Europe in the Looking Glass (14 page)

During our descent into the city we passed the Forum of Hadrian, with its rows of thin, grey, broken pillars, as squalid and uninteresting as its namesake in Rome, where the cats congregate and play or sleep amid the refuse and oleander bushes. It is for the privilege of demolishing the houses in this part of Athens, that the American archaeologists are paying a million pounds to the Greek Government, in order to transform it into yet another wilderness of unintelligible foundations. The American methods of excavation are noted in archaeological circles. The Greek Government has driven a good bargain, as not only does it receive a large sum with which to build new houses, but also retains everything that is unearthed. Works of art are never allowed to leave the country.

While still touching on the subject of Greek sculpture, there is one bas-relief in the Athens Museum, which, having only been discovered in 1923, is yet awaiting universal recognition. It is carved on the side of a square plinth, on which originally rested a statue. Against a background of faint, dull red, stand four male figures, white and unclothed. Each is holding in his two hands a hockey-stick – not a travesty of modern perfection such as the old Victorian tennis-bat appears when unearthed from the upper attic – but an ordinary, slim, well-proportioned hockey-stick. On the ground lies a white ball. The two centre figures are represented in the self-conscious act of bullying, each about to give the second rap upon the earth. The others are poised anxiously on the lookout. Were it not for the absence of protective covering, the whole composition, with its attitudes of alert expectation, would present an exact picture of the modern game. If the Greek nation, with its dangerously ramified foreign policy, were only to advertise this work of art more widely – for instance, engrave it on their postage stamps – they could be assured of the support of the English-speaking peoples for all time. It might, of course, become known that ‘soccer’ has Constantinople and the Young Turk movement
firmly in its grip; in which case future Labour governments could only be expected to put their money on Kemal and his proverbial wrong horse. Hockey has not the same hold as football on the acute political intelligence of the British franchise. Had the gods but played cricket…

That night we drove out miles along the seashore, winding our way amid hummocks and ditches of brown dust. On every side stood old twisted olive trees made weird in the mobile beams of the electric lamps. Eventually we left the car, and walking down to the beach, sat down in the darkness to undress. It seemed best, however, to wait until the moon had risen. Gradually its halo mounted above the black brow of the adjoining hill. Then, like some million-candle-power fire-balloon, the great plate of light came surging up the arc of Heaven. The water, hitherto black and sluggish, was transformed into a sea of opalescent silver, which clothed our bodies in a kind of phosphorescent accretion as they moved amid pools of light. Very slowly the sand sloped, and by the time we were swimming land was but a dark blur in the night.

Hypnotized by the languorous pulsing of the water, I lay full length on my back and gazed at the midnight moon now risen to its full height in the cloudless murk. In my ears the Aegean throbbed gently. The roots of my hair quivered in the keen, shivering water, black and soft and warm. England seemed very unreal and very far away. That morning a letter had arrived from home to say that cubbing had begun in the forest. And as the mesmerizing ripples rippled, the whole scene seemed to come to life. I could hear the sound of the horn, the thud of hoofs on virgin turf, the voice of hounds in full cry. I could see the horses ploughing through bracken to their saddles beneath the dull, dark green, beginning to turn brown, of beeches at the end of summer. And here was I, floating about in the middle of the night on the further side of Greece. I turned over and shook myself; then swam to shore like a marine comet. David and Michael were already dressed. Next morning we all three awoke to a sensation of indigestion.

THE ENGLISH TRADITION
is more firmly rooted in Athens than in any other European capital. This perhaps is not surprising when it is remembered that Lord Elgin presented the municipality with an iron clock in lieu of the Parthenon Frieze. Unfortunately this incomparable object perished by fire on August 8th, 1884. One can picture the cuspidals and pinnacle of its airy Gothic fretwork, wrought by a hand inspired as Pheidias’ own – more so, perhaps, since the latter was outside the Church of England – and one regrets the passing of the old English ‘Milor’ and all that he embodied in the eyes of an impoverished continent. There remains, however, righteously erect, the English church; and the Athenian can indeed count himself lucky in this Gothic masterpiece. It stands on a small railed mound on the further side of the tramlines from the Zappeion Gardens, and is built of granite, imported at immense expense into the finest marble country in the world. There is no salvation in marble.

