Costas Arvanitis

Costas Arvanitis is a smallholder whose discovery of an ancient statue draws him into an intense attachment to the figure he identifies as Aphrodite. His death while trying to turn the statue over makes the encounter both a moment of wonder and a fatal turning point.

Identity and Daily Life

Costas works a few hectares of land, about half planted with orange and olive trees. He spends a winter day digging the hard ground to prepare it for planting, repeatedly sifting out stones. The work strains him, and his smallholding is more than a livelihood: it gives shape and purpose to his days. Even after hours of labor, he is glad to be outside at twilight, when the sun is setting and the moon rising over the hills.

The Discovery

As he digs, his spade strikes something that sounds unlike the familiar clink of iron against flint. The clear, bell-like note makes him stop and investigate. In the fading light he can make out only what looks like a large white stone, lodged too firmly in the earth to remove that evening. He leaves it until the following day.

Costas eventually uncovers the statue in its entirety. It lies face down, and he postpones turning it until the next day so he can see its face. The delay gives the discovery a charged intimacy: the object first announces itself through sound, then emerges gradually from the soil, with its identity still awaiting revelation.

Attachment to Aphrodite

Costas does not know the statue’s name, but he is certain that she is Aphrodite. The narrative presents this conviction as more than admiration for a beautiful artifact: he experiences the figure as the goddess herself, in the manner of the ancient sculptor who made her. His love begins with the discovery and grows through the statue’s appearance as it is uncovered. When he finally sees her face, his response confirms the strength of the hold the figure has over him.

Death and Narrative Significance

Trying to turn the statue over, Costas overexerts himself. He develops troubling symptoms, lies down beside the figure, and never rises again. When his friend Orestes arrives, Costas is already dead, with a smile on his face. Orestes moves his body and finds a stone finger in his pocket before wrapping him in the blanket that had covered the statue.

Costas’s ending binds physical labor, artistic beauty, and death into one scene. The statue is at once an archaeological discovery and the object of a devotion that Costas understands as love; his attempt to reveal its face becomes the last act of his life. The smile observed by Orestes leaves that ending suspended between tragedy and the apparent fulfilment of Costas’s encounter.