A FIGHT IN THE CAMP OF HELLAS.
Crossing Constitution Square the king of Tenos was hilariously
accosted by one of his satellites, a member of the Opposition and
a lawyer of parchment exterior, whose career had been varied as it
was unremunerative. Starting in life as domestic servant, he had
found leisure to attend the University, and buy legal books with his
perquisites. His stern profession by no means impeded the unsuccessful
editorship of several newspapers--comic, political and satirical, each
of which enjoyed a kind of ephemeral reputation and lasted about six
months, leaving the venturous editor with a lighter pocket, and now he
was Selaka’s colleague in obstruction.
“This is the best answer to my telegram, Constantine,” said Stavros.
“What a day we’ll have of it in the Boulé[A]--eh?”
“Oh, ay, the Budget Speech. Leave it to me, Stavros. We’ll egg them on
to an explosion. Keep to the caricatures. Collars and cuffs Minister!
Ouf! Have you been pumping our friends about the Mayoralty?”
“Trust me. Our side is for you to a man. The party for Oïdas is
strong, I admit, and wealth is in his favour, but I think we shall be
able to pull you through.”
“If only! Listen Stavros, if I get in as Mayor, I’ll make you a present
of a thousand francs, and I’ll secure your son the first vacant place
in the University. I know your power,” he added, slyly.
The man of documents swelled with a sense of his own importance. Of
that he had no doubt. The ministry depended on the state of his temper,
which was uncertain, and the Lord be praised, what is a man if he has
not his influence at the beck and call of his friends?
“Oïdas has spent a lot of money on the town,” he hinted.
“That is so. He is enormously rich, and takes care to advertise that
fact,” Dr. Selaka replied.
“Well, we must spend money too,--in some cases we can only seem to
spend it, and it will come to the same thing, my friend. But I’m
hopeful, Constantine. You started on good lines. The swiftest path to
celebrity is opposition, and you have never done anything else but
oppose. It is a fine career, man, and gives you a decided superiority
over the humble and compliant. The man who opposes need never trouble
himself for reasons. His vote on the introduction of a measure is
sufficient to insure him importance.”
“If obstruction be a merit, I have been obstructing these ten years,
and the Mayoralty of Athens seems rather a modest claim upon such a
display of superiority,” said Dr. Selaka, quite seriously.
The lawyer’s humour was profoundly tickled. The follies of the weak and
foolish were a source of infinite amusement to him. It was he who had
urged the Teniote to the coming ambitious contest, not that he in the
least contemplated success, but he understood that with a wiser man to
lead, his part would be a much less exciting one.
“We are the _Parnellistoi_ of Greece, Constantine,” he said, with an
air of ponderous assertion. “We may be beaten, but our hour of triumph
is only retarded.”
He conscientiously consulted his watch, and then added, as an
afterthought:
“You will need a larger house, Constantine.”
“I have thought of that, and have been inquiring about the expenses of
building. I have a spot in view near the new Hospital. It will be a
heavy item added to my election expenses, but my brother Pericles will
come to my assistance, I make no doubt.”
“Why does he not come here himself, and establish his family? The man
is insane to bury himself in Tenos.”
“With as handsome a daughter as ever the eyes of man fell upon,”
interrupted the doctor, angrily.
“My faith! you must bring him to Athens. A handsome niece well dowered
will be a feather in your cap. Play her off against Oïdas, and you’ll
have the men on your side.”
“Pouf! Use a woman in politics! But if Pericles will let me look out
for a son-in-law for him, something might be done in that way.”
“Why not? There are Mingros and Palle, both rich men. With either of
them for a nephew you might aspire to be prime minister.”
“You don’t know Pericles. He is a confounded idiot. Nothing but
learning will go down with him. Death before dishonour. Modern Athens
represents dishonour to him, because it presumes to prefer other things
to the very respectable ancients. If he came to Athens, like Jarovisky,
he would expect Inarime to fix her eyes permanently on the Acropolis,
with intervals for recognition of the Theseium and minor points
of antiquity. I foresee her end. He’ll marry her to some wretched
twopenny-halfpenny archæologist, who will barely be able to pay the
rent of a flat in some shabby street, and the wages of a maid of all
work.”
“We must avert her doom, Constantine. Have her up to town, and bring
her some night to the theatre when the King is expected to attend. The
young men will stare at her from the stalls, and I’ll have an elegant
verse upon her in the ‘New Aristophanes.’”
This proposition brought them to the Boulé in Stadion Street. The Prime
Minister’s carriage was outside, and along the railing a row of loafers
reclined, discussing each member as he passed in, and the space inside
the gates was strewn with soldiers and civilians of every grade. The
sharp swarthy faces lit up with eager recognition when Dr. Selaka and
Stavros entered the gate, and familiar and jocose greetings were flung
casually at them from the crowd.
“Glad to see you have a new coat, Constantine,” one urchin roared after
Selaka, and sent his admirers into fits of laughter.
