The studies of my youth have developed in me one passion, to the
exclusion of all others; the desire to know; or if you like the term
better, call it curiosity. From the day when I embarked for Athens, my
only pleasure was to learn; my only grief, ignorance. I loved science
ardently, and no one, as yet, had disputed her claim in my heart. I must
confess that I had little tenderness and that poetry and Hermann Schultz
rarely entered the same door. I went about the world, as in a vast
museum, magnifying glass in hand. I observed the pleasures and
sufferings of others as emotions worthy of study, but unworthy of envy
or pity. I was no more jealous of a happy household, than of two palm
trees with branches interlaced by the wind; I had just as much
compassion for a heart torn by love, as I had for a geranium ruined by
the frost. When one has practiced vivisection, one is no longer
sensitive to the quivering of the flesh. I would have been a good
spectator at a combat of gladiators. Photini's love for Harris would
have aroused pity in any heart but a naturalist's. The poor creature
"loved at random," to quote a beautiful saying of Henry IV; and it was
evident that she loved hopelessly. She was too timid to display her
affection, and John was too indifferent to divine it. Even if he had
noticed anything, what hope was there that he would feel any interest
in an ugly Greek girl? Photini passed four days with us; the four
Sundays of April. She looked at Harris from morning to night, with
loving but despairing eyes; but she never found the courage to open her
mouth in his presence. Harris whistled tranquilly, Dimitri growled like
a young bull-dog, and I smilingly looked on at this strange malady, from
which my constitution had preserved me.
In the meantime, my father had written me that his affairs were not
going well; that travelers were scarce; that food was dear; that our
neighbors were about to emigrate; and that, if I had found a Russian
princess, I had better marry her without delay. I replied that I had
not, as yet, found one, unless it was the daughter of a poor Greek
Colonel; that she was seriously in love, not with me, but with another;
that I could by paying her a little attention become her confidant, but
that I should never become her husband. Moreover, my health was good and
my herbarium magnificent. My researches, hitherto restricted to the
suburbs of Athens, would now become more extended. Safety was assured,
the brigands had been beaten by the soldiers, and all the journals
announced the dispersion of Hadgi-Stavros' band. A month or two later, I
should be able to set out for Germany, and find a place which would pay
enough to support the whole family.
We had read on Sunday the 28th of April, in the Siècle of Athens, of the
complete defeat of "The King of the Mountains." The official reports
stated that he had twenty men wounded, his camp burned, his band
dispersed, and that the troops had pursued him as far as the marshes
near Marathon. These reports, very agreeable to all strangers, did not
appear to give much pleasure to the Greeks, and especially to our host
and hostess. Christodule, for a lieutenant of troops, showed lack of
enthusiasm, and Colonel Jean's daughter wept when the story of the
brigand's defeat was read. Harris, who had brought in the paper, could
not conceal his joy. As for me, I could roam about the country now, and
I was enchanted. On the morning of the 30th, I set out with my box and
my walking stick. Dimitri had awakened me at four o'clock. He was going
to take orders from an English family, who had been staying for some
days at the Hotel des Etrangers.
I walked down the Rue d'Hèrmes to the Square, Belle-Gréce, and passed
through the Rue d'Eole. Passing before the Place des Canons, I saluted
the small artillery of the kingdom, who slept under a shed, dreaming of
the taking of Constantinople; and with four strides I was in the Rue de
Patissia. The honey-flowers, which bordered either side, had begun to
open their odorous blossoms. The sky, of a deep blue, whitened
imperceptibly between Hymettus and Pentelicus. Before me, on the
horizon, the summit of Parnassus rose like broken turrets; there was the
end of my journey. I descended a path which traversed the grounds of the
Countess Janthe Théotoki, occupied by the French Legation; I passed
through the gardens belonging to Prince Michael Soutzo, and the School
of Plato, which a President of the Areopagus had put up in a lottery
some years before, and I entered the olive groves. The morning thrushes
and their cousins-germain, the black-birds, flew from tree to tree, and
sang joyously above my head. At the end of the wood, I traversed the
immense green fields where Attic horses, short and squat, like those in
the frieze at the Parthenon, consoled themselves for the dry fodder and
the heating food of winter. Flocks of turtle-doves flew away at my
approach, and the tufted larks mounted vertically in the sky like
rockets. Once in a while, an indolent tortoise crawled across the path,
dragging his house. I turned him over on his back and left him to attend
to his own affairs. After two hours' walking, I entered a barren waste.
