It was a wonderful day! The drive to the station through the
great empty squares and the half-awakened streets; the wait in
the railway station of the Monastiraki while his uncle bought the
tickets and Pavlo gazed open eyed at the little railed-in bookstall,
hung round with very brightly coloured pictures of various heroes
of the Revolution; the railway journey down to Piræus with all the
people getting out at Phalerum, towels in hand, for sea baths; the
landing stage at Piræus with the multitude of little blue and red and
green boats swaying on the sunny water; the climb up the side of the
white steamer; the fat kind-faced captain who greeted his uncle as
an old friend and himself as a new one and gave him the freedom of
his bridge; the steaming out of the harbour past the King's Summer
House[10] surrounded by its great aloes and its little baby pines,
past the grave of Themistocles[11] gloriously placed in eternal view
of Salamis,[12] past the long breakwater and the lighthouse, and so
out into the open sea; the stop at Ægina with its big-sailed boats
and shouting boatmen crowding all round the steamer; the sighting
opposite Methana of the "stone ship" and the breathless listening to
its legend, of its captain the nereid who was turned into stone with
all her ship for presumptuously attempting to surpass the moon in
swiftness; the thrill of seeing a real dolphin swimming alongside the
steamer, ... all these and more, made the journey a dream of delight
to Pavlo, from which he was almost in fear of awaking to the ordinary
every-day life of Solon Street. He forgot to be hungry. It was his
uncle who after all reminded him of the packet of crushed and crumbly
"kourabiedes" which he had quite forgotten on a bench beside him;
and though he did eat them, they might as well have been dry bread
for all the pleasure he got out of them.
In a little while after leaving Methana they passed a lighthouse on
a rock, and the steamer turned round the corner of it.
"There is Poros!" said his uncle, suddenly laying his hand on Pavlo's
shoulder and twisting him round; and there it was.
A little white village with red roofs, and here and there a big round
pine or a tall narrow cypress all climbing up a hill to an old ruined
mill at the top.
There was a glorious open bay, and red and orange-sailed fishing
boats were sailing about it, and there were tall hills covered with
olive trees to the right, and tall hills covered with pine trees to
the left. And in the pines nestled a red house, and Pavlo's uncle
pointed it out to him.
"See, there is my friend's house! There is where you will play with
the children; across there! Do you see?"
Pavlo saw, and his cup of happiness was full, for he saw no trimly
set-out garden with elaborate flower-beds such as he had once seen
at Kiphissia, with "Do not touch" plainly written all over it, but
hollows and crags where lentisk and thyme bushes grew strong and
thick, and open hillside, and trees and trees and trees around and
behind the house, from the top of the hill right down to the seashore,
promising endless possibilities for climbing and hiding.
The steamer stopped quite close up to the village, and Pavlo and his
uncle shook hands with the fat kind-faced captain and thanked him
and climbed down into a little swaying boat which in three or four
oar-strokes brought them to the side of the sea-wall. Doctor Zamana
got out.
"Stay there, Pavlo," he said, "while I go up and keep a room at the
hotel, and then we shall go on at once to the Red House; and after
I leave you there, I can return and see my patient."
So Pavlo stayed, dipping his hands over the side of the boat into
the sea, and watching the boy not much bigger than himself, and the
brown-faced, blind, old boatman, at their oars, but feeling too shy
to speak to them.
In a few minutes his uncle came out of the hotel door, crossed the
sea-road and stepped down into the boat. Then the oars were dipped
into the water, the shining drops ran off the long blades, and they
were off again.
Pavlo, who was more accustomed to carriages than to boats, pulled
timidly at his uncle's sleeve.
"Will you not tell them, my uncle, to go to the Red House?"
His uncle looked at him and laughed.
"Is not the helm in my own hand, little stupid one?"
And the old blind boatman and the boy rowed right across the shining
bay, getting nearer and nearer to the Red House.
