"Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers,
surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?"
Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek
fashion:--
"Whatever you please to give."
The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the
value of one newspaper alone.
"Suppose then I please to give only this."
Not a muscle moved in Aleko's face.
"You shall give it," he answered, then taking the coin he dropped
it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called
him back.
"Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?" and while he was searching
for more coins, he asked, "Do you boys not have to account for all
the papers you sell?"
"Of course; the 'big one' keeps count of everything."
"Well then, what would you have said when the 'big one' as you call
him, found fifteen lepta too little?"
"He would have found his money right."
"How could he?"
"I would have put it there from my supper money."
The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other
men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:--
"This is an original little specimen!" and the other, an officer,
asked:--
"And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this
gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer
than you?"
"That does not matter at all," answered Aleko. "My father told me that
it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you
are. He ..." pointing with his thumb backwards, "has given me much;
may I not befriend him with three newspapers?"
"Ah, that of course alters the question," remarked the officer.
"I assure you," began the young man, "that I have never given the
child a single thing!" Then turning to Aleko, "Are you thinking of
the 'tsourekia'[10] and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the
members of the Parnassos, not from me alone."
"No," said Aleko, "I mean that you have taught me many things, and
that is more than things which are eaten and finished."
"Oh, ho!" laughed the officer, "this is a philosopher we have here."
"No," said Aleko gravely, "I have not enough learning; perhaps if I
could go to school all day, I might be one, some time."
The older man shook his head.
"That is the way of the world. My son can go to school all day,
and every day, and his one object is to stay away."
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" asked the officer of Aleko.
"I do not know ... yet," he answered slowly. "I want to learn how to
do many things, and then to go and do them."
"You could not wish better," said his boxing master. "I think you will
be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos;
I am not coming this evening; it is too hot for boxing." Then turning
to the officer he quoted smilingly:--
hôs charien esth' anthrôpos hotan anthrôpos ê
Aleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down
Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of
forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class,
the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his
neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of
course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be
read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was
the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were
leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.
"What does this mean, master?"
The schoolmaster took up the book.
"Why do you write on your school books?" he asked sharply.
"I had no paper. What does it mean?"
The master read the sentence slowly.
"This is ancient Greek," he said. "You have not done any yet: you
could not understand it. Even next year in the higher class, you
will only do Æsop's fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,"
he added laughing. "Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!"
But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.
V
The next day it was four o'clock before he went up to the Kolonaki
and found the blind old man seated on a chair outside his door,
waiting for him patiently. The daily newspaper was read, but without
the usual stopping for questions. When the reading was over Aleko
opened his box and pulled out his book. Then he flung himself down
and resting the book on the old man's knees opened the tattered,
scribbled-over blue paper cover.
"Master," he said, "these are ancient Greek words; I heard a man say
them to another, and I wrote them down. What do they mean?" and he
read the words aloud slowly:--
hôs charien esth' anthrôpos hotan anthrôpos ê
"Ah, my child!" and the old man's voice trembled a little, "they knew
so much, those old forefathers of ours,--
hôs charien esth' anthrôpos hotan anthrôpos ê
"Yes, that is from Menander. How shall I tell you? It means so many
things and so many different things at different times. Sometimes,
I think, it may mean simply, that it is a duty to be a man and not
a brute. Let me explain...."
"I know!" broke in Aleko, whose eyes had been fixed on the entrance
of the narrow street. "You mean, to be like you and not like that
fruit-seller over there who is kicking his donkey because he has
laden it too heavily, and it cannot walk." Kyr Themistocli smiled.
"Well, ... yes, if you like, my boy ... yes. Sometimes it means that
it is a glorious thing to be all that a man can be! to be afraid of
no evil talk, to hold your head very high, to remember that we have
sprung from a race which has given light to all the civilized world,
to become all that an ancient Greek of the best might have been. I
do not mean that there were no bad men among them! Which race has
been without? There were Ephialtes[11] ... Antipater[12] ... and many
others. But to approach the noblest, ... to touch the hem of their
garment ... who would not be proud? Sometimes, Aleko, it means that
like Socrates, one must give work, and strength, and patience, and
forgiveness to others, and look for nothing in return. Sometimes it
means that a man, to be a man, must give the thing that is hardest
to give of all--his life even!"
"But ..." began Aleko hesitatingly.
"What, my child? Ask all that you wish."
"If a man--a great man, and a good man as you say--gives his life,
then it is finished; he cannot help anyone, or be great, or strong,
any more."
"Ah, no! Many people have said that, little one, but I must make you
see further. There are those who will say, if this man had not done
this deed of sacrifice, if he had kept his own valuable life, he might
have done many more great things later on. Ah, but they forget...." and
the blind man stretched out his arms as though appealing to an unseen
audience. "They forget that all the useful and good things which he
might still have done, are as nothing before the wonderful example he
has given, before.... Oh, how shall I tell you, my child? ... before
the way in which he has made thousands of men's and women's hearts beat
with noble thoughts,--before the way in which he has made the little
children of his land lift up their heads, and say, 'I, too, will be
like him some day!' No, Aleko, no! What he has done lasts through the
years; and the bravery of great men of whom you will read some day,
such a deed for instance as that of Paul Melas[13] in our own time,
makes all the world nobler and stronger for them, even after their
names come to be forgotten!"