A Journey to Mount Athos

by FranCois Augieras

  I was taken to my room through a labyrinth of staircases and dark corridors in the very depths of an abandoned wing of Koutloumousiou. I was left. Such joy had seized hold of me, springing from the certainty of having already lived, and knowing myself to be immortal, that I lay on my bed for a long time, doing nothing but listening to the birds. My narrow window looked out on to the green expanse. Night was taking over the woods, the birds’ songs were getting faint. Soon came the great silence of the countryside, asleep under the moon. As far as I could tell my room was in the oldest part of the monastery, where I was completely alone. Not a sound; I opened the door slightly. A lantern lit up a corridor. I went along it and got lost in the darkness. Guided through the shadows by a strong instinct, I found a wooden balcony that opened wide on to an enormous dreamscape of indescribable beauty.

  Far below me in the distance, blurred by the darkness into a single ridge-line, the vast forests of the Holy Mountain sloped down to the sea, which sparkled like a bright patch. The perfect disc of the moon shone brilliantly in a clear vivid sky, equalling the cut-glass splendour of the white summit of Athos.

  From my blue wooden balcony I could see dark valleys and cypress trees. The moonlight touched mysterious orchards and meadows. I sat down on a bench. Here and there, little bells tinkled in the darkened countryside, which smelt of fresh grass. Left to roam freely outside Koutloumousiou, mules wandered peacefully in the night, shaking their bells, whose faint, metallic tinkling created a strange, crystalline music in the nocturnal fairyland under the silvery sky.

  I was about to go back to my room when loud blows on a piece of wood echoed inside the monastery. Blows that were hurried, then spaced out ... Other brief blows in the peace of the night. A persistent call which, when it ended, made me aware of the great silence, even the unfathomable mystery of the tranquil darkness. Footsteps in the corridors. I went down to the courtyard, which at that time of night was like a gloomy water tank, dark and sad, cut off from the moon which only lit up one white wall and one old roof. Lights were being lit in the scarlet church, the colour of old blood. I followed some monks who slipped in through a low door.

  For the second time a distant memory made me certain that nothing here was foreign to me. Like them I kissed the lips of a god painted on the browned gold of an icon, and took my place in the stalls where I remained standing, arms on the arm-rests. A ceremony was beginning. Old men untied coils of rope, slowly lowering large silver chandeliers whose lamps were lit using a taper on the end of a pole. With much grating of pulleys, the chandeliers, shining like constellations, rose back towards the vaulted ceiling, bringing out of the darkness frescoes and a hundred icons stacked up in unbelievable disorder. The silver chandeliers, the holy iconostasis, the ancient gold of the icons all reflected the gentle light of the flames. From fresco to fresco, demons and angels fought over souls among the rocks of a dreamlike Sinai. And, against a background of divine darkness haunted by all the stars, they carried on their eternal battle right up to the domes. The floor was marble. The old men crossed the threshold of the most holy iconostasis; they opened a door set with gold and ivory, pushed aside a velvet curtain. A chant as old as the world began in a sad murmur. It grew louder until it became a delirious song to the glory of the martyrs and the gods of the sovereign night: a song of love of an inexpressible beauty; tears, sobs, shouts of joy alternated sweetly, constantly exalting the eternal life, at the heart of the divine light, of adolescents tortured under Nero, under Diocletian, in the times of other gods. The air was heavy with the smell of incense and wax. The voices poured out like exquisitely gentle balm on flesh flayed to death, burnt with red-hot irons, quartered, and which now rested, for ever glorious, in the bosom of Abraham in the innermost heaven. Every night the monks of Koutloumousiou remembered the torments of the martyrs and praised the Lord, Creator God of the stars and the galaxies among all the lights of their fiery church. Novices, with hair long like girls, slept standing up in the stalls. The Igumenos—the Abbot—lit a censer decorated with tiny bells, swung it in front of the holy images with a great jingling sound, and walked round the chancel. Everyone in the stalls bowed and breathed in the exquisite perfumes of happy Arabia in a cloud of incense. I lowered my head as he passed in front of me. They kept on singing; their elation kept growing; quickly they carried their sacred books from one place to another, all the while crying out to the glory of God; they lit lamps and put some out. They were in Paradise, creating new stars, snuffing out ancient suns with one breath, singing and running here and there. Then this heavenly festival, which carried on from one night to the next, suddenly ended. The songs stopped. They lowered the great round chandeliers that hung from ropes. The gentle flames of the lamps were blown out one by one. As if at an order from God on the night of the Last Judgement, the stars died. The cold chandeliers, like nebulae extinguished for ever, rose back towards the darkened cupolas. Already several monks were leaving, kissing the lips of their god one last time. Outside, nothing at the heart of the great darkness gave rise to any hope that dawn would soon come, except a delightful silence that heralded the day.

