The Dark Labyrinth

by Lawrence Durrell

  For days now their world was circumscribed by clouds which closed in on them like wet washing, grey, green, blue, according to the angle of the sunlight shining through them. They walked every afternoon to the bluff and sat watching the landscape below shine up in sudden rifts: watching the wind tear aside a corner of the veil and show them the pristine sky.

  Softly “whewing” they heard the storks passing overhead all night long, moving towards Egypt, their necks and wings straining towards the warmth. The torrents were swollen, too, and the crying of the birds mingled with the musical enunciation of water on stone, on wood, water on moss and lichen.

  There was nothing, in the deepest and most vital sense, to be said; no summing-up, no judgment to be passed upon what had begun to travel through them—time in its pure state—as water will run noiselessly through fingers trailed from a boat. Even the snow, when it came, seemed part of the order and style of the little universe which hemmed them in. Its soft drifts mounted against the walls of the house they lived in, sparkling with a thousand dewy points in the sunlight. It climbed up the sides of the byres which Truman had built for the sheep and the cow. These animals too had found their way up through the labyrinth. Happiness for them also had become an idle proposition.

  Dawns came now with an immensity and terror that staggered them: the first raw burst of colour in the east spreading upon the snow-capped mountains around them, like blood swelling from wounds. As the season deepened they could hear the roar of avalanches where the higher snow melted upon the desolate face of stone. The wind strummed fitfully in the pines. They might have been in Asia.

  When spring came they took to walking on fine evenings to Ibex Point and sitting there upon the mossy network of stones which seemed almost to be the remains of some old fortress. Below them Godfrey’s pennant still hovered in the breeze. Beyond, the valleys curved away towards the final foothill, fitfully blue and peaceful. It seemed to them at such times that they had reached the meridian of human knowledge. The luminous landscape echoed, in its tranquillity, the thought. If there was no way back there was at least no way forward: the discovery of themselves was itself complete enough to prevent them wanting, hoping, striving. “I feel,” said Truman, struggling with the inadequacies of his vocabularly. “I feel O.C. Universe,” and his wife lying down with her hands behind her head, smiled up her content and happiness as she chewed a grass-stalk. She had realized that the roof of the world did not really exist, except in their own imaginations!

  At Cefalû

  All night long the falls of rock in the labyrinth continued. Graecen heard them through his dreams—as if through some thick curtain—and imagined they were part of them; but some time before dawn he awoke and realized that they were not: and shivered, drawing the bedclothes over his head as he settled himself to sleep. It was full daylight when he awoke once more. Sunlight was glancing through the trees; raising himself on one elbow he could see, beyond the green lawns of Cefalû, the glittering enamel-shining sea. He seemed to have completely recovered from the shock of the day before—it was irritating in a way, for he had planned to spend perhaps a day in bed, resting. Yet one felt so confoundedly well in this blue atmosphere, this Greek morning which seemed to hold in it exciting premonitions like poems unwritten, poems balancing upon the edge of one’s tongue. He got up and stood at the window for a while staring down at the sea, and the clutter of painted boats beside the mole. Somewhere a bird was singing out of sight. “Where birds like arrows glide, upon the resistless Grecian tide, and ships like swans upon the lawns …” It wouldn’t do. He lit a cigarette. The chink of teacups made him crane forward and peer down through the wine-wreathed pergola. Axelos was seated at the breakfast-table in his pyjamas, cracking the top of an egg. “Silenus,” called Graecen; “any news?”

  Axelos raised his dark countenance. “Hullo, Dickie, how do you feel?” How did he feel? Graecen had half-hoped for an excuse to feel ill—well, indisposed. He had planned a day of rest. A bit of fuss over him: his food on a tray: visitors. “My heart seems all right,” he admitted cautiously if unwillingly. In the panic of a spasm he had told Axelos about his condition, and had found, to his surprise, gentleness and anxiety where he had expected something like Hogarth’s irony and disbelief. “Don’t get up unless you feel like it,” said Axelos. “I’ll send your food up.” For a moment Graecen was tempted. “No. It’s all right,” he said at last; the day was too beautiful to waste. “I’ll come down.”

