The Stepmother

—SWINBURNE.

I

UNDER the olives, on an old knitted shawl that had once been red, little Yannaki lay asleep. He looked hot and flushed. Andriana, bending over him, pushed her hand under the black curls at the back of his neck, to see whether he were at all feverish again. No, the skin was quite moist. The child, however, had been restless all night and fretful all morning.

His elder sister, Marika, aged ten, never knew how to keep him quiet and amused, and their father had sworn at both the children for their noise, and at his wife for not keeping them in order; though he would have done more than swear, if she had occupied herself with them instead of preparing his food.

Andriana had not attempted to excuse the child’s peevishness to her husband. She had long ago learned the uselessness of words. But when he had left the house, and Marika had started for school, instead of sitting down to her loom and letting Yannaki play about the courtyard as usual, she had tied a white kerchief over her head, thrown the old shawl over her shoulder, and lifting the boy in her arms set out with a rapid step toward the narrow beach.

He, an easy weight for his four years, clung round her neck pleased and chattering. As soon as he caught sight of the sea he clamored to be put down.

There on the shore he would willingly have spent all the afternoon running to meet the little waves and throwing pebbles into the water, but Andriana took his hand and led him resolutely on. Though already November, the sun was still hot so early in the afternoon, and she wanted to get to the trees.

Past the rocks she led him, past the little white-walled cemetery with its tall cypress trees, up to the broad Monastery Road that follows the coast, winding up amongst the pines. Then over the bridge, turning to the left off the white highway on to the thymecovered slopes. Past the lemon orchards, where the big dogs barked at them through the aloe hedge, the small hand holding more tightly to the larger one, till they were out of hearing. Then over a low wall right into a field where the olive trees grew gray and twisted out of a carpet of purple and rose anemones.

The child dropped on his knees in their midst, plucking them with both hands as fast as he could and gurgling with delight. Andriana seated herself on the ground, leaning her tired back against the trunk of an olive tree, and reveled in the boy’s enjoyment. He would fill his arms with the purple flowers and fling them all away again for what seemed to him larger or bright er ones a little farther on. Then there were little cries of joy at the rare surprises of the rose-violet double anemones which he carried to her in triumph.

Soon, however, he wearied. The stones lay thickly over the red earth, and the heavier ones had to be pushed out of their places with a great effort for his small arms when he wanted to get the longer-stemmed flowers which curled under them. Yannaki gradually crept close up to Andriana’s knees, and there he soon went off to sleep, his little earth-stained fists, still full of purple flowers, tucked under his chin. Andriana slipped the old red shawl under him and brought one end over his legs. After all, it was November, though a warm day, and the first rains had fallen nearly a month ago.

Few Poriote women would have thought of bringing the child out here. They would have laid him down on a bed in a hot dark room, and then wondered that he did not sleep, or if he did, that he should awake peevish and tired; but Andriana had been nurse in Athens to children of good families, and she remembered how often, after a bad night, her little charges had fallen asleep in their pret ty white carriages, in the cool green shade of the royal gardens.

Here, too, under the olives there could be no angry shouts to awaken the boy trembling and crying, no blows to follow the tears. Andriana winced and her eyes hardened, softening again as they fell on the child beside her. He was not her own; but as she told herself every day, it was just the same as if he were. Nothing could have made him any dearer to her.

II

Very little had been known in the island about Andoni, the widower; and the Poriotes, who have never cared for strangers, looked askance at him and his two children, though he had taken up his abode in Poros for over a year before Andriana married him. He had come there with Yannaki still in swaddling clothes, and only Marika, a thin, red-eyed child of six, as nurse and general helper. Of his first wife he never spoke. She was dead, he had answered shortly, when questioned; had died when the boy was born. It was not even precisely known whence he had come. Piraeus, some said; while others talked of Patras, adding a confused story of some ill-doings there which had necessitated a precipitate departure. But there was nothing definite. He was a joiner by trade, and a clever workman when he chose to work, which was not often.

Why Andriana had married him, and cheerfully accepted the burden of his household and the two small children, no one in the island had quite understood. Even the women round the fountain in the evenings had not given a definite opinion. It was true she had been over thirty at the time, and her age they agreed may have had something to do with her decision. Still she was not entirely dowerless, and might, they thought, have found a husband among the islanders, instead of this stranger. She possessed a few olive trees and a small vineyard, which had been the pride of her father’s heart. He, an honest sea-captain, had died many years ago while Andriana was still quite young. Her mother she could not remember. An elder sister of her father’s had taken Andriana to live with her after his death, as a matter of course. This old aunt of hers lived with a widowed daughter-in-law and her five little children. There were consequently many mouths to fill besides Andriana’s, but these women did not for a moment hesitate about taking the orphan in, nor even think better of themselves for the act. It was an evil stroke of Fate, that was all. Blood counts for something in Greece, and no child, though entirely destitute, will ever be left to public charity if there be even a second cousin to claim kinship with it, who may have a loaf of bread, a handful of olives, and a mattress to share.

