HOW I WAS SOLD TO ST GEORGE
Shortly after Semmeya’s wedding an epidemic of typhoid fever swept
over Constantinople. Owing to our unsanitary drainage conditions such
epidemics were not rare. All four of us had the fever. With me it was
so acute, and lasted so long, that the doctors gave me up as a sickly
child who had not the strength to battle for health. My lengthy illness
left me alive, it is true, but as a fire leaves standing a structure
which it has completely destroyed within. Apparently there remained
nothing solid to build on. The doctors intimated as much when they said
I might eat and do what pleased me--and went away.
To them I was only a hopeless patient. It was different with my mother:
she would not give up the fight.
In her despair, and when science failed her, she turned to what in
reality she always had more faith in--her religion, and particularly
her favourite saint, St George of the Bells. Him she had inherited
from the paternal side of her family, of which he had been--shall I
say--the idol, for more than two hundred years.
I did not share her predilection. My own particular saint was St
Nicholas, even then when I was beginning to take pride in my critical
attitude toward religion. Looking back, and raising the veil from my
once ardent devotion, I must admit that my partiality originated in a
life-size icon, painted by a celebrated Russian, and presented by the
Russian church to the monastery of St Nicholas, where I used to go for
my devotions. I was only four years old when the icon was sent, but I
fell an immediate victim to its beauty. Had it represented St Gregory
or St Aloysius, my devotion would have been the same. It is always thus
with us: scratch a Greek and you will find a pagan.
However, when my mother told me that she was going to send for St
George of the Bells, I raised no objection. I knew enough of his deeds
to have a respectful fear of him. Among the orthodox Greeks, especially
among those who, like us, lived on the sea of Marmora, to send for a
saint is an awe-inspiring act. One does not have recourse to it except
as a last resort. It is, moreover, an expense that few can afford,
though I have known poor Greek families to sell even their household
effects to have the saint brought to them.
From the moment that it was decided the saint should be sent for,
our house was in a tumult of cleaning. My room especially was made
immaculate, and I was put into my finest nightgown. No coquette was
ever more carefully arrayed for the visit of a handsome young doctor
than I was for the saint. A large table, covered with a new white
cloth, was placed near my bed. On it was an incense-burner, flowers,
and a bowl of water--to be blessed, and used to bathe my face so long
as it should last.
Two men, for their strength and size called _pallikaria_, had
gone for the icon. St George of the Bells, though on the same island
with us, had his monastery up on the highest summit of the mountains,
several miles from our house. In order to receive the saint with proper
ceremony my mother sent for the parish priests. They arrived shortly
before the icon, dressed in their most festive robes of silver thread,
and with their long curls floating over their shoulders.
The _pallikaria_ arrived, bearing the saint, and preceded by a
monk from his monastery. When they brought him into my room, though
I was very weak, I was raised from my bed and placed at the foot of
the icon. It was quite large, and painted on wood. The face alone was
visible: all the rest had been covered with gold and silver, tokens
of gratitude from those whom the saint had cured. Rings, ear-rings,
bracelets, and other jewellery were also hanging from the icon, while
hundreds of gold and silver bells were festooned about it.
My room was filled with the members of my family, and a few of the most
intimate and pious of our friends. Candles were lighted, and mass was
solemnly sung. Afterwards everybody went away, and I was left to the
care of St George of the Bells.
Owing to the distance, the icon and the monk could not return to the
monastery the same day, and were to spend the night at our house. I was
then twelve years old, and as I have said, beginning to be sceptical of
the religious superstitions about me. Yet the ceremony had impressed
me deeply; and in the solemn hours of the night, with only the light
of the _kandilla_ burning before the icon, a certain mysticism
took possession of me. I was shaken out of my apathy, and believed that
St George could save me, if he wanted to, and if I prayed to him--and
pray I did, too, most fervently, though I should have been ashamed to
confess it after the daylight brought back to me my juvenile pride in
being a sceptic.
