51 ~ Τζωρτζ Χόρτον: [για τον πατέρα Ιωάννη Παπαγεωργίου]

Η συγκέντρωση όλων των τάξεων σε μια πόλη σαν την Αθήνα σε αναγκάζει να συναντάς σε κάθε γωνία μια ομάδα αξιωματικών ή έναν παπά με το επιβλητικό του ράσο ν' ανεμίζει. Οι παπάδες έχουν μακριά μαλλιά και γένεια, ώστε να ξεχωρίζουν όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο από τους Δυτικούς ιερείς και ίσως και γι' αυτό τον λόγο παντρεύονται, παρ' όλο που οι δεσπότες πρέπει να είναι άγαμοι.

Σε επίσημες περιπτώσεις αφήνουν λυτά τα μακριά μαλλιά τους, για τα οποία συχνά δίκαια περηφανεύονται. Ο πάτερ Ιωάννης Παπαγεωργίου, που τώρα βρίσκεται στον Πόρο, έχει κοκκινωπά μαλλιά που ανεμίζουν μεγαλοπρεπώς, μια χαίτη που κυματίζει σχεδόν ως τους γοφούς του. Είναι σαν αρσενική λαίδη Γκοντίβα.

George Horton
Μετάφραση: Λένα Παπαθεμελή

Στην Αθήνα του καιρού μου
Έκδοση του Ιδρύματος Μελετών και Αλληλεγγύης, 2011



(φωτ: Y)

50 ~ Τζέημς Μέρριλ: The (Diblos) Notebook

She had said she was going to the pharmacy, not that there was anything to do, now, but wait. The others had appeared to understand.
So did the few people she passed; they greeted hew courteously, without lingering.

On a small promontory she met Orestes. He was walking away from the town. It stretched on either side of him like a robe, its hues of white & stone hanging down into the still harbor.
“Pardon me”, he said. “Do you live here? I am looking for the Sleeping Woman.”

His Greek, fluent but incorrect, made her examine him carefully.
“Ah,” she said at length, “but the best view is from the town. Did no one point it out? You must turn back.”


(φωτ: K)

[....] AFTERWORD
18.x.93

This little fiction, written to conceal how little of a fiction it is, like the Purloined Letter hides its strategy in plain view.

The book during its composition struck me as perilously drenched with real life. Much of it was wtitten in the field in the shade of the brilliant midsummer waterfront on Poros, the island where I had visited Kimon Friar and Mina Diamantopoulos on my first trip to Europe, fourteen years earlier. To be sure, Kimon and I were not half-brothers. Neither of us had a mother in Texas. "Lucine" is smuggled in from a quite different part of my life, and "Arthur Orson" is based on a fussy old man I knew in Athens, who had no connection whatever with this story. So on second thought, more invention must have come into play than I supposed at the time.

James Merrill

The (Diblos) Notebook
Εκδόσεις: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994
(πρώτη έκδοση: Atheneum publishers, 1965)

Περισσότερα για τον James Merrill στην ανάρτηση 14 / 20-8-2006, του "ταξιδεύοντας"


(φωτ: Y)