The Colossus of Maroussi

  When the train did roll in at midnight I could scarcely believe my eyes. Of course it didn’t pull out until about two in the morning—I didn’t expect it to do any better. I had changed my ticket for a first-class compartment, thinking thereby to gain a little sleep before morning. There was only one man in the compartment with me and he soon began to doze off. I had a whole bench to myself, an upholstered one with white doilies over it. I stretched out full length and closed my eyes. Presently I felt something crawling over my neck. I sat up and brushed off a fat cockroach. As I sat there, gazing stupidly ahead of me, I noticed a file of cockroaches climbing the wall opposite. Then I took a glance at my fellow traveler. To my disgust I saw that they were crawling at a good pace over the lapel of his coat, onto his tie and down inside his vest. I got up and nudged him, pointing to the cockroaches. He made a grimace, brushed them off and with a smile fell back to sleep again. Not me. I was as wide awake as if I had just swallowed a half dozen cups of coffee. I felt itchy all over, I went outside and stood in the corridor. The train was going downhill, not just fast as trains do when they go downhill, but as if the engineer had gone to sleep and left the throttle wide open. I felt anxious. I wondered whether it would be wise to wake my companion up and warn him that something was wrong. Finally I realized that I didn’t know how to express the thought in Greek and I gave up the idea. I clung to the open window with two hands and prayed to Christ and all the little angels that we’d hit the bottom without going off the track. Somewhere before Argos I felt the brakes being applied and realized with a sigh of relief that the engineer was at his post. As we came to a stop I felt a gush of warm, fragrant air. Some urchins in bare feet swarmed around the train with baskets of fruit and soda water. They looked as if they had been routed out of bed—little tots, about eight or ten years of age. I could see nothing but mountains about and overhead the moon scudding through the clouds. The warm air seemed to be coming up from the sea, rising slowly and steadily, like incense. A pile of old ties were going up in flames, casting a weird light on the black mountains yonder.

  At the hotel in Athens I found a note from the American Express saying that the boat had been held up another twenty-four hours. Golfo the maid was overjoyed to see me. My socks and shirts were lying on the bed, all beautifully mended during my absence. After I had taken a bath and a nap I telephoned Katsimbalis and Seferiades to have a last dinner together. Captain Antoniou unfortunately was taking his boat to Saloniki. Ghika was unable to come, but promised to take me to the boat on the morrow. Theodore Stephanides was in Corfu putting his X-ray laboratory in shape. Durrell and Nancy, either they were marooned in the hotel at Tripolis or they were sitting in the amphitheatre at Epidaurus. There was one other person whose presence I missed and that was Spiro of Corfu. I didn’t realize it then, but Spiro was getting ready to die. Only the other day I received a letter from his son telling me that Spiro’s last words were: “New York! New York! I want to find Henry Miller’s house!” Here is how Lillis, his son, put it in his letter: “My poor father died with your name in his mouth which closed forever. The last day, he had lost his logic and pronounced a lot of words in English as: ‘New York! New York! where can I find Mr. Miller’s house?’ He died as poor as he always was. He did not realize his dream to be rich. This year I finish the Commercial School of Corfu but I am unemployed. And this is a result of the miserable war. Who knows when I shall find a job to be able to feed my family. Anyway such is the life and we can do nothing to it…”

  No, Lillis is quite right—we can do nothing to it! And that is why I look back on Greece with such pleasure. The moment I stepped on the American boat which was to take me to New York I felt that I was in another world. I was among the go-getters again, among the restless souls who, not knowing how to live their own life, wish to change the world for everybody. Ghika, who had brought me to the quay, came on board to have a look at the strange American boat which lay at anchor in the port of Piraeus. The bar was open and we had a last drink together. I felt as though I were already back in New York: there was that clean, vacuous, anonymous atmosphere which I know so well and detest with all my heart. Ghika was impressed with the luxurious appearance of the boat; it answered to the picture which he had built up in his mind. Myself, I felt depressed. I was sorry I hadn’t been able to take a Greek boat.

  I was even more depressed when I found that I was to have opposite me at the table a Greek surgeon who had become an American citizen and who had spent some twenty years or so in America. We hit it off badly right from the start. Everything he said I disagreed with; everything he liked I detested. I never met a man in my life whom I more thoroughly despised than this Greek. Finally, about the end of the second day, after he had gotten me aside to finish a discussion which had begun at the dinner table, I told him frankly that despite his age, his experience of life, which was vast, despite his status, despite his knowledge, despite the fact that he was a Greek, I considered him an ignorant fool and that I wanted nothing more to do with him. He was a man approaching seventy, a man who was evidently respected by those who knew him, a man who had been distinguished for bravery on the field of battle and who had been honored for his contribution to medical science; he was also a man who had travelled to every nook and corner of the world. He was somebody and in his declining years he lived in the realization of that fact. My words therefore produced a veritable shock in him. He said he had never been spoken to that way in his life. He was insulted and outraged. I told him I was glad to hear it, it would do him good.

