390
PARTISAN REVIEW
conspicuous golden letters along the frame, and he wore them con–
stantly, even indoors.
One evening during his second week in the city he met a large group
of friends for drinks. Angeliki was there too, wearing a tight red dress
and enormous golden hoops in her ears, laughing across the table with
another girl, barely meeting his eyes. He had not seen her before this
night. When he had called upon his arrival, her voice had been distant,
and oh, she was afraid she was so busy nowadays, working overtime at
her shop, but maybe later, let's talk sometime next week.... Of course,
he was hardly surprised. He had talked to her only two or three times
on Maria's telephone, it was not private enough, and their correspon–
dence, so diligent in his first few weeks in Inos, had soon dwindled and
then petered out completely-perhaps through his fault, for he was
never much of a writer. And now here they were, pretending to be
strangers. So he turned to a blonde woman with a vapid face sitting next
to him and began to regale her with stories of Levkothea. He told her
about the old taverna keeper who forced the most dreadful wine on his
customers, and donkeys getting stuck in the streets, and the poor over–
weight fishermen's daughters who thought Gucci was a brand of tooth–
paste; and he was just getting ready to describe his search for his
landlady's cat when suddenly he noticed that the whole table had fallen
silent and his voice alone carried across the terrace. For a moment he
stopped in mid-sentence, embarrassed. But then he saw Angeliki look–
ing at him, her eyebrows raised in mild surprise, and he hastily swal–
lowed his drink and went on. Soon the whole table shook with giggles.
The image of an old woman running around her house and screaming
"Hope, Hope is gone!" had them in stitches, and, fortified by another
glass of retsina, Constantine embarked on the story of the wind seller.
Naturally, he left all the dark or unpleasant undertones out of it, and his
friends moaned and roared with laughter.
"First Nestor, and now Kadmos!" screamed someone delightedly.
"What next, Hercules?"
Constantine had not realized that Kadmos was the name of anyone
of importance, but now he nodded happily, for it clearly made his story
even funnier. He was flushed with success. People slapped him on the
back and bought him drinks, and the blonde next to him threw her hair
back repeatedly, gave him long sultry looks, and occasionally grazed his
hand with hers. And once or twice it seemed to him that Angeliki smiled
at him from across the table .
When he began to say his good-byes, she made her way over to him.
