He then evaded arrest for several days, prompting critics to suggest complicity between the hard-right vigilante group and the Greek police. (The police have denied any such links.) In a bizarre twist on Monday, Mr. Kasidiaris sued the two lawmakers he had attacked, saying he had been provoked.

Still, daily life marches on. Outside a dissolved Parliament, the guards goose-step in their kilts and shoes with pom-poms. Tourists traipse up to the Acropolis. Cafes are full. Temperatures are rising, and shops display a vast array of suntan lotions. A clerk said that sales were generally down but that sunblock was drawing people in.

“The beach is the only thing we are left with,” said a clerk in the Hondos Center department store. “It’s free.”

For others, it is soccer. In the opening match of the Euro 2012 on Friday, Greece, the European Union’s fastest-shrinking economy, scored an equalizer to tie with Poland, its fastest-growing economy. Fans gathered in a shopping mall to watch, raising their fists in despair at a missed penalty kick. Greece’s coach put his hands to his face in a gesture that captured the national mood. (On Tuesday, Greece lost to the Czech Republic.)

The crisis continues to erode the economy and living standards. The Greek news media reported a 27 percent drop in garbage collections in the greater Athens area, and a precipitous decline in smoking, with consumption dropping to 2.3 million cigarettes in 2011, from 3.1 million in 2007. Mass transit use has dropped by double digits.

“In the beginning you panic, and then you realize that you can live with much less,” said Nikos Hlepas, a professor of public administration at the University of Athens, who said his salary had been sharply reduced. “No restaurants, no opera. You visit your friends and you cook much more. It has its positive aspects. You don’t use your car. You don’t take trips.” After several tax increases, gasoline costs around $8.20 a gallon.

In the Athens meat market on a recent morning, Yiannoula and Tasos Siskos, 52 and 57 and both unemployed, said they had taken the subway in from the suburbs to save money. “It’s our first time here,” Ms. Siskos said. “It’s cheaper than from the supermarket.” She was a seamstress and he was in construction, but their year of unemployment benefits had run out. “We have a mortgage, but we stopped paying,” she said.