فصل 8

VIII

It was raining again the next day. The sky mingled with the earth in infinite tenderness. I recalled a Hindu bas-relief in dark-grey stone. The man had thrown his arms round the woman and was united to her with such gentleness and resignation that one had the impression—the elements having worked over, and almost eaten into, the bodies—of seeing two copulating insects over which fine rain had started to fall and dampen their wings. Thus closely entwined, they were being slowly sucked back into the voracious maw of the earth.

I was sitting in front of the hut and watching the ground darken and the sea grow a phosphorescent green. Not a soul was to be seen from one end of the beach to the other, not a sail, not a bird. Only the smell of the earth entered through the window.

I rose and held out my hand to the rain like a beggar. I suddenly felt like weeping. Some sorrow, not my own but deeper and more obscure, was rising from the damp earth: the panic which a peaceful grazing animal feels when, all at once, without have seen anything, it rears its head and scents in the air about it that it is trapped and cannot escape.

I wanted to utter a cry, knowing that it would relieve my feelings, but I was ashamed to.

The clouds were coming lower and lower. I looked through the window; my heart was gently palpitating.

What a voluptuous enjoyment of sorrow those hours of soft rain can produce in you! All the bitter memories hidden in the depths of your mind come to the surface: separations from friends, women’s smiles which have faded, hopes which have lost their wings like moths and of which only a grub remains—and that grub had crawled on to the leaf of my heart and was eating it away.

The image of my friend exiled in the Caucasus slowly appeared through the rain and sodden earth. I took my pen, bent over the paper, and began to speak to him in order to cut through the fine mesh of the rain and be able to breathe.

“My dear friend,

“I am writing to you from a lonely shore in Crete where destiny and I have agreed I should stay several months to play—to play at being a capitalist. If my game succeeds, I shall say it was not a game, but that I had made a great resolution and changed my mode of life.

“You remember how, when you left, you called me a bookworm. That so vexed me I decided to abandon my scribbling on paper for a time—or for ever?—and to throw myself into a life of action. I rented a hillside containing lignite; I engaged workmen and took picks and shovels, acetylene lamps, baskets, trucks. I opened up galleries and went into them. Just like that, to annoy you. And by dint of digging and making passages in the earth, the bookworm has become a mole. I hope you approve of the metamorphosis.

“My joys here are great, because they are very simple and spring from the everlasting elements: the pure air, the sun, the sea and the wheaten loaf. In the evening an extraordinary Sindbad-the-Sailor squats before me, Turkish fashion, and speaks. He speaks and the world grows bigger. Occasionally, when words no longer suffice, he leaps up and dances. And when dancing no longer suffices he places his santuri on his knees and plays.

“Sometimes he plays a savage air and you feel you are choking because you realise all at once that your life is colourless, miserable and unworthy of man. Sometimes he plays a dolorous air and you feel your life passing, running away like sand between your fingers, and that there is no salvation.

“My heart is going to and fro in my breast like a weaver’s shuttle. It is weaving these few months which I am spending in Crete, and—God forgive me—I believe I am happy.

“Confucius says: ‘Many seek happiness higher than man; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man.’ That is true. So there must be a happiness to suit every man’s stature. Such is, my dear pupil and master, my happiness of the day. I anxiously measure it and measure it again, to see what my stature of the moment is. For, you know this very well, man’s stature is not always the same.

“How the soul of man is transformed according to the climate, the silence, the solitude, or the company in which it lives!

“Seen from my solitary state, men appear to me not like ants but, on the contrary, like enormous monsters—dinosaurs, pterodactyls living in an atmosphere saturated with carbonic acid and thick decaying vegetation from which creation is formed. An incomprehensible, absurd jungle. The notions of ‘nation’ and ‘race’ of which you are fond, the notions of a ‘super-nation’ and ‘humanity’ which seduced me, here acquire the same value under the all-powerful breath of destruction. We feel that we have risen to the surface to utter a few syllables and sometimes not even syllables, mere inarticulate sounds: an Ah!, a yes!—after which we are destroyed. And even the most elevated ideas, if they are dissected, are seen to be no more than puppets stuffed with bran, and hidden in the bran an iron spring is found.

“You know me well enough to realise that these cruel meditations, far from making me flee, are, on the contrary, indispensable tinder for my inner flame. Because, as my master, Buddha, says: ‘I have seen.’ And as I have seen and, in the twinkling of an eye, have got on good terms with the jovial and whimsical, invisible producer, I can henceforward play my part on earth to the end, that is to say coherently and without discouragement. For, having seen, I have also collaborated in the work in which I am acting on God’s stage.

