Suddenly his expression set. He had come to a decision. He knelt beside her and seized the siren's knees.

"If you don't eat, my little charmer," he said in heart-rending tones, "it's the end of everything. Have pity on the poor pig, my lovely, and eat this sweet little trotter!" And he pushed into her mouth the crackling trotter covered with butter.

He took her in his arms, raised her from the ground, and placed her gently on her chair between the two of us.

"Èat," he said, "eat, my treasure, so that Saint Basil will come to our village! If you don't, you know, he won't come to us! He'll go back to his own country, to Caesarea. He'll pick up the inkhorn and paper, the Twelfth Cake, the New Year gifts, the children's toys, even this little sucking pig, and away with them all! So open your little mouth, my Bouboulina, and eat!"

He put out two fingers and tickled her under the arm. The old siren clucked with pleasure, wiped her small, reddened eyes and started busily to chew over the crackly trotter…

Just at that moment two amorous cats began to howl on the roof over our heads. They howled in an indescribable tone of hatred, their voices rising and falling, threateningly. Suddenly we heard them scrambling wildly on the roof, tearing one another to pieces.

"Miaow… miaow…" said Zorba, winking at the old siren.

She smiled and pressed his hand under the table. Her throat relaxed and she began to eat with appetite.

The sun moved round, came in through the small window and shone on the good lady's feet. The bottle was empty, Zorba had twisted up his moustaches like those of a wild cat and moved closed to the "female of the species." Dame Hortense, huddled up, her head sunk into her shoulders, shuddered as she felt his warm, vinous breath on her.

"Now, what's this other mystery, boss?" said Zorba, looking round at me. "Everything goes backwards with me. When I was a kid, so it seems, I looked like a little old man. I was dense, didn't talk much but had a big fellow's voice. They say I was like my grandad! But the older I grew, the more harum-scarum I became. I began doing wild things when I was twenty. Oh, nothing special, just the same as other fellows at that age. When I was forty I began to feel really young and went off on the maddest escapades. And now I'm over sixty-sixty-five, boss, but keep that dark-well, now I'm over sixty, how can I explain? Honestly, the world's grown too small for me!"

He raised his glass and turned with compunction to his lady.

"Your good health, Bouboulina," he said solemnly. "May God see to it that this year you grow some teeth and some neat eyebrows, and a new skin scented like a peach! And that you do away with all these beastly little ribbons! And that there's another revolution in Crete and the four Great Powers come back again. Bouboulina, my dear, with their fleets… and that each fleet has its admiral and each admiral his curled and scented beard. And may you rise from the waves once more, my siren, singing your lovely song. And may the fleets break to pieces on these two round and savage rocks!"

Whereupon he placed his big hands on the good lady's flabby, hanging breasts…

Zorba was getting lively again, his voice was hoarse with desire. I laughed. One day, at the cinema, I had seen a Turkish pasha frolicking in a Paris cábaret. He was holding a fair-haired young midinette on his lap. The pasha was getting excited; the tassel on his fez began to rise slowly, stopped for a moment when it was horizontal, then suddenly stuck straight up in the air.

"What are you laughing at, boss?" Zorba asked.

The good lady, however, was still thinking of what Zorba had been saying.

"Oh," she said, "d'you think it's possible, Zorba? But when youth goes it never comes back…"

Zorba moved closer still; the two chairs stuck together.

"Listen to me, ducky," he said, trying at the same time to undo the third, the decisive button of her bodice. "Listen, let me tell you about the fine present I'm going to get you. There's a new doctor-Voronoff-who performs miracles, they say. He gives you a medicine of some kind-drops or powder. I don't know which-and you become twenty again in a trice-twenty-five at the worst! Don't cry, my dear, í'll have some sent from Europe for you…"

The old siren started. Her reddish scalp was gleaming between the thinning hair. She threw her fat, fleshy arms round Zorba's neck.

"If it's drops, my sweetie," she murmured, rubbing herself against Zorba like a cat, "you'll order a demijohn for me, won't you? And if it's powder…"

"A sackful!" said Zorba, undoing the third button.

The cats, who had been quiet for a time, started their howling again. One of the voices was plaintive and appealing, the other angry and threatening.

Our good lady yawned and her eyes became languorous.

"D'you hear those horrid cats?" she muttered. "They've no shame!" And she sat on Zorba's knee. She leaned her head back against his neck and heaved a great sigh. She had drunk a little too much and her eyes were growing misty.

"What are you thinking about, my Bouboulina?" Zorba asked, clutching hold of her breasts.

" Alexandria…" murmured the old siren, who had trundled about the world quite a bit. " Alexandria… Beirut… Constantinople… the Turks, the Arabs, sherbet, golden sandals, red fezes…"

She heaved another sigh.

"When Ali Bey stayed the night with me-what a moustache, what eyebrows, what arms he had!-he'd call to the tambourine and flute players and throw them money through the window, so that they'd play in my courtyard until dawn. And the neighbors used to go green with envy: 'Ali Bey's there with her again!' they'd say in a rage.

"Afterwards, in Constantinople, Suleiman Pasha would never let me go out at all on Fridays. He was afraid the Sultan might see me on the way to the mosque and be so dazzled by my beauty he'd have me kidnapped. Every morning when he left the house he'd put three big negroes at the door to keep all males away from me… Ah! my little Suleiman!"

She took a large, checked handkerchief from her bodice and bit it, hissing like a turtle.

Zorba got rid of her by placing her on the chair next to him, and stood up, annoyed. He walked up and down once or twice and he began hissing as well; the room was suddenly too cramped for him. He picked up his stick and rushed out into the yard, and I saw him lean the ladder against the wall and clamber up, two steps at a time, in a fury.

"Who are you going to thrash, Zorba?" I shouted. "Suleiman Pasha?"

"Those damned cats!" he shouted. "Can't they leave us for a single moment?"

And in one bound he was on the roof.

Dame Hortense, quite drunk, her hair dishevelled, had now closed her inflamed eyes, and a discreet snore came from her toothless mouth. Sleep had lifted her up and transported her to the great cities of the East-into the closed gardens and dim harems of amorous pashas. Sleep let her pass through walls and sent her dreams. She could see herself fishing; she had thrown out four lines and caught up four great battleships.

Snoring and breathing heavily, the old siren smiled happily in her sleep, and seemingly refreshed by her bathe in the sea.

Zorba came back, swinging his stick.

"Sleeping, eh?" he said as he saw her. "The jade's asleep, is she?"

"Yes, Zorba Pasha," I answered. "She's been carried off by the Doctor Voronoff who makes old people young again-sleep. She's only twenty, and she's strolling about Alexandria and Beirut…"

"Let her go to the devil, the old slut!" Zorba growled, and spat on the floor. "Just look at the way she's grinning! I wonder who she's grinning at, the brazen bitch? Come on, boss, let's go!"

He slapped on his cap and opened the door.

"She's not all on her own," cried Zorba; "she's with Suleiman Pasha. Can't you see? She's in her seventh heaven, the dirty cow!… Come on. Let's beat it!"