The King Of The Mountains Part 2

Photini was in a boarding-school at Hetairie. It is, as you know, a school established on the model of the Legion of Honor, but regulated by rules broader and more tolerant. Usually, only daughters of soldiers were taught there, sometimes, also, brigands' heiresses.

Colonel Jean's daughter knew a little French and a little English; but her timidity did not permit of her shining in conversation. I learned later, that her family counted upon us to perfect her in these foreign tongues. Her father, having learned that Christodule boarded honorable and educated Europeans, had begged the pastry-cook to allow her to pa.s.s her Sundays with his family, and he would see that he was recompensed.

This bargain pleased Christodule, and above all, his son, Dimitri. The young man, working in a servant's place, devoured her with his eyes, while the heiress never perceived it.

We had made arrangements to go, all together, to a concert. It is a fine spectacle when the Athenians give themselves up to Sunday pleasures. The entire population, in gala dress, turns out into the dusty fields, to hear waltzes and quadrilles played by a regiment band. The poor go on foot, the rich in carriages, the fashionable men on horseback. The Court would not have stayed away for an empire. After the last quadrille, each returned to his home, clothes covered with dust, but with happy hearts, and said: "We have been very well amused."

It was certain that Photini counted on showing herself at the concert, and her admirer, Dimitri, was not ashamed to appear with her; for he wore a new redingote which he had just bought at the Belle-Jardiniere.

Unfortunately, it rained so steadily, that it kept us at home. To kill time, Maroula offered to let us play for bonbons; it is a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt among the middle cla.s.ses. She took a gla.s.s jar from the shop, and gave to each one a handful of native bonbons, cloves, anise seed, pepper, and chicory. Then, the cards were dealt, and the first who collected nine of the same color, received three sugar plums from each of his adversaries. The Maltese, Giacomo, showed by his eagerness, that the winning was not a matter of indifference to him. Chance favored him; he made a fortune, and we saw him gulp down six or eight handfuls of bonbons which he had won from the rest of us.

I took little interest in the game, and concentrated my attention upon the curious phenomenon taking place on my left. While the glances which the young Athenian, Dimitri, cast upon Photini, were met with perfect indifference, Harris, who did not even look at her, seemed to produce a wonderful impression upon her, even to almost magnetize her. He held his cards with a nonchalant air, yawning, from time to time, with American freedom, or whistling Yankee Doodle, without respect for the company. I believe that Christodule's story had made a great impression on him, and that his thoughts were roving over the mountains in pursuit of Hadgi-Stavros. In any case, whatever his thoughts were, they were not of love. Perhaps the young girl was not thinking of it either, for Greek women nearly always have in their hearts a substratum of indifference.

She looked at my friend John, as a lark looks at a mirror. She did not know him; she knew nothing of him, neither his name, his country, nor his fortune. She had not heard him speak, and even if she had heard him, she certainly was not competent to judge of his ability. She saw that he was very handsome, and that was enough. Formerly, Greeks adored beauty; it was the only one of their duties which had never had any atheists.

The Greeks of to-day, despite the decadence, know how to distinguish an Apollo from a baboon. One finds in M. Fauriel's collection, a little song which may be translated thus:

"Young man, do you wish to know; young girls, would you like to learn, how love enters into our hearts? It enters by the eyes; from the eyes it descends to the heart, and in the heart it takes root!"

Decidedly, Photini knew the song; for she opened her eyes wide, so that love could enter without trouble.

The rain did not cease to fall, nor Dimitri to ogle the young girl, nor the young girl to gaze, wide-eyed, at Harris, nor Giacomo to eat bonbons, nor M. Merinay to relate to the little Lobster, who did not listen, a chapter from Ancient History. At eight o'clock, Maroula laid the cloth for supper. Photini had Dimitri on her left, I sat at her right. She talked but little and ate nothing. At dessert, when the servant spoke of taking her home, she made a great effort and said to me in a low tone:

"Is M. Harris married?"

I took a wicked pleasure in embarra.s.sing her a little, so I replied:

"Yes, Mademoiselle; he married the widow of the Doges of Venice."

"Is it possible; how old is she?"

"She is as old as the world, and as everlasting."

"Do not mock me; I am a poor, foolish girl, and I do not understand your European pleasantries."

