Prospero's Cell, Page 3

  A long life, many good works, and not a few miracles contributed to his subsequent popularity, so that when he died, this humble Bishop of Trymithion (he was well over ninety years old) had become revered almost as a saint.

  He was buried: but the restless virtue in him could not waste in the earth—and now exhalations of sweet ness from his coffin began to trouble the orthodox. A spray of red roses broke from his tomb—today still to be seen in Cyprus. These combined omens persuaded the religious to dig his body up—and no sooner was this done than Spiridion justified his resurrection by a miracle, entering, so to speak, into his posthumous life and career from the refuge of God Himself.

  He had hardly a chance to settle down for when Cyprus fell to the Saracens his relics were removed to Constantinople; and when Constantinople itself was threatened by the locust hordes of the Moslem world he was once more forced to change his country of operations.

  At this time the Saint was in private ownership. A Greek, recorded as having been both priest and wealthy citizen, and whose name survives as Kalocheiritis, preserved him equally against the unbelieving Moslems and incipient decomposition. This Greek appears to have had some traffic in saints since at the same time he possessed the embalmed body of another saint—a lady of virtue—Saint Theodora Augusta.

  Kalocheiritis packed his two saints (very much as a pedlar packs his apparatus) in two shapeless sacks. He slung them, one on each side of his mule, and telling the curious that they contained animal fodder, crossed one fine spring morning into the enchanted landscapes of Greece.

  The long conversations held between Augusta and Spiridion as they jolted over the bare mountain tied in sacks, are not recorded by the hagiographers—and indeed have aroused the curiosity of none besides myself. I cannot believe, however, that such a long journey can have been passed without some exchange of theological pleasantries—though I do not claim the least gallantly or any such immodesty for Spiridion; but they could not have gone on together, day by day, roped like carrion in their stifling sacks, without feeling the necessity for speech. They must have smelt together the bruised rawness of the sage even above the clinical richness of the embalming fluids. The air must have sharpened as they reached the pine-belted slopes of the Epirus mountains; the incessant halts must have been intolerable to the dead man and woman, who had need of neither food nor sleep, but jolted on in darkness rich only in a knowledge of God.

  Paramythia in Epirus gave them refuge until 1456 when they were brought across the blue waters of the gulf to Corcyra, and laid in the chapel of Michael the Archangel.

  Here, it appears they decided to stay, the two saints. Perhaps the fecundity and beauty of the island appealed to them as much as the merry laziness of the natives. At all events here they have both withstood fire, siege and famine for several hundred years. When the Turks appeared with their menacing hordes it was the Saint who dispersed them disguised as a southwesterly squall; when epilepsy struck down the Armenian quarter it was Theodora who expelled it; and when the great plague of Naples selected Corcyra as a theatre of operations Spiridion is said to have sent it off to Naples with one contemptuous invocation, in the shape of a frightened black cat.

  Owing to the rights of possession the Saint has passed through many hands. The three sons of Kalocheiritis, for example, inherited nothing beyond the two embalmed figures of their father. The two eldest were given a half share each in Spiridion, while the youngest was forced by law to accept Theodora entire. He was obviously not content with this arrangement since he very soon relinquished the lady to the community. Spiridion, however, was a source of revenue as well as awe. By 1489 his two half shares were united in the possession of Philip the grandson—who made an attempt to carry off the relic to Venice, obviously to increase his turnover. This suggestion threw the island into a ferment, and he was forced to allow the tears and entreaties of the Corcyreans to prevail. Spiridion stayed but it was not till 1598 that he got his own church.

  With the next generation the Saint became a dowry—for Philips daughter Asimeni had little beyond her beauty, and marriages were as much forms of financial arrangement then as they are today.

  The Saint was, so to speak, married into the Boulgaris family, and in their possession he has remained until today, universally loved and respected throughout the Ionian.

