Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba The Greek

"'Oh, that's how it is, is it?' the Virgin must have said. 'Well, just you wait, I'll make your son deaf, that'll teach you to blaspheme!'"

And uncle Anagnosti crossed himself.

"But that's nothing," he said. "God be praised! She might have made me blind or an idiot, or hunchbacked, or even-God Almighty preserve us!-she might have made me a girl. This is just nothing at all, I bow to her holiness!"

He filled the glasses.

"Long may she help us!" he said, raising his glass.

"To your health, uncle Anagnosti. I hope you live to a hundred and see your great-great-grandchildren!"

The old man tossed off his wine in one go and wiped his moustache.

"No, my son," he said. "That's too much to ask. I've seen my grandchildren. That's enough. Mustn't ask too much. My hour has come. I am old, my friends, my loins are empty, I can't-much as I'd like to-I can't sow the seed for any more children. So what'd I be doing with life?"

He filled the glasses again, pulled out from his waistband some walnuts and dríed figs wrapped in laurel leaves and shared them with us.

"I have given everything I had to my children," he said. "We've become poverty-stricken, yes, poverty-stricken, but I don't complain. God has all that is needful!"

"God may have all that's needful, uncle Anagnosti," Zorba shouted in the old man's ear. "God may have, but not us. The old skinflint gives us nothing!"

But the old villager frowned.

"Don't say that!" he chided severely. "Don't upbraid him! The poor fellow counts on us, too, you know!"

At this moment grandmother Anagnosti entered silently and submissively carrying the celebrated delicacy on an earthenware dish, and also a large jug full of wine. She set them on the table and remained standing with hands clasped and lowered eyes.

I felt some repugnance at having to taste this hors d'oeuvre, but, on the other hand, I did not have the courage to refuse. Zorba was watching me out of the corner of his eye and enjoying my discomfiture.

"It's the most tasty dish you could wish for, boss," he affirmed. "Don't be squeamish."

Old Anagnosti gave a little laugh.

"That's the truth, indeed it is, you try them and see. They melt in the mouth! When Prince George-may the hour be blessed for him!-visited our monastery up there in the mountains, the monks prepared a royal feast in his honor, and they served meat to every one save to the prince, who was given a plateful of soup. The prince took his spoon and began to stir his soup. 'What are these? Beans?' he asked in surprise. 'White haricot beans, are they?' 'Try them, Your Highness,' said the old abbot. 'Try them and we'll talk about them afterwards.' The prince took a spoonful, two, three, he emptied his plate and licked his lips. 'What is this wonderful dish?' he said, 'What tasty beans! They're as nice as brains!' 'They're no beans, your Highness,' replied the abbot, laughing. 'They're no beans! We've had àll the cocks of the neighborhood castrated!'"

Roaring with laughter, the old man stuck his fork into another morsel.

"A dish fit for princes'." he said. "Open your mouth."

I opened my mouth and he popped in the morsel.

He filled the glasses again and we drank to the health of his grandson. Old Anagnosti's eyes shone.

"What would you like your grandson to be, uncle Anagnosti?" I asked. "Tell us, so that we can wish."

"What could I wish, my son? Well, that he takes the right road; that he becomes a good man, head of a family; that he, too, gets married and has children and grandchildren. Änd may one of his children be like me, so that old folk exclaim: 'I say, doesn't he look like old Anagnosti-God sanctify his soul!-he was a good man!'"

"Maroulia!" he called, without looking at his wife. "Maroulia, more wine, fill up the jug again!"

Just then the wicket gate to the enclosure yielded to a powerful thrust from the pig and the pig rushed grunting into the garden.

"It hurts him, poor beast," Zorba said pityingly.

"Of course it hurts him!" the old Cretan saíd, laughing. "Supposing they did that to you, wouldn't it hurt you?"

Zorba fidgeted on his chair.

"May your tongue be cut out, you old deaf post!" Zorba muttered in horror.

The pig ran about in front of us and looked at us furiously.

"I do believe he knows we're eating them!" said uncle Anagnosti, who had been put in high spirits by the drop of wine he had drunk.

But we, like cannibals, went on quietly and contentedly eating the delicacy and drinking the red wine, as we gazed between the silvery branches of the olive tree towards the sea, which the sunset had turned pink.

At dusk we left the old man's house. Zorba, who was now also in high spirits, wanted to talk.

"What were we saying the day before yesterday, boss? You were saying you wanted to open the people's eyes. All right, you just go and open old uncle Anagnosti's eyes for him! You saw how his wife had to behave before him, waiting for his orders, like a dog begging. Just go now and teach them that women have equal rights with men, and that it's cruel to eat a piece of the pig while the pig's still raw and groaning in front of you, and that it's simple lunacy to give thanks to God because he's got everything while you're starving to death! What good'll that poor devil Anagnosti get out of all your explanatory humbug? You'd only cause him a lot of bother. And what'd old mother Anagnosti get out of it? The fat would be in the fire: family rows would start, the hen would want to be cock, the couple would just have a good set-to and make their feathers fly…! Let people be, boss; don't open their eyes. And supposing you did, what'd they see? Their misery! Leave their eyes closed, boss, and let them go on dreaming!"

He was silent a moment and scratched his head. He was thinking.

"Unless," he said at last, "unless…"

"Unless what? Let's have it!"

"Unless when they open their eyes you can show them a better world than the darkness in which they're gallivanting at present… Can you?"

I did not know. I was fully aware of what would be destroyed. I did not know what would be built out of the ruins. No one can know that with any degree of certainty, I thought. The old world is tangible, solid, we live in it and are struggling with it every moment-it exists. The world of the future is not yet born, it is elusive, fluid, made of the light from which dreams are woven; it is a cloud buffeted by violent winds-love, hate, imagination, luck, God… The greatest prophet on earth can give men no more than a watchword, and the vaguer the watchword the greater the prophet.

Zorba looked at me with a mocking smile which vexed me.

"I can show them a better world!" I replied.

"Can you? Well, let's hear about it!"

"I can't explain it; you wouldn't understand."

"That means you haven't got one to show!" Zorba rejoined, shaking his head. "Don't take me for a simpleton, boss. If anyone's told you I'm a moon-calf, they're wrong. I may have no more education than old uncle Anagnosti, but I'm nowhere near so stupid! Well, if I can't understand, what d'you expect of that poor fellow and his blockheaded mate? And what about all the other Anagnostides in the world? Have you only got more darkness to show them? They've managed pretty well up to now; they have children, and even grandchildren. God makes them deaf or blind, and they say: 'God be praised!' They feel at home in their misery. So let them be and say nothing."

I was silent. We were passing the widow's garden. Zorba stopped a moment and sighed, but said nothing. A shower must have fallen. There was a fresh, earthy smell in the air. The first stars appeared. The new moon was shining, it was a tender shade of greenish yellow. The sky was overflowing with sweetness.

That man has not been to school, I thought, and his brains have not been perverted. He has had all manner of experiences; his mind is open and his heart has grown bigger, without his losing one ounce of his primitive boldness. All the problems which we find so complicated or insoluble he cuts through as if with a sword, like Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian knot. It is difficult for him to miss his aim, because his two feet are held firmly planted on the ground by the weight of his whole body. African savages worship the serpent because its whole body touches the ground and it must, therefore, know all the earth's secrets. It knows them with its belly, with its tail, with its head. It is always in contact or mingled with the Mother. The same is true of Zorba. We educated people are just empty-headed birds of the air.