فصل 2

II

The sea, autumn mildness, islands bathed in light, fine rain spreading a diaphanous veil over the immortal nakedness of Greece. Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean Sea.

Many are the joys of this world—women, fruit, ideas. But to cleave that sea in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man into paradise. Nowhere else can one pass so easily and serenely from reality to dream. The frontiers dwindle, and from the masts of the most ancient ships spring branches and fruits. It is as if here in Greece necessity is the mother of miracles.

Towards noon the rain stopped. The sun parted the clouds and appeared gentle, tender, washed and fresh, and it caressed with its rays the beloved waters and lands. I stood at the prow and let myself be intoxicated with the miracle which was revealed as far as the eye could see.

On the ship were Greeks, cunning devils with rapacious eyes, brains like the trumpery goods of bazaar-dealers, wirepulling and quarrelling; an untuned piano; honest and venomous shrews. One’s first impulse was to seize the ship by both ends, plunge it into the sea, shake it thoroughly to make all the livestock which polluted it drop off men, rats, bugs—and then refloat it, freshly washed and empty.

But at times I was seized with compassion. A Buddhist compassion, as cold as the conclusion of a metaphysical syllogism. A compassion not only for men but for all life which struggles, cries, weeps, hopes and does not perceive that everything is a phantasmagoria of nothingness. Compassion for the Greeks, and for the lignite mine, and for my unfinished manuscript of Buddha, for all those vain compositions of light and shade which suddenly disturb and contaminate the pure air.

I looked at Zorba’s drawn and waxen face. He was sitting on a coil of ropes in the bows. He was sniffing at a lemon and listening with his great ears to some passengers quarrelling about the king and others about Venizelos. He was shaking his head and spitting.

“Old junk!” he murmured disdainfully. “Aren’t they ashamed of themselves!” “What do you mean by old junk, Zorba?”

“Why, all these—kings, democracies, plebiscites, deputies, fiddle-faddle!” Zorba had got so far beyond contemporary events that they had already ceased to be anything but out-of-date rubbish. Certainly, to him telegraphy, steam-ships and engines, current morality and religion must have appeared like rusty old rifles. His mind progressed much faster than the world.

The ropes were creaking on the masts, the coastlines were dancing, and the women on board had become yellower than a lemon. They had laid down their weapons paint, bodices, hairpins, combs. Their lips had paled, their nails were turning blue. The old magpie scolds were losing their borrowed plumes—ribbons, false eyebrows and beauty-spots, brassieres—and to see them on the point of vomiting, you felt disgust and a great compassion.

Zorba was also turning yellow and green. His sparkling eyes were dulled. It was only towards the evening that his eyes brightened again. He pointed out two dolphins, leaping through the water alongside the ship.

“Dolphins!” he exclaimed joyously.

I noticed for the first time that almost half of the index finger on his left hand was missing. I started and felt sick.

“What happened to your finger, Zorba?” I cried.

“Nothing,” he replied, offended that I had not shown more delight in the dolphins.

“Did you get it caught in a machine?” I insisted.

“What ever are you going on about machines for? I cut it off myself.”

“Yourself? Why?”

“You can’t understand, boss!” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“I told you I had been in every trade. Once I was a potter. I was mad about that craft. D’you realise what it means to take a lump of mud and make what you will out of it? Ffrr! You turn the wheel and the mud whirls round, as if it were possessed while you stand over it and say: I’m going to make a jug, I’m going to make a plate, I’m going to make a lamp and the devil knows what more! That’s what you might call being a man: freedom!” He had forgotten the sea, he was no longer biting the lemon, his eyes had become clear again.

“Well?” I asked. “What about your finger?”

“Oh, it got in my way in the wheel. It always got plumb in the middle of things and upset my plans. So one day I seized a hatchet…” “Didn’t it hurt you?”

“What d’you mean? I’m not a tree-trunk, I’m a man. Of course it hurt me. But it got in my way at the wheel, so I cut it off.” The sun went down and the sea became calmer. The clouds dispersed. The evening star shone, I looked at the sea, I looked at the sky and began to reflect… To love like that, to take the hatchet and chop and feel the pain… But I hid my emotion.

