THE PARTHENON BY WAY OF PAPENDRECHT By F. Hopkinson Smith 1909 "WILYUM!..... _Wilyum!_..... WILYUM!" It was mine host of the Ferry Inn at Cook-ham who was calling, and atthe top of his voice--and a big-chested voice it was--the sound leapinginto crescendo as the object of his search remained hidden. Then heturned to me: "He's somewheres 'round the boat house--you can't miss him--there's toomuch of him!" "Are ye wantin' me, sor?" came another shout as I rounded the squatbuilding stuffed with boats--literally so--bottom, top, and sides. "Yes--are you the boatman?" "I am, sor--and bloody sick of me job. Do ye see that wherry shovin'off--the one with the lady in a sweater? Yes--that's right--just slippedunder the bridge. Well, sor, what d'ye think the bloke did for me? Lookat it, sor!" (Here he held out his hand, in which lay a half-penny. )"And me a-washin' out 'is boat, feedin' of 'is dog, and keepin' an eyeon 'is togs and 'is ladies--and then shoves off and 'ands me this--a'a'penny, sor--_a 'a'penny_--from the likes o' 'im to the likes o' me!Damn 'im!"--and away went the coin into the river. "You'll excuse me, sor, but i couldn't choke it down. Is it a punt ye're lookin' for?" The landlord was right--there was a good deal of him--six feet and aninch, I should think; straight as an oar, his bared arms swinging free;waist, thighs, and back tough as a saw-log. To this was added two bigblue eyes set in a clean-shaven face bronzed by the sun, and a doublerow of teeth that would have shamed an ear of corn. I caught, too, themuscles of his chest rounding out his boating shirt, and particularlythe muscles of the neck supporting the round head crowned with closelycropped hair--evidently a young Englishman of that great middle classwhich the nation depends upon in an emergency. My inspection alsosettled any question I might have had as to why he was "William, " andnever "Bill, " to those about him. The one thing lacking in his make-up--and which only came into view whenhe turned his head--was the upper part of one ear. This was clipped asclose as a terrier's. Again he repeated the question--with a deprecatory smile, as if healready regretted his outburst. "Is it a punt ye're wantin', sor?" "Yes--and a man to pole it and look after me while I paint. I had oldNorris for the past few years, but I hear he's gone back to gardening. Will you have time with your other work?" "Time! I'll chuck my job if I don't. " "No, --you can do both, --Norris did. You can pole me out to where Iwant to work; bring me my lunch when you have yours, and come for me atnight. You weren't here two years ago--were you?" "No--I was with General French. Got this clip outside Kimberly--" and hetouched his ear. "Been all my life on the river--Maidenhead and Bourne'sEnd mostly--and so when my time was up I come home and the boss here putme on. " "A soldier! I thought so. I see now why you got mad. Wonder you didn'tthrow that chap into the river. " I am a crank on the happiness one getsfrom the giving of tips--and a half-penny man is the rock bottom ofmeanness. His face straightened. "Well, we can't do that, sor--we can't never talk back. Got to grin andbear it or lose yer job. Learned that in the Hussahs. I didn't care forhis money--maybe it was the way he did it that set me goin'--as if Iwas--Well--let it go! And it's a punt ye want?--Yes, sor--come and pickit out. " After that it was plain sailing--or punting. The picture of that Londoncad sprawling in the water, which my approval had created in his mind, had done it. And it was early and late too (there were few visitorsthat month); down by the Weir below the lock as far as Cliveden; up thebackwater to the Mill--William stretched beside me while I worked, orpulling back and forth when a cool bottle--beer, of course--or a kettleand an alcohol lamp would add to my comfort. ***** Many years of tramping and boating up and down the Thames from Readingto Maidenhead have taught me the ins and outs of the river. I know itas I do my own pocket (and there is more in that statement than youthink--especially during regatta week). First comes Sonning with its rose gardens and quaint brick bridge; andthen Marlowe with that long stretch of silver bordered by nodding treesand dominated by the robber Inn--four shillings and six for a sawdustsandwich! Then Maidenhead, swarming with boats and city folks afterdark (it is only a step from the landing to any number of curtainedsitting-rooms with shaded candles--and there be