Public-domain ebook
by Demetra Vaka
Language: en512 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #66019.
The opening · free to read
“Do you know what it stands for?”
Before I could think of an adequate reply, he leaned toward me and said earnestly, his fiery black eyes holding mine:
“It stands for the highest civilization the world has ever known. It stands for Greece, who has taught the world. Take it and make your prayers by it.”
I accepted it, and caressed it. Its silky texture pleased my touch. Its heavenly blue colour fascinated my eyes, while the white cross, emblem of my religion as well as of my country, filled my childish heart with a noble thrill.
My grand-uncle bent over nearer to me.
“In your veins flows the blood of a wonderful race; yet you live, as I have lived, under an alien yoke--a yoke Asiatic and uncivilized. The people who rule here to-day in the place of your people are barbarous and cruel, and worship a false god. Remember all this--and hate them! You cannot carry this flag, because you are a girl; but you can bring up your sons to do the work that remains for the Greeks to do.”
He left his chair, and paced up and down the room; then came again and stood beside my bed.
“Sixty-one years ago we rose. For nine consecutive years we fought, and to-day two million Greeks are free--and Athens, with its Acropolis, is protected by this flag. But the greater part of the Greek land is still under the Mussulman yoke, and St Sophia is profaned by the Mohammedan creed. Grow up remembering that all that once was Greece must again belong to Greece; for the Greek civilization cannot and must not die.”
He went away, leaving me with thoughts too vast for a child of five years, too big for a child who was not even strong. Yet even at that age I knew a great deal about the past of Greece, and better yet did I know of the fight of those nine years, which had made the little flag I was caressing again a flag among free nations. I folded and unfolded the miniature flag, which my sons must some day carry forward.
It was the last day of February. Outside a storm was raging. I could hear the angry Sea of Marmora beating violently against the coast, as if it would fain annihilate with its liquid force the solidness of the earth. And the rain, imitating the sea, was beating mightily against the window-panes, while the wind was forcing the tall, stalwart pines, to bend humbly to the earth. Half of the elements were doing violence to the other half--as if they were Greeks destroying the Turks, or Turks oppressing the Greeks.
It was a gloomy birthday, yet an exaltation possessed me. I kept on stroking the little flag. I loved it, and with all the fervour of my five years I vowed to do my duty by it.
The door opened softly, and Kiamelé, my little Turkish attendant, came in. Quickly I tucked away the tiny flag.
“Good morning, Rose Petal.” She kneeled by my bed, and, putting her arms around me, smothered me with kisses. “So we are five years old to-day--pretty old, I declare! We shall be looking for a husband very soon. And now show me what the grand-uncle gave you.”
Her face was droll and piquant. Her eyes possessed infinite capacity for expression. That I loved her better than anyone else at the time was undeniable. And only a few minutes ago I had been told to hate her race.
I entwined my fingers with hers. “Do you love me, Kiamelé?” I asked.
“After Allah, I love none better.”
“I wish you did love me better than Allah,” I said, “for then I could make you a Christian.”
She shook her head drolly; “No, no, I like Allah.”
“But then,” I protested, “if you like Allah, you must hate me.”
“Hate you! You, whom I love better than my heart!”
“You’ve got to; for I am a Greek, and you are a Turk.”
She folded me in her arms. “What a funny baby--and this on your birthday! Now don’t talk foolishness. Show me your presents.”
From under my pillow, where I had tucked it, I produced the little flag.
She gazed at it, her head cocked on one side.
“What’s this?”
“This,” I said with emphasis, “is the flag of my country--and my birthday present.”
“What a funny present,” she murmured. “And is this all the grand old gentleman gave you?”
I was disappointed at her reception of it, and to save my little flag from feeling the mortification I hugged it and kissed it. I wanted very much to explain to Kiamelé all that it stood for, and how my sons some day must carry it forward; but how could I, since to show my allegiance to that flag I must hate her, my bestest of friends? So I said nothing, and on that, my fifth birthday, I began to see that battles did not only exist between people, storms did not only rage among the elements of nature, but that heart and mind could be at such variance as to cause conflicts similar to those taking place outside my window.
Owing to certain circumstances, I was not living with my immediate family, but was under the care of my father’s uncle. He and I lived on one of those islands that rise high above the Sea of Marmora; and our near horizon was the Asiatic coast of Turkey, which stretched itself in the blue waters like a beautiful odalisk. We lived in an old huge house, which belonged to him, and was far away from any other habitation. The sea was in front, the mountains behind, and thick woodland on the other two sides.
From the time I could remember my uncle conversed with me as if I were grown-up, yet I felt that he held me in contempt because I was a girl and could not carry arms. Life contained nothing for him beyond the hope of waging warfare against the Turks.
He had been only a lad in 1821 when the Greeks had risen in desperation to throw off the Mussulman yoke. Enlisting among the first, he had fought during the entire nine years. Subsequently he fought in every one of the uprisings of Crete. When not fighting, he was back in Turkey, in his home, where he thought, studied, and sometimes wrote inflammatory articles for the Greek reviews.
At times he had tremendous physical suffering, mementoes of his many battles. On those days I did not see him. He possessed that noble and rare quality of being ashamed of his bodily ailments. But after my fifth birthday I was present on many days when mental anguish possessed him. On such days he would stride up and down his vast gloomy rooms, talking of the Greek race and of the yoke under which so large a part of it was living.
He would stand by the window and tell me about Crete, pointing, as if the island were visible from where he stood--and I believe that in spite of the distance, he actually saw it, for it was ever present in his mind, and he knew every corner of it.
“There it lies,” he would say, “lapped by the waves of the Mediterranean; but were the mighty sea to pass over it, it could not wash away the noble Cretan blood which drenches it. It is soaked with it, and it will be blood-soaked until the Mussulman yoke has been wrenched from it--or till there is no more Cretan blood to shed.”
Or he would cry out: “Don’t you hear the shrieks of the Cretan women as they leap into the foaming sea, holding fast to their hearts their little ones? Yes! they would rather meet their death in the merciless but clean sea, than fall, living, into the hands of the vile Turkish soldiery. Oh! my God--my Christian God--how can you permit it?”
He would bow his head on his arms and remain motionless, until the feeling which was choking him had passed. Then, in a subdued tone, he would resume:
“Crete! Crete! brave, indomitable Crete--always victorious, yet always handed back to the Turks by Christian Europe. My beautiful Crete, when shalt thou be free?”
It was on such days that he exhorted me to remember the little Greek flag he had given me, and all that it stood for. On other days, when he was calmer, he took me systematically with him through the entire nine years of the Greek revolution, and by him I was carried through all its glorious battles.
He had fought first under the leadership of Marco Bozaris, and he entertained for this heroic chief an admiration amounting to worship.
“We were only a handful, mostly lads, at first,” he would say, with a happy smile on his saddened face. “Yes, we were mostly lads, and Marco himself a little over thirty. But how we did obey him, and how we did fight!”
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