“A bad system that, Zorba!” I said, smiling. “It reminds me of the ascetic who, according to the Golden Legend, once saw a woman who disturbed him physically, so he took an axe—” “The devil he didn’t!” Zorba interposed, guessing what I was going to say. “Cut that off! To hell with the fool! The poor benighted innocent, that’s never an obstacle!” “But,” I insisted, “it can be a very great obstacle!”

“To what?”

“To your entry into the kingdom of heaven.”

Zorba glanced sideways at me, with a mocking air, and said: “But, you fool, that is the key to paradise!” He raised his head, looked at me closely, as if he wanted to see what was going on in my mind: future lives, the kingdom of heaven, women, priests. But he did not seem to be able to gather much. He shook his great grey head guardedly.

“The maimed don’t get into paradise,” he said, and then fell silent.

I went to lie down in my cabin and took a book. Buddha was still engaging my thoughts. I read The Dialogue of Buddha and the Shepherd which had filled my mind for some years with peace and security.

The shepherd: My meal is ready, I have milked my ewes. The door of my hut is bolted, my fire is alight. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I no longer need food or milk. The winds are my shelter, my fire is out. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

The shepherd: I have oxen, I have cows, I have my father’s meadows and a bull who covers my cows. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I have neither oxen, nor cows, I have no meadows. I have nothing, I fear nothing. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

The shepherd: I have a docile and faithful shepherdess. For years she has been my wife; I am happy when I play with her at night. And you, sky, you can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I have a free and docile soul. For years I have trained it and 1 have taught it to play with me. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

These two voices were still speaking when sleep overcame me. The wind had risen again and the waves were breaking over the thick glass of the porthole. I was floating like a wisp of smoke between sleeping and waking. A violent storm broke, the meadows disappeared under the waters, the bullocks, the cows and the bull were swallowed up. The wind carried away the roof of the hut, the fire was quenched, the woman uttered a cry and fell dead in the mud, and the shepherd began his lamentations. I could not hear what he said, but he was crying aloud and I was sinking deeper into a slumber, slipping like a fish down through the watery depths.

At daybreak I awoke, and there, to our right, lay the proud, wild and lordly island. The pale-pink mountains were smiling through the mists beneath the autumnal sun. Round our ship, the indigo-blue sea was still seething restlessly.

Zorba, wrapped in a brown rug, was gazing eagerly at Crete. His eyes turned rapidly from mountain to plain, followed the shore, exploring it as if all the coast and land were familiar to him, and that he were delighted to wander there again in his mind.

I went to him, touched him on the shoulder and said:

“Zorba, it’s certainly not the first time you’ve come to Crete! You’re gazing at it like an old friend.” Zorba yawned, as if bored. I felt he was not at all inclined to start a conversation.

I smiled. “Talking bores you, doesn’t it, Zorba?”

“It’s not exactly that, boss,” he replied. “Only talking’s difficult.” “Difficult? Why?”

He did not reply at once. His eyes roamed again slowly over the shore. He had slept on deck, and his curly grey hair was dripping with dew. The rising sun shone right into the deep furrows lining his cheeks, his chin and his neck.

Finally he moved his lips. They were thick and drooping, like those of a goat.

“In the morning I find it difficult to open my mouth. Very difficult. I’m sorry.” He lapsed again into silence, and once more his small round eyes were fixed on Crete.

A bell rang for breakfast. Greenish-yellow, screwed-up faces began to emerge from the cabins. Women, with their coils of hair coming loose, reeled as they dragged themselves from table to table. They smelled of vomit and eau-de-Cologne, and their eyes were cloudy, terrified and stupid.

Zorba, sitting in front of me, sniffed his coffee in a sensual way which was quite oriental. He spread butter and honey on his bread and ate it. His face gradually became brighter and calmer, the lines of his mouth softer. I secretly watched him as he slowly emerged from his wrapping of sleep, and saw how his eyes shone more and more brightly.

He lit a cigarette, inhaled with pleasure and blew the blue smoke out of his hairy nostrils. He folded his right leg under him and made himself comfortable in eastern fashion. It was now possible for him to speak.

“Is this the first time I’ve been to Crete?” he began. (He half-closed his eyes and looked through the porthole at Mount Ida, which was disappearing in the distance behind us.) “No, it’s not the first time. In 1896 I was already a fully-grown man. My moustache and my hair were their real colour, black as a raven. I had all my thirty-two teeth, and when I got drunk I swallowed the hors-d’oeuvres first and then the dish. Yes, I enjoyed myself no end. But suddenly the devil took a hand in things. A new revolution broke out in Crete.

