ALEXANDROS MORAITIDIS (1850 – 1929)

KOUKKITSA – AN ANGEL (1907) 

Title of the original: Κουκκίτσα

Translated and adapted by Vassilios C. Militsis

When papa-Konomos on those days passed by St Antony’s chapel every evening – which habitually did mounted on his small donkey – he felt very happy to dismount from his beast in the tiny courtyard, enter the chapel to worship the holy icons lit by the small oil-lamps hanging in a row in front of them and then sit in the only pew destined for the chanter and rest and brood in silence. The glow of the lamps, reflected in the still figures of the saints, radiated real peacefulness and relaxation.

Was it perhaps that he went by only to rest?

On those days papa-Konomos had lost her daughter, his sweetest only one, Koukkitsa, whom he loved and adored. His good wife, being always sick and pallid, upon her death bequeathed to him on his stole Koukkitsa, still a babe in swaddling clothes. Papa-Konomos alone and unaided brought her up to be a seventeen-yare-old damsel, full of sap and vigor, like a bushy olive sapling. And she was the apple of the old priest’s eye and the bliss of his home, an enviable sprout to the whole village.

When Koukkita came of age and finished school, she became papa-Konomos’ invaluable help. Wherever the old priest went to perform his religious duties, he would have Koukkitsa with him. They went together to all the lonely chapels out in the countryside, where she would read prayers, chant and help her father with the mass. She was such an able and melodious chanter that she was aptly called by the villagers: the little deaconess.

However, it was God’s will for Koukkitsa’s life to be cut short. Tall, round-faced, with dark hair and eyebrows, and radiating grace, as she lay in the coffin in her snow-white gown, she did not look like a corpse but like a bride in her bridal chamber. Thus, papa-Konomos was left alone and derelict with his stole, disconsolate, distressed, trying to find surcease of sorrow on a farming enterprise he had newly begun behind Kechria, on a forested hilly range in the west side of the island, where the peasants had decided to take up more farmland. His area was a lush forest which papa-Konomos conceded to some outlander coal producers, who charred the trees to make coal so that the priest could plant olive trees afterwards. The old priest regularly supervised the project to distract his tormented mind and, upon his late return to the village, to justify his visit to St Antony’s chapel – in the morning he used a shorter path, through St Elijah – and therein to find solace in the tiny chapel, which had been Koukkitsa’s favorite. It was Koukkitsa who had taken particular care of the chapel when she was alive. She had sewn the curtain and embroidered on it a big, golden cross in the midst of it to cover the central gate of the iconostasis. It was Koukkitsa who had hung calico aprons of high quality on the saints’ icons and every Sabbath evening she was wont to go and clean the chapel and light the lamps.

On the first days after Koukkitsa’s burial and for a whole week, papa-Konomos was unable to find solace. He who could soothe all the aggrieved villagers reading to them his comforting books could not stop his sobs which exited his bosom and cried like a babe deprived of his desires. He could not check his tears, while he was saying the mass or eating or engaged with some other task. As a divine and father confessor he struggled to hide his emotions from his parishioners. But he could not help it. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. When people came to comfort him, he feigned fortitude, tried to conceal his suffering and took up chanting from the funeral service of John of Damascus: Vanity are all the works and quests of man. But no sooner had he commenced singing than he was choked by his profound grief. Real suffering cannot be concealed.

On those first days, very frequently, papa-Konomos was forgetting that her daughter had died and when he was back home from church, he would unwittingly call out:

• Koukkitsa, prepare the coffee, will you?

And sometimes again he did not remember locking up and having the key himself, and when he went home from the vespers, he would knock at the door calling:

• Koukkitsa, open up!

On the first Friday after Koukkitsa’s demise, while he was reading in his chambers, women from his parish came to bring the bread offerings and kollyva in her memory, papa-Konomos called out:

• Koukkitsa, go get the kollyva!

The women crossed themselves puzzled. Then the old priest came to himself and at the same time his eyes were flooded with tears.

Nine days had passed since her death and one night papa-Konomos thought he was past the hour of waking up, because he was to say mass at the Castle, three hours away. He preferred that place in the country to relieve his soul of its grief. Apprehensive therefore that he was late he woke up at midnight and called out:

• Koukkitsa, will you accompany me to the Castle?

A deathly silence succeeded his voice. He was seized with terror. It seemed as if he had seen a shadow, both black and white, going through his bedroom like a flash.

