"Christ is born!" he shouted loudly to his siren. "To our health!"
He slipped his arm under that of our lady and they quaffed their glasses together, arms entwined, and looking enraptured at each other.
Dawn could not have been far off when I left the two of them in the warm little bedroom with its great bed and took the road home. The villagers had eaten and drunk well, and now the village was sleeping with doors and windows closed, under the great winter stars.
It was cold, the sea was booming, Venus was dancing roguishly in the east. I walked along the water's edge playing a game with the waves. They ran up to try and wet me and I ran away. I was happy and said to myself: "This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To take part in the Christmas festivities and, after eating and drinking well, to escape on your own far from all the snares, to have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right: and to realize of a sudden that, in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale."
The days were passing by. I tried to put a brave face on it, I shouted and played the fool, but in my heart of hearts I knew I was sad. During all this week of festivities, memories had been aroused and filled my breast with distant music and loved ones. I was once more struck by the truth of the ancient saying: Man's heart is a ditch full of blood. The loved ones who have died throw themselves down on the bank of this ditch to drink the blood and so come to life again; the dearer they are to you, the more of your blood they drink.
New Year's Eve. A band of village children carrying a large paper boat came to our hut and started to sing kalanda [16] in their shrill and merry voices:
Saint Basil the Great arrived from Caesarea, his native city…
He was standing here on this little Cretan beach by the indigo-blue sea. He leaned on his staff and his staff was suddenly covered with leaves and flowers. The New Year's carol rang out:
A ha-ppy new year to you, Christians! Master, may your house be filled with corn, olive-oil and wine; May your wife be a marble pillar to the roof of your house; May your daughter marry and beget nine sons and one daughter; May these sons liberate Constantinople, the city of our kings!
Zorba listened, entranced. He had seized the children's tambourine and was banging it frenziedly.
I watched and listened without saying anything. I could feel another leaf falling from my heart, the passing of another year. I was taking another step toward the black pit.
"What's come over you, boss?" Zorba asked, in between singing at the top of his voice, together with the children, and striking the tambourine. "What's come over you, man? You look years older, and your face is grey. This is when I turn into a little boy again; I'm reborn, like Christ. Isn't he born every year? So am I!"
I lay down on my bed and shut my eyes. My heart was in a wild mood that night; I did not wish to speak.
I could not sleep. I felt I had to account for my acts that very night. I went over my whole life, which appeared vapid, incoherent and hesitating, dreamlike. I contemplated it despairingly. Like a fleecy cloud attacked by the winds from the heights, my life constantly changed shape. It came to pieces, reformed, was metamorphosed-it was, by turns, a swan, a dog, a demon, a scorpion. a monkey-and the cloud was forever being frayed and torn. It was driven by the winds of heaven and shot with the rainbow.
Day broke. I did not open my eyes. I was trying to concentrate all my strength on my ardent desire to break through the crust of the mind and penetrate to the dark and dangerous channel down which each human drop is carried to mingle with the ocean. I was eager to tear the veil and see what the New Year would bring me…
"Morning, boss. Happy New Year!"
Zorba's voice brought me back brutally to earth. I opened my eyes just in time to see Zorba throw into the doorway of the hut a big pomegranate. Its seeds, like clear rubies, shot as far as my bed. I picked up a few and ate them, and my throat was refreshed.
"I hope we make a pile and are ravished by beautiful maidens!" Zorba cried good-humoredly. He washed, shaved and put on his best clothes-green cloth trousers and rough home-spun jacket, over which he threw a half-lined, goat-skin coatee. He put on his Russian astrakhan cap and twirled his moustaches.
"Boss," he said, "I'm going to put in an appearance at church as a representative of the Company. It wouldn't be in the interest of the mine for them to think we're freemasons. It'll cost me nothing and it'll pass the time."
He bent over and winked.
"Maybe I'll see the widow there, too," he whispered.
God, the interests of the Company and the widow blended harmoniously in Zorba's mind. I heard his light footsteps departing. I leaped up. The spell was broken, my soul was shut in the prison of the flesh anew.
I dressed and went down to the water's edge. I walked quickly. I was gay, as if I had escaped from a danger or a sin. My indiscreet desire of that morning to pry into and know the future before it was born suddenly appeared to me a sacrilege.
I remembered one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree, just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited a while, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm ít. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand.
That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.
I sat on a rock to absorb this New Year's thought. Ah, if only that little butterfly could always flutter before me to show me the way.
11
I ROSE as happy as if I had received my New Year presents. The wind wás cold, the sky clear, the sea gleaming.
I took the path to the village. Mass would have ended by now. As I walked along, I wondered, with an absurd emotion, who would be the first person-lucky or unlucky-I should meet this new year. If only, I said to myself, it could be a small child with its arms loaded with its New Year toys; or an active old man in a white shirt with full, embroidered sleeves, content and proud that he had fulfilled his duty on earth with courage. The further I went and the closer I came to the village the more troubled I became.
Suddenly my knees gave way beneath me. Under the olive trees, walking with a springing step along the village road, appeared in red, with a black kerchief over her head, the graceful, slender-waisted figure of the widow!
Her sinuous gait was really that of a black panther, and it seemed to me that an acrid scent of musk was distilled in the air. If only I could escape! I felt that when angry this beast would have no mercy and that the only thing to do was to run away. But how? The widow was steadily approaching. The gravel seemed to be crunching as if an army were marching over it. She saw me, shook her head, her kerchief slipped down and her hair appeared, black as jet and shining. She cast me a languorous look and smiled. Her eyes had a wild sweetness. Hastily she adjusted her kerchief, as though she were ashamed at having let me see one of woman's deepest secrets: her hair.