gay times at Maidenhead, let me tell you!). And, between, best of all, lovely Cookham. Here the river, crazy with delight, seems to lose its head and goesmeandering about, poking its nose up backwaters, creeping acrossmeadows, flooding limpid shallows, mirroring oaks and willows upsidedown, surging up as if to sweep away a velvet-shorn lawn, only to pouritself--its united self--into an open-mouthed lock, and so on to a sanerlife in a level stretch beyond. If you want a map giving these vagaries, spill a cup of tea and follow its big and little puddles with theirconnecting rivulets: ten chances to one it will come out right. All this William and I took in for three unbroken weeks, my usualsummer allotment on the Thames. Never was there such a breesy, wholesomecompanion; stories of his life in the Veldt; of his hospital experienceover that same ear--"The only crack I got, sor, thank God!--except bein''alf starved for a week and down two months with the fever--" neither ofwhich seemed to have caused him a moment's inconvenience; stories ofthe people living about him and those who came from London with a "'amsandwidge in a noospaper, and precious little more, " rolled out of himby the hour. And the poise of the man! When he lay stretched out beside me onthe grass while I worked--an old bivouac attitude--he kept still; notwitching of legs or stretching of arms--lay as a big hound does, whoseblood and breeding necessitate repose. And we were never separated. First a plunge overboard, and then a pullback for breakfast, and off again with the luncheon tucked under theseat--and so on until the sun dropped behind the hills. The only days on which this routine of work and play had to be changedwere Sundays and holidays. Then my white umbrella would loom up as largeas a circus tent, the usual crowd surging about its doors. As you cannotsee London for the people, so you cannot see the river for boats onthese days--all sorts of boats--wherries, tubs, launches, racing crafts, shells, punts--everything that can be poled, pulled, or wobbled, and ineach one the invariable combination--a man, a girl, and a dog--a dog, agirl, and a man. This has been going on for ages, and will to the end oftime. On these mornings William and I have our bath early--ahead of the crowdreally, who generally arrive two hours after sunrise and keep up thepace until the last train leaves for Paddington. This bath is at theend of one of the teacup spillways, and is called the Weir. There is aplateau, a plunge down some twenty feet into a deep pool, and the usualsurroundings of fresh morning air, gay tree-tops, and the splash of coolwater sparkling in the sunlight. To-day as my boat grated on the gravel my eyes fell on a young Englishlord who was holding the centre of the stage in the sunlight. He wasdressed from head to foot in a skin-tight suit of underwear which hadbeen cut for him by a Garden-of-Eden tailor. He was just out of thewater--a straight, well-built, ruddy-skinned fellow--every inch a man!What birth and station had done for him would become apparent whenhis valet began to hand him his Bond Street outfit. The next instantWilliam stood beside him. Then there came a wriggle about theshoulders, the slip of a buckle, and he was overboard and out againbefore my lord had discarded his third towel. I fell to thinking. Naked they were equals. That was the way they came into the world andthat's the way they would go out. And yet within the hour my lord wouldbe back to his muffins and silver service, with two flunkies behindhis chair, and William would be swabbing out a boat or poling me homethrough the pond lilies. But why?--I kept asking myself. A totally idiotic and illogicalquestion, of course. Both were of an age; both would be a joy to asculptor looking for modern gods with which to imitate the Greek ones. Both were equal in the sight of their Maker. Both had served theircountry--my lord, I learned later, being one of the first to draw a beadon Spion Kop close enough to be of any use--and both were honest--atleast William was--and the lord must have been. There is no answer--never can be. And yet the picture of the two as theystood glistening in the sunlight continues to rise in my memory, andwith it always comes this same query--one which will never down--Whyshould there be the difference? ***** But the summer is moving on apace. There is another Inn and anotherWilliam--or rather, there was one several hundred years ago before hewent off crusading. It