The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of IndependenceBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
History
The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Greece -- History -- War of Independence, 1821-1829 -- Fiction
The house stood on one side of the square, but to those outside
showed only a bald face of wall, pierced here and there with a few
iron gratings. As Mitsos waited he saw a woman's face thickly veiled
peering out from one of these, and guessed rightly that here were the
women's quarters. An arched gateway leading into the garden and closed
by a heavy door, which had been opened to Yanni by the porter, and
shut again immediately after he had entered, alone gave access to the
premises. After waiting a few minutes the door was again opened, and a
Turkish servant came out to help him to carry in the luggage. But the
luggage was but light and Mitsos carried it all in himself, while the
porter, leaning on his long stick, and resplendent in his embroidered
waistcoat and red gaiters trimmed with gold, looked at him with
indolent insolence, playing with the silver-chased handle of his long
dagger. Behind the gate stood a small room for the porter, and on the
left, as he entered, the side of the block of building he had seen from
the street. A door was pierced in the middle of it, but the windows,
as outside, were narrowly barred. The path was bordered on each side
by a strip of gay garden-bed, and following the porter's directions he
went straight on and past the corner of the main block, from the end
of which ran out another narrow building right up to the bounding wall
away from the street. In front of this lay a square garden planted with
orange-trees and flowering shrubs, the house itself running from the
square to the bounding wall at the back.
This second block of narrow buildings was two-storied, the upper
story being faced by a balcony which was reached from below by an
outside staircase. Four rooms opened onto this, and, still following
his directions, he knocked at the first of the doors and a young Turk
came out, who, seeing Mitsos with the luggage, reached down a key and
proceeded to open the doors of the next two rooms. These, he said to
Mitsos, were his master's rooms, and the end room was a slip of a place
where he could sleep if his master wished to have him near. So Mitsos,
as Yanni did not appear, unpacked his luggage and waited for him.
Yanni came up presently, accompanied by the porter, and was shown into
his rooms, where Mitsos was busy arranging things. He shut the door
hastily, and, waiting till the steps of the porter had creaked away
down the balcony steps, broke out with an oath.
"The very devil, Mitsos," he said; "but this is no good job we are on.
Here am I, and from within this kennel-place I may not stir. I sleep
and am fed, and for exercise I may walk in that pocket-handkerchief of
a garden and pick a flower to smell, but out of these walls I don't
move."
Mitsos whistled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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