Cultivation ceased; one saw upon the arid soil tufts of sickly grass,
the Star of Bethlehem, or Daffodils. The sun lifted itself above the
horizon, and I distinctly saw the fir-trees which grew on the side of
Parnassus. The path which I had taken was not a sure guide, but I
directed my steps to a group of scattered houses on the mountain side,
and which was called the village of Castia.
I leaped the Céphise Eleusinien to the great scandal of the little
tortoises who leaped like frogs into the water. A hundred steps further
on, the path was lost in a deep and wide ravine, worn by the storms of
two or three thousand winters. I supposed, reasonably enough, that the
ravine ought to be the right road. I had noticed, in my former
excursions, that the Greeks did not trouble themselves with making roads
where streams were liable to change them. In this country, where man
does not oppose the works of nature, torrents are royal roads; brooks,
are department routes; rivulets, are parish-roads. Tempests are the
road-constructors, and rain is the surveyor of wide and narrow paths. I
entered the ravine and walked between two river banks, which hid the
plain from me. But the path had so many turns, that I should not have
known in which direction I was walking, if I had not kept my back to
Parnassus. The wisest course would have been to climb one bank or the
other and ascertain my bearings; but the sides were perpendicular, I was
weary, I was hungry; and I found the shade refreshing. I seated myself
upon a bowlder of marble, I took from my box a piece of bread, some cold
lamb, and a gourd of wine. I said to myself: "If I am on the right road,
some one will pass and I can find out where I am."
In fact, just as I had finished lunching, and was about to stretch
myself out for the rest which follows the meal of travelers or serpents,
I thought I heard a horse's step. I laid my ear to the ground and heard
two or three horses coming up the ravine. I buckled my box on my back,
and made ready to follow them, in case they were going towards
Parnassus. Five minutes afterward, I saw coming toward me, two ladies
mounted upon livery-horses, and equipped like Englishwomen on a journey.
Behind them was a pedestrian, whom I had no trouble in recognizing; it
was Dimitri.
You who know the world a little, you have noticed that a traveler starts
out without much care for his personal appearance; but if he is about to
meet ladies, though they be as old as the Dove of the Ark, he loses, at
once, his indifference and looks at his dusty and travel-stained
garments with a troubled eye. Before even being able to distinguish the
faces of the two riders, behind their blue veils, I had looked myself
over, and I was sufficiently satisfied. I wore these garments which I
have on, and which are even now presentable, although that was two years
ago. I have never changed the fashion of my hair; a cap, although as
fine and handsome a one as this, would not have protected a traveler
from the sun. I wore, instead, a large gray felt hat, which the dust
could not hurt.
I took it off politely as the ladies passed me. My salutation did not
appear to trouble them much. I held out my hand to Dimitri, and he told
me in a few words, all that I wished to know.
"Am I upon the road to Parnassus?"
"Yes, we are going there."
"I can go with you, then?"
"Why not?"
"Who are these ladies?"
"English! Milord is resting at the hotel."
"What kind of people are they?"
"Peugh! London bankers. The old lady is Mrs. Simons, of the firm of
Barley and Co.; Milord is her brother; the young lady is her daughter."
"Pretty?"
"According to taste; I like Photini's looks better."
"Are you going as far as the fortress?"
"Yes. I am engaged for a week, at ten francs a day and board. I organize
and arrange their trips. I began with this one because I knew that I
should meet you. But what is the matter with them now?"
The elder woman, annoyed because I was detaining her servant, had put
her horse to a trot, in a passage where no one had ever dared to trot
before. The other animal, filled with emulation, began to take the same
gait, and if we had talked a few minutes longer, we would have been
distanced. Dimitri hastened to rejoin the ladies, and I heard Mrs.
Simons say to him, in English:
"Do not go away from us. I am English, and I wish to be well served. I
do not pay you to chat with your friends. Who is this Greek with whom
you are talking?"
"He is a German, Madame."
"Ah!--What is he doing?"
