CHAPTER V
I SHALL NEVER be able to describe natural beauty, though I know scenes so lovely that the mere memory of them brings tears to my eyes; and in the same way there are two cities, Athens and Rome, which I can never attempt to describe: they must be seen and studied to be realized. The impression of Athens is as simple as that of Rome is complex. The beauty of the human body is the first impression: the majesty of the man's figure and the sensuous appeal of the woman's are what Athens gives immediately; while Rome is the epitome of a dozen different civilizations and makes a dozen dissimilar appeals.
The second night I was in Athens there was nearly a full moon; all over the sky were small white cloudlets on the intense blue, like silver shields reflecting the radiance. I had nothing to do so I walked across the square where the barracks of a palace stands and went up the Acropolis through the Proplyaea. As I stood before the Parthenon its sheer beauty sang itself to me like exquisite verse; I spent the night there going to and fro from the Caryatides of the Erechtheum to the frieze of the Temple, to the Wingless Victory, and back again. As dawn came and the first shafts of light struck the Parthenon I stood with clasped hands, my soul one quiver of admiration and reverence for the spirit of beauty I saw incorporated there.
Athens is pure pagan and its temples, like its poems, appeal to the deepest humanity in us. These buildings do not lead the eye from pinnacle to pinnacle into the infinite, as the spires of a Gothic temple do: the temple here is the frame, so to speak, for exquisite white forms of men and women against a background of deep blue. This is the room where noble men and women meet: Pericles and Phidias, Socrates and Aspasia; here the great poet Sophocles, himself a model of beauty, walks among graceful girl-women with their apple-breasts and rounded firm hips. Here is the deification of humanity; and this religion appeals to me more profoundly than any other both in its sensuousness and in its nobility. Here are the loveliest bodies in the world to be kissed and here too the courage that smiles at Death; and I recall the words of Socrates in the Crito: "Let us go then whither the God leads," the highest in us being our God and guide!
Is there anything higher? In Socrates we seem to touch the zenith of humanity, but the commandment of Jesus is sweeter stilclass="underline" we men all need forgiveness, all need affection, and it is more blessed even to give love than to receive it. But paganism is the first religion and this Athens is its birthplace, its altar and home.
Oscar Wilde told me once that he was conscious of his genius as a schoolboy and quite certain he would be a great poet before he left Trinity, Dublin for Oxford. I had attained some originality at five and twenty when I saw Shakespeare as clearly as I saw him at forty, but I was long past thirty before I thought it possible that I might make myself a great writer. I was always painfully conscious that I had no writing talent, always used to repeat what Balzac said of himself: "sans genie je suis flambe" (if I haven't genius I have nothing). When I resolved to go to Greece from Munich I felt I had been studying languages long enough, and the great classic writers and heroes did not impress me much. Except Socrates, none of them came near my ideal.
Sophocles, I saw, repeated himself; his Electro was a bad copy of his Antigone and he ended his Ajax with a political pamphlet in favour of Athens; he was a master of language and not of life or art, and I had lost time over him. Then there was no Roman at all except Tacitus and Catullus, the poet lover of Clodia-Lesbia, and of course Caesar, who was almost the ideal of the writer and man of action. My four years of hard study had not brought me much; the couple of months with Skobelef were richer in food for the spirit, for they strengthened my ideal of vigorous life lived in contempt of conventions.
I sent on my luggage and went through the mountains on foot to Innsbruck and thence took train to Venice. It was an astonishing experience. For the first time I came to see the value of the abnormaclass="underline" water-streets gave the place unique distinction; the Bridge of Sighs was more memorable than any number of Brooklyn Bridges or even Waterloo Bridges; Marlowe's great phrase came back to me often: "I am myself alone!" Singularity is distinction.
I did a fortnight's hard work at Italian and could make myself understood and understand everything said to me, but when I went to the people's theatre where the Venetian dialect was spoken, I could not understand it at all and at first felt out of it; yet I had been able to understand everything in the Munchener Volkstheater! In a week or so, however, after reading I promessi Sposi and a good deal of Dante, I became able to follow the Venetian slang and in a low cabaret caught glimpses of common Venetian life. Everywhere the working classes are the most idiosyncratic and consequently the best worth knowing.
But I was longing for Greece, so I took a Florio boat and started. There was a Signer Florio on board and we became friends; he brought out some wonderful Marsala and taught me that there was at least one Italian wine worth drinking. From Florio I heard a good deal of Sicily and resolved on my way back to stop in Palermo or Syracuse to study it.
On the ship was a little lame Greek child; the mother was taking it back to Athens to be operated on; she seemed very despondent; I found out it was because the father had gone to the States and had not written since and the mother had not money enough for the operation. How much would it cost?
Five hundred drachmae: as luck would have it, I had just a little over that sum about me. I gave it to the mother and told her to cheer up. She cried a great deal and kissed my hand. I don't know why I gave the money; it left me short; I couldn't drink much wine, had to make a bottle last two days. At the end of the voyage my bill for extras and tips took everything I had, and when we reached the Piraeus I found I had no money to pay the boatmen for taking me and my luggage to the railway station. How I cursed my foolish liberality.
What business had I to be generous? That evening I went into the cabin and studied the passengers; I picked out a youngish man; he looked like a Jew but his nose was straight. I went up to him, told him of my dilemma, and asked him to lend me some money. He smiled, took out his pocket-book, and showed me notes of five hundred and a thousand drachmae. "May I take this?" I asked, and touched a thousand drachmae note. "Certainly," he said,
"with pleasure." "Give me your card, please," I went on, "and in a week, as soon as I can get money from London, I'll repay you; I'm going to the Hotel Grand Bretagne. It's good, isn't it?" "It's supposed to be," he rejoined, "for the rich English all go there, but I'd prefer the Hotel d'Athenes." "I'll take your tip," I said, and shook hands. That night I slept in a room looking across the Palace-Square to the Acropolis.
The gentleman who lent me the money was a Mr. Constantino, the owner, if I remember rightly, of the gas-works in the Piraeus. When I wrote to my London bank for money, they sent it me on condition I could get myself identified. That condition took me to the British Embassy and made me acquainted with the First Secretary Raikes, who was kind enough to identify me without further to do. I gave a dinner to Constantine and had him meet Raikes and other friends of mine and repaid him the money with a thousand thanks. Constantine and I remained friends for many a year.
In the Hotel d'Athenes a number of students used to meet once a week in the evening and discuss everything connected with the Greek language, literature, art and life.
The students were mostly men of a good deal of capacity pursuing postgraduate courses. They came from the Italian school, the French school and the German school, but no English or Americans fraternized with us, though, I remember, Raikes visited us about once a month: he was not only chief attache or something more in the English Embassy, but also the brother of the postmaster general. We called him "Long Raikes" because he was about six feet five. I used to think that Raikes would do something memorable in life, for he had a curiously fair mind, though it was not what you would call dynamic.