The King Of The Mountains Part 1

The King of the Mountains.

by Edmond About.

I.

HERMANN SCHULTZ.

On the 3d of July, about six o'clock in the morning, I was watering my flowers. A young man entered the garden. He was blonde, beardless; he wore a German cap and sported gold spectacles. A long, loose woolen coat, or paletot, drooped in a melancholy way around his form, like a sail around a mast in a calm. He wore no gloves; his tan leather shoes had such large soles, that the foot was surrounded by a narrow f.l.a.n.g.e.

In the breast-pocket of his paletot, a huge porcelain pipe bulged half-way out. I did not stop to ask myself whether this young man was a student in the German Universities; I put down my watering-pot, and saluted him with: "Guten Morgen!"

"Monsieur," he said to me in French, but with a deplorable accent, "my name is Hermann Schultz; I have come to pa.s.s some months in Greece, and I have carried your book with me everywhere."

This praise penetrated my heart with sweet joy; the stranger's voice seemed more melodious than Mozart's music, and I directed toward his gold gla.s.ses a swift look of grat.i.tude. You would scarcely believe, dear reader, how much we love those who have taken the trouble to decipher our jargon. As for me, if I have ever sighed to be rich, it is in order to a.s.sure an income to all those who have read my works.

I took him by the hand, this excellent young man. I seated him beside me on the garden-bench. He told me that he was a botanist, that he had a commission from the "Jardin des Plantes" in Hamburg. In order to complete his herbarium he was studying the country, the animals, and the people. His naive descriptions, his terse but just decisions, recalled to me, a little, the simple old Herodotus. He expressed himself awkwardly, but with a candor which inspired confidence; he emphasized his words with the tone of a man entirely convinced. He questioned me, if not of every one in Athens, at least of all the princ.i.p.al personages in my book. In the course of the conversation, he made some statements on general subjects, which seemed to me far more reasonable than any which I had advanced. At the end of an hour we had become good friends.

I do not know which of us first spoke of brigandage. People who travel in Italy talk of paintings; those who visit England talk of manufactures; each country has its specialty.

"My dear sir," I asked of my guest, "have you met any brigands? Is it true, as is reported, that there are still bandits in Greece?"

"It is only too true," he gravely replied. "I was for fifteen days in the hands of the terrible Hadgi-Stavros, nicknamed The King of the Mountains. I speak then from experience. If you have leisure, and a long story will not weary you, I am ready to give you the details of my adventure. You may make of it what you please; a romance, a novel, or perhaps an additional chapter in the little book in which you have written so many curious facts."

"You are very good," I replied, "and I am at your disposal. Let us go to my study. It is cooler there than in the garden and yet we can enjoy the odor of the sweet-peas and mignonette."

He followed me, humming to himself in Greek, a popular song:

"A robber with black eyes descends to the plains; His gun is heard at each step; He says to the vultures: 'Do not leave me, I will serve to you the Pasha of Athens.'"

He seated himself on a divan, with his legs crossed under him like the Arabian story-tellers, took off his loose paletot, lighted his pipe and began his tale. I seated myself at my desk and took stenographic notes as he dictated.

I have always been without much distrust, especially with those who have complimented me. Sometimes the amiable stranger told me such surprising things that I asked myself many times if he was not mocking me. But his manner was so simple, his blue eyes so limpid, that my suspicions faded away on the instant.

He talked steadily, until half after noon. He stopped two or three times only long enough to relight his pipe.

He smoked with regular puffs like the smoke stack of a steam-engine.

Each time I raised my eyes, I beheld him, calm, smiling, in the midst of a thick cloud of smoke, like Jupiter in the 5th act of Amphitryon.

We were interrupted by a servant with the announcement that breakfast was served. Hermann seated himself opposite me, and my trifling suspicions vanished before his appet.i.te. I said to myself that a good digestion rarely accompanies a bad conscience. The young German was too good an eater to be an untruthful narrator, and his veracity restored my faith in his veracity. Struck with this idea, I confessed, while offering him some strawberries, that I had, for an instant, doubted him.

He replied with an angelic smile.

I pa.s.sed the entire day with my new friend, and I found that the time did not drag. At five o'clock, he knocked the ashes from his pipe, put on his outer coat, and shaking my hand, said: "Adieu." I replied: "Au revoir."

"No," he said, shaking his head; "I leave to-night at seven o'clock, and I dare not hope ever to see you again."

"Leave your address. I have not yet renounced the pleasure of traveling, and I may, sometime, pa.s.s through Hamburg."

"Unfortunately, I do not know where I shall pitch my tent. Germany is large; I may not remain a citizen of Hamburg."

"But if I publish your story, at least I ought to send you a copy."

"Do not take that trouble. As soon as the book is published, it will appear in Leipzig and I will read it. Adieu!"

After his departure, I re-read attentively what I had written. I found some remarkable details, but nothing which contradicts what I had seen and heard during my stay in Greece.

