay splintered in the mud.

  ‘No, no, it was the wind,’ he said, still smiling.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ (We spoke together mostly in Italian.)

  ‘Because your hand is like this,’ he answered, holding up his own and allowing it to shake like a leaf. ‘Like an old man.’

  ‘I wonder how old you think I am. I was once as young as you.’

  But he called for another bottle to be brought out and set it on the wall again and counted the steps. But he counted too few, and we stood a little closer. All this with an air as if he thought me easily made a fool of. I believe it never occurred to him that he would miss. But again he misfired into the wind, and my own first shot knocked the bottle into pieces.

  ‘The pistol is no good,’ he repeated, but without a smile, and this time a little disgusted. ‘Otherwise I would not be beaten by an old man.’

  ‘I wonder how old you think I am,’ I said again.

  He looked me up and down, standing very straight and proud, as he always stands, and with his head a little to the side. After a minute: ‘At least thirty.’

  ‘You see, you have made me laugh, and for that you will get your desire. (It is the Italian phrase.) I will give you the pistols.’

  ‘No, no,’ says he, ‘I would like something finer than that, something of my own. These pistols are no good.’

  And, fool that I am (for I could never resist an appeal), I asked Pietro that afternoon to have a pair made up, at any expense, with an inscription I would furnish later; but he came back to me (and this is what struck me truly as absurd) saying there was no one on the island capable of executing my commission, until Parry’s arrival – this at a military base in the midst of its preparations against an empire. The best we could do (it was his own suggestion) was have an inscription added to a pair of guns already existing; and he offered to inquire of Prince Mavrocordatos if he knew where one was to be found. I was reluctant to involve the Prince in an affair that had, after all, no relation to our mission, especially as my position in Missolonghi depended to a certain extent on his continuing esteem. But it occurred to me at last that Lukas might easily be called to defend himself, and his patron, against attack, and that there could be nothing ridiculous in giving him the means to do so. The Prince replied, very handsomely, with a brace of unadorned but beautifully made weapons, which I had gilded for Lukas and inscribed with a couplet from Thomson:

  Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,

  To teach the young idea how to shoot.

  Which Lukas, who, when he likes, has the manners of a proper little boy, received very sweetly – gratitude at least is one of the emotions of which he is capable.

  *

  For several years past I have been accustomed to waking in low spirits, regardless of how I spent the night – or would spend the day. This melancholy (for which my name is a bye-word) is of no duration and signifies after all little enough. It is a sort of dew, which gathers and settles at dawn, but is easily burned away; a few hours will do it. Nevertheless, it is a prospect to be reckoned with at night, before going to sleep; and in the morning, of course. But lately … It is not as if I have slept well. There are nights when I hardly sleep at all. But I cannot recall a time, since leaving Venice, when I have woken better. I watch the window greying and brightening, and hear the animals in the yard being let out and the soldiers stirring in the kitchen below (several of the Suliotes sleep there); and then I sit up and call for Lukas to bring me tea.

  There is a great deal to be done, and the house is constantly occupied, with soldiers, sailors, foreigners, Greeks, merchants, petitioners, officials, Princes and colonels, all talking, planning, arguing, chaffing and drinking at once; only we can do nothing until Parry arrives. But there are some things we have done. Stanhope has brought out the first issue of his Hellenica Chronica, with a motto from Bentham: The greatest good of the greatest number. It lies in stacks on the landing outside his room, and when anyone comes to the house, he presses a copy into his hands. Meyer, the editor, is a ridiculous person and brings out the worst in Stanhope. They spend hours together discussing the principles of education (for schools that have not been built), and the nature of the new constitution (for a government that does not exist). But at least they occupy each other, and are confined mostly to Stanhope’s quarters, on the first floor.

  It has been decided (I have decided it) that until the expeditionary force is assembled, and equipped, we can do no better than organize the force at our disposal, of some six hundred men with serviceable weapons, into a troop of irregulars. No General has ever before had such an army. My corps outdoes Falstaff’s: there are English, Germans, French, Maltese, Ragusians, Italians, Neapolitans, Transylvanians, Russians, Suliotes, Moreotes, and Western Greeks, in front, and to bring up the rear, the tailor’s wife with her troop of negresses, to wash, sew, cook and otherwise provide for the rest. Once a day we exercise in the yard, presenting arms, etc. and firing at straws; and in the afternoon, I ride out with the rest of the Suliotes (there are about a hundred), who form my personal bodyguard, with Pietro and Lukas, to each of whom I have entrusted a division of some twenty men. At night, we talk and drink and make plans, which rarely however survive the sobering of the morning, but nobody minds this, as we get drunk again the next night and make new plans; and in this way we have spent the better part of two weeks.

  That there is something absurd about this manner of proceeding, I am perfectly aware. Pietro has spent five hundred dollars, which had been better spent elsewhere, on materials for fitting out his brigade. But this is what comes of letting boys play the man; all his patriotism diminishes into the desire for a sky blue uniform. Nor is Lukas, who is naturally emulous, to be restrained. He has begged off me (who have never had very great powers of resistance), in addition to the pistols, a gold jacket, a new riding coat, and a new saddle and saddlecloth with silk cording. But the prospect of Parry’s arrival gives a decent margin to this foolishness.

