II

IIIt was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners’ shops where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his piercing cry:—“Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!” These were the names of his newspapers.Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he heard an answering call.“Newspapers! Here!”He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a low house stood an oldman leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor make any sign but continued to call, “Newspapers! Here!”Aleko ran up.“Which do you want?”“Have you theEmbros?”“No, that is published in the morning.”“I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take theEmbros, but no one passed here this morning.”“I have only the evening papers.”“Well, give me theHestia, then.”Aleko picked out one of his three remainingHestiasand held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained.“Here is yourHestia.”“Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,” and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko’s elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.“I have hurt you, my lad,” said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. “You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind.”Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man’s face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed.“Are you quite blind?”“Quite.”“Your eyes do not look blind.”“But they are.”Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.“Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?”“Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me.”“That is a pity you should be blind,” said the boy slowly. “You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?”“Two years now.”“That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?”“I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing.”Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him.“Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?”“It is read to me.”“Your children read it to you?” queried the boy.“No, I have no children. There is a young man,—a student, who lives in the next house,—and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. Onemustknow the news and what the outside world is doing.” Then half to himself he added, “Though the eyes be blind the mind must see.”But Aleko frowned.“What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who canread reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays.”“In the town it is different,” sighed the old man. “In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble.”Aleko looked up suddenly.“Give me your name, master.”“My name is Themistocli.”“Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you anEmbrosevery day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta.”“But, my child …”“Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read out aloud. He said to the master, ‘That boy there, with the yellow hair, is the only one who can read without singing.’Shall I come, Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?”The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko’s arm and patted it gently.“You are a good boy to a poor blind man.”“No,” said Aleko wriggling a little, “I like to read, and since you were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you.”The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and turned towards the house.“Come inside with me for a minute, my lad.”Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.“Your soup is ready,” she began, then catchingsight of Aleko she added quickly, “A loustro4has followed you in. What does he want?”“I brought him,” answered Kyr Themistocli. “Sit down, my child.”But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are about to sit down to a meal.“With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return.”“No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me.”The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.“What is it, Kyra Katerina?” asked the old man sharply. “Is there not sufficient soup for two?”“As for that, yes, there is sufficient.”“Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay … there was a dish of potatoes left ….”“Those are for to-morrow,” said the woman sullenly.“I wish for them to-night.”The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellowoilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.“I have served,” she said. “Is there perhaps anything else you want?”Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.“No, there is nothing. You can go.”The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw it on the top of the unwashed plates.“As you like.” Then, as she opened the door, she added, “A nice work it will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack’s dusty feet.” Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before Kyr Themistocli could answer.“Eat your soup, and do not mind her,” he said to Aleko.“I do not mind her,” said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and after swallowing it, headded sagely, “Women always make much noise.”The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.“Tell me, now, what do they call you?”“They call me Aleko.”“From where?”“My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little ones, but my father was not from there.”Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.“He is dead, your father?”“Yes, it is two years ago that he died.”“And from where was he?”“From Siatista.”“Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?”“Philippos Vasiliou.”“So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?”Aleko nodded.“Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip!5Your master has taught you about him at school?”“Of course,” said Aleko frowning.The old man smiled. “There is a story about him which you have not heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water of Life?”Aleko shook his head: “We have not reached such a part.”“Well, I will tell you about it. Listen:—“When Alexander the King had conquered all the Kingdoms of the world, and when all the universe trembled at his glance, he called before him the most celebrated magicians of those days and said to them:—“ ‘Ye who are wise, and who know all that is written in the Book of Fate, tell me what I must do to live for many years and to enjoy this world which I have made mine?’“ ‘O King!’ said the magicians, ‘great is thy power! But what is written in the book of Fate is written, and no one in Heaven or on Earth can efface it. There is one thing only, that can make thee enjoy thy kingdom and thy glory beyond the lives of men; that can make thee endure as long as the hills, but it is very hard to accomplish.’“ ‘I did not ask ye,’ said the great King Alexander,‘whether it be hard, I asked only what it was.’“ ‘O King, we are at thy feet to command! Know then that he alone who drinks of the Water of Life need not fear death. But he who seeks this water, must pass through two mountains which open and close constantly, and scarce a bird on the wing can fly between them and not be crushed to death. The bones lie in high piles, of the kings’ sons who have lost their lives in this terrible trap. But if thou shouldst pass safely through the closing mountains, even then thou wilt find beyond them a sleepless dragon who guards the Water of Life. Him also must thou slay before thou canst take the priceless treasure.’