“This is how it is that, scanning the universal stage, I can see you over there, in those legendary fastnesses of the Caucasus, also playing out your role; I can see you fighting to save thousands of souls of our race who are in danger of death. A pseudo-Prometheus who must, however, suffer very real tortures while he combats the dark forces of hunger, cold, sickness and death. But, being proud, you must sometimes rejoice that the dark forces of destruction are so numerous and invincible: for thus your aim to live almost without hope becomes more heroic and your soul acquires a more tragic greatness.

“You certainly must consider the life you lead a happy one. And since you consider it such, such it is. You have also cut your happiness according to your stature; and your stature now—God be praised—is greater than mine. The good master desires no greater recompense than this: to form a pupil who surpasses him.

“As for me, I often forget, I disparage myself, I lose my way, my faith is a mosaic of unbelief. Sometimes I feel I should like to make a bargain: to live one brief minute and give the rest of my life in exchange. But you keep a firm hold on the helm and you never forget, even in the sweetest moments of this life, towards which destination you have set your course.

“Do you remember the day we both crossed Italy on our way to Greece? We had decided to make for the Pontus region, which was then in danger. We hastily alighted from the train in a little town—we had just one hour to catch the other train. We went into a large wooded garden near the station. There were broad-leaved trees, bananas growing, bamboos of dark metallic colours, bees were swarming over a flowering branch which trembled to see them suck.

“We strolled on in mute ecstasy, as if in a dream. Suddenly, at a turn of the flower- walk, two girls appeared, reading a book as they went along. I no longer remember whether they were pretty or plain. I remember only that one was fair, the other dark, and both were wearing spring blouses.

“And with the boldness one has in dreams, we approached them and you said: ‘Whatever the book may be you are reading, we’ll discuss it with you.’ They were reading Gorki. Then, going post-haste, for we had little time, we talked of life, of poverty, of the revolt of the mind, of love… “I shall never forget our delight and our sorrow. We and these two unknown girls were already old friends, old lovers; we had become responsible for their souls and bodies, and we made haste, for a few minutes later we were going to leave them for ever. In the vibrant air we could smell ravishment and death.

“The train arrived and whistled. We started, as if awaking from a dream. We shook hands. How can I ever forget the tight and desperate grip of our hands, the ten fingers which did not wish to separate. One of the girls was very pale, the other was laughing and trembling.

“And I said to you then, I remember: ‘What do Greece, Our Country, Duty mean? The truth is here!’ And you replied: ‘Greece, Our Country, Duty mean nothing. And yet, for that nothing we willingly court destruction.’

“But why am I writing this to you? To let you see that I have forgotten none of the moments we have lived together. And also to have an opportunity of expressing what, because of our good (or bad) habit of curbing our feelings, I can never reveal to you when we are together.

“Now that you are no longer before me and cannot see my face, and now that I run no risk of appearing soft or ridiculous, I can tell you I love you very deeply.” I had finished my letter. I had conversed with my friend, and I felt relieved. I called Zorba. Crouching beneath a rock, so as not to get wet, he was trying out his model line.

“Come along, Zorba,” I cried. “Get up and let’s go for a stroll to the village.” “You’re in a good humour, boss. It’s raining. Can’t you go alone?”

“I don’t want to lose my good humour. If we go together, there’ll be no danger of that. Come along.” He laughed. “I’m glad you need me,” he said. “Come on, then.”

He put on the little woolly Cretan coat with a pointed hood which I had given him and, splashing through the mud, we made for the road.

It was raining. The mountain peaks were hidden. There was not a breath of wind. The pebbles gleamed. The lignite hill was smothered by the mist. It was as if the woman’s face of the hill were shrouded in sorrow, as if she had fainted beneath the rain.

“A man’s heart suffers when it rains,” Zorba said. “You mustn’t bear it any ill-will, boss. The poor wretch has a soul, too.” He stooped by a hedge and picked the first little wild narcissi. He looked at them a long while, as if he could not see enough of them, as if he was seeing narcissi for the first time. He closed his eyes and smelled them, sighed, then gave them to me.