At the moment of finis.h.i.+ng the ma.n.u.script, a scruple restrained me: What if some errors had crept into Hermann's statements? In my quality of editor was I not responsible? To publish the story of "The King of the Mountains," was it not to expose myself to editorial comments and criticisms?

In my perplexity, I thought of making a copy of the original. I sent the first to M. Pseftis. I begged him to point out, candidly, all the errors, and I promised to print his reply at the end of the volume.

I re-read the copy which I had retained. I changed no word in it. If I made myself the corrector of the young German's statements, I would become his collaborator. So I discreetly withdrew. It is Hermann who speaks to you.

II.

PHOTINI.

You divine, from the appearance of my clothes, that I have not ten thousand francs with me. My father is an inn-keeper whom the railroads have ruined. In prosperous times he eats bread, in bad years potatoes.

Add to this, that there are six children, all with good appet.i.tes. The day on which I received my commission from the Jardin des Plantes, there was a festival given in the family. My departure would not only increase the portion of each of my brothers, but I was to have two hundred and fifty francs per month and the expenses for my journey. It was a fortune. From that moment they ceased to call me Doctor. They dubbed me beef-merchant, so that I should appear rich! My brothers prophesied that I would be elected Professor by the University, on my return from Athens. My father hoped that I would return married. In his position of inn-keeper, he had a.s.sisted in some very romantic adventures. He cited, at least three times a week, the marriage of the Princess Ypsoff and Lieutenant Reynauld. The Princess occupied the finest apartments, with her two maids and her Courier, and she gave twenty florins a day. The French Lieutenant was in No. 17, way up under the eaves, and he paid a florin and a half, food included; however, after a month's sojourn at the hotel, he departed in a carriage with the Russian lady.

My poor father, with the partiality of a father, thought that I was handsomer and more elegant than Lieutenant Reynauld; he did not doubt but that, sooner or later, I would meet a princess who would enrich us all. If I did not find her at a table d'hote, I would see her in a railway carriage. If the powers which control the railroads were not propitious, there was still left the steams.h.i.+ps. The evening of my departure, we drank a bottle of old Rhine wine, and by chance the last was poured into my gla.s.s. The good man wept with joy: it was a sure sign, and nothing could prevent me from marrying within a year. I respected his superst.i.tions, and I refrained from saying that princesses rarely travel third cla.s.s. As for lodgings, my humble luggage would not permit me to choose any but modest inns, and royal families do not, usually, lodge in them. The fact is, that I landed in Greece without an adventure of any kind.

The army occupying the city made everything very dear in Athens. The Hotel d'Angleterre, the Hotel Orient, the Hotel des Etrangers were inaccessible. The Chancellor of the Prussian Legation, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction, was kind enough to a.s.sist me in finding a lodging. He took me to a pastry-cook's, at the corner of the Rue d'Hermes and the Place du Palais. I found there, board and lodging for a hundred francs a month. Christodule was an old Palikar, decorated with the Iron Cross, in memory of the War of Independence. He was a Lieutenant in the Phalanx, he wore the National costume, the red bonnet with blue ta.s.sel, the silver-colored vest, the white skirt, and the fancy leggins, when he sold ices and cakes. His wife, Maroula, was enormous, like all Greek women who have pa.s.sed fifty. Her husband had purchased her during the war, when women sold for high prices. She was born in the Isle of Hydra, but she dressed in the Athenian fas.h.i.+on: upper garment or jacket of black velvet, skirt of a bright color, a silk handkerchief tied over her head. Neither Christodule nor his wife knew a word of German; but their son Dimitri, who was a servant hired by the day, and who dressed like a Frenchman, understood and spoke a little of each patois of Europe. Upon the whole, I had really no need of an interpreter. Without having received the gift of tongues, I am a fairly good linguist, and I murder Greek as readily as English, Italian or French.

My hosts were worthy people; they gave me a little white-washed room, with a table of white wood, two straw-bottomed chairs, a good but thin mattress, and some cotton quilts. A wooden bed is a superfluity which the Greeks easily deny themselves, and we lived a la Grecque. I breakfasted on a cup of arrow-root; I dined on a plate of meat with many olives, and dry fish; I supped on vegetables, honey and cakes. Preserves were not rare in the house, and occasionally I evoked memories of home by dining on a leg of lamb and preserves. It is useless to tell you that I had my pipe, and that the tobacco in Athens is better than yours. That which contributed to my feeling perfectly at home in Christodule's house, was a light wine of Santorin, which he bought, I know not where.

I am not a judge of wines, and the education of my palate has, unfortunately, been neglected, but I believe, however, that this wine is worthy of a place on a king's table: it is of a fine topaz color, sparkling as the smile of a child. I see it now, in its large bulging carafe, on the s.h.i.+ning linen cloth. It lighted the table and we were able to sup without any other illumination. I never drank much of it, because it was heady; and yet, at the end of a meal, I have recited some of Anacreon's verses and I have discovered remains of beauty in the moon-shaped face of the gross Maroula.