  In addition to our regular rides, I have instituted the habit of reading Greek with him for half an hour each day. The charge of a young man’s life is one that I take seriously, and my promise to his mother, to defend and promote his honour, extends also to her son’s education. The custom has this advantage, which is, that it benefits my own; and we sit together after breakfast on the sofa in my sitting room with a book shared between us that we puzzle out together. Besides, there is a certain charm in imagining, with the plume of Aspe’s helmet drooping from the wall, and the mountains of the Morea showing faintly in the window, that Homer was no fabulist, and that freedom, honour, glory etc. are not only words but things, that may be fought for and won. Only think, a free Greece! It is the very poetry of politics. Nor is Lukas immune to the romance of association, and I believe that for him also this quiet hour gives a colouring to the rest of the day.

  What a strange compound he is! His father was a school-master, a profession that is still reverenced in Greece. And Lukas must have acquired from him, before he died, a dutiful habit of instruction, for he takes his lesson, as Sir Toby took his drink, meekly enough. He reminds me in some respects of the choir-b
oy Edleston, in the symmetry of his face and the extreme innocence of his appearance; but where Edleston was modest, Lukas is brazen; where Edleston was hesitant, Lukas is ironical; where Edleston was warm, Lukas is – less warm. We have sat for twenty minutes together, with my head peering over his shoulder and my hand upon his knee, considering a few lines of verse, and when Stanhope came in to discuss (without knocking) some business to do with the arrears, I have watched the boy without the least sign of embarrassment or reluctance stand up to leave.

  It is clear to me that I am nothing to him, except as a source of some amusement and … many fine things. But at the moment it strikes me still as something to be grateful for – that I should live again impassioned days. If he is curious about me at all (and he is not much), it is only in this respect: that I have, without looks, youth or valour to recommend me, managed to acquire a name and the admiration of people he knows. Though he can hardly bring himself to believe that my fame depends entirely on what I have written; on books. He said to me once, in some wonder, as we sat on the sofa, ‘They tell me you are a great man and say that I should show you respect and do what you ask.’

  ‘Who tells you? However, what I wish for most is that you do for me what I don’t ask.’

  ‘Pietro. Tita. My mother, before we left.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘Well, you do not seem to me very different from other men.’

  ‘And what do you know of men?’

  ‘I am not a child, which is what you sometimes call me.’

  ‘I do not think of you as a child.’

  ‘But if you are a great man, it is not what I expected. Your hair is grey and not very thick, and your teeth are brown. And then, your foot makes you limp, which no one remarks on; indeed, people often say to you what they know to be false, as if you were a woman or a child. And you do what I ask, which I would not in your situation.’ A little later he said, ‘Have strangers often been disappointed in you?’

  ‘You mean, when they meet me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They expect me to be less lively than I am.’ The Italian word, in this case, naturally suggests its opposite, and he replied, ‘Does this disappoint them? You seem to me rather dolorous.’

  I am not much used to making love where it was not wanted – I don’t have the art. If Hobhouse were here, he would make me heartily sick of myself; but he is not here. Sometimes, however, I am a little sick. And wonder not only at my devotions, as the churchmen say, but at their object. For I see him clearly enough. Lukas is proud, without being sensitive; and free, without being generous; and honest, without being faithful. In short, he possesses exactly one half of those qualities that have made a joy and a misery of my life, but not the other. Yet whenever he leaves me (which however I don’t often permit), I begin to ‘cast mine eyes’ about until I see him again. And every morning I awake eagerly, with a quickening heart.

  *

  I have managed at least to conduct one good piece of business, which is: to release four Mussulman prisoners to the care of Yussuf Pasha, in return for their treatment of Pietro Gamba and the crew of the bombard. In my experience it is generally a matter of practical self-interest to deal gallantly, even with one’s enemies. Besides, the horrors of war are sufficient in themselves without adding cold-blooded ruthlessness on either side. The rest of my time is taken up with money-matters, for which I have only lately acquired a taste.

  Pietro himself wonders at it, and reproaches me for it, as I have decided in the end to put a stop to his foolishness about the uniforms. The cloth, which he has ordered at ridiculous expense (the cost might have equipped, or at least maintained, three hundred men for a month!) will be put up at auction; for I would rather incur the dead loss of part than be encumbered with a quantity of things at present superfluous or useless in themselves. Pietro, who hates being in the wrong, has apologized in a fashion. This is the form his apology took. He came in one day to see me writing letters – to Charles Hancock of the Committee, in a request for funds; to a Mr Stevens, the customs officer in Argostoli, to deal with the sale of the cloth; to Yussuf Pasha, and Samuel Barff, and Captain Yorke, all regarding one kind or another of revolutionary business – and stood at my shoulder, and watched me in silence for several minutes, before reproaching me that I no longer write poetry!

