My friend and I gasped with admiration, but all this failed to touch our hearts. I remember most deeply of all, and with greater gratitude, the fragrance of the two blossoming medlar trees at the entrance to the library. My entire body rejoiced as it inhaled the medlar’s perfume which I so adore, that sweet, peppery aroma more intoxicating than wine, women, or all the world’s splendors.
The following morning we set out before dawn for the summit of Athos. The semantron had yet to sing out in the cloister, the birds had yet to awaken. The sky was milky and absolutely clear, with the morning star shining far off in the east like a six-winged seraph.
Short, bowlegged Father Loukás, a former smuggler, went in the lead to show us the way. From time to time he stopped to chat with us about seas, revels, disputes with the Turks. The whole of his previous existence in the world remained like a fairy tale inside him; it seemed to have taken place on some other wilder and more dangerous planet, one filled with shouts, curses, and women. He told and retold this fairy tale of his, relived it, and felt happy. Though he had renounced every aspect of his former life, he had taken it all with him, wrapped inside his frock.
He halted now beneath a large fir tree, anxious to talk.
“We’ll stop and rest awhile, lads—all right? Let’s exchange a word or two. I’m ready to burst.”
He brought out a tobacco pouch hidden beneath his cincture, rolled a cigarette, and opened the conversation.
“Me, the person you see now with the frock, they used to call me Leonidas—Captain Leonidas of Kálymnos, the terror of the Turks. A smuggler I was, a hellion if there ever was one. Now, just how I came to don the frock, that I’ll tell you some other time. Suffice it to say that the smuggler inside me never croaked. How could he, seeing as I stuff him with food and drink as though he were a bey, no matter if he’s chained inside me like a boat dog. Loukás eats bread and olives in the refectory with the other monks, but when he goes back to his cell and bolts the door, he sets the table for Leonidas and eats meat. As you can see, we’re not one but two. Understand? . . . That’s what I wanted to tell you. Sin confessed: sin redressed. I’ve spoken and I feel better. Now let’s go.”
“Bravo, Captain Loukás!” exclaimed my friend, splitting with laughter. “You’ve done a fine job of managing the unmanageable. But don’t you ever have a suspicion that all this might be the work of the Tempter?”
“Of course, of course,” said the monk, winking his eye cunningly. “I have this suspicion every morning—but by dinnertime I’ve forgotten it.”
“Tie a knot in your handkerchief as a reminder,” I suggested.
He took a deep puff on his cigarette; the smoke came out through his nostrils.
“I don’t have a handkerchief,” he said.
We resumed our climb. Pines, firs, terrifying precipices. The sea, calm today, stretched below in the gentle morning light. As the brightness increased, we were able to make out the divine islands of Imbros, Lemnos and Samothrace in the distance; they seemed to be floating in mid-air, not touching the water.
We reached the snow line. Father Loukás advanced slowly with careful steps. We slid and fell, proceeding with difficulty and danger upon the frozen snow; the mountain was precipitous, cruelly inhuman. Suddenly my friend, who was climbing in front of me, halted, leaned over, and gazed downward into a deep, bottomless chasm. Livid with vertigo, he turned to me and murmured, “Let’s go back.”
“But wouldn’t that be shameful?” I said, looking at him reproachfully. I wanted so very much to reach the summit.
“Yes, yes,” he murmured in humiliation. “Forward!” And he began once more to climb.
The sun was high when we set foot on the summit. We were both panting with fatigue, but our faces were resplendent because we had achieved our goal.
We went to do obeisance in the little chapel dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ. Meanwhile Father Loukás built a fire with the twigs and branches he had collected along the way, then took some coffee from his sack and brewed it. Huddling together behind a large rock because the wind had begun to blow and we were cold, we gazed at the mute, boundless sea in front of us, the islands sailing brilliantly white in it, and far in the distance, the unknown mountains which gave a leaden cast to the air.
“They say you can see Constantinople from this holy peak,” declared Loukás, and he gazed out goggle-eyed toward the east in an effort to discern the royal capital.