When Andriana grew old enough to work, however, as she had a mind to see the world, no one opposed her leaving Poros to take service in Athens. There, being strong, capable, and hard-working, she had prospered, and had even been as far as Constantinople for some time. After twelve years, she had been taken with the longing, so well known to all Poriotes, to revisit the island. There was no one she particularly wished to see, but still they were her own people, and it was her own country; and the sound of a Poriote voice in the Zappion Gardens one day made her suddenly feel very homesick.

So she returned with a fair amount of savings, and was civilly, if not effusively received. She had not changed much in these years of absence, having always been a tall thin woman with a quiet voice, and never having had much freshness of youth or color to lose.

Andoni, the widower, had rented a little house near her aunt’s, and day after day, as she sat on the little wooden balcony with her work, she saw him passing underneath. A fine man she thought him. He had a pale face and a soft brown beard, and being young still, could hardly help looking rather a pathetic figure, with an infant carried awkwardly in unaccustomed arms, and an older child walking beside him. Andriana, who had lived long with gentlefolk, noticed his scrupulous cleanliness, the town cut of his coat, his silky, well-brushed beard, and white hands, and contrasted them with the rough clothes and unshaven cheeks of most of the Poriote men.

One day, while he was absent, she persuaded the girl Marika to run out to play, leaving the babe to her. She looked long at the little child, held it close, put her face against the downyblack head, watched the tiny hand close over her rough work-worn finger, and let it creep surely into her heart, to stay there always.

So when the eldest of her cousins came to her, half-laughing, with the news that this widower, this stranger from no one knew where, had sent messengers to him, as the only male representative of her family, with proposals of marriage for her, she astounded them all by accepting. After all, they were not sorry she was to go to a home of her own; therefore few difficulties were made, and still fewer inquiries as to the man’s antecedents. One old woman only, Kyra Sophoula, who had known Andriana’s father well, told her aunt that Andoni was to be seen over-often at Sotiro’s tavern, and that she had many a time taken in the children after dark till the father should return; ay, and had even kept them all night when he was not in a fit state for the little girl to see him. But her warning was unheeded. What would you, said Kyra Phrosyni, the old aunt; when a man is alone can he be a saint or a hermit ? There would be no reason for all such little excesses when he had a wife at home to look after him. Andriana herself only smiled, stitched away at her wedding-clothes, and kept little Yannaki almost entirely with her.

She married Andoni, and before the kourambiedés that had been baked for the marriage-feast had all been eaten, she knew she had made a mistake.

He was an incorrigible sluggard, to begin with, having been all his life content to earn barely sufficient to keep a loaf on the shelf, a mattress on the floor, and decent clothing on his own back. The personal cleanliness and fastidiousness which had attracted Andriana were, strange to say, almost, his only good qualities. They did not, however, affect his children, for the poor little things were in tatters until their stepmother began to make and mend for them. He worked on an average three days out of the seven. The rest of the time he spent partly in bed, combing his beard or reading the newspaper, and the afternoons at Sotiro’s tavern, slowly imbibing more ouzo than he could well carry, or occupied with other keen politicians of his own sort in setting the government right on all points.

Andriana worked for him and for his children from early dawn till long after the neighbors had put out their lights. No one ever saw him or them with holes in their clothes; nor had they often, except on washing-days, to sit down to uncooked food. At worst, Andoni had always a piece of white touloumi cheese set out on a vine-leaf to eat with his bread, even if she and the little ones had to eat theirs dry.

He never attempted to disguise from his wife that his sole object in marrying her had been to procure some one, who would not require payment, to look after the children. He probably calculated that the income from her small vineyard would also be likely to come in useful when work was slack, or he was more t han usually disinclined for it. Grapes, however, even in Greece, will not ripen year after year if left entirely to nature. When the mildew came, he swore at his bad luck and did nothing. In vain poor Andriana told him that at the agricultural station he could get a certain powder which if regularly sprinkled on the leaves would save the crop. Stamo, the richest landowner of the island, had saved all his vines by using it two seasons ago. Andoni declared he had no mind to try newfangled plans. He would cross over to the mainland day after day, stroll aimlessly around, stand looking down at the sickly leaves riddled with the tiny mildew holes, scowl at them, and come home to swear at his wife and terrify both children nearly into fits; but beyond this he did simply nothing. The little vineyard gave no fruit that year, and in a fit of disgust, he sold it for what it would fetch.

Andriana said nothing. Would words have brought back the vines her father had loved and tended? Besides, she had got so used to his laziness and incompetence. Somehow she thought and felt differently from most of the island women. The moneyearner was not everything for her. She would have condoned the indolence if only he had left her a few of her first illusions. If only she might have heard a kind word from him now and then!

But even when the world went smoothly for him his habitual speech was of the curtest and roughest, and when he was in a bad temper, it was appalling in its brutality and filth. Andriana was a woman of the people, she had from her childhood upward mixed with the lower classes, whose speech is not delicate, but she had never even dreamed of the possible existence of some of the curses this man used freely. She would shudder at first, as though their very violence might call down evil on the house, and would clasp little Yannaki closer to her. Later on she became used to them.

Marika was a silent, stolid child, seemingly cowed into a half-idiotic condition, but experience had taught her when to keep out of her father’s way. She soon learned that food and help came from her stepmother, and went to her for them; otherwise she seemed to lake little interest in anything.

