Nicholas Urfe was born in 1927 in the family of brigadier general; after a brief service in the army in 1948 he went to Oxford, and a year later his parents died in a plane crash. He stayed alone, with a small but independent annual revenue, has bought a used car - among students it was quite uncommon and contributed to his success among girls. Nicholas considered himself a poet; engrossed into reading novels of the French existentialists, taking metaphorical descriptions of complex philosophical systems of the tutorial correct behavior not realizing that favorite anti-heroes act in literature, but not in reality; he created a club Les Hommers Revokes (Rebellious people) - bright individuals rebelled against the gray routine of life; and finally came to life, on his own assessment ,"fully prepared to fail."
After graduating from Oxford he got a place of a teacher in a small school in the east of England; having hardly endure year in the boondocks, he appealed to the British Council, wanting to work abroad, and so ended up in Greece as an English teacher at the school of Lord Byron on Fraksose, an island eighty kilometers from Athens. On the same day, when he was offered the job, he met Alison, a woman from Australia, who rented a room on the floor below. She was twenty-three, he was - twenty-five; they fell in love with each other, but were afraid to admit it. So they broke up he went to Greece, she received a job of a flight attendant.
Island Fraksos appeared divinely beautiful and deserted. Nicholas was alone wandering around the island, learning previously unknown to him absolute beauty of the Greek landscape. He wrote poetry, but it was on this earth, where is some strange way the true measure of things became clear for him, and suddenly realized conclusively that he was not a poet, and his poems were mannered and pompous. After a visit to a brothel in Athens he got sick, and that finally threw him into a deep depression - up to the suicide attempt.
But miracles began in May. A deserted villa on the southern half of the island suddenly came to life: on the beach, he found blue fins, smelling faintly with feminine makeup, a towel and an anthology of English poetry. Under one of the tabs were underlined with red the poems of Eliot.
Until next weekend Nicolas made inquiries in the village about the owner of the villa Burani. They spoke about him not too eager considering him a collaborator: during the war he was a village chief, and his name is associated with the contradictory story of shooting by Germans half of the village. He lives alone, very closed, does not communicate with anyone. This contradicts with what Nicholas had learned in London from his predecessor, who had told him when he was in the Burani villa and fell out with its owner – but he about it told too sparingly and reluctantly. The atmosphere of mystery, omissions and contradictions that enveloped the man are intriguing Nicholas, and he decides certainly to meet with Mr. Conchis.
The meeting took place. Conchis was as if waiting for him; tea table was set for two. Conchis showed Nicholas the house: a huge library, originals of Modigliani and Bonnard, old clavichord, and ancient sculptures and paintings on vases provocatively erotic properties. Conchis after tea played Telemann - played superbly, but said he was not a musician, and a "very rich man" and "visionary". Materialistically bred up Nicholas wondered if he was not crazy when Conchis pointedly said that Nicholas was also "chosen". Nicholas had not seen such people before; communication with Conchis promises him a lot of fascinating puzzles. Conchis said goodbye throwing his hands up with an outlandish priestly gesture, as the host - as God - as a magician. And he invited Nicholas to spend the next weekend together, but put conditions: not to talk about it anyone in the village and not to ask him any questions.
Now Nicholas lived from weekend to weekend, which spent at Burani; a desperate, magic, antique feeling that he had entered into a fabulous maze that was awarded with the heavenly bounty did not leave him. Conchis told him stories of his life, and the characters of these stories were illustrated, in some way materialized: once Nicolas met in the village an old foreigner, who introduced himself de Ducane (according to Conchis, in the thirties he inherited from the de Ducane the old clavichord and his vast fortune), then a ghost of Conchis's bride Lily, who died in 1916, went out to the dinner. Of course, this vivacious young girl only played the role of Lily, but she refused to tell Nicholas, for what and for whom was this performance - for him or for Conchis? Nicholas found out there were other actors, "living pictures" depicting a satyr chasing a nymph of Apollo at Blowing a Horn, or the ghost of Robert Foulkes, the author of 1679 "Edification sinners. Deathbed confession Robert Foulkes, murderers” given to him by Conchis to read at bedtime.
