AN ATHENIAN HOUSEHOLD.
Among the many curious customs of the modern Athenians--at least those
unprovided with permanent tents--is their habit of changing residence
every first of September. When they go into each new house, they have
at last found their earthly paradise, which they at once begin to
maltreat in every possible way, until, by summer-time there is hardly
a clean spot left on any of the walls, a door left with a handle, a
cupboard with a lock, or a window with a fastening entire in its panes.
Then the earthly paradise, is described in terms as exaggeratedly
expressive of the reverse of comfort; the family look around for the
next September move, and a new home or flat is found with the same fate
awaiting it. The only rational way of accounting for this startling
custom, which would greatly disturb any reasonable person compelled to
follow it, is by supposing that the natives find something exciting and
morally or mentally beneficial in their annual migrations.
In compliance with the law, Andromache’s mother, the previous
September, had moved from a flat on the second floor in Solon Stettore,
a ground floor flat with plenty of underground accommodation, in one
of the many yet unnamed streets that break from the foot of Lycabettus
like concentric rays to drop into the straight line of Solon Street,
and proceed on a wider and recognised course down among the larger
thoroughfares. These baby passages are rarely traversed by any but
those who enjoy the qualified happiness of living in them. There is
always a river of flowing water edging their entrance like a barrier,
which a lady with dainty boots would doubtless view with disapprobation
if she were asked to ford it upon an afternoon call. Children by the
hundred play about these streets--variously coloured children, ragged,
ugly, showing every condition but that of cleanliness and beauty, with
little twisted mouths and sharp black eyes that always seem to be
measuring in the spectator a possible foe; with coarse matted hair,
or shaven heads looking like nothing more than the skin of a mouse
worn as a skull cap, or dirty straw, bleached nearly white, hanging
about them in unapproachable wisps and understood to be fair hair. As
well as the householders, the infants, and running water, the streets
offer, as further attraction, the cries of the itinerant merchants,
who draw their carts up the dusty, unpaved little hills, and yell
out the contents of their store in a way only to be heard in burning
cities, where yelling, public and domestic, becomes an art, cultivated
with zeal, and heard with joy--by all but the nervous traveller. All
day long these vendors come and go, and the aforementioned happy
householders need only appear on their thresholds to buy stuffs, soap,
candles, sponges, carpets, etc.
In the sweet spot Kyria Karapolos had pitched her tent with her
family, consisting of two sons, the eldest a dashing captain of the
Artillery, known in town as Captain Miltiades, understood to have no
relations, and to sleep on horseback, dine on gallantry and the recital
of his own prowess, and enjoy relaxation from equine exercise in the
ball-room. The second son, Themistocles, a dapper little fellow, had a
position in the Corinthian Bank, not very remunerative, but enabling
him to dress with what he considered Parisian taste, and walk Stadion
Street with two or three other fashionable youths, all equally gloved,
caned--and killing. He had a violin too, and disliking his family,
when constrained to remain at home, spent the time in his own room,
which looked out upon the sloping gardens of the French School, and
tortured the silence by irritating this poor instrument, deluded into
a fond belief that he was playing Gounod’s “Ave Maria” and Schubert’s
“Serenade.”
He cherished a hopeless passion for a young lady in the next street
who had no fortune; neither had he, nor, what is worse in an aspiring
husband, any prospect of making one.
A girl came next, Julia, of abnormal plainness of feature, considerably
heightened by a pimpled, sallow complexion and a furtive, untrustworthy
expression. Unlike the rest of her family, she had no special
qualification, but while the others enjoyed every kind of discomfort,
her fortune was pleasantly counted into the Corinthian Bank, to be
taken out the day a husband should present himself for her and for it,
especially for it. In this land of dowered maidens young gentlemen of
expensive tastes and empty purses find it feasible and honourable
to incur debts on the understanding that they will be paid out of
somebody’s dowry by and by. Personal looks or qualities are secondary
questions, so the absence of attractions in Julia did not weigh in the
eyes of her brother and mother in their anxiety to marry her.
The youngest was Andromache, as pretty as Julia was plain, resembling
her brother, the redoubtable Captain Miltiades; a sweet girl, too,
if suggestive of the unvarying sweetness which is another word for
feebleness of character--fond of music, and showing some ability in
that direction, never taking part in the family quarrels which were
always raging at the table and elsewhere between the rest. But she had
the tastes of the woman of warm latitudes. In the house she was rarely
fit to be seen,--and she had a passion for powder, unguents and strong
perfumes. She was a tolerably efficient housekeeper, and generally
spent her mornings in the kitchen, superintending and helping Maria,
the maid of all work, who had enough in all conscience to do to keep
Captain Miltiades in clean shirts.