But the joy and comfort of Andriana’s life was the boy. The neighbors noticed with wonder that she was never seen without the little one. When she worked at her loom he lay on a folded red shawl, a relic of Athenian days, at her feet. She took a small pitcher to the fountain, so that, whether full or empty, it could easily be carried on one arm, leaving the other free for Yannaki.

She had to trudge there and home again oftener, in consequence, and her back was very tired at nights; but what of that? When the boy began to walk he was always clinging to her skirts, and if she ever had to leave him his cries for his ‘little mother’ were heard all over the neighborhood.

‘Manitsa, Manitsa, take ’Annaki, take ’Annaki with you, Manitsa.’

She had even taken him to church with her once or twice, but the attempt had not been a success. Once, in fact, in answer to a whisper of Andriana’s, he had scandalized the worshipers by exclaiming at the top of a shrill little voice, ‘Why does the priest talk in church, then, Manitsa?’ So that Pappa Thanassi had begged her not to renew the experiment; with the result that she stayed away herself.

He was a pretty, winning child, with a little round face and soft black curls. But never very strong, t aking colds and fevers easily, and sometimes going into convulsions of terror at his father’s violence. So Andriana was glad the child should have this quiet sleep out there under the olives.

An hour later she was returning along the Monastery Road, the boy held in her arms, wide awake now, and chattering. He had been running along the road, chasing stray kids and gathering sprigs of thyme for ‘Manitsa’s oven,’he said; but where the low stone wall had crumbled away over the cliffs she had picked him up, fearful of a false step.

It was about an hour before sunset, and long shimmering bands of transparent green came slowly stealing over the opaque blue of the bay. The gulls wheeled and circled over the surface of the water with harsh cries and sudden flashes of white wings. A peasant woman in her rough frieze coat, her back bent under a load of thyme, passed her, and wished her good-evening. She was a stranger to Andriana.

‘Are you from these parts?’ the latter asked.

‘No, from Damala, but I brought my child in to Poros two days ago to show her to the doctor, and we return to-morrow. To-night I am bringing some thyme down from the hills for my cousin where we stay, and who keeps the girl while I am away.’

‘Was it fevers?’ inquired Andriana, interested.

‘Yes, for months now. She is as yellow as a Good-Friday candle, poor little maid.’

‘This little one has had fevers also.’ Andriana covered Yannaki’s legs in the shawl as she spoke. ‘But I give him quinine, and he is better.’

‘May the Holy Virgin keep him so.’ And the woman smiled at the little face that gazed at her open-eyed. ‘He is like you,’ she added, wishing to please. And Andriana, proud and happy at the mistake, never set her right.

‘Ah, but you are well off here in the island,’continued the stranger. ‘What life do you think it is for us poor mothers at the village over there? To think no doctor can be found to come like a good Christian and do his work with us, but we must take our poor children in our arms burning with fever, three hours’ walk through the sun-blaze, for the doctor to see them just once. As for quinine, what they sell down at Damala is half flour, and they make us pay as though every grain were of gold.’

‘Have you other children?’

‘One big boy, and a little one who just walks.’

‘May they live for you,’ said Andriana,

‘Thank you. I had another boy, the first, but he quarreled with his father one day and in an evil hour went off with the sponge-divers. Six months after, he returned with his legs paralyzed and useless; you know how it is; and little by little all his body was taken the same way, till only the head and one hand remained free. In a year he died. Just twenty he was, and a fine lad. But I was glad when he died. Yes, glad. Is it a life to lead? If only my Yoryi does not go the same way! His father beats him too much, and he has threatened more than once to run away. And those sponge-captains, the dogs, are always prowling about to tempt the likely lads with their money and their fine promises.’

‘They are bad men,’ Andriana agreed, ‘with no heart for the poor boys whom they cripple, and the mothers who have to see such things. Is your man a hard one then?’

‘Eh,’ sighed the woman, “can you expect a woman’s patience from a man? And mine is not a bad one when things go well. What are they to do, where can they turn for help when times are bad? Have we poor people any ready money to live on? And who can fight against God? When the South wind spoils the olives, or when for our sins cold comes in April and burns up the grapes at their bloom, then our men get wild and curse us and beat the children for nothing. Eh, well, poverty begets hard words. Who does not know that?’

Andriana sighed, but said nothing. Then, after a pause, ‘ I must get home, it is late. Good-night, Kyra, and keep up your courage; your daughter will soon be quite well.’

‘May it go from your lips to God’s ear,’ answered the woman gratefully; ‘good-night to you.’

III

Andoni had been at home some time when Andriana arrived with the child. Work it seems was slack that day, and finding the house empty he had had time and opportunity to work himself into a more than usually bad temper. He said nothing, however, while Andriana busied herself about the room and prepared the supper; only sat out on the little balcony, smoothing his beard with his limp white hand. But after he had finished eating, just as she was carrying the child into the inner room for the night, he burst into a storm of violent abuse. Where had she been gadding about? Honest women kept indoors, and so should she, or he would flay the skin off her if she showed her ugly face across the threshold again.

Andriana looked at him for a moment— at the scowling brow, and the mouthing lips that were too red in a face that was too pale; and then passed into the other room without a word.

He followed her, kicking in the door furiously.

Marika crouched behind the low bed, and Yannaki began to whimper in Andriana’s arms. She bent over him.