  To the little figure in its casket the faithful bring posies of flowers and trinkets—but chiefly candles to back up their prayers. In the shady marketplace outside the church there is a stall brimming with candles of all sizes, and here those who wish may buy anything from the smallest dip to a huge Chandler’s Masterpiece, as long and thick as a man’s arm. These candles give a strange impression, reminding one of stumps of human limbs smoldering in the dimness before the altar.

  I must not forget to add that among the decorative motifs of the church is a wealth of Douanier-like paintings of shipwrecks, left as testimonials by thankful sailors whom the Saint helped into harbor in bad weather; there are also several pairs of unsolicited but accepted crutches. But the Saint is chiefly the patron of sailors, though his dominion can be extended in cases of need. Little children find him often in their dreams, a grim little figure of a man (not unlike General Montgomery) who knows exactly how to deal with croup, diphtheria, or lice.

  Four times a year is the Saint’s casket borne on a triumphal procession round the town; while on Christmas Eve and at Easter he is placed on a throne in the church and accessible to all comers. But the processions are something more than empty form. From early morning the streets are crowded with the gay scarves and headchiefs of peasants from outlying districts who have come in to attend the service; every square is alive with hucksters’ stalls selling nuts, ginger beer, ribbons, sweetmeats, carpet strips, buttons, lemonade, penholders, bootlaces, toothpicks, lucky charms, ikons, wood carvings, candles, soap and religious objects. You will see the piled coiffures of Gastouri under their raving headcloths of rose, yellow and blue; you will see the staid blue and white of the northern womenfolk, so like magpies; kilted Albanians in embroidered boleros, and woollen cross-gartered stockings—their womenfolk jingling in bracelets of coins; you will see the verminous Abbots of Fano and points north, and you will see the woollen-vested sailors of the opposite coast with their goathide belts and knives, and their moustache ends drawn back round their ears.

  The sun shines brightly and the air sparkles with the Albanian snowcaps opposite; wild duck curve and scatter outside the gulf, and sails of madder, rose, bitumen, violet, are all trimmed in the direction of the old fort whose guns belch a salute in honor of the Saint.

  The procession is led by the religious novices clad in blue cassocks and carrying gilt Venetian lanterns on long poles; they are followed by banners, heavy and tasseled, and rows of candles crowned with gold and trailing streamers. These huge pieces of wax are carried in a leather baldric—slung, as it were, at the hip. After them comes the town band—or rather the two municipal bands, bellowing and blasting, with brave brass helmets of a fire brigade pattern, glittering with white plumes. Now troops in open order follow, backed by the first rows of priests in their stove pipe hats, each wearing a robe of unique color and design—brocade of roses, maize, corn, grass green, kingcup yellow. It is like a flower bed moving.

  At last the archbishop appears in all his pomp, and since he is the signal for the Saint to appear, all hands begin to make the sign of the cross and all lips to move in prayer.

  The Saint is borne by six sailors under an old canopy of crimson and gold, supported by six silver poles and flanked by six priests. He is carried in a sort of sedan-chair, and through the screen his face appears to be more than ever remote, determined, and misanthropic. At the sight of him, however, warmth and happiness comes to every face. Radiantly happy the peasants turn from the procession to spend the long day dawdling over coffee or lemonade; or bargaining over olives and livestock to take back with them on the island boats at nightfall. His brief appearance has qualified once more the terro
rs and ardors of living, and reminded them that he is there, still indefatigably on the job.

  For the curious, St. Spiridion’s Legendary will afford details of his adventures against the forces of heaven and earth—and his triumphs against them. For the contemporary sceptic there is a little booklet (sold for three drachmae at the steps of the church) in which one may read of more recent miracles. A policeman cured of epilepsy; the evil eye averted; an old man cured of the distressing gift of tongues.

  Theodora Augusta, however, is now a barely distinguishable figure in the romance of Corfiot Saints; and to a large extent her powers have been taken over by a female saint—no less than St. Corcyra herself—with which modern hagiographers will have to deal. She is infinitely less interesting than Spiridion; and devotes most of her energies to causing dreams about buried treasure.