  Soon he was sitting on the terrace above the dew-drenched lawn feeling rather hungrier than seemed right or proper for a man in his condition. “What news”, he said, “of the others?”

  Axelos finished his third egg and wiped his mouth. “None, I’m afraid. I think they don’t stand much chance, you know. And there are falls still going on. The City in the Rock has gone, I’m afraid, unless the Museum can put up the money to dig it out. I went up again early this morning; and Baird hasn’t come back. Spent the night up at the monastery. You don’t know what he’s up to?” he added with a trace of anxiety. “What is he trying to find out?” Graecen did not know. He ate his egg in silence, thinking of Campion. “Poor Campion,” he said; “I must do a little essay on him for The Times. A great artist, you know, but such a beastly little man. Unconventional, troublesome, pompous—no, not pompous, affected. But what a painter.” He wondered if perhaps all great artists, from whose company he reluctantly excluded himself, were not absolutely revolting as human beings? Dostoevsky writing about Christian meekness while he browbeat his menservants, Lawrence saying nasty things about one when one wasn’t there—even when one was trying to place his stuff for him. It was very odd. “He simply wasn’t a gentleman,” he added reluctantly, with no trace of snobbishness, but using the word in its exact sense. Campion had been lacking not so much in gentleness of birth, as in gentleness of nature; nothing was beneath him. Nevertheless he was a great spirit and something must be done towards the memory of him. He troubled and enriched (that was rather good), he troubled and enriched the world: the world was the richer for his passing through it. “Sir, may I draw the attention of your readers to the passing of one whose presence troubled and enriched the world, during his all-too-brief passing through it? I refer to …” That was a capital beginning. Graecen cracked his egg with a magisterial air, happy to feel the seeds of composition stirring in him once more.

  “You know, Dickie,” said Axelos, “I have a feeling there’s nothing wrong with your heart. I had a friend once who was told the same thing. The doctor had swopped his name in the card index with someone else. You ought to check back.”

  “I say,” said Graecen flushing, “do you really think so?” It was a straw, but he grasped it. “It’s just possible, I suppose.” He knew as he spoke that it was not possible, but the idea buoyed him up. He would write to those London brutes and ask them to check the diagnosis. “It’s just possible,” he repeated, dipping deep into the buttercup-coloured heart of the egg.

  “Oh, and another thing,” said Axelos, “I think I’ve laid the minotaur. You see this chap coming up the path with the policeman? He has the secret I feel sure.”

  The village policeman was advancing across the lawn dragging a fisherboy by the arm. He was a stern old man who looked like a discharged sergeant-major, red-faced, moustached. “This is the boy,” he said, springing to attention and saluting. The boy was about fifteen years of age, clad in tatters, with bare feet. He looked very frightened and his lip trembled as Axelos addressed him in his most formidable lord-of-the-manor voice. “Your name?”

  “Peter, son of Karamanos.”

  “You were found blowing a ram’s horn down one of the tunnels of the labyrinth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it makes ‘boom-boom’.”

  “And why do you wish to make ‘boom-boom’ in the labyrinth?”

  “I am poor, sir.”

  “You are paid for it? By whom?”

  “Oh, sir.” The bo
y burst into tears and fell blubbering on the grass, repeating between snorts: “I must not say who. I must not say who.”

  “Get up, wretch,” said the policeman, still standing to attention. “Get up, werewolf, pigsdroppings. Rise.” He delivered a surreptitious kick at the boy’s posterior and became immediately rigid again.

  Axelos selected a peach from the dish in front of him and began to eat it. The boy’s sobs diminished in volume. “Take him away”, said Axelos mildly to the policeman, “and cut his legs off at the ankles. Perhaps he will speak then.”

  The boy set up a howl. Axelos waddled across to him and lifted him up in one huge hairy arm. “Speak,” he shouted suddenly, so loudly that the crockery jumped and Graecen was all but precipitated out of his chair. The boy spoke.

  “Mr. Jannadis,” he said.