With the dignity of demeanour it behoved a mayor-elect to assume,
Selaka coldly ignored the jibes and jokes of the loafers, touched his
hat to his acquaintances and ascended the steps of the Chamber with
weighty prophecy of obstruction upon his brow. The interior of the
Chamber was a sight for the gods. The floor behind the president was
held by corner-boys, soldiers, peasants and beggars in common with the
representatives of King George’s Parliament. Deputies in fustanella and
embroidered jacket showed pictorially against the less imposing apparel
of civilization, and addressed the president at their ease, frequently
not condescending to stand, but lounged back in their seats, and merely
arrested his attention with an authoritative hand. The proceedings
could be watched upstairs from a gallery of boxes, and a very amusing
and lively half-hour might thus be spent. The stage below was filled
with grown-up children, who fought and wrangled, exchanged amenities
and breathless personalities, and foolishly imagined they were ruling
the country. It is impossible to conjecture what a parliament of women
would be like, but we can safely predict that it could not well surpass
the average parliament of men in the futile chatter, squabbling and
display of ill-temper.
Dr. Selaka took his seat in a leisurely manner, under the minister’s
eye, on the front seat, and listened, with a protruded underlip and
the look of sagacity on the alert. Stavros sat back, extending his
arms behind the backs of his neighbors, and wore an expression of
ostentatious amusement befitting the editor of a satirical newspaper.
The unlucky minister hazarded a loose statement, which gave Dr. Selaka
his opportunity. He was on his legs, with two spots of excited red
staining his sallow cheeks under the eyes, and opened a vehement fire
of epithet and expostulation. The minister retorted, and Stavros,
seated where he was, just held out a cool protesting finger, and cried:
“You lie.”
The English Cabinet Minister was sitting upstairs in the box set apart
for the diplomatic corps, and on this statement being translated to
him, he leant forward and focussed the lawyer with his impertinent
eyeglass. This was a species of parliamentary frankness with which he
was not familiar, used as he was to having his veracity challenged in a
variety of forms. As a novelty it was worth observing--especially the
attitude of the minister thus given “the lie direct.”
The president tapped the table and called for order, which was
naturally the signal for boisterous disorder. The premier sat down
amidst a torrent of words, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs rose to
fight his battle as chief lieutenant. The storm raged to the pitch of
universal howls, and when at last there was a momentary lull in the
atmosphere, exasperated by the abuse of which he had been the free
recipient, Stavros jumped up, and flashing threateningly upon the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, roared out:--
“It well becomes you to abuse me. You live in a fine house now, and
keep your carriage, but for all that, I can remember the time when you
were glad to wear my old clothes.”
Dead silence greeted this retort, and a grim smile relaxed the grave
faces of the members. No personality is too gross to tickle this most
democratic race, and anything that levels the proud man delights them.
The Right Honourable Samuel Warren, M. P., upstairs, decided to take
the light of his illustrious presence from such a shocking scene,
wavered, and remembering mythology, bethought himself of the laughter
of the gods. He was abroad in the pursuit of knowledge, and this was
certainly experience.
Stavros was frantically adjured to withdraw and apologise, and as
frantically refused to do any such thing. His colleague and imagined
leader stood up in his defence and the obstructionist became riotous
to the verge of hysterics, until the Right Honourable Samuel Warren,
looking down upon the spectacle from a safe distance, really believed
he had been dropped into Bedlam instead of Parliament. Uproar succeeded
angry protest in deafening succession; with the rapidity of thought
mere speech was rejected as inadequate to the occasion. The generals,
almost as numerous as soldiers, jumped upon their seats and brandished
their hats terrifically. The hapless president made his escape, leaving
the chair to one of the vice-presidents, and Constantine Selaka with an
agile bound cleared the space intervening between the members’ seats
and the tribune, installed himself therein, and shouted his intention
of keeping the Chamber sitting until the demands of his party were
complied with.
“And would Kyrios Selaka be good enough to state categorically the
demands of his party?” the Prime Minister asked, standing to go,
holding his hat in his hand, with an officially negative look.
This was a rash invitation. Selaka burst into an interminable, involved
and idiotic speech, which Stavros followed from his seat with one much
more involved and personal, and much less idiotic.
Evening descended, the dinner-hour passed, and still the unfortunate
vice-president held the chair, and exercised his authority by a
furious and inappropriate ringing of the bell, and calls for attention.
Exhausted and famished deputies dropped out of representative life
in search of animal food; others clamoured for cessation of the
strife, and pathetically referred to the solace of the domestic
circle. But Stavros and Selaka were adamant. The clamours of nature
were unheeded by them; when one shouted and orated, the other sought
comfort in cigarette and coffee. Night came, and found Selaka still
in the tribune, gloomy, ravenous, and resolute. Meanwhile Stavros had
refreshed himself with a snatch of food outside. He returned to the
charge while his leader shot into the corridors, and collared excited
and admiring attendants in the pursuit of food.
“We are as good as the Parnellistoi over in London,” Selaka remarked,
and rubbed his hands with joy, as he and his friend walked home at the
end of the protracted sitting.
“That is so, Constantine,” said Stavros, who dearly loved a row of any
sort, and who since he could not fight the European powers in person,
solaced himself by fighting a temporising president and a tame party.
“You’ll be mayor to a certainty.”
“Mayor indeed!” ejaculated Constantine, keenly measuring his own sudden
charge for notoriety. “It’s minister at least I ought to be. I have
tackled them, Stavros, eh?”
His friend thought so, and went home to express his opinion in three
columns of laudatory prose and twelve satirical verses describing the
great Homeric fray.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] The Greeks call their modern Parliament by the classical name of
Boulé.