• Is it you, Koukkitsa?

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His unwitting question was answered by the monotonous swing of the grandfather clock pendulum.

Again papa-Konomos’ eyes welled up. He stood up and crossed himself.

Another day he came back home exhausted after mass at distant Platania. It was an autumnal warm day. Papa-Konomos had left his donkey to graze at the stubble of the reaped fields. The donkey had wandered off; thus the priest had to walk all the way to the village carrying on his shoulder a cloth bag of fresh string beans, a treat from the people.

Weary and sweating, he mounted the small wooden staircase of his house. He unlocked the narrow front door and entering his chamber, he collapsed on a mournfully draped long sofa, which took up the whole wall. Such sofas were typical of the island. He doffed his clerical cap and rested. It should have been midday and it was very hot. As he was wiping the sweat off his brow and shaking his wet white hair, he thought he heard a voice asking:

• Papa, shall I set the table.

He sprang up, his hoary beard reaching his chest, donned his white monk cap, which was lying on the sofa, and terrified started looking around. Deathly silence prevailed in the house.

• Who’s called me!...

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His eyes were filled with tears again. Gradually soothed, he commenced chanting in a mournful tone, arrested at times, by his heaving sobs, excerpts from the burial service.

• Where is the worldly effort? Where is the transient phantasy?…

Thus papa-Konomos had the illusion that the entire house was haunted by Koukkitsa, who continually walked in the rooms. He could sense her shadow and voice. She went up and down the stairs, talked, chanted, brewed coffee, cooked the meal; and, alas, she often caressed him, kissed reverently his right hand; whereupon he would start with a jolt as if touched by live embers.

• That is a very nasty thing!

And then papa-Konomos resolved for some time to get away from his house, which caused him such grief and emotion. Therefore, he began the toilsome task with the coal laborers back in the forest. Thus unexpectedly he also happened to find much surcease of his grief in the tiny chapel of St Antony, which he visited every evening riding off his donkey.

Buried within a fragrant pinewood and surrounded by a cluster of tall, straight pines, the lonely chapel was a haven of godliness and devoutness. There are on the islands many such devout spots as man rejoices and gradually turns into a peaceful, merciful Christian. The serenity of the place appeals to the soul which is stirred by faith and prayer, by love and charity unlike the bustle and disorder in town churches that chase away circumspection and piety.

The courtyard of the isolated little chapel was a small square surrounded by white-washed stone benches, on which pots with beautiful bushy basil struck the spectator with their lush greenery and fragrant broad-leaved cloves, rosemary and salve that emanated their perfume on either side of the entrance. In a corner grew a wild rose with dry branches but with fresh tufts on them pregnant with their sweet scent.

All this had been Koukkitsa’s work. She had planted them, she had nourished them. She had watered them bringing the water from a distant small well down at Ftelia, filling up the small clay jug while she happened to pass that way in order to climb the acclivity to the chapel.

The small door to the chapel was so low that one had to stoop to enter it.

Its ashen-colored folding door due to rain and sun was cracked and furrowed as though with a knife. Inside the arch formed by the lintel was a semicircle niche like a clam bearing a cross made with five small green and blue Venetian glass saucers, hard to come by nowadays.

Papa-Konomos used to open the door with a wooden latch and get inside. He was a tall, wizened man, with a meek and placid countenance, his hoary beard reaching to his chest. In the evenings, about the fall of darkness, he always passed by that place on his way to Kechria. The coal workers stayed behind and slept in the forest.

At first the priest had avoided going by that place being apprehensive that the lonely chapel, Koukkitsa’s favorite place of worship, might incite his sorrow by poignant associations; therefore he had picked his way back home through the straight St Elija’s path. One evening, however, inadvertently, he returned by St Antony’s road after he had gone through Achilas’s dark well and the seven fast watercourses, he reached the large pinewood and espied from afar the small door of St Antony’s chapel. He devoutly crossed himself, but at the same time he grew upset. He thought of going back, but as a moonless night had already fallen, a nocturnal trek home in uneven and potholed paths would be exhausting. He made the sign of the cross again and girding himself with courage, as one girds his own loins, he timidly approached.

On seconds thoughts he wavered; should he leave without going in to worship? Then he changed his mind.

• It is not proper for me, a God’s vicar, to be overcome by such human infirmities of fickle faith.

He crossed himself for the third time.

• Forgive me, my Lord, for I have sinned! He said, opening the small door of the chapel.

