"Well?…" he said.

And he waited anxiously.

"That'll do!" I replied harshly.

And I quickened my pace.

Zorba shook his head and growled something I did not catch.

When we reached the hut, he sat on crossed legs, placed the santurí on his knees and lowered his head, lost in deep meditation. It was as if he were listening, with his head on his chest, to innumerable songs and trying to choose one, the most beautiful and most despairing of all. He at last made his choice and started a heart-rending air. From time to time he eyed me slantwise. I felt that what he could not or dare not tell me in words he was saying with the santurí. That I was wasting my life, that the widow and I were two insects who live but a second beneath the sun, then die for all eternity. Never more! Never more!

Zorba leapt up. He had suddenly realized that he was tiring himself in vain. He leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and, after a moment, spoke.

"I'm going to let you into a secret, boss, something a hodja [14] once told me in Salonica… I'm going to tell it to you, even if it doesn't do any good.

"At that time I was a pedlar in Macedonia. I went into the villages to sell reels of thread, needles, the lives of the saints, benjamin and pepper. I had a rare voice, then, a real nightingale I was. You must know women also succumb to a voice. And what won't they succumb to-the jades! God only knows what goes on inside them! You may be as ugly as sin, lame or a hunchback, but if you've a soft voice and can sing the women completely lose their heads.

"I was also peddling in Salonica and even went into the Turkish districts. And, it appears, my voice had so charmed a rich Muslim woman, the daughter of a pasha, that she could not sleep. She called an old hodja and filled his hands with mejidies. 'Aman!' [15] she said to him, 'go and tell the peddling Giaour to come. Aman! I must see him. I can't hold out any longer!'

"The hodja came to find me. 'Listen, young Roumi,' he said to me. 'Come with me.' 'No,' I said. 'Where d'you want to take me to?' 'There's a pasha's daughter who's like spring water. She's waiting for you in her room. Come, little Roumi!' But I knew that at night they murdered Christian infidels in the Turkish districts. 'No, I'm not coming,' I said. 'Don't you fear God, Giaour?' 'Why should I?' 'Because, little Roumi, he who can sleep with a woman and does not, commits a great sin. My boy, if a woman calls you to share her bed and you don't go, your soul will be destroyed! That woman will sigh before God on judgment day, and that woman's sigh, whoever you may be and whatever your fine deeds, will cast you into Hell!'"

Zorba sighed.

"If Hell exists," he said, "I shall go to Hell, and that'll be the reason. Not because I've robbed, killed or committed adultery, no! All that's nothing. But I shall go to Hell because one night in Salonica a woman waited for me on her bed and I did not go to her…"

He rose, lit the fire and started cooking our meal. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled scornfully.

"You can knock forever on a deaf man's door!" he muttered.

And, bending down, he began to blow the damp wood angrily.

9

THE DAYS were growing shorter, the light was quickly failing, and towards the end of each afternoon the heart became uneasy. A primitive terror seized us-that of our ancestors who during the winter months watched the sun go out a little earlier each day. "Tomorrow it will go out forever," they must have thought in despair, and spent thé entire night on the heights in fear and trembling.

Zorba felt this uneasiness more deeply, more primitively than I. To escape from it he would not leave the galleries of the mine until the stars were shining in the sky.

He had come across a seam of very good lignite, which did not produce much ash, was not very damp and was rich in calories. He was pleased. For in his mind our profits underwent marvellous transformations: they became travels, women and new adventures. He was waiting impatiently for the day when he would earn a fortune, when his wings would be sufficiently big-"wings" was the name he gave to money-for him to fly away. He therefore spent whole nights trying out his miniature cable railway, always seeking the right slope for the tree trunks to move down slowly-gently, gently, he said, as if borne by angels.

One day he took a large sheet of paper and some colored pencils and drew the mountain, the forest, the line, the trunks suspended from the cable and descending, each. endowed with two sky-blue wings. In the little rounded bay he drew black boats and green sailors, like líttle parrots, and mahones loaded with yellow tree trunks. A monk was drawn in each of the four corners, and from their mouths came pink ribbons on which was printed in black capital letters: "Great is the Lord and wonderful are his works!"

For some days now Zorba had hastíly lít the fire and prepared the evening meal. When we had eaten he would run off to the village. A little later he would return scowling.

"Where have you been again, Zorba?" I would ask him.

"Never you mind, boss," he would say, and change the subject.

When he returned one evening, he asked me anxiously:

"Is there a God-yes or no? What d'you think, boss? And if there is one-anything's possible-what d'you think he looks like?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I'm not joking, boss. I think of God as being exactly like me. Only bigger, stronger, crazier. And immortal, into the bargain. He's sitting on a pile of soft sheepskins and his hut's the sky. It isn't made out of old petrol-cans, like ours is, but clouds. In his right hand he's holding not a knife or a pair of scales-those damned instruments are meant for butchers and grocers-no, he's holding a large sponge full of water, like a rain-cloud. On his right is Paradise, on his left Hell. Here comes a soul; the poor little thing's quite naked, because it's lost its cloak-its body, I mean-and it's shivering. God looks at it, laughing up his sleeve, but he plays the bogy man: 'Come here,' he roars, 'come here, you miserable wretch!'

"And he begins his questioning. The naked soul throws itself at God's feet. 'Mercy!' it cries. 'I have sinned.' And away it goes reciting its sins. It recites a whole rigmarole and there's no end to it. God thinks this is too much of a good thing. He yawns. 'For heaven's sake stop!' he shouts. 'I've heard enough of all that!' Flap! Slap! a wipe of the sponge, and he washes out all the sins. 'Away with you, clear out, run off to Paradise!' he says to the soul. 'Peterkin, let this poor little creature in, too!'

"Because God, you know, is a great lord, and that's what being a lord means: to forgive!"

I remember I had to laugh that evening, while Zorba was pouring out his profound balderdash. But this "lordliness" of God was taking shape and maturing within me, compassionate, generous and all-powerful.

Another evening, when it was raining, and we were crouched over the brazier in the hut roasting chestnuts, Zorba turned round to me and looked at me a long while as if he were trying to unravel some great mystery. Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, he said:

"Boss, I'd like to know what the devil you can see in me; why you don't take me by the ear and pitch me out? I told you they called me Mildew, because everywhere I go I never leave one stone on another… Your affairs will go to rack and ruin. Throw me out, I tell you!"

"I like you," I replied. "Leave it at that."

"But don't you realize, boss, that my brain's not the correct weight) Maybe it's a little overweight, maybe a little under, but the correct weight it certainly isn't! Look now, here's something you'll understand: I haven't been able to rest for days and nights because of that widow. No, I don't mean on my account; no, I swear that's not the case. The devil take her, that's what I say. I'll never touch her, that's one sure thing. I'm not her cup of tea… But I don't want her to be lost for everybody. I don't want her to sleep alone. It wouldn't be right, boss; I can't bear that thought. So I wander at night round her garden-that's why you see me disappear and you ask me where I'm going. But d'you know why? To see if someone is going to sleep with her; then I can be easy in my mind."