Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu

by Lawrence Durrell

  Zarian sits down upon the earth ledge outside a cottage to mop his silver head. Through the open door one can see one of those strange interiors: a huge carved bed which takes up nearly the whole room, with the ikons of the saints at its head, and on the nail above it the green marriage wreath. “The Corfiots expend all their decorative talent upon their beds,” says Zarian cynically, “shall I tell you why? It is not because the bed is the place where they get most pleasure out of life—but because it is the only article in the house which by law is not seizable for debt.”

  The dance has changed now to a slower and more stately tempo. The circle begins to wheel. The circle of chance. The wheel of fate. The boy in white is still dancing before the Gastouri girl. She is smiling in a silly tranced way, like a hypnotized bird, as she clutches her handkerchief.

  “Making love, marrying, having children and dying,” says Zarian again, addressing nobody but himself. “Is there no escape from the circle at all?”

  Nicholas is upon us with drinks now as the twilight sets in. A priest is examining my sandals with admiration. A rather good-looking villager is making over-friendly remarks to N. who is replying in her bad Greek as best she can.

  Theodore, to everyone’s surprise, has taken off his coat, and clad in braces and black boots has entered the circle to dance. A cheer goes up. His blond beard flashes in the waning sunlight. Hand on hip he does a few hesitating measures, and then suddenly transfixed by the rhythm begins to dance very well. The women are enchanted by this blond bearded man. “An Englishman,” they cry. “No. No,” yells Father Nicholas hoarsely from under the trees. “A Greek by God. A Greek from Thessaly.” Subdued applause. Head cocked to the music Theodore dances, looking more than ever like an Ionian faun. “But he is like an Englishman,” cry the women. The voices of men under the trees chorus back: “No. He is a Greek in spite of the beard.” Father Nicholas gives the Abbot of Myrtiotissa a stately dig in the ribs. “Go on and dance, good father, he says, “you have a beard too. Dance.” The Abbot giggles coyly. He is rather afraid of the fierce old man. “Dance” yells Nicholas with more abandon. “All you priests ought to dance.” And he gives him a resounding smack upon the back and spills his wine. A policeman absently fires his pistol in the air for the sheer fun of it. A donkey breaks loose and ambles through the crowd with two small shrieking children in the panniers on its back. One of the monks mounts it and drives it back to the trees with shrill cries. A fresh round of wine appears from nowhere and gruff healths ring out, mingled with belches.

  Theodore reappears mildly and says that it is time to start. We have a long walk to make yet before we reach the town. “Doctor, that was well done” cries Father Nicholas in ringing tones. Theodore smartly sidesteps to avoids the approbation of Father Nicholas’s palm which at this stage in the feast falls heavily on friend and enemy alike. “With dancing like that you should win many beautiful women.” Saying goodbye, we take the road and climb slowly to the next hillock, from which the dance seems remote and mystical—like a colored heart beating there under the trees. At this range the violins and guitars are inaudible. Only the little bump of the drum still sounds on in our ears.

  Turning towards the east we walk silently down the scented road in the deep dust. “I do not think, Doctor,” says Zarian, “that the circular dances have anything to do with the stars. I am sure this kind of dancing originated out of some purely practical impulse or occupation. Now I suggest that the circular dances are really symbolic representations of the threshing floor, that they are grain dances. Again, in the dance known as the Trata you can see that it is based upon the fishermen pulling at a net.”

  Theodore is not disposed to quarrel about this interpretation. We walk down the long winding road into the valley in silence. At a corner we come upon a pedlar asleep in the ditch with his hat over his face. Beside him lies a pack full of trinkets; blue beads against the evil eye, amulets, and tracts about the works of the Saint. He snores wonderfully in the deep grass, with one arm thrown in abandon over his face and the other stretched out to its full length. “Ah, sweet content” says Zarian. “We always miss you. We think too much. What are the odds on all this speculation we indulge in if for once we cannot go to a dance, drink a glass of wine, and fall asleep in the ditch like a Greek god on holiday?”

  “Or wake in the morning with lice in our hair and a hangover,” says Theodore severely.

