Between the Woods and the Water Read Free

thank everyone I should, it is from neither forgetfulness nor ingratitude. I am deeply beholden to my old friend Elemer v. Klobusicky; to the Meran family, then and now; to Alexander Mourouzi and Constantine Soutzo. I would also like to thank Steven Runciman for encouraging words after the first volume, Dimitri Obolensky for wise advice during this one, and David Sylvester, Bruce Chatwin, Niko Vasilakis, Eva Bekássy v. Gescher and, as ever, John Craxton. Also many retrospective thanks to Balas, a Cantacuzène for help in translating Mioritza , in Moldavia long ago. My debt to Rudolf Fischer is beyond reckoning. His omniscient range of knowledge and an enthusiasm tempered with astringency have been a constant delight and stimulus during all the writing of this book; his vigilance has saved it from many errors, and I feel that the remaining ones may be precisely those when his advice was not followed.
    Many thanks to Stella Gordon for her patient Champollion-Ventris flair for decyphering an illegible hand.
    Lastly, devoted thanks for kindness and haven during restless literary displacements to Barbara and Niko Ghika (to whom the book is dedicated) for many weeks among the loggias and swallows of Corfu; to Janetta and Jaime Parladé for high-perched Andalusian asylum at Tramores; to the proprietors of the Stag Parlour near Bakewell for fevered sessions of revision and for theall-but-irresistible suggestion of Shank’s Europe as an overall title for these books; to Jock and Diana Murray for editorial patience and shelter during the last phase; and lastly, dear Xan, to you and Magouche for diligent spells of cloistered seclusion in the Serrania de Ronda.
    P.
    Kardamyli, 11 February 1986  

1. BRIDGE PASSAGE
    P ERHAPS I had made too long a halt on the bridge. The shadows were assembling over the Slovak and Hungarian shores and the Danube, running fast and pale between them, washed the quays of the old town of Esztergom, where a steep hill lifted the basilica into the dusk. Resting on its ring of columns, the great dome and the two Palladian belfries, tolling now with a shorter clang, surveyed the darkening scene for many leagues. All at once the quay and the steep road past the Archbishop’s palace were deserted. The frontier post was at the end of the bridge, so I hastened into Hungary: the people that Easter Saturday had gathered at the river’s side had climbed to the Cathedral square, where I found them strolling under the trees, conversing in expectant groups. The roofs fell away underneath, then forest and river and fen ran dimly to the last of the sunset.
    A friend had written to the Mayor of Esztergom: ‘Please be kind to this young man who is going to Constantinople on foot.’ Planning to look him up next day, I asked someone about the Mayor’s office and before I knew what was happening, and to my confusion, he had led me up to the man himself. He was surrounded by the wonderfully-clad grandees I had been admiring beside the Danube. I tried to explain that I was the tramp he had been warned about and he was politely puzzled; then illumination came, and after a quick and obviously comic conversation with one of the magnificent figures, he committed me to his care and hastened across the square to more serious duties. The charge was accepted with an amused expression; my mentor must have been saddled with me because of his excellent English. His gala costumewas dark and splendid; he carried his scimitar slung nonchalantly in the crook of his arm and a rimless monocle flashed in his left eye.
    At this very moment, all eyes turned downhill. The clatter of hoofs and a jingle of harness had summoned the Mayor to the Cathedral steps, where a scarlet carpet had been laid. Clergy and candle-bearers were ceremoniously gathered and when the carriage halted a flame-coloured figure uncoiled from within and the Cardinal, Monsignor Serédy, who was also Archbishop of Esztergom and Prince-Primate of