Woke up this morning, the weight
of my twenty years heavy upon me,
wondering how many people at home
were wishing me many happy returns
and whether the waves of their
well-wishing would reach me through
the air. The arbondaris, with whom
I have made great friends, brought
me tea and jam and bread. He seems
to have taken me under his wing, as
I'm his only guest.
After dressing, I was just setting
out in quest of Father Basil, when
I met him on the threshold, coming
to visit me. So we sat talking in
my room, and then we set off to
look around the chapel, where the
ikons and frescoes were all new,
and though not unpleasant, not very
interesting. The gilding in the up-
per chapel is all recent, and some
of the stencilling on the wall aw-
ful, and luckily not very obvious.
The two-storey library is enormous,
with long, pleasant rooms packed
full of books in expensive cases.
It is very poor in manuscripts how-
ever, except for one with the gos-
pels for each day of the year, which
has fascinating illustrations, a Na-
tivity where the interest and adora-
tion in the eyes of the animals is
really wonderful, and another of the
Baptism of Christ, naked in Jordan,
with the devil, or some evil water
sprite, in a posture of submarine
thwartedness.
Then I bade Basil goodbye, and he
returned to his cell, I to mine,
he dragging his heavy boots behind
him, and giving the impression, in
his youthfulness, of a schoolboy
dressed up in a flowing beard and
hair, tall hat and long robes.
Patrick Leigh-Fermor
February 11, 1935
The Broken Road
From the Iron Gates
to Mount Athos
Artemis Cooper and
Colin Thubron, editors
2013
op. cit.
Fionn Creber
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