It was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with
his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares
and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners' shops
where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.
He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and
there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet
as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not
many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his
piercing cry:--
"Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!" These were the names of his newspapers.
Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he
heard an answering call.
"Newspapers! Here!"
He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a
low house stood an old man leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor
make any sign but continued to call, "Newspapers! Here!"
Aleko ran up.
"Which do you want?"
"Have you the Embros?"
"No, that is published in the morning."
"I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take the
Embros, but no one passed here this morning."
"I have only the evening papers."
"Well, give me the Hestia, then."
Aleko picked out one of his three remaining Hestias and held it out,
but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight,
and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face
as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed
and stained.
"Here is your Hestia."
"Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,"
and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but
as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko's
elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.
"I have hurt you, my lad," said the old man, bending forward and
dropping his stick with a clatter. "You must forgive me! I cannot see;
I am blind."
Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old
man's face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He
remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms
in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her
eyes were closed.
"Are you quite blind?"
"Quite."
"Your eyes do not look blind."
"But they are."
Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.
"Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?"
"Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand
before me."
"That is a pity you should be blind," said the boy slowly. "You are
not very old yet. Have you been blind long?"
"Two years now."
"That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?"
"I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got
well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There
is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took
me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing."
Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his
curiosity got the better of him.
"Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to
read it?"
"It is read to me."
"Your children read it to you?" queried the boy.
"No, I have no children. There is a young man,--a student, who lives
in the next house,--and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to
read the whole newspaper to me. One must know the news and what the
outside world is doing." Then half to himself he added, "Though the
eyes be blind the mind must see."
But Aleko frowned.
"What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better
keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who can read reads
aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays."
"In the town it is different," sighed the old man. "In small places
people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at
Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble."
Aleko looked up suddenly.
"Give me your name, master."
"My name is Themistocli."
"Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes
out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before
the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you an Embros every
day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will
bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta."
"But, my child ..."
"Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also
I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of
the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read
out aloud. He said to the master, 'That boy there, with the yellow
hair, is the only one who can read without singing.' Shall I come,
Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?"
The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko's arm and patted
it gently.
"You are a good boy to a poor blind man."
"No," said Aleko wriggling a little, "I like to read, and since you
were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you."
The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and
turned towards the house.
"Come inside with me for a minute, my lad."
Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little
living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white
checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd
chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low
cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.
Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a
stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she
held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.
"Your soup is ready," she began, then catching sight of Aleko she
added quickly, "A loustro[4] has followed you in. What does he want?"
"I brought him," answered Kyr Themistocli. "Sit down, my child."
But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are
about to sit down to a meal.
"With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return."
"No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me."
The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too
small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.
"What is it, Kyra Katerina?" asked the old man sharply. "Is there
not sufficient soup for two?"
"As for that, yes, there is sufficient."
"Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay ... there was a dish
of potatoes left...."
"Those are for to-morrow," said the woman sullenly.
"I wish for them to-night."
The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off
the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellow
oilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two
soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the
thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very
good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned
with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.
"I have served," she said. "Is there perhaps anything else you want?"
Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.
"No, there is nothing. You can go."
The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw
it on the top of the unwashed plates.
"As you like." Then, as she opened the door, she added, "A nice work it
will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack's
dusty feet." Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before
Kyr Themistocli could answer.
"Eat your soup, and do not mind her," he said to Aleko.
"I do not mind her," said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and
after swallowing it, he added sagely, "Women always make much noise."
The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth
exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his
clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.
"Tell me, now, what do they call you?"
"They call me Aleko."
"From where?"
"My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little
ones, but my father was not from there."
Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.
"He is dead, your father?"
"Yes, it is two years ago that he died."
"And from where was he?"
"From Siatista."
"Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?"
"Philippos Vasiliou."
"So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?"
Aleko nodded.
"Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip![5] Your master
has taught you about him at school?"
"Of course," said Aleko frowning.
The old man smiled. "There is a story about him which you have not
heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water
of Life?"