The Vintage

The Vintage by E.F. Benson (1920)

The Vintage opens in Nauplia under Turkish occupation, establishing the harsh conditions faced by the Greek population: usurious debt, oppressive taxation, and casual brutality from their occupiers. Constantine, a once-prosperous landowner reduced to laboring on his own remaining acre after a Turkish pasha, Abdul Achmet, seized his vineyard without payment, lives with his eighteen-year-old son Mitsos, a strong, cheerful, high-spirited boy skilled in fishing, sailing, and shooting. Father Andrea, a priest whose daughter Theodora was abducted by Turks years earlier near Athens, and whose dying father charged him with a vow of merciless vengeance, curses the Turks ritually and awaits the coming uprising. Mitsos's uncle, Nicholas Vidalis, arrives — a commanding, well-traveled man who was once an outlaw after his wife Catharine and daughter Helen were killed by a Turkish officer who had assaulted his household; Catharine killed the officer's killer's... rather, Nicholas killed the officer, and Catharine took her own life. Nicholas has since dedicated himself entirely to organizing revolution against Ottoman rule, now empowered by the Club of Patriots to direct the uprising throughout the Morea. He tests Mitsos's loyalty and nerve by staging a mock capture and near-hanging by disguised Turks; Mitsos withstands the ordeal without betraying Nicholas, earning his uncle's full trust and being drawn into the secret network. On the same night journey, uncle and nephew discover a Greek peasant hanged by Turkish soldiers; Nicholas makes Mitsos swear an oath of merciless vengeance against the Turkish race. Nicholas travels on to meet Archbishop Germanos at Patras, coordinating the gathering revolution, and visits the monastery of Megaspelaion, where monks are secretly stockpiling arms in a hidden crypt disguised as roof repairs ("black corn" is the code phrase for concealed weapons and mobilized men). Nicholas and Germanos debate the coming struggle's character, Nicholas insisting on total extermination of the Turks in revenge for his family, Germanos favoring military victory without massacre of noncombatants. Nicholas also recruits the sea captain Kanaris to help blockade Turkish escape by water. Back in Nauplia, tension between Greeks and Turkish soldiers escalates over a harsh new tax on the wine harvest; a riot nearly breaks out in the town square after a Greek is shot dead, but Father Andrea intervenes, quells the crowd, and offers himself as hostage to the Turkish officer Mehemet Salik, who releases him after order is restored, warning that they will meet again as enemies. The grape harvest and wine-making at Constantine's farm proceed in detail, during which Mitsos briefly notices a hired girl, Maria, who soon marries another man, Yanko. Mitsos then becomes entangled in a secret romance with Suleima, a young Greek-born woman held in Abdul Achmet's harem, who was taken from her family as a child and no longer remembers her origins beyond fragments. They meet at night by the garden wall, exchanging songs and conversation, eventually undertaking secret moonlit boat outings together as their attachment deepens into love. Mitsos warns her, without revealing the plot's details, that if attacks come she should identify herself as Greek to be spared. Winter arrives, and Nicholas reappears, having narrowly avoided being handed over to Turkish authorities in Maina through the connivance of his cousin Petros Mavromichales ("Petrobey"), the powerful clan leader who staged a false search for him. Nicholas summons Mitsos to active duty in the coming revolt, wrenching him away from Suleima. Mitsos travels to Petrobey's household in Maina, where he is paired with Petrobey's son Yanni to carry coded messages ("black corn for the Turk") to villages throughout the region, signaling covert preparations for the uprising, while Yanni may later be sent to Tripoli as a hostage guaranteeing his father's loyalty. The two young men set out together on this mission, and Mitsos, torn between grief at leaving Suleima and pride in his new responsibility, begins the journey delivering the secret call to arms.

By E.F. Benson · First published 1920 · Genre: Horror, Supernatural, Psychological Thriller · 31 chapters · 167,458 words

First lines

Nauplia, huddled together on the edge of its glittering bay, and grilled beneath the hot stress of the midsummer noon, stood silent as a city of the dead. Down the middle of the main street, leading up from the quay to the square, lay a scorching ribbon of sunshine, and the narrow strips of shadow, sharp cut and blue, spoke of the South.

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vintage · nostalgia · family · relationships · drama · society · class · English countryside · historical · coming of age · identity · tradition

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