"In other words, Mademoiselle, he is wedded to the sea; it is he who commands the American boat, 'The Fancy,' stationed here."

She thanked me with such a flash of radiant joy pa.s.sing over her face, that her ugliness was eclipsed, and I thought she looked absolutely pretty.

III.

MARY-ANN.

The studies of my youth have developed in me one pa.s.sion, to the exclusion of all others; the desire to know; or if you like the term better, call it curiosity. From the day when I embarked for Athens, my only pleasure was to learn; my only grief, ignorance. I loved science ardently, and no one, as yet, had disputed her claim in my heart. I must confess that I had little tenderness and that poetry and Hermann Schultz rarely entered the same door. I went about the world, as in a vast museum, magnifying gla.s.s in hand. I observed the pleasures and sufferings of others as emotions worthy of study, but unworthy of envy or pity. I was no more jealous of a happy household, than of two palm trees with branches interlaced by the wind; I had just as much compa.s.sion for a heart torn by love, as I had for a geranium ruined by the frost. When one has practiced vivisection, one is no longer sensitive to the quivering of the flesh. I would have been a good spectator at a combat of gladiators. Photini's love for Harris would have aroused pity in any heart but a naturalist's. The poor creature "loved at random," to quote a beautiful saying of Henry IV; and it was evident that she loved hopelessly. She was too timid to display her affection, and John was too indifferent to divine it. Even if he had noticed anything, what hope was there that he would feel any interest in an ugly Greek girl? Photini pa.s.sed four days with us; the four Sundays of April. She looked at Harris from morning to night, with loving but despairing eyes; but she never found the courage to open her mouth in his presence. Harris whistled tranquilly, Dimitri growled like a young bull-dog, and I smilingly looked on at this strange malady, from which my const.i.tution had preserved me.

In the meantime, my father had written me that his affairs were not going well; that travelers were scarce; that food was dear; that our neighbors were about to emigrate; and that, if I had found a Russian princess, I had better marry her without delay. I replied that I had not, as yet, found one, unless it was the daughter of a poor Greek Colonel; that she was seriously in love, not with me, but with another; that I could by paying her a little attention become her confidant, but that I should never become her husband. Moreover, my health was good and my herbarium magnificent. My researches, hitherto restricted to the suburbs of Athens, would now become more extended. Safety was a.s.sured, the brigands had been beaten by the soldiers, and all the journals announced the dispersion of Hadgi-Stavros' band. A month or two later, I should be able to set out for Germany, and find a place which would pay enough to support the whole family.

We had read on Sunday the 28th of April, in the Siecle of Athens, of the complete defeat of "The King of the Mountains." The official reports stated that he had twenty men wounded, his camp burned, his band dispersed, and that the troops had pursued him as far as the marshes near Marathon. These reports, very agreeable to all strangers, did not appear to give much pleasure to the Greeks, and especially to our host and hostess. Christodule, for a lieutenant of troops, showed lack of enthusiasm, and Colonel Jean's daughter wept when the story of the brigand's defeat was read. Harris, who had brought in the paper, could not conceal his joy. As for me, I could roam about the country now, and I was enchanted. On the morning of the 30th, I set out with my box and my walking stick. Dimitri had awakened me at four o'clock. He was going to take orders from an English family, who had been staying for some days at the Hotel des Etrangers.

I walked down the Rue d'Hermes to the Square, Belle-Grece, and pa.s.sed through the Rue d'Eole. Pa.s.sing before the Place des Canons, I saluted the small artillery of the kingdom, who slept under a shed, dreaming of the taking of Constantinople; and with four strides I was in the Rue de Patissia. The honey-flowers, which bordered either side, had begun to open their odorous blossoms. The sky, of a deep blue, whitened imperceptibly between Hymettus and Pentelicus. Before me, on the horizon, the summit of Parna.s.sus rose like broken turrets; there was the end of my journey. I descended a path which traversed the grounds of the Countess Janthe Theotoki, occupied by the French Legation; I pa.s.sed through the gardens belonging to Prince Michael Soutzo, and the School of Plato, which a President of the Areopagus had put up in a lottery some years before, and I entered the olive groves. The morning thrushes and their cousins-germain, the black-birds, flew from tree to tree, and sang joyously above my head. At the end of the wood, I traversed the immense green fields where Attic horses, short and squat, like those in the frieze at the Parthenon, consoled themselves for the dry fodder and the heating food of winter. Flocks of turtle-doves flew away at my approach, and the tufted larks mounted vertically in the sky like rockets. Once in a while, an indolent tortoise crawled across the path, dragging his house. I turned him over on his back and left him to attend to his own affairs. After two hours' walking, I entered a barren waste.