Captain Miltiades was not only the hero of his domestic circle, but
the hero of all Greece--or so he believed, which comes to the same
thing; the boldest soldier, the mightiest captain, the best horseman
and dancer, and, crown in romantic imaginations, the most impecunious
ornament of Athenian society. His fierce and military moustache and
bronzed cheek awed beholders, and his noble brow merging into a bald
crown gently fringed with short black hair, which made a thin line
above his black military coat and crimson velvet collar, seemed to hold
the concentrated wisdom of ages. But gallant and youthful was the
spirit of Captain Miltiades--amatory, too, as behoves a son of Mars.
“One may be bald and not old for that,” said his flashing dark-blue eye
whenever a maiden’s thoughtful glance rested on the discrowned region.
His French left much to be desired, and of other European languages
he knew nothing. But then scientific was his knowledge of the gay
cotillon, entrancing his movement in the waltz and mazurka; at least
the young ladies of Athens thought so. However, be it known to all who
care to learn noteworthy facts, Captain Miltiades was an authority on
these important subjects; a kind of dancing Master of Ceremonies at
the Palace, where he danced with royal partners and was amazingly in
demand. But, sad to relate, nobody dreamed of falling in love with him,
in spite of his military prowess and carpet-pirouetting. The ladies
regarded him as a kind of amiable harlequin, and his presence and
warm declarations only excited a smile on the lips of the weakest. Of
course he sighed and dangled after every _dot_, but sighed in vain, for
neither his fierce moustache nor his dark blue eyes have brought him
somebody’s one figure and countless noughts of francs.
It was twelve o’clock, and Captain Miltiades might be heard galloping
up the unpaved street, looking as if nothing short of a miracle could
bring horse or rider to stop before they reached the overhanging point
of Lycabettus. The miracle was accomplished without flinging the
gallant Captain headforemost into the dust or into the nearest flowing
stream, and the Captain’s military servant, Theodore, emerged from
the side entrance to carry off the panting war-horse, and refresh
its foaming flanks with the stable brush, while the warrior, with
stern brow and dissatisfied lips under the nodding red plumes of his
cap--this modern Achilles always appeared in a white heat of suppressed
anger in the domestic circle--rapped at the glass door which Julia
opened.
“Where is Maria?” asked Captain Miltiades.
“In the kitchen, of course, cooking the breakfast.”
“Maria! Maria!”
“Yes, sir,” cried the unfortunate servant, rushing from the steaming
_pilaf_ she was preparing, and showing a spacious bosom hardly
restrained within the compass of the strained and long since colourless
cloth that untidily covered it, and a ragged skirt, and fuzzy black
hair that she found as much difficulty in keeping out of the soup as
out of her own coal-black eyes--only far greater effort was made to
accomplish the latter feat.
“Maria, the balls are commencing, and I shall be going out regularly;
you must have two clean shirts for me every day. Do you hear?”
“And how on earth do you think, Captain, I am to get through my work?
Two shirts a day indeed! And the same for Mr. Themistocles, I suppose.
Four bedrooms to see to, cooking, washing for five persons: and one
poor girl to do it all for twenty-five francs a month. You may look for
another servant.”
“Get away, or I’ll wring your ear, Maria. You have Theodore to help you
in the kitchen, and you know that both my mother and Andromache help
you in the housework.”
“Wonderful, indeed! It only wants every one in the house to sit down
and do nothing, and the young ladies to ask me to starch them two white
petticoats apiece every day. Ah, animals, pigs, the whole of you,” she
added as she retired to the kitchen, and the gallant Captain to his
chamber.
Another masculine entrance, and this time the thin piping voice of
little Themistocles was heard, calling on the unhappy maid of all work.
“What does this fool want now?” roared the infuriated Maria, appearing
in the corridor with a large spoon which she brandished menacingly.
“I am going out this evening, Maria, and I want a second clean shirt,”
said Themistocles, thrusting his head out of his room.
“A second clean shirt! Oh, of course. What else? Don’t you think, sir,
you might find something more for me to do? I have so very little to do
that it would really be a kindness to keep an idle girl in work. Clean
shirts for Miltiades, clean shirts for Themistocles. ’Pon my word, it
is poor Maria herself who wants clean shirts--and she has not even time
to wash her face!”
“Really, it is absurd the trouble you men give in a house,” cried Julia
over her embroidery in the hall. “You seem to think there are no limits
to what a servant is to be asked to do.”
“Hold your tongue, Julia, and speak more respectfully of your
brothers,” retorted little Themistocles.
“What do you mean by quarrelling with your sister, you
whipper-snapper?” cried Miltiades, combing his moustache, as he came
out of his room to join in the fray. “Another impertinent word to
Julia, and it would not take much to make me kick you out into the
street.”
One word from the head of the house, as Captain Miltiades was called,
full twenty years his senior, was enough to silence Themistocles, who
retired into his room, and proceeded to make a careful study of the
libretto of “La Princesse des Canaries.”
The third tap that morning at the glass door of the street, announcing
the return of Andromache and her mother, was the cheerful herald of
breakfast. Everybody was seated at table, wearing a more or less
bellicose air, while Theodore, looking as correct and rigid as an
ill-fitting military undress would permit, served out the _pilaf_ when
Andromache and Kyria Karapolos entered the dining-room.