  III

  CHARMS AND ENCHANTMENTS

  I opened my eyes in my little room at Koutloumousiou. The sun was shining in a perfect blue sky. I was young on the Holy Mountain! Free to explore it as I wished. Merrily I went down to the courtyard. The gate was open and I went out. To my right, a path led to the sea.

  It sloped down steeply towards long-abandoned sketes. An incredibly strong rustic force came from these ruined farmhouses; I walked quickly past. The dilapidated gates now only protected gardens that had long since grown wild. On piles of fallen stones, lizards were warming themselves in the sun. The cicadas sang in the old olive trees. Rampant vines were taking over their trellises. Wooden scythes and pitchforks still stood outside doors that I tried unsuccessfully to force open, such was the fascination I had for these humble dwellings reclaimed by the jungle. On Athos, as soon as you moved away from the monasteries the powerful vegetation covered everything. These deserted farms, some of them with cupolas of flat stones housing a shrine, now belonged only to the buzzing bees, the lizards and the snakes.

  Athos: Holy Mountain or Paradise of snakes? Or both? Suddenly, in the shade of a fig tree, I saw a grass-snake that was so long it must have been a hundred years old. Given its age, it was in a way as venerable as the Great Ancients who ruled in Kariés. A member of the species known as the Esculapius grass-snake, it was a good three metres long, and lay motionless beside a pool, watching me. Was this the father of all the snakes on Athos? I thought I saw in him the great primordial serpent. He did not run away, or attack. Had his skin, shed a hundred times and renewed each summer, also attained wisdom? But a different kind of wisdom? He was handsome. His black and green scales shone in the shade of the tree. His forked tongue ceaselessly flicking in and out, he slowly uncoiled and disappeared among the lower branches.

  My path went on, always downwards. In the long green grass it became a sort of street lined with sketes— the homes of peasants without wives. An open door: I entered a room with a red brick floor. There was a rusty anvil, a cart-wheel, a broken-down bed, rakes, a barrel, a straw hat. I took it without a qualm. A forgotten icon rotted against a wall. More than God, the great primordial serpent now haunted these dead houses that smelt violently of hay, whose powerful scent spoke of coarse sensual pleasures, themselves also very ancient, of solitary gardeners and young shepherds. I was wild with heat, fear, curiosity. I re-emerged, hat in hand. Thirst tormented me in the blazing sun. I saw a well beside a trellis overrun by hornets, an iron bucket on the side, a rope; and I noticed my face reflected in the calm water of this deep well. Who was I in this wilderness where everything kept reminding me that it was not unfamiliar? Had I already drunk this delicious, icy water? Had I rutted in these stables when the galleys of Byzantium were sailing off Athos? The sea sparkled in the distance ... fragments of my distant past were coming back to me. I put off remembering them
until later and set off again, using steps cut into the rock, heading towards the unchanging sea, wearing a fine straw hat, bare-chested, shirt thrown over one shoulder and my stick in my hand.

  My road ended at the Bridge of Snakes. Iviron was not much further. I arrived in the middle of the afternoon, and my first concern was to drink at the little fountain. I went into the courtyard, feeling almost at home: was it not here that I had come ashore on the first morning of my death? Yesterday: already it seemed that a far greater time than one day separated me from it! The church was open, and singing was coming from inside.