Pavlo's eyes opened wider at each plash of the oars, and he quite
forgot to be shy at the thought that he was going to meet new people.
He had never seen such a pretty house before in all his life!
The villagers called it "the Red House on the hill"; but in reality
it was rather a soft old Venetian pink than red, and the blending of
this old pink into the masses of golden green around it, was a joy
to the eyes; even to the eyes of little boys, though they did not
exactly know why. The shape of the house was delightful, it was low,
wide, two-storied, with jutting stone balconies on the second floor. A
monster bougainvillea spread its dark leaves and regally purple flowers
round the southern windows, and the eastern ones looked out on the open
sea through the pretty paler green leaves of a wistaria, whose mauve
bunches of flowers reached up to the round balcony. The whole house
was set on a very long and very wide terrace, and at equal distances
along the balustrade of short columns, were placed big stone vases of
geraniums of all colours. There was a ruby one with the sunshine on it
which made Pavlo think with regret of his crimson chalk, the one that
had broken all to bits. A long broad flight of stone steps flanked
by more geraniums, by big flowering oleanders and great gray-green
aloes led down from the side of the terrace to the little landing
stage. It seemed to Pavlo that a whole multitude of people was coming
down these steps to meet them, and he felt very shy again; but after
he had stepped out of the boat helped by various outstretched hands,
the multitude resolved itself into five people and three dogs.
There was the master of the Red House, tall and broad, who looked,
Pavlo thought, like an officer without his uniform, and there were
four children, two little girls and two smaller boys; there was a big
black poodle, a fox-terrier, and a little white dog, of no particular
breed, with pointed ears. He was the special property of the eldest
girl, and when Pavlo first caught sight of him, he had got hold of
her skirt between his teeth and was shaking it vigorously, which he
always did whenever he felt excited.
When Pavlo's uncle was also out of the boat, there was the usual
exchange of useless and embarrassing remarks, which according to
Pavlo's experience grown-ups always make on first meetings. Later on,
when he came to compare impressions, he found that it was also the
painful experience of the Four!
"Oh, is this your little nephew?"
"Are all the four yours? Fine children truly! May they live to you,
my friend! Quite a Zamana, did you say? Well, yes; but is there not
something of his mother in the shape of the mouth? This boy now,
is you all over again, I think I see you at his age!"
"Yes, they tell me he is like me."
"The little one also, I think."
"Oh, no! Nikias has the long face of his mother's family." And
Nikias, the little boy, whose legs were too thin for his socks,
wriggled uncomfortably.
"The second girl is the image of your mother. What a fine woman she
was! And this one, what lovely fair hair, and how long!"
And Pavlo from the bottom of his heart pitied the poor eldest girl
who with a crimsoning face had to submit to be turned round and round
while the fair hair was duly admired and while she was told that she
was worthy of her name, which was Chryseis.
"You had a good journey?"
"Excellent. The sea was oil, not water."
"You will stay long I hope."
"It depends on my patient; I heard in the village that he was better
to-day."
"This young man will stay with us, of course?"
"He will be delighted to come, as often as your children want him."
"To come! Nonsense! He must stay here entirely. I only wish I had
room to keep you also, but he can sleep with the boys. What would he
do at the hotel or in the village while you are absent? Of course he
must stay here. There can be no question about it. What do you say,
little one? Will you not stay?"
The second girl, Andromache, whose hair had been cut short after a
fever, and now waved all round her head, nudged his arm.
"Say yes! Say yes! It will be splendid!"
Pavlo, wishing nothing better, nodded shyly, and was at once taken
possession of by the Four, the three dogs barking and yapping at their
heels, to be shown all the delights of the Red House and of its hill.
First of all he was taken into the long cool dining room to be
introduced to the mother of the Four, who had been arranging fruit in
glass dishes, and who hurried forward to greet his uncle. Then, with
a big bunch of grapes thrust into his bewildered hands by Andromache,
who declared that "Mother has plenty more in the basket," they started
to see everything.