One cannot help feeling that in aeons to come, when the civilization of Europe is as that of the Hittites and New York lies buried like a Babylon undug, the English churches throughout the world will have endured, lights in the darkness, symbols of the incontrovertible permanence of Henry VIII’s second marriage. The austere Presbyterian at Venice, the ‘tables’ of chocolate and gold at Florence, the groined haven at Rome – of which city Metternich recorded in the twenties that it was one of the amusements of the natives to watch the English families, decked like Paschal lambs in Bibles and top-hats, filing every Sabbath morn through the Porto del Popolo to their church
outside the walls of the Scarlet Woman – these will abide until the world’s end. Even at Patras, the unmistakable cluster of Gothic stone crockets beamed suddenly upon us from the end of a narrow street. But our natural pleasure at this homely spectacle was marred by the effrontery of Mr Teeling, who informed us that his leanings to Rome had lately persuaded him to resign his position as lay-reader to a congregation that consisted, he said, of nothing better than a ‘pack of bigots’.

But even more forcibly than the undying spirit of Protestantism, it is the Byron cult that keeps England perennially green in the eyes of the Greeks. The foundations of the national reverence for this most picturesque of nineteenth century liberators were firmly reinforced three years ago by the celebrations of the centenary of Byron’s death at Missolonghi, in 1824. The party of English Philhellenes set sail in March for the Kingdom of Greece, to be greeted five days later by a frock-coated President, who had dispensed with the King by plebiscite the day before. The festivities were, nevertheless, strictly adhered to. A lady in Greek draperies recited ‘Maid of Athens’ between the pillars of the Propylaea, illuminated, owing to the inefficiency of the moon, by the light of two bicycle lamps, and supported by a massed choir. An eminent Greek professor, having missed the first instalment of the state luncheon, complained that Byron was not the only martyr. The representative of the British Government, poet and ambassador, fell into the sea on the way to Missolonghi and was obliged to retire to bed until his trousers were dry. Finally, a special issue of postage stamps depicted the Liberator, enveloped in a toga, exhorting the populace and priesthood of his adopted country to further deeds of valour against the Turk.

Statues and tablets are many. The most noteworthy is the group erected in the Zappeion Gardens, depicting Liberty propping up the dying Byron by the nape of the neck, and proffering it a bunch of asparagus. Another reminder of the warrior-bard is the recurrence of the inscription ‘ΛΟΡΔΟΣΒΥΡΩΝ’ on the rims of the sailor-hats worn by the little boys. I was jokingly informed, in fact, that if a member of the poet’s
family, or even merely a bearer of his name, were to cultivate a certain measure of self-advertisement, he might reasonably hope to aspire to high political office.

It was with this end in view that Howe led me one afternoon to the presence of M. Kokkinopoulos, the Director of Air Services. A young man of twenty-eight, he was, according to Howe, the eyes and ears of General Pangalos, the newly installed military dictator.

‘The time may come when Pangalos will need a puppet king,’ remarked Howe.

M. Kokkinopoulos was to be found during the day at his headquarters at Phaleron, near our bathing-place, which was on the opposite side of the bay to Piraeus. Between the roadway and the water, adjacent to the row of cabins jutting out upon a series of quadrangular piers, was the aerodrome, and opposite it, the Zoological Gardens. As the animals were all starved to death during the Allied blockade of 1916, the gardens are now used as the official residence of the Director of Air Services.

Having argued our way past a sentry clad in a soiled white sweater and a pair of trousers, we arrived at a raised villarette, upon the steps of which were seated M. Kokkinopoulos and a colleague of benign countenance, with whom he was conversing. Howe was contracting to supply the Air Ministry with waders. Myself, rather dishevelled and bearing a vermilion bathing-dress, I was introduced as a candidate for the throne. I said that I had my living to earn. M. Kokkinopoulos, who was educated in Glasgow, and therefore spoke perfect English, replied that he would keep the matter before his mind’s eye.