In the morning, when the _pallikaria_ came to fetch the icon, one
of the powerfully built creatures, a man whose hair was already growing
white about the temples, approached my bedside and said with great
solemnity:
“_Kyria, mou_, he means to cure you. I have not carried him for
twenty years without learning his ways. Why, when we went to take him
from his place he fairly flew to our arms. I know what that means. You
will get well, for he wanted to come to you. Sometimes he is so heavy
that we can hardly carry him a mile an hour--and I have known him to
refuse to be moved at all.”
The old _pallikari_ was right. St George did cure me. In a few
months I was stronger than I had ever been in my life. It was then
that my mother--partly out of gratitude, partly in order that he might
continue to look after me--resolved to sell me to St George.
For three days she and I fasted. Early on the morning of the fourth day
we started, barefooted, for the mountains and St George’s monastery,
carrying wax torches nearly as tall as I. At first I was ashamed to
meet people in my bare feet, until I noticed with elation that they all
reverently uncovered their heads as we passed.
It was a long, weary walk. Up the mountains it seemed as if we were
climbing for heaven. The road zigzagged steeply upward, now revealing,
now hiding the monastery from our eyes. At last we reached the huge
rocks that surrounded it like a rampart.
Everything was ready for our arrival. The _Hegoumenos_, the head
monk, received us. I was taken to a little shrine, bathed in holy
water, and put to bed, after receiving some _soupe-maigre_; for I
was to fast three days longer. My little bed was made up on the marble
floor of the church. At night, another was arranged beside it for my
mother, since I could not be induced to sleep alone in the church.
During the three days spent in the mountains I forgot completely that
I was a person holding advanced ideas, and that I did not believe in
superstitions. There was something in the atmosphere of the place which
forbade analysis and called only for devotion.
My mother and I were the only persons who slept in the church. There
were a number of insane patients in the monastery itself. St George
of the Bells is renowned for the number of cures of insanity which he
effects. The head monk, as a rule, is a man of considerable education
and shrewdness, with no mean knowledge of medicine. The insane patients
are under his care for forty days, with the grace of St George. They
practically live out of doors, take cold baths, dress lightly, and eat
food of the simplest. In addition to this they received mystic shocks
to help on their recovery, and, I believe, usually regain their mental
equilibrium.
While I was staying at the monastery a young man was brought there from
Greece. He was a great student of literature, and very dissipated. The
two combined had sent him to St George. He was a handsome fellow, with
long white hands, and a girlish mouth. He was permitted to go about
free, and I met him under the arcade of the monastery, declaiming a
passage from Homer. When his eyes met mine, he stopped and addressed me.
“I am coming from Persia, and my land is Ithaca. I am Ulysses, the
king of Ithaca.” Then he threw out his hands toward me and screamed,
“Penelope!”
One may imagine that I was frightened, but before I had time to answer,
he burst into a peal of laughter, and exclaimed:
“Why, you are Achilles, dressed in girl’s clothes. But you will come
with us to fight, will you not?”
Much to my relief a monk came up and said, “Don’t stay here and listen
to him. It only excites him.”
I became quite interested in the young man after this, and later
learned that when his forty days were at an end, by a sign St George
intimated that he was to remain longer; and a few months later the
young man returned to his country entirely cured.
There was one of the monks, Father Arsenius, who was as devout as my
mother. To him I really owe all my pleasure while in the monastery. He
was an old man, but strong and active. He took me every day for rambles
about the mountains, and never would let me walk uphill. He would pick
me up and set me on his shoulder, as if I were a pitcher of water, and
then, chanting his Gregorian chants, we would make the ascents. One
day we were sitting on one of the big rocks surrounding the monastery.
Miles below we could see the blue waters of the Marmora, and far beyond
it the Asiatic coast of Turkey. The air was filled with the smell of
the pine forest below. Father Arsenius had been telling me of the
miracles performed by St George.
