Europe in the Looking Glass

by Morris, Jan, Byron, Robert

  CHAPTER II

  THE NEXT DAY WAS SUNDAY. We had been careful to move the beds away from the walls of the single bedroom which we were all three obliged to share, and had also strewn little rings of Keating’s powder round each of the castors of the bedsteads. We were therefore sleeping soundly when aroused by the porter holding a hand-candlestick, at half-past five. Dressing by the light of one gas mantle, set in the furthest corner of the room, we caught the seven o’clock express to Athens, the car, accompanied by the Germans, having preceded us two hours earlier. Mr Constantinopoulos came down to see us off, his gnarled brown hands twitching and washing in a manner that showed he had retained the English Saturday night tradition of his youth.

  ‘Don’t kiss too many pretty girls in Athens,’ he croaked. ‘Bye-bye – be good!’

  The train moved off. We were ensconced in a first-class carriage, so small that it was unable to contain even our suitcases; a square box with one seat in each corner, upholstered in faded green casement cloth, upon which hung antimacassars browned with the contact of successive generations of heads. The ceiling was painted in a design of acanthus leaves radiating from the gas globe in brown and ochre relief. Above one seat was inlet a coloured photograph of Olympia. The old narrow gauge rails were no wider than tramlines. After every station or stray cottage at which the express thought fit to stop, a different ticket-collector, each more Anglo-Indian in appearance than the last, would insist upon examining our tickets. They came in couples; one down the central corridor, the other along the dashboard on the outside of the train. So that if one had wished to hurl oneself from them, opportunity would not have been forthcoming.

  The railway crept along between the mountains and the sea, keeping the Gulf of Corinth in sight during the whole journey. We experienced at last the satisfaction of seeing for ourselves that the road would not only have been impassable, but was non-existent. It was not merely that the bridges were down. This would have been immaterial, with the rivers all dry. But in most places there was no more than a track three feet in width with a precipice up and down on either side. For all her agility Diana could never have negotiated ledges that were too narrow to support her wheels. However she would be waiting for us at Corinth…

  Thus complacent we drew into a small station surrounded by fig-trees, under which stood one or two tin tables. There, in a siding, lay Diana, on her truck, motionless and forlorn. We waved at the Germans, who said that they had already been delayed an hour. Though she was timed to arrive at Corinth two hours before us, there was nothing to do but continue. We reached Corinth at midday, having averaged sixteen miles an hour. There we waited until six o’clock.

  First we had lunch. This consisted of fish that tasted suspiciously unwholesome, followed by the proverbial mutton of the English public school, tough beyond belief, with globules of whitish fat crystallizing on its surface, and garnished with the inevitable and tasteless French beans. We held body to soul with a bottle of Mavrodaphne; though even this was hot. Mr Constantinopoulos and Mr Teeling had both concurred in telling us that outside Athens, this was one of the few good restaurants to be found in Greece.

  After sitting erect on wooden-seated Windsor chairs for two hours, we decided that the longer we remained in anxious expectation, jumping to our feet at every whistle, the less likely was the car ever to arrive. We therefore marched out of the station along a siding and descended by a slag-heap to the beach, the condition of which spoke little for the sanitary arrangements of the neighbouring town. After setting the whole gulf awash with our ducks and drakes, we returned to the waiting-room. The atmosphere was insupportable. Each breath was like drinking from an empty glass. I gathered myself together and set off to ascend a hill above the town.

  The Grecian landscape in August and September, but for the vines, currants, olives, and salad-green pine-bushes, consists either of bleached earth, merging into surface dust of as many shades as the egg-shell of the common fowl; or rock of the same hue; or expanses of matted brown scrub six inches deep, that was once vegetation. As I topped the hill, the view disclosed a brown plateau stretching away to a field of vines not more than two feet high. To one side rose the dark outlines of a cypress and a group of poplars. On the horizon the ever-present succession of mountain peaks stood out from the sky. Below the cliff, itself a dazzling puttied white, with a man seated sideways on a donkey riding up it in a cloud of dust, the mud-coloured houses of New Corinth fell away to the sea in rectangular blocks. And beyond them glittered the indescribable scarab-blue of the water, a blue that threw the remainder of the landscape into a sepia aquatint, and the sky into the pallor of a new sheet of foolscap. On the right the gulf ended in the Isthmus, slit somewhere by its canal. Old Corinth was not visible. Choking with dust, I descended into New. But that strange ill-defined smell that pertains to Greece was too overpowering – the hot dry smell of dust, combined with the more pungent, hotter odour of untended chickens. I betook myself once more to the waiting-room.