is an old resort of mine. Seven years now hasold Leah filled my breakfast cup with a coffee that deserves a hymn ofpraise in its honor. I like it hot--boiling, blistering hot, and theold woman brings it on the run, her white sabots clattering across theflower-smothered courtyard. During all these years I have followedwith reverent fingers not only the slopes of its roof but the loops ofswinging clematis that crowd its balconies and gabies as well. I say"my" because I have known this Inn of William the Conqueror longenough to include it in the list of the many good ones I frequentover Europe--the Bellevue, for instance, at Dordrecht, over againstPapendrecht (I shall be there in another month). And the Britannia inVenice, and I hope still a third in unknown Athens--unknown to me--myobjective point this year. This particular Inn with the roof and the clematis, is at Dives, twentymiles from Trouville on the coast. You never saw anything like it, andyou never will again. I hold no brief for my old friend Le Remois, theproprietor, but the coffee is not the only thing over which gratefulmen chant hymns. There is a kitchen, resplendent in polished brass, with three French chefs in attendance, and a two-century-old spit forroasting. There is the wine-cellar, in which cobwebs and not labelsrecord the age and the vintage; there is a dining-room--three ofthem--with baronial fireplaces, sixteenth-century furniture, and linenand glass to match--to say nothing of tapestries, Spanish leathers, shrines, carved saints, ivories, and pewter--the whole a sight to turnbric-a-brac fiends into burglars--not a difficult thing by the way--andthen, of course--there is the bill! "Where have you been, M. Le Rémois?" asked a charming woman. "To church, Madame. " "Did you say your prayers?" "Yes, Madame, " answered this good boni-face, with a twinkle. "What did you pray for?" "I said--'Oh, Lord!--do not make me rich, but place me _next_ to therich'"--and he kept on his way rubbing his hands and chuckling. And yetI must say it is worth the price. I have no need of a William here--nor of anybody else. The water for mycups is within my reach; convenient umbrellas on movable pedestals canbe shoved into place; a sheltered back porch hives for the night all myparaphernalia and unfinished sketches, and a step or two brings me toa table where a broiled lobster fresh from the sea and a peculiar peachablaze in a peculiar sauce--the whole washed down by a pint of--(No--youcan't have the brand--there were only seven bottles left when I paid mybill)--and besides I am going back--help to ease the cares that beset apainter's life. But even this oasis of a garden, hemmed about as if by the froth ofTrouville and the suds of Cabourg; through which floats the gay lifeof Paris resplendent in toilets never excelled or _exceeded_anywhere--cannot keep me from Holland very long. And it is a pity too, for of late years I have been looked upon as a harmless fixture at theInn--so much so that men and women pass and repass my easel, orlook over my shoulder while I work without a break in theirconfidences--quite as if I was a deaf, dumb, and blind waiter, ortwin-brother to old Coco the cockatoo, who has surveyed the same scenefrom his perch near the roof for the past thirty years. None of these unconscious ear-droppings am I going tobetray--delightful, startling--_improper_, if you must have it--as someof them were. Not the most interesting, at all events, for I promisedher I wouldn't--but there is no question as to the diversion obtained bykeeping the latch-string of your ears on the outside. None of all this ever drips into my auricles in Holland. A country sosmall that they build dikes to keep the inhabitants from being spiltoff the edge, is hardly the place for a scandal--certainly not in stolidDordrecht or in that fly-speck of a Papendrecht, whose dormer windowspeer over the edge of the dike as if in mortal fear of anotherinundation. And yet, small as it is, it is still big enough for me toapproach it--the fly-speck, of course--by half a dozen different routes. I can come by boat from Rotterdam. Fop Smit owns and runs it--(no kin ofmine, more's the pity)--or by train from Amsterdam; or by carriage fromany number of 'dams, 'drechts, and 'bergs. Or I can tramp it on foot, orbe wheeled in on a dog-wagon. I have tried them all, and know. Being nowa staid old painter and past such foolishness, I take the train. Toot! Toot!