• At least, let me light the lamps as tomorrow is Sunday, the Lord’s Day.

At first he was sweetly enraptured by the lamplight glow. Someone must have recently lit them. They, all hanging in a row, shed in profusion a mellow and serene light, different from the worldly light. He stood still in the midst as though he were clad in his holy vestments ready to enter the sanctuary and continue the Sunday vespers. That light was really the joyful light of the holy glory of the immortal Father, as the psalm says. A sweetest glee penetrated the priest’s soul. That light deleted every sorrow from his heart and filled his soul with peacefulness and joy. Such peacefulness and such a joyful light must exist in Paradise! …

Why lament, why go on weeping for the loss of his daughter, who dwells in Heaven, in a beautiful and unperturbed world, resembling the serenity of this lonely church, which despite its absolute stillness brims with life? In that mellow lamplight radiance, all the saintly figures of the humble wooden iconostasis made up a live chorus of souls and manifested their beatific lives in Heaven. The wooden cross over the middle of the iconostasis appeared to be playing and the figure of a wooden little dove, from the beak of which the oil-lamp in front of the cross was suspended, was moving as though ready to fly upwards and plunge into the utmost, invisible and ethereal heaven. Even the walls of the tiny chapel, along with everything in it were rejoicing.

Calm and composed he bowed and prayed in front of the holy icons and then sat down in the pew to take a short rest from walking.

The Holy Gate was covered by a curtain of blue calico ornate with pictures of white twigs as though real white mountain blooms had stuck on it. A similar curtain blocked the other door of the iconostasis. There were two small paned windows, on either side of the iconostasis. The glimmer of the starry sky and the nebulous luster of the distant sea filtered through one of them. The view of the dark forest, palled already in the gloom of nightfall, and a thick and black night, the night of an impenetrable forest prevailed through the other window. On one window ledge there were the books of the church service. On the other there was an earthen censer, the half of a coconut shell containing some grains of incense, a clay oilcan, spent wax candle stubs and a box of matches.

Two candle stands, made of wild olive sapling wood, stood on their three-forked bases in front of the iconostasis, which was a simple low affair made of wood, and bore the icons of the chapel. These were ancient, bearing all the grace of holy antiquity, like a deep colored veil fabricated by the centuries upon the austere lines of the painter. There were only four of them and they were all bedecked with flowers, freshly picked from the tiny garden in the small yard of the chapel. In the corners of the west side of the church, high up on the ceiling, were safely suspended wedding wreathes of deceased couples, bound in twos, the lemon blooms having been rubbed off and already faded by time. What was visible were only the frames and the naked cotton wads, sad symbols of our life, in whose sap death is always lying in wait. Within suspended slings there were the bones of people died of yore and in a couple of cloth-pieces lay wrapped the skulls of those whose relatives had been loath to throw the relics into the charnel of the graveyard so that they could come here, light candles and burn incense in the memory and rest of the souls of their beloved dead.

Papa-Konomos, seated in the tiny pew and observing everything around him, was puzzled by the particular tidiness and cleanliness of the chapel and reflected:

• Who is it now that’s looking after this little chapel, my Koukkitsa’s favorite? Not an oil stain on the floor slabs. Who is it that’s lighting the lamps and cleaning them so that their glass sparkles?

Thereupon he called to memory his pretty daughter, who used to look after the little church while she was living. And oddly enough, he gradually did not experience his previous sorrow any more. His heartache was now changing into sweetness and his tears that filled his eyes were no longer turbid, but clear and bright like diamonds, what anchorites call tears of solace or sweet sorrow.

Thus papa-Konomos found surcease of grief. Therefore, he was always looking forward to ending his working day with the coal workers in the forest so that he could spend more time at St Anthony’s chapel. There if he could see his daughter, as he sat in the little pew and meditated, he would no more be alarmed, as he had been when he had seen her shadow in his house.

At that place, even if he heard her chant, he would chant with her. And he wished indeed to see her lighting the lamps and incensing the church and him. The immortal joy, which filled the whole chapel at those nocturnal hours, made him believe that the Righteous live eternally in the hereafter.

• Since one feels so blissful in front of the saints’ icons in here, how beatific would one be with these same saints in heaven? Thought to himself.