‘Hush, my little bird, no one shall hurt you.’

‘Stop talking to the child and answer when I speak,’ cried her husband savagely. ‘Where did you go?’

‘Out with the little one.’

‘But where out?’

‘To the olive grove off the Monastery Road.’

‘Likely story, you went so far. I tell you I will not have my child taken out as an excuse or a shield. You went on some filthy business of your own, and the child comes in convenient.’

‘That is a lie.’

‘Silence!’ Andoni shouted.

‘I will not be silent when I have something to say, and you know it.

The child is often ill, the fever returns every week now. He requires more fresh air and quiet than he can get in the house, and he shall have it.’

‘You make your reckoning without the landlord. The child will be all right if you leave him alone. Fresh air! rubbish! Those are town notions. When he is older he shall come out with me. You will stay in and look after your house a little better, do you hear?’

She looked at him a moment before she answered. ‘I hear, but when it is necessary I shall take him out all the same.’

In two strides he was up to her and was shaking her violently, furious at this unexpected opposition. The terrified child in her arms screamed loudly, and was roughly flung upon the bed by his father.

‘Ah, you will take him out all the same, will you, you filthy slut?’ And as he spoke he struck her repeatedly on the head with his closed fist.

Andriana had been forced on to her knees, and her black hair escaping from the kerchief fell over her face.

‘Yes, I will,’ she repeated wildly; ‘half the times you will not know it, and when you do, you can only beat me when I get back. The child will have been out all the same.’

He let go his hold of her suddenly, so that she fell back across an old chest and lay there looking up at him defiantly.

‘So that is what you will do, is it? Only you see’ — and his voice became dangerously mild — ‘I am afraid so much outing with the child and the care of the house all together may be too tiring for you; so that if I hear you have been out again it will be better I should send the boy to Patras. I have a sister there who will take him in and bring him up. It is a very healthy town, you know, Patras — there are no fevers there. So if you prefer this, why not? It will be less noise in the house too, and one less to feed.’

Andriana rose to her feet shivering. ‘You cannot — you cannot.’

‘And why cannot I, pray? Is not the child mine to do as I will with? As for the neighbors, I have but to say that the child was a new toy at first, but now you have wearied of him. You are only a stepmother after all; they will find it quite natural. Well,’ as she remained gazing at him with wide-open eyes, ‘well,’ and he thrust his pale face close to hers, ‘cannot I do as I like? Cannot I send him anywhere I choose? Is there anything on earth to prevent me ? ’

A wave of terror passed over her face. Her fingers worked at her apron.

‘No,’ she said very slowly, ‘no.’

He laughed. A loud, cackling, discordant, triumphant laugh. ‘Then see that you do as I tell you, or he shall go before you can say “Amen.” ’

In grim silence he took off his clothes, shook them, folded them carefully, and lay down on the bed beside the boy, throwing one arm ostentatiously round him as though to emphasize his proprietorship.

There is no privacy for the poor, even for tears. Andriana lay down on the floor-mattress beside Marika, and stuffed the coarse sheet between her teeth to break the violence of her sobs.

In the middle of the night the little girl touched her shoulder. ‘He is snoring,’ she said, ‘you can cry now, Mana, if you like.’

It was dark; Andriana could not see the child’s face, but she took fast hold of her hand. ‘Sleep, sleep, you are a good girl.’

Toward dawn, she fell asleep herself.

The next day she went about the house in a dazed, listless fashion. Her head ached from the blows she had received, but she would not have minded that, if only all interest had not seemed gone out of her work. What need now, or ever, to hurry to get it done early, since the time so gained could be of no good to the child.

She thought of all she must give up, and her heart turned sick. No more long sunny afternoons under the pines, knitting stockings while the boy rolled over and over in the soft pine-needles beside her; no more strolls along the shore beyond the naval school down to Barba Nicola’s little coffee-house where Yannaki always stopped to stroke the white cat or her new little kittens. No more errands to carry fresh eggs to the red house on the hill where the little ladies would make much of Yannaki, carry him about, feed him with cakes, making Andriana promise never to cut off his curls till he was quite a big boy. No more rides for Yannaki on old Barba Stathi’s donkey when they met master and beast returning laden from the hills. Even in the cold rainy days of late autumn no more runs across to Kyra Sophoula’s little house, with Yannaki so well wrapped up that only his black curls and round black eyes showed above the old red shawl. No more feasts of koulouria and dry figs that Kyra Sophoula always kept for him. No more wonderful boats carved out of vegetable marrows by Metro, the one who afterwards became a schoolmaster. No more long quiet hours of play for the child on the covered terrace while the two women talked or sewed.

All this was over and past. Any disagreeable consequences to herself, Andriana would have quietly put aside, but Andoni had been clever enough to use the one threat which most effectually prevented her from stirring out of the house with the child, except as far as the fountain for water. Even when oil or flour was needed she would send Marika for it after school hours.

IV

Andoni took to returning to the house at unexpected moments, between an odd job and a long rest at Sotiro’s, or even between two rests, to make sure his orders were obeyed. But he never found her absent with the child. He had frightened her too badly.

