Blue Thirst Read Free Page A

were wonderful guidelines for a young man. And then the other two uncles were Greek. One of them was George Katsimbalis, the Colossus of Maroussi. And the other one was Seferis who won the Nobel Prize later on. The quality of their sort of life style was such that it couldn’t help inspiring you. I remember Seferis as a diplomat saying to me one day, “You know the old story about the pearly gates and St. Peter—I was thinking of it today at this awful reception.” He went on, “I was thinking that if when I went to heaven St. Peter asked me ‘What the hell have you been doing with your life down there?’ the only thing I could really point to excuse it was my poems, and they’re not good enough.” And then I remember Miller saying “You know I never really believed in my vocation as a writer but now I realize I’m a protected person.” It does suggest an eye out for another kind of life. And so parallel to this rather rocky life I was living was a frightfully intense interior life which was centered more or less on trying to shape myself into some sort of artist. And these people stretched out hands—touch, touch—and I felt in contact, and it’s quite marvelous to be in contact though you’re quite on your own and far away. It’s a privilege accorded to few people. And so when I met Miller in Paris I took him back to Corfu and he wrote this good book about it. And when I went to Athens I took up with Seferis and Katsimbalis and his strange friends—he had a sort of Wuthering Heights of a house where numberless barrels of wine always seemed to be leaking all over everything. And on this creaky balcony, first weekend in Athens that I was there, I took Miller and Seferis and Katsimbalis and two other writers met in the evening to read verses. It was extremely memorable because the reading got steadily thicker and thicker because of the retsina, which was extremely powerful. And at night our wives came and fanned us with leaves and implored us to stop. In those hard Attic nights, Miller, I think has given the best description of them, the extraordinary dry heat—you’re panting on the one hand because it’s hot and yet on the other hand you’re not sweating. It’s most extraordinary. You can walk at night with a clear electrical feeling. The actual violet of the dusk and the actual violet light which seems to play about Greece is something that’s always impossible to describe. We’ve all tried it. It doesn’t work in words and I don’t think it works in paint really. It’s a very peculiar thing. If you ask yourself, for example, what is Greece that Italy isn’t, or Spain isn’t, it’s just precisely that curious magnetic violet X-ray dancing light, and I suppose also the feel always of water, either spring water, which you need urgently because you’re like a thirsty dog in summer—even the electric light bulbs in a café give off so much heat that you can hardly stand them. You have to turn them off. And it’s the water and it’s the feeling of the light winds that girdle the Aegaen group of islands, which makes the nights delicious, particularly delicious, and the afternoons, with the good sailing wind that comes, the meltemi, and which sinks at dusk and allows you to bring boats in harbor perfectly calmly and sit down and watch everything settle into a pool of liquid. Cool nights, terrific stars, and heavy dew condensing like Scotch mist on your blanket. Into the sea at six, like diving into a mirror.
    The poets themselves, particularly the country poets, have wonderful metaphors for the star display that comes immediately after the falling of the deep dusk. For the Milky Way they say that it’s like scattered flour and for the other stars—and such a display of stars those of you who’ve been to Greece will know what I’m talking about—simply