"He is searching for plants."
"He is an apothecary, then?"
"No, Madame! he is a scholar."
"Ah!--Does he know English?"
"Yes, Madame, very well."
"Ah!----"
The three "ahs!" were said in three different tones which I noticed as I
would three notes of music. They indicated by very noticeable shades the
progress which I had made in her esteem. She, however, addressed no word
to me, and I followed them a few feet distant. Dimitri dared not speak
to me; he walked ahead like a prisoner of war. All that he could do was
to cast two or three looks in my direction, which seemed to say: "But
these English are impertinent!" Miss Simons did not turn her head, and I
was unable to decide in what her ugliness differed from Photini's. All
that I could judge was, that the young English girl was large and
marvelously well-formed. Her shoulders were broad, her waist was round,
and supple as a reed. The little that one could see of her neck, made
one think of the swans in the Zoological Gardens.
Her mother turned her head to speak to her, and I hastened forward, in
hope of hearing her voice. Did I not tell you that I was extremely
curious? I came up with them just in time to hear the following
conversation:
"Mary-Ann!"
"Mamma!"
"I am hungry."
"Are you?"
"I am."
"Mamma, I am warm."
"Are you?"
"I am."
You believe that this truly English dialogue made me smile? Not at all,
Monsieur; I was under a spell. Mary-Ann's voice had worked a charm; the
truth is that as I listened, I experienced a delicious agony, and found
my heart beating almost to suffocation. In all my life, I had never
heard anything so young, so fresh, so silvery as that voice. The sound
of a golden shower falling on my father's roof would have, truly,
sounded less sweet to me. I thought to myself: "What a misfortune that
the sweetest songsters among birds are necessarily the ugliest." And I
feared to see her face, and yet I was consumed with eager desire to look
upon it, such a strong empire has curiosity over me.
Dimitri had calculated upon reaching the inn at Calyvia at breakfast
time. It was a house made of planks, loosely put together; but one could
always find there a goat-skin bottle of resin wine; a bottle of rhaki;
that is to say, of anise-seed cordial; some brown bread; eggs; and a
regiment of venerable hens transformed by death into pullets, by virtue
of metempsychosis. Unfortunately, the inn was deserted and the door
closed. At this news, Mrs. Simons had a bitter quarrel with Dimitri, and
as she turned around, I saw a face as sharp as the blade of a Sheffield
knife, with two rows of teeth like a palisade. "I am English," she said,
"and I expect to eat when I am hungry."
"Madame," Dimitri piteously replied, "you can breakfast, in
half-an-hour, in the village of Castia."
I had breakfasted, and I was free to abandon myself to melancholy
reflections upon Mrs. Simons' ugliness, and I murmured under my breath
an aphorism in Fraugman's Latin Grammar: "Qualis mater, talis filia!"
From the inn to the village, the road was particularly detestable. It
was a narrow path, between a perpendicular rock and a precipice, which
made even the chamois dizzy. Mrs. Simons, before starting out on this
dangerous path, where the horses could scarcely find foot-hold, asked if
there was no other way. "I am English," she said, "and I was not made to
roll down precipices." Dimitri began to praise the path; he assured her
that there were others a hundred times worse in the kingdom. "At least,"
said the good lady, "take hold of the bridle. But who will lead my
daughter? Go and lead my daughter's horse. Still, I must not break my
own neck. Can you not lead both horses? This path is, truly, horrible. I
believe that it is good enough for the Greeks, but it was not made for
the English. Is it not so?" she added, turning graciously to me.
I was introduced. Regularly or not, the presentation was made. It
happened under the auspices of a personage well-known in the romances of
the Middle Ages, whom the poets of the XIVth century called, Danger. I
bowed with all the elegance of which I was master, and replied in
English:
"Madame, the path is not as bad as it appears at first sight. Your
horses are sure-footed; I know them, as I have ridden them. You may have
two guides, if you will permit me to lead Mademoiselle, while Dimitri
leads you."
As quickly done as said; without waiting for an answer, I boldly
advanced and took the bridle of Mary-Ann's horse, and as her blue veil
blew back, I saw the most adorable face which has ever enchanted the
sight of a German naturalist.