  “The tourist one?”

  “Yes.”

  “You may go. Wait.” Katina had appeared on the balcony, attracted by the noise. “Katina,” said Axelos quietly, “give this boy a hundred drachmae and tell him not to do it any more.” He settled himself in his chair once more and bade the policeman good-bye. “There,” he said. “You understand? A tourist stunt. What is one to do?”

  Graecen called to mind the terrible groans and bellow of the beast in the darkness of the labyrinth. “We live in a rational world,” he said sadly, “I suppose everything has a rational explanation.”

  “Well,” said Baird’s voice behind them, “nearly everything.” He appeared on the terrace and shook hands all round. “It’s a long time,” said Axelos. “A very long time. I’m happy to see you.”

  “By the way,” said Baird. “Some news. Virginia is safe. She apparently found a way out and jumped into the sea.” Graecen turned bright green. Axelos stood up. “She’s broken her leg,” said Baird, “but she’ll be all right; I saw her comfortably tucked up in the monastery. The Abbot has set the break. Afraid it’ll be some time before she can be moved.”

  Axelos hovered irresolutely. “She must have a doctor. I’ll get through to Canea. Her people should be notified. Have you her address?” Baird had forgotten to take it. “Never mind,” said Axelos, “I’ll try and ring that journalist fellow.” He hurried off into the house.

  “A woman falling out of the sky,” said Baird, lighting a cigarette. “We had just started off, the Abbot and I, when the mad novice jumped in the air and said he’d seen a woman falling out of the sky. As he is given to visions most of the monks thought it was a personal visitation of the Virgin Mary. The Abbot turned back and was about to shout some insults at them for their superstitious nature when, by God, we saw an arm sticking out of the sea. ‘A woman,’ yelled the Abbot and, behaving like a man who hasn’t seen a woman for some time he dashed into the sea followed by all the monks who could swim. Those who couldn’t brought out the fishing boat. It was a wonderful picture, Graecen. You should have seen them all in their wet cassocks and stove-pipe hats swimming about shouting at the tops of their voices. I thought she was a goner when we got her into the boat. But we filled her up with warm tea and got her settled into warm blankets and, as I say, the Abbot has put her leg in splints. Apparently she was with Campion.”

  “Campion?” said Graecen, startled.

  “Yes. I didn’t press for details as she seemed so weak and done up. She said she wasn’t sure whether he jumped with her or not. They’ve got the boats out now looking for him. So far no trace, however.”

  “Campion,” repeated Graecen. “Well. What do you think of that for a story? I hope they find him.” But he felt a pang of regret.

  They walked together across the lawn and sat in the patch of sunlight under the plane-tree. Axelos could be heard off-stage shouting into the telephone. “Hullo; Hullo; Canea? Hullo …”

  “It doesn’t sound as if it works,” said Graecen.

  “I say,” said Baird suddenly. “I found out some funny things about old Axelos. Is there a peasant girl here called Katina?”

  “Yes,” said Graecen. “The servant.”

  “He’s married to her.”

  “Rubbish,” said Graecen. “How could he?”

  “The Abbot married them himself. Then another thing. This City in the Rock business.”

  “It’s gone, by the way. Fallen in.”

  “The Abbot says it was quite genuine. They found it one day when they were looking for a smuggler. Then, he says Axelos gave him money and told him he should say that they built the damn thing, carved it and all that. What do you make of all that?”

  Graecen was thinking how nearly he had proposed to Virginia. His scalp tingled at the nearness of his escape. He must get away before anything silly like that happened to him. “Eh?” he said, aware that Baird was staring at him.

  “What do you make of that?” repeated Baird.

  “I knew it was genuine the minute I saw it,” said Graecen loftily; “I have no idea why he should pretend it isn’t.”

  “Let’s ask him,” said Baird, all curiosity; but Graecen got up and took a stroll up and down the lawn. “You know,” he said, his natural tact revolting at the idea of prying into other people’s secrets, “I think it would be better if we didn’t really. He’s a very old friend of mine indeed. And I wouldn’t like to embarrass and hurt him. Besides the whole place has disappeared now. Let’s leave it.”