  Spiridion is a formalist in his line; it is nearly always catastrophes to the community at large that he averts; yet he does not scorn the personal petition. Sit in the darkness of his church at midday and watch his petitioners; the deep shadow of the oak pews will hide you as you watch the reverence done and the waxen dip placed in the great brass quiver in which other candles are already burning.

  Prayer is a form of bargaining; you will see at once that the psychological attitude to the Saint is one of rough familiarity. The tone of voice (that is to say the internal tone of voice—for the prayer is silent though the lips move) is the tone that one would adopt to a recalcitrant child. There is no question of humble pleading, and a foregone acceptance of refusal; the petitioner, whatever his request, assumes that it is most likely to be granted, and that it is consonant with the most elementary logic. It is what one could call “a winning style,” and it demands an equally resilient psychological attitude on the part of the Saint. Often such petitions are not only not granted—but other burdens as well are suddenly placed on the head of the unlucky petitioner. Thus Karamanos, the ugly boatbuilder of Nisaki, tried to obtain a cure for his epilepsy by prolonged prayer and the offering of numerous candles. Not only did his epilepsy get worse, but he contracted meningitis also and nearly died. His wife explained this by saying that the Saint had seen through him—and detected in him a loose-liver and foul-mouthed man. As he was the most moderate, faithful, just and hardworking character in the village one can only conclude that the Saint saw deeper than the rest of us—or else had confused him with his brother Basil who answered faithfully enough to this description.

  At all events the Saint holds the island in his power; the boats that set out nightly for fishing or daily for foreign ports of call, all travel in his benign shadow; and it is he who welcomes you to port on the days when the deep-trenched north wind blanches the sea, and when the ironclads by the Venetian fort turn slowly on the leash to face it. It is he who guards your spirit when the wind screams down the ravines of Pantocrator. And when you are washed up in the dead calm of dawn, entangled like a sculpture in your broken boat and sprung nets—it is in his image and shadow that your soul finds rest. To him belongs the lovely greeting:

  Ionian Profiles

  7.25.37

  THE SEA’S CURIOUS workmanship: bottle-green glass sucked smooth and porous by the waves: vitreous shells: wood stripped and cleaned, and bark swollen with salt a bead: sea-charcoal, brittle and sticky: fronds of bladderwort with their greasy marine skin and reptilian feel: rocks, gnawed and rubbed: sponges, heavy with tears: amber: bone: the sea.

  Our life on this promontory has become like some flawless Euclidean statement. Night and sleep resolve and complete the day with their quod erat demonstrandum; and if, uneasily stirring before dawn, one stands for a moment to watch the morning star, which hangs like a drop of yellow dew in the east, it is not that sleep (which is like death in stories, beautiful) has been disrupted: it is the greater for this noiseless star, for the deep scented treeline and the sea pensively washing and rewashing one dreams. So that, confused, you wonder at the overlapping of the edges of dream and reality, and turn to the breathing person in whose body, as in a sea-shell—echoes the systole and diastole of the waters.

  Nights blue and geometric; endearing and seducing moon; the sky’s curvature like an impress of an embrace while she rises—as if in one’s own throat, so pure and glittering. When you have stared at her until she chills you, the human proportions of your world are reasserted suddenly. Suddenly the man crosses the orchard to the seawall. Helen walks with a lighted candle across the grass to tend the goat. Abstract from the balcony Bach begins to play—absorbed in his science of unknown relations, and only hurting us all because he implies experience he cannot state. And because paint and words are useless to fill the gap you lean forward and blow out the lamp, and sit listening, smelling the dense pure odor of the wick, and watching the silver rings play on the ceiling. And so to bed, two enviable subjects of the Wheel.