After a while the work in the forest would come to an end, because winter was already drawing near. However, he grew so familiar with his isolation and his loss, or rather he became so accustomed to the idea that his daughter had not died but she lived on, that he did no longer dread Koukkitsa’s imaginary shadow nor her inexistent voice. He would now sense unutterable delight if he were to see her at home or if he heard her voice and her tread.

• The Righteous enjoy eternal life!

This respite, however, was ruined, all of a sudden, by an unexpected event on those days. In small villages there is much ado about events arising from virtually trivial rumors that like a rolling snowball wax into an avalanche. No one could conjecture the origin or the cause of such rumors. Perhaps it was those mysterious voices heard by papa-Konomos at home and were circulated by the village gossips; or perhaps his invocations to his daughter when the womenfolk of his parish would bring him the kollyva. Or even the fact that the priest in his simplicity advertised the continued tidiness and cleanliness of the chapel, of which Koukkitsa used to take care while still in life. Papa-Konomos went on repeatedly telling his parishioners about the clean, burning oil lamps as well as the fresh flowers. He was wondering aloud: “Who is lighting the lamps that they so sweetly shine and who is bringing the flowers that give off such fragrance …” All these things made up the core of a horrible story. And one evening at dusk, a few weeks after Koukkitsa’s death, rumors had it all over the village:

• Koukkitsa has turned into a vampire!

Papa-Konomos first heard of it at the time he was peacefully reading the after supper grace at his home. He grieved at this atrocious rumor, which divested his pretty dead daughter of her immortal beauty depicting her as a ghastly and vile creature that could turn into a vampire. He could not bat a lid at all until the hour of matins. Then on his way back from church, he did not dare pass by the market place to buy some fish for lunch, because he had the impression that everyone would stare at him with a leer after that hideous rumor. And indeed outside the house there were several gossips with their children waiting for him with curious expectancy. He even appeared to have heard the remark:

• The vampire’s father…

Several days went by and the rumor excited the whole village and ruined papa-Konomos’ entire spiritual serenity, which he had so preciously found in the deserted mountain chapel. How could he cope with that dark superstition of the illiterate islanders? He had to find refuge to papa-Flavianos, the abbot of New Monastery, who repudiated the rumor with abhorrence, exclaiming in high dudgeon:

• It is the demons who are doomed to become vampires!

And despite his sickly constitution, papa-Flavianos uttered such an angry booming vociferation that the entire deep gully of the Monastery with all its plane and walnut-trees reciprocated his voice with a terrible resounding echo:

• It is the demons who are doomed to become vampires!

However, peasants find it hard to eradicate their deep rooted superstitious beliefs. And the inhabitants of the island, the womenfolk in particular, continued to whisper the queerest reports.

Many women had allegedly seen Koukkitsa cook at the priest’s abode; others had seen her sweep, her head swathed in a white towel. Others again had seen Koukkitsa wend her way to the Castle, carrying a saddlebag with papa-Konomos’ vestments and holy vessels.

These rumors were aided and abetted by the visions of old George Kopsidakis, a short and bent shepherd, known on the island for his many visions and revelations. Coming down from St Anthony’s pine forest, his leather sack suspended on his shoulder, he met near the cemetery parish of the Holy Trinity a gathering of women who were discussing the horrible event concerning papa-Konomos in the early hours of the day as they were sweeping their courtyards.

As soon as they saw him, the women received him in panegyric ululations.

• There’s barba-George. He must know. He’ll tell us the whole truth as he’s coming from St Anthony.

It was well-known among the womenfolk as well as to the whole village that the old shepherd found gist in busying with such things. He was wont to leave his sheepfold and endure long walks fasting and praying. Short and bent, clad in coarse baize clothes, a monk’s cap covering his head down to his eyes, which were always moist, his face grown with a short grey beard and carrying his sack where he kept a hunk of bread, meditating the words Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us, like a monk. He laid his heart and soul on staying up all night where he had heard of ghosts, dreams and apparitions so that he could provide the islanders, the women and the idlers with detailed information about supernatural events.

Thus barba-George was so well-known to the womenfolk. They full well knew that, dwelling on the rumor that Koukkitsa had turned into a vampire, he had deserted his flock of sheep and gone to keep vigil all night at St Anthony’s chapel subsisting on his hard hunk of bread he kept in his sack. Therefore, as soon as he was seen, the women realized he was coming from St Anthony.

Upon hearing from afar their talk about Koukkitsa, the dead and the vampires, he paused and greeted them calm and unperturbed.

