Zorba the Greek

  "Kyrie eleison! Kyrie eleison!" yelped the villagers, workmen and monks, as they stampeded.

  A flying splinter wounded Demetrios in the thigh and another was within a hair's breadth of taking out the abbot's eye. The villagers had disappeared. The Virgin alone was erect on her rock, lance in hand, looking at the men below with a cold and severe eye. Next to her, more dead than alive, was a trembling parrot, his green feathers standing out from his body.

  The monks seized the Virgin, clasped her in their arms, helped up Demetrios, who was groaning with pain, collected their mules together, mounted them and beat a retreat. Scared to death, the workmen who had been turning the spit had abandoned the sheep and the meat was beginning to burn.

  "The sheep will be burnt to a cinder!" shouted Zorba anxiously, as he ran to the spit.

  I sat down beside him. There was no one else left on the beach, we were quite alone. He turned to me and cast me a dubious, hesitant glance. He did not know how I was going to take the catastrophe, or how this adventure was likely to end.

  He took a knife, bent over the sheep once more, tasted it and immediately took the beast off the fire and stood it up on the spit against a tree.

  "Just right," he said, "just right, boss! Would you like a piece, as well?"

  "Bring the bread and the wine, too," I said. "I'm hungry."

  Zorba hurried to the barrel, rolled it close to the sheep, brought a loaf of white bread and two glasses. We each took a knife, carved off two slices of meat, cut some bread and began to eat.

  "See how good it is, boss? It melts in your mouth! Here there are no rich pastures, the animals eat dry grass all the time, that's why their meat's so tasty. I can only remember once in my life eating meat as succulent as this. It was that time I embroidered the Saint Sophia with some of my hair and wore it as a charm ... an old story…"

  "Go on, tell me!"

  "An old story, I tell you, boss! A crazy Greek's idea!"

  "Go on, Zorba, I'd like to hear you spin the yarn."

  "Well, it was like this. The Bulgars had surrounded us, it was evening, we could see them all round us lighting fires on the slopes of the mountains. To frighten us they'd start banging cymbals and howling like a lot of wolves. There must have been a good three hundred of 'em. We were twenty-eight, and Rouvas was our chief—God save his soul if he's dead, he was a fine fellow! 'Come on, Zorba,' he said, 'put the sheep on the spit!' 'It's much more tasty cooked in a hole in the ground, captain,' I said. 'Do it any way you like, but get on with it, we're ravenous,' he said. So we dug a hole, stuffed the sheep in it, piled a layer of coal on top and lit it; then we took the bread from our packs and sat down round the fire. 'It may well be the last one we eat!' said our chief. 'Any of you got cold feet?' We all laughed. No one deigned to answer him. We took our gourds and said: 'Your health, chief. They'd better be good shots if they want to hit us!' We drank, drank again, then pulled the sheep out of the hole. Oh, boss, what mutton! When I think of it my mouth still waters! It melted, like loukoum! We all sank our teeth in it without delay. 'I've never had tastier meat in my life!' said the chief. 'God save us all!' And though he'd never drunk before, he quaffed his glass of wine in one go. 'Sing a Klepht song!' he commanded. 'Those chaps over there are howling like wolves: we'll sing like men. Let's begin with Old Dimos.' We drank up quickly, filled and drank again. Then we started the song. It grew louder and louder, resounding and echoing through the ravines: And I've been a Klepht brigand for forty years, boys!... We sang loud and with a will. 'Well, God help us!' said the captain. That's the spirit! Now, Alexis, look at the sheep's back there… What does it say?' I bent over the fire and began scraping the sheep's back with my knife.

  "'I can't see any graves, captain,' I cried. 'Nor any dead. We shall get away with it once again, boys!' 'May God have heard you!' said our chief, who had not long been married. 'Just let me have a son! I don't care what happens after that.'"

  Zorba cut himself a large piece from round the kidneys.

  "That sheep was wonderful," he said, "but this one doesn't give a point away; it's a little beauty!"

  "Pour out some wine, Zorba," I said. "Fill the glasses to the brim and we'll drain them."