“Then Alexander the King smiled, and ordered his slaves to bring forth his horse Bucephalus, who had no wings yet flew like a bird. The king mounted on his back and the good horse neighed for joy. With one triumphant bound he was through the closing mountains so swiftly that only three hairs of his flowing tail were caught in between the giant rocks when they closed. Then Alexander the Kingslew the sleepless dragon, filled his vial with the Water of Life, and returned.“But when he reached his palace, so weary was he that he fell into a deep sleep and left the Water of Life unguarded. And it so happened that his sister, not knowing the value of the water, threw it away. And some of the water fell on a wild onion plant, and that is why, to this day, wild onion plants never fade. Now when Alexander awoke, he stretched out his hand to seize and drink the Water of Life and found naught; and in his rage he would have killed the slaves who guarded his sleep, but his sister, being of royal blood, could not hide the truth, and she told him that not knowing, she had thrown the Water of Life away.“Then the king waxed terrible in his wrath, and he cast a curse upon his sister, and prayed that from the waist downward she might be turned into a fish, and live always in the open sea far from all land and habitation of man. And the gods granted his prayer, so it happens that to this day those who sail over the open sea in ships often see Alexander’s sister, half a woman and half a fish, tossing in the waves.“Strange to say, she does not hate Alexander, and when a ship passes close to her she cries out:—“ ‘Does Alexander live?’“And should the captain, not knowing who it is that speaks, answer, ‘He is dead,’ then the maid in her great grief tosses her white arms and her long golden hair wildly about, and troubles the water, and sinks the ship.“But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight.“And this is how sailors learn new love songs, and sing them when they return to land.”When the old man ceased speaking Aleko waited a moment and then said slowly,—“That is not true—but I like it.”“Do you know, my lad,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man.”“But if one cannot?”“That is only if one is not born so,” said theold man shaking his head, “but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can.”“No!” burst out Aleko, “without learning onecannotand when one is poor how is one to get learning?”“We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free.”“And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one’s mother and the little ones who cannot work?”“Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?”“Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos.”Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment.“How old are you?”“In August, on the Virgin’s Day, I close my twelve years.”“Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?”“Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all.”“You could read already, when you came from your village?”“Long before that.”“Who taught you?”Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment.“I do not know,” he said at last. “My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and … I learnt.”“If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things.”“What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn.”The boy pushed back his chair and stood up.“Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I amsorry that I went to the Parnassos!” And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:—“Find theHestia,” he said, “and read to me, will you?”So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece … theAveroff.“Why do they call it theAveroff? What does it mean?”“It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it.”“Will it fight the Turks?” asked Aleko eagerly.“Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it.”“When it does, I will read all about it to you.”“Thank you,” said the old man very seriously.Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer.“You read well,” said Kyr Themistocli slowly. “Will you come again? you will give me pleasure.”“I will come every day.” Then Aleko got up and began carrying the plates off the table into the kitchen at the back. He returned with a lighted candle.“Now,” he said, “I will tidy up a little so that the cross woman will not have so many words to say to-morrow. As for her floor …” and he looked at it with disgust, “it issodusty that anyone who walks over it will take dust away instead of adding any! Does she come every day?” he asked suddenly.“Yes, she cleans and cooks for me.”“And you pay her?”“Naturally.”“Kyr Themistocli, you must find another woman who will have a little conscience; this one, because you cannot see … she lets you live in dirt.” He took up the cover and shook it vigorously out of the window. “But what dust! It is a sin to take money for such dirty work! Ah,” he continued, polishing the window panes with a piece of torn newspaper, “you ought to have my mother to work foryou! Then you would see what your house would be like!”“Your mother is a good housewife?”“She is the best in Megaloupolis; all say it. What would she say if she saw this room? And my clothes also,” he added, looking at them ruefully. “But when one works, what can one do?”When he had finished, he blew out the candle. “Since it is useless to you,” he remarked, “why should it burn in vain?” Then he came close to the old man and laid his hand on his knee.“I thank you for the good food. To-morrow, then, I shall come at three.”The old man stood up and felt for Aleko’s head.“I want to see how tall you are. Ah, you are well above my shoulder, that is a good height for twelve. Are you strong? Do you have gymnastics at the Parnassos?”“Yes, in the square outside. I know all the movements; and there is one member—not the one who comes to the lessons, another who has been abroad—and he is teaching us boxing.”“Boxing?” echoed the old man. This was new for him.“It is how to fight with your hands; and he says that I shall learn well and soon.”“That is not real learning,” objected Kyr Themistocli, “that is play.”“I do not know,” answered Aleko, “but it is very useful for me, because there are some of the boys who will not understand things unless you explain with your fists. Now I go,” he added. “I must be at the school at eight o’clock. Good night, master.”“Good night, my child.”But from the door he rushed back again.“What is that statue in the Zappion Gardens, of the man who stands at the woman’s knee; she who is putting a crown of leaves on his head?”Kyr Themistocli put his hand to his forehead in a bewildered fashion.“At the Zappion? A crown of leaves? Oh, I see; you mean Byron. Well, he was a great poet—a stranger—and because he left his own country and came and fought for us against the Turks, and helped us, and sangabout us, and loved us, the woman, who means Greece, is crowning him with laurels.”“Is it like when you take your hat off—to the flag—to show respect?”“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said the old man smiling.“Is he dead now, that poet?”“Yes.”Aleko thought for a moment.“I will fight for his country when I grow up if they want me.”Then he ran very fast because he was afraid he would be late for school. In winter the hours were from seven to nine in the evening, but in summer they were from eight to ten, for the members of the Parnassos who arranged all about the night school, knew that the little shoeblacks and newspaper boys could find work in the streets much later, now that the days were long and people dined at such late hours.

