They paused to ask each other who he was,
A Greek of Syria perhaps or some other stranger?
But a few who saw a little deeper drew aside,
Thoughtfully, to follow him with their eyes,
To watch him gliding through the dark arcades,
Through the shadow-light of evening silently
Going towards those quarters of the town
Which only wake at night in shameless orgies
And pitiless debaucheries of flesh and mind.
And these few who knew wondered which of Them he was,
And for what terrible sensualities he hunted
Through the crooked streets of Seleukeia,
A shadow-visitant from those divine and hallowed
Mansions where They dwell.
free translation from C. P. Cavafy
* Page 761
CHE FECE … IL GRAN RIFIUTO
To some among us comes that implacable day
Demanding that we stand our ground and utter
By choice of will the great Yea or Nay.
And whosoever has in him the affirming word
Will straightway then be heard.
The pathways of his life will clear at once
And all rewards will crown his way.
But he, the other who denies,
No-one can say he lies; he would repeat
His Nay in louder tones if pressed again.
It is his right — yet by such little trifles,
A ‘No’ instead of ‘Yes’ his whole life sinks and stifles.
free translation from C. P. Cavafy
* Page 812
The incidents recorded in Capodistria’s letter have been borrowed and expanded from a footnote in Franz Hartmann’s Life of Paracelsus.
About the Author
LAWRENCE DURRELL was born in 1912 in India, where his father was an English civil engineer. As a boy he attended the Jesuit College at Darjeeling, and he was later sent to St Edmund’s School, Canterbury. His first authentic literary work was The Black Book, which appeared in Paris in 1938 under the aegis of Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. ‘In the writing of it I first heard the sound of my own voice …’ he later wrote. The novel was praised by T. S. Eliot, who published his first collection of poems A Private Country in 1943. The first of the island books, Prospero’s Cell, a guide to Corfu, appeared in 1945. It was followed by Reflections on a Marine Venus, about Rhodes. Bitter Lemons, his account of life in Cyprus, won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize in 1957. Subsequently he drew on his years in Greece for The Greek Islands.
Durrell’s wartime sojourn in Egypt led to his masterpiece The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea) which he completed in southern France, where he settled permanently in 1957. Between the Quartet and The Avignon Quintet (Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastianand Quinx),he wrote the two-decker Tune and Nunquam,now united as The Revolt of Aphrodite. His oeuvre includes plays, a book of criticism, translations, travel writings (Spirit of Place),Collected Poems,a thriller, White Eagles OverSerbia,and humorous stories about the diplomatic corps. His correspondence with his lifelong friend Henry Miller has also been published. Caesar’s VastGhost,his reflections on the history and culture of Provence, including a late flowering of poems, appeared a few days before his death at his home in Sommières in 1990.
Copyright
First published in 1962
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© Lawrence Durrell, 1962
Justine first published in 1957 © Lawrence Durrell, 1957
Balthazar first published in 1958 © Lawrence Durrell, 1958
Mountolive first published in 1958 © Lawrence Durrell, 1958
Clea first published in 1960 © Lawrence Durrell, 1960
Introduction © Jan Morris, 2012
The right of Lawrence Durrell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26723–1