After one of those interminable Greek discussions we decided that everyone should assemble this evening with mules, horses, cattle, women and children, and at dawn we will all start out together for the north. I shall walk in front, the ram guiding the flock.

A patriarchal emigration of a people over chains of mountains and plains with legendary names! And I shall be a sort of Moses-an imitation Moses-leading the chosen race to the Promised Land, as these naive people are calling Greece. Of course, to be really worthy of this Mosaic mission and not disgrace you, I should have done away with my elegant leggings which you tease me about and wrapped my legs in sheepskin. I should also have a long, greasy, wavy beard, and, above all, a large pair of horns. But I'm sorry, I can't give you that pleasure. It's easier to get me to change my soul than my costume. I wear leggings; I am as smooth shaven as a cabbage stump; and I'm not married.

Master, I hope you get this letter, for it may be the last. No one can say. I have no confidence in the secret forces which are said to protect men. I believe in the blind forces which hit out right and left, without malice, without purpose, killing whoever happens to be in their way. If I leave this earth (I say "leave" so as not to frighten you or myself with the proper word), if I leave this earth, I say, I hope you keep well and happy, dear master! I am embarrassed at having to say it, but I must, so please excuse me: I, too, have loved you very dearly.

Then underneath, written hurriedly in pencil, was this postscriptum:

ps. I haven't forgotten the agreement we made on the boat the day I left. If I have to "leave" this earth, I shall warn you, remember, wherever you are; don't let it scare you.

13

THREE DAYS, four days, five days went by, and still no Zorba. On the sixth day I received from Candia a letter several pages long, a whole lot of rigmarole. It was written on scented pink paper and, in the corner of the page, was a heart pierced by an arrow.

I kept it carefully and am copying it faithfully, retaining the labored expressions to be found here and there. I have merely corrected the charming spelling. Zorba held a pen like a pickaxe; he attacked the paper violently with it, and that is why the paper had a number