Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba The Greek

Zorba laughed heartily. He shut his left eye and looked at me with the other.

"You must forgive me, boss," he said, "but I'm like my grandfather Alexis-God sanctify his remains! He used to sit in the evening in front of his door when he was a hundred and ogle the young girls going to the well. His sight wasn't too good, he couldn't see very clearly, so he'd call the girls over to him. 'I say, which one are you?' 'Xenio, Mastrandoni's daughter.' 'Come closer then and let me touch you. Come along, don't be afraid!' She'd try and keep a solemn face, and go up to him. Then my grandad would raise his hand to her face and feel it slowly, sensually. And his tears would flow. 'Why d'you cry, Grandad?' I once asked him. 'Ah, don't you think I've something to cry about, my boy, when I'm slowly dying and leaving behind so many fine wenches?'"

Zorba sighed. "Ah, poor old Grandad!" he said. "How I feel for you! I often say myself: 'Ah, misery! If only all the pretty-looking women'd die at the same time as myself!' But the jades will go on living; they'll be having a high old time, men'll be taking them in their arms and kissing them, when I'm just dust for them to walk on!"

He pulled a few chestnuts out of the fire, shelled them, and we clinked glasses. We stayed a long time drinking and slowly munching like two great rabbits, and we could hear the roaring of the sea.

WE STAYED silent by the brazier until far into the night. I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. And all that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

"How many times have you been married, Zorba?" I asked.

We were both in a good humor, not so much for having drunk a lot as on account of the indescribable happiness within us. We were deeply aware, each of us in our own way, that we were two ephemeral little insects, clinging tightly to the terrestrial bark, that we had found a convenient corner near the sea, behind some bamboos, planks and empty petrol cans, where we hung together, and, lastly, that we had before us some pleasant things and food, and within us serenity, affection and security.

Zorba did not hear my question. Who knows on what oceans beyond the reach of my voice his mind was sailing? I stretched out my arm and touched him with the tip of my fingers.

"How many times have you been married, Zorba?" I asked again.

He started. He had heard this time. Waving his great hand, he answered:

"What are you delving into now? D'you think I'm not a man? Like everyone else, I've committed the Great Folly. That's what I call marriage-may married folk forgive me! Yes, I've committed the Great Folly, I've married!"

"Yes, but how many times?"

Zorba scratched his head vigorously.

"How many times?" he said, at last. "Honestly once, once and for all. Half-honestly twice. Dishonestly a thousand, two thousand, three thousand times. How d'you expect me to reckon it?"

"Tell me a little about your marriages, Zorba. Tomorrow's Sunday, we'll shave and put on our best clothes and go to old Bouboulina's 'for a good time and a bad girl!' Now, tell me!"

"Tell you what! Are those really things you talk about, boss? Honest marriages are tasteless; they're a dish without any pepper. Tell you what! When the saints ogle you from their icons and give you their blessing, d'you call that a kiss? In our village we say 'only stolen meat is tasty.' Your wife is no stolen meat. Now, as for the dishonest unions, how are you going to recall them? Does the cock keep a register? You bet! And why should he, anyhow? There was a time, when I was young, I kept a lock of hair of every woman I got familiar with. I always kept a pair of scissors on me. Even when I went to church, yes, there were my scissors in my pocket! We're men, after all; you never know what'll come along, do you?

"So, like that, I made a collection of locks of hair. There were dark ones, fair ones, ginger ones, even a few white ones. I collected such a lot, I stuffed a pillow with them. I stuffed the pillow I slept on-only in winter, though. In summer it made me too hot. Then, a bit later, I got fed up with that, too-you see, it began to stink, so I burned it."

Zorba started laughing.

"That was my register, boss," he said, "and it's burnt. But I was fed up to the teeth with it. I thought there wouldn't be so many, and then I saw there was no end to it. So I threw my scissors away."

"What about the half-honest marriages, Zorba?"

"Oh, those have a certain charm," he sighed. "O wonderful Slav, may you live a thousand years! What freedom! None of those: 'Where have you been?' 'Why're you late?' 'Where did you sleep?' She asks you no questions and you ask her none. Freedom!"

He reached for his glass, emptied it and shelled a chestnut. He munched as he spoke.

"One was called Sophinka, the other Noussa. I met Sophinka in a tidy-sized village near Novo Rossisk. It was winter and snowing. I was going to look for work in a mine, and stopped in this village. It was market day and, from all the villages round about, men and women had come to buy and sell. A terrible famine and bitter cold. To buy bread people were selling all they had, even their icons!

"Well, I was going round the market when I saw a young peasant woman jumping down from her cart-a six-foot hussy with eyes as blue as the sea and such thighs and buttocks-I tell you, a real brood mare!… I stopped dead in my tracks. 'Poor Zorba, oh, my poor bloody Zorba!' I said.

"I started to follow her and look… I couldn't keep my eyes off her! You should've seen her buttocks swinging like church bells at Easter! 'Why go looking for mines, you poor mutt?' I said to myself. 'Why waste precious time there, you damned weathercock? Here's the mine for you: get in it and open up the galleries!'

"The girl stopped, started to bargain, bought a load of wood, lifted it up-Jesus, what arms!-and threw it into her cart! She bought some bread and five or six smoked fish. 'How much is that'?' she asked. 'So much…' She took off her golden earrings to pay. As she'd no money, she was going to give her earrings. My heart leapt into my mouth. Me, let a woman give away her earrings, her trinkets, her scented cakes of soap, her little bottles of lavender water?… If she gives away all that, it's all up with the world! It's as if you plucked a peacock's feathers. Would you have the heart to pluck a peacock? Never! No, as long as Zorba lives, I said to myself, that won't happen. I opened my purse and I paid. It was the time when roubles had become bits of paper. With a hundred drachmas you could buy a mule, with ten a woman.

"So I paid. The wench turned round and took a look at me out of the corner of her eyes. She took my hand to kiss it. But I pulled my hand away. What did she take me for? An old man? 'Spassiba! Spassiba!' she cried-that means: 'Thanks! Thanks!' And away she leaped into her cart. She took the reins and raised her whip. 'Zorba,' I said to myself, 'look out, my friend, she's going to slip through your fingers!' In one bound, I was at her side in the cart. She said nothing. She didn't even look round. A crack of the whip and off we went.

"On the way, she came to realize I wanted her to be mine. I could muster three words of Russian, but in these affairs there's no need to say much. We spoke to each other with our eyes, our hands, our knees. No need to beat about the bush. We arrived in the village and stopped in front of her isha. We got down. The girl thrust open the yard gate with her shoulder and we went in. We unloaded the wood in the yard, took the fish and bread and entered the room. A little old woman was sitting by the empty hearth. She was shivering. She was wrapped in sacks, rags, and sheepskins, but she was shivering. It was so cold, I tell you, your fingernails fairly fell out. I bent down, put an armful of wood in the fireplace and lit the fire. The little old woman looked at me and smiled. Her daughter had said something to her, but I hadn't understood. I made the fire go; the old woman warmed herself by it and recovered a little.