  “It will be wonderful to have a bath,” says N.

  “And dinner. And then to walk across to the open-air cinema where we shall see The Sign of the Cross—this ancient film about the life of Christ, which has caused such a stir in the island. The ecclesiastical authorities are trying to have it banned.”

  “It is not so much the film,” says Theodore, “as the fact that the Corfu daily newspaper carried on its news page the headline: CHRIST TO APPEAR IN CORFU. The general public grew quite alarmed by the idea.”

  The moon is rising.

  8.8.38

  Bocklin has walked over the hills from Metsovo, and arrived in the island. In our Paris days he was a seedy blond youth, so that we hardly recognize the tough-looking specimen of the new Germany who stands on our doorstep. He has with him a number of his own photographs and drawings which are full of life and sensibility. We spend the weekend together at the Count’s country house, where he gets a chance to unload his treasury of demotic songs and fables. He speaks Greek perfectly. Zarian and Theodore are captivated by his manners and his gaiety, and the way he sings to the guitar.

  In the morning while the Count and I are looking for swallows’ nests under the eaves we enter his room and see a bundle of accurate architectural drawings of the main harbor and fortress.

  8.9.38

  Riding south from Paleocastrizza in a fair wind we come to Ermones beach just before dawn; and swimming ashore in the grey half light we build in gleaming sand the figure of a gigantic recumbent Aphrodite. N. and Veronica model the face while Dorothy and I shape the vast thighs. We give her a crown of pebbles for pearls and a belt made from withes of sapling, like snakes. She lies staring at the lightening sky, her mouth open in an agonizing shriek, being born. While the sea creeps up and gnaws her long rigid fingers.

  By first sunlight we are away again, wondering what the wide-eyed fisher-boys will make of this great relief in sand. Aphrodite rising from the foam.

  8.15.38

  Theodore says that in the mountains, where shepherds must pasture their flocks half the year round in the fastnesses far from any village, it is customary to have a ewe instead of a wife. Far from betraying any unusual sensitivity to a practice so well known, each shepherd has his own favorite ewe, which he tricks out with bells and tassels according to his fancy. This ewe is known as the favorite one. The Greek word is .

  He records a conversation with one of the shepherds in Epirus which carried the authentic Holborn Empire note of cynicism. “What point is there,” asked Theodore in his academic manner, “in having this ridiculous practice?” (He was referring to the trinkets which adorned one of the chosen ewes.)

  The shepherd thought for a moment and then replied, as one who offers an opinion verified by long personal experience: “From every point of view they are superior to our wives. But above all they do not talk.”

  The Vintage Time

  9.20.38

  RIDING SOUTHWARD IN the spluttering bus from Kouloura to Ypso at the end of a bright September you can feel the altered accent in things—for the vintage is beginning. Everywhere the turtledoves are calling in the arbors and orchards; and washed by the brilliant sunlight the whole coast glitters and expands under the swinging blows of the waves. The bay is alive with sails glowing in their many colors, and the atmosphere is so clear that one can see, miles away, the distinct figures of friends holding sails and tillers; my brother’s boat Dugong lies just off Agni, heading for the house. I can see his characteristic pose, legs stretched out, head on one side and eyes closed against the smoke of his cigarette. He has stowed his g
uns in their leather cases under the half-decking where the faithful Spiro sits scanning the horizon for something to shoot at. Dugong slaps and yaws as she meets the small race of water thrown back, yellow and curdled, from the Butrinto Estuary. He will be sorry to miss us on his way up to the northern lake Antiniotissa (“Enemy of youth”) where he is after quail and woodcock.

