Childish Loves (41 page)

‘I think your Harold days are done,' he said and rode off on one of Pietro's mules.

*

There is always a tax upon kindness, which is paid in further kindness. Mrs Chalandritsanos, whom, along with her three daughters, I had rescued from the squalor of Vathy and set up in some comfort here, is also the possessor of two sons. Both were fighting with Colocotroni in the Morea, when one of them, hearing that his mother had found a patron, immediately took leave of his chief and applied to
me
. This came at no bad time, as Trelawny had just left me, and I wanted someone to keep the Suliotes in order. Chalandritsanos
fils
is a boy of some fifteen or sixteen years, dark-skinned (though no darker than some Italians), with an oriental cast of eyes, through which he looks at you with a sort of fierce boredom. His manner was very little appeasing, for one who had come in search of charity; though this is rather the Greek method – to beg haughtily.

But the others have found me out, too, and I am no safer at Metaxata than I was at Argostoli. Here are arrived English, Germans, Greeks, all kinds of people, proceeding to or coming from Greece, and all with something to say to me. It appears that if I mean to have any quiet, I must make up my mind to join the fighting; it is the only way. Every day there are two or three or half a dozen visitors, who come to plead, stare, gawp, advise, in as many languages; and I receive them all and listen to their case or cause; and every day it grows harder for me to act. I believe Trelawny was right. When once I am settled, nothing can unsettle me; but perhaps I am unsettled enough. The house at least is too small to admit guests. Even as it is, Pietro and Bruno share a room, and the servants make do in the kitchen.

I have begun to write again, a little at night, when everyone is in bed; but this was always my way. Another canto of
Don Juan
, the seventeenth – will I live to see it finished? From the window of my apartment, I can see the village below me, in transparent moonlight, which shows beyond it the islands, the mountains, the sea, with a distant outline of the Morea traced between the double azure of the waves and skies. I have put the Don at an English country house, with several ladies of the party, some of them married (though none of them to the purpose). In short, amidst scenes which were once well-known to me; but like Mr Hume's
ideas
, they grow dim, dim. And the lines come slowly and painfully. Teresa has complained that I do not write to
her
. This is untrue; only, I do not write her
at length
and mostly add a post-script to the letters Pietro sends her, for he is a dutiful brother.

At present, I am rather plagued with doctors: there are Bruno, Kennedy, Muir
inter alia
. The Committee has sent a young man, a Dr Millingen, who wishes to see the world and do some good in it. He has this merit, that he listens and does not talk much. But I believe he begins to chafe at our existence (
this
is not the world he has come to see) and soothes his restlessness by doctoring
me
. He says he is concerned at my drinking, and I have no reason to disbelieve him: he seems an honest man. But then, I drink mostly at night, when I sleep very little, and since I never get drunk … I tell him, that I drink rather than sleep, but that it comes to the same thing. He has asked Bruno the receipt for the little pills I take, as purgatives, besides doses of Epsom salts. I said to him, ‘There are two things in this world that I especially dread, and to which I am equally predisposed – growing fat, and growing mad. Indeed, I should not like to choose between them.' But I asked him to examine my teeth; they feel loose in my head.

The Chalandritsanos boy is an odd mixture. I have seen him playing with the children, no more than ten years old, who sling stones at the trees that grow into the path at the foot of our house; but the Suliotes respect him, and every day he rides out at the head of some dozen men barking commands. His name is Lukas. I have made him my page, since he loves fine clothes and lets me dress him as I please, which is all that I require. He speaks Italian (of a sort), and has attached himself already to Bruno and Pietro, hoping to learn more. But they do not mind him much. To me he says very little, though he is not shy.

A few days ago we had an earthquake. There have been several on the island in recent weeks, but this was sufficiently powerful to make it a question of prudence to leave the house. I was one of the last to remain, and on my way down the narrow stairs opened the door to the other bedroom, where Lukas sometimes sleeps in the afternoon – I should not like to give the news to his mother, in the event of an accident befalling him. But the room was empty; I put my hand on both of the beds myself to make sure, and then sat down for a minute, heedless of the disturbance around me, before continuing downstairs.

