The next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took the Embros
to the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind
schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat
down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told
him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the
evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings
became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long,
hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down
on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.
Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions,
for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who
"knew things when you asked them."
"What is an 'agonistes'?" he asked one day, after reading of the
death of an old veteran.
"An 'agonistes' is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one
who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one."
The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his
knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless
ones above him.
"Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish
ship? Did he come down from Souli[7] with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see
Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when
the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?"[8]
"Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!"
However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of
those things which never get into the history books, at least into
those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many
battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of
the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of
freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into
infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate
and to fight against their own people; of the girls who were made
slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at
last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms
against the cruel oppressors.
"I am afraid," said Kyr Themistocli, "that you cannot quite understand
yet, how it all came to pass."
"There is only one thing I cannot understand," said Aleko slowly.
"What thing?"
"When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go
everywhere, and cut off all the Turks' heads so that none should
be left."
The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.
"He is terrible, the little one!" and he tried to explain, but Aleko
remained rather unsatisfied on this point.
"Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much."
Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back
in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the
distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, before which the
old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and
went tearing down the street.
"Aleko!" called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. "Aleko! Where
are you?" But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in
his chair crossing his hands.
"Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,"
and he sighed again.
Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He
was startled.
"What is it?"
"It is only Solon," said Aleko. "Did you not hear me return? He was
barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the
cook--Anneza--and I brought him for you to see."
Kyr Themistocli always talked of "seeing" and Aleko had got into the
same habit.
"Put your hands over him,--so,--Is he not soft? And clever! as clever
as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands."
Kyr Themistocli smiled.
"He is not yours?"
"Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the
garden. Do you know it? Someone lives there who is called 'Spinotti.'"
"Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man."
"Is he?" said Aleko indifferently. "Well, Solon is his dog, and he is
so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain
should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see
what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well
as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you
see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog
with her for exercise, and if she does not ... bad luck to her! But
he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay
with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and
then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back."
"His master," said the old man slowly, "is so fond of the dog because
it was his wife's dog, and she is dead."
Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.
"You know him then?"
"This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very
little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia,
of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time
ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to
his house. His wife was alive then--a beautiful woman, of one of the
first names of the island--and as she was talking to me and smiling,
she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died--God
rest her soul--of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often,
but he never forgets his old master."
"Of course not," said Aleko, "why should he?"
"Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog
back to him that he may not be anxious."
After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He
hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the
Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few
papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.
It was getting cooler, and the streets were filled with people pouring
out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the
weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.
Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying
family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.
The little round tables at Yannaki's, Doree's, and Zacharato's were
all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across
the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music,
of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and
spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.
Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.
A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a
small dark moustache:--
"Here! Have you any newspapers left?"
Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.
"Oristé!"[9] he cried eagerly. "Certainly, all you want."
"Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you! Well, give me the Hestia,
the Astrapi, the Hesperini--and the Romios, if you have it."