  We clinked glasses and tasted the wine, an exquisite Cretan wine, a rich red color, like hare's blood. When you drank it, you felt as if you were in communion with the blood of the earth itself and you became a sort of ogre. Your veins overflowed with strength, your heart with goodness! If you were a lamb you turned into a lion. You forgot the pettiness of life, constraints all fell away. United to man, beast and God, you felt that you were one with the universe.

  "Look at this sheep's back and read what it says," I cried. "Go on, Zorba."

  He very carefully sucked the pieces off the back, scraped it with his knife, held it up to the light and gazed at it attentively.

  "Everything's fine," he said. "We shall live a thousand years, boss; we've hearts of steel!"

  He bent down, examining the back again in the light from the fire.

  "I see a journey," he said, "a long journey. At the end of it a large house with a lot of doors. It must be the capital of some kingdom, boss ... or the monastery where I shall be doorkeeper, and where I'll do the smuggling, as we said?"

  "Pour some wine, Zorba, and leave your prophecies. I'll tell you what the large house with all those doors really is: it's the earth and all its graves, Zorba. That's the end of the long voyage. Good health, you rascal!"

  "Good health, boss! Luck is blind, they say. It can't see where it's going and keeps running into people ... and the people it nocks into we call lucky! Well, to hell with luck if it's like that, say! We don't want it, do we, boss?"

  "We don't, Zorba! Good health!"

  We drank, finished off the sheep, and the world was somehow lighter—the sea looked happy, the earth swayed like the deck of a ship, two gulls walked across the pebbles chattering together like human beings.

  I stood up.

  "Come on, Zorba," I cried, "teach me to dance!"

  Zorba leaped to his feet, his face sparkling.

  "To dance, boss? To dance? Fine! Come on!"

  "Off we go, then, Zorba! My life has changed! Let's have it!"

  "To start with I'll teach you the Zéimhékiko. It's a wild, military dance; we always danced it when I was a comitadji, before going into battle."

  He took off his shoes and purple socks and kept on only his shirt. But he was still too hot and removed that as well.

  "Watch my feet, boss," he enjoined me. "Watch!"

  He put out his foot, touched the ground lightly with his toes, then pointed the other foot; the steps were mingled violently, joyously, the ground reverberated like a drum.

  He shook me by the shoulder.

  "Now then, my boy," he said. "Both together!"

  We threw ourselves into the dance. Zorba instructed me, corrected me gravely, patiently, and with great gentleness. I grew bold and felt my heart on the wing like a bird.

  "Bravo! You're a wonder!" cried Zorba, clapping his hands to mark the beat. "Bravo, youngster! To hell with paper and ink! To hell with goods and profits! To hell with mines and workmen and monasteries! And now that you, my boy, can dance as well and have learnt my language, what shan't we be able to tell each other!"

  He pounded on the pebbles with his bare feet and clapped his hands.

  "Boss," he said, "I've dozens of things to say to you. I've never loved anyone as much before. I've hundreds of things to say, but my tongue just can't manage them. So I'll dance them for you! Here goes!"

  He leaped into the air and his feet and arms seemed to sprout wings. As he threw himself straight in the air against that background of sea and sky, he looked like an old archangel in rebellion. For Zorba's dance was full of defiance and obstinacy. He seemed to be shouting to the sky: "What can you do to me, Almighty? You can do nothing to me except kill me. Well, kill me, I don't care! I've vented my spleen, I've said all I want to say; I've had time to dance ... and I don't need y
ou any more!"

  Watching Zorba dance, I understood for the first time the fantastic efforts of man to overcome his weight. I admired Zorba's endurance, his agility and proud bearing. His clever and impetuous steps were writing on the sand the demoniac history of mankind.

  He stopped, contemplated the shattered cable line and its series of heaps. The sun was declining, shadows were growing longer. Zorba turned to me and with a gesture common to hím, covered his mouth with his palm.

  "I say, boss," he said, "did you see the showers of sparks the thing threw out?"

  We burst out laughing.

  Zorba threw himself on me, embraced and kissed me.

  "Does it make you laugh, too?" he said tenderly. "Are you laughing, too? Eh, boss? Good!"