  Another two hours we waited. Simon sat upright as ever on his hard chair, watching the lines. David and I slept full length on the sofas that flanked the doorway. Above us hung still lives in bloodless shiny oils, of the school of the master who decorated the dining-room of the Paddington Hotel. Casual men and women sauntering in for a drink, were surprised to find two Europeans fast asleep, and a third gazing with the fixity of despair at the burnished metals.

  After six, I insisted that David should come and paddle. We had no sooner taken off our shoes and stockings and wetted our feet, when a cry of triumph from Simon, perched on the slag-heap, proclaimed the arrival of Diana. Her truck was, of course, placed carefully in the middle of the train which was going on to Athens. And it required half-an-hour’s elaborate shunting in which to release it, each of the hinder trucks having to be moved by a separate engine and deposited elsewhere. Eventually, with the eye of the whole station fixed upon her, Diana was manoeuvred up to a small stone platform, covered with conical baskets of grapes. Then, by the use of every dram of our joint strength, assisted by the entire station staff and an iron bar, which the Germans had stolen from Patras for the purpose, we levered the car on to the platform. Fleischmann and Schwert by their efficiency delayed the proceedings as far as possible. Despite them, Diana eventually arrived at the cloakroom door, and once more was filled with our six pieces of luggage. The Germans, in order to make room for themselves, took half-an-hour affixing a trunk to the grid at the back. They had some thirty feet of rope with which to perform the operation, and were determined to make use of it all – until the box was invisible beneath a ruthless network of knots.

  At last we started. We crossed the Corinth Canal, a narrow cut in the earth, with sharp smooth sides falling perpendicularly to the water beneath. The bridge seemed of no great size, and one might have mistaken the cutting for nothing more than an ordinary ravine, but for the extraordinary spectacle of a minute toy-boat steaming along beneath our wheels, which was in reality rather bigger than an ordinary cross-channel steamer. Immediately afterwards it began to grow dark.

  For the first part of the journey the road, as is usual with all paths of communication in Greece, wound along the face of the mountains, the sea, now the Aegean, glittering sheer below. Greek officials in London had described it as a ‘verry good road, but tveesty’. It was an abominable road. In one place we pulled up within three inches of a missing bridge. In another, a gulley some hundred feet deep, was crossed by a few boards flung casually from one side to the other, some of which were not in place. Diana, impulsive as ever, shot over on two wheels before any of her passengers had realised what was happening. The Germans were terrified and full of advice.

  Our map marked the distance as thirty miles. When we had gone well over fifty, a glow in the sky warned us of our approach to the city, and we were overjoyed to catch our first glimpse of Athens – a glitter of distant electricity radiating over a large acreage of sloping hill. With an intuition that had become a second nature, Da
vid, guided by the ever-recurrent tramlines, drove straight to the centre of the city and drew up outside the Hotel Grande Bretagne Lampsa, attended as usual by an angry policeman asking questions about the back light. Very tired, we hurriedly washed the dust of Corinth from our pores and walked up the street to the Petit Palais Hotel to dinner. The Petit Palais is in reality Prince Nicholas’s town house and has the distinction of being nearly twice as expensive as the Ritz. To our delight and astonishment the first person to be seen was Michael, seated with a party of diplomats, and eating a plate of ham with an expression of sardonic dignity. We descended on him with effusion and bore him away, ham and all, to another table. He seemed slightly embarrassed. Simon’s pearl pin, however, saved the situation to some extent. Michael said that he had been dreading this moment for six weeks, ever since David had written to say that we were on the point of starting. We replied that we had known that, and had been saving up for it. Michael, it was divulged later, had never really expected us to arrive, but had known that we had actually left England because he had seen in the Times that Mr David Henniker had failed to answer a summons for mutilating an ice-cream barrow in Ludgate Circus during a treasure-hunt. David explained that there was already a warrant out for his arrest when we left, as he had forgotten to pay a previous fine. He supposed they would not bother to extradite. In any case, Michael with his influence, could smooth things over. Michael is in the diplomatic service. His surname is Trower.