IIIt was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners’ shops where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his piercing cry:—“Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!” These were the names of his newspapers.Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he heard an answering call.“Newspapers! Here!”He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a low house stood an oldman leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor make any sign but continued to call, “Newspapers! Here!”Aleko ran up.“Which do you want?”“Have you theEmbros?”“No, that is published in the morning.”“I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take theEmbros, but no one passed here this morning.”“I have only the evening papers.”“Well, give me theHestia, then.”Aleko picked out one of his three remainingHestiasand held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained.“Here is yourHestia.”“Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,” and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko’s elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.“I have hurt you, my lad,” said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. “You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind.”Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man’s face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed.“Are you quite blind?”“Quite.”“Your eyes do not look blind.”“But they are.”Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.“Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?”“Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me.”“That is a pity you should be blind,” said the boy slowly. “You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?”“Two years now.”“That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?”“I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing.”Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him.“Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?”“It is read to me.”“Your children read it to you?” queried the boy.“No, I have no children. There is a young man,—a student, who lives in the next house,—and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. Onemustknow the news and what the outside world is doing.” Then half to himself he added, “Though the eyes be blind the mind must see.”But Aleko frowned.“What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who canread reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays.”“In the town it is different,” sighed the old man. “In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble.”Aleko looked up suddenly.“Give me your name, master.”“My name is Themistocli.”“Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you anEmbrosevery day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta.”“But, my child …”“Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read out aloud. He said to the master, ‘That boy there, with the yellow hair, is the only one who can read without singing.’Shall I come, Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?”The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko’s arm and patted it gently.“You are a good boy to a poor blind man.”“No,” said Aleko wriggling a little, “I like to read, and since you were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you.”The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and turned towards the house.“Come inside with me for a minute, my lad.”Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.“Your soup is ready,” she began, then catchingsight of Aleko she added quickly, “A loustro4has followed you in. What does he want?”“I brought him,” answered Kyr Themistocli. “Sit down, my child.”But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are about to sit down to a meal.“With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return.”“No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me.”The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.“What is it, Kyra Katerina?” asked the old man sharply. “Is there not sufficient soup for two?”“As for that, yes, there is sufficient.”“Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay … there was a dish of potatoes left ….”“Those are for to-morrow,” said the woman sullenly.“I wish for them to-night.”The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellowoilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.“I have served,” she said. “Is there perhaps anything else you want?”Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.“No, there is nothing. You can go.”The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw it on the top of the unwashed plates.“As you like.” Then, as she opened the door, she added, “A nice work it will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack’s dusty feet.” Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before Kyr Themistocli could answer.“Eat your soup, and do not mind her,” he said to Aleko.“I do not mind her,” said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and after swallowing it, headded sagely, “Women always make much noise.”The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.“Tell me, now, what do they call you?”“They call me Aleko.”“From where?”“My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little ones, but my father was not from there.”Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.“He is dead, your father?”“Yes, it is two years ago that he died.”“And from where was he?”“From Siatista.”“Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?”“Philippos Vasiliou.”“So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?”Aleko nodded.“Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip!5Your master has taught you about him at school?”“Of course,” said Aleko frowning.The old man smiled. “There is a story about him which you have not heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water of Life?”Aleko shook his head: “We have not reached such a part.”“Well, I will tell you about it. Listen:—“When Alexander the King had conquered all the Kingdoms of the world, and when all the universe trembled at his glance, he called before him the most celebrated magicians of those days and said to them:—“ ‘Ye who are wise, and who know all that is written in the Book of Fate, tell me what I must do to live for many years and to enjoy this world which I have made mine?’“ ‘O King!’ said the magicians, ‘great is thy power! But what is written in the book of Fate is written, and no one in Heaven or on Earth can efface it. There is one thing only, that can make thee enjoy thy kingdom and thy glory beyond the lives of men; that can make thee endure as long as the hills, but it is very hard to accomplish.’“ ‘I did not ask ye,’ said the great King Alexander,‘whether it be hard, I asked only what it was.’“ ‘O King, we are at thy feet to command! Know then that he alone who drinks of the Water of Life need not fear death. But he who seeks this water, must pass through two mountains which open and close constantly, and scarce a bird on the wing can fly between them and not be crushed to death. The bones lie in high piles, of the kings’ sons who have lost their lives in this terrible trap. But if thou shouldst pass safely through the closing mountains, even then thou wilt find beyond them a sleepless dragon who guards the Water of Life. Him also must thou slay before thou canst take the priceless treasure.’“Then Alexander the King smiled, and ordered his slaves to bring forth his horse Bucephalus, who had no wings yet flew like a bird. The king mounted on his back and the good horse neighed for joy. With one triumphant bound he was through the closing mountains so swiftly that only three hairs of his flowing tail were caught in between the giant rocks when they closed. Then Alexander the Kingslew the sleepless dragon, filled his vial with the Water of Life, and returned.“But when he reached his palace, so weary was he that he fell into a deep sleep and left the Water of Life unguarded. And it so happened that his sister, not knowing the value of the water, threw it away. And some of the water fell on a wild onion plant, and that is why, to this day, wild onion plants never fade. Now when Alexander awoke, he stretched out his hand to seize and drink the Water of Life and found naught; and in his rage he would have killed the slaves who guarded his sleep, but his sister, being of royal blood, could not hide the truth, and she told him that not knowing, she had thrown the Water of Life away.“Then the king waxed terrible in his wrath, and he cast a curse upon his sister, and prayed that from the waist downward she might be turned into a fish, and live always in the open sea far from all land and habitation of man. And the gods granted his prayer, so it happens that to this day those who sail over the open sea in ships often see Alexander’s sister, half a woman and half a fish, tossing in the waves.“Strange to say, she does not hate Alexander, and when a ship passes close to her she cries out:—“ ‘Does Alexander live?’“And should the captain, not knowing who it is that speaks, answer, ‘He is dead,’ then the maid in her great grief tosses her white arms and her long golden hair wildly about, and troubles the water, and sinks the ship.“But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight.“And this is how sailors learn new love songs, and sing them when they return to land.”When the old man ceased speaking Aleko waited a moment and then said slowly,—“That is not true—but I like it.”“Do you know, my lad,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man.”“But if one cannot?”“That is only if one is not born so,” said theold man shaking his head, “but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can.”“No!” burst out Aleko, “without learning onecannotand when one is poor how is one to get learning?”“We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free.”“And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one’s mother and the little ones who cannot work?”“Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?”“Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos.”Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment.“How old are you?”“In August, on the Virgin’s Day, I close my twelve years.”“Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?”“Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all.”“You could read already, when you came from your village?”“Long before that.”“Who taught you?”Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment.“I do not know,” he said at last. “My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and … I learnt.”“If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things.”“What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn.”The boy pushed back his chair and stood up.“Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I amsorry that I went to the Parnassos!” And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:—“Find theHestia,” he said, “and read to me, will you?”So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece … theAveroff.“Why do they call it theAveroff? What does it mean?”“It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it.”“Will it fight the Turks?” asked Aleko eagerly.“Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it.”“When it does, I will read all about it to you.”“Thank you,” said the old man very seriously.Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer.“You read well,” said Kyr Themistocli slowly. “Will you come again? you will give me pleasure.”“I will come every day.” Then Aleko got up and began carrying the plates off the table into the kitchen at the back. He returned with a lighted candle.“Now,” he said, “I will tidy up a little so that the cross woman will not have so many words to say to-morrow. As for her floor …” and he looked at it with disgust, “it issodusty that anyone who walks over it will take dust away instead of adding any! Does she come every day?” he asked suddenly.“Yes, she cleans and cooks for me.”“And you pay her?”“Naturally.”“Kyr Themistocli, you must find another woman who will have a little conscience; this one, because you cannot see … she lets you live in dirt.” He took up the cover and shook it vigorously out of the window. “But what dust! It is a sin to take money for such dirty work! Ah,” he continued, polishing the window panes with a piece of torn newspaper, “you ought to have my mother to work foryou! Then you would see what your house would be like!”“Your mother is a good housewife?”“She is the best in Megaloupolis; all say it. What would she say if she saw this room? And my clothes also,” he added, looking at them ruefully. “But when one works, what can one do?”When he had finished, he blew out the candle. “Since it is useless to you,” he remarked, “why should it burn in vain?” Then he came close to the old man and laid his hand on his knee.“I thank you for the good food. To-morrow, then, I shall come at three.”The old man stood up and felt for Aleko’s head.“I want to see how tall you are. Ah, you are well above my shoulder, that is a good height for twelve. Are you strong? Do you have gymnastics at the Parnassos?”“Yes, in the square outside. I know all the movements; and there is one member—not the one who comes to the lessons, another who has been abroad—and he is teaching us boxing.”“Boxing?” echoed the old man. This was new for him.“It is how to fight with your hands; and he says that I shall learn well and soon.”“That is not real learning,” objected Kyr Themistocli, “that is play.”“I do not know,” answered Aleko, “but it is very useful for me, because there are some of the boys who will not understand things unless you explain with your fists. Now I go,” he added. “I must be at the school at eight o’clock. Good night, master.”“Good night, my child.”But from the door he rushed back again.“What is that statue in the Zappion Gardens, of the man who stands at the woman’s knee; she who is putting a crown of leaves on his head?”Kyr Themistocli put his hand to his forehead in a bewildered fashion.“At the Zappion? A crown of leaves? Oh, I see; you mean Byron. Well, he was a great poet—a stranger—and because he left his own country and came and fought for us against the Turks, and helped us, and sangabout us, and loved us, the woman, who means Greece, is crowning him with laurels.”“Is it like when you take your hat off—to the flag—to show respect?”“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said the old man smiling.“Is he dead now, that poet?”“Yes.”Aleko thought for a moment.“I will fight for his country when I grow up if they want me.”Then he ran very fast because he was afraid he would be late for school. In winter the hours were from seven to nine in the evening, but in summer they were from eight to ten, for the members of the Parnassos who arranged all about the night school, knew that the little shoeblacks and newspaper boys could find work in the streets much later, now that the days were long and people dined at such late hours.