“In those days I was a pedlar. I peddled haberdashery from village to village in Macedonia, and instead of money I used to take cheese, wool, butter, rabbits and corn. Then I sold all that and made a double profit. In every village I came to at dark I knew where to spend the night. In every village there’s always a tender-hearted widow, God bless her! I’d give her a reel of thread, or a comb, or a scarf—a black one, of course, on account of the late-lamented—and I slept with her. It didn’t cost me much!

“No, it didn’t cost me much, boss, the good time I had! But, as I said before, the devil got mixed up in things and Crete took up arms again. ‘Ah, to hell with her destiny!’ I’d say. ‘Can’t that damned Crete ever leave us in peace?’ I put aside my cottons and combs, took my gun and set off to join the rebels in Crete.” Zorba became silent. We were now following the curve of a quiet sandy bay. The waves spread out here gently without breaking and only leaving a thin line of foam along the shore. The clouds had broken up, the sun was shining, and the rugged contours of Crete became serene.

Zorba turned round and gave me a mocking look.

“And now I suppose, boss, you think I’m going to start and tell you how many Turks’ heads I’ve lopped off, and how many of their ears I’ve pickled in spirits—that’s the custom in Crete. Well, I shan’t! I don’t like to, I’m ashamed. What sort of madness comes over us?… Today I’m a bit more level-headed, and I ask myself: What sort of madness comes over us to make us throw ourselves on another man, when he’s done nothing to us, and bite him, cut his nose off, tear his ear out, run him through the guts—and all the time, calling on the Almighty to help us! Does it mean we want the Almighty to go and cut off noses and ears and rip people up?

“But at the time, you see, my blood was hot in my veins! How could I stop to examine the whys and wherefores? To think things out properly and fairly, a fellow’s got to be calm and old and toothless. When you’re an old gaffer with no teeth, it’s easy to say: ‘Damn it, boys, you mustn’t bite!’ But, when you’ve got all thirty-two teeth… A man’s a savage beast when he’s young; yes, boss, a savage, man-eating beast!” He shook his head. “Oh, he eats sheep, too, and hens and pigs, but if he doesn’t eat men his belly’s not satisfied.” He added as he crushed out his cigarette in the coffee saucer:

“No, his belly’s not satisfied. Now, what does the old owl have to say to that, eh?” He did not wait for an answer.

“What can you say, I wonder?” he continued, weighing me up. “As far as I can see, your lordship’s never been hungry, never killed, never stolen, never committed adultery. What ever can you know of the world? You’ve got an innocent’s brain and your skin’s never even felt the sun,” he muttered with obvious scorn.

I became ashamed of my delicate hands, my pale face and my life which had not been bespattered with mud and blood.

“All right!” said Zorba, sweeping his heavy hand across the table as if wiping a sponge across it. “All right! There’s one thing, though, I’d like to ask you. You must’ve gone through hundreds of books, perhaps you know the answer…” “Go ahead, Zorba, what is it?”

“There’s a sort of miracle happening here, boss. A funny sort of miracle which puzzles me. All that business—those lousy tricks, thefts and that slaughter of ours—I mean of us rebels—all that brought Prince George to Crete. Liberty!” He looked at me with his eyes wide open in amazement.

“It’s a mystery,” he murmured, “a great mystery! So, if we want liberty in this bad world, we’ve got to have all those murders, all those lousy tricks, have we? I tell you, If I began to go over all the bloody villainy and all the murders we did, you’d have your hair stand on end. And yet, the result of all that, what’s it been? Liberty! Instead of wiping us out with a thunderbolt, God gives us liberty! I just don’t understand!” He looked at me, as if calling for help. I could see that this problem had tormented him a lot and that he could not get to the bottom of it.

“Do you understand?” he asked me with anguish.

Understand what? Tell him what? Either that what we call God does not exist, or else that what we call murders and villainy is necessary for the struggle and for the liberation of the world… I tried hard to find for Zorba another, simpler way of explaining it.

“How does a plant sprout and grow into a flower on manure and muck? Say to yourself, Zorba, that the manure and muck is man and the flower liberty.” “But the seed?” cried Zorba, striking his fist on the table. “For a plant to sprout there must be a seed. Who’s put such a seed in our entrails? And why doesn’t this seed produce flowers from kindness and honesty? Why must it have blood and filth?” I shook my head.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Who does?”

