Read Online Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell - Free Book Online Page A

notes on the back of the menu, which must be incorporated in the book. There is some fresh squid, smoking hot with green vegetables, and some Spartila wine to whet the appetites of our imaginations; and to round it all off, the three puppet-players drop in to the tavern for a glass of wine. The leader is a sharp-featured young man, whose sallow boredom of expression conceals his gifts of mimicry and satire; his helpers are both small and podgy and nondescript of feature. All three are clad in cheap suits and felt hats. Invited to a glass of wine they sit awkwardly among so many “foreigners” and answer questions with pleasure; I think they distrust our interest in the shadow play; there is the faint Greek suspicion at the back of their minds that they are the victims of a misplaced politeness; also why the bearded professorial gentleman should be writing details about Karaghiosis on the back of a menu is rather a mystery. But Theodore’s charming mildness and the convivial bacchic warmth of Zarian soon thaws their shyness. Also the blind fiddler’s son has begun his acrid tunes on the violin, standing by the chair of his father—and under cover of the music and the clink of glasses confidences are easier. They come from Patras. Every year in the autumn they play up as far as Preveza, and then come across the straits to tour Corcyra, Cephalonia,and Zante. One of them has a couple of the Karaghiosis chap-books in his pocket, and, turning from the garish cover (which shows the hero engaged in ferocious argument with the Vizier) I happen upon a list of some hundred titles of plays which deal with the adventures of this latest addition to the Greek Pantheon. “Karaghiosis the Architect,” “Karaghiosis the Martyr of Virtue,” “Karaghiosis the Archaeologist,” “Karaghiosis in Love,” “Karaghiosis the Financier.”
    Meanwhile Theodore has compiled his list of characters with the help of the saturnine young man, while Zarian is well and truly launched upon an anecdote about his early life in Armenia, his mane of silver hair flying and his expressive voice rolling. The copper cauldrons are smoking, while the scavenging cats are feasting piteously all round our feet, and the wooden sign of the “Partridge” is swinging in a light breeze—a good augury for the night journey home. Calm, upon the dark calmness of the night outside, the tangoid music of the guitar and the fiddle grazes and moves; banal but wonderfully moving, the words are taken up by the diners, until even the cook beats with a ladle on a cooking-pot to mark the time.
    The three players take their leave with warmth, promising us to play us any piece of our choice the following day, and Zarian shakes hands warmly with each while continuing his fauldess recitation of adventures in French to Nimiec, whose energies are divided between laughing and feeding a tabby cat under the table.
    It is after midnight when we separate, N. guarding the precious menu upon which the fruits of Theodore’s scholarship are written in his flawless minuscule handwriting. The port is dark, and alive with the lick and slap of dark water; there is a spark of light off Stiletto; wind southwesterly upon a clean tranquil darkness. The little boat rides clear in her white awnings; turns to Albania her sharp cheeks, and slides clear of the fort. And so home to the white house, tired and happy, and with a sense of many blessings.
    “Karaghiosis,” writes Theodore, “and the shadow play which created him, are both ancient. The tradition of the hero in drama is medieval. His adventures rival those of Tyll Owlglasse in the German—and his place in the popular imagination is one which one could compare with the Elizabethan Tarleton. The disturber of social justice, he never does anything to alienate the audience, and his political license is almost absolute (for example, despite the Metaxas dictatorship Karaghiosis enjoyed uninterrupted powers of critical comment, at a time when even