Cultivation ceased; one saw upon the arid soil tufts of sickly gra.s.s, the Star of Bethlehem, or Daffodils. The sun lifted itself above the horizon, and I distinctly saw the fir-trees which grew on the side of Parna.s.sus. The path which I had taken was not a sure guide, but I directed my steps to a group of scattered houses on the mountain side, and which was called the village of Castia.

I leaped the Cephise Eleusinien to the great scandal of the little tortoises who leaped like frogs into the water. A hundred steps further on, the path was lost in a deep and wide ravine, worn by the storms of two or three thousand winters. I supposed, reasonably enough, that the ravine ought to be the right road. I had noticed, in my former excursions, that the Greeks did not trouble themselves with making roads where streams were liable to change them. In this country, where man does not oppose the works of nature, torrents are royal roads; brooks, are department routes; rivulets, are parish-roads. Tempests are the road-constructors, and rain is the surveyor of wide and narrow paths. I entered the ravine and walked between two river banks, which hid the plain from me. But the path had so many turns, that I should not have known in which direction I was walking, if I had not kept my back to Parna.s.sus. The wisest course would have been to climb one bank or the other and ascertain my bearings; but the sides were perpendicular, I was weary, I was hungry; and I found the shade refreshing. I seated myself upon a bowlder of marble, I took from my box a piece of bread, some cold lamb, and a gourd of wine. I said to myself: "If I am on the right road, some one will pa.s.s and I can find out where I am."

In fact, just as I had finished lunching, and was about to stretch myself out for the rest which follows the meal of travelers or serpents, I thought I heard a horse's step. I laid my ear to the ground and heard two or three horses coming up the ravine. I buckled my box on my back, and made ready to follow them, in case they were going towards Parna.s.sus. Five minutes afterward, I saw coming toward me, two ladies mounted upon livery-horses, and equipped like Englishwomen on a journey.

Behind them was a pedestrian, whom I had no trouble in recognizing; it was Dimitri.

You who know the world a little, you have noticed that a traveler starts out without much care for his personal appearance; but if he is about to meet ladies, though they be as old as the Dove of the Ark, he loses, at once, his indifference and looks at his dusty and travel-stained garments with a troubled eye. Before even being able to distinguish the faces of the two riders, behind their blue veils, I had looked myself over, and I was sufficiently satisfied. I wore these garments which I have on, and which are even now presentable, although that was two years ago. I have never changed the fashion of my hair; a cap, although as fine and handsome a one as this, would not have protected a traveler from the sun. I wore, instead, a large gray felt hat, which the dust could not hurt.

I took it off politely as the ladies pa.s.sed me. My salutation did not appear to trouble them much. I held out my hand to Dimitri, and he told me in a few words, all that I wished to know.

"Am I upon the road to Parna.s.sus?"

"Yes, we are going there."

"I can go with you, then?"

"Why not?"

"Who are these ladies?"

"English! Milord is resting at the hotel."

"What kind of people are they?"

"Peugh! London bankers. The old lady is Mrs. Simons, of the firm of Barley and Co.; Milord is her brother; the young lady is her daughter."

"Pretty?"

"According to taste; I like Photini's looks better."

"Are you going as far as the fortress?"

"Yes. I am engaged for a week, at ten francs a day and board. I organize and arrange their trips. I began with this one because I knew that I should meet you. But what is the matter with them now?"

The elder woman, annoyed because I was detaining her servant, had put her horse to a trot, in a pa.s.sage where no one had ever dared to trot before. The other animal, filled with emulation, began to take the same gait, and if we had talked a few minutes longer, we would have been distanced. Dimitri hastened to rejoin the ladies, and I heard Mrs.

Simons say to him, in English:

"Do not go away from us. I am English, and I wish to be well served. I do not pay you to chat with your friends. Who is this Greek with whom you are talking?"

"He is a German, Madame."

"Ah!--What is he doing?"

"He is searching for plants."

"He is an apothecary, then?"