--and I am out on the platform, through the door of thestation and aboard the one-horse tram that wiggles and swings over thecobble-scoured streets of Dordrecht, and so on to the Bellevue. Why I stop at the Bellevue (apart from it being one of my Inns) is thatfrom its windows I cannot only watch the life of the tawny-colored, boat-crowded Maas, but see every curl of smoke that mounts from thechimneys of Papendrecht strung along its opposite bank. My dear friend, Herr Boudier, of years gone by, has retired from its ownership, buthis successor, Herr Teitsma, is as hearty in his welcome. Peter, my oldboatman, too, pulled his last oar some two years back, and one "Bop"takes his place. There is another "p" and an "e" tacked on to Bop, but Ihave eliminated the unnecessary and call him "Bob" for short. Theymade Bob out of what was left of Peter, but they left out all trace ofWilliam. This wooden-shod curiosity is anywhere from seventy to one hundred andfifty years old, gray, knock-kneed, bent in the back, and goes to sleepstanding up--_and stays asleep_. He is the exact duplicate of thetramp in the comic opera of "Miss Hook of Holland"--except that theactor-sleeper occasionally topples over and has to be braced up. Bob ispast-master of the art and goes it alone, without propping of any kind. He is the only man in Dordrecht, or Papendrecht, or the country roundabout, who can pull a boat and speak English. He says so, and I amforced not only to believe him, but to hire him. He wants it in advance, too--having had some experience with "painter-man, " he explains to HerrTeitsma. I shall, of course, miss my delightful William, but I am accustomed tothat. And, then, again, while Bob asleep is an interesting physiologicalstudy, Bob awake adds to the gayety of nations, samples of which crowdabout my easel, Holland being one of the main highways of the earth. I have known Dort and the little 'drecht across the way for some fifteenyears, five of which have slipped by since I last opened my umbrellaalong its quaint quays. To my great joy nothing has changed. The oldpotato boat still lies close to the quay, under the overhanging elms. The same dear old man and his equally dear old wife still make theirhome beneath its hipped roof. I know, for it is here I lunch, the cargoforming the chief dish, followed by a saucer of stewed currants, a cupof coffee--(more hymns here)--and a loaf of bread from the baker's. Theold Groote Kirk still towers aloft--the highest building in Holland, they say; the lazy, red-sailed luggers drift up and down, their decksgay with potted plants; swiss curtains at the cabin windows, the wifeholding the tiller while the man trims the sail. The boys still clatterover the polished cobbles--an aggressive mob when school lets out--and alarger crop, I think, than in the years gone by, and with more noise--myumbrella being the target. Often a spoilt fish or half a last week'scabbage comes my way, whereupon Bob awakes to instant action with aconsequent scattering, the bravest and most agile making faces frombehind wharf spiles and corners. Peter used to build a fence of oarsaround me to keep them off, but Bob takes it out in swearing. Only once did he silence them. They were full grown, this squad, and hadcrowded the old man against a tree under which I had backed as shelterfrom a passing shower. There came a blow straight from the shoulder, asprawling boy, and Bob was in the midst of them, his right sleeve rolledup, showing a full-rigged ship tattooed in India ink. What poured fromhim I learned afterward was an account of his many voyages to the Arcticand around the Horn, as the label on his arm proved--an experiencewhich, he shouted, would be utilized in pounding them up into fish baitif they did not take to their heels. After that he always went to sleepwith one eye open, the boys keeping awake with two--and out of my way--aresult which interested me the more. If my Luigi was not growing restless in my beloved Venice (it iswonderful how large a portion of the earth I own) I would love to passthe rest of my summer along these gray canals, especially since Bob'sdevelopment brings a daily surprise. Only to-day I caught sight of himhalf hidden in an angle of a wall, surrounded by a group of little totswho were begging him for paper pin-wheels which a vender had stopped tosell, an infinitesimal small coin the size of a cuff button purchasinga dozen or more. When I again looked up from a canvas each tot had apin-wheel, and later on Bob, that much poorer in