Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell Read Free Book Online Page A

blue pantaloons, and curving Turkish slippers of the older generation, and he is pedantic about the whiteness of his three heavy silk shirts, two of which are always out on the line being watched over by his timid, retiring wife. Father Nicholas sits manfully in the shadow of his own vine, prodding the grapes fromtime to time with his oak stick—in a faintly sardonic manner, as if to dare them to ripen. He has the good-humored scolding manner—the scornful affection—which is the mark of the finest Greek temperament. He boasts and boasts. The story of his sailing voyages have become a sort of saga in his own mind; and when he begins a tale it is always to show how worthless the Ionians have become as sailors since the Diesel engine was imported. As he talks he consumes cup after cup of red wine, which is brought for him from a rapidly emptying keg in the magazine. His long nose ravens over the heavy Kastellani wine—his favorite brew. He illustrates his stories by drawing in the earth with his stick. The lack of variation in them is astonishing. In every one of them he is returning from Goumenitsa with a load of wood when he is overtaken by an immense “fortuna”; everything goes overboard to lighten the craft; amidst thunder and lightning the ikon of Spiridion is consulted, but on this occasion the Saint is about other business because while they are praying a waterspout stoves in the boat. Father Nicholas at this point leaves the tiller and goes overboard clutching an armful of kindling (it is astonishing how few of these islanders can swim), which bears him up until he is washed ashore next day at Govino. All the crew perish, and the wife of Socrates, the mate, who is a woman of remarkable saintliness, is washed up two days later in Kouloura harbor. Her hands are folded on her breast and her eyes shut—Father Nicholas at thispoint folds his own hands, closes his eyes, and assumes an expression of saintly resignation. He is extremely affected by his own narrative, and wipes his eye in his sleeve, calling for more wine as he does so.
    It goes without saying that Father Nicholas is an extremely cautious sailor; picking his wind, he occasionally makes an autumn trip over the water to Albania to gather a bit of fuel. But the slightest inequality of weather makes him run for harbor with a frantic and undignified haste. At home he is the complete autocrat, and spends all morning on the sunny terrace with a little plate of figs, bread, and olives before him.
    He is occasionally guilty of an aphorism which sounds as if it were a proverb adapted by himself to suit his own experience. He enjoys uttering blood-curdling threats against his wife in the hearing of strangers, and she repays these with her quick sad smile and a remark which could only be translated as: “Get along with you now.”
    “Women,” he grumbles, “should be beaten like an olive tree; but in Corfu neither the women nor the olive trees are beaten—because of the terrible laziness of everyone.”
    We have given Nicholas a set of chessmen, and Theodore has managed to teach the game to the old man, who is delighted. Unlettered as he is, he plays chess with tremendous imagination and certainty. When Theodore comes to stay he always strolls across to the little vine-wreathed balcony and challenges FatherNicholas to a game. More often than not he loses—and when this happens the old man becomes flushed with triumph, and begins to boast more than ever. “What good are letters,” he rumbles affectionately, “and learning? Everything you have in your head, doctor, is little use against the wide-awakeness of the Romeos—the Greek.”
    Theodore takes it meekly and in very good part. “My learning tells, O Nicholas,” he replies, “that if you continue to drink wine like this you will have an affection of the foot—which we have no name for in Greek. But it will be painful.”
    “Bah,” says Father Nicholas equably. “Since you cannot get the better of