An eccentric poet, Aurelian Scholl, pretends that every man has in his
heart a mass of eggs, in each one of which is a love. All that is needed
to give life is a glance from a woman's eye. I am too much of a scholar
to be ignorant of the fact that this hypothesis does not rest on sure
foundations, and that it is in formal contradiction to all the revealed
facts of anatomy. I ought to state, however, that Miss Simons' first
glance caused a very acute agitation in the region of my heart I
experienced a sensation entirely unusual, and which bore no trace of
sadness, and it seemed to me that something gave way in the osseous
formation of my breast, below the bone called, sternum. At the same
instant, the blood surged through my veins, and the arteries in my
temples beat with such force that I could count the pulsations.
What eyes she had! I hope, for your peace of mind, that you will never
meet a pair like them. They were not of unusual size, and they did not
draw attention from the rest of her face. They were neither blue nor
black, but of a color especially their own. It was a warm and velvety
brown, which one sees only in Siberian garnets, and in certain garden
flowers. I could show you a certain scabieuse, and a variety of
holly-hock, nearly black, which resembles the marvelous shade of her
eyes. If you have ever visited a forge at midnight, you have, doubtless,
remarked the strange color which gleams from a red-hot steel plate, as
it changes to a reddish brown; that too, was like her eyes. As for the
charm in them, any comparison is useless. Charm is a gift with which few
individuals are endowed. Mary-Ann's eyes possessed something naive and
spiritual; a frank vivacity; sparkling with youth and health, and
sometimes a touching languor. One read in them as in a book the
knowledge of a woman and the innocence of a child; but it would have
blinded one to have read the book for a long time. Her glance burned
like fire, as truly as I call myself, Hermann. It would have ripened the
peaches on your garden wall.
Words fail when I think that that poor simpleton, Dimitri, found her
less beautiful than Photini. In truth, love is a malady which singularly
stupefies its victims; I, who had never lost the use of my reason, and
who judged everything with the wise indifference of a naturalist, I
confess to you, that the world never held as incomparable a woman as
Mary-Ann. I would like to show you her picture as it is graven in the
depths of my memory. You would see what long eye-lashes she had, how the
eyebrows traced a beautiful arch above her eyes, how small her mouth
was, how white her teeth, how rosy and transparent her little ear. I
studied her beauty in the minutest details, because I possess an
analytical mind and have formed habits of observation. One thing struck
me especially, it was the fineness and transparency of her skin; it was
more delicate than the velvety covering which envelops beautiful fruits.
The color of her cheeks seemed made of that impalpable dust which adorns
the wings of the butterflies. If I had not been a Doctor of Natural
Sciences, I would have feared that the contact of her veil would brush
off some of the luster of her beauty. I do not know whether you like
pale women, or not, and I do not wish to hurt your feelings, if by
chance, you have a taste for that kind of deathly looking women who have
been the rage, during certain periods; but in my quality of savant, I
can admire nothing without health, that joy of life. If I had become a
doctor, I would have been a safe man to allow in any family, because it
is certain that I should never have fallen in love with any of my
patients. The sight of a pretty face, healthy and vivacious, gives me
nearly as much pleasure as finding a vigorous beautiful bush, whose
flowers open widely in the sunshine, and whose leaves have never been
touched by butterfly or cockchafer. So that the first time that I saw
Mary-Ann's face, I experienced a strong temptation to take her hand and
say to her: "Mademoiselle, how happy you must be to have such good
health."
I have forgotten to tell you that the lines of her face were not
regular, and that her profile was not that of a statue. Phidias would,
perhaps, have refused to make a bust of her; but your Pradier would have
begged on his knees for sittings. I must confess, at the risk of
destroying your illusions, that she had a dimple in her left cheek, but
none in the right; this is contrary to all laws of symmetry. Know,
moreover, that her nose was neither straight nor aquiline, but purely
retroussé, as French noses are. But that this rendered her less pretty,
I will deny, even upon the scaffold. She was as beautiful as Greek
statues are; but was entirely different. Beauty cannot be judged by one
invariable type, although Plato affirms it. It varies according to
times, according to peoples, and according to culture. The Venus de Milo
was considered, two thousand years ago, the most beautiful woman of the
Archipelago. I do not believe that, in 1856, she would have been
considered the prettiest woman in Paris. Take her to a dressmaker's in
the Place Vendome, or to a milliner's in the Rue de la Paix, and in
these places she would be less of a success than some other women whose
features were not so classical, and whose nose was not so straight. One
could admire a woman geometrically beautiful, in the days when she was
only an object of art destined to please the eyes, without appealing to
the mind; a bird of Paradise at whose plumage one looks, without
thinking of asking it to sing. A beautiful Athenian was as
well-proportioned, as white, and as cold, as the column of a temple. M.
