BOOK 8
The Dark House
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Before us rolled the boundless waters, but I feared nothing for Minea was with me, Minea who breathed the sea air and was herself again, with moonlight in her eyes. She stood in the bows by the figurehead, leaning forward and drinking in the air as if with her own strength she would draw us more speedily along our course. The sky over us was blue, and the sun shone; the wind was not too boisterous but fresh and steady and blowing from the right quarter-or so the captain said. Having become accustomed to the motion of the vessel, I suffered no sickness, though fear of the unknown assailed my heart when on the second day out the last of the white-winged, circling sea birds forsook the ship. Instead, the dolphin team of the sea god attended us, their smooth backs Bashing as they tumbled in the water. Minea shouted aloud and hailed them in her own tongue, for they brought her greetings from her god.
Nor were we alone on the waters; we sighted a Cretan warship whose hull was hung with copper shields and who dipped her pennant when she saw that ours was not a pirate vessel. Kaptah rose from his bunk when he found himself able to stand and talked to the sailors, boasting of his journeys in many lands. He told of his voyage from Egypt to Smyrna, of a storm that ripped the sail from the mast, and of how he and the captain were the only ones aboard who could eat, while the rest lay about the deck groaning and puking into the wind. He told also of most fearful sea monsters that haunted the Nile delta and would engulf any fishing boat which ventured too far out to sea. The sailors gave him as good again and described certain pillars at the farthest ends of the ocean, which supported the heavens, and of fish- tailed maidens who lay in wait for seafarers and put spells on them to seduce them. They told tales of sea monsters that made the hair rise on Kaptah’s head and sent him running to me with a gray face, to cling to my shoulder cloth.
Minea grew daily more radiant. Her hair floated in the wind, her eyes were like moonlight on the waters, and she was so slender and beautiful to see that my heart melted within me as I beheld her and remembered how soon she would be gone. To return to Smyrna or to Egypt without her seemed an empty thing. Life was like ashes in my mouth at the thought of the time when she would not put her hands in mine or press against my side and when I should behold her no longer.
The captain and his men held her in deep veneration when they heard that she danced before bulls and that the lot had fallen to her to enter the god’s house at the full moon, although she had hitherto been prevented by shipwreck. When I tried to ask them about their god, they made no answer; some said, “We do not know” and others, “We do not understand your tongue, stranger.” I knew only that the Cretan god ruled the sea and that the islands in the sea sent their young men and their maidens to dance before his horned beasts.
The day came when Crete rose like a blue cloud from the ocean and the seamen uttered cries of joy, while the captain made sacrifice to the god of the sea who had sent us fair weather and a following wind. The mountains of Crete and its steep, olive-clad shores rose before my eyes, and I saw a strange land of which I knew nothing, though I was to leave my heart buried there. But Minea saw in it her homeland and wept with joy at the bare hills and the tender green of the earth within the sea’s embrace. Then the sail was lowered; the oarsmen unshipped their oars and rowed the ship alongside the quay, past other craft from every land-both warships and merchantmen-which lay at anchor in the roads. There must have been a thousand vessels, and Kaptah surveying them said he could not have believed there were so many in the world. Here were neither towers nor walls nor any fortifications, and the city adjoined the port; so assured was Crete’s sovereignty of the seas-so powerful its god.
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I shall now speak of Crete and of what I have seen there, but of what I think of the country and its god I shall say nothing; 1 shall seal my heart and let my eyes report. Nowhere in the world, then, have I beheld anything so strange and fair as Crete, though I have journeyed in all known lands. As glistening spume is blown ashore, as bubbles glow in all five colors of the rainbow, as mussel shells are bright with mother of pearl, so was Crete lucent to my eyes. Nowhere are human pleasures so immediate, so capricious, as here. No one acts but by the impulse of the moment, and the minds of the people veer from hour to hour. For this reason it is difficult to extract promises from them or make agreements. They are fair of speech. and of great charm, because they delight in the music of words; death is not acknowledged among them, nor do I believe they have named it. It is concealed, and when a man dies, he is removed in secret that others be not oppressed. I believe they burn the bodies of their dead, though of this I cannot be sure, for throughout my stay I saw not one dead person nor any graves save those of former kings. These had been built of huge stones in some bygone age, and today people go far out of their way to avoid them as if by turning their thoughts away from death they might escape it.
Their art also is strange and wayward. Every painter paints as the fancy takes him, heedless of rules, and he paints only such things as in his own eyes are beautiful. Vases and bowls blaze with rich color; round their sides swim all the strange creatures of the sea. Flowers grow upon them, butterflies hover over them, so that a man accustomed to an art regulated by convention is disturbed when he sees the work and thinks himself in a dream.
Buildings are not imposing like the temples and palaces of other countries, convenience and luxury being the aim rather than outward symmetry. Cretans love air and cleanliness; their lattice windows admit the breeze, and their houses contain many bathrooms where both hot and cold water runs from silver pipes into silver baths at the mere turn of a tap. In the privies, running water sluices out the pans with a rushing sound, and nowhere else have I seen such a refinement of luxury. Nor is it only the rich and eminent who live in this fashion, but all save those about the harbor, where foreigners and dock laborers have their dwellings.
The women spend endless time in washing themselves, in plucking hairs from their bodies, and in tending, beautifying, and painting their faces, so they can never be ready at any stated time but arrive at receptions when it suits their convenience. Strangest of all are their clothes. They wear dresses woven of gold or silver, which cover all their bodies save for the arms and bosom-for they are proud of their lovely breasts. But the wide, pleated skirts are adorned with a thousand embroideries or with the paintings of artists. Also they have dresses put together of numberless pieces of beaten gold in the form of cuttlefish, butterflies, and palm leaves, and their skin gleams through between them. They dress their hair high and with complexity, devoting whole days to the task, and they wear small, light hats that they fasten to the hair with gold pins, so as to seem poised like butterflies. Their bodies are lithe and slim and their loins as narrow as a boy’s so that they have difficulty in bearing children and avoid this as far as they can, thinking it no shame to be childless or to have but one or two.
The men wear ornamented boots to the knee, but their loincloths are’ simple, and they gird themselves tightly, being vain of their slender waists and broad shoulders. They have small, handsome heads and delicate limbs, and like the women they allow no hair upon their bodies. Only a few of them speak foreign tongues, for they prefer their own country to others, which do not offer the same ease and gaiety. Although they derive their wealth from seafaring and commerce, I met those who refused to visit the harbor because of its evil smells and who could not perform the simplest calculation but in all things relied upon their stewards. Able foreigners may, therefore, speedily acquire wealth if they are content to live in the harbor quarter.