pocket, sneaked backand promptly went to sleep. But even Bob's future beatification cannot hold me. I yearn for thewhite, blinding light and breathless lagoons, and all that makes Venicethe Queen City of the World. Luigi meets me _inside_ the station. It takes a _soldo_ to get in, andLuigi has but few of them, but he is always there. His gondola ismoored to the landing steps outside--a black swan of a boat, all moroccocushions and silk fringes; the product of a thousand years of tinkeringby the most fastidious and luxurious people of ancient or modern times, and still to-day the most comfortable conveyance known to man. ' Hurry up, you who have never known a gondola or a Luigi! Avile-smelling, chuggity-chug is forcing its way up every crooked canal, no matter how narrow. Two Venetian shipyards are hammering away on theirhulls or polishing their motors. Soon the cost of production will dropto that of a gondola. Then look out! There are eight thousand machinistsin the Arsenal earning but five francs a day, any one of whom can learnto run a motor boat in a week, thus doubling their wages. Worse yet--theworld is getting keener every hour for speedy things. I may be wrong--Ihope and pray I am--but it seems to me that the handwriting is alreadyon the wall. "This way to the Museo Civico, " it reads--"if you wantto find a gondola of twenty-five years ago. " As for the Luigis and theEsperos--they will then have given up the unequal struggle. The only hope rests with the Venetians themselves. They have restoredthe scarred Library, and are rebuilding the Campanile, with a reverencefor the things which made their past glorious that commands the respectof the artistic world. The gondola is as much a part of Venice as itssunsets, pigeons, and palaces. Let them by special license keep theTragfaetti intact, with their shuttles of gondolas crossing bade andforth--then, perhaps, the catastrophe may be deferred for a few decades. ***** As it was in Dort and Papendrecht so it is in Venice. Except thesebeastly, vile-smelling boats there is nothing new, thank God. Everythingelse is faded, weather-worn, and old, everything filled with sensuousbeauty--sky, earth, lagoon, garden wall, murmuring ripples--the samewonderful Venice that thrills its lovers the world over. And the old painters are still here--Walter Brown, Bunce, Bompard, Faulkner, and the rest--successors of Ziem and Rico--men who have lovedher all their lives. And with them a new band of devotees--Monetand Louis Aston Knight among them. "For a few days, " they said inexplanation, but it was weeks before they left--only to return, Ipredict, as Jong as they can hold a brush. As for Luigi and me--we keep on our accustomed way, leading ouraccustomed lives. Seventeen years now since he bent to his oar behind mycushions--twenty-six in all since I began to idle about her canals. Itis either the little canal next the Public Garden, or up the Giudecca, or under the bronze horses of San Marco; or it may be we are camped outin the Piazzetta before the Porta della Carta; or perhaps up the narrowcanal of San Rocco, or in the Fruit Market near the Rialto while theboats unload their cargoes. All old subjects and yet ever new; each has been painted a thousandtimes, and in as many different lights and perspectives. And yet eachcanvas differs from its fellows as do two ripples or two morning skies. For weeks we drift about. One day Carlotta, the fishwife up theFondamenta della Pallada, makes us our coffee; the next Luigi buys itof some smart café on the Piazza. This with a roll, a bit of Gorgonzola, and a bunch of grapes, or half a dozen figs, is our luncheon, to whichis added two curls of blue smoke, one from Luigi's pipe and the otherfrom my cigarette. Then we fall to work again. But this will never do! While I have been loafing with Luigi not onlyhas the summer slipped away, but the cool winds of October have creptdown from the Alps. There are fresh subjects to tackle--some I havenever seen. Athens beckons to me. The columns of the Parthenon loom up! ***** If there are half a dozen ways of getting into Papendrecht--there isonly one of reaching Athens--that is, if you start from Venice. Triestefirst, either by rail or boat, and then aboard one of the AustrianLloyds, and so on down the Adriatic to Patras. It is October, remember--when every spear of grass from a six months'drought--the customary dry spell--is burnt to a crisp. It will rainto-morrow, or next week, they will tell you--but it