“It is curious, Father Arsenius,” I commented, “that they should
have built the monastery so high up. It is so difficult to get to,
especially when one comes on foot, the way we did. How did they think
of building it up here?”
“No one thought of it. The saint himself chose this spot. Don’t you
know about it, little one?”
I shook my head.
Father Arsenius’s face changed, and there came into it the light which
made him look almost holy. In a rapt tone he began: “It was years ago,
in the fifteenth century, when a dream came to one of our monks, a holy
man, chosen by the saint to do his bidding.”
He crossed himself three times, raised his eyes to the blue above, and
for some seconds was lost in his dreams.
“The saint appeared to our holy monk and said: ‘Arise and follow me,
by the sound of a bell, over land and sea, till the bell shall cease to
ring. There dig in the earth till you find my icon; and on that spot
build a chapel, and spend your life in worshipping me.’
“Three times the vision came to the monk; then he arose, went to his
superior, and with his permission started on his pilgrimage. As soon
as he left the monastery he heard the sound of the bell, and following
it he travelled for months, over land and sea, until he came to this
island. Here the sound of the bell became louder, until finally it
stopped. On that spot he began to dig----”
“On what spot?” I interrupted.
“Down by the little chapel, where now the holy spring oozes forth.
There the monk found the icon, and with it in his arms went about
begging for money to build the chapel.”
“He must have been a very powerful man if he carried that icon about,”
I commented, “for now it takes two _pallikaria_ to lift it.”
Father Arsenius smiled his kind, fatherly smile. “My little one,
when our saint wants to, he can make himself as light as a feather.
After the monk had collected sufficient money he went to the Turkish
authorities and asked permission to build his chapel. The Turks had
just conquered Constantinople, and we had to ask permission for
everything at that time. The pasha to whom the monk applied refused
him, saying that there were already churches enough.”
Father Arsenius’ face, as he spoke, was no longer holy. He looked a
Greek, boiling for a fight. Gradually his features regained their calm
and he smiled at me, as he continued:
“That night St George came to the monk in his dreams and bade him start
building without permission of the Turks. In the morning the monk
climbed the mountain, and with the help of two other monks began his
work. Ah! but I should like to have been that monk,” Father Arsenius
cried--but he would not permit his soul even the envy of a holy deed,
and humbly added: “Thy will be done, saint.”
“Didn’t the Turks interfere any more?” I asked.
“Yes, they did, my little one. While the work was in progress they
heard of it, and sent word to the monk to stop it. He replied that he
obeyed higher orders than theirs. The pasha was furious, and set out
himself for the island, swearing he would hang the monk from his own
scaffolding.
“But he reckoned without St George. At that time there were no roads
on the island, not even a path leading up here. The pasha and his
followers became lost in the woods, and had to spend the night, hungry
and thirsty, under the pine trees. In the middle of the night the
pasha woke up, struggling in the grip of St George. He cried out to
his companions. They were tied to the trees. St George beat the pasha
with the flat of his sword until he was tired. Then he commanded him
to fall on his knees and promise to permit the chapel to be built. The
terrified Turk did as he was ordered, and, of his own accord, promised
to give money to build a large monastery, and he kept his word.”
Father Arsenius looked at me with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, and
I laughed aloud to hear how the Greek saint had got the better of the
Turkish pasha.
“I have been here for fifty years now,” Father Arsenius went on
presently; “and my wish is to die in the service of my saint.”
“Do you think that when I am sold to him, he will take care of me?” I
asked.
“I do not think so--I know so. His power is omnipotent; and his
kindness to people is wonderful. When there is any mortal disease among
them, he leaves here, goes out and fights for them.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I hear him go, and come back.”
I was overwhelmed. No trace of scepticism or unbelief remained in me.
“Is he here now?” I asked, in the same mystic tone as the monk.
He shook his head. “He left here just before the cholera broke out in
Constantinople.”
“But the cholera is over now.”