• Why are you wasting your time talking, my good women? Why don’t you go to St Anthony and see yourselves Koukkitsa light the lamps!....

• Koukkitsa? They exclaimed in horror.

• She regularly lights the lamps, sweeps the church, tidies everything, build a small fire and puts incense in the censer, forsooth!...

• Holy Virgin! They all said crossing themselves.

• I’ve seen her three times so far.

• Even last night, barba-George?

• I kept my vigils from the early hours, but I didn’t see her last night. However, all the lamps were already burning and the chapel was full of a sweet incense fragrance. She must have gone earlier as it was Saturday evening.

• You see! Koukkitsa has turned into a vampire, hasn’t she? Exclaimed a middle-aged woman shaking her broom.

On the morrow, barba-George confessed his vision to papa-Konomos himself, after it had already been propagated around.There, it is crystal clear and true, your reverence. Don’t I perhaps remember Koukkitsa? Haven’t I so often taken her to my corral on my pack beast?

• And have you seen her light the lamps?

• Yes, my priest, the very lamps of St Antony’s chapel. She was pulling them down, one by one. Yes, I remember now. She washed their glass, filled them with oil, put the wicks and then kindled them.

And after a short pause:

• Ah, I forgot, first she swept very carefully and then she lit the lamps and then, let me see – how can I remember everything? – Though I’ve seen a lot of eerie things, I went pale with fright; she then put some live coals in the censer and fumed the icons, no first she incensed the Holy Gate – and most important of all was that she came to cense me, too! What can I say, papa-Konomos, what I’ve seen can’t be described in words; she was beautiful, most beautiful! Unbelievable, she was snow white; her loose hair cascaded to the shoulders, a real deaconess. She was also wearing a white alb. I shuddered in fright. I was at a loss. Now she’ll catch me, I thought. But she cast a sweet glance at me and I’d forgotten that she was dead, so I asked her “are you with your papa, Koukkitsa?” whereupon she vanished, like the wind. Puff and she disappeared.

The hoary priest grew pensive. He was absorbed in deep thought. He remained still for a while. Deep in his mind he pondered on many alternatives and he came to many conclusions.

The execrable possibility of Koukkitsa’s becoming a vampire was gradually dissolving and the shepherd’s beautiful apparition underlay the core of a sweetest surmise in the priest’s mind. He turned to the shepherd:

• This isn’t strange. It’s not strange at all, barba-George, my child. The souls of the blessed like to associate with the living. The sainted souls often visit their beloved as well as their homes, their estates and everything that they had tenderly been fond of on earth. My Koukkitsa had been virtuous, I know! Why should it be strange that she is now visiting this little chapel that she had so much been fond of when she was living? Had not our Lord himself been appearing to His disciples until His Ascension? Had He not been speaking with them? Had He not partaken of their meal and had he not blessed them though He was now wholly God …

And lo! Immediately a joyful mirth was depicted on papa-Konomos’ countenance. The rumors of the women had caused him to feel abhorrence and horror. But the villager’s beatific and tender vision, which took place in that sweet chapel that so much soothed his grief, appeared to him very natural as befitting the soul of a Deceased Righteous one.

• Barba-George, said papa-Konomos, souls are immortal. They exist in the hereafter. The souls of the Righteous visit us as those of the saints. Papa-Flavianos, the abbot of New Monastery, has recounted many strange tales to me, all of them true! St Theodosios, abiding in a commune, had an acolyte, Vassileios, who died. After his death for forty successive days his soul continued to be present in the monastery church at night and pray with his brethren. On the last day after bidding them farewell, he disappeared and had never been seen since. He only told them: “Farewell, brethren. You shall no more see me” and he vanished.

After this confession many a night papa-Konomos kept vigils at the chapel all alone till dawn looking forward to seeing, even in trance, his beloved Koukkitsa. However, in vain did he stay awake all night long. Concerning the care of the chapel he was convinced that he had fallen victim to the illusions of the shepherd, whom he called moonstruck. For upon keeping his vigils for a couple of nights, the priest to his disillusionment saw Frangoulas, an unkempt and barefoot monk, dressed in rags, enter St Anthony’s chapel. He tidied everything, put fresh flowers in front of the holy icons, lit the lamps and went on to prostrate in prayer. Therefore, the priest was convinced that barba-George was in sooth moonstruck. Thereupon, all the priest’s dreams to see his Koukkitsa were shattered. And yet, he wished that he had been moonstruck himself, that he had been born on a Saturday – oh what affection, oh what love! That pious and virtuous priest was wallowing in such superstitious desires because of blind love. He wished so much, instead of the bedraggled Frangoulas, to see his Koukkitsa tidy the chapel and light the lamps, even as a phantom or as an apparition. He went on staying awake for two weekends more, but in vain! Such was his burning desire to see his daughter as one night to contemplate:

• If only I saw her even as a vampire!

