I was midshipman once on postal ships that sailed the Egyptian line to southern France, and knew her then a pure white Alpine flower until close filial ties bound us together. The aristocratic, frail and melancholy child of a rich Egyptian who had killed himself, she sailed her sorrow to far lands, hoping to drown her deep grief somewhere there. She almost always read Bashkirtsev's Journal and madly adored the Saint of Avila. She'd often read to me French mournful verses and gaze for hours on the sea's expanse. And I, who'd only known the flesh of whores and had a spineless and sea-battered soul, found by her side my long-lost childhood joys and listened as to a sibyl, ecstatically. Around her throat I hung a small gold cross and she in turn gave me a handsome wallet; on earth there was no sadder man than I that day we reached her port of debarkation. Sailing the freighters, I called constantly to mind my patroness, my guardian angel, until her photograph by the prow became a green oasis in the heart's desert. I think that I should stop my story here, for my hand trembles, the torrid wind inflames me. Here gorgeous riverine tropic flowers stink, a stupid marabou shrills in the distance. But I'll write on , . . Nikos Kavvadias – from his poem “Marabou”