“Have you yourself ever seen it, Father Loukás?”
The monk sighed. “No. I was never deemed worthy. It seems that our bodily eyes are not sufficient. Others are needed, the eyes of the soul, and alas! my soul is shortsighted.”
“But you’re able to see God,” I said.
“Eh! eyes aren’t needed for that,” replied the monk. “God is closer to us than our liver and lungs.”
My friend had been despondent and silent. Doubtlessly he could not bring himself to forgive his body for momentarily turning coward. Suddenly he was unable to restrain himself any longer. He held out his hand and squeezed mine energetically.
“Please,” he said, “forget it. I swear I won’t do it again.”
Iosaphaíoi, December 6. We spent today, my name day, in the celebrated painting studio of Iosaphaíoi. There are ten painter-monks. Each week one of them takes over the household chores-sweeps, washes, and cooks—while the others paint. Emerging from this studio to be disseminated to the farthest limits of the Orthodox world are the well-combed well-nourished Christs, the beautiful, richly gowned Virgins, the rosy-cheeked, contented saints lacking all sanctity—decalcomanias, all of them. The monks are simple and personable, hospitable and self-respecting; they love fine food, fine wine, and castrated cats. For hours after dinner we sat together and talked in front of the large fire burning in the hearth, we about this world, they about the divine world above. Father Akákios, a short, rotund monk with swollen feet, had spent the entire day painting Saint Antonius, and now, stroking a fat black cat on his knees, he spoke movingly about the saintly eremite. It seems that a girl came to him one day and said, “I have observed all of God’s commandments; I place all my trust in the Lord. He will open the gates of paradise for me.” Saint Antonius then asked her, “Has poverty become wealth for you?” “No, Abba.” “Nor dishonor honor?” “No, Abba.” “Nor enemies friends?” “No, Abba.” “Well then, my poor girl, go and get to work, because right now you possess nothing.”
As I looked at the simple Akákios, who was perspiring from too much food, the fire’s great warmth, and the memory of the frightening ascetic, I kept thinking what a rosy-cheeked Antonius he must have been painting all day, and I was possessed by a diabolical urge to say to him, Go and get to work, poor fellow, because right now you possess nothing. But I did not speak. A crust of lard, habit, and cowardice envelops the soul; no matter what it craves from the depths of its prison, the lard, habit, and cowardice carry out something entirely different. I did not speak—from cowardice.
That night when we went to bed, I confessed this to my friend.
“You must have refrained out of courtesy, not cowardice,” he said to console me. “Out of pity, because you did not want to sadden such a fine fellow. Perhaps even out of the conviction that your words would have accomplished nothing.”.
“No, no,” I protested. “Even if it’s as you think, we must conquer the minor virtues you talk about—courtesy, pity, expediency. I am less afraid of the major vices than of the minor virtues, because these have lovely faces and deceive us all too easily. For my part, I want to give the worst explanation: I say I did it from cowardice, because I want to shame my soul and keep it from doing the same thing again.”
The next morning, sitting with the ten befrocked artists in the glassed-in veranda of the hermitage amidst the painted rosy-cheeked saints and chubby Virgins, we drank our milk and munched the tasty wheaten rusks and the rich condiments which accompanied them. The winter sun came in with extreme mildness through the large windows, togeth
er with the honey-sweet aroma of pine. We talked and laughed. This was not the Holy Mountain. Christ had been resurrected here; He was laughing along with us. When the monks recounted the miracles performed by the saints, their eyes fluttered from belief (or disbelief) and their faces glowed with a faraway luster.
Father Agápios extended his hand and directed our attention to one of his paintings, which hung on the wall opposite us. He was the youngest of the artists and had a glossy black beard and red lips.