IIIt was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners’ shops where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his piercing cry:—“Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!” These were the names of his newspapers.Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he heard an answering call.“Newspapers! Here!”He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a low house stood an oldman leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor make any sign but continued to call, “Newspapers! Here!”Aleko ran up.“Which do you want?”“Have you theEmbros?”“No, that is published in the morning.”“I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take theEmbros, but no one passed here this morning.”“I have only the evening papers.”“Well, give me theHestia, then.”Aleko picked out one of his three remainingHestiasand held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained.“Here is yourHestia.”“Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,” and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko’s elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.“I have hurt you, my lad,” said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. “You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind.”Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man’s face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed.“Are you quite blind?”“Quite.”“Your eyes do not look blind.”“But they are.”Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.“Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?”“Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me.”“That is a pity you should be blind,” said the boy slowly. “You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?”“Two years now.”“That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?”“I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing.”Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him.“Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?”“It is read to me.”“Your children read it to you?” queried the boy.“No, I have no children. There is a young man,—a student, who lives in the next house,—and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. Onemustknow the news and what the outside world is doing.” Then half to himself he added, “Though the eyes be blind the mind must see.”But Aleko frowned.“What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who canread reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays.”“In the town it is different,” sighed the old man. “In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble.”Aleko looked up suddenly.“Give me your name, master.”“My name is Themistocli.”“Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you anEmbrosevery day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta.”“But, my child …”“Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read out aloud. He said to the master, ‘That boy there, with the yellow hair, is the only one who can read without singing.’Shall I come, Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?”The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko’s arm and patted it gently.“You are a good boy to a poor blind man.”“No,” said Aleko wriggling a little, “I like to read, and since you were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you.”The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and turned towards the house.“Come inside with me for a minute, my lad.”Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.“Your soup is ready,” she began, then catchingsight of Aleko she added quickly, “A loustro4has followed you in. What does he want?”“I brought him,” answered Kyr Themistocli. “Sit down, my child.”But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are about to sit down to a meal.“With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return.”“No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me.”The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.“What is it, Kyra Katerina?” asked the old man sharply. “Is there not sufficient soup for two?”“As for that, yes, there is sufficient.”“Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay … there was a dish of potatoes left ….”“Those are for to-morrow,” said the woman sullenly.“I wish for them to-night.”The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellowoilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.“I have served,” she said. “Is there perhaps anything else you want?”Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.“No, there is nothing. You can go.”The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw it on the top of the unwashed plates.“As you like.” Then, as she opened the door, she added, “A nice work it will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack’s dusty feet.” Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before Kyr Themistocli could answer.“Eat your soup, and do not mind her,” he said to Aleko.“I do not mind her,” said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and after swallowing it, headded sagely, “Women always make much noise.”The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.“Tell me, now, what do they call you?”“They call me Aleko.”“From where?”“My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little ones, but my father was not from there.”Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.“He is dead, your father?”“Yes, it is two years ago that he died.”“And from where was he?”“From Siatista.”“Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?”“Philippos Vasiliou.”“So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?”Aleko nodded.“Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip!5Your master has taught you about him at school?”“Of course,” said Aleko frowning.The old man smiled. “There is a story about him which you have not heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water of Life?”Aleko shook his head: “We have not reached such a part.”“Well, I will tell you about it. Listen:—“When Alexander the King had conquered all the Kingdoms of the world, and when all the universe trembled at his glance, he called before him the most celebrated magicians of those days and said to them:—“ ‘Ye who are wise, and who know all that is written in the Book of Fate, tell me what I must do to live for many years and to enjoy this world which I have made mine?’“ ‘O King!’ said the magicians, ‘great is thy power! But what is written in the book of Fate is written, and no one in Heaven or on Earth can efface it. There is one thing only, that can make thee enjoy thy kingdom and thy glory beyond the lives of men; that can make thee endure as long as the hills, but it is very hard to accomplish.’“ ‘I did not ask ye,’ said the great King Alexander,‘whether it be hard, I asked only what it was.’“ ‘O King, we are at thy feet to command! Know then that he alone who drinks of the Water of Life need not fear death. But he who seeks this water, must pass through two mountains which open and close constantly, and scarce a bird on the wing can fly between them and not be crushed to death. The bones lie in high piles, of the kings’ sons who have lost their lives in this terrible trap. But if thou shouldst pass safely through the closing mountains, even then thou wilt find beyond them a sleepless dragon who guards the Water of Life. Him also must thou slay before thou canst take the priceless treasure.’“Then Alexander the King smiled, and ordered his slaves to bring forth his horse Bucephalus, who had no wings yet flew like a bird. The king mounted on his back and the good horse neighed for joy. With one triumphant bound he was through the closing mountains so swiftly that only three hairs of his flowing tail were caught in between the giant rocks when they closed. Then Alexander the Kingslew the sleepless dragon, filled his vial with the Water of Life, and returned.“But when he reached his palace, so weary was he that he fell into a deep sleep and left the Water of Life unguarded. And it so happened that his sister, not knowing the value of the water, threw it away. And some of the water fell on a wild onion plant, and that is why, to this day, wild onion plants never fade. Now when Alexander awoke, he stretched out his hand to seize and drink the Water of Life and found naught; and in his rage he would have killed the slaves who guarded his sleep, but his sister, being of royal blood, could not hide the truth, and she told him that not knowing, she had thrown the Water of Life away.“Then the king waxed terrible in his wrath, and he cast a curse upon his sister, and prayed that from the waist downward she might be turned into a fish, and live always in the open sea far from all land and habitation of man. And the gods granted his prayer, so it happens that to this day those who sail over the open sea in ships often see Alexander’s sister, half a woman and half a fish, tossing in the waves.“Strange to say, she does not hate Alexander, and when a ship passes close to her she cries out:—“ ‘Does Alexander live?’“And should the captain, not knowing who it is that speaks, answer, ‘He is dead,’ then the maid in her great grief tosses her white arms and her long golden hair wildly about, and troubles the water, and sinks the ship.“But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight.“And this is how sailors learn new love songs, and sing them when they return to land.”When the old man ceased speaking Aleko waited a moment and then said slowly,—“That is not true—but I like it.”“Do you know, my lad,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man.”“But if one cannot?”“That is only if one is not born so,” said theold man shaking his head, “but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can.”“No!” burst out Aleko, “without learning onecannotand when one is poor how is one to get learning?”“We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free.”“And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one’s mother and the little ones who cannot work?”“Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?”“Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos.”Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment.“How old are you?”“In August, on the Virgin’s Day, I close my twelve years.”“Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?”“Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all.”“You could read already, when you came from your village?”“Long before that.”“Who taught you?”Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment.“I do not know,” he said at last. “My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and … I learnt.”“If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things.”“What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn.”The boy pushed back his chair and stood up.“Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I amsorry that I went to the Parnassos!” And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:—“Find theHestia,” he said, “and read to me, will you?”So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece … theAveroff.“Why do they call it theAveroff? What does it mean?”“It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it.”“Will it fight the Turks?” asked Aleko eagerly.“Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it.”“When it does, I will read all about it to you.”“Thank you,” said the old man very seriously.Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer.“You read well,” said Kyr Themistocli slowly. “Will you come again? you will give me pleasure.”“I will come every day.” Then Aleko got up and began carrying the plates off the table into the kitchen at the back. He returned with a lighted candle.“Now,” he said, “I will tidy up a little so that the cross woman will not have so many words to say to-morrow. As for her floor …” and he looked at it with disgust, “it issodusty that anyone who walks over it will take dust away instead of adding any! Does she come every day?” he asked suddenly.“Yes, she cleans and cooks for me.”“And you pay her?”“Naturally.”“Kyr Themistocli, you must find another woman who will have a little conscience; this one, because you cannot see … she lets you live in dirt.” He took up the cover and shook it vigorously out of the window. “But what dust! It is a sin to take money for such dirty work! Ah,” he continued, polishing the window panes with a piece of torn newspaper, “you ought to have my mother to work foryou! Then you would see what your house would be like!”“Your mother is a good housewife?”“She is the best in Megaloupolis; all say it. What would she say if she saw this room? And my clothes also,” he added, looking at them ruefully. “But when one works, what can one do?”When he had finished, he blew out the candle. “Since it is useless to you,” he remarked, “why should it burn in vain?” Then he came close to the old man and laid his hand on his knee.“I thank you for the good food. To-morrow, then, I shall come at three.”The old man stood up and felt for Aleko’s head.“I want to see how tall you are. Ah, you are well above my shoulder, that is a good height for twelve. Are you strong? Do you have gymnastics at the Parnassos?”“Yes, in the square outside. I know all the movements; and there is one member—not the one who comes to the lessons, another who has been abroad—and he is teaching us boxing.”“Boxing?” echoed the old man. This was new for him.“It is how to fight with your hands; and he says that I shall learn well and soon.”“That is not real learning,” objected Kyr Themistocli, “that is play.”“I do not know,” answered Aleko, “but it is very useful for me, because there are some of the boys who will not understand things unless you explain with your fists. Now I go,” he added. “I must be at the school at eight o’clock. Good night, master.”“Good night, my child.”But from the door he rushed back again.“What is that statue in the Zappion Gardens, of the man who stands at the woman’s knee; she who is putting a crown of leaves on his head?”Kyr Themistocli put his hand to his forehead in a bewildered fashion.“At the Zappion? A crown of leaves? Oh, I see; you mean Byron. Well, he was a great poet—a stranger—and because he left his own country and came and fought for us against the Turks, and helped us, and sangabout us, and loved us, the woman, who means Greece, is crowning him with laurels.”“Is it like when you take your hat off—to the flag—to show respect?”“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said the old man smiling.“Is he dead now, that poet?”“Yes.”Aleko thought for a moment.“I will fight for his country when I grow up if they want me.”Then he ran very fast because he was afraid he would be late for school. In winter the hours were from seven to nine in the evening, but in summer they were from eight to ten, for the members of the Parnassos who arranged all about the night school, knew that the little shoeblacks and newspaper boys could find work in the streets much later, now that the days were long and people dined at such late hours.