  I went in, tired and exhausted, blinded by the sun, terrified by the snakes, happy to rest in the shade of the painted arches. Monks, barely woken from their siesta, were singing vespers. Not much wishing to show myself, I walked in the passageways and dark chambers around the chancel. The gold of the icons shone gently in half-darkness. Far from the blazing sun and the Jungle of Snakes, I felt at ease in these mysterious little rooms of God, furnished with old stalls, and where the stagnant air smelt of incense and grime. Silver lamps burnt continually in front of the holy images. There were wooden panels, heavy and gilded, varnished, soft to the fingertips, delightful to the lips, showing the Son of God, the Virgin, and John the Baptist. The flames of the lamps, that in places had blackened and eaten away at the paint, but respected the unchanging gold, made these venerable pieces of wood very similar to the burnt, tortured flesh of the martyrs. In these chambers of Spirits inhabited by all the gods of the heavens, in these storehouses of souls, in these consulting rooms of prayer, frescoes showed the Battle of the Angels against the Great Serpent: clapped in irons in the deep cavern of an impossible desert made up of bizarrely drawn rocks, it escaped for a thousand years before being conquered. It was as if all these efforts to show the faces of the gods were nothing more than an immense fairytale invented by people who, like me, were terrorized by the fear of snakes.

  At the end of Vespers, racked with hunger, I went to the kitchens. With the idea of getting a reasonable meal, I show my parchment to the monk who had treated me so badly the morning I arrived. He snaps at me that his fires are out, he frightens his cat with his shouting, declares that he has nothing and, in conclusion, asks me to follow him to the cellar. We go into the storerooms. There are bundles of firewood, heaps of logs, barrels. He gives me plenty to drink. In the darkness he feels my arms, fingers me, cuddles me, pinches me, finds me to his taste. This great famished man imagines he is devouring me. According to him I have delicious flesh. Soon he is pressing me against him. His black robe smells of cheap wine and grime. His beard prickles me. When he is sated from the mere thought of eating me raw, he locks the cellar and goes about his business.

  My hunger appeased by the resinous wine and the caresses with which I had been favoured, I sat down on a bench in a corner of the great courtyard of Iviron. From here I saw the immaculate peak of Athos, clear and white above the green forests. In a sky that was still blue, the bright moon rose beyond the battlements; it sailed peacefully across a clear space. The fresh, gentle air of the June dusk touched my face. I was young on the Holy Mountain, delighted by everything, very free: to go from one monastery to another satisfied a strong liking for wandering which came back to me from a distant past which it seemed I was reliving. I was totally happy in the calm of the evening, filled with forest scents.

  Suddenly, a sort of call rang out in the depths of my soul, which I knew was very old; a silent call. I was seized by the idea that I had a master on Athos. I had known him for all eternity. He was calling me! I had already lived on the Holy Mountain. He knew I was back. He wanted to see me again. Where did he live? In which monastery, in which skete of the Jungle of Snakes? The call, for a moment incredibly strong, fell silent, leaving me to myself and to the decision to go in search of my ancient master. I would have set off immediately if the gate of Iviron had not slammed shut, showing me it was now too late to wander the paths.

  Instead it was time to beg for lodging and supper, as the resinous wine I had drunk in the cellar and the pleasure of being caressed had only appeased my hunger for a moment. I climbed wooden staircases, went from floor to floor until I was right underneath the old stone roofs, again delighted with this unfettered life, this perpetual wandering which suited me so well. At the sound of my footsteps in the corridor someone opened a door. A monk, seeing I was hungry, invited me into his room. From a kitchen cupboard he took a pan full of black beans which he put on a table. A paraffin lamp was burning feebly there; he trimmed the flame and stood in front of me without a word, but with a sort of profound kindness dating from the first evenings of the world. I watched him while I ate my beans: an old man, very tall, his hair and beard the colour of snow, his hands long and pale; a man who was slightly absent. When I finished eating he took me to a distant room and returned to his own.