“If only we knew, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say, Maybe they call call us—and we don’t hear them. When will people’s ears open, boss? When shall we have our eyes open to see? When shall we open our arms to embrace everything stones, rain, flowers, and men? What d’you think about that, boss? And what do your books have to say about it?” “The devil take them!” I said, using Zorba’s favourite expression. “The devil take them! That’s what they say, and nothing else!” Zorba took me by the arm.

“I’m going to tell you of an idea of mine, boss, but you mustn’t be angry. Make a heap of all your books and set light to them! After that, who knows, you’re no fool, you’re the right sort… we might make something of you!” “He is right!” I exclaimed to myself. “He is right, but I can’t.”

Zorba hesitated and reflected. Then he said:

“There’s one thing I can see…”

“What? Out with it!”

“I don’t know, but I think, just like that, I can see it. But if I try to tell you, I’ll make a hash of it. One day, when I’m in good form, I’ll dance it for you.” It started to rain harder. We came to the village. Little girls were bringing the sheep back from grazing; the ploughmen had unyoked the oxen and were abandoning the half-ploughed field; the women were running after their children in the narrow streets. A cheerful panic had broken out in the village when the shower started. Women uttered shrill cries and their eyes were laughing; from the men’s stiff beards and curled-up moustaches hung large drops of rain. A pungent smell rose from the earth, the stones and the grass.

We dived into The Modesty Cafe-and-Butcher’s-Shop like drowned rats. It was crowded. Some men were playing a game of belote, others arguing at the top of their voices as if they were calling to each other across the mountains. Round a little table at the far end the village elders were laying down the law: uncle Anagnosti with his broad-sleeved white shirt; Mavrandoni, severe and silent, smoking his hookah, with his eyes riveted on the floor; the gaunt, middle-aged and rather imposing schoolmaster leaning on his thick stick and listening with a condescending smile to a hairy giant who had just returned from Candia and was describing the marvels of that great town. The cafe-proprietor, standing behind the counter, was listening and laughing as he kept an eye on the coffee-pots which stood in a row on the stove.

As soon as he saw us, uncle Anagnosti got up. “Do come and join us, countrymen,” he said. “Sfakianonikoli is telling us about all he saw and heard in Candia. He’s very funny. Do come!” He turned to the cafe-proprietor.

“Two rakis, Manolaki!” he said.

We sat down. The wild shepherd, seeing strangers present, withdrew into his shell and was silent.

“Well, chief Nikoli, didn’t you go to the theatre, too?” the schoolmaster said, to make him talk. “What did you think of it?” Sfakianonikoli stretched out his great hand, seized his glass of wine, gulped it down and plucked up courage.

“Not go to the theatre?” he shouted. “Of course I did! They all kept talking about Kotopouli this and Kotopouli that. So one evening I crossed myself and said: “All right, why don’t I go and see for myself? What the devil is she for them to make all this fuss about Kotopouli?’”[12] [12] A celebrated Greek actress. Pouli means chicken.

“So what did you see, young fellow?” uncle Anagnosti asked. “What was it? Tell us, for God’s sake.” “Well, upon my soul, not much of anything. You hear ‘em all talking about this ‘theatre,’ and you think to yourself, ‘Now I’m going to see something.’ But, I tell you, you’re wasting your money. There’s a great tavern of a place, but round, like a threshing floor, all full of chairs and lights and people. I didn’t know where I was and the lights dazzled me and I couldn’t see. ‘The devil, ‘ I said to myself, ‘they’ll be casting a spell on me next; I’ll be off.’ But just then a girl, as frisky as a wagtail, gets hold of me by the hand. ‘Hi! Where are you taking me?’ I called out, but she just pulls me along and at last she turns round and tells me to sit down. So I sat down. Just think of it. Nothing but people in front of me and behind and both sides, and right up to the ceiling. ‘I’m going to stifle,’ I told myself, ‘I’ll bust. There’s no air at all.’ Then I turn to my neighbour and ask him, ‘Can you tell me, friend, where do these permadonnast[13] come out from?’

[13] A Corruption of prima donna.

“’Why, from inside there,’ he tells me, pointing to the curtain. And he was right, too, for the next thing a bell rings, and the curtain opens and there’s this Kotopouli as they say, up in front of you on the stage. But don’t ask me why they call her a chicken: she’s a woman, all right, with all the bits and pieces. So she just turns around and wags her tail up and down, and when they’ve had enough of that, they start clapping their hands and she scuttles off.” The villagers rocked with laughter. Sfakianonikoli was annoyed and looked shamefaced. He turned to the door.

“Look at that rain coming down,” he said, to change the subject.