IIIt was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners’ shops where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his piercing cry:—“Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!” These were the names of his newspapers.Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he heard an answering call.“Newspapers! Here!”He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a low house stood an oldman leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor make any sign but continued to call, “Newspapers! Here!”Aleko ran up.“Which do you want?”“Have you theEmbros?”“No, that is published in the morning.”“I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take theEmbros, but no one passed here this morning.”“I have only the evening papers.”“Well, give me theHestia, then.”Aleko picked out one of his three remainingHestiasand held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained.“Here is yourHestia.”“Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,” and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko’s elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.“I have hurt you, my lad,” said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. “You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind.”Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man’s face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed.“Are you quite blind?”“Quite.”“Your eyes do not look blind.”“But they are.”Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.“Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?”“Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me.”“That is a pity you should be blind,” said the boy slowly. “You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?”“Two years now.”“That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?”“I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing.”Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him.“Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?”“It is read to me.”“Your children read it to you?” queried the boy.“No, I have no children. There is a young man,—a student, who lives in the next house,—and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. Onemustknow the news and what the outside world is doing.” Then half to himself he added, “Though the eyes be blind the mind must see.”But Aleko frowned.“What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who canread reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays.”“In the town it is different,” sighed the old man. “In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble.”Aleko looked up suddenly.“Give me your name, master.”“My name is Themistocli.”“Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you anEmbrosevery day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta.”“But, my child …”“Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read out aloud. He said to the master, ‘That boy there, with the yellow hair, is the only one who can read without singing.’Shall I come, Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?”The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko’s arm and patted it gently.“You are a good boy to a poor blind man.”“No,” said Aleko wriggling a little, “I like to read, and since you were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you.”The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and turned towards the house.“Come inside with me for a minute, my lad.”Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.“Your soup is ready,” she began, then catchingsight of Aleko she added quickly, “A loustro4has followed you in. What does he want?”“I brought him,” answered Kyr Themistocli. “Sit down, my child.”But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are about to sit down to a meal.“With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return.”“No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me.”The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.“What is it, Kyra Katerina?” asked the old man sharply. “Is there not sufficient soup for two?”“As for that, yes, there is sufficient.”“Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay … there was a dish of potatoes left ….”“Those are for to-morrow,” said the woman sullenly.“I wish for them to-night.”The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellowoilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.“I have served,” she said. “Is there perhaps anything else you want?”Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.“No, there is nothing. You can go.”The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw it on the top of the unwashed plates.“As you like.” Then, as she opened the door, she added, “A nice work it will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack’s dusty feet.” Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before Kyr Themistocli could answer.“Eat your soup, and do not mind her,” he said to Aleko.“I do not mind her,” said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and after swallowing it, headded sagely, “Women always make much noise.”The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.“Tell me, now, what do they call you?”“They call me Aleko.”“From where?”“My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little ones, but my father was not from there.”Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.“He is dead, your father?”“Yes, it is two years ago that he died.”“And from where was he?”“From Siatista.”“Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?”“Philippos Vasiliou.”“So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?”Aleko nodded.“Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip!5Your master has taught you about him at school?”“Of course,” said Aleko frowning.The old man smiled. “There is a story about him which you have not heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water of Life?”Aleko shook his head: “We have not reached such a part.”“Well, I will tell you about it. Listen:—“When Alexander the King had conquered all the Kingdoms of the world, and when all the universe trembled at his glance, he called before him the most celebrated magicians of those days and said to them:—“ ‘Ye who are wise, and who know all that is written in the Book of Fate, tell me what I must do to live for many years and to enjoy this world which I have made mine?’“ ‘O King!’ said the magicians, ‘great is thy power! But what is written in the book of Fate is written, and no one in Heaven or on Earth can efface it. There is one thing only, that can make thee enjoy thy kingdom and thy glory beyond the lives of men; that can make thee endure as long as the hills, but it is very hard to accomplish.’“ ‘I did not ask ye,’ said the great King Alexander,‘whether it be hard, I asked only what it was.’“ ‘O King, we are at thy feet to command! Know then that he alone who drinks of the Water of Life need not fear death. But he who seeks this water, must pass through two mountains which open and close constantly, and scarce a bird on the wing can fly between them and not be crushed to death. The bones lie in high piles, of the kings’ sons who have lost their lives in this terrible trap. But if thou shouldst pass safely through the closing mountains, even then thou wilt find beyond them a sleepless dragon who guards the Water of Life. Him also must thou slay before thou canst take the priceless treasure.’“Then Alexander the King smiled, and ordered his slaves to bring forth his horse Bucephalus, who had no wings yet flew like a bird. The king mounted on his back and the good horse neighed for joy. With one triumphant bound he was through the closing mountains so swiftly that only three hairs of his flowing tail were caught in between the giant rocks when they closed. Then Alexander the Kingslew the sleepless dragon, filled his vial with the Water of Life, and returned.“But when he reached his palace, so weary was he that he fell into a deep sleep and left the Water of Life unguarded. And it so happened that his sister, not knowing the value of the water, threw it away. And some of the water fell on a wild onion plant, and that is why, to this day, wild onion plants never fade. Now when Alexander awoke, he stretched out his hand to seize and drink the Water of Life and found naught; and in his rage he would have killed the slaves who guarded his sleep, but his sister, being of royal blood, could not hide the truth, and she told him that not knowing, she had thrown the Water of Life away.“Then the king waxed terrible in his wrath, and he cast a curse upon his sister, and prayed that from the waist downward she might be turned into a fish, and live always in the open sea far from all land and habitation of man. And the gods granted his prayer, so it happens that to this day those who sail over the open sea in ships often see Alexander’s sister, half a woman and half a fish, tossing in the waves.“Strange to say, she does not hate Alexander, and when a ship passes close to her she cries out:—“ ‘Does Alexander live?’“And should the captain, not knowing who it is that speaks, answer, ‘He is dead,’ then the maid in her great grief tosses her white arms and her long golden hair wildly about, and troubles the water, and sinks the ship.“But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight.“And this is how sailors learn new love songs, and sing them when they return to land.”When the old man ceased speaking Aleko waited a moment and then said slowly,—“That is not true—but I like it.”“Do you know, my lad,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man.”“But if one cannot?”“That is only if one is not born so,” said theold man shaking his head, “but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can.”“No!” burst out Aleko, “without learning onecannotand when one is poor how is one to get learning?”“We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free.”“And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one’s mother and the little ones who cannot work?”“Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?”“Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos.”Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment.“How old are you?”“In August, on the Virgin’s Day, I close my twelve years.”“Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?”“Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all.”“You could read already, when you came from your village?”“Long before that.”“Who taught you?”Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment.“I do not know,” he said at last. “My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and … I learnt.”“If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things.”“What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn.”The boy pushed back his chair and stood up.“Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I amsorry that I went to the Parnassos!” And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:—“Find theHestia,” he said, “and read to me, will you?”So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece … theAveroff.“Why do they call it theAveroff? What does it mean?”“It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it.”“Will it fight the Turks?” asked Aleko eagerly.“Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it.”“When it does, I will read all about it to you.”“Thank you,” said the old man very seriously.Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer.“You read well,” said Kyr Themistocli slowly. “Will you come again? you will give me pleasure.”“I will come every day.” Then Aleko got up and began carrying the plates off the table into the kitchen at the back. He returned with a lighted candle.“Now,” he said, “I will tidy up a little so that the cross woman will not have so many words to say to-morrow. As for her floor …” and he looked at it with disgust, “it issodusty that anyone who walks over it will take dust away instead of adding any! Does she come every day?” he asked suddenly.“Yes, she cleans and cooks for me.”“And you pay her?”“Naturally.”“Kyr Themistocli, you must find another woman who will have a little conscience; this one, because you cannot see … she lets you live in dirt.” He took up the cover and shook it vigorously out of the window. “But what dust! It is a sin to take money for such dirty work! Ah,” he continued, polishing the window panes with a piece of torn newspaper, “you ought to have my mother to work foryou! Then you would see what your house would be like!”“Your mother is a good housewife?”“She is the best in Megaloupolis; all say it. What would she say if she saw this room? And my clothes also,” he added, looking at them ruefully. “But when one works, what can one do?”When he had finished, he blew out the candle. “Since it is useless to you,” he remarked, “why should it burn in vain?” Then he came close to the old man and laid his hand on his knee.“I thank you for the good food. To-morrow, then, I shall come at three.”The old man stood up and felt for Aleko’s head.“I want to see how tall you are. Ah, you are well above my shoulder, that is a good height for twelve. Are you strong? Do you have gymnastics at the Parnassos?”“Yes, in the square outside. I know all the movements; and there is one member—not the one who comes to the lessons, another who has been abroad—and he is teaching us boxing.”“Boxing?” echoed the old man. This was new for him.“It is how to fight with your hands; and he says that I shall learn well and soon.”“That is not real learning,” objected Kyr Themistocli, “that is play.”“I do not know,” answered Aleko, “but it is very useful for me, because there are some of the boys who will not understand things unless you explain with your fists. Now I go,” he added. “I must be at the school at eight o’clock. Good night, master.”“Good night, my child.”But from the door he rushed back again.“What is that statue in the Zappion Gardens, of the man who stands at the woman’s knee; she who is putting a crown of leaves on his head?”Kyr Themistocli put his hand to his forehead in a bewildered fashion.“At the Zappion? A crown of leaves? Oh, I see; you mean Byron. Well, he was a great poet—a stranger—and because he left his own country and came and fought for us against the Turks, and helped us, and sangabout us, and loved us, the woman, who means Greece, is crowning him with laurels.”“Is it like when you take your hat off—to the flag—to show respect?”“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said the old man smiling.“Is he dead now, that poet?”“Yes.”Aleko thought for a moment.“I will fight for his country when I grow up if they want me.”Then he ran very fast because he was afraid he would be late for school. In winter the hours were from seven to nine in the evening, but in summer they were from eight to ten, for the members of the Parnassos who arranged all about the night school, knew that the little shoeblacks and newspaper boys could find work in the streets much later, now that the days were long and people dined at such late hours.