  Whitewashed, its only furniture was a metal bed. A window with heavy iron bars opened on to the countryside. I was in no hurry to sleep. I propped myself up on my elbows on the sheets, which were intensely white in the light of the moon. The window, cut deep into the thick walls, did not look out on the seaward side but on to the gardens, and forests so vast that they half-hid the clear sky. Beautiful moonbeams lit up the kitchen gardens of Iviron, the pools, the trellises, stakes supporting peas, low walls made of grey stone. Unseen birds mingled their cries with the murmuring of the tide: for a moment they were quiet in the woods, and the sea gave hints of its presence with a peaceful sound of water. Then, taking up an age-old dialogue, in the peace of the night the calls of the night creatures answered the slow breaking of the waves. With incredible clearness the silver light sketched out the dark hills, the old gardens, the leaves, the black cypress trees of this Land of the Dead. The thought of being called, most likely never to leave again, filled me with boundless joy. I closed my eyes with delight, opened them again, still amazed to see the unmoving, wild magnificence of the Holy Mountain, asleep in the bright moonlight. Knowing I was in Paradise brought me perfect happiness. Who was I? I suspected that my total loss of identity was the necessary condition of a long stay beyond the gates of death. So I accepted wholeheartedly that I would be nothing but a gaze, a soul full of wonder at the sight of the gardens and forests of Athos on a moonlit night, among other clear nights on the Holy Mountain. I had dragged my bed up against the window: bathed in moonlight, lying half-naked on my white sheets, a stranger to myself, I fell joyfully asleep.

  The decision to go and search for my ancient master got me out of bed in the morning. The monk who had taken me to my room gave me some bread and a bottle of water. I did not forget my fine straw hat, my staff, or my bag of simple provisions for the journey. Thus equipped, I went down to the sea at first light.

  Next to a square tower dating from Byzantine times, several monks dressed in black robes, their hair tied-up into chignons, were mowing some grassy meadows and making haystacks not far from the vast, incredibly lively waves. The air was fresh, the thunder of the surf unceasing. In a hurry to find my master, I left my hosts to their idyllic haymaking and went north along the shore. Sandals in my hand, feet soaked by the foam, I walked along the shingle, which was constantly threatened by sudden mad rushes of water which washed the beach.

  Rocks that would have been dangerous to walk on forced me to take a path that climbed into the hills, but it kept close to the sea, which I glimpsed through the indentations in the coast. The sea air blew very hard here; bees were buzzing in the blue sky, gathering pollen among the bushes and a field of yellow flowers, in which I disappeared up to my waist. The path soon came down to a beach that was sheltered from the wind; my footsteps crunched on the shingle of a tranquil bay. Not a wall, not a skete in sight. No tracks except my own across the unmarked sand.

  Each day I got more accustomed to my new life. With no other memory except the certainty that I had already lived, I was born to absolute existence. This primordial state summoned up every desire and sensual pleasure— stripping naked, I wa
lked into the sea, full of the joy of being young. I cooled my face in the waves, which were shallow at this spot. Clear water lapped over the virgin white shingle. I had picked some flowers and strewed them round me: they floated, bobbing gently on a slight swell. Facing the distant horizon, wearing only my straw hat, I washed my manhood in the cold water among the flowers, my hips, my beautiful naked thighs caressed by the ebb and flow of a gentle tide. In this state of nature I became more susceptible to the beauty of the world: a hot sun shone on this bay of earthly Paradise; the birds were singing in the undergrowth, the bees were buzzing; the shore formed a perfect arc, mirrored by the lovely curve of an enormous hill, so green under the blue June sky. For a moment I had thought I was completely alone. On this morning of my new life was I alone with the power and might of the vegetation, the clear water, the birds, the bees, all of these simple reflections of God, just like me? I went further into the sea, lost my footing and let myself sink into the transparent water. With slow strokes I swam down to very fine sand where light shadows danced. The sea bed fell away quickly; far from the bright surface, great rocks guarded the entrance of a wonderful sapphire-blue valley. I brushed against seaweed and sad caves; with the merest movement I went lower. I soared over silent abysses ... Man or nymph or soul, was I now no more than a glance? Multicoloured fish came within arm’s reach. The water, whose blue was getting darker and darker, was now almost black, and it frightened me. In a gentle glide I rose slowly back towards the light, towards the constantly-shattering mirror of the sunlit waves.