“No one.”

“But then,” Zorba cried in despair and casting wild glances about him, “what d’you expect me to do with all your boats, and your machines and neckties?” Two or three passengers whom the sea had upset, and who were now drinking coffee at a nearby table, revived. They sensed a quarrel and pricked up their ears.

This disgusted Zorba. He lowered his voice.

“Change the subject,” he said. “When I think of that, I feel like breaking anything within reach—a chair, a lamp, or my head against the wall. But what good would that do me? I’d have to pay the breakages and go to a chemist and have my head bandaged. And if God exists, well, it’s far worse: we’re bloody well done for! He must be peering at me from up there in the sky and bursting his sides with laughter.” He suddenly made a movement with his hand as if getting rid of an importunate fly.

“Never mind!” he said regretfully. “All I wanted to tell you was this: When the royal ship arrived all decked up with flags, and they began to fire off rounds from the guns, and the prince set foot on Cretan soil… Have you ever seen a whole people gone mad because they’ve seen their liberty? No? Ah, boss, then blind you were born and blind you’ll die. If I live a thousand years, even if all that remains of me is a morsel of living flesh, what I saw that day I’ll never forget! And if each of us could choose his paradise in the sky, according to his taste—and that’s how it should be, that’s what I call paradise—I’d say to the Almighty: ‘Lord, let my paradise be a Crete decked with myrtle and flags and let the minute when Prince George set foot on Cretan soil last for centuries!’ That’ll do me.” Zorba became silent once more. He raised his moustache, filled a glass to the brim with iced water and swallowed it in one gulp.

“What happened in Crete, Zorba? Tell me!”

“Do we have to start making big sentences?” said Zorba, annoyed. “Look here, I tell you, I do—this world is a mystery and man is just a great brute.

“A great brute and a god. A blackguard of a rebel who’d come from Macedonia with me—Yorga, they called him, a gallows’ bird, a real swine, you know—well, he wept. ‘Why’re you crying, Yorga, you hound?’ I said, and my eyes were streaming too. ‘Why’re you crying, you old swine?’ But he just threw his arms round my neck and blubbered like a kid. And then that miserly bastard pulls out his purse, empties onto his lap the gold coins he’d looted from the Turks and throws them into the air by handfuls! D’you see, boss, that’s what liberty is!” I rose and went up on deck, to be buffeted by the keen sea breeze.

That’s what liberty is, I thought. To have a passion, to amass pieces of gold and suddenly to conquer one’s passion and throw the treasure to the four winds.

Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the tether of our slavery? Then we can enjoy ourselves and frolic in a more spacious arena and die without having come to the end of the tether. Is that, then, what we call liberty?

Towards the end of the afternoon we berthed by the sandy shore and saw finely sifted white sand, oleanders still in flower, fig and carob trees, and, further to the right, a low grey hill without a tree, resembling the face of a woman resting. And beneath her chin, along her neck, ran the dark brown veins of lignite.

An autumnal wind was blowing, frayed clouds were passing slowly over the earth and softening its contours with shadow. Other clouds were rising menacingly in the sky. The sun appeared and disappeared, and the earth’s surface was brightened and darkened like a living and perturbed face.

I stopped for a moment on the sand and looked. A sacred solitude lay before me, deadly and yet fascinating, like the desert. The Buddhist song rose out of the very soil and found its way to the depths of my being. ‘When shall I at last retire into solitude, alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless and blissful—retire into the forest? When? When, oh when?’

Zorba, with his santuri beneath his arm, his steps still unsteady, came towards me.

“There’s the lignite!” I said, to hide my emotions. And I stretched my arm towards the hill with the womanlike face.

Zorba frowned without looking round.

“Later. This isn’t the time, boss,” he said. “Must wait for the earth to stop. She’s still pitching, the devil take her, like the deck of a ship. Let’s go to the village.” With these words he set off with long, determined strides, trying to save his face.

Two barefooted urchins, as brown as Arabs, ran up and took charge of the luggage. A huge customs officer was smoking a hookah in the customs shed. He scrutinised us from out of the corner of his blue eyes, took a nonchalant glance at the bags, and shifted momentarily on his seat as if he was going to get up. But it was too much of an effort. He slowly raised the hookah tube and said in a sleepy voice: “Welcome!” One of the urchins came up to me. He winked with his olive-black eyes and said in a mocking tone: “He’s no Cretan. He’s a lazy devil.” “Aren’t Cretans lazy devils, too?”

