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that I was free of possessions, free of all ties, free of fear and envy and malice. I could have passed quietly from one dream to another, owning nothing, regretting nothing, wishing nothing. I was never more certain that life and death are one and that neither can be enjoyed or embraced if the other be absent.
     
     
    At Patras we decided to go ashore and take the train to Athens. The Hotel Cecil, which we stopped at, is the best hotel I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been in a good many. It cost about 23 cents a day for a room the likes of which could not be duplicated in America for less than five dollars. I hope everybody who is passing through Greece will stop off at the Hotel Cecil and see for themselves. It is an event in one’s life…. We breakfasted towards noon on the terrace of the solarium overlooking the sea. Here a terrible wrangle ensued between Durrell and his wife. I felt quite helpless and could only pity them both from the depths of my heart. It was really a private quarrel in which the war was used as a camouflage. The thought of war drives people frantic, makes them quite cuckoo, even when they are intelligent and far-seeing, as both Durrell and Nancy are. War has another bad effect—it makes young people feel guilty and conscience-stricken. In Corfu I had been studying the antics of a superbly healthy young Englishman, a lad of twenty or so, who had intended to be a Greek scholar. He was running around like a chicken with its head off begging someone to put him in the front line where he could have himself blown to smithereens. Now Durrell was talking the same way, the only difference being that he was not so crazy to be killed as to be with the Greek forces in Albania—because he thought more of the Greeks than he did of his own countrymen. I said as little as possible because if I had attempted to dissuade him I would only have succeeded in abetting his suicidal impulse. I didn’t want to see him killed; it seemed to me that the war could very well be fought to its fruitless end without the sacrifice of one destined to give so much to the world. He knew what I thought about war and I think in his heart he agrees with me, but being young, being serviceable, being English despite himself, he was in a quandary. It was a bad place in which to discuss a subject of this sort. The atmosphere was charged with memories of Byron. Sitting there, with Missolonghi so near, it was almost impossible to think sanely about war. The British Consul at Patras was far more clear-headed. After a brief talk with him I felt a renewed respect for the British Empire. I also reminded myself that war hadn’t actually been declared yet. It had threatened to break out so often—possibly it wouldn’t happen after all.
    We had a good meal at the public square and towards the late afternoon we took the automotrice for Athens. During the course of a conversation with some fellow travelers a Greek returning from America hailed me in jovial fashion as a brother American and began a long, irritatingly stupid monologue about the glories of Chicago which I doubt he had ever lived in more than a month. The gist of it was that he was eager to get back home—meaning America ; he found his countrymen ignorant, dirty, backward, inefficient and so on and so forth. Durrell interrupted once to inquire what language the man was speaking—he had never heard a Greek speaking that kind of American. The men I had been talking with were eager to know what this strange countryman of theirs was so excited about. We had been talking in French until this Yahoo came along. I told them in French that the man was an ignoramus. At this the Greek asked me what language I was speaking and when I said French he answered—“I don’t know those languages; American’s good enough for me…I’m from Chicago.” Though I showed him plainly that I wasn’t interested in listening to his stories he insisted on telling me all about himself. He said he was now