  Rocking with laughter, we wrestled playfully with one another for some time. Then, falling to the ground, we stretched out on the pebbles and fell asleep in one another's arms.

  I woke at dawn and walked rapidly along the beach towards the village; my heart was leaping in my breast. I had rarely felt so full of joy in my life. It was no ordinary joy, it was a sublime, absurd and unjustifiable gladness. Not only unjustifiable, contrary to all justification. This time I had lost everything—my money, my men, the line, the trucks; we had constructed a small port and now we had nothing to export. It was all lost.

  Well, it was precisely at that moment that I felt an unexpected sense of deliverance. As if in the hard, somber labyrinth of necessity I had discovered liberty herself playing happily in a corner. And I played with her.

  When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seems to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.

  Each time that within ourselves we are the conquerors, although. externally utterly defeated, we human beings feel an indescribable pride and joy. Outward calamity is transformed into a supreme and unshakable felicity.

  I remember something Zorba told me once:

  "One night on a snow-covered Macedonian mountain a terrible wind arose. It shook the little hut where I had sheltered and tried to tip it over. But I had shored it up and strengthened it. I was sitting alone by the fire, laughing at and taunting the wind. 'You won't get into my little hut, brother! I shan't open the door to you. You won't put my fire out; you won't tip my hut over!'"

  In these few words of Zorba's I had understood how men should behave and what tone they should adopt when addressing powerful but blind necessity.

  I walked rapidly along the beach, talking with the invisible enemy. I cried: "You won't get into my soul! I shan't open the door to you! You won't put my fire out; you won't tip me over!"

  The sun had not yet peeped over the mountain. Colors played in the sky over the water—blues, greens, pinks, and mother-of-pearl; inland, among the olive trees, small birds were waking and chirping, intoxicated by the morning light.

  I walked along the edge of the water to say goodbye to this solitary beach, to engrave it upon my mind and carry it away with me.

  I had known much joy and many pleasures on that beach. My life with Zorba had enlarged my heart; some of his words had calmed my soul. This man with his infallible instinct and his primitive eagle-like look had taken confident short cuts and, without even losing his breath, had reached the peak of effort and had even gone farther.

  A group of men and women went by carrying baskets full of food and big bottles of wine. They were going to the gardens to celebrate the first of May. A girl sang and her voice was as clear as spring water. A little girl, her young breast already swelling, passed by me out of breath, and clambered on to a high rock. A pale and angry man with a black beard was chasing her.

  "Come down, come down…" he cried hoarsely. But the gírl, her cheeks aflame, raised her arms, folded them behind her head and, gently swaying her perspiring body, sang:

  Tell me with a laugh, tell me with a cry, Tell me you do not love me, What care I?

  "Come down, come down ...!" the bearded man was shouting, his hoarse voice begging and threatening by turns. All at once he leaped up and caught her by the foot, gripping it fiercely. She burst into tears as if only waiting for this brutal gesture to relieve her feelings.

  I hurried on. All these sudden manifestations of joy stirred my heart. The old siren came into my mínd. I could see her—fat and perfumed and sated with kisses. She was lying beneath the earth. She must already have swollen and turned green. Her skin must have split, her body fluids must have oozed out and the maggots must be crawling over her now.

  I shook my head with horror. Sometimes the earth becomes transparent and we see our ultimate ruler, the grub, working night and day in his underground workshops. But we quickly turn our eyes away, because men can endure everything except the sight of that small white maggot.

  As I entered the village I met the postman preparing to blow his trumpet.

  "A letter, boss!" he said, holding out a blue envelope.

  I leaped for joy as I recognized the delicate handwriting. I hurried through the foliage, emerged by the olive grove, and impatiently opened the letter. It was brief and written in a haste. I read it straight through.

  We have reached the frontiers of Georgia; we have escaped the Kurds and all's well. I at last know what happiness really is. Because it's only now that I have real experience of the old maxim: Happiness is doing your duty, and the harder the duty the greater the happiness.

  In a few days these hounded, dying creatures will be at Batum, and I have just had a telegram which reads: "The first ships are in sight!"