*

It appears I may really be going. Hobhouse has sent me another colonel, this one by the name of Stanhope, a black-haired though by no means youthful officer of the Committtee, who arrived already in a hurry and with a great many good intentions. He is a rabid Benthamite and believes that the human machine may be easily regulated, with a little pressure here and there; to which end, he has carried with him from England (it weighs not much less than a ton)
a printing press
, as the best means of applying it. I think he means to
persuade
the Greeks of their liberty, and to reason the Turks into granting it. In person, he is pleasant enough, brisk and neatly attired, but you have only to say the word, and he cannot resist explaining himself, and it is always the same explanation.

Millingen is gone already, on to Missolonghi, where the suffering is intensest and direction most needed after the death of Botsaris. Stanhope intends to join him shortly. And I have committed myself to the Morea, the seat of the provisional government, of which I have received several favourable accounts from Browne and Trelawny. But I mean to judge for myself. Browne, meanwhile, has gone back to England with two Greek deputies, seeking an additional loan. And Trelawny has sent me a very amusing letter, quite in my old vein – he has decided to accompany Ulysses on to Negropont, where they will ‘pass the winter, there being excellent sport', he says, ‘between Turk and woodcock shooting.' He has been made a kind of aide-camp, with fifty men under his command, and never leaves the General's side – being accoutred exactly like him, in red and gold vest with sheepskin capote. With gun pistols sabre etc. All this he writes in his letter. There is also some talk (but this I have through other sources) of his being given Ulysses' daughter or niece or some such relation to marry, as the Greeks have a passion for kinship and press upon perfect strangers, as a sign of their hospitality, their precious women!

*

No, it is all off. Browne came first to Argostoli on his way home, where I met with him, and his account of the Provisional Government does not command in me sufficient confidence to give it the stamp of my approval, which is, after all, what my visit would suggest. He means to ask the Committee for a steamboat – he believes a great deal may be accomplished with an armoured steamboat. And this is also the opinion of several of the naval officers he has consulted with. The two Greek Deputies – Luriottis is one of them, and asked after Madame Guiccioli; he is a gentleman – have been authorized by the Provisional Government to beg another loan of me, of some three hundred thousand piastres, which is no more than what is required, he says, to activate the fleet. I agreed to give two hundred thousand, for the Greeks always expect some negotiation and have been so conditioned by the distrust that usually meets them that even honest Greeks (of which there are very few) begin to exaggerate a little, in anticipation.

It is now December. The fire in my apartment (which is always burning) smokes terribly, as the wood we had put aside was most of it stolen, and what remains is damp and green. I have been here almost five months. Yesterday I had a letter from Augusta, concerning my daughter. It appears that Ada suffers terribly from headaches, which begin to affect her sight. I was subject to the same complaint, but not at so early an age nor in so great a degree. Besides, it never affected my eyes but rather my hearing. This last news has left me more miserable than I can at all account for, as I was not fond of her mother and have not seen the child herself (who is now eight) since she lay sucking in that woman's arms. Perhaps she will get quite well when she arrives at
womanhood
, but that is some time to look forward to, especially where the climate is cold. In Italy and the East, it sometimes occurs at twelve or even earlier. (I knew an instance in an Italian house, at
ten
, though this was considered uncommon.) But Ada, Ada – I have been writing the word in the margins of the page, when I am meant to be writing my poem; and it is more suggestive to me than … anything else that I write. I find the idea that my peculiar habit of suffering is shared by another human creature almost inexpressibly moving. Poor girl, if she is at all like her father she will not be very happy. It occurs to me that if I once get this business over, I might return to England – if only to report to the Committee.

