When Lewis woke the next morning, the steamer was leaving the Dardanelles. It was hot. The sky had become vertical; seagulls were floating on the waves as though on treetops in a waving forest, beneath a sun unthreatened by any cloud. To the left Kum Kale protected by Turkish batteries, Troy with its lizards and the coast of Asia; to the right Sedd-el-Bahr so rich in human remains. Above the surface rose the masts and funnels of sunken British troopships; a French cruiser was just finally breaking up. Vegetation had suddenly disappeared, destroyed by the extreme heat. There was nothing to keep the sky and the earth apart. The clean line of the coast and the sea like woven metal lost themselves in the distance. It was a fitting approach to the world of heroes and of gods who make love in the hollows of the sycamores. Lewis went below and entered Irene's cabin. "Come up quickly," he said. "Here is the Mediterranean, your mother sea." When they reached the bridge Mytilene was already in view, scooped out in the middle like a woman lying on her side. [Footnote 1: The author does not hold himself responsible for the opinions held by his characters.] III CLINGING to a rocky prominence, warm and brown as bread-crust, seamed with long scars, and without an ounce of vegetable earth, lay the only village on the island. A flight of cobbled steps led down to the little harbour adorned by a few periwinkle-coloured boats and six empty barrels. Houses made of unbaked bricks, cracked by the midday sun, a few palms, laurels and cactus white with dust, all shimmering like glaciers. Above these was the Apostolatos house, its embrasures edged with blue, entirely built of marble inside and as cool as a glass of water. Its first owners had fled in 1818 (the women with gold coins hidden in their hair) to start trading at Odessa and later at Trieste, whilst a cadet branch established itself at Bombay. The house had subsequently been restored by Irene's two old aunts, who had lived there nearly all their lives in the greatest affection; one day they left it after a bitter and relentless quarrel; one, Hera, was a Venizelist, the other, Calliope, a Constantinian. Irene had played as a child in this drawing-room furnished with Second Empire buhl; in the room in which Lewis was sleeping her mother had died.