Mérinay has shown to me, in a book, that the Ionic column is only a
woman, disguised. The portico of the Temple of Erechtée, at the
Acropolis at Athens, rests upon four Athenian women of the century of
Pericles. The women of to-day are little, winged beings, active, busy,
and above all, thoughtful; created, not to hold temples on their heads,
but to awaken genius, to engage in work, to animate with courage, and to
light the world with the flashes of their wit. What we love in them, and
what makes their beauty, is not regularity of features; it is the lively
and mobile expression of sentiments, more delicate than ours; it is the
radiation of thought around that fragile envelope, which does not
suffice to contain it; it is the quick play of a speaking physiognomy. I
am not a sculptor, but if I knew how to use the chisel and one gave me a
commission to make a statue of our epoch, I swear to you that she would
have a dimple in her left cheek, and a retroussé nose.
I led Mary-Ann's horse to the village of Castia. What she said to me on
the way, and what I replied, left no more impression on my mind, than
the flight of a swallow leaves on the air. Her voice was so sweet to
listen to, that I probably did not listen to what she said. It was as
if I were at the opera, where the music does not often permit one to
hear the words. All the circumstances of that first interview made an
ineffaceable impression on my mind. I have only to close my eyes to
believe that I am still there. The April sun shone softly on my head.
Above the path, and below, the resinous trees disseminated their
aromatic odors through the air. The pines, the thugas, and the
turpentine trees gave forth a harsh and acrid incense as Mary-Ann
passed. She inhaled, with evident happiness, nature's odorous largess.
Her dear little nose breathed in the fragrance; her eyes, those
beautiful eyes, roved from object to object with sparkling joy. Seeing
her so pretty, so lively, so happy, you would have said that a dryad had
escaped from its wood. I can see now, the horse she rode; it was Psari,
a white horse from Zimmerman's. Her habit was black; Mrs. Simons', which
showed distinctly against the sky, was bottle-green, sufficiently
eccentric to testify to her independence of taste. She also wore a black
hat, of that absurd and ungraceful shape worn by men of all countries;
her daughter wore the gray felt adopted by the heroines of the Fronde.
Both wore chamois gloves. Mary-Ann's hand was not small, but admirably
formed. I have never worn gloves, I do not like them. And you?
The village of Castia was as deserted as the inn at Calyvia. Dimitri
could not understand why. We dismounted in front of the church, beside a
fountain. Each went from house to house knocking at the doors; not a
soul. No one at the priest's, no one at the magistrate's. The
authorities of the village had moved away with the residents. Each house
consisted of four walls and a roof, with two openings, one of which
served as door, the other as window. Poor Dimitri forced in two or three
doors, and opened five or six shutters, to assure himself that the
inmates were not asleep. These incursions resulted in setting free an
unfortunate cat, forgotten by its master, and which departed like a
flash in the direction of the wood.
Soon, Mrs. Simons lost patience. "I am English," she said to Dimitri,
"and one does not mock me with impunity. I shall complain to the
Legation. What! I hire you for a trip to the mountains, and you make me
travel over precipices! I order you to bring food, and you expose me to
starvation! We were to breakfast at the inn! The inn is abandoned: I had
the goodness to follow you, fasting, to this frightful village; and all
the inhabitants have fled. All this is unnatural. I have traveled in
Switzerland: Switzerland is a country of mountains; however, nothing was
lacking there! and I had trout to eat, do you hear?"
Mary-Ann tried to calm her mother, but the good woman could not and
would not listen. Dimitri explained to her as fully as she would
permit him, that the inhabitants of the village were nearly all
charcoal-burners, and that their business very often took them into the
mountains. In any case, the time was not lost: it was not later than
eight o'clock, and they were sure to find within ten minutes' walk an
inhabited house where breakfast would be all prepared.