A shudder went through his limbs.The work of the coal workers back at the Kechria forest was unceasingly going on. Shortly two kilns would be ready for the charring of wood. Papa-Konomos had made it a habit to pass by St Anthony’s chapel on his way home in the evening. He dismounted from his beast and sat in the small pew, sometimes reading the vesper service and sometimes meditating upon the souls and the coming glory in the hereafter.

One Saturday morning after forty days had passed from his Koukkitsa’s death, he performed the wonted month’s mind service at the Madonna Church in Kechria. In the evening he prolonged his stay at the lonely chapel. The lamps were shedding such a particularly bright and lambent shine as he had never remembered experiencing it before.

The whole chapel with everything in it was bathed in this glorious illumination. As soon as he entered the chapel, the hoary priest sensed the fragrance of recently burned incense and discerned some tenuous smoke wisps hovering and whirling on the low ceiling as well as in the sanctum, where through an open small window a light breeze was coming in from the nearby forest and a wafting, intoxicating perfume was emanating from the trees, plants and shrubs; and a different, insatiate fragrance was given off by the mountains at night as though they breathed like humans; this fragrance is so well treasured by the anchorites and hermits, the singular companions of the mountains. An owl hooted on a cliff in the distance and the crickets with the noisy glowworms delighted the senses with their unceasing harmonious chirp. Mysterious sounds were heard in the forest as though it moved and sighed in the night. Indistinct and sudden whispers were perceived in the thickets like human utterance or the soughing of the foliage swaying in the nocturnal breeze blowing lightly from St Constantine, the peak of the mountain on the opposite slope. Such sounds are the pleasant and indescribable discourse that accompanies the shepherds, the peasants and the coal workers in their lonely outdoor lives.

Having fixed his gaze at the shining lamps, papa-Konomos whispered to himself:

• That ragged Frangoulas must have come.

In the light breeze the trembling flames of the lamps caused the illusion that the saints’ eyes of the icons were moving as if alive – the priest was not any more impressed nor did he wonder by the tidiness and propriety of the chapel.

• And if Frangoulas hasn’t come, he thought, the women must have lit the lamps and incensed the premises.

On those days when Koukkitsa’s vampirism was widely advertised, many women used to gather in the chapel out of curiosity early in the evening.

Papa-Konomos had already been sitting in his small pew for some time when in the deep dark he heard a thump outside as if a sheaf of firewood fell on the ground.

Whereupon, the small door opened and barba-George, short and bent, exhausted from his mountain walk with a backload of wood entered the chapel. After he had crossed himself, he headed to the tiny pew to take a rest. There he saw the old priest praying silently.

• Your blessing, greeted the shepherd in the monastic way, having picked it up from New Monastery, where the Mt Athos order was established.

• May God rest you! Responded papa-Konomos.

Exhausted as he was, barba-George leaned on the pew and spoke to the priest.

• Papa-Konomos, I was right here, and over there all of a sudden I see Koukkitsa coming out of the Holy Gate, a censer in her hand. I went pale with fright. She was wearing a snow white alb as if made of veiling and covered with a bridal mantle.

After a short pause he went on:

• If she’s to come, she surely will tonight, papa-Konomos.

The priest stood suddenly upright. The shepherd went on:

• Haven’t you performed her month’s mind service today? So she’ll come tonight. She appeared at her three-day and novena services; she’ll show up on her month’s mind as well, she can’t miss it.The peasant had calculated the days and was now looking forward to a new vision.

Papa-Konomos, though he longed so much to have such a blissful vision of her daughter, began to lose heart and doubt.

The stillness of the place was interrupted by an unusual clatter in the sanctum. And lo, Frangoulas yawning and drowsy comes through the Holy Gate heading to the exit. Passing by the two praying persons, he took an indifferent glance at them and gathering his rags around him proceeded to the exit whispering as in soliloquy:

• Will you perform mass tomorrow, papa-Konomos?

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Barba-George and the priest exchanged a wondering look.