“They are… yes, they are,” the young Cretan replied, “but in a different way.” “Is the village far?”

“Only a gun-shot from here. Look, behind the gardens, in the ravine. A fine village, sir. Plenty of everything—carob trees, beans, grain, oil, wine. And down there in the sand, the earliest cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines and watermelons in Crete. It’s the winds from Africa makes them swell. At night, in the orchard, you can hear them crackling and getting bigger.” Zorba was going on in front. His head was still swimming. He spat.

“Chin up, Zorba!” I called to him. “We’ve scraped through all right. There’s nothing more to fear!” We walked quickly. The earth was mixed with sand and shells, and here and there grew a tamarisk, a wild fig tree, a tuft of reeds, some bitter mullein. The weather was sultry, the clouds were gathering lower and lower, the wind was dropping.

We were passing by a great fig tree with a twisted double trunk which was beginning to grow hollow with age. One of the urchins stopped and with a jerk of the chin pointed to the old tree.

“The Fig Tree of Our Young Lady!” he said.

I started. On this Cretan soil, every stone, every tree has its tragic history.

“Of Our Young Lady? Why that name?”

“In my grandfather’s time, the daughter of one of our landowners fell in love with a shepherd boy. But her father wouldn’t hear of it. The young lady wept, screamed and pleaded. The old man never changed his mind! One night the young couple disappeared. The countryside was searched, but for one, two, three days, a whole week, they weren’t to be found. Then they began to stink, so the stench was followed and they were found rotting beneath this fig tree, locked in each other’s arms. You see, they found them through the stench.” The child burst out laughing. The sounds of the village could be heard. Dogs began to bark, women to talk shrilly, cocks to announce the change in the weather. In the air floated the odour of grapes which came from the vats where arack was being distilled.

“There’s the village!” shouted the two boys, and rushed off.

As soon as we had rounded the sandy hill the little village came into sight. It seemed to be clambering up the side of the ravine. Whitewashed terraced houses huddled together. Their open windows made dark patches, and they resembled whitened skulls jammed between the rocks.

I caught up with Zorba.

“Mind you behave, now we’re entering the village,” I told him. “They mustn’t get wind of us, Zorba. We’ll act like serious businessmen. I’m the manager and you’re the foreman. Cretans don’t take things lightly. As soon as they’ve set eyes on you, they pick on anything queer, and give you a nickname. After that, you can’t get rid of it. You run about like a dog with a saucepan tied to its tail.” Zorba seized his moustache in his fist and plunged into meditation. Finally he said: “Listen, boss, if there’s a widow in the place, you’ve no need to fear. If there isn’t…” Just then, as we entered the village, a beggar-woman clothed in rags rushed towards us with outstretched hand. She was swarthy, filthy, and had a stiff little black moustache.

“Hi, brother!” she called familiarly to Zorba. “Hi, brother, got a soul, have you?” Zorba stopped.

“I have,” he replied gravely.

“Then give me five drachmas!”

Zorba pulled out of his pocket a dilapidated leather purse.

“There.” he said, and his lips, which still had a bitter expression, softened into a smile. He looked round and said: “Looks as if souls are cheap in these parts, boss! Five drachmas a soul!” The village dogs bounded towards us, the women leaned over the terraces to gaze at us, the children followed us, yelling. Some of them yelped, others made sounds like Klaxons, still others ran in front of us and looked at us with their big eyes full of amazement.

We arrived at the village square, where we found two huge white poplars surrounded by crudely carved trunks which served as seats. Opposite was the cafe, over which hung an enormous, faded sign: The Modesty Cafe-and-Butcher’s-Shop.

“Why are you laughing?” Zorba asked.

But I did not have time to reply. From the door of the cafe and butcher’s shop ran out five or six giants wearing dark-blue breeches with red waistbands. They shouted: “Welcome, friends! Come in and have an arack. It’s still warm from the vat.” Zorba clicked his tongue and said: “What about it, boss?” He turned round and winked at me. “Shall we have one?” We drank a glass and it burned our insides. The proprietor of the cafe-butchery, who was a brisk, tough, well-preserved old man, brought out chairs for us.

I asked where we might lodge.