II

It was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners’ shops where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his piercing cry:—“Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!” These were the names of his newspapers.Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he heard an answering call.“Newspapers! Here!”He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a low house stood an oldman leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor make any sign but continued to call, “Newspapers! Here!”Aleko ran up.“Which do you want?”“Have you theEmbros?”“No, that is published in the morning.”“I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take theEmbros, but no one passed here this morning.”“I have only the evening papers.”“Well, give me theHestia, then.”Aleko picked out one of his three remainingHestiasand held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained.“Here is yourHestia.”“Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,” and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko’s elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.“I have hurt you, my lad,” said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. “You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind.”Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man’s face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed.“Are you quite blind?”“Quite.”“Your eyes do not look blind.”“But they are.”Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.“Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?”“Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me.”“That is a pity you should be blind,” said the boy slowly. “You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?”“Two years now.”“That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?”“I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing.”Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him.“Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?”“It is read to me.”“Your children read it to you?” queried the boy.“No, I have no children. There is a young man,—a student, who lives in the next house,—and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. Onemustknow the news and what the outside world is doing.” Then half to himself he added, “Though the eyes be blind the mind must see.”But Aleko frowned.“What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who canread reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays.”“In the town it is different,” sighed the old man. “In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble.”Aleko looked up suddenly.“Give me your name, master.”“My name is Themistocli.”“Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you anEmbrosevery day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta.”“But, my child …”“Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read out aloud. He said to the master, ‘That boy there, with the yellow hair, is the only one who can read without singing.’Shall I come, Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?”The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko’s arm and patted it gently.“You are a good boy to a poor blind man.”“No,” said Aleko wriggling a little, “I like to read, and since you were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you.”The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and turned towards the house.“Come inside with me for a minute, my lad.”Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.“Your soup is ready,” she began, then catchingsight of Aleko she added quickly, “A loustro4has followed you in. What does he want?”“I brought him,” answered Kyr Themistocli. “Sit down, my child.”But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are about to sit down to a meal.“With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return.”“No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me.”The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.“What is it, Kyra Katerina?” asked the old man sharply. “Is there not sufficient soup for two?”“As for that, yes, there is sufficient.”“Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay … there was a dish of potatoes left ….”“Those are for to-morrow,” said the woman sullenly.“I wish for them to-night.”The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellowoilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.“I have served,” she said. “Is there perhaps anything else you want?”Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.“No, there is nothing. You can go.”The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw it on the top of the unwashed plates.“As you like.” Then, as she opened the door, she added, “A nice work it will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack’s dusty feet.” Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before Kyr Themistocli could answer.“Eat your soup, and do not mind her,” he said to Aleko.“I do not mind her,” said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and after swallowing it, headded sagely, “Women always make much noise.”The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.“Tell me, now, what do they call you?”“They call me Aleko.”“From where?”“My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little ones, but my father was not from there.”Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.“He is dead, your father?”“Yes, it is two years ago that he died.”“And from where was he?”“From Siatista.”“Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?”“Philippos Vasiliou.”“So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?”Aleko nodded.“Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip!5Your master has taught you about him at school?”“Of course,” said Aleko frowning.The old man smiled. “There is a story about him which you have not heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water of Life?”Aleko shook his head: “We have not reached such a part.”“Well, I will tell you about it. Listen:—“When Alexander the King had conquered all the Kingdoms of the world, and when all the universe trembled at his glance, he called before him the most celebrated magicians of those days and said to them:—“ ‘Ye who are wise, and who know all that is written in the Book of Fate, tell me what I must do to live for many years and to enjoy this world which I have made mine?’“ ‘O King!’ said the magicians, ‘great is thy power! But what is written in the book of Fate is written, and no one in Heaven or on Earth can efface it. There is one thing only, that can make thee enjoy thy kingdom and thy glory beyond the lives of men; that can make thee endure as long as the hills, but it is very hard to accomplish.’“ ‘I did not ask ye,’ said the great King Alexander,‘whether it be hard, I asked only what it was.’“ ‘O King, we are at thy feet to command! Know then that he alone who drinks of the Water of Life need not fear death. But he who seeks this water, must pass through two mountains which open and close constantly, and scarce a bird on the wing can fly between them and not be crushed to death. The bones lie in high piles, of the kings’ sons who have lost their lives in this terrible trap. But if thou shouldst pass safely through the closing mountains, even then thou wilt find beyond them a sleepless dragon who guards the Water of Life. Him also must thou slay before thou canst take the priceless treasure.’“Then Alexander the King smiled, and ordered his slaves to bring forth his horse Bucephalus, who had no wings yet flew like a bird. The king mounted on his back and the good horse neighed for joy. With one triumphant bound he was through the closing mountains so swiftly that only three hairs of his flowing tail were caught in between the giant rocks when they closed. Then Alexander the Kingslew the sleepless dragon, filled his vial with the Water of Life, and returned.“But when he reached his palace, so weary was he that he fell into a deep sleep and left the Water of Life unguarded. And it so happened that his sister, not knowing the value of the water, threw it away. And some of the water fell on a wild onion plant, and that is why, to this day, wild onion plants never fade. Now when Alexander awoke, he stretched out his hand to seize and drink the Water of Life and found naught; and in his rage he would have killed the slaves who guarded his sleep, but his sister, being of royal blood, could not hide the truth, and she told him that not knowing, she had thrown the Water of Life away.“Then the king waxed terrible in his wrath, and he cast a curse upon his sister, and prayed that from the waist downward she might be turned into a fish, and live always in the open sea far from all land and habitation of man. And the gods granted his prayer, so it happens that to this day those who sail over the open sea in ships often see Alexander’s sister, half a woman and half a fish, tossing in the waves.“Strange to say, she does not hate Alexander, and when a ship passes close to her she cries out:—“ ‘Does Alexander live?’“And should the captain, not knowing who it is that speaks, answer, ‘He is dead,’ then the maid in her great grief tosses her white arms and her long golden hair wildly about, and troubles the water, and sinks the ship.“But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight.“And this is how sailors learn new love songs, and sing them when they return to land.”When the old man ceased speaking Aleko waited a moment and then said slowly,—“That is not true—but I like it.”“Do you know, my lad,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man.”“But if one cannot?”“That is only if one is not born so,” said theold man shaking his head, “but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can.”“No!” burst out Aleko, “without learning onecannotand when one is poor how is one to get learning?”“We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free.”“And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one’s mother and the little ones who cannot work?”“Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?”“Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos.”Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment.“How old are you?”“In August, on the Virgin’s Day, I close my twelve years.”“Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?”“Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all.”“You could read already, when you came from your village?”“Long before that.”“Who taught you?”Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment.“I do not know,” he said at last. “My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and … I learnt.”“If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things.”“What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn.”The boy pushed back his chair and stood up.“Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I amsorry that I went to the Parnassos!” And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:—“Find theHestia,” he said, “and read to me, will you?”So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece … theAveroff.“Why do they call it theAveroff? What does it mean?”“It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it.”“Will it fight the Turks?” asked Aleko eagerly.“Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it.”“When it does, I will read all about it to you.”“Thank you,” said the old man very seriously.Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer.“You read well,” said Kyr Themistocli slowly. “Will you come again? you will give me pleasure.”“I will come every day.” Then Aleko got up and began carrying the plates off the table into the kitchen at the back. He returned with a lighted candle.“Now,” he said, “I will tidy up a little so that the cross woman will not have so many words to say to-morrow. As for her floor …” and he looked at it with disgust, “it issodusty that anyone who walks over it will take dust away instead of adding any! Does she come every day?” he asked suddenly.“Yes, she cleans and cooks for me.”“And you pay her?”“Naturally.”“Kyr Themistocli, you must find another woman who will have a little conscience; this one, because you cannot see … she lets you live in dirt.” He took up the cover and shook it vigorously out of the window. “But what dust! It is a sin to take money for such dirty work! Ah,” he continued, polishing the window panes with a piece of torn newspaper, “you ought to have my mother to work foryou! Then you would see what your house would be like!”“Your mother is a good housewife?”“She is the best in Megaloupolis; all say it. What would she say if she saw this room? And my clothes also,” he added, looking at them ruefully. “But when one works, what can one do?”When he had finished, he blew out the candle. “Since it is useless to you,” he remarked, “why should it burn in vain?” Then he came close to the old man and laid his hand on his knee.“I thank you for the good food. To-morrow, then, I shall come at three.”The old man stood up and felt for Aleko’s head.“I want to see how tall you are. Ah, you are well above my shoulder, that is a good height for twelve. Are you strong? Do you have gymnastics at the Parnassos?”“Yes, in the square outside. I know all the movements; and there is one member—not the one who comes to the lessons, another who has been abroad—and he is teaching us boxing.”“Boxing?” echoed the old man. This was new for him.“It is how to fight with your hands; and he says that I shall learn well and soon.”“That is not real learning,” objected Kyr Themistocli, “that is play.”“I do not know,” answered Aleko, “but it is very useful for me, because there are some of the boys who will not understand things unless you explain with your fists. Now I go,” he added. “I must be at the school at eight o’clock. Good night, master.”“Good night, my child.”But from the door he rushed back again.“What is that statue in the Zappion Gardens, of the man who stands at the woman’s knee; she who is putting a crown of leaves on his head?”Kyr Themistocli put his hand to his forehead in a bewildered fashion.“At the Zappion? A crown of leaves? Oh, I see; you mean Byron. Well, he was a great poet—a stranger—and because he left his own country and came and fought for us against the Turks, and helped us, and sangabout us, and loved us, the woman, who means Greece, is crowning him with laurels.”“Is it like when you take your hat off—to the flag—to show respect?”“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said the old man smiling.“Is he dead now, that poet?”“Yes.”Aleko thought for a moment.“I will fight for his country when I grow up if they want me.”Then he ran very fast because he was afraid he would be late for school. In winter the hours were from seven to nine in the evening, but in summer they were from eight to ten, for the members of the Parnassos who arranged all about the night school, knew that the little shoeblacks and newspaper boys could find work in the streets much later, now that the days were long and people dined at such late hours.