“It is Arsénios the great ascetic,” he said, admiring his work. “And the woman you see kneeling at his feet is a beautiful Roman aristocrat who crossed mountains and seas to come and prostrate herself before him. But look how the ascetic is pointing with his finger to the sea and knitting his brows (I want to show that he is angrily repulsing her). ‘Go away,’ he says, ‘and don’t tell anyone you saw me—because the sea will become a highway and women will start transporting themselves to my solitude.’ ‘Pray for me, Father,’ implores the woman. ‘Woman,’ replies the ascetic, ‘I shall pray God to make me forget you.’”
The painter turned, gave us a sly look, and asked, “What does that mean: ‘I shall pray God to make me forget you’?”
Not knowing what the monk had in mind, we kept still.
“It means that the ascetic was pricked by the woman’s beauty; that explains why he sought God’s help to make him forget her.”
“And did he forget her,” asked my friend, winking at the monk.
“Can such things be forgotten?” he answered, but seeing old Habakkuk looking daggers at him, he regretted his words and bit his thick red lips.
Saint Paul’s Monastery. Marvelous rowboat ride to Saint Paul’s. The sea a thousand colors—pale blue and green, also like mother-of-pearl. Beetling crags of bright bloodlike red; black caves, wild doves, and then all of a sudden level stretches of brilliantly white sand.
Today my friend was in a fine mood; the whole boat shook from his thunderous laughter. I told him to be angry in Chinese, and he began at once, with astonishing readiness, to spout a raging torrent of imaginary Chinese words. I was so pleased that I could scarcely fit in the boat. “Now make love in Arabic,” I said to him, and he began with irrepressible passion to confess his love to an invisible Arab lady. Thus, as though in a flash, we reached the port of Saint Paul’s and commenced the steep, difficult ascent to the monastery.
The doorkeeper was a Cephalonian. A wily old fellow; also a joker. In order to pass the time, he spent his days seated behind the door with a penknife in hand, carving what appeared to be little wooden Christs, saints, and demons. He looked us over carefully.
“What do you want here, morons?” he asked with a laugh.
“We want to do obeisance, old man.”
“Obeisance to what? Are you in your right minds?”
“To the monastery.”
“What monastery? There is no monastery—it’s finished! The world, that’s the monastery. Take my advice and go back to the world!”
We gazed at him with gaping mouths. He really seemed to feel sorry for us.
“I’m only joking,” he said at that point. “Step inside. Welcome.”
We entered and looked at the cells which circled the courtyard. The monk extended his hand. “Behold God’s beehive,” he said sarcastically. “Behold the cells. Once they were inhabited by bees who made honey; now by drones, and what a sting they have! . . . May the Lord protect you,” he added, and burst out laughing.
We did not breathe a word, but we were sick at heart. Had the sacred monastery been emptied of its hallowed contents to such an extent? Had the monks been left only hollow shells to such an extent, the sacred butterfly having flown from inside them!
With weary feet we climbed the stone stairway which led to the hall set aside for the reception of guests. My friend took hold of my arm compassionately. “Be patient,” he said. “Don’t feel bad. As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don’t go into decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.”
He shook me forcefully. “Hold fast, poor Missolonghi!” he said with a laugh.
We entered the hall. The commissioners, five or six large-sized men with hands crossed over their abdomens, were seated around the abbot. He was enthroned in the center, an elegant figure with a curly black beard, feminine face, white hands, and a headdress of black silk. He held out his hand in an extremely dandyish way for us to kiss, then inquired how the world was getting on, and whether we had brought any newspapers.
“What’s happening in England?” asked one of the commissioners. “What’s happening in Germany? Do you think we’ll have a war?”
“God grant we shall,” said another, winking at his neighbor. “I hope the Germans get their faces bashed in.”
At these words a fat seven-footer kicked away his chair and sprang to his feet.
“The Germans will gobble them all up in a single gulp—English, French, and Russians. Cut off my nose if I’m wrong! The German is today’s Messiah. He will save the world!”
“Sit down, Germanós!” said the abbot, placing his white hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.
He turned to us. “Don’t listen to him. His name is Germanos, which explains why he became a Germanophile. The brothers tease him.”
