CHAPTER VI
DAYS OF SUNSHINE—THE PALACE
Like all palaces of modern Italy, the Palace of Carina, built by the Genoese when the island of Khios was one of their possessions, the Palace of Carina is immense. The apartments are splendid, but unfurnished. The Mussulman who occupied it before me had furnished one wing of the vast building after the Oriental fashion.
It is that wing that I live in. It is there that I retire during the burning heat of the day, for the windows open towards the north, and there is a delightful breeze.
Window-screens of fragrant bamboo half close the windows and permit me to enjoy the view while remaining in a soft obscurity.
The walls are covered with a silvery stucco, which glimmers like white satin, and are divided into panels of alternate lilac and green, where can be read in golden letters several verses of the Koran. The ceiling is richly painted, and divided into panels of lilac and green, with borders of golden arabesques.
A thick Persian carpet covers the floor. At the end of this room, a fountain of limpid water gushes from a basin of Oriental jasper, and falls in cascades with a gentle murmur. Great blue and gold vases, filled with flowers on which some tame doves come and perch, surround the fountain, and the aromatic perfume of the flowers reaches me in a fragrant mist.
Must I admit this fact? The pleasures of the senses are dear to me, and I delight in their satisfaction.
Thus, near me on a table, that is covered with a thick Turkish table-cloth of a yellow shade, embroidered with blue flowers that glitter with silver threads, are sorbets of oranges and the wild cherry, in porous vases that are covered with an icy moisture; golden pineapples, slices of watermelon, with their green rind and red pulp,—all these are shining through pieces of ice that fill great Japanese bowls; on another dish is a pyramid of exquisite fruit, that the dark-eyed Daphné has intermingled with flowers.
In a few moments the sprightly Noémi will fill my crystal cup with the generous wine of Cyprus or Scyros or Madeira, which have been standing in their Venetian decanters exposed to a tepid atmosphere.
If I wish to indulge in soft reverie, to fill my idle brain with delightful dreams, Anathasia, the blonde, will smilingly offer me my narghile filled with jasmine water, or my long pipe with the amber mouthpiece, whose bowl she will fill with the fragrant tobacco of Latakia.
And finally, should I wish to abandon my day-dreams, and give myself up to the thoughts of others, I have them near at hand, the works of the poets I love: Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Scott; the great, the divine, the modern Homer,—Byron, whose black yacht I saw pass on the horizon yesterday.
Although the air is cool, it is saturated with perfume; the vapours of aloes and myrrh, burning in small ruby jars, mingle their odour with that of the flowers, for since I mean to live for the senses, let me not forget the sense of smelling.
I have given myself up enthusiastically to my enjoyment of delightful smells, a sense so misunderstood or so blamed. I have realised my dream of arranging a scale of perfumes, beginning at the faintest, and gradually ascending to the most powerful odours, the inhaling of which causes a sort of intoxication, which adds a new ecstasy to voluptuousness.
Besides, one could almost live on perfumes on the island of Khios, for it is the island which furnished all the perfumes to the harems, the essences of rose, jasmin, and tuberose, which are used in the seraglio of the sultanas.
Khios alone produces the precious lentisk, whose gum the dreamy and indolent odalisk chews between her ivory teeth; Khios, whose commerce even has a charming suggestion of elegance, for her exports are silks, tapestries, flowers, fruits, birds, and honey. And it is young girls and beautiful women of the purest antique type who gather the treasures of the island, the most favoured of all the islands of Ionia.
From the windows of the apartment I occupy, in one of the wings of this immense dwelling, I gaze on a beautiful scene.
May its remembrance be an everlasting regret, if ever I leave this adorable retreat for some dark and noisy city, with a horizon of high walls, filthy streets, and close atmosphere.
On my left is the front of the palace, whose carved porticos, arcades, and white marble staircases seem endless.
From its porphyry inlaid basement, to its roof, adorned with balustrades, statues, and great vases filled with myrtle and oleanders, the whole building is bathed in sunshine, and its golden silhouette stands out against a sky of that sapphire blue which is only seen in the East.
In the distance the azure of the sky would blend with the azure of the sea, were it not for a wavy line of purplish red. This is the chain of the mountains of Roumania, whose summits are bathed in brilliant clouds.
On the right hand, as a contrast to that dazzling mass of marble and of sunshine, there is a lawn of clover, where some of the large Syrian sheep, with their heavy tails, are grazing, also a few gazelles with silvery coats. Beyond the lawn, and extending in a parallel direction with the palace, I see a deep, damp, and shady wood.
The gigantic tops of the oak-trees, the cedars, and the secular platanes form an ocean of dark verdure. The sun is setting, and, with its glowing rays, throws a golden light on those masses of foliage.
On that waving curtain of dark and opaque green, a thousand other shades of green are visible, which become more faint and transparent as they approach the banks of the River Belophano, which, widening in front of the palace, forms a sort of lake.
The banks are planted with bladdernut-trees, umbrella pines with their reddish trunks, satin-leaved poplars, arbutus, and buckthorn. On these, once in awhile, shines a ray of sunlight, which slips beneath the great domes of verdure whenever the sea breeze lifts their branches.
Near the shore, there are fan-leaved latanias, whose trunks are hidden beneath vines that bear orange-coloured bell-flowers, and hydrangeas, whose flowers are rose-coloured.
Then there are wide green avenues, where the sun's rays scarcely ever penetrate, which are carpeted by soft grass, and lead to a hemicycle of foliage, quite near the palace.
These paths are so long and shady that I cannot see their end, through the bluish vapour that veils them.
Lastly, in the foreground, and on a level with my window, is a terrace of white marble, adorned with vases and statues. From this, you can descend to the banks of the canal.
Protected by the palace, one half of the staircase is in the shade, the other is bathed in the sunlight. On one of the lower steps a black dwarf, that I have dressed in a scarlet doublet in Venetian style, is sleeping beside two greyhounds of great size and beautiful form.
By a caprice of the sunlight, the dwarf is in the dazzling zone of its rays, which seem to cover each step with gold dust, while the greyhounds are in the shadow, which is unequally traced on the staircase, and throws its cool, blue, transparent shadows on the white coats of the sleeping dogs.
A little farther on, a peacock sits perched on the balustrade in the bright sun. His feathers flash like a rain of rubies, topazes, and emeralds, glittering against a background of ultramarine.
Swans swim slowly in the canal, and seem to drag behind them thousands of silvery ribbons; tall, rose-coloured flamingoes walk solemnly along the shore, while, farther off, two crimson parrots quarrel for the fruit of the latania-trees. When they unfold their turquoise wings, they display their long wing-feathers, tinted with gold and purple.
On a tuft of amaryllis, a beautiful yellow popinjay, whose neck reflects the tints of the rainbow, opens out his long white tail-feathers, while the swallows and kingfishers lightly skim over the waters of the canal.
I have just read over these pages, which give a perfect description of the marvellous scene that I look on. All is mentioned. But how feebly words can depict such a spectacle! The relation they bear to the reality is only such as the dry nomenclature of the naturalist to the beautiful object he describes.