  As we move slowly down from the dead lands the road becomes more and more precipitous, and the green valley comes up at us in a trembling wave of fronds and branches. We roar through several small hamlets, scattering smoke and stones. A woman stands frowsily at her door and empties coffee grounds upon the stones. Two children sit under a bench playing with a tortoise. A policeman shouts something unintelligible. The bus is crammed with peasants going to market, and the air in it smells almost inflammable with garlic and exhaust fumes. Father Nicholas and his son sit just behind us. He has finally conquered his prejudice against southern women, and they are on their way to try and arrange a match with the Gastouri girl whom we had seen at the Kastellani dance. Father Nicholas is in great voice and keeps the whole bus in a roar of laughter. Our feet rest upon a fluttering floor of chickens, all tied by the legs in bunches, like vegetables. His son looks rather ashamed of himself. It is not altogether restful, this journey. At each of Father Nicholas’s jests the driver lets off a peal of laughter in a high piping voice and, letting go his hold upon the wheel, hugs himself with extravagant joy. At these moments the bus shows signs of wanting to mount the stone parapet of the road and fly down into the valley. This tendency is corrected at the last moment, when all except the hardiest travelers have commended themselves to St. Spiridion and flung one arm across their eyes. With prodigious roaring and scraping of brakes we rattle down the mountain like some iron cockroach, and draw up at last in clouds of dust, before the little tavern at the crossroads where Spiro had already parked his great Dodge under the olives, and is busy arguing about the price of wine with the innkeeper.

  We sit for a while over a glass of wine with him. He gives us the gossip of the town in his wonderful Brooklyn argot—strange fragments of words with whole syllables discarded from them when they are beyond his pronunciation. Spiro’s noble stomach reposes comfortably on his knees. His forearms are covered in a black pelt of hair. He is sweating easily and comfortably from every pore. In the dark shadow thrown by the trees, with the red reflections of the tablecloth playing about his dark, good-natured face, he reminds me of nothing so much as a great drop of olive oil. He informs us, with self-importance mixed with a certain shame, that a fire broke out the previous afternoon at a garage. As one of the firemen he had had his first practical experience of firefighting. On the whole the affair had been rather a scandal. The brigade had arrived in good time, clinging importantly to the new fire engine which the Government had provided, each in his gleaming helmet. Spiro himself had arrived, but riding majestically in his own car, with his helmet on. The garage was well alight. The balconies of the surrounding houses were thronged with sightseers, waiting to see the recently formed Fire Brigade prove itself in its first baptism of fire. All went well. While the hose was being uncoiled, the Chief of Police made a short but incisive speech exhorting everyone to stay calm and not to give way to panic. The fire hydrant was unlocked and everything placed in position to extinguish the blaze. At this point, however, a disgraceful argument broke out as to who was going to hold the nozzle of the hose. Words became gestures. Gestures became acts. A push here, a scuffle there, and riot had broken out. A struggling mass of firemen began to fight for possession of the nozzle. At this point the hose bulged and began to emit a creditable jet of water, and what was to be a baptism of fire became a baptism of water for the onlookers. A slowly rotating fountain of water moved across the square. The Minister for the Interior, who had been standing innocently on his balcony in heliotrope pyjamas, was all but swept into the street by the force of the jet. Women screamed. The long-averted panic against which the Chief of Police had warned them broke out. The affair ended with a baton charge and a number of arrests. The garage was left to burn itself out. The engine was driven home in disgrace by a civilian. And Spiro tendered his resignation.

  Driving easily across the low hills where the vineyards have already taken on their ochre tones, he seems a little hurt that we find the story funny. “It’s not a good thing,” he tells N. repeatedly, “for the nation when the bastards do that.”

  We sweep up the long drive and round to the side of the house. The Count is sitting at the edge of the orchard, under a tree, reading with his dogs beside him. He is clad in pyjamas and a straw hat. He waves his hand and signals us to cross the sunlight-dappled walks.

  “Ah! you will forgive my pyjamas,” he says. “The others have not arrived yet. I am half drunk just reading through Mazziari’s description of the grapes. Come, let us take our pick.”