"What house?" demanded Mrs. Simons.
"The farm at the Convent. The monks from Pentelicus have broad lands
above Castia. They raise bees there. The good old man who carries on the
farm always has wine, bread, honey and fowls; he will give us our
breakfast."
"He may have gone away like everyone else."
"If he is away, it will not be far. The time for the swarming is near,
and he would not wish to lose his bees."
"Go and see: as for me, I have gone far enough since morning. I vow to
you that I will not remount until after I have eaten."
"Madame, you need not remount," said Dimitri, patient as are all guides.
"We can hitch our horses to the fountain, and we shall quickly reach the
place on foot."
Mary-Ann influenced her mother to consent. She was dying to see the good
old man, and his apiary. Dimitri hitched the horses to the watering
trough, weighting each bridle with a huge stone. Mrs. Simons and her
daughter looped up their habits and we started up a precipitous path,
fit only for the goats of Castia. The green lizards which were warming
themselves in the sun, discreetly retired at our approach, but each drew
a piercing cry from Mrs. Simons, who had a horror of reptiles. After a
quarter of an hour of these vocalizations, she had, at last, the joy of
seeing an open house and a human face. It was the farmhouse and the old
man.
The house was a small one made of red bricks, topped with five cupolas,
almost like a mosque to the village. At a distance, it possessed a
certain elegance. Comely without and coarse within, it was a sample of
the Orient. One saw, in the shelter of a hill covered with thyme, a
hundred straw bee-hives, placed in a line like the tents in a camp. The
king of this empire, the good old man, was a small, young man of
twenty-five, round and merry. All Greek monks are honored with the title
of "good old man," age having nothing to do with it. He was dressed like
a peasant, except his bonnet, which was black instead of red; it was by
this sign that Dimitri recognized him.
The little man, seeing us running toward him, raised his arms to heaven,
and appeared utterly amazed. "Here is an original," Mrs. Simons
exclaimed; "what astonishes him so much? One would say that he had never
seen any English people before."
Dimitri, who had run on ahead, kissed the monk's hand, and said to him
with a curious mixture of respect and familiarity:
"Thy blessing, father! Wring the necks of two chickens, we will pay thee
well."
"Unhappy man: why do you come here?"
"To breakfast."
"Didst thou not see that the inn was deserted?"
"I saw it so well, that I found no one at home."
"And that the village was deserted?"
"If I had met anyone, I should not have climbed up to thy house."
"Thou art then in accord with them?"
"Them? With whom?"
"The brigands."
"Are there brigands on Parnassus?"
"Since day before yesterday."
"Where are they?"
"Everywhere!"
Dimitri turned quickly toward us and said: "We have not a moment to
lose. The brigands are in the mountains. Let us run for our horses. Have
courage, Mesdames; and step out lively, if you please."
"This is too hard," cried Mrs. Simons. "Without having breakfasted!"
"Madame, your breakfast would cost you dear! Let us hasten, for the love
of God!"
"Is this a conspiracy? You have sworn to make me die of hunger! Behold
the brigands! As if there were brigands! I do not believe in brigands!
All the papers state that they are disbanded! Moreover, I am English,
and if anyone touched a hair of my head----!"
Mary-Ann was less confident. She leaned on my arm and asked me if I
thought that we were in danger of death.
"Of death? No. Of being robbed? Yes."
"Of what importance is that? They are welcome to take all that I carry,
if only they will give me my breakfast."
I learned later that the poor woman was subject to a rare malady which
the vulgar call canine appetite, and our learned men know as _boulime_.
When hunger assailed her, she would have given her fortune for a plate
of lentils.
Dimitri and Mary-Ann each seized a hand and dragged her to the path we
had just ascended. The little monk followed her, gesticulating. I was
strongly tempted to push forward; but a quick and imperative tone
stopped us suddenly.
"Halt! I say!"
I raised my eyes. Two mastic bushes and arbutus-trees were on the right
and left of the path. From each bush the muzzles of three or four guns
protruded. A voice cried in Greek: "Seat yourselves on the ground!" This
operation was exceedingly easy for me, as my knees weakened under me.
