“That is why”, said Baird, “you spend the intervals in business? You must be a rich man by now, both spiritually and financially.”
The Abbot looked slightly discountenanced. He coughed and examined the sky for a moment. “It is true”, he said in a faraway voice, glancing at Baird out of the corner of his eye, “that I am engaged in rather a profitable business at the moment.”
“It’s causing alarm in London.”
“What?” said the Abbot. “Do they speak of it in London? Is it so widely known?”
Baird could see that in his mind’s eye he was seeing a picture of London — a town slightly bigger than Megara — in which the citizens spent the day sitting on chairs outside their front doors and gossiping; an occasional shepherd passed with his goat, and sold the milk direct from the udder to the customer, milking it into any receptacle that was handy and receiving his payment at once; occasionally a lord in a top-hat passed in a car. “So they speak of me in London?” repeated the Abbot, registering something mid-way between pride and alarm. “What do they say?”
“That guns are necessary for revolutions.”
The Abbot giggled and hid his face in his sleeve. “Are you hungry?” he said, and, without waiting for an answer, clapped his hands twice and shouted: “Calypso.”
A small girl came round the corner of the house with quick lithe steps. “Bring whatever we have to eat. Your godfather is here,” said the old man. She embraced Baird rather selfconsciously and brought them food; some bread, black olives, onions and wine.
“Will you stay long?” asked the Abbot John, obviously working out in his mind the estimated time of arrival for a shipment of smuggled goods.
“I am at Cefalû,” he said, “staying with Axelos. Perhaps I shall stay some time. I am so glad to be back.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say something of Böcklin, to mention his visit to the mountain hideout, but the Abbot had embarked on a new line of thought. “All the world”, he said, “is coming to Cefalû. It seems there is something wonderful about the statues and things we found in the caves. Now here is something I don’t understand.” He paused.
“What?” said Baird.
“Old Axelos,” said the Abbot, “is he right in the head? He wishes me to pretend that I helped him carve some of the things in there. What do you make of that? He has given me a hundred pounds to swear it, and not to tell anyone that we discovered the statues together.” He stamped his foot. “There,” he said. “I’ve done it again. It was supposed to be a secret. First I accept his money and then I tell someone about it.” He struck his forehead twice with the knuckles of a huge gnarled fist. “The cursed garrulity of us monks — it is sinful. May the Creator punish us all.” He made Baird promise that he would not repeat the story. The Abbot relaxed and said: “But, after all, why should I not tell you everything — you are one of my oldest friends? Why should I not tell you also that that peasant woman Katina — he is married to her? I married them myself. Then why does he keep her as a servant in the house and never give her her dues as a wife? No, there’s something wrong with him.”
They walked together up and down the still courtyard. Baird admired the new lamp in the chapel, the pots of basil, and the vegetable patch. The three other monks who shared the old man’s monastic solitude were asleep. “I am very happy,” said the old man. “So very happy. I have never spent my time to better advantage. I see no one. I think of nothing. I pray a little and sleep a lot. As for the guns you mentioned, I will tell you about it so that you can reassure the citizens of London. There is no thought of revolution here. It is business only. I buy them cheap from the Jews in Palestine and sell them at a profit to the Jews of Tripoli. We are happily placed for communications here and recently some of the bravest seamen have come back to their villages. It is not a great profit, but it is a profit — and, of course, it is always a pleasure to make a profit from the Jews. Are you satisfied?”
Baird was glad that the whole subject had come into the open; it enabled him to compliment the Abbot on his honesty, when the old man knew well enough that for ten pounds down any peasant would have furnished the required information. They walked, their arms amiably linked, and Baird found himself once more admiring those eagle’s features from which every trace of earthly grossness seemed to have been purged, listening to that musical-assured voice. The Abbot was a philosopher whose judgment occasionally foundered in his cupidity.
The old man’s daughter came and handed him a bunch of spring anemone and kissed him.
“Come,” said the Abbot. “You must stay tonight at least with us. We have a lot to say to each other. You shall have Niko’s little room.”
Together they mounted the long white staircase of wood to the terrace. Baird could hear snoring from behind a closed door. Brilliant dragon-flies scouted the flowers. The sea shook itself and settled into sleep once more.
The small white cell was spotless. It contained a bed, two vivid oleographs, a table and a chair. The window looked clear out on to the sea. “I will send you a couple of blankets. It must be very primitive after what you are used to, but it is all we have.”
Baird lay down on the bed and said: “Thank God, Abbot, for the Mediterranean basin. Do you still bathe at the point? I should like to try and get brown all over again.”
“After you have slept,” said the old man tenderly, shaking hands with him again and smiling. The little girl came in bearing a pitcher of fresh water and a bowl. “Ah, Calypso,” said Baird, “you are becoming a woman of the house.” She smiled and withdrew again, but not before the Abbot had pulled her pigtails and called her a werewolf-child. “In ten years’ time,” he said proudly, “there won’t be a prettier girl in Crete.”
“By that time”, said Baird, “we shall be fighting the Russians or the Chinese.”
The old man sat upon the chair and threw one leg over the other. He gazed earnestly at Baird for a long time without speaking. “There’s something else as yet,” he said at last, with all his old shrewdness. “That is in your mind to ask me. Something you have come to find out.”
“Yes,” said Baird. “It’s not important.”
“At the heart of the honeycomb lies the sweetness,” said the Abbot oracularly. “What can it be?”
He listened attentively while Baird told him of his dream; of the reappearance of Böcklin in his mind; of the visits to Hogarth. Somehow he found it very simple to express the basis of Hogarth’s teaching to the old man. He nodded all the time. It was surely the first person he had met, thought Baird, to whom Hogarth’s peculiar doctrines were not unfamiliar or downright insane. When he spoke of Hogarth’s suggestion that he should return and dig up Böcklin and lay his body in consecrated ground, the Abbot John slapped his knee heavily and said: “This man is a very wise man. A very wise man. In this way your conscience would clear itself and the dream would lift.”
“But it has lifted anyway,” said Baird excitedly. “In fact, it has lifted by a miracle. For Böcklin is not there — is not anywhere, unless you have moved him.”