  From that moment on of course we never addressed a word to one another. At meals I looked straight through him, as if he were a transparent object. It was embarrassing for the others, more so because we were both well liked, but I would no more think of conciliating that pest than I would of jumping off the boat. Throughout the voyage the doctor would air his views which everybody would listen to with attention and respect and then I would air mine, taking a perverse delight in demolishing everything he said, yet never answering him directly but talking as if he had already left the table. It’s a wonder we didn’t get dyspepsia before the voyage was out.

  Coming back to America I am happy to say I have never run into a type like that again. Everywhere I go I see Greek faces and often I stop a man in the street and ask him if he isn’t a Greek. It heartens me to have a little chat with a stranger from Sparta or Corinth or Argos. Only the other day, in the lavatory of a big hotel in New York, I struck up a friendly conversation with the attendant who proved to be a Greek from the Peloponnesus. He gave me a long and instructive talk about the construction of the second Parthenon. Lavatories are usually underground and the atmosphere, one would imagine, is scarcely conducive to good talk, but I had a wonderful conversation in this particular hole and I’ve made a mental note to come back at intervals and resume intercourse with my new-found friend. I know a night elevator runner in another hotel who is also interesting to talk to. The fact is, the more humble the employment the more interesting I find the Greek to he.

  The greatest single impression which Greece made upon me is that it is a man-sized world. Now it is true that France also conveys this impression, and yet there is a difference, a difference which is profound. Greece is the home of the gods; they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion: they were created out of the human spirit. In France, as elsewhere in the Western world, this link between the human and the divine is broken. The skepticism and paralysis produced by this schism in the very nature of man provides the clue to the inevitable destruction of our present civilization. If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms. Much has been said about a new order of life destined to arise on this American continent. It should be borne in mind, however, that not even a beginning has been visioned for at least a thousand years to come. The present way of life, which is America’s, is doomed as surely as is that of Europe. No nation on earth can possibly give birth
to a new order of life until a world view is established. We have learned through bitter mistakes that all the peoples of the earth are vitally connected, but we have not made use of that knowledge in an intelligent way. We have seen two world wars and we shall undoubtedly see a third and a fourth, possibly more. There will be no hope of peace until the old order is shattered. The world must become small again as the old Greek world was—small enough to include everybody. Until the very last man is included there will be no real human society. My intelligence tells me that such a condition of life will be a long time in coming, but my intelligence also tells me that nothing short of that will ever satisfy man. Until he has become fully human, until he learns to conduct himself as a member of the earth, he will continue to create gods who will destroy him. The tragedy of Greece lies not in the destruction of a great culture but in the abortion of a great vision. We say erroneously that the Greeks humanized the gods. It is just the contrary. The gods humanized the Greeks. There was a moment when it seemed as if the real significance of life had been grasped, a breathless moment when the destiny of the whole human race was in jeopardy. The moment was lost in the blaze of power which engulfed the intoxicated Greeks. They made mythology of a reality which was too great for their human comprehension. We forget, in our enchantment with the myth, that it is born of reality and is fundamentally no different from any other form of creation, except that it has to do with the very quick of life. We too are creating myths, though we are perhaps not aware of it. But in our myths there is no place for the gods. We are building an abstract, dehumanized world out of the ashes of an illusory materialism. We are proving to ourselves that the universe is empty, a task which is justified by our own empty logic. We are determined to conquer and conquer we shall, but the conquest is death.

  People seem astounded and enthralled when I speak of the effect which this visit to Greece produced upon me. They say they envy me and that they wish they could one day go there themselves. Why don’t they? Because nobody can enjoy the experience he desires until he is ready for it. People seldom mean what they say. Anyone who says he is burning to do something other than he is doing or to be somewhere else than he is is lying to himself. To desire is not merely to wish. To desire is to become that which one essentially is. Some men, reading this, will inevitably realize that there is nothing to do but act out their desires. A line of Maeterlinck’s concerning truth and action altered my whole conception of life. It took me twenty-five years to fully awaken to the meaning of his phrase. Other men are quicker to coordinate vision and action. But the point is that in Greece I finally achieved that coordination. I became deflated, restored to proper human proportions, ready to accept my lot and prepared to give of all that I have received. Standing in Agamemnon’s tomb I went through a veritable re-birth. I don’t mind in the least what people think or say when they read such a statement. I have no desire to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I know now that any influence I may have upon the world will be a result of the example I set and not because of my words. I give this record of my journey not as a contribution to human knowledge, because my knowledge is small and of little account, but as a contribution to human experience. Errors of one sort and another there undoubtedly are in this account but the truth is that something happened to me and that I have given as truthfully as I know how.