  The food was excellent, and we appreciated the forethought of the Greek royal family in having laid down the excellent hock that was obtainable. It transpired that Michael was also staying at the Grande Bretagne, as he had been obliged to give up his flat. The water supply had run out. And his servant had found means of terminating the lease by inviting, in Michael’s absence, all the most disreputable women of the town to a gramophone party, which was so noisy and lasted so late, that the landlord, who lived next door, could bear with his tenant no longer.

  In the middle of our conversation there appeared upon the scene a small man with finely-cut features and a neat, white, military moustache. His name was John Lennox Howe – a name celebrated throughout the Near East for its owner’s business capability. He said that he had already been informed that Kyrios Troover (Mr Trower) was dining with Lordos Viron (Lord Byron) at the Petit Palais. David he knew, as David’s family have interests in an obscure bank with various roots in the Balkans. One of these Howe was engaged in winding-up. He was concerned lest David should attempt to borrow money off him on the strength of it. He invited us all to go round to his flat, where we discovered that he was the author of the only existing book on Heliogabalus.

  His apartment was on the ground floor, opening on to a walled garden shaded by a tree. He gave us Raki, a native absinthe, to drink, and also Cretan wine. David, who insisted on staying till three, paid for his energy next day with a fit of depression that almost drove him to take the first train home.

  CHAPTER III

  THE POPULAR CONCEPTION OF ATHENS is that of a high, flat rock, surmounted by an academic temple; beneath the shadow of which lies a town so nondescript in its modernity as to admit of no visualization whatever. Somewhere behind rears Hymettus, alive with the drip of honey and the buzz of bees. In front stretches the harbour of Piraeus, still connected with the main city by the ancient walls. And only last week Mr Gordon Selfridge spent three hours in the place on his way to Constantinople.

  If all the private schoolmasters who deluge the budding intelligence of England with their snapshots, would in future expend five drachma (3¼ d.) on a bus or a tram to Phaleron, and then swim, camera in mouth, three hundred yards out to sea, they might succeed in correcting these prevalent opinions. From this vantage point it will be seen, in the intervals of avoiding the jellyfish, that the Acropolis does not dominate Athens. It lies in front of the city, rather to the left in the direction of Piraeus, where a group of tall factory chimneys are spurting a panache of black smoke across the other side of the bay. The temple stands upon its rock, very white and small against the dull, charred mauve of the hills behind reminiscent of those sugary marble models of it, that are frequently to be met with among what stationers are pleased to term their stocks of ‘Fancy Goods’. But behind it and behind the town itself, a high conical hill, shaped like a mangled and elongated clown’s hat, rises to twice or three times the height of the Acropolis. At the top glistens a tiny building, white against the heathery blue of the sky. It is Lykabettus, as this twisted eminence is named, that is the outstanding centre of the Athenian landscape; and it is during the climb to the monastery at the top, that the best view of the Acropolis is attained.

  The ascent of Lykabettus is a physical feat to be essayed only in the evening, when the sun is beginning to set. Even then its accomplishment demands unusual stamina, as the Athenian twilight in August seems if anything more stifling than the blazing fire of the noonday sun. From all around the foot of the hill, now that the builders are encroaching over the plain towards Hymettus, diverge the long, straight streets of the town, dotted with slowly moving trams and buses. Above them, terraces, approached by steep flights of earthen steps, offer footholds to clumps of rectangular modern houses. From these a rocky path, the surface of which exhibits a jagged, vertical stratum calculated to tear the sole from the most hardwearing boot, winds upward amid a plantation of stunted yellowy green pine-bushes, edged with grey aloes, that are guarded by long untidy strands of barbed wire – their stiffened, pointed leaves reminiscent of the municipal gardens at Torquay. Within ten minutes every limb is aching with exhaustion; and it is impossible to resist the temptation to stop and rest beneath a red and white awning, erected half-way up in order to shade a few bottles of mineral water, that catch the hazy orange of the deepening sunset in their pallid, green glass.

