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| August Macke |
In 1933, Patrick Leigh
Fermor, eighteen years old, left home and set out for an epic walk from the
“Hoek of Holland”, all the way to Constantinople . His long journey is related in two
beautiful classics: “A time of gifts” and “Between the woods and the water”.
From the first lines,
one is taken aback by the beautiful writing and the maturity with which Leigh
Fermor looked at the world. Surely, this could not be the work of such a young
man! But we should not be surprised; Leigh Fermor wrote down his memories much
later, in 1977 at a respective age of 62. By then the writer had already
sharpened his pen on the translation and editing of the “Cretan Runner” written by the Greek
author Psychoundakis’ and developed his own style in “Mani” and “Roumeli”, two
acclaimed and beautiful books on Greece.
Like a true Pilgrim
and in tune with his young age and Byronic spirit, Leigh Fermor travelled light
and on a low budget. Only equipped with a walking stick, a rucksack and two
books; (an old Oxford volume of English verse
and Loeb’s Horace), Leigh Fermor simply embarked on a rainy day on a steamer
which brought him from the Thames to the Low Countries .
From there it was on foot and an occasional ride on a hay-wagon.
The rucksack was
bequeathed to him by Mark Ogilvie – Grant, Robert Byron’s travelling companion on
his trip to Mount Athos, and this detail underscores the fact that Leigh Fermor
does belong to this race of young, intelligent and cultural-enlightened
travelers, like Pausanius and Byron before him and Herzog, Chatwin and Jacques
Lacarrière after him, who all reported of their travels in brilliant books, written to our great
enjoyment.
Because the young man
travels like a Pilgrim, innocent and alone and thus vulnerable, he brings out
the best from the many people he encounters in his wanderings through the
cities and country-side.
Nearly everywhere doors open, tables are dressed, friendships sealed and
confidences exchanged. Free meals, free beds, help and advice are offered at
each bend of the road.
But the specific year
of the pilgrimage, 1933, gives Leigh Fermor’s account a strange and darker
dimension. For the Germany
he travels through is Nazi – Germany
and the young and friendly people he meets will become his enemies in less than
a decade. Some of the boys of his age already adorn their rooms with posters
and newspaper clippings of the Fuhrer, but still a lot make jokes about Hitler
and a handful are even convinced that the success of the Fuhrer will not
outlast the next elections… Alas.
The world through
which Leigh Fermor travels will soon be obliterated in a apocalyptic inferno. When
reading about the many small villages and tiny hamlets he travels through in Czechia , Slovakia ,
Hungary , Roumenia and Bulgaria , the
present reader knows that their inhabitants are doomed. Jewish communities,
Gypsie villages, Slav settlements, all these gentle folks who help him en route
will not outlive the fury of the German “Herren – Volk.
So in the end this
marvelous travel account, with its funny anecdotes and many beautiful
descriptions, its exposure of cultural riches and descriptions of human
hospitality, is also a document on innocence about to be lost, both on the
level of the young traveler and the world he travels through.
A sad aftertaste
indeed…