It was nearly sunset when Aleko came up to the Kolonaki again with his evening papers, after having sold all he could in the big squares and at the little tables outside the cafés and confectioners’ shops where people sit to eat ices and look at the passers-by.

He was walking slowly up the long straight street, dotted here and there with trees, which leads out of the square, dragging his feet as he walked, for the day had been long and hot. There were not many papers left in his sheaf but every now and then he raised his piercing cry:—

“Astrapi! Hesperini! Hestia!” These were the names of his newspapers.

Suddenly from a narrow side street which he had already passed he heard an answering call.

“Newspapers! Here!”

He turned on his steps and looked down the alley. At the door of a low house stood an oldman leaning on a stick. He did not beckon nor make any sign but continued to call, “Newspapers! Here!”

Aleko ran up.

“Which do you want?”

“Have you theEmbros?”

“No, that is published in the morning.”

“I know it, but I thought you might have one left. I always take theEmbros, but no one passed here this morning.”

“I have only the evening papers.”

“Well, give me theHestia, then.”

Aleko picked out one of his three remainingHestiasand held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained.

“Here is yourHestia.”

“Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta,” and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko’s elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it.

“I have hurt you, my lad,” said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. “You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind.”

Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man’s face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed.

“Are you quite blind?”

“Quite.”

“Your eyes do not look blind.”

“But they are.”

Aleko held up his hand, high above his head.

“Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?”

“Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me.”

“That is a pity you should be blind,” said the boy slowly. “You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?”

“Two years now.”

“That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?”

“I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing.”

Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him.

“Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?”

“It is read to me.”

“Your children read it to you?” queried the boy.

“No, I have no children. There is a young man,—a student, who lives in the next house,—and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. Onemustknow the news and what the outside world is doing.” Then half to himself he added, “Though the eyes be blind the mind must see.”

But Aleko frowned.

“What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who canread reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays.”

“In the town it is different,” sighed the old man. “In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble.”

Aleko looked up suddenly.

“Give me your name, master.”

“My name is Themistocli.”

“Listen, then, Kyr Themistocli; now, with the sun-blaze, no one comes out to have their boots cleaned after noon, so there is no work before the evening newspapers are published. I will keep you anEmbrosevery day, and at two, or at three, after you have had your sleep, I will bring it and read it to you, and then you need not spend your lepta.”

“But, my child …”

“Oh, I can read. I can read without stopping at the big words. Also I do not sing when I read. It is not I who say so; it was one of the members of the Parnassos at our examinations, when we all read out aloud. He said to the master, ‘That boy there, with the yellow hair, is the only one who can read without singing.’Shall I come, Kyr Themistocli? Shall I come to-morrow?”

The old man groped with his hand until he found Aleko’s arm and patted it gently.

“You are a good boy to a poor blind man.”

“No,” said Aleko wriggling a little, “I like to read, and since you were a schoolmaster perhaps you will know things when I ask you.”

The old man, stooping, felt for the newspaper on the doorstep and turned towards the house.

“Come inside with me for a minute, my lad.”

Aleko followed him through a narrow passage and into a little living-room, containing a round table covered with a red and white checked cloth, two cupboards, a high one and a low one, and three odd chairs. On the floor were two or three torn newspapers, and on the low cupboard was a pile of unwashed plates. The dust lay thick everywhere.

Just as they entered, a door leading to another room opened and a stout woman with a dirty blue apron tied round her, looked in; she held a pan in one hand and a plate of salad in the other.

“Your soup is ready,” she began, then catchingsight of Aleko she added quickly, “A loustro4has followed you in. What does he want?”

“I brought him,” answered Kyr Themistocli. “Sit down, my child.”

But Aleko had been taught that one should never stay when people are about to sit down to a meal.

“With your permission, master, I go to eat bread, and I shall return.”

“No, do not go. Stay and take your soup with me.”

The stout woman muttered something about a rat whose hole was too small for him, but who would drag a pumpkin in as well.

“What is it, Kyra Katerina?” asked the old man sharply. “Is there not sufficient soup for two?”

“As for that, yes, there is sufficient.”

“Then pour it into two soup plates, and stay … there was a dish of potatoes left ….”

“Those are for to-morrow,” said the woman sullenly.

“I wish for them to-night.”

The woman said nothing. She pushed the red and white cover half off the table and put down the pan and the plate of salad on the yellowoilcloth underneath. Then, opening the low cupboard, she produced two soup plates and the half of a ring-shaped loaf. Then she poured the thick rice soup into the plates: it was red with tomato and smelt very good. Lastly, she took the empty pan into the back room and returned with a dish of cold potatoes and a pitcher full of water.

“I have served,” she said. “Is there perhaps anything else you want?”

Her voice sounded angry, but Kyr Themistocli took no notice of it.

“No, there is nothing. You can go.”

The stout woman pulled down her sleeves, and untying her apron threw it on the top of the unwashed plates.

“As you like.” Then, as she opened the door, she added, “A nice work it will be in the morning to have to clean the floor after a shoeblack’s dusty feet.” Then she passed out and shut the door quickly before Kyr Themistocli could answer.

“Eat your soup, and do not mind her,” he said to Aleko.

“I do not mind her,” said Aleko, taking a big spoonful of soup; and after swallowing it, headded sagely, “Women always make much noise.”

The blind man ate slowly and did not always find his mouth exactly. Aleko saw, now, why there were so many stains on his clothes. When he had finished he pushed his plate back.