  Although from this point the Acropolis is definitely below the line of vision, its pillars now appear in dark silhouette against the distant silver glitter of the sea and the dull flame-colour of the sky. Far out on the horizon, Salamis rises purple from the midst of the water. Over the city, laid out in square white blocks in the plain below, floats a vast pall of dust suspended between Heaven and Earth. The world seems to shimmer through a brown gauze. Between the town and the sea, three miles long, the great broad road to Phaleron Bay runs straight as an arrow from the two, gigantic pillars of the Roman temple of Zeus, that stand on the outskirts of the city. Along its edges are visible two rows of small green spheroid trees, broken by the sombre utilitarian block of the Phix (ΦΙΧ) brewery. Meanwhile the lemonade is finished and the sun continues setting.

  A party of unfortunate Greek mothers, dragged by the enthusiasm of their children, were slowly making their way up the side of the hill. Clustered above us on a promontory of rock, to which was affixed a wireless aerial, a group of soldiers cracked jokes at our expense. At length, in advance of the mothers, we attained the summit. From the curtained doorways of the little whitewashed church of St George that occupies three quarters of this geographical pinpoint, came the voice of chanting monks. In a converted side chapel was an old man selling beer. We gazed at the view until the light was failing; then returned to dinner. During the day the thermometer had registered 105˚ in the shade.

  Having foregone even a glimpse of the dome of St Peter’s, Simon, though reluctantly forced to admit that he had seen it, was determined to avoid the Parthenon at all costs. David, some two weeks after our arrival, was dragged thither much against his will one evening, lest he should offend the national susceptibilities of a Greek who had become a friend of ours. I, however, accompanied by Michael in a tight guards’ blazer, beige flannel trousers and a check tie in the German national colours, devoted my second morning in Athens to visiting the most famous building in the world.

  There have occurred, since the invention of photography, moments in the life of everyone, when the actual materialization of objects familiar in monochrome since the earliest days of the nursery, somehow produces a sensation of
such unreality that the eyes of the beholder seem to play him false, as if imposed on by a mirage. Such a feeling, I must confess, obtruded itself upon my common sense, as our cab gradually approached the foot of the mountainous platform on which the Parthenon stands. I felt that I was the victim of a delusion.

  Eventually the driver brought his horse to a standstill. We dismounted, paid our entrance and climbed the rough, marble steps to the Propylaea. Behind us and below stretched the Areopagus, whence Paul preached, a long sloping hill of scrub and rock, culminating in a marble cenotaph. To the right of this and infinitely far below again, where the houses began and the people seemed to crawl along like atrophied house-flies, stood the temple of Theseus, to one side of a large, brown square – itself large and brown and square. Turning, there confronted us through the pillared archway of the Propylaea a broad upward slope of shining grey stone, from the crevices of which spurted little bushes and tufts of dead grass. Strewn in all directions lay blocks of white marble gleaming in the brilliant sunlight, their broken sides displaying the oldest, and at the same time the most modern, architectural conventions, varied with now and then a fragmentary bas-relief, the hindquarters of a horse, a human arm, or draped hip. And at the top, rising from its massive double base, there stood the Parthenon, the supreme challenge of man’s hand to that of Time.

  Looking into a shop window later in the day, I was unable to help noticing some typical water-colour sketches of the Russell Flint School, which depicted the Parthenon as a row of grooved cinnamon ninepins against a sky the colour of a faded butcher’s apron. It is pictures such as these, reacting on minds already sickened by those yellowed photographs that invariably adorn the dining-rooms of British pedagogy – photographs enlarged to accentuate every scratch and chip into a deep and crumbling abrasion – it is these that are responsible for the loathing with which the artistically educated person of the twentieth century is growing to regard anything in the nature of a ‘Greek Ruin’. Let me, for the benefit of posterity, pit my pen against the lens of the Victorian photographer.