“Go to Madame Hortense’s,” someone shouted.

“A Frenchwoman here?” I exclaimed in surprise.

“From the devil knows where; she’s been all over the place. She’s managed to avoid going on all the rocks you can think of, and now she’s clung on to the last one here and has opened an inn.” “She sells sweets too!” cried a child.

“She powders and paints herself up,” someone else said. “She puts a ribbon round her neck… And she’s got a parrot.” “A widow?” Zorba asked. “Is she a widow?”

The cafe proprietor seized his thick grey beard.

“How many whiskers can you count here, friend? How many? Well, she’s widow of as many husbands. Get the idea?” “Got it,” Zorba replied, licking his lips.

“She might make you a widower, too!”

“Mind your step, friend!” shouted an old man, and all burst out laughing.

We were treated to a new round and the cafe proprietor brought it to us on a tray, together with barley-loaf, goat-cheese and pears.

“Now leave these people alone. They mustn’t dream of going to madame’s! They’re going to spend the night right here!” “I’m going to have them, Kondomanolio!” said the old man. “I’ve got no children. My house is big and there’s plenty of room.” “Sorry, uncle Anagnosti,” the cafe proprietor shouted in the old man’s ear. “I spoke first.” “You take one,” said old Anagnosti, “I’ll take t’other, the old ‘un.”

“Which old ‘un?” said Zorba, stung to the quick. “We’ll, stick together,” I said, and made a sign to Zorba not to get annoyed. “We’ll stick together and we’ll go to Madame Hortense’s…” “Welcome! Welcome to you!” A dumpy, plump little woman, with bleached flax-coloured hair, appeared beneath the poplars, waddling along on her bandy legs. A beauty spot, from which sprang sow-bristles, adorned her chin. She was wearing a red-velvet ribbon round her neck, and her withered cheeks were plastered with mauve powder. A gay little lock of hair danced on her brow and made her look somewhat like Sarah Bernhardt in her old age playing L’Aiglon.

“Delighted to meet you, Madame Hortense!” I replied, preparing to kiss her hand, carried away as I was by a sudden good humour.

Life appeared all at once like a fairy-tale or the opening scene of The Tempest. We had just set foot on the island, soaked to the skin after an imaginary shipwreck. We were exploring the marvellous coasts, and ceremoniously greeting the inhabitants of the place. This woman, Hortense, seemed to me to be the queen of the island, a sort of blonde and glistening walrus who had been cast up, half-rotting, on this sandy shore. Behind her appeared the numerous dirty, hairy faces radiating the general good humour of the people—or of Caliban—who gazed at the queen with pride and scorn.

Zorba, the prince in disguise, also stared at her, as if she were an old comrade, an old frigate who had fought on distant seas, who had known victory and defeat, her hatches battered in, her masts broken, her sails torn—and who now, scored with furrows which she had caulked with powder and cream, had retired to this coast and was waiting. Surely she was waiting for Zorba, the captain of the thousand scars. And I was delighted to see these two actors meet at last in a Cretan setting which had been very simply produced and painted in a few broad strokes of the brush.

“Two beds, Madame Hortense,” I said, bowing before this old specialist in the art of acting love scenes. “Two beds, and no bugs.” “No bugs! I should think not!” she cried, throwing me a provocative glance.

“Oh no!” shouted the mocking mouths of Caliban.

“There aren’t! There aren’t!” she retorted, stamping on the stones with her plump foot. She was wearing thick sky-blue stockings and a pair of battered court-shoes with dainty silk bows.

“Off with you, prima donna! The devil take you!” Caliban roared once more.

But, with great dignity, Dame Hortense was already going and opening up the way for us. She smelt of powder and cheap soap.

Zorba followed her, devouring her with his eyes.

“Take an eyeful of that, boss,” he confided. “The way the trollop swings her hips, plaf! plaf! like an ewe with a tailful of fat!” Two or three big drops of rain fell, the sky clouded over. Blue lightning flickered over the mountain. Young girls, wrapped in their little white goat-skin capes, were hurriedly bringing back from pasture the family goats and sheep. The women, squatting in front of their hearths, were kindling the evening fire.

Zorba bit his moustache impatiently, without taking his eyes off the rolling buttocks of the woman.

“Hm!” he suddenly muttered with a sigh. “To hell with life! The jade’s never done playing us tricks!”