  Axelos came out from the house in his straw hat and pyjamas. “It doesn’t work,” he said, sitting down beside them. “What a country.”

  “What a country,” echoed Graecen, his eyes fixed on the moving sea, and the dazzle of white buildings on the cape.

  The three of them sat quite still and felt the sunlight soaking into them. Birds were singing in the planes. The summer had begun.

  “I’m only sorry about the minotaur,” said Graecen sleepily, as Katina came out towards them in her bright clothes bearing a flask of wine and some glasses. “You could have spared me that Silenus, at my age.”

  But Axelos silently contented himself by pouring out the dark sweet wine into the glasses and sighing.

  Author’s Note

  Not only the characters depicted in this story, but the events also, are fictitious. Even the island of Crete may rest assured that no libellous motives suggested its choice as a locale. The following fragment from The Islands of the Aegean, by the Rev. Henry Fanshawe Tozer, M.A., F.R.G.S., Oxford University Press, 1875, must be held responsible for suggesting the story:

  “Our object now was to recross the island on the Eastern side of Mount Ida to the town of Megalocastron, or Candia, on the northern coast; but before doing so we determined to make a detour to visit a place which is known in all the neighbouring district by the name of ‘The Labyrinth’ . Our host, Captain George, undertook to be our guide; and accordingly the next morning we started in his company and, fording the stream close under the Acropolis of Gortyna, ascended the hills towards the north-west and in an hour’s time reached the place which bears the name. It is entered by an aperture of no great size in the mountain-side where the rocks are of clayey limestone, forming horizontal layers; and inside we found what looks almost like a flat roof, while chambers and passages run off from the entrance in various directions. The appearance at first sight is that of artificial construction, but more probably it is entirely natural, though some persons think it has served for a quarry. We were furnished each with a taper and descended by a passage, on both sides of which the fallen stones had been piled up; the roof above us varied from four to sixteen feet in height. Winding about, we came to an upright stone, the work of a modern Ariadne, set there to show the way, for at intervals other passages branched off from the main one, and anyone who entered without a light would be hopelessly lost. Captain George described to us how for three years during the late war (1867-1869) the Christian inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, to the number of 500, and he among them, had lived there, as their predecessors had done during the former insurrection, to escape the Turks, who had burned their homes and carried off their flocks an
d herds, and all other property they could lay hands on. He pointed out to us the places where the stones were piled up so as to form chambers, each of which was occupied by a family. When I inquired, half in joke, where their refectory was, he replied that far, far within there was a large and lofty central hall, capable of holding 500 people together, to which they gave the name, and that there they used to meet from time to time and dance, sing and enjoy themselves. They had brought a provision of bread to eat and oil for light; and water they obtained from a spring in the innermost part of the cavern, which appears to be the only one, for we saw no stalactites or dripping water in other parts. After wandering in different directions for half an hour, during which time we had not penetrated into one-tenth of its ramifications, we returned to the open air.

  “Notwithstanding the modern name, and the opinion of some scholars in favour of this place, there is no reason for supposing that this was the original Cretan labyrinth. The place was in all probability a mythical conception, like the stories attached to it, though like many other Greek legends, it may have been attached to some geographical feature, such as a cavern; but all Greek writers localize the story at Cnossus, besides which the coins of that city bear as their emblem an idealized representation of the Labyrinth.

  “Ascending the hillside, we crossed a plateau, the ground beneath which is mined by the Labyrinth, and at one point Captain George pointed out to us the position of the refectory underground. Higher up we obtained a view of the snowy mountains of Crete together, comprising the Dictean Mountains, Ida, Kedros, and the White Mountains.”

  A Biography of Lawrence Durrell

  Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) was a novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet, his acclaimed series of four novels set before and during World War II in Alexandria, Egypt. Durrell’s work was widely praised, with his Quartet winning the greatest accolades for its rich style and bold use of multiple perspectives. Upon the Quartet’s completion, Life called it “the most discussed and widely admired serious fiction of our time.”