Everyone’s eyes followed his. At that very moment a woman ran by, with a mass of hair hanging over her shoulders and holding her black skirts up to her knees. She had a good, round figure, her clothes clung to her, revealing a firm, alluring body.

I started. What beast of prey is that? I thought. She appeared to me lithe and dangerous, a devourer of men.

The woman turned her head for an instant and gave a rapid, dazzling look into the cafe.

“Holy Virgin!” muttered a callow youth with a soft, downy beard, who was sitting near the window.

“A curse on that vamp!” roared Manolakas, the village constable. “A curse on you; you set a man on fire and then let him burn!” The youth by the window began to hum, at first softly and hesitatingly. Gradually his voice became hoarse: “… The widow’s pillow has a fragrant smell of quince! I too have known that scent and never have slept since!” “Shut up!” Mavrandoni shouted, brandishing his hookah tube.

The young man kept quiet. An old man leaned over Manolakas, the constable.

“Now your uncle’s getting angry,” he whispered. “If she ever falls into his hands he’d hack the poor wretch to pieces. May God have mercy on her!” “Ah, old Androulio,” said Manolakas, “I do believe you are trailing after the widow’s skirts, too. And you a verger! Aren’t you ashamed?” “Listen to me. God have mercy on her! Maybe you haven’t noticed the kind of children who are born in the village of late?… Blessed be the widow, I say! She’s, as you might say, the mistress of the whole village: you put out the light and you imagine it’s not the wife you take in your arms, but the widow. And, mark you, that’s why our village brings into the world such fine children nowadays!” After a moment’s silence, old Androulio murmured:

“Good luck to the thighs that embrace her! Ah, my friend, if only I were twenty, like young Pavli, Mavrandoni’s boy!” “Now we’ll see her double back home!” someone said, laughing.

They all turned towards the door. The rain was pelting down. The water was gurgling over the stones. Now and then lightning flashed across the sky. Zorba was breathless since the passing of the widow. He could not contain himself any longer, and he signed to me: “The rain’s stopping, boss,” he said. “Let’s go!”

A young boy, bare-foot, dishevelled and with great wild-looking eyes appeared at the door. That was just how the icon-painters portray St. John the Baptist—with eyes enormously enlarged by hunger and prayer.

“Hello, Mimiko!” several shouted, laughing.

Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time. Mimiko was the simpleton of this village.

“Friends,” Mimiko stuttered in his effeminate voice. “Friends, the widow Sourmelina has lost her ewe. A reward of a gallon of wine for whoever finds it!” “Get out!” shouted old Mavrandoni. “Get out!”

Terrified, Mimiko curled up in a corner near the door.

“Sit down, Mimiko, have a drink of raki, so you don’t catch cold!” uncle Anagnosti said, feeling sorry for him. “What’d become of our village if we had no idiot?” A weedy-looking young man, with watery blue eyes, appeared on the threshold. He was out of breath and his hair, which was flattened on his forehead, was dripping with water.

“Hello, Pavli!” Manolakas shouted. “Hello, cousin! Take a seat.”

Mavrandoni looked round at his son and frowned.

“Is that my son?” he muttered to himself. “That little pipsqueak! Who the devil does he take after? I’d like to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and thump him on the ground like a young octopus!” Zorba was like a cat on hot bricks. The widow had inflamed his senses, he could no longer stand being within these four walls.

“Let’s go, boss, let’s go,” he whispered every second. “We’ll burst in here!” It looked to him as if the clouds had dispersed and the sun come out.

He turned to the cafe proprietor:

“Who is that widow?” he asked, feigning indifference.

“A brood mare,” Kondomanolio replied.

He put his fingers to his lips and gave a meaning glance at Mavrandoni, who had once more riveted his eyes on the floor.

“A mare,” he repeated. “Don’t let’s speak of her, lest we be damned!”

Mavrandoni rose and wound the smoking-tube round the neck of his nargileh.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m going home. Pavli, follow me!”

He led his son away. They passed in front of us and immediately disappeared in the rain. Manolakas also rose and followed them.

Kondomanolio settled in Mavrandoni’s chair.

“Poor old Mavrandoni!” he said, in a voice so low it could not be heard from the neighbouring tables. “He’ll die of rage. It’s a great misfortune which has struck his house. Only yesterday I heard Pavli myself, with my own ears, saying to his father: ‘If she won’t be my wife, I’ll kill myself!’ But that jade doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. She tells him to run along and wipe his nose.” “Let’s go,” Zorba repeated. At every word said about the widow he became more excited.