*

Well, it is settled; tomorrow we sail. In two boats – to Missolonghi. Stanhope is there already and has seen Prince Mavrocordatos, from whom he has sent this very handsome appeal. He tells me that I will be ‘received as a saviour', and that it depends ‘only on myself to secure the destiny of Greece'. They expect my presence will ‘electrify the troops!'. There has been a kind of contest of inaction on both sides, Greek and Mussulman, but the Turks have at length come down in force (sixteen thousand they say) on Missolonghi, which however is stronger than it was last year, when they repulsed the attempt. And their blood is up at last. The Greek fleet has lately crushed a much smaller Turkish squadron (it was fourteen ships against four), driving one ashore onto the coast of Ithaca, to which they pursued it, in spite of the island's neutrality, murdering every survivor. For the sake of the treasure on board – they would not have been so forward over a question of honour. It was a cowardly business, but then, the
pretence
of neutrality, when there is a war, is equally shameful.

On Christmas Day (or the day after, it is not much minded here), I left Metaxata, and am staying at my banker's in Argostoli, while the boats are fitted out. The first, which is called a ‘mistico', being designed for speed, will take us to Missolonghi; the second will transport supplies. I have asked Pietro to accompany it.

Bruno and Fletcher come with me, along with the dog Lion and the page-boy Lukas. Today I took him to pay his respects to his mother, to see that they were paid. She is a large-breasted comfortable-looking woman, who does not often stand up. At least, she was sitting when we came, and sent one of her daughters to open the door; and did not leave her sofa once in the course of our visit. It was another daughter who served us tea and dates. But she wept freely, and under this provocation, the boy wept, too. ‘You will see that he does not dishonour us,' she said. (They are after all a fierce people!) ‘If he dies, he should die as his father did.' His sisters clung to him and kissed his face and lips.

I promised to present myself foremost to every danger. Afterwards, we went to inspect the boats, and he stood by my shoulder, a little behind, to escape showing his eyes to the crew.

It is imagined that we shall attempt either Patras or the castles on the Straits; and it seems, by most accounts, that the Greeks, or at any rate, the Suliotes, expect that I should march with them. I have been running in my mind through the ranks of poets who have died in battle (or its consequences): there are Kleist, Korner, Kutoffski and Thersander; Garcilasso de la Vega. If the wind is favourable, we sail tomorrow – it wants but two days until the new year. God knows why I am going, though after all, it is better to be playing at nations than gaming at Almacks or Newmarket or piecing or dinnering. I have hopes that the cause will triumph, but whether it does or no, still ‘Honour must be minded as strictly as a milk diet.' I trust to observe both.

***

Our passage was not uneventful. We set sail a little after sunset. The air was fresh but not sharp, and the sailors' voices (for they were most of them singing) rang faintly against the clear sky. The mistico was the fastest and soon out-paced Pietro's ‘bombard'. Until the waves separated us, we fired pistols and
carabines
into the night, calling out, ‘Tomorrow we meet at Missolonghi – tomorrow.'

At two in the morning, we came in sight of a frigate, which I took at first to be Greek (it was within pistol shot), until the captain assured me it was not. But we kept very still and the dogs (who had been barking all night) were equally quiet, and managed to evade them. At dawn, we stood out a little way from the coast and saw two large ships – one of them chasing Pietro's bombard (which, after all, is the more valuable vessel, containing not only my horses, negro, steward and
Stanhope's press
, but eight thousand dollars of mine, with which I meant to make up the arrears of the soldiers' pay), and the other lying wait in front of the port. It appears (though I learned this only later) that several of the Greek ships, which had been guarding the entrance, had turned tail at the sight of the Turks
in protest, because they could not wait
– to be paid, that is.

By this stage I had begun to have serious concerns for the safety (not of myself, which matters little to me), but of my page, who would be most in danger in the event of our capture,
morally
as well as physically. The Turkish treatment of their prisoners of war, especially of young boys, is rather to be avoided. I would sooner cut him in pieces than have him taken by those barbarians. Besides, I had promised his mother to do everything in my power; so we ran up a creek (the Scrofes, I believe) and landed Lukas and one of the crew, with some money for themselves and a letter for Stanhope, and sent them up the country to Missolonghi. Lukas was at first very unwilling to leave the boat, until I explained to him the nature of the danger he faced – that was particular to
him
; at which he said very little but agreed to go.