  These thousands of hard-working, intelligent Greeks, with their broad-hipped wives and fiery-eyed children, will soon be transported into Macedonia and Thrace. We are going to infuse a new and valiant blood into the old veins of Greece.

  I have exhausted myself somewhat, I admit, but what does it matter? We have fought, my dear sir, and won. I am happy.

  I hid the letter and hastened along. I too was happy. I took the steep track up the mountainside, rubbing a sweet-smelling sprig of thyme between my fingers. It was nearly noon and my dark shadow was concentrated about my feet. A kestrel was hovering, its wings beating so fast that it looked quite motionless. A partridge heard my steps, hurtled out of the brush and whirred into the air in its mechanical flight.

  I was happy. Had I been able I would have sung out loud to relieve my feelings, but I could only make inarticulate cries. Whatever's happening to you? I asked myself mockingly. Were you as patriotic as that then, and never knew? Or do you love your friend so much? You ought to be ashamed! Control yourself and quiet down!

  But I was transported with joy and continued along the track, shouting as I went. I heard a tinkling of goat bells. Black, brown and grey goats appeared on the rocks, in the full sun. The he-goat was in front, holding his neck rigid. The stench of him infected the air.

  "Hallo, brother! Where are you off to? Who're you chasing'?"

  A goatherd had jumped up on to a rock and was whistling after me with his fingers in his mouth.

  "I've got something urgent to do!" I answered, and continued climbing.

  "Stop a minute. Come and have a drink of goat's milk to refresh yourself!" shouted the goatherd, leaping from rock to rock.

  "I told you I've got something urgent to do!" I shouted back. I did not want to cut short my joy by stopping to talk.

  "D'you mean you despise my milk?" said the goatherd in a hurt tone. "Go on, then, and good luck to you!"

  He put his fingers in his mouth again, whistled, and goats, dogs and goatherd disappeared behind the rocks.

  I soon reached the summit of the mountain. Immediately, as though this had been my objective I became calm. I stretched out on a rock in the shade, and looked at the distant plain and sea. I breathed in deeply; the air was redolent with sage and thyme.

  I stood up, gathered some sage, made a pillow and lay down again. I was tired. I closed my eyes.

&nb
sp; For a moment my mind took flight to those far-off high plateaus covered with snow. I tried to imagine the little band of men, women and cattle making their way towards the north, and my friend walking ahead, like the ram at the head of the flock. But very soon my mind grew confused and I felt an invincible desire to sleep.

  I wanted to resist. I did not wish to give way to sleep. I opened my eyes. A species of crow, an alpine chough, had settled on a rock directly in front of me, on the mountaintop. Its blue-black feathers shone in the sun and I made out very distinctly its large curved yellow beak. I was cross; this bird seemed to be a bad omen. I seized a stone and threw it at him. The chough calmly and slowly opened its wings.

  I closed my eyes once more, unable to resist any longer, and sleep immediately overwhelmed me.

  I could not have been asleep more than a few seconds when I uttered a cry and sat up with a start. The chough was passing at that very second above my head. I leaned against the rock, trembling all over. A violent dream had cut through my mind like a sword.

  I saw myself in Athens, walking along Hermes Street, alone. The sun was burning hot, the street was deserted, the shops all shut, the solitude was complete. As I passed the church of Kapnikarea[31] I saw my fríend, pale and breathless, running up to me from the direction of Constitution Square. He was following a very tall, thin man, who was walking with giant strides. My friend was in full diplomatic uniform. He noticed me and shouted from some distance, in a breathless tone:

  "Hello, what are you doing nowadays? I haven't seen you for ages. Come and see me tonight; we'll have a chat."

  "Where?" I shouted in my turn, very loud, as if my friend were a long way off and I had to use all the strength in my voice to reach him.

  "Concord Square,[32] this evening, six o'clock. The Fountain of Paradise Café!"

  "Good!" I answered. "I'll be there!"

  "You say you will," he said in a tone of reproach, "but you won't!"

  "I will, for certain!" I cried. "Here's my hand on it!"

  "I'm in a hurry."

  "Why are you in a hurry? Give me your hand!"