Andromache took her seat in silence beside Julia, and slowly unfolded
her napkin with an absent air, and her mother at the head of the table
began to puff and pant and violently fan herself.
“Pooh! pooh! pooh! what a woman! I thought she would eat poor
Andromache.”
“The music-woman,” remarked Captain Miltiades, indistinctly, through a
mouthful of _pilaf_.
“A savage, Miltiades. She has a servant just like herself, who received
us as if we were beggars, and told us to go upstairs and look for the
Natzelhuber ourselves. And when we went up, there was a nice-looking
young gentleman with her, a foreigner, fair, I should say an Englishman
or a Russian--what country do you think he comes from, Andromache?”
“Who, mamma?” asked Andromache, coming down from the clouds.
“That fair young man we saw at Natzelhuber’s.”
“I don’t know, I did not pay much attention to him,” Andromache
replied; and turned her eyes to the dish of roast meat Theodore was
placing on the table.
“Well, this young man, as I said, was with her, and when we entered the
room, I assure you she all but ordered us out again.”
“And why did you not go away?” demanded the Captain, hotly. “You are
always getting yourself insulted for want of proper spirit.”
“You are just like your father, ever ready to fly into a rage for
nothing,” protested Kyria Karapolos, sulkily. “If one followed your
advice, there would be nothing but quarrelling in the world. By acting
civilly I have been able to beat down the Natzelhuber’s terms very much
below my expectations. When I asked her what she charged a lesson, I
nearly fainted at her answer. Thirty francs! However, when I expressed
our position, and how absolutely impossible it would be for us to
pay more than ten, she consented to receive Andromache as a pupil on
those terms. But whenever I spoke she snubbed me in the most violent
manner,--called me an old fool.”
“Perhaps you gave her cause,” sneered Themistocles, who felt bitter
towards his mother, regarding her as his natural enemy since she
had warned the mother of the young lady in the next street of his
pennilessness, a warning which served to close the doors of that
paradise forever to him.
“How dare you, sir, speak in such a way to your mother?” thundered the
irate Captain, always ready to pounce on the small bank-clerk, whom he
despised very cordially. “I told you to-day that it would not take much
to make me kick you into the street. Another offensive word, and see!”
This ebullition quenched all further family expansion round the
breakfast-table. The girls hurried through the meal in silence, keeping
their eyes resolutely fixed on their plate. One man glowered, and the
other sulked in offended dignity, rising hurriedly the instant Theodore
appeared with two small cups of Turkish coffee for Kyria Karapolos
and the Captain. In another instant the street door was heard to bang
behind Themistocles, who, with his slim cane, his yellow gloves, and
minute waist, had gone down to indulge in a clerkly saunter as far as
Constitution Place, and unbosom his harassed and manly soul to two
other minute confidants previous to turning into the Corinthian Bank.
After his coffee, the Captain went back to his barracks beyond the
Palace, and Andromache sat down to practice her scales on a cracked
piano in the little salon, with a view of the rugged steepness of
Lycabettus and the trellised gardens of the French School through
the long window. It was a pretty little room, with some excellent
specimens of Greek art and Byzantine embroidery, foolish Byzantine
saints, in gilt frames, with an artificial vacuity of gaze, the
artistic achievements of the rival Athenian photographers, Romaïdes and
Moraïtes, views of the Parthenon and the Temple of Jupiter, a bomb that
had exploded at the very feet of Captain Miltiades in the late outbreak
at Larissa, upon which memorable occasion he had gallantly mangled the
bodies of five thousand Turks and scattered their armies in shame. This
valuable piece of historic information I insert for the special benefit
of those who may presume to question the direct succession of this
mighty Captain from the much admired warriors of Homer. In olden days
Captain Miltiades’ glory would have quite outshone that of his puny
namesake; as a complete hero, upon his own description, he would have
occupied the niche of fame with Hercules and Theseus.
Necessarily there was the sofa, the Greek seat of honour, upon which
all distinguished visitors are at once installed, this law, like that
of the Medes and Persians, knowing no change. Also sundry tables
decorated with albums and the school prizes of the young ladies, the
bank-clerk, and the Captain of the Artillery. All the chairs were
covered with white dimity, and the floor was polished with bees’ wax,
which gave the room an aspect of chill neatness.
Andromache was interrupted in a conscientious study of scales by the
entrance of her mother and Julia, and the former’s irrelevant question:
“Don’t you think that young man was English, Andromache?”
“I don’t know, mother, possibly,” was Andromache’s impatient answer,
for, though it grieves me to unveil the secret workings of a maiden’s
mind, I must perforce confess that the student was thinking just then
of Rudolph’s kind and sympathetic glance.
“Can’t you stop that horrible noise and describe him?” said Julia. “You
know I always want to hear about foreigners.”
“He was fair and tall and handsome, with very kind blue eyes, light,
not dark like those of Miltiades--there, that’s all I can say about
him,” said Andromache, rising, and standing at the window to stare
across at the gardens of the French School.