doesn't--never hasin October--and never will. Strange to say, you never miss it--neitherin the color of the mountains flanking the Adriatic or in any of theports on the way down, or in Patras itself. The green note to which Ihave been accustomed--which I have labored over all my life--is lacking, and a new palette takes its place--of mauve, violet, indescribableblues, and evanescent soap-bubble reds. The slopes of the hills aremother-of-pearl, their tops melting into cloud shadows so delicate intone that you cannot distinguish where one leaves off and the otherbegins. And it is so in Patras, except for a riotous, defiant pine--green as aspring cabbage or a newly painted shutter--that sucks its moisture fromnobody knows where--hasn't any, perhaps, and glories in its shame. Allalong the railroad from the harbor of Patras to the outskirts of Athensit is the same--bare fields, bare hills, streets and roads choked withdust. And so, too, when you arrive at the station and take the omnibusfor the Grand Bretagne. By this time you are accustomed to it--in fact you rather enjoy it. If you have a doubt of it, step out on the balcony at the front of thehotel and look up! Hanging in the sky--in an air of pure ether, set in films of silvergrays in which shimmer millions of tones, delicate as the shadings ofa pearl, towers the Acropolis, its crest fringed by the ruins of thegreatest temples the world possesses. I rang a bell. "Get me a carriage and send me up a guide--anybody who can speak Englishand who is big enough to carry a sketch trap. " He must have been outside, so quickly did he answer the call. He wastwo-thirds the size of William, one-half the length of Luigi, andone-third the age of Bob. "What is your name?" "Vlassopoulos. " "Anything else?" "Yes--Panis. " "Then we'll drop the last half. Put those traps in the carriage--andtake me to the Parthenon. " I never left it for fourteen consecutive days--nor did I see a squareinch of Athens other than the streets I drove through up and back on myway to work. Nor have I in all my experience ever had a more competent, obliging, and companionable guide--always excepting my beloved Luigi, who is not only my guide, but my protector and friend as well. It was then that I blessed the dust. Green things, wet things, soggythings--such as mud and dull skies--have no place in the scheme of theParthenon and its contiguous temples and ruins. That wonderful tea-rosemarble, with its stains of burnt sienna marking the flutings of endlessbroken columns, needs no varnishing of moisture to enhance its beauty. That will do for the façade of Burlington House with its grimy graystatues, or the moss-encrusted tower of the Groote Kirk, but never here. It was this fear, perhaps, that kept me at work, haunted as I was by thebogy of "Rain to-morrow. It always comes, and keeps on for a month whenit starts in. " Blessed be the weather clerk! It never started in--notuntil I reached Brindisi on my way back to Paris; then, if I remember, there was some falling weather--at the rate of two inches an hour. And yet I might as well confess that my fourteen days of consecutivestudy of the Acropolis, beginning at the recently uncovered entrancegate and ending in the Museum behind the Parthenon, added nothing to myprevious historical or other knowledge--meagre as it had been. Where the Venetians wrought the greatest havoc, how many and whatcolumns were thrown down; how high and thick and massive they were; whatparts of the marvellous ruin that High Robber Chief Lord Elgin stoleand carted off to London, and still keeps the British Museum acting as"fence"; how wide and long and spacious was the superb chamber that heldthe statue the gods loved--none of these things interested me--do notnow. What I saw was an epoch in stone; a chronicle telling the storyof civilization; a glove thrown down to posterity, challenging thecompetition of the world. And with this came a feeling of reverence so profound, so awe-inspiring, so humbling, that I caught myself speaking to Panis in whispers--as onedoes in a temple when the service is in progress. This, as the sun spedits course and the purple shadows of the coming night began to creep upthe steps and columns of the marvellous pile, its pediment bathed in therose-glow of the fading day, was followed by a silence that neither ofus cared to break. For then the wondrous temple took on the semblanceof some old sage, the sunlight on his forehead, the shadow of the futureabout his knees.