At this juncture a unit of the Air Force, uniformed in the same manner as the sentry, brought us some lime-juice, which we drank sitting upon a ring of unsafe chairs in the midst of an avenue of preposterous, barrel-trunked palm trees, which ended some hundred yards further in a circular iron cage like a bandstand, forlorn and rusting in the absence of its rightful denizens. When our drinks were finished we stepped across the road to inspect the aerodrome, which did not appear very
extensive, though barracks, in addition to aeroplanes, were in process of construction. Adjoining the Botanical Gardens stood an imposing concrete factory with an outline like a row of saw’s teeth, which had been erected by the English firm of Whitehead’s for the manufacture of aircraft, on the understanding that the Greek Government was prepared to order eighty machines a month. So far the Government had omitted to order any, and M. Kokkinopoulos playfully remarked to Howe that he had no intention of ever doing so; several, however, have since been built. After promising to lend us a pinnace from which we could bathe, we all returned to Athens by bus, arranging to meet later at the Zappeion.

It so happened that evening that David and I found ourselves in particularly high spirits. When we arrived in the dinner garden M. Kokkinopoulos had already finished his meal, but with exquisite courtesy he forsook his own party to join ours. David, embarrassed by an occasional silence, began to chatter like a watermill, employing those assertive extremes of intonation that have resulted from long practice in inflaming the local snobberies of Gloucestershire society. Every dish that we suggested was discovered by the waiter after ten minutes investigation in the
pavilion-de-cuisine
, to have been finished. Food did not arrive and wine did. The staff would pay us no attention. At length, taking the glasses from the table we hurled them to the ground in the hope of attracting the waiters’ attention. Athens turned in its chairs. And M. Kokkinopoulos, who had been slowly enduring the tortures of a vanishing reputation, found this wanton destruction more than he could endure. He was obliged to recollect an engagement calculated to occupy the remainder of his evening. As we said goodnight, I felt discredited. Thus are thrones lost and won.

The nucleus of contemporary Anglicanism in Athens is the Legation, which is said to be the best building in the modern town. It was designed during the reign of King Otho by the architect Cleanthes, the foremost exponent of the Greek
Revival in the country of its origin. A plain, square house of coffee-coloured stone, it possesses an ornate cornice decorated with elaborate ante-fixal tiles. During our stay, the inside was undergoing repairs, so that the charm of the black and white marble hall, with its basin-fountain and double staircase, was somewhat obscured by scaffolding. On the wall of the waiting-room hung a German map of the Boer War campaign, embellished with a photograph of Paul Kruger. A Whitaker’s Almanack for 1922 also occupied a permanent position, and eventually succeeded in imprinting on my memory for ever the incomes of the royal family, during successive waits for Michael.

It must not, however, be thought that these delays were due in any way to the pressing nature of Michael’s diplomatic occupations. Only twice during our stay did a telegram arrive to be decoded. Michael’s work consisted of informing the Chargé d’Affaires that he had found him a rug of the shade that he required, or that a rare bronze altar-candlestick was being sent up to him on approval.

Yet occasionally some such missive as the following would require a moment’s attention:–

Name and address duly noted by Michael.

At the back of the Legation, the door of which fronts on the
pavement, stands the English club and the offices of the various English commercial companies, which are approached by a pair of double gates and a gravelled courtyard. The former is a many-windowed room, from the ceiling of which hang three chandeliers and which has its chairs and sofas upholstered in neat holland covers – like those who sit upon them. No meals, but only drinks are served. In one corner is a piano. The walls are adorned with portraits of King Edward, Queen Alexandra, M. Poincare and two life-size representations in Indian red of King George and Queen Mary. Sponsored by Howe, we became temporary members. The outstanding figure of the moment was Sir Frederick Inskip, chief of the British Police Mission. The dangers of Athenian traffic had lately resulted in such a quantity of casualties that even Fords were now fitted with cow-catchers, fore and aft, and the government had been obliged to send for a force of English police who might teach the authorities how traffic should be regulated. By the time of our arrival, ‘Freddie’s Police’ had become a household word. As there was not one of their regulations that David did not infringe every hundred yards, our drives round the town were not without incident.

Despite occasional differences of political opinion, Greece still looks to England as her fairy godmother, and English people are granted special privileges in the country. It was the English colony in Athens, who, at the end of the last century, invented bridge – a game that was played all over the Levant before it spread simultaneously to England and India. But perhaps more significant than anything of the estimation in which the British are held is the current belief existent throughout the whole of the Near East, that Queen Victoria left a million pounds in her will to the first male human being who should successfully accomplish the feat attributed by Herodotus to the mule of Zopyrus during the siege of Babylon
1
. By such legends does the lustre of the Union Jack maintain its radiance.