  The vineyards are already beginning to look gutted and burnt out with shrivelling leaves. The Count walks ahead with us stopping here and there in all the profusion to clip a bunch of grapes with his scissors, which he carries tied round his waist on a piece of string. “Ah, my dear, where have you ever seen such plenty?” he says. Indeed the variety is astonishing. “We will ignore these plump ones with the thick skins. But try these violet colored ones. You may find them too sweet. We have had three days’ torture preparing for the gathering. So many extra mouths to feed. Plasterers, treaders, and whatnot hanging about the house.” The great doors of the magazine are ajar. The huge vats and butts have been dragged out into the meadow for caulking and patching. Under a tree a small army of men is at work upon them. Some have been turned upon logs, and are being filled with gravel and water, before being rolled. Others are being mended and scoured. “The big one in the corner,” says the Count, “she is the one you have to thank for the crimson robola wine which you think so good—and which even Zarian likes.”

  The shadow of the cottage pergolas seems rich with the scent of grapes—of blunt sweet muscatel and lisabetta. Ourania cuts down heavy clumps of them for the table, holding them in her brown arms and smiling. They are covered in a rich misty bloom still.

  Meanwhile across the orchard the Count is in full voice:

  The little amber ones and those which look ice-green and closely packed—they have done very well this year. Farther on we shall see the rhoditi. They run blood-red when the sun shines through them; coral rather, like the lobe of an ear. Dear me, we shall all have indigestion. Ah! Here comes the Doctor and Zarian—beyond the olive trees there. And his wife. Zarian looks extremely puffed as usual. And Nimiec.

  By lunchtime the rest of the guests have arrived, and are seated at tables laid under the arbor which bounds the last terrace. A tremendous meal has been prepared, and three of the prettiest village girls are there to serve it. Zarian openly bemoans having brought his pleasant American wife with him. “Where do you keep these beauties?” he asks. “They are never here when we come alone.”

  “They would distract us perhaps,” says the Count seriously. The crimson robola is passed round. Each pours a drop upon the ground before drinking—the peasant libation. The grounds are swarming with workmen to prepare for tomorrow’s picking.

  “This year we are going to begin on the hill there. It should be specially good, this year’s robola. I feel it in my bones. We shall call it, I think, Prospero’s Wine. What do you say?”

  The valley curves away below the arbor with its delicately curved panels of landscape. From the orchard a guitar strikes up, and after a few moments’ hesitation the sound of voices—the men’s deep and rough, the women’s high and shrill as herring-gulls’. The gatherers have arrived in the hope of an extra day’s work. The faint crack of guns sounds in the valley. A puff of smoke here and there marks a sportsman with a muzzle-loader shooting doves. The conversation wells up in waves—overstepping the boundaries of language. The vintage holiday has begun.

  Lunch prolonged unconscionably becomes tea. Some of us wander away to bathe or sleep out
the long hot afternoon. By nightfall the gang of workmen have done their job, and the vine vats are ready. They sit upon doorsteps or on the grass among the olive trees, eating their frugal meal of bread and fruit. But wine there is in plenty for them.

  At the end of the terrace Zarian lies majestically sleeping in a hammock, while his wife pauses from her reading at intervals to brush a fly off his face. Theodore and Nimiec have disappeared on a journey of exploration with N.

  The Count is pottering round the magazine in his pyjamas giving orders in a peremptory voice to his overseers. “Tomorrow we shall start on the robola vat,” he says, and gives orders for it to be moved out of the shadow into the angle of the wall where the sunlight strikes. “Niko is going to come and do the treading. I can always trust him.” Niko is a slim young man, dressed in a dark suit, who holds his hat modestly in his hand as he hears the Count speak. “If we put all the women on to the vineyard at once we should have the first vat gathered by sundown tomorrow. Niko can begin at dusk.” His face is radiant and empty of preoccupation. Meanwhile the cellars must be tidied, the magazines dusted and all vanishable goods removed beyond the reach of the pickers’ temptation. Ourania is filling the bowls with flowers—autumn crocus and cyclamen from the walls of the vineyards. Donkeys unload mounds of red tomatoes at the outhouse and everywhere the brisk sound of bargaining goes on. Caroline is playing patience upon the balcony, stopping from time to time to pop a grape into her mouth. “We cannot complain,” says the Count. “It will be a lovely vintage. We can start Niko off tomorrow. We might bathe tonight. We can use the car. I see that Spiro has stayed on with us. It’s bad for trade but he can’t bear to miss a party.”