Nicholas had almost lost the sense of reality. Burani space was permeated with metaphors, allusions, mystical meanings. He did not distinguish truth from fiction, but to get out of this strange game was beyond him. Having pinned Lily to the wall, he found from her, that her real name was Julie Holmes, that she had a twin sister June and that they were young British actress who came for the shooting of the film, but instead of shooting they had to take part in the Conchis’s performances. Nicholas fell in love with the alluring and elusive Julie-Lily, and when received a telegram from Allison, who was able to arrange a weekend in Athens, he gave her up.
However Conchis built the circumstances so that Nicholas still went for the meeting with Alison in Athens. They climbed to Parnassus, and among Greek nature Nicholas told Alison everything about Burani, about Julie, because he does not have the person closer, he told her everything as if at the confession, selfishly without separating her from himself and not thinking what effect this may have on her. Allison made the only possible conclusion - he did not love her, and in hysterics she did not want to see him in the morning and faded out of the hotel and out of his life.
Nicholas returned to Fraksos, as never before Julie was necessary for him, but the villa was empty. Returning to the village at night, he became a spectator and a participant in another show: a group of Germans caught him. Beaten, with a dissected arm, he was suffering in the absence of news from Julie and did not know what to think. The letter from Julie, a gentle and inspiring came at the same time with the news of the suicide of Allison.
Rushing to the villa Nicholas found there Conchis alone, who dryly said to him that he had failed his role and tomorrow must leave his home forever, and today, as a goodbye, Nicholas would hear the last chapter of his life, because was only now ready to accept it. As an explanation of things happening at the villa Conchis put forward the idea of a global metateatra, and again, did not explain the main thing - what for? Again Nicholas was afraid to understand that this issue was not important, what more important was to break through injections of pride to the truth, which was unkind and ruthless, like Conchis’s smile.
Last Conchis’s story was about the events of 1943 on the execution of the punitive villagers. Then the village chief Conchis was given the choice - to shoot a partisan by his own hand, thus preserving the lives of eighty, or refusing and to subject the extermination of almost the entire male population of the village. Then he realized that in fact there was no choice - he just organically could not kill a human being, no matter what reasons the reason cited.
In essence, all Conchis’s stories were about the ability to distinguish between true and false, of fidelity to oneself, to one’s natural and human, to rightness of living life to the artificial institutions, such as the loyalty oath to duty. And before leaving the island, Conchis said Nicholas that he was not worthy of freedom.
Conchis sailed away, and Nicholas stayed waiting for Julie, as she promised in her letter. But before he could believe that the presentation was over, he found himself again in the trap, literally, in the underground shelter, he managed to get out of there not at once. In the evening came June, who replaced the metatheatre with another explanation - psychological experiment. Conchis was supposedly a retired professor of psychiatry, medicine, and the final and the apotheosis of the experiment was the procedure of the court: first, "psychologists" described in their terms the personality of Nicholas, then he should take out the verdict to participants of the experiment - the actors (Lily-Julie is now called Dr. Vanessa Maxwell, she should be the embodiment of all the evil done to Nicholas). And she put him a whip in the hand, and he should decide ti hit her or not. He did not dot that, and began to understand.
Waking up after the "trial", he found himself in Monemvasia where to Fraksosa he had to get by water. In the room, among other letters, he found thanks from Alison’s mother for his condolences on the death of her daughter. From school he was fired. Villa Burani was boarded up. The summer season started and he moved to Athens, continuing investigation of what and how actually happened. In Athens he discovered that the real Conchis died four years ago and visited his grave; it was decorated with a fresh bouquet: lily, rose and small inconspicuous flowers with a sweet honey aroma. On the same day he saw Alison - she posed under the window of the hotel. Relief from the fact that she was alive, mixed with rage - turned out she also was in the conspiracy.
Feeling still an experimental subject, Nicholas returned to London, obsessed with only one desire - to see Allison. To wait for her became his principal and, in fact, the only occupation. Over time much became clear - he realized a simple thing: he needed Alison because he cannot simply live without her. And his investigation was not so important, he kept it only to escape from the longing for her. Unexpectedly he came to the mother of twins Lydia and Rosa (these were the real names of girls). There comes a moment when he finally realizes that is surrounded real life, not Conchis’s experiment, that the cruelty of the experiment was the cruelty to fellow man, revealed to him, as in a mirror. And then he finds Alison.