The days went by, and the weeks. Andriana worked harder than ever, and talked less. The house they lived in was situated in one of the narrowest of the little steep streets of the island, far from the sea. Its courtyard was surrounded by bare walls, and under the windows the refuse-heaps of the neighbors rotted quietly in the sun. The child, deprived of the pine breezes and the sea air, wasted and got; visibly thinner week by week. Andriana broke through her usual silence to call his father’s attention to his condition fiercely once or twice, but he only laughed or turned on her with a curse, according to the humor of the moment. Paternity had been simply an accident, of nature with him, and in this country where the tie of blood is so powerful even to the third and fourth degree, he only seemed relieved when the child grew less and less noisy.

One evening Andriana appeared alone at the fountain.

‘And the little one?’ asked Kyra Sophoula, ‘how fares he?’

‘Ah, Kyra Sophoula! all day and yesterday too he had fever, even in the early morning. Quinine seems to do him no good any more. There is also a sore on his little leg, that runs. I have tried pounded rice with honey, and even a plaster of cow-dung, but it will not heal.’

‘Have you shown it to the doctor?’

‘His father will not let me bring the doctor. On my knees I have begged him, and he will not. I cannot understand it. I cannot. Is not the child his own blood after all ? Does not his heart ache for him? Help me, Kyra Sophoula; you are a wise woman and you know men well. Tell me what I can do to rouse his interest.’

‘How can you rouse what never existed, my poor one? It is as though you went to an empty bed and strove to awaken the sleeper who was not there.'

Nevertheless the next morning, when the child awoke hot and heavyeyed, and pushed away his food with fretful cries, Andriana made another attempt.

‘Andoni,’ she said, as her husband was combing out his beard before leaving the house, ‘I must fetch the doctor for the boy to-day; it is necessary.’

‘Go to the devil with your doctors!’ shouted Andoni furiously; ‘how many times must I repeat a thing before your thick head will take it in. When I say no, it is finished. You would have a strange man in the house to talk sweet words with, that is what you want.’

‘That is evil talk,’ said Andriana quietly; ‘let me speak. You would not have the doctor for Marika last summer, and the girl was very long getting well; now I wish him to come for the little one. He has fever every day, and I showed you yesterday the wound in his leg how it runs.’

He turned on her with a curse. ‘I am the master here, and once for all no doctor shall put his foot in my house. If you bring one here with his newfangled notions, and his medicines that cost good money, I will smash his face for him, and you may know it. The child ails nothing. Some one has cast the evil eye on him, and the small sore has become a large one. Get some old woman to make an ointment for it, or a cataplasm of healing leaves. Women are all fools, and a torture sent to us for our sins; but for a small matter like this, an old woman’s medicine is all that is needed. When you go to the fountain bring Kyra Marina back with you to see the child. She knows many cures.’

‘I shall not go to the fountain today, and if I did twenty times over, I would not bring that old shrew near the child. She is a wicked woman.’

‘Wicked, is she?’ Andoni tipped up the earthen pitcher leisurely, and took a long drink of water, wiping the drops carefully off his beard afterwards. ‘Wicked, eh? You are such a saint, of course you cannot condescend to her. Well, I go. If you will not hear reason, look after the child yourself. And should he get worse the sin will be yours, not mine. But a doctor in my house — to play the master — to say, “This you must do, and this you may not do,” — never.’

Andriana bit her lower lip. ‘I have a few lepta left from my spinning, you will have no medicine to pay for.’

‘That is enough words. I have said no, and I mean no. It is finished.’

Then as she kept silence, he asked, furiously swinging the door in his hand, ‘Do you hear?’

‘I hear.’

‘Then mind you remember’; and he banged the door loudly behind him.

The child, startled out of a fitful sleep, cried pitifully from the inner room. Andriana was beside him in a moment, patting and soothing him.

‘Sleep, my golden one. Sleep, my little bird. To-morrow you will get up well and go out to play. Sleep, my little heart.’

Then she tore up one of the few remaining linen handkerchiefs, which had been given to her as a New Year’s gift in Athens, to make a fresh bandage for the sore leg.

‘Nevertheless,’ she whispered as she drew the old red shawl over the child, ‘the doctor shall see him.’

But that evening and the next day, and the next after that, he seemed better, and she waited. The third night, however, the child could not rest. Andoni twisted and turned on his bed, cursing his wife, and threatening to get up and throw the pitcher of water over both of them if she could not succeed in stopping the child’s cries. At last she lifted the boy up, wrapped him in the old shawl and carried him into the dark outer room, where she walked up and down holding him close to her and trying to soothe him. Once she threw the wrap aside, for the sore leg was so hot that she felt the heat on her bare arms through the thickness of the wool. But soon came the little fretful wail, —

‘Oh, Manitsa, the shawl, I want my red shawl, Manitsa.’

And she picked it up again. Indeed it seemed to be only the leg that burned, for the boy shivered continually.

Once he said, ‘When Babba wakes up, will he take my red shawl?’

And she answered under her breath, ‘No, my little bird, he shall not.’

He held one of the folds close to him in a thin hot little hand, and closed his eyes, reassured; but more than once when the grasp relaxed he would fancy he had lost it and cry out in fear, ‘ My shawl, Manitsa, my red shawl.’