  It appears, however, that we may shortly have something better to do. The Turks have sailed out of the gulf again, and the five Speziot ships, which had been guarding the harbour at Missolonghi, turned tail at once. This comes at a particularly bad time, as Parry is expected any moment in the Ann, besides several other dispatches from the Committee, bearing funds, arms, men and mail. The Turkish fleet, finding no resistance, has since reinforced itself; and as I write, through the window of my sitting room, I have counted ten ships (of twenty guns or more) anchored in the waters outside of town. Everyone is in a fever, and there is a great deal of talk, of capitulation on the one hand, and resistance on the other. A scheme has been devised, of setting out at a night in a number of small boats, and cutting away rigging and anchor-cables, in the hope of driving several of these vessels onto the rocks. But for this we need a new moon (which is only two days away) and a strong wind, whereas the weather since Sunday last has been cold grey and settled. I am determined to be foremost in this assault, as it comes at my suggestion (or at my command, which amounts to the same thing), and I would sooner expose myself than anyone else; though Stanhope, Pietro, and the Prince are each of them, and for very different reasons, reluctant to permit this. But I intend to persuade them – as there is no one else who can unite the volunteers, which they admit; and they are under my authority.

  Yesterday was my birthday, my thirty-sixth; and we had a breakfast-party in my apartments to celebrate the fact, an occasion I commemorated with a new poem, which I had finished the night before – my first in several months. Stanhope and Meyer (who never leaves his side); Pietro and the Prince; Bruno and Dr Millingen; Fletcher, Lukas and Tita were all assembled, when I came in carrying the fresh draft. I said to Pietro, ‘You were complaining the other day that I never write poetry now. I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I usually write.’

  ‘Will you read it?’ he said.

  ‘There are reasons that make me reluctant to do so.’

  ‘Then I will read it,’ he answered, taking the draft from my hands. And he began:

  ’Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

  Since others it hath ceased to move,

  Yet though I cannot be beloved

  Still let me love.

  My days are in the yellow leaf.

  The flowers and fruits of love are gone –

  The worm, the canker and the grief

  Are mine alone.

  Then he read on silently for a few minutes. The others began to clamour for him to continue, and Pietro and I exchanged a look, at which I shrugged my shoulders, and finally Pietro said, ‘I think you are right, brother (which he sometimes called me). It is a little better than what you usually write; and it ends very prettily, but not very truthfully, I hope.’ And he read:

  Seek out – less often sought than found,

  A soldier’s grave – for thee the best,

  Then look around and choose thy ground

  And take thy rest.

  Adding, when he was finished, ‘But this of course we cannot allow.’ And the discussion turned again to the proposed attack, and the poem was mentioned no more. Lukas understood not a word of anything.

  *

  The Turks have departed again, no one knows why or whither; and we will not fight. I awoke one morning to find the sea empty of anything, but a few fishing smacks, and was almost sorry.

  *

  As I write, Lukas sleeps in my bed. There is a lamp lit in the room, as (in his fever) he is afraid of the dark, and I have left the door open, which communicates between it and the sitting room. I am not very tired, and when I am, I will sleep on the sofa, which is
no hardship to a seasoned campaigner. His cheeks are red and hot to touch, as if he had been running. Indeed, in his fever he looks very much like the boy he is, and not at all like the man he sometimes pretends to be. He is kinder in sickness than in health; that is, he wants kindness more, and when he could not sleep, asked me to sit by him. I sang to him (I could think of nothing else to do) one of the songs I remembered Lady Byron sometimes singing to our daughter, who slept very poorly, at least in the first weeks of her life (I never saw her after), but he asked me not to sing; so I began to tell him a story, but he asked me not to talk at all. And so I sat with my hand on his hair on the pillow (he did not want me to touch his skin) until he fell asleep.

  All this is the result of another foolish expedition, to Anatolikon, for the purpose of persuading them of my … existence, which had the customary effect: a great deal of mutual congratulation. There was a violent salute of muskets and discharge of cannon to celebrate the removal of the Turks, who had lately been encamped there; and I shook hands with several dozen officers, officials and citizens of the town, who argued amongst themselves over precedence, which put them so out of humour they could only smile in a pinched sort of way on their being introduced. I was shown a very pretty church, dedicated to St Michael, which was supposed very recently to be the site of a miracle. A mortar had lately fallen, killing the curate’s mother (this was not the miracle) and exposing a hidden spring, on which, during the worst of the siege, the townspeople had depended for their survival. This kind of superstition always dispirits me. It is the very cowardice of hope, and these same men who talk invincibly of omens will, when their harvest is ruined by two days of rain, call it a visitation of God and lay down their arms. But the visit ended in expressions of good health, which have already been answered in the usual way: Pietro, prostrate with fever and sweating in his own bed; and Lukas not much better and sweating in mine. (The doctor insisted on this, as he generally sleeps on the floor.) Our boat was caught in a shower on the journey home; we were all as thoroughly soaked as if it had sank. It appears at least that my constitution is not completely ruined, for I have nothing but a headache to complain of.