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- Джон Фоулз
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- Волхв
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Phraxos
lay
eight
dazzling
hours
in
a
small
steamer
south
of
Athens
,
about
six
miles
off
the
mainland
of
the
Peloponnesus
and
in
the
center
of
a
landscape
as
memorable
as
itself
:
to
the
north
and
west
,
a
great
flexed
arm
of
mountains
,
in
whose
crook
the
island
stood
;
to
the
east
a
distant
gently
peaked
archipelago
;
to
the
south
the
soft
blue
desert
of
the
Aegean
stretching
away
to
Crete
.
Phraxos
was
beautiful
.
There
was
no
other
adjective
;
it
was
not
just
pretty
,
picturesque
,
charming
—
it
was
simply
and
effortlessly
beautiful
.
It
took
my
breath
away
when
I
first
saw
it
,
floating
under
Venus
like
a
majestic
black
whale
in
an
amethyst
evening
sea
,
and
it
still
takes
my
breath
away
when
I
shut
my
eyes
now
and
remember
it
.
Its
beauty
was
rare
even
in
the
Aegean
,
because
its
hills
were
covered
with
pine
trees
,
Mediterranean
pines
as
light
as
greenfinch
feathers
.
Nine
-
tenths
of
the
island
was
uninhabited
and
uncultivated
:
nothing
but
pines
,
coves
,
Silence
,
sea
.
Herded
into
one
corner
,
the
northwest
,
lay
a
spectacular
agglomeration
of
snow
-
white
houses
around
a
couple
of
small
harbors
.
But
there
were
two
eyesores
,
visible
long
before
we
landed
.
One
was
an
obese
Greek
-
Edwardian
hotel
near
the
larger
of
the
two
harbors
,
as
at
home
on
Phraxos
as
a
hansom
cab
in
a
Doric
temple
.
The
other
,
equally
at
odds
with
the
landscape
,
stood
on
the
outskirts
of
the
Village
and
dwarfed
the
cottages
around
it
:
a
dauntingly
long
building
several
stories
high
and
reminiscent
,
in
spite
of
its
ornate
Corn
-
than
facade
,
of
a
factory
—
a
likeness
more
than
just
visually
apt
,
as
I
was
to
discover
.
But
the
Lord
Byron
School
,
the
Hotel
Philadelphia
and
the
village
apart
,
the
body
of
the
island
,
all
thirty
square
miles
of
it
,
was
virgin
.
There
were
some
silvery
olive
orchards
and
a
few
patches
of
terrace
cultivation
on
the
steep
slopes
of
the
north
coast
,
but
the
rest
was
primeval
pine
forest
.
There
were
no
antiquities
.
The
ancient
Greeks
never
much
liked
the
taste
of
cistern
water
.
This
lack
of
open
water
meant
also
that
there
were
no
wild
animals
and
few
birds
on
the
island
.
Its
distinguishing
characteristic
,
away
from
the
village
,
was
silence
.
Out
on
the
hills
one
might
pass
a
goatherd
and
his
winter
(
in
summer
there
was
no
grazing
)
flock
of
bronzebelled
goats
,
or
a
bowed
peasant
woman
carrying
a
huge
faggot
,
or
a
resin
-
gatherer
;
but
one
very
rarely
did
.
It
was
the
world
before
the
machine
,
almost
before
man
,
and
what
small
events
happened
,
the
passage
of
a
shrike
,
the
discovery
of
a
new
path
,
a
glimpse
of
a
distant
caique
far
below
,
took
on
an
unaccountable
significance
,
as
if
they
were
isolated
,
framed
,
magnified
by
solitude
.
It
was
the
least
eerie
,
the
most
un
-
Nordic
solitude
in
the
world
.
Fear
had
never
touched
the
island
.
If
it
was
haunted
,
it
was
by
nymphs
,
not
monsters
.
I
was
forced
to
go
frequently
for
walks
to
escape
the
claustrophobic
ambience
of
the
Lord
Byron
School
.
To
begin
with
,
there
was
something
pleasantly
absurd
about
teaching
in
a
boarding
school
(
run
on
supposedly
Eton
-
Harrow
lines
)
only
a
look
north
from
where
Clytemnestra
killed
Agamemnon
.
Certainly
the
masters
,
victims
of
a
country
with
only
two
universities
,
were
academically
of
a
far
higher
standard
than
Mitford
had
suggested
,
and
in
themselves
the
boys
were
no
better
and
no
worse
than
boys
the
world
over
.
But
they
were
ruthlessly
pragmatic
about
English
.
They
cared
nothing
for
literature
,
and
everything
for
science
.
If
I
tried
to
do
their
eponym
’
s
poetry
with
them
,
they
yawned
;
if
I
did
the
English
names
for
the
parts
of
a
car
,
I
had
trouble
getting
them
out
of
the
class
at
lesson
’
s
end
;
and
often
they
would
bring
me
American
scientific
textbooks
full
of
terms
that
were
just
as
much
Greek
to
me
as
the
expectant
faces
waiting
for
a
simple
paraphrase
.
Both
boys
and
masters
loathed
the
island
,
and
regarded
it
as
a
sort
of
self
-
imposed
penal
settlement
where
one
came
to
work
,
work
,
work
.
I
had
imagined
something
far
sleepier
than
an
English
school
,
and
instead
it
was
far
tougher
.
The
crowning
irony
of
all
was
that
this
obsessive
industry
,
this
molelike
blindness
to
their
natural
environment
,
was
what
was
considered
to
be
so
typically
English
about
the
school
.
Perhaps
to
Greeks
,
made
blasé
by
living
among
the
most
beautiful
landscapes
in
the
world
,
there
was
nothing
discordant
in
being
cooped
up
in
such
a
system
;
but
it
drove
me
mad
with
irritation
.
One
or
two
of
the
masters
spoke
some
English
,
and
several
French
,
but
I
found
little
in
common
with
them
.
The
only
one
I
could
tolerate
was
Demetriades
,
the
other
teacher
of
English
,
and
that
was
solely
because
he
spoke
and
understood
the
language
so
much
better
than
anyone
else
.
With
him
I
could
rise
out
of
Basic
.
He
took
me
round
the
village
kapheneia
and
tavernas
,
and
I
got
a
taste
for
Greek
food
and
Greek
folk
music
.
But
there
was
always
something
mournful
about
the
place
in
daylight
.
There
were
so
many
villas
boarded
up
;
there
were
so
few
people
in
the
alley
streets
;
one
had
always
to
go
to
the
same
two
better
-
class
tavernas
for
a
meal
,
and
one
met
the
same
old
faces
,
a
stale
Levantine
provincial
society
that
belonged
more
to
the
world
of
the
Ottoman
Empire
,
Baizac
in
a
fez
,
than
to
the
1950
’
s
.
I
had
to
agree
with
Mitford
.
It
was
desperately
dull
.
I
tried
one
or
two
of
the
fishermen
’
s
wineshops
.
They
were
jollier
,
but
I
felt
they
felt
I
was
slumming
;
and
my
Greek
never
began
to
cope
with
the
island
dialect
they
spoke
.
I
made
inquiries
about
the
man
Mitford
had
had
a
row
with
,
but
no
one
seemed
to
have
heard
of
either
him
or
it
;
or
,
for
that
matter
,
of
the
"
waiting
room
.
"
Mitford
had
evidently
spent
a
lot
of
time
in
the
village
;
and
made
himself
unpopular
with
other
masters
besides
Demetriades
;
there
was
a
heavy
aftermath
of
anglophobia
,
aggravated
by
the
political
situation
at
that
time
,
which
I
had
to
suffer
.