  7.27.37

  Yesterday we awoke to find an Aegean brigantine anchored in the bay. She wore the name of Saint Barbara and two lovely big Aegean eyes painted on her prow with the legend (“God the Just”). The reflected eyes started up at her from the lucent waters of the lagoon. Her crew ate melons and spoke barbarically—sounding like Cretans. But the whole Aegean was written in her lines, the great rounded poop, and her stylish rigging. She had strayed out of the world of dazzling white windmills and grey, uncultured rock; out of the bareness and dazzle of the blinding Aegean into our seventeenth-century Venetian richness. She had strayed from the world of Platonic forms into the world of Decoration.

  Even her crew had a baked, dazed, sardonic look, and sought no contact with my chattering, friendly islanders. The brig put out at midday and headed northward to the Forty Saints in a crumple of red canvas. Like a weary dancer to the Forty Saints and the Albanian peaks, to mirror herself in some deserted and glassy bay like a mad butterfly. We could not bear to see her go.

  7.29.37

  My material is rapidly getting out of control once more. Theodore has been to stay for a few days. Characteristic of his shy heart he sends us presents. For N. a box of Turkish delight with pistachio nuts in it; for me a flute made of brass, with the word (“Loneliness”) engraved upon it. It is impossible to get a note out of it so I have asked the peasants to find me the shepherd boy to teach me.

  Theodore has recorded the latest miracle of St. Spiridion with sardonic humor. An old man from a country village appeared at the x-ray laboratory with what was diagnosed as an incurable cancer of the stomach; medicine having washed its hands of him, the old man and his family made a Mass petition to the Saint. Within three weeks he reappeared before the doctors. The cancer had been reabsorbed. Theodore is professionally downcast, but secretly elated to find that the Saint has lost none of his art. It gives him the opportunity for a long disquisition upon natural resistance. It appears that the peasants can stand almost any physical injury which can be seen; but that a common cold may carry off a patient from sheer depression and terror. He gives an instance of a peasant who had a fight with his brother and whose head was literally cloven with an axe. Tying the two pieces of his skull together with a handkerchief the wounded man walked three miles into town to visit a doctor. He is still alive, though feebleminded.

  Zarian has contributed a wonderful piece of natural observation for our notebooks. He observed last Tuesday that the four clock faces of the Saint’s church all registered different times of day. Intrigued, he asked permission to examine the phenomenon, scenting an ecclesiastical mystery. But it turns out that the clock hands are made of the flimsiest material and that the pressure of the wind upon the clock.… Therefore when the north wind blows the northern clock-face is slowed up considerably, while when the south wind takes up its tale the southern clock face shows a loss of time.

  Not that time itself is anything more than a word here. Peasant measurement of time and distance is done by cigarettes. Ask a peasant how far a village is and he will reply, nine times out of ten, that it is a matter of so many cigarettes.

  7.30.37 />
  It is important, when writing about the peasants, not to falsify them with sentimental humor. It is very much the fashion to represent them as comic and quaint abstractions attached to picturesque names like Paul and Socrates and Aristotle. The fact that they dress oddly seems to drive city-bred writers into a frenzy of romantic admiration. But really the average Balkan peasant is quite commonplace, as venal, cunning, or admirable, as a provincial townsman. And the sentiment which attaches to the pastoral life of these picturesque communities (which treasure amulets against the devil and believe in a patron saint), has been very much overdone. Anthropologists are only just beginning to visit the suburbs of our greater cities with their apparatus. Their findings should establish a greater sense of connection between the peasant and the townsman.

  8.3.37

  Theodore has one particular friend who is a so-called lunatic. He sits with the others most of the time under the trees outside the whitewashed asylum building, looking at his own fingers; but at times an abrupt desire to talk seizes him, and when it does he unerringly selects for audience the so-called sane who pass along the dusty white road outside the railings. His name is Basil and he has yellow dilated eyes and a deep voice. Theodore often pauses on his way out of town to greet him, rattling his stick against the railings to draw his attention, and shifting the great green bag of tree spore and seed which he carries about him on his walks. The lunatic sticks his head through the bars and smiles artfully. He says:

  “They say I am mad.”