I ate with Christodule and his family. There were four regular boarders and one table boarder. The first floor was divided into four rooms, the best of which was occupied by a French Archaeologist, M. Hippolyte Merinay. If all Frenchmen resemble this one, you would be a sorry lot.

He was very small; his age, as far as one could tell, anywhere between eighteen and forty-five, very red-haired, very mild, very loquacious, and never loosening his moist and warm hands, when he had once fastened them on a person, until he had exhausted himself talking. His two dominant pa.s.sions were archaeology and philanthropy: he was a member of many literary societies and of many benevolent a.s.sociations. Although he was an advocate of charity, and his parents had left him a fine income, I do not remember ever to have seen him give a sou to a beggar. As for his knowledge of archaeology, I believe that it was of more account than his love for humanity. He had received a prize from some provincial College, for a treatise on the value of paper in the time of Orpheus.

Encouraged by these first successes, he had come to Greece to gather material for a more important work: it was nothing less than to determine the quant.i.ty of oil consumed in Demosthenes' lamp while he wrote the second Philippic.

My two other neighbors were not so wise, and ancient things disturbed them not at all. Giacomo Fondi was a poor Maltese employed at, I know not what consulate; he earned a hundred and fifty francs a month sealing letters. I imagine that any other employment would have pleased him better. Nature, who has peopled the Island of Malta in order that the Orient should never lack porters, had given to poor Fondi the shoulders, arms and hands of a Milo of Crotona: he was born to handle a club, and not to melt sealing-wax with which to seal letters. He used, however, two or three sticks every day: man is not the master of his destiny! The islander out of his sphere, was in his element only at meal-time; he helped Maroula to place the table, and you will understand, without being told, that he always carried it at arms-length. He ate like the hero of the Iliad, and I shall never forget the cracking of his huge jaws, the dilation of his nostrils, the flash of his eyes, the whiteness of his thirty-two teeth, formidable mill-stones of which he was the mill. I ought to confess that I remember little of his conversation; one easily found the limit of his intelligence, but one never found the bounds of his appet.i.te. Christodule had never made anything during the four years he had boarded him, although the Maltese had paid ten francs a month extra. The insatiable islander ate every day, after dinner, an enormous plateful of nuts, which he cracked between his first finger and thumb. Christodule, old soldier, but practical man, followed this exercise with a mixture of admiration and fear; he trembled for his dessert, yet he was proud to see, at his table, so huge a nut-cracker.

The face of Giacomo Fondi would not have been out of place in one of the jumping-jack boxes, which so amuse children. It was whiter than a negro's; but it was a question of shade only. His thick locks descended to his eyebrows like a cap. In strange contrast, this Caliban had a very small foot, a slender ankle, a fine-shaped leg and as perfect as one finds in a statue; but these were details which one scarcely noticed.

For whoever had seen him eat, his person began at the edge of the table; the rest of the body counted for nothing.

I can speak only from memory of William Lobster. He was a cherub of twenty years, blonde, rosy and chubby, but a cherub of the United States of America. The firm of Lobster and Sons, New York, had sent him to the Orient to study the subject of exportation. He worked during the day in the house of Philips Brothers; in the evening, he read Emerson; in the early morning or at sunrise he went to Socrates' school to practice pistol-shooting.

The most interesting person in our little colony was without doubt, John Harris, the maternal uncle of the little Lobster. The first time that I dined with this strange man, I was greatly taken with the American. He was born at Vandalia, Illinois. Breathing the invigorating air of the new world from his birth, his every movement was joyous. I do not know whether the Harris family was rich or poor; whether the son went to College, or whether he educated himself. What was certain was, that at twenty-eight he relied on himself alone; was astonished at nothing; believed nothing impossible; never flinched; was amenable to reason; hoped for the best; attempted everything; triumphed in everything! If he fell, he immediately jumped up; if he stammered, he began all over again; he gave himself no rest; never lost courage, and went right ahead. He was well-educated, had been teacher, lawyer, journalist, miner, farmer, clerk. He had read everything, seen everything, tried everything, and had traveled over more than half of the globe. When I made his acquaintance he was commanding a Dispatch-boat, carrying sixty men and four cannons. He wrote of the Orient in the Boston Review; he transacted business with an indigo house in Calcutta, and yet he found time to come, four or five times a week, to dine with his nephew, Lobster, and with us.

A single instance, of a thousand, will serve to show his character.

Early in the fifties he was in business in Philadelphia. His nephew, who was then seventeen, made him a visit. He found him near Was.h.i.+ngton Square, standing with his hands in his pockets, before a burning building. William touched him on the shoulder; he turned.

"Ah: Good-morning, Bill, thou hast arrived inopportunely, my boy. There is a fire which ruins me; I have forty thousand dollars in that house; we will not save a match."

"What will you do?" asked the astonished boy.