"Another of these things that never leave you alone," Zorba often said, as he set the pot on the fire. "It's not only woman, curse her-that's an endless affair-there's eating, too."

On this coast I felt for the first time what a pleasant thing it could be to have a meal. In the evening Zorba lit the fire between two stones and did the cooking. We started eating and drinking, the conversation became animated. I at last realized that eating was a spiritual function and that meat, bread and wine were the raw materials from which the mind is made.

After his day's hard work, before eating and drinking, Zorba was dull, his remarks peevish, and I had to drag words out of him. His, movements were listless and awkward. But as soon as he had stoked up the engine, as he put it, the whole grinding, weary machine of his body came to life once more, got up speed and started to work again. His eyes lit up, he was brim full of memories, wings grew on his feet and he danced.

"Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I'll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and others, I'm told, into God. So there must be three sorts of men. I'm not one of the worst, boss, nor yet one of the best. I'm somewhere between the two. What I eat I turn into work and good humor. That's not too bad, after all!"

He looked at me wickedly and started laughing.

"As for you, boss," he said, "I think you do your level best to turn what you eat into God. But you can't quite manage it, and that torments you. The same thing's happening to you as happened to the crow."

"What happened to the crow, Zorba?"

"Well, you see, he used to walk respectably, properly-well, like a crow. But one day he got it into his head to try and strut about like a pigeon. And from that time on the poor fellow couldn't for the life of him recall his own way of walking. He was all mixed up, don't you seeï He just hobbled about."

I raised my head. I had heard Zorba's footsteps as he came up out of the gallery. Soon after I saw him approaching with a long scowling face, his arms dangling helplessly at his sides.

"Evening, boss," he said lifelessly.

"Hello, Zorba. How did the work go today?"

He did not reply.

"I'll light the fiíre," he said, "and prepare the meal."

He took an armful of wood from the corner, went outside, arranged the faggots artistically in a pile between the two stones and lit them. He set the earthenware pot on top, poured in some water, threw in onions, tomatoes and rice, and began cooking. Meanwhile, I put a cloth on a low round table, cut thick slices of wheat bread, and from the demijohn I filled with wine the calabash, decorated with designs, which uncle Anagnosti had given us soon after our arrival.

Zorba kneeled in front of the pot, stared into the fire and remained silent.

"Have you any children, Zorba?" I said all of a sudden.

He looked round.

"Why d'you ask me that? I have a girl."

"Married?"

Zorba started laughing.

"Why are you laughing, Zorba?"

"What a question to ask!" he said. "Of course she's married. She isn't an imbecile. I was working in a copper mine near Pravishta in Chalcidice. One day I received a letter from my brother Yanni. Oh, yes! I'd forgotten to tell you I have a brother, a sensible, stay-at-home money lender, a hypocritical church-goer, a real pillar of society… He's a grocer in Salonica. 'Dear brother Alexis,' he wrote me, 'Your daughter Phrosso has gone astray; she has dishonored our name. She has a lover; she has had a child by him. Our reputation is ruined. I am going to the village to cut her throat.'"

"And what did you do, Zorba?"

Zorba shrugged his shoulders.

" 'Ah, women!' I said, and I tore up the letter."

He stirred the rice, put in some salt, and grinned.

"But just wait, you'll see the funny side of this. Two or three months later I had a second letter from my silly brother. 'Health and happiness to you, my dear brother,' the fool wrote me. 'Our honor is safe, you can now hold your head high again The man in question has married Phrosso!'"

Zorba looked round at me. By the glow of his cigarette I could see his eyes sparkling. He shrugged his shoulders again

"Ah, men!" he said with unutterable scorn.

A little later, he continued:

"What can you expect from women?" he said. "That they'll go and get children by the first man who comes along. What can you expect of men? That they fall into the trap. Mark my words, boss!"

He took the pot off the fire and we began our evening meal.

Zorba was sunk in deep thought again.

Something was worrying him. He looked at me, opened his mouth and shut it again. By the light of the oil lamp I could see the worried and anxious look in his eyes.

I could not bear to see him like this.

"Zorba," I said, "there's something you want to tell me. Well, tell me. Come on, now, cough ít up; you'll feel better afterwards."

Zorba remained silent. He picked up a small pebble and threw it with some force through the window.

"Leave the stones alone! Speak!"

Zorba stretched out his wrinkled neck.

"Have you got confidence in me, boss?" he asked, anxiously looking me in the eyes.

"Yes, Zorba," I replied. "Whatever you do, you can't go wrong. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't. You're like a lion, shall we say, or a wolf. That kind of beast never behaves as if it were a sheep or a donkey; it is never untrue to its nature. And you, you're Zorba to the tips of your fingers."

Zorba nodded his head.

"But I've no longer the foggiest idea where we're going!" he said.

"I have, don't you worry about that. Just go straight ahead!"

"Say that again, boss, to give me courage!" he cried.

"Go ahead!"

Zorba's eyes shone.

"Now I can tell you," he said. "I've been working out a big plan in my mind these last few days, a crazy idea. Is it on?"

"Need you ask me? That's what we came here for: to carry ideas into effect."

Zorba craned his neck, looked at me with joy and fear.

"Speak plaínly, boss!" he cried. "Didn't we come here for the coal?"

"The coal was a pretext, just to stop the locals being too inquisitive, so that they took us for sober contractors and didn't greet us by slinging tomatoes at us. Do you understand, Zorba?"

Zorba was dumbfounded. He tried hard to understand; he could not believe in such happiness. All at once, he was convinced. He rushed towards me and took me by the shoulders.

"Do you dance?" he asked me intensely. "Do you dance?"

"No."

"No?"

He was flabbergasted, and let his arms dangle at his sides.

"Oh, well," he said after a moment. "Then I'll dance, boss. Sit further away, so that I don't barge into you."

He made a leap, rushed out of the hut, cast off his shoes, his coat, his vest, rolled his trousers up to his knees, and started dancing. His face was still black with coal. The whites of his eyes gleamed.

He threw himself into the dance, clapping his hands, leaping and pirouetting in the air, falling on to his knees, leaping again with his legs tucked up-it was as if he were made of rubber. He suddenly made tremendous bounds into the air, as if he wished to conquer the laws of nature and fly away. One felt that in this old body of his there was a soul struggling to carry away this flesh and cast itself like a meteor into the darkness. It shook the body which fell back to earth, since it could not stay very long in the air; it shook it again pitilessly, this time a little higher, but the poor body fell again, breathless.

Zorba puckered his brow; his face had assumed an alarming severity. He no longer uttered cries. With clenched teeth he was endeavoring to attain the impossible.

"Zorba! Zorba!" I shouted. "That's enough!"

I was afraid that his old body would not stand up to such violence and might be shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered to the four winds of heaven.