• Do you realize that you are moonstruck? Papa-Konomos said mournfully to the shepherd and added:

• That’s who lights the lamps!

• What can I say, papa-Konomos? I have already seen her three times so far. Nothing more do I know… replied the shepherd embarrassed.

Papa-Konomos was about to leave and stood up to bow in worship in front of the icons.

Suddenly, however, gusts of wind blew from the pine grove shaking the trees to and fro. The folds of the small door were shut with an unusual bang by the force of the wind and the two wayfarers turned unconsciously to the door. A shudder of fright ran through their whole body. It seemed to them that that blast of the wind was alive with a prolonged whistle like the wonted whistle of the mountain shepherds. Barba-George, gastly pale, shrank near the tiny pew, where the priest stood, and grabbed a fold of his frock.

• Papa-Konomos! Papa-Konomos, stammered the shepherd. There, there! Look, there she is. Koukkitsa!

The old shepherd, dead scared, melded with the pew.

Papa-Konomos, possessed himself by an inexplicable awe, turned to the chapel door in fright and saw a marvelous and dazzling vision. A sublime maiden clad in a long gown as a deacon’s alb, her loose hair covered in a bright and glorious veil, like a gossamer royal mantle. Looking like a priestess of antiquity, she flitted, without touching the ground, to the holy icons, light and speedy as the wind. There she stood making signs of worship bowing before them. The priest stood speechless. Barba-George was shaking like a leaf.

The apparition was joyous and sweet. The appearance of that maiden beauty, free from aught freakish or demonic, nothing to do with the fancies of the village women, caused papa-Konomos to take heart gradually and encouraged now he was particularly enjoying gazing at the appearance of this mysterious maiden. He was about to come out of the pew and talk to her but barba-George held him back grabbing his frock and whispering:

• Don’t papa-Konomos! Don’t go or she’ll make you lose the power of speech.

The white clad maiden took the oil can and made motions as if she filled the lamps with oil and then proceeded to the Holy Gate.

• Don’t papa-Konomos! No! barba-George went on prevent the priest from going.

After a while, the maiden exited the sanctum holding the spent censer and pretending to cense. And then papa-Konomos had his deep desire fulfilled. He saw his own daughter with his eyes. She was the selfsame Koukkitsa. All features were hers; the hair, the eyes, the stature. Her face was dazzlingly white; the flower of whiteness. Her attire was white as was the veil under which her streaming hair was swaying in the wind.

The priest felt utter joy and elation in his very soul. He could not help rushing forward to embrace her exclaiming passionately:

Koukkitsa! My beloved daughter!

But the white veiled virgin fled like the wind from the attempted embrace of the old priest, whose hands only flapped in the peacefulness of the tiny chapel.

And then the daughter stood in dazzling magnificence before the Holy Gate, turned to the chapel nave as though she meant to talk, while the priest was kneeling on the floor slabs. The old shepherd was continually trembling with fear.

• Don’t talk, I’m telling you! Barba-George kept pulling at his frock. She’ll rob you of your speech.

Tall, graceful as a little deaconess, the white vested maiden stood still and saintly on the marble dais of the Holy Gate. She was Koukkitsa herself.

Then she opened her mouth and uttered in chanting tones.

• Farewell, my sweetest father! Farewell, oh vain life. Farewell, the whole creation, the heaven and the stars, the light, the moon and the sun, the earth and the waters. Farewell, my kith and kin. And you my beloved chapel, the holy abode of my soul, farewell, too. Farewell! You shall no more see me here!

When the priest painfully rose from the floor slabs, he could no more hear that divine chant, which had gradually dissolved and been spent, the way rosemary incense burns out in smoke. A subtle indescribable sweetness, like the scent of pure nard only remained in the priest’s heart.

• My beloved Koukkitsa, cried out again papa-Konomos weeping for sheer joy, inexplicable and utterly spiritual. Turning to barba-George he said:

• The souls of the Righteous live on in heaven and visit us!

• They visit us until their month’s mind service! Postulated the already omniscient barba-George Kopsidakis, still pale from fright but somewhat proud. And he added:

• And haven’t I seen such wonders so far!...

Ever since, papa-Konomos had found complete solace and repose. After a while those bitter rumors among the womenfolk finally stopped and Koukkitsa’s name was no more ill-heard but she was commemorated on the Sabbaths by papa-Konomos, his eyes always moist.