It is impossible to be unmoved by their presence, by their absence. They have everyone’s attention to some degree, though no one can command theirs. The guide nods toward them with her melancholy smile. The Irishman, having completed his meal, lies down on a bench with his head in his wife’s lap. The Danish lady touches her husband’s hand. The ferry splashes its ungainly bow against wave after wave, and on all sides of them—for all the while they have been in sight of the Peloponnesian shore—can be seen the disarming shapes of the Greek coast, sometimes steep, sometimes low-lying, not always readily imposing, for this is an Oriental idea of a coastline rather than a Western one. For the space of a minute, heavy rain falls from the blue sky—the sea is freckled with it, it splashes over the deck, on tables and empty dishes, but no one stirs. The Norwegian girl opens her eyes but doesn’t move, and in a moment the rain is behind them.

“Patras,” says the chauffeur, and once more the passengers are brought to the rail. Patras, the substantial town fixed in an arc of the oncoming land, is their destination and they cannot disregard it. They have chosen to come to this shore and they line the rail like a little group of immigrants, wondering what life it will offer them even temporarily.

“Missolonghi,” the man says, pointing farther and in another direction. There is a tremendous headland, cliffs, some flat land.

Only the Norwegians still watch Patras.

Standing beside the boy’s chair, the stocky teacher tells him, “Missolonghi. Where Byron died.”

He gives a careful smile. Turning to his companion, he translates, “Byron døde der,” but one senses that he does so merely from politeness.

She is bending forward in her chair to dry her face with her skirt. She looks up, smiles and nods, and says, “Thank you,” gravely as if to a child.

The guide sits down again with her Danish friends and spreads out a map of the Peloponnesus. “Olympia,” she says—for they are all headed for Olympia: it is their reason for landing at Patras—“is on the border of the district of Arcadia.”

The ship slows down. They are nearing Patras. The town looks hot and slow. Above the waterfront there are hotels, terraces, a garden, a gas station. The harbor is empty except for a few caïques, a tanker, and a tug or two. An exchange of whistles brings the ferry almost to a stop. It glides toward the pier, covering the last quarter of a mile so slowly that the passengers go back to their seats and the guide resumes her lecture.

“… was the site of the Games, which took place every four years regardless of the political relations of participants. In those days”—she shrugs—“they suspended the wars for the Games. Now they suspend the Games for the wars.”