Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba The Greek

In other, more primitive and creative ages, Zorba would have been the chief of a tribe. He would have gone before, opening up the path with a hatchet. Or else he would have been a renowned troubador visiting castles, and everybody would have hung on his words-lords and ladies and servants… In our ungrateful age, Zorba wanders hungrily round the enclosures like a wolf, or else sinks into becoming some pen-pusher's buffoon.

I saw Zorba suddenly rise. He undressed, threw his clothes on to the pebbles and plunged into the sea. For a few moments, by the pale light of the moon, I could see his great head appearing and disappearing. From time to time he uttered a cry, barked, whinnied, crowed like a cock-his soul in this empty night found an affinity with animals.

Gently, without my realizing it, I fell asleep. The next day, at first light, I saw Zorba, smiling and rested, coming to pull me by the feet.

"Get up, boss," he said, "and let me confess my plan to you. Are you listening?"

"I'm listening."

He sat on the ground like a Turk and started explaining how he would set up an overhead cable from the top of the mountain to the coast; in thís way we could bring down the wood which we needed for the pit props, and the rest we could sell as timber for building. We had decided to rent a pine forest belonging to the monastery, but transport was expensive and we could not find enough mules. So Zorba had imagined laying out a line with a heavy cable, pylons and pulleys.

"Agreed?" he asked me when he had finished explaining. "Will you sign?"

"I'll sign, Zorba. Agreed."

He lit the brazier, put the kettle on the fire, prepared my coffee, threw a rug over my feet so that I should not catch cold, and went out, content.

"We're going to open a new gallery today," he said. "I've found a beautiful seam! Real black diamonds!"

I opened the Buddha manuscrípt, and I, too, worked my way into my own galleries. I wrote all day, and the more I progressed, the freer I felt. My feelings were mixed: relief, pride, disgust. But I let myself be absorbed by the work, for I knew that as soon as I had finished this manuscript and had bound and sealed it I should be free.

I was hungry. I ate a few raisins, some almonds and a piece of bread. I was waiting for Zorba to return, and with him all the things which rejoice the heart of man: clear laughter, the kind word, tasty dishes.

He appeared in the evening, and prepared the meal. We ate, but his mind was elsewhere. He knelt down, stuck little bits of wood in the ground, hung a piece of string on them, hung a match from some minute pulleys, endeavoring to find the right slope, so that the whole contraption did not fall to pieces.

"If the slope is too steep," he explained to me, "we're dished. We must find the exact slope. And for that, boss, we need some brains and wine."

"We've plenty of wine," I said, laughing, "but, as for the brains…"

Zorba burst out laughing.

"There are some things you get the hang of, boss," he said, looking at me affectionately.

He sat down to have a rest, and lit a cigarette.

He was in a good humor again and he became talkative.

"If this line worked," he said, "we could bring down the whole forest. We could open a factory, make planks, posts, scaffolding; why, we'd be rolling in money. We could lay down a three-master and then pack up, throw a stone behind us and sail round the world!"

Women in distant ports, towns, illuminations, gigantic buildings, machinery, ships came before Zorba's eyes.

"I'm white on top already, boss, and my teeth are getting loose. í've no time to lose. You're young, you can still afford to be patient. I can't. But I do declare, the older I get the wilder I become! Don't let anyone tell me old age steadies a man! Nor that when he sees death coming he stretches out his neck and says: Cut off my head, please, so that I can go to heaven! The longer I live, the more I rebel. ï'm not going to give in; I want to conquer the world!"

He rose and unhooked the santuri.

"Come over here, you fiend," he said. "What the hell are you doing hanging on the wall without saying a word? Let's hear you sing!"

I never tired of seeing with what elaborate precautions, with what gentleness, Zorba removed the cloth in which he wrapped his santuri. He looked as if he was removing the skin from a purple fig, or undressing a woman.

He placed the santuri on his lap, bent over it, lightly touched the strings-as if he were consulting it to see what tune they should sing, as if he were begging it to wake, as if he were trying to coax it into keeping company with his wandering spirit which was tired of solitude. He tried a song. It somehow would not come out right; he abandoned it and began another; the strings grated as if in pain, as if they did not want to sing. Zorba leaned against the wall, mopped his brow, which had suddenly started to perspire.

"It doesn't want to…" he muttered, looking with awe at the santuri, "it doesn't want to!"

He wrapped it up again with care, as if it were a wild animal and he was afraid it might bite. He rose slowly and hung it on the wall.

"It doesn't want to…" he muttered again, "it doesn't want to… we mustn't force it!"

He sat down once more on the ground, poked some chestnuts amongst the embers and filled the glasses with wine. He drank, drank again, shelled a chestnut and gave it to me.

"Can you make it out, boss?" he asked me. "It's beyond me. Everything seems to have a soul-wood, stones, the wine we drink and the earth we tread on. Everything, boss, absolutely everything!"

He raised his glass: "Your health."

He emptied it and filled it afresh.

"What a jade life this is!" he murmured. "A jade! It's just like old Bouboulina!"

I started laughing.

"Listen to me, boss, don't laugh. Life is just like old Bouboulina. It's old, isn't it? All right, but it doesn't lack spice. She knows a tríck or two to make you go off your rocker. If you close your eyes, you'd think you had a girl of twenty in your arms. She is twenty, I swear, when you're in the act and have put out the light.

"It's no use your telling me she's a bit overripe, she's led a pretty fast life and been on the spree with admirals, sailors, soldiers, peasants, travelling show men, priests, clergymen, policemen, schoolmasters and justices of the peace! So what? What of it? She soon forgets, does that old trollop. She can't remember any of her old lovers. Each time she becomes-I'm not joking-she becomes a sweet little pigeon, a pure white swan, a sucking dove, and she blushes-yes she does, she blushes and trembles all over, as if it were the first time! What a mystery woman is, boss! Even if she falls a thousand times, she rises a thousand times a virgin. But how's that? you'll say. Because she doesn't remember!"

"Well, the parrot remembers, Zorba," I said, to tease him. "He always squawks a name which isn't yours. Doesn't it annoy you, to hear that parrot screaming every time you reach the seventh heaven: 'Canavaro! Canavaro!' Don't you ever feel like taking him by the neck and wringing it? It's high time you taught him to shout: 'Zorba! Zorba!'"

"Oh, all that stuff and nonsense!" Zorba cried, stopping his ears with his great hands. "Wring his neck, you say? But I love to hear him shout the name! At night the old sinner hangs him up over the bed and the little devil's got an eye he can see with in the dark, and scarcely have you got started having it out together than he begins shouting: 'Canavaro! Canavaro!'

"And immediately, I swear, boss-but how could you understand that when you've been contaminated by those blasted books of yours?-I swear that I immediately feel patent-leather boots on my feet, plumes on my head and a silky beard smelling of patchouli on my chin. Buon giorno! Buona sera! Mangiate macaroni! I really become Canavaro. I clamber on to my flagship riddled with a thousand shots and away… Fire the boilers! The cannonade begins!"