Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba The Greek

"Many times, when we were gathered on board the flagship, we talked about the revolution. Their uniforms were unclasped and my silk chemise was sticking to my skin, because they poured champagne over it. It was summer, you know. We were speaking about the revolution, having a serious conversation, and I caught hold of their beards and begged them not to bombard the poor dear Cretans. We could see them through the binoculars on a rock near Canea. They looked tiny, quite tiny, like ants with blue breeches and yellow boots. And they shouted and shouted, and they had a flag."

There was a movement in the bamboos which surrounded the yard. The old female warrior stopped, terrified. Between the leaves, wicked little eyes were gleaming. The village children had sensed we were junketing and were spying on us.

The cabaret singer tried to rise to her feet, but she could not. She had eaten and drunk too much, she sat back in a sweat. Zorba picked up a stone. The children scattered, screaming.

"Go on, my beauty! Go on, my treasure!" Zorba said, and pushed his chair still closer to her.

"So I said to the Italian admiral-I was more familiar with him-I seized his beard and said to him: 'My Canavaro'-that was his name-'please, my little Canavaro, no boom-boom! No boom-boom!'

"How many times the woman you see here has saved the Cretans from death! How many times the guns were ready loaded and I seized the admiral's beard and wouldn't let him 'boom-boom!' But what thanks have I ever had for that? Look what I get in the way of decorations…"

Dame Hortense was angry at the ingratitude of men. She struck the table with her soft and wrinkled fist. Zorba stretched out his practiced hands over her parted knees and seized them, carried away by a feigned emotion, and he cried:

"My Bouboulina! [7]For pity's sake, no boom-boom!"

"Hands off!" our good lady said, chuckling. "Who d'you take me for?" And she gave him a languorous glance.

"There's a God in heaven," said the crafty debauchee. "Don't upset yourself, my Bouboulina. We're here, sweetheart, don't be afraid."

The old siren raised her acid-blue eyes to heaven. She saw her green parrot asleep in his cage.

"My Canavaro, my little Canavaro!" she cooed amorously.

The parrot, recognizing her voice, opened his eyes, clutched hold of the bars of his cage and started to cry in the hoarse voice of a drowning man: "Canavaro! Canavaro!"

"Present!" cried Zorba, once more applying his hands to those old knees which had seen so much service, this time as if he wanted to take possession of them. The old cabaret singer wriggled in her chair and again opened her little puckered lips.

"I, too, have struggled valiantly, breast to breast… But the bad days came. Crete was liberated, the fleets had orders to leave. 'And what is to become of me?' I said, seizing the four beards. 'Where are you going to leave me? I have got used to grandeur, to champagne and roast chicken; I have got used to handsome little sailors saluting me; I shall be four times a widow! What is going to become of me, my lords and admirals?'

"Oh, they just laughed-that's men for you! Tbey loaded me with English and Italian pounds, roubles and napoleons. I stuffed them in my stockings, in my bodice and in my shoes. On the last evening I wept and sobbed so much the Admirals took pity on me. They filled the bath with champagne, plunged me in it-we were very familiar by then-and they drank the champagne from the bath in my honor. They got drunk and put out the light…

"In the morning, I could smell all their perfumes on top of each other: the violet, the eau-de-Cologne, the musk and the patchouli. The four great powers- England, France, Russia and Italy -I held them here, here on my knees, and I went like this with them…"

Dame Hortense held out her plump little arms and moved them up and down, as if she were bouncíng a baby on her lap.

"There, like that! Like that!

"At daybreak they began to fire off their guns. I swear to this on my honor, they fired off their guns, and a white boat with twelve oarsmen came out to fetch me and set me on shore."

She took her little handkerchief out and began to weep, inconsolably.

"My Bouboulina," Zorba cried rapturously, "shut your eyes… shut your eyes, my treasure. I am Canavaro!"

"Hands off, I said!" our good lady simpered. "Just look at your handsome self! Where are the golden epaulettes, the three-cornered hat, the perfumed beard? Ah, well then!…"

She squeezed Zorba's hand gently and started to weep again.

It was becomíng cooler. We fell silent a while. The sea, behind the bamboos, was sighing. It had at last become gentle and peaceful. The wind had fallen, the sun sank to rest. Two crows passed over our heads and their wings whistled as if a piece of silk was being torn-the silk chemise of the songstress.

The evening light fell like a spray of golden dust over the yard. Dame Hortense's fanciful lips caught alight and quivered in the evening breeze as if they wanted to take flight and carry the fire to her neighbors' heads. The golden light fell on her half-bared bosom, her parted knees which had grown fat with age, the lines in her neck, her worn-out court shoes.

Our old siren shuddered. Half-closing her little eyes, which were reddened by her tears and the wine, she looked first at me, then at Zorba, whose lips were parched, and who was fascinated by her bosom. She looked at each of us with a questioning air, trying to see whích of us was Canavaro.

"My Bouboulína," Zorba cooed passionately, whilst pressing his knee against hers. "Don't worry, there's no God and no devil. Raise your little head, rest your cheek on your hand and give us a song. To hell with death!"

Zorba was on fire. With his left hand he twisted his moustache, and his right hand strayed over the intoxicated songstress. His words were breathless, his eyes languid. It was certainly not this mummified and outrageously painted old woman he was seeing before him, but the entire "female species," as it was his custom to call women. The individual disappeared, the features were obliterated, whether young or senile, beautiful or ugly-those were mere unimportant variations. Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite.

That was the face Zorba was seeing and talking to, and desiring. Dame Hortense was only an ephemeral and transparent mask which Zorba tore away to kiss the eternal mouth.

"Lift your snow-white neck, my treasure," he repeated in his gasping, pleading voice. "Lift your snow-white neck and sing us the song!"

The old songstress rested her cheek on her plump hand, which was all cracked with washing clothes; her eyes became languorous. She uttered a wild and woeful cry, then began her favorite song, repeating it many times as she gazed at Zorba with swooning, half-closed eyes-she had already made her choice.

Au fil de mes jours Pourquoi t'ai-je rencontré…

Zorba leapt up, went for his santuri, sat on the ground Turkish fashion, undraped his instrument, rested it on his lap and stretched his great hands.

"Oh! Oh!" he bellowed. "Take a knife and cut my throat, Bouboulina!"

When night began to fall, when the evening star revolved in the sky, and the coaxing voice of the santuri rose, abetting Zorba's aims, Dame Hortense, stuffed with chicken and rice, grilled almonds and wine, reeled heavily onto Zorba's shoulder and sighed. She rubbed herself gently against his bony sides, yawned and sighed afresh.

Zorba made a sign to me and lowered his voice:

"She's in the mood, boss," he whispered. "Be a pal, and leave us."

AT DAYBREAK I opened my eyes and saw Zorba sitting opposite me at the end of his bed with his legs tucked up; he was smoking and absorbed in deep meditation. His líttle round eyes were fixed on the fanlight in front of him, which the first gleam of day tinted milky white. His eyes were swollen and his unusually long, bare, scraggy neck was stretched out like the neck of a bird of prey.