Read Online Apartment in Athens by Glenway Wescott - Free Book Online Page A

biliousness, over-indulgence, indigestion.
    â€œPerhaps he found the food in the fatherland so rich and copious that our wretched Athenian meals disgust him,” she said. Her envy and hungriness flashed in her eyes as she said it.
    Furthermore, she wondered, were there not in the tradition and usage of German officers on leave worse excesses than over-eating? Perhaps when the major was not constrained to work, he drank. Presumably in every German city there was a superfluity of young women eager for their conquering heroes such as Kalter to come home, to ensnare and demoralize and exhaust them. Now perhaps this particular conquering hero was disgusted with himself.
    She had in mind a type of German womanhood to be seen occasionally even in Athens, sauntering in and out of the Hotel de Grande Bretagne as if they owned it; young or youngish ones with breathless mouths and flickering eyes, wearing ugly, new, sometimes French-looking dresses, escorted by fond and as a rule elderly military men. And giving Major Kalter her sideways glance, scornful of his ill appearance, she would indulge in that very natural imagination of respectable women, which is, to blame other women. She said that he reminded her of a tomcat in the morning, the worse for wear.
    Helianos did not agree with any of this, and somewhat humorously reproved her. Here Major Kalter had been living under their roof for more than a year, and still she misunderstood him and underestimated him, with her talk of wine, women and song! Fancy her having to be reminded of his German strength of character, his methodical Spartan habit!
    He, Helianos, did not believe that there was a soft spot in this German, or the least vice, or any quarrel with himself about anything. Though all of Germany were a banquet table, a carnival and an orgy, he thought, still Kalter would not indulge. Though the wide world became a German property and playground, Kalter would not play, or relax or rest upon his laurels. “As I understand him,” said Helianos, “he doesn’t know how.”
    In that first week of his return, they saw very little of him and he rarely spoke to them. He put in longer hours at his headquarters than ever, doubtless with arrears of work to make up, and new responsibilities as a major. At the end of the day he seemed tired out, and twice threw himself down on his bed before dinner and took a nap, or at least lay motionless with his eyes shut for an hour.
    On the Wednesday or Thursday after dinner he went out, presumably for his usual game of cards with fellow-officers; but as it appeared next morning it had not distracted him or cheered him up. That night he would not even attempt to eat anything, and went to bed at seven o’clock; but complained the next day of not having been able to sleep. Morose and listless, yawning, breathing hard, more or less sighing, still he would not or could not spare himself. Saturday night he stayed at his headquarters at work until daybreak.
    On Sunday, after dinner, when Helianos came to his room to remove the half-empty dishes, and Mrs. Helianos followed to put away one of his shirts that she had washed and ironed, he looked up at them with so abrupt a movement of his head and shoulders, and cleared his throat so loudly, that they came to attention side by side, facing him. And they saw that his eyes, instead of snapping or blazing at them as usual, were blinking uncertainly, almost anxiously; his thin lips were drawn up as if in a deliberate attempt to make a kindly expression. Whereupon he asked them, “How have things been going for you in my absence?”
    It was a strange, embarrassing experience. They wanted to answer, but he had trained them so long to shrink and apologize, they did not know how, they gaped like children. They tried to make amiable faces to match his, and to look him in the eye, but their glances kept veering aside toward each other, in astonishment.
    Having addressed them in German, now