  My friend Katsimbalis for whom I have written this book, by way of showing my gratitude to him and his compatriots, will I hope forgive me for having exaggerated his proportions to that of a Colossus. Those who know Amaroussion will realize that there is nothing grandiose about the place. Neither is there anything grandiose about Katsimbalis. Neither, in the ultimate, is there anything grandiose about the entire history of Greece. But there is something colossal about any human figure when that individual becomes truly and thoroughly human. A more human individual than Katsimbalis I have never met. Walking with him through the streets of Amaroussion I had the feeling that I was walking the earth in a totally new way. The earth became more intimate, more alive, more promising. He spoke frequently of the past, it is true, not as something dead and forgotten however, but rather as something which we carry within us, something which fructifies the present and makes the future inviting. He spoke of little things and of great with equal reverence; he was never too busy to pause and dwell on the things which moved him; he had endless time on his hands, which in itself is the mark of a great soul. How can I ever forget that last impression he made upon me when we said farewell at the bus station in the heart of Athens? There are men who are so full, so rich, who give themselves so completely that each time you take leave of them you feel that it is absolutely of no consequence whether the parting is for a day or forever. They come to you brimming over and they fill you to overflowing. They ask nothing of you except that you participate in their superabundant joy of living. They never inquire which side of the fence you are on because the world they inhabit has no fences. They make themselves in-vulnerable by habitually exposing themselves to every danger. They grow more heroic in the measure that they reveal their weaknesses. Certainly in those endless and seemingly fabulous stories which Katsimbalis was in the habit of recounting there must have been a good element of fancy and distortion, yet even if truth was occasionally sacrificed to reality the man behind the story only succeeded thereby in revealing more faithfully and thoroughly his human image. As I turned to go, leaving him sitting there in the bus, his alert, round eye already feasting itself upon other sights, Seferiades who was accompanying me home remarked with deep feeling: “He is a great fellow, Miller, there is no doubt about it: he is something extraordinary…a human phenomenon, I should say.” He said it almost as if he Seferiades were saying farewell and not me. He knew Katsimbalis as well as one man can know another, I should imagine; he was sometimes impatient with him, sometimes irritated beyond words, sometimes downright furious, but even if he were one day to become his bitterest enemy I could not imagine him saying one word to reduce the stature or the splendor of his friend. How wonderful it was to hear him say, knowing that I had just left Katsimbalis—“Did he tell you that story about the coins he found?” or whatever it might be. He asked with the enthusiasm of a music lover who, learning that his friend has just bought a gramophone, wishes to advise him of a record which he knows will bring his friend great joy. Often, when we were all together and Katsimbalis had launched into a long story, I caught that warm smile of recognition on Seferiades’ face—that smile which informs the others that they are about to hear something which has been proved and tested and found good. Or he might say afterwards, taking me by the arm and leading me aside: “Too bad he didn’t give you the whole story tonight; there is a wonderful part which he tells sometimes when he’s in very good spirits—it’s a pity you had to miss it.” It was also taken for granted by everybody, it seemed to me, that Katsimbalis not only had a right to improvise as he went along but that he was expected to do so. He was regarded as a virtuoso, a virtuoso who played only his own compositions and had therefore the right to alter them as he pleased.

  There was another interesting aspect of his remarkable gift, one which again bears analogy to the musician’s talent. During the time I knew him Katsimbalis’ life was relatively quiet and unadventurous. But the most trivial incident, if it happened to Katsimbalis, had a way of blossoming into a great event. It might be nothing more than that he had picked a flower by the roadside on his way home. But when he had done with the story that flower, humble though it might be, would become the most wonderful flower that ever a man had picked. That flower would remain in the memory of the listener as the flower which Katsimbalis had picked; it would become unique, not because there was anything in the least extraordinary about it, but because Katsimbalis had immortalized it by noticing it, because he had put into that flower all that he thought and felt about flowers, which is like saying—a universe.

  I choose this image at random but how appropriate and accurate it is! When I think of Katsimbalis bending ov
er to pick a flower from the bare soil of Attica the whole Greek world, past, present and future, rises before me. I see again the soft, low mounds in which the illustrious dead were hidden away; I see the violet light in which the stiff scrub, the worn rocks, the huge boulders of the dry river beds gleam like mica; I see the miniature islands floating above the surface of the sea, ringed with dazzling white bands I see the eagles swooping out from the dizzy crags of inaccessible mountaintops, their somber shadows slowly staining the bright carpet of earth below; I see the figures of solitary men trailing their flocks over the naked spine of the hills and the fleece of their beasts all golden fuzz as in the days of legend; I see the women gathered at the wells amidst the olive groves, their dress, their manners, their talk no different now than in Biblical times; I see the grand patriarchal figure of the priest, the perfect blend of male and female, his countenance serene, frank, full of peace and dignity; I see the geometrical pattern of nature expounded by the earth itself in a silence which is deafening. The Greek earth opens before me like the Book of Revelation. I never knew that the earth contains so much; I had walked blindfolded, with faltering, hesitant steps; I was proud and arrogant, content to live the false, restricted life of the city man. The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being. I came home to the world, having found the true center and the real meaning of revolution. No warring conflicts between the nations of the earth can disturb this equilibrium. Greece herself may become embroiled, as we ourselves are now becoming embroiled, but I refuse categorically to become anything less than the citizen of the world which I silently declared myself to be when I stood in Agamemnon’s tomb. From that day forth my life was dedicated to the recovery of the divinity of man. Peace to all men, I say, and life more abundant!