‘It is here, my little golden heart, my soul, it is here. See, I fold it round warmly — so. Now sleep, sleep that you may awake well to-morrow. Sleep, my little bird. Lie still and sleep.’

He slept at last, a heavy sleep, but when the morning came and he awoke he did not know Andriana, and his moans were such that Andoni made haste to leave the house to be out of hearing.

Andriana left the child for a few moments to the care of Marika, and ran, half-distracted, to her old Aunt Phrosyni’s house at the end of the street.

It had rained in the night, and the fresh sweet odor of damp earth was in the air, but Andriana only knew that the stones were wet and slippery, and that she could not run as fast as she wished up the steep incline.

The house, blue-washed and greenshuttered, stood at the top of the slope near the church, and a fat old woman at the window was watering pink carnations planted in a battered old petroleum tin.

Andriana caught her hand and the water from the pitcher spattered all over her.

‘Aunt,’ she cried, without stopping to wipe her face, ‘save me! the child, Yannaki, awoke worse just now, all his little body is one fire, and he talks wild words. Come with me quickly, now, and bring some money with you, aunt, for all I had is taken, and may you live to enjoy your own children. Bring some, and then you can stay with the child while I run for the doctor and for medicines; my man can do what he likes to me afterwards.’

The old woman came out into the street at once.

‘I will come, my daughter, yes; but what else can I do for you? If a few lepta remain they must be kept to pay for the digging of the vine, or else what will happen to us when the vintage comes?’

Andriana had already turned to retrace her steps, muttering, ‘Then the doctor must come for the good of his soul.’

Her aunt followed as fast as her bulk would allow, talking as she went.

‘What help will the doctor be, my poor one? Do you think they know so much, these doctors? And this one here, such a boy, his moustache has scarce darkened his lip. My daughter-in-law would bring him last winter for the girl Anneza, who was thin and coughed all night. We told him the evil eye had been cast on the child as we all knew, for ever since the strange lady who came in the steamer from Piraeus admired her lovely color, she had never seen a good day. But he, the doctor, laughed out loud, the young fool, and told her mother it was more likely the maid had taken cold the day she brought down the branches from the hills when the north wind blew so hard. The eve of St. John’s it was, I remember, as the wood was wanted to bake the kourambiedés for Yanni’s nameday. As though the doctor with all his learning could know more about the girl than her own mother. Bah! what can the doctor do for you?’

Two hours later, when the young doctor stood in the crowded room bending over the moaning little figure and looking at the purple swollen limb, he repeated the same words.

‘What can I do for you, my poor woman? Three, even two days ago, perhaps I might have done something, but now —’ Then to Kyra Sophoula and the old aunt he added, ‘It will be over soon; the child has death in his throat already. Keep the room empty if you can, and give him air. He will die easier so.’

But none of the neighbors would move. To Kyra Sophoula’s entreaties they returned indignant answers. Had they the heart to leave poor Andriana alone in her trouble? Or did Kyra Sophoula imagine she was the only one who knew about sickness? After all, were doctors gods, to be never wrong? This neighbor knew of a remedy which had worked miracles, and the other of an ointment that had saved her own brother when he had been in a far worse state than the child.

So they stayed and filled the small white plastered room, and blocked up the narrow windows and whispered and went in and out, fetching this or that, and pounded strange-smelling substances and concocted various plasters and ointments, and as a last resource burned incense before the icon of the Holy Virgin.

Andriana let them try everything, but toward sunset they lost hope.

Andoni, when he appeared, grumbled at a pack of women filling his house, declared the child was no worse than it had been all these days, and when night came swore at his wife for not carrying his mattress away from the inner room down to the lower floor where he kept his lathe, and some old tools, and where the ceaseless moan of the sick child could not reach him.

However, toward dawn he was able to sleep undisturbed. The moaning had ceased.

V

The next day, after Kyra Sophoula and Kyra Phrosyni had done all that was needful, the neighbors returned in even greater numbers than before. No one ever willingly missed a funeral in Poros.

The windows of the room were darkened by squares of thin black cloth pinned across them, and a loose piece of the same material covered the only existing sofa. The little white coffin rested open on two straw chairs. Three yellow candles, in tall iron candlesticks brought from the church, stood, two at the head and one at the foot, the flame alternately flaring and flickering and throwing dark shadows over the little white face with the sunken eyes. A slender wreath of lemon blossom was twisted in the black curls, and the tiny hands were crossed and tied together with a white ribbon. Sprigs of sweet basil and a few carnations were strewn all over the-coffin; also sugared almonds such as are used for weddings, in token that the boy was now a little bridegroom of the Church.

Andoni, not daring in common decency to absent himself, stood awkwardly at one side of the coffin, unconsciously smoothing and stroking his beard.

As for Andriana, her first stunned stupor had after many hours given way to the violent grief of the poor, which is scarcely ever silent or speechless, and yet is none the less sincere for the outpouring of words that would never come at a calmer moment.

She knelt at the other side of the coffin, her arms stretched over it, and her face sometimes hidden between them and sometimes thrown back. It was entirely disfigured by long weeping, and almost unrecognizable. The features were swollen and the lips leadcolored and trembling. The long moaning sobs seemed to be wrenched from the depths of her chest, and the flood of words rushed forth, now in loud screams, and now in confused mutterings.