But I consoled myself with the thought that Ajax, Agamemnon, and the
hot-headed Achilles, if they found themselves in a like position, would
not have refused the seat offered them.
The guns were lowered toward us. I expected to see them pushed out so
far that their muzzles would touch each other over our heads. It was not
that I was afraid; but I had never before realized the extraordinary
length of Greek guns. The whole arsenal marched out into the path,
showing the owner of each.
The only difference which exists between devils and brigands, is that
devils are less black than one expects, and brigands more squalid than
one supposes. The eight scoundrels who surrounded us were so foul, that
I would have preferred to give them my money with pinchers. One could
imagine that their bonnets might once have been red; but lye itself
could never have found the original shade of their coats. All the rocks
of the kingdom had contributed to the color of their percale skirts, and
their vests bore a specimen of the different soils upon which they had
reposed. Their hands, their faces, and even their mustaches were of a
reddish gray like the dirt which they had on their clothes. Every animal
colors itself like the house or land it inhabits: the foxes of Greenland
are like the snow; lions, the color of the desert; partridges, like the
ground; the Greek brigands, the color of the paths.
The chief of the little band who had taken us prisoners, was not
distinguished by outward sign. Possibly his face, his hands, his
clothes, were richer in dirt than those of his comrades. He bent over us
from his great height, and examined us so closely, that I almost felt
the touch of his gray mustache. You would have thought him a tiger who
smelled his prey before devouring it. When his curiosity was satisfied,
he said to Dimitri: "Empty thy pockets!" Dimitri did not make him repeat
it the second time. He threw down, at his feet, a knife, a bag of
tobacco, and three Mexican piastres, which made a sum of sixteen francs.
"Is that all?" demanded the brigand.
"Yes, brother."
"Thou art the servant?"
"Yes, brother."
"Take one piastre. Thou must not return to the city without money."
Dimitri began to haggle. "Thou mightest leave me two. I have two horses
below; they are hired from the stable; I will have to pay for the day."
"Thou canst explain to Zimmerman that we have taken thy money."
"And if he insists on being paid even then?"
"Tell him that he is only too happy in seeing his horses again."
"He knows very well that you would not take the horses. What would you
do with them in the mountains?"
"Enough! Tell me who is this tall, thin man behind thee?"
I answered for myself: "An honest German whose spoils will not enrich
you."
"Thou speakest Greek; well. Empty thy pockets!"
I placed on the ground twenty francs, my tobacco, my pipe and my
handkerchief.
"What is that?"
"A handkerchief."
"What for?"
"To wipe my nose."
"Why didst thou tell me that thou wert poor? Only lords wipe their noses
with handkerchiefs. Take off the box which thou carriest on thy back.
That is well! Now open it."
My box contained some plants, a book, a knife, a small packet of
arsenic, an almost empty gourd of wine, and the remains of my breakfast
which brought a gleam of covetousness to Mrs. Simons' eyes. I had the
impudence to offer them to her before my property changed hands. She
snatched them greedily and began to devour the bread and meat. To my
great astonishment, this gluttonous act disgusted the thieves, who
murmured among themselves the word _heretic_! The monk made a half-dozen
signs of the cross, according to the rite of the Greek church.
"Thou probably hast a watch," said the brigand to me, "put it with the
other things."
I took off my silver watch, an heirloom, which weighed about four
ounces. The rascals passed it from hand to hand and found it very
beautiful. I hoped that admiration, which softens men's feelings, would
dispose them to restore to me something of my belongings, and I begged
the Chief to give me my tin box. He rudely told me to keep silent. "At
least," I persisted, "give back my two écus so that I can return to the
city." He replied with a sardonic grin: "Thou wilt have no use for
them."
Mrs. Simons' turn had come. Before putting her hand into her pocket, she
addressed our captors in the tongue of her fathers. English is one of
the rare languages which one can speak with one's mouth full. "Reflect
well upon what you are doing," she said in a menacing tone. "I am an
Englishwoman, and English subjects are sacred in every country in the
world. What you take from me will serve you little, and cost you dear.
England will avenge me, and you will be hung, at the very least. Now, if
you wish my money, you have only to speak; but it will burn your
fingers; it is English money!"
"What does she say?" asked the leader of the brigands.