But just as the conversation began to take a calmer turn, the door was kicked open and in flew a bony, gawky beanstalk of a monk with a cracked skull, the blood flowing down his beard and torn frock.
“Holy Abbot,” he cried, “look, the antichrists murdered me because I voted for you the other day in the elections.”
The abbot rose, deathly pale.
“Get out of here!” he cried. “Can’t you see we have visitors!”
But the monk had no intention of leaving. He took off his hat, which was in shreds and dripping with blood.
“I’m going to hang it before the icon of Saint Paul to let him see how far his monastery has fallen.”
The commissioners rose in an agitated state and began to cajole him. He resisted, but little by little they hauled him outside. As for us, we seized our opportunity in the meantime. Slipping between the monks, we made our way out of the hall.
We went down to the cloister, where we paced back and forth in silence. The doorkeeper caught sight of us and understood. Forsaking his little saints and demons, he came over to us bursting with jollity.
“Don’t feel bad, my friends,” he said. “So you saw Father Innocent, did you? I pulverized his head for him, but it’ll heal up again, never fear. It’s not the first time.”
“But do such things happen in the monastery very often?” asked my friend. “In other words, does the devil enter even here?”
“And where else, my boy! No matter, what you do, he’ll get in somehow. Once upon a time there was a monastery with three hundred and sixty-five monks. Each monk had three suits of armor and three horses, one white, one red, and one black. They patrolled the monastery three times every day in order to keep the devil from entering: in the morning on the white horses, in the afternoon on the red, and at night on the black.”
“And did the devil enter?”
The wily monk laughed.
“Are you joking? All the time they were riding around the monastery on their horses, the devil was sitting on the abbot’s throne, inside. It was the abbot.”
“And what about you, Saint Doorkeeper?” asked my friend. “Have you ever seen the devil?”
“But naturally! Of course I’ve seen the devil.”
“And what’s he like?”
“Chubby and beardless, fair and fluffy. Twelve years old.”
He looked at us and winked. “You saw our holy abbot, I presume. How did he strike you? His blessings upon you both!”
Bursting with laughter, he entrenched himself again behind the door.
Five or six monks came now and surro
unded us. In an effort to make us forget Innocent’s smashed head they took us to pay our respects to the saintly relics conserved piously in a silver reliquary—various bones and the gifts of the Magi: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These they had us bend over to smell. So many centuries, they said, and the gifts had not lost their fragrance—it was a great miracle!
When we emerged into the courtyard and remained alone, the doorkeeper nodded to us. We went over to him.
“They smell, eh?” he said to us amidst guffaws. “A great miracle! If you pour cologne over them, they smell like cologne. If you pour patchouli, they smell like patchouli. And if you pour gasoline, they smell like gasoline. It’s a great miracle, I tell you. What did they smell like today?”
“Roses,” said my friend.
“Well, they must have must have poured rosewater over them. You see!”
He doubled over the piece of wood he was carving and nearly died laughing.
“Off with you now, or they’ll see I’m talking with you and I’ll get into hot water. They take me for a madman, I take them for quacks, and the devil, he’ll take every last one of us!”
Dionysíou Monastery. We set off by rowboat early in the morning and proceeded toward Dionysíou.
Father Benedict, our boatman, told us it was the strictest monastery on the Holy Mountain. No matter how merry you felt, you could not laugh; no matter how much wine you drank at this monastery, you could not become drunk. And there was a laurel they had planted in the yard, and if you looked at it carefully, you saw Christ crucified on every leaf.
We had a bishop with us. He was going to Daphne, the port, in order to leave.
“The entire universe, Father Benedict, is a cross with Christ crucified upon it. Not just the laurel leaves, but you and I and the very stones of the ground.”
This was too much for me.
“Begging your pardon, Bishop, I see Christ everywhere resurrected.”
The bishop shook his head.
“You’re in a hurry, in a hurry, my child,” he answered me. “We shall see the risen Christ, but only after we die. This our earthly passage, now and as long as we live, is a crucifixion.”