‘Oh, my child! my little, little child! Was it for t his I took you into my heart and loved you? Oh, my God! my God! why did this evil find me? My child, my child, if I could only die also! Oh, my life, my little heart, my soul’s comfort! I want to lie with you to keep you warm there where they will put you. There is no life for me now. I have done with the world.’

Here the uncontrollable sobs threatened to choke her, and the woman who sat nearest rose and brought her a glass of water. But Andriana pushed it aside and burst forth again, swaying backwards and forwards, one hand clasping her throat.

‘He suffered so yesterday, my little bird. All day he suffered and did not know me. One whole day have I lost — one whole day. Oh, that day! I must have that day. Ah, God owes me that day — one day more —just one — and I will let him go. If God is just, he must give me that day. He must’ — in a voice rising hysterically higher and higher — ‘ He must — He must! or else’ — with a wild scream — ‘or else He is not a God, He is a Devil — yes, a Devil!’

A low murmur of shocked horror arose, and Pappa Thanassi, the priest, came forward in grave remonstrance.

‘Hush, you are a good Christian, do not blaspheme.’

But she never looked at him, nor answered, only threw her arms once more across the little coffin, making it tremble under her weight. And again the long moans rose and fell, the moans that carry irreparable, agonizing loss in their sound, which no other pain of mind or body ever brings forth. And between them the ceaseless refrain, —

‘My child! Oh, my little, little child!’

There was a stir amongst those standing nearest the door, and Kyra Sophoula stooped to whisper to Andriana that the little ladies from the red house on the hill had come with their governess to see her and the child, the little ladies who had been so fond of the boy.

The words reached her brain and she rose to greet them, with the innate courtesy of the Greek peasant.

When they spoke to her in hushed tones, awed at the signs of the unfamiliar grief on the familiar face, her sobs broke forth again, but not so wildly.

“Yes, you loved him, my little Yannaki, my little boy. And all his pretty curls — see — do you remember you told me when I brought him to your house to be sure not to cut them off, he looked so pretty with them — and I did not. But now’ — her voice broke,

— ‘now the earth will be scattered over them! Oh, how can I leave him alone in the dark; such a little one as he is? Where shall I find him when my heart cries for him?’

Here, her old aunt came bustling up.

It was bad for the little ladies, she said, to see such sights and to hear such grief; it was not fit for their years. So she hurried them out after they had placed the few roses they had brought over the little crossed hands.

When the moment came for the tiny coffin to be taken away, one mercy was granted to Andriana. She lost consciousness. So while the crowd of mourners filed out after Pappa Thanassi in his robes, a few of the older women stayed behind with her, dabbing her face and hands with vinegar while she went from one long faint into another.

VI

It was more than a month after the little funeral procession had gone along the Narrow Beach to the white-walled cemetery by the sea, that Kyra Phrosyni came one day toward dusk to visit Andriana.

It was chilly, and she found her crouching over the manghali, having just ended a long day’s washing. Marika was playing outside with other children. Andoni was out as usual. The only difference the boy’s death seemed to have made to him was that he kept away from the house, if possible, more than before. He could not stand Andriana’s face, he said.

Besides, who ever heard of such a fuss made, and the child not even her own!

Kyra Phrosyni, seated on a low stool in front of the manghali, eyed her niece critically, while the latter cowered down, holding her hands over the lighted coals. Her cotton skirt was wet in patches where she had leaned against the wooden washing-trough, her fingers were wrinkled from the long hours in the hot water, and her hair escaping from the black kerchief fell about her face.

‘You have been washing from the morning?’

‘From dawn, yes, there were many clothes.’

‘I am too old and too fat to do much washing now; Calliope and Anneza do it all. But when I did, these long days at the washing-trough used to kill me. Does not your waist feel broken in two ? ’

‘Broken or not, the work must be done.’

‘And the girl? Does she not help?’

‘She is too small.’

‘Or too lazy, perhaps, being her father’s child? Eh, but she is like him, as like as one rook to another.’

‘Her face is like him; that is not her fault. She is a good child, and a quiet one.’

‘And where may Andoni be?’

‘Do I know?’ with an uplifting of the bowed shoulders.

‘He never tells you?’

‘Neither do I ask him, neither does he tell me.’

‘You should try to find out. Because it is not good for a man to feel too free: not to be a little afraid of his wife’s tongue. I am not for loud words — Holy Virgin, no! “Better a cabbage in peace than sugar with strife,” as the saying is; but if you swallow everything and never open your lips, he will go to the bad entirely.’

‘Let him go.’

‘These are not wise words, my daughter, and the hour will come when you will repent them; your man needs looking after. Pericli, the fruit-seller —you know Pericli? Calliope’s cousin? ’

‘I know him.’

‘Well, he told me yesterday, and he counts his words, does Pericli, that he saw Andoni not two days ago, standing, after dusk, inside the dark arch down near the market-place, with Olympia, that tall girl of Barbar Manoli’s, the one with the yellow hair, and he was holding her hand, Pericli said, and talking sweet words to her! and Pericli heard that it was not the first time either.’

‘I am sorry for her.’

Kyra Phrosyni got up in offended dignity. This was not the way she had expected her news to be received.

