She saw a motor car such as those which she had seen outside in the
streets, but this one climbed up the walls of houses. She saw a funny
short man running away, and a great number of people chasing him,
and he upset a woman carrying a bottle of wine, and the wine was all
spilt; and the woman was very angry, and got up, and followed after
him with the rest; and he upset two men on a ladder who were painting
a house, and all the paint ran over him, and they also chased him;
and he upset a cart laden with eggs, and all the eggs broke, and
the carter also ran after him, brandishing his whip; and he upset
a whole shop front of plates and dishes, and they all broke, too,
and came tumbling all over everyone; and when the people who were
chasing had nearly caught him, the man ran upon some railway lines,
and a railway train ran over him, and made him quite flat, but he
sprang up quite well again; and he came to a bridge, and he jumped
right into the water, and swam across to the other side, and all the
other people jumped in after him, but they could not swim and they
made a great splash in the water, and suddenly all the picture went
out and Mattina did not know what happened afterwards.
But she saw many other things.
She saw a little girl in a lovely frock of lace playing with a big
dog in a garden, and some men came and stole her and hid her in a
dark cellar, and a lady and a gentleman who came into the garden wept
and tore their hair, but the big dog sniffed the ground, and ran and
ran, and sniffed again, and jumped over walls and found the child,
and dragged her by her frock and brought her back to her father and
mother; and the last Mattina saw of them, they were all sitting in
the garden and patting and stroking the big dog.
Then she saw a seashore and rocks, in a place that her uncle told
them was called Spain, which was so like the second little bay on the
Monastery Road that she felt like crying again, but that picture went
out at once; and when she saw a man putting a lighted candle in his
mouth and swallowing it, she forgot to feel sad.
When at last they left the wonderful place, her uncle gave her a ten
"lepta" copper coin, and stopped a street car that was passing. He
told her to be sure to get out when she saw the grocer's shop in
the Piræus Road at the corner of the street where her master lived,
and Mattina climbed into the car with a big sigh.
VII
It was still light when she got down off the car step and turned into
the narrow street, still sniffing at the dry sprig of thyme which
she had kept tightly clasped in her hand all the time.
Out of the gathering dusk, an old woman came running towards her.
"It is you, Mattina! It is you! And they said you would never come
back."
Mattina looked around her anxiously.
"Why did they say that, Kyra Polyxene? Is it so late?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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