The cocks began to crow; the rain was not quite so heavy.

“Come on, then,” I said, rising.

Mimiko leapt from his corner and slipped out after us.

The pebbles were gleaming; the doors running with water looked black; the little old women were coming out with baskets to look for snails.

Mimiko came up to me and touched my arm. “A cigarette, master,” he said. “It’ll bring you good luck in love.” I gave him the cigarette. He held out a skinny, sunburnt hand.

“Give me a light, too!”

I gave him a light; he drew the smoke in to his lungs and, with eyes half-closed, blew it out through his nostrils.

“As happy as a pasha!” he murmured.

“Where are you going?”

“To the widow’s garden. She said she’d give me some food if I spread the news about her ewe.” We walked quickly. There were rifts in the clouds. The whole village was freshly washed and smiling.

“Do you like the widow, Mimiko?” Zorba asked, with a sigh.

Mimiko chuckled.

“Friend, why shouldn’t I like her? And haven’t I come out of a sewer, like everyone else?” “Of a sewer?” I said, astounded. “What d’you mean, Mimiko?”

“Well, from a mother’s innards.”

I was amazed. Only a Shakespeare in his most creative moments, I thought, could have found an expression of such crude realism to portray the dark and repugnant mystery of birth.

I looked at Mimiko. His eyes were large and ecstatic and they had a slight squint.

“How do you spend your days, Mimiko?”

“How d’you think? I live like a lord! I wake in the morning, I eat a crust. Then I do odd jobs for people, anywhere, anything, I run errands, cart manure, collect horse-dung, and I’ve got a fishing-rod. I live with my aunt, mother Lenio, the professional mourner. You’re bound to know her, everybody does. She’s even been photographed. In the evening I go back home, drink a bowl of soup and a drop of wine, if there is any. If there isn’t, I drink enough of God’s water to make my belly swell like a drum. Then, good night!” “And won’t you get married, Mimiko?”

“What, me? I’m not a loony! Whatever are you asking now, friend? That I should saddle myself with trouble? A woman needs shoes! Where’d I find any? Look, I go bare-foot!” “Haven’t you any boots?”

“What d’you take me for? Of course I have! A man died last year and my aunt Lenio pulled them off his feet. I wear them at Easter and when I go to church and stare at the priest. Then I pull them off, hang them round my neck, and come home.” “What do you like best of all, Mimiko?”

“First, bread. Ah, how I like that! All crisp and hot, ‘specially if it’s wheat bread. Then, wine. Then, sleep.” “What about women?”

“Fff! Eat, drink, and go to bed, I say. All the rest’s just trouble!”

“And the widow?”

“Oh, leave her to the devil, I tell you, if you know what’s good for you! Get thee behind me Satan!” He spat three times and crossed himself.

“Can you read?”

“Now, look here, I’m not such a fool! When I was little I was dragged to school, but I was lucky. I caught typhus and became an idiot. That’s how I managed to get out of that!” Zorba had had enough of my questionings. He could not think of anything save the widow.

“Boss…” he said, taking me by the arm. Then he turned to Mimiko and ordered him to walk on ahead. “We’ve got something to talk about.” “Boss,” he said, “this is where I count on you. Now, don’t dishonour the male species! The god-devil sends you this choice morsel. You’ve got teeth. All right, get ‘em into it. Stretch out your arm and take her! What did the Creator give us hands for? To take things! So, take ‘em! I’ve seen loads of women in my time. But that damned widow makes the steeples rock!” “I don’t want any trouble!” I replied angrily.

I was irritated because in my heart of hearts I also had desired that all-powerful body which had passed by me like a wild animal on heat, distilling musk.

“You don’t want any trouble!” Zorba exclaimed in stupefaction. “And pray, what do you want, then?” I did not answer.

“Life is trouble,” Zorba continued. “Death, no. To live—do you know what that means? To undo your belt and look for trouble!” I still said nothing. I knew Zorba was right, I knew it, but I did not dare. My life had got on the wrong track, and my contact with men had become now a mere soliloquy. I had fallen so low that, if I had had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, I should have chosen the book.