‘Come to your senses, my daughter,’ she said at last; ‘what will it profit you to go your own way in silence and let your man spend all his money out of his house, and on strange women ? Now that he earns more, you should try to control him a little and make him put some aside.’

‘Who says he earns more?’

‘Why every one, of course. Have you just awaked, my poor one? It is days now that he has paid all his old wine score at Sotiro’s, and treats every one who sits with him. Why, on Sunday he had a whole lot of men drinking to his health. They told me he gave Sotiro ten drachmas to pay for three okes of retsinato when he got up to go, and told him to keep the change; it was too much trouble, he said, to wait for it.’

Andriana’s eyes changed. ‘I know nothing of all this, aunt. There has been no money in the house, and we owe for oil and flour since last month.’

‘These are strange doings, then, very strange, and if I were you I would make haste to find out what they mean.’

‘Yes,’ said Andriana slowly, ‘I will.’

VII

It was three days later, in the early dawn after a stormy night. The rain had ceased, but a damp chilly air came through the chinks of the shutters. The room in the dim light had a bare empty look; its few pieces of furniture had been pushed back against the wall. The boards had been freshly scrubbed, and on a shelf near the table was an untouched loaf and a small covered pan.

An old painted wooden chest near the door had been pulled out of its place and the lid thrown back.

Andoni sat on the edge of a high stool, fully dressed, but pale and disheveled, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands and his fingers clutching nervously at his beard. He stared at Andriana with bloodshot, furious eyes. She stood opposite to him, with her back to the wall, dressed in a dark woolen dress, a black kerchief tied over her hair, holding in clenched hands the old shawl which had once been red.

‘Suppose,’ said her husband, speaking suddenly, ‘that I were just to kill you where you stand, to strangle you with my two hands and have done once for all with your “I will,” and “I will not.” Have you thought of that in all your plans?’

‘No,’ said Andriana quietly, ‘you would be found out, and that would be worse than the other thing.’

‘There is no other,’ he blustered.

‘There is. I have searched, and I have found. I know now why you were obliged to leave Patras secretly in the night. And if only that were all! But I know also where the money came from that you have been spending lately — now, these last weeks. I know all. And what I know, others can learn — even the prefect of the police — if I like.’

His face grew almost gray.

‘A bad year to you!’ he screamed savagely; ‘and who will listen to your tales, do you think?’

Then as she stood silent, he swallowed once or twice and lowered his voice. ‘Come, now, you are not a stupid woman, come to your senses. What will it profit you to go away but to be badly spoken of? Come, leave all this folly, and stay quietly in your own house.’

She shook her head. ‘I have stayed four years,’ she said. ‘I have risen early, and slept late; nor have I wasted your money or aught. I have worn cotton in winter, and I have fed scantily. I have worked, as I never did for strangers — worked as a mule at the well.’

‘And now?’ he sneered.

‘Now, I cannot do it any more. I have borne much, for you, and from you. Poverty, that you might have prevented, hard words, neglect, curses, even blows. But shame! no! no, that I will not bear. Put it out of your mind that I ever will. If my father lived, he would take me from you. So I will not sleep another night in your house.’

‘ You will not?’ shouted Andoni in a frenzy of rage.

‘I will not. I have borne everything. A bad heart I knew you had; now that I find you are not even an honest man, that you can steal from a widow and an orphan, that is all over. I am glad, yes, glad, that the little one is gone, that he should not grow up to know his father.’

There was a pause. The man looked at her open-mouthed, his arms hanging down limply beside him. Then in a quieter voice she continued, —

‘I have left the house clean and in order, and food cooked for to-day. There is nothing owing but the flour for the last baking, and three okes of oil. You will find some one to look after you. For me, I shall go — as far away as I can — perhaps to Constantinople, or to Alexandria. I shall tell no lies, but I am strong, I can always find work enough to keep myself and the girl.’

Andoni started forward. ‘The girl!’ he gasped, ‘ the girl! you are mad, is she yours ? ’

‘No, she is not mine, but I must take her. Her mother will thank me if she knows. You will not care. What would you do with her? She is too small to work for you, and would be only a trouble.’

‘Where is the girl?’ he asked suddenly; ‘where have you hidden her?’

‘Nowhere; she slept at Kyra Sophoula’s last night. I told her to wait for me there.’

‘You told her!’ He strode up and seized her shoulder. ‘Are you the master?’ he asked savagely; but his teeth chattered as he spoke.

She wrenched herself free with a sudden movement. ‘Let me be,’ she said; ‘let me be, now and always, and no harm shall come to you, from me at least. But try to keep me or the girl by force, and I go straight to the prefect . I swear it on the soul of the little one.’

He pushed his open palm toward her with the fingers wide apart, than which there is no greater sign of contempt.

‘Nah!’ he said, ‘nah! take the girl and go to the Devil if you like. I shall be well rid of you. After all, if ever I want the girl I can send for her.’

‘You need not, she will not come.’

Before he could gather together his bewildered wits to answer her, she crossed over to the door and drew the bolt.

She paused a moment, and looked back into the dark room.

Then, with the old shawl that had once been red hanging over her arm, she passed out, closing the door behind her.

Andoni never saw her again.