“Yes, I am expecting him back at any minute.”
“How do you hear him come and go?” I asked, unwonted fear of the
supernatural conquering me.
“You will hear him, too, if he returns before you go. Everything in the
church moves and shakes when he leaves it or re-enters it.”
“But if he should not come back while I am here, how can I be sold to
him?”
“That does not matter,” Father Arsenius reassured me. “He will know of
it when he comes back--though I think that sometimes when people are
not cured, it is because he is far away, and his grace does not reach
them.” He bowed his head. “I have given my heart to him, and he has
purified it. I am his slave, and shall be so for life.”
“I will be his slave, too,” I put in eagerly. Had I been asked at that
moment to become a nun, I should have done so gladly, such was the
influence Father Arsenius had over me.
He rose. “Come, little one, let us go.”
I put my little hand into his big, hard one--he was also the gardener
of the monastery--and together we walked through the _koumaries_
with which the mountain was covered. These are evergreen bushes,
which at a certain season bear fruit like cherries, which have an
intoxicating effect. Strangers, not understanding this, are sometimes
found helpless beneath the lovely bushes.
As we came near the monastery Father Arsenius shaded his eyes with his
hand and gazed over toward the mountain ridge beyond.
“The wind is rising. It will be very high to-night,” he said.
The conversation with the monk had put me into a deep religious
fervour. I fell asleep that night in the church, and dreamed of the
monk who had travelled over land and sea, following the sound of a bell.
How long I slept I cannot tell when I awoke in terror. I sat up and
peered around by the dim light of the _kandillas_ burning before
the icons of the various saints. The large glass candelabra hanging
from the ceiling were swaying to and fro, jingling their crystals,
producing a ghastly sound. The bells on St George’s icon were tinkling;
two or three windows slammed, and there was a rushing sound through the
church. It all lasted only a short time, and then quietness returned.
My mother awoke, though she was not so light a sleeper as I. “What is
it?” she asked startled.
“It is St George coming back,” I answered.
We both fell to praying, and I did not sleep any more that night. And
my heart was filled with pride that I had heard the coming of the saint.
At the end of my three days’ fast, mass was celebrated, and then my
mother presented me to the _Hegoumenos_.
“I wish my daughter to become the saint’s slave,” she said.
“For ever?” he asked. “If so, she cannot marry.”
“No; until her marriage. Yearly I will pay the saint a pigskin full of
oil and a torch as tall as she is. At her marriage I will ransom her
with five times this, and with five _medjediés_ in addition.”
The monk took me in his arms and raised me up so that I could kiss the
icon. Then he cried, in a voice so full of emotion that it made my
devout mother weep:
“My Saint, unto thee I give the keeping of this child!”
From the icon he took a silver chain, from which hung a little bell,
and placed it round my neck.
“You are now St George’s slave,” he continued. “Until you return and
hang this with your own hands on the icon it must never leave you.”
I kissed his hand, and the ceremony was over. We paid what we owed, and
left the monastery and good Father Arsenius with the assurance that a
power from above was having especial watch over me.
From that time on my mother gave her yearly tribute, and the saint
kept his word to look after me.
Although when I was married I was in America and my mother was in
Russia, she did not fail to pay the ransom which made it possible for
me to change masters without angering the saint. In place of the little
silver chain and bell, which I could not return personally, she gave a
gold one.
As I write I can see the badge of my former slavery where it hangs
around a little old Byzantine icon in my room. I have never been
separated from it. During the whole of my girlhood I wore it; and when
I was in a convent school in Paris it gave me a certain distinction
among my mystified companions, who could hear it tinkle whenever I
moved.
Asked about it, I only said that it was the badge of my slavery.
This gave rise to a variety of stories, invented by their Gallic
imaginations, in which I, with my bell, was the heroine.
As I look at it now, it reminds me of the three days spent with St
George--the three days during which sensuous mysticism completely
clouded my awakening intelligence.