“Don’t calculate, boss,” Zorba continued. “Leave your figures alone, smash the blasted scales, shut up your grocer’s shop, I tell you. Now’s the time you’re going to save or to lose your soul. Listen, boss, take a handkerchief, tie two or three pounds in it, make them gold ones, because the paper ones don’t dazzle; and send them to the widow by Mimiko. Teach him what he is to say: ‘The master of the mine sends you his best wishes and this little handkerchief. It’s only a small thing, he said, but his love is big. He said, too, you weren’t to worry about the ewe; if it’s lost, don’t bother, I’m here, don’t be afraid! He says he saw you going by the cafe and he’s fallen sick and only you can cure him!’

“There now! Then the same evening you knock on her door. Must beat the iron while it’s hot. You’ve lost your way, you tell her. It’s dark, will she lend you a lantern. Or else you’ve suddenly come over dizzy and would like a glass of water. Or, better still, you buy another ewe and take it to her: ‘Look, my lady,’ you say, ‘here’s the ewe you lost. It was I who found it for you!’ And the widow—listen to this, boss—the widow gives you the reward and you enter into… God Almighty, if only I could ride your mare behind you—I tell you, boss, you’ll enter into Paradise on horseback. If you’re looking for any other paradise than that, my poor fellow, there is none! Don’t listen to what the priests tell you, there’s no other!” We must have been approaching the widow’s garden, for Mimiko sighed and began in his stammering voice to sing his sorrow: “Wine for the chestnut, honey for the walnut! A lass for the lad, and a lad for the lass!” Zorba stepped out on his long shanks, his nostrils quivering. He stopped abruptly, drew in a long breath. He stared me straight in the eyes: “Well?…” he said. And he waited anxiously.

“That’ll do!” I replied harshly.

And I quickened my pace.

Zorba shook his head and growled something I did not catch.

When we reached the hut, he sat on crossed legs, placed the santuri on his knees and lowered his head, lost in deep meditation. It was as if he were listening, with his head on his chest, to innumerable songs and trying to choose one, the in most beautiful and most despairing of all. He at last made his choice and started a heart-rending air. From time to time he eyed me slantwise. I felt that what he could not or dare not tell me in words he was saying with the santuri. That I was wasting my life, that the widow and I were two insects who live but a second beneath the sun, then die for all eternity. Never more! Never more!

Zorba leapt up. He had suddenly realised that he was tiring himself in vain. He leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and, after a moment, spoke.

“I’m going to let you into a secret, boss, something a hodja[14] once told me in Salonica… I’m going to tell it to you, even if it doesn’t do any good.

[14] Turkish holy man.

“At that time I was a pedlar in Macedonia. I went into the villages to sell reels of thread, needles, the lives of the saints, benjamin and pepper. I had a rare voice, then, a real nightingale I was. You must know women also succumb to a voice. And what won’t they succumb to—the jades! God only knows what goes on inside them! You may be as ugly as sin, lame or a hunchback, but if you’ve a soft voice and can sing the women completely lose their heads.

“I was also peddling in Salonica and even went into the Turkish districts. And, it appears, my voice had so charmed a rich Muslim woman, the daughter of a pasha, that she could not sleep. She called an old hodja and filled his hands with mejidies. ‘Aman!’[15] she said to him, ‘go and tell the peddling Giaour to come. Aman! I must see him. I can’t hold out any longer!’

[15] A Muslim interjection, expressing entreaty, deprecation or surrender. Compare: Alas! Mercy!

“The hodja came to find me. ‘Listen, young Roumi,’ he said to me. ‘Come with me.’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Where d’you want to take me to?’ ‘There’s a pasha’s daughter who’s like spring-water. She’s waiting for you in her room. Come, little Roumi!’ But I knew that at night they murdered Christian infidels in the Turkish districts. ‘No, I’m not coming,’ I said. ‘Don’t you fear God, Giaour?’ ‘Why should I?’ ‘Because, little Roumi, he who can sleep with a woman and does not, commits a great sin. My boy, if a woman calls you to share her bed and you don’t go, your soul will be destroyed! That woman will sigh before God on judgment day, and that woman’s sigh, whoever you may be and whatever your fine deeds, will cast you into Hell!’” Zorba sighed.

“If Hell exists,” he said, “I shall go to Hell, and that’ll be the reason. Not because I’ve robbed, killed or committed adultery, no! All that’s nothing. But I shall go to Hell because one night in Salonica a woman waited for me on her bed and I did not go to her…” He rose, lit the fire and started cooking our meal. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled scornfully.

“You can knock for ever on a deaf man’s door!” he muttered.

And, bending down, he began to blow the damp wood angrily.