“Tell me, now, what do they call you?”

“They call me Aleko.”

“From where?”

“My mother lives in Megaloupolis, and I was born there and the little ones, but my father was not from there.”

Kyr Themistocli noticed the past tense.

“He is dead, your father?”

“Yes, it is two years ago that he died.”

“And from where was he?”

“From Siatista.”

“Ah, a Macedonian! And what was his name?”

“Philippos Vasiliou.”

“So your name is Alexandros Vasiliou?”

Aleko nodded.

“Alexander of the King! Alexander the son of Philip!5Your master has taught you about him at school?”

“Of course,” said Aleko frowning.

The old man smiled. “There is a story about him which you have not heard perhaps. Do you know how Alexander the King got the Water of Life?”

Aleko shook his head: “We have not reached such a part.”

“Well, I will tell you about it. Listen:—

“When Alexander the King had conquered all the Kingdoms of the world, and when all the universe trembled at his glance, he called before him the most celebrated magicians of those days and said to them:—

“ ‘Ye who are wise, and who know all that is written in the Book of Fate, tell me what I must do to live for many years and to enjoy this world which I have made mine?’

“ ‘O King!’ said the magicians, ‘great is thy power! But what is written in the book of Fate is written, and no one in Heaven or on Earth can efface it. There is one thing only, that can make thee enjoy thy kingdom and thy glory beyond the lives of men; that can make thee endure as long as the hills, but it is very hard to accomplish.’

“ ‘I did not ask ye,’ said the great King Alexander,‘whether it be hard, I asked only what it was.’

“ ‘O King, we are at thy feet to command! Know then that he alone who drinks of the Water of Life need not fear death. But he who seeks this water, must pass through two mountains which open and close constantly, and scarce a bird on the wing can fly between them and not be crushed to death. The bones lie in high piles, of the kings’ sons who have lost their lives in this terrible trap. But if thou shouldst pass safely through the closing mountains, even then thou wilt find beyond them a sleepless dragon who guards the Water of Life. Him also must thou slay before thou canst take the priceless treasure.’

“Then Alexander the King smiled, and ordered his slaves to bring forth his horse Bucephalus, who had no wings yet flew like a bird. The king mounted on his back and the good horse neighed for joy. With one triumphant bound he was through the closing mountains so swiftly that only three hairs of his flowing tail were caught in between the giant rocks when they closed. Then Alexander the Kingslew the sleepless dragon, filled his vial with the Water of Life, and returned.

“But when he reached his palace, so weary was he that he fell into a deep sleep and left the Water of Life unguarded. And it so happened that his sister, not knowing the value of the water, threw it away. And some of the water fell on a wild onion plant, and that is why, to this day, wild onion plants never fade. Now when Alexander awoke, he stretched out his hand to seize and drink the Water of Life and found naught; and in his rage he would have killed the slaves who guarded his sleep, but his sister, being of royal blood, could not hide the truth, and she told him that not knowing, she had thrown the Water of Life away.

“Then the king waxed terrible in his wrath, and he cast a curse upon his sister, and prayed that from the waist downward she might be turned into a fish, and live always in the open sea far from all land and habitation of man. And the gods granted his prayer, so it happens that to this day those who sail over the open sea in ships often see Alexander’s sister, half a woman and half a fish, tossing in the waves.

“Strange to say, she does not hate Alexander, and when a ship passes close to her she cries out:—

“ ‘Does Alexander live?’

“And should the captain, not knowing who it is that speaks, answer, ‘He is dead,’ then the maid in her great grief tosses her white arms and her long golden hair wildly about, and troubles the water, and sinks the ship.

“But if, when the question comes up with the voice of the wind, ‘Does Alexander live?’ the captain answers at once, ‘He lives and reigns,’ then the maid’s heart is joyful, and she sings sweet songs till the ship is out of sight.

“And this is how sailors learn new love songs, and sing them when they return to land.”

When the old man ceased speaking Aleko waited a moment and then said slowly,—

“That is not true—but I like it.”

“Do you know, my lad,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man.”

“But if one cannot?”

“That is only if one is not born so,” said theold man shaking his head, “but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can.”

“No!” burst out Aleko, “without learning onecannotand when one is poor how is one to get learning?”

“We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free.”

“And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one’s mother and the little ones who cannot work?”

“Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?”

“Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos.”

Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment.

“How old are you?”

“In August, on the Virgin’s Day, I close my twelve years.”

“Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?”

“Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all.”

“You could read already, when you came from your village?”

“Long before that.”

“Who taught you?”

Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment.

“I do not know,” he said at last. “My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and … I learnt.”

“If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things.”

“What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn.”

The boy pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I amsorry that I went to the Parnassos!” And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:—

“Find theHestia,” he said, “and read to me, will you?”

So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece … theAveroff.

“Why do they call it theAveroff? What does it mean?”

“It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it.”

“Will it fight the Turks?” asked Aleko eagerly.

“Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it.”

“When it does, I will read all about it to you.”

“Thank you,” said the old man very seriously.

Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer.

“You read well,” said Kyr Themistocli slowly. “Will you come again? you will give me pleasure.”

“I will come every day.” Then Aleko got up and began carrying the plates off the table into the kitchen at the back. He returned with a lighted candle.

“Now,” he said, “I will tidy up a little so that the cross woman will not have so many words to say to-morrow. As for her floor …” and he looked at it with disgust, “it issodusty that anyone who walks over it will take dust away instead of adding any! Does she come every day?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, she cleans and cooks for me.”

“And you pay her?”

“Naturally.”

“Kyr Themistocli, you must find another woman who will have a little conscience; this one, because you cannot see … she lets you live in dirt.” He took up the cover and shook it vigorously out of the window. “But what dust! It is a sin to take money for such dirty work! Ah,” he continued, polishing the window panes with a piece of torn newspaper, “you ought to have my mother to work foryou! Then you would see what your house would be like!”

“Your mother is a good housewife?”

“She is the best in Megaloupolis; all say it. What would she say if she saw this room? And my clothes also,” he added, looking at them ruefully. “But when one works, what can one do?”

When he had finished, he blew out the candle. “Since it is useless to you,” he remarked, “why should it burn in vain?” Then he came close to the old man and laid his hand on his knee.

“I thank you for the good food. To-morrow, then, I shall come at three.”

The old man stood up and felt for Aleko’s head.

“I want to see how tall you are. Ah, you are well above my shoulder, that is a good height for twelve. Are you strong? Do you have gymnastics at the Parnassos?”

“Yes, in the square outside. I know all the movements; and there is one member—not the one who comes to the lessons, another who has been abroad—and he is teaching us boxing.”

“Boxing?” echoed the old man. This was new for him.

“It is how to fight with your hands; and he says that I shall learn well and soon.”

“That is not real learning,” objected Kyr Themistocli, “that is play.”

“I do not know,” answered Aleko, “but it is very useful for me, because there are some of the boys who will not understand things unless you explain with your fists. Now I go,” he added. “I must be at the school at eight o’clock. Good night, master.”

“Good night, my child.”

But from the door he rushed back again.

“What is that statue in the Zappion Gardens, of the man who stands at the woman’s knee; she who is putting a crown of leaves on his head?”

Kyr Themistocli put his hand to his forehead in a bewildered fashion.

“At the Zappion? A crown of leaves? Oh, I see; you mean Byron. Well, he was a great poet—a stranger—and because he left his own country and came and fought for us against the Turks, and helped us, and sangabout us, and loved us, the woman, who means Greece, is crowning him with laurels.”

“Is it like when you take your hat off—to the flag—to show respect?”

“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said the old man smiling.

“Is he dead now, that poet?”

“Yes.”

Aleko thought for a moment.

“I will fight for his country when I grow up if they want me.”

Then he ran very fast because he was afraid he would be late for school. In winter the hours were from seven to nine in the evening, but in summer they were from eight to ten, for the members of the Parnassos who arranged all about the night school, knew that the little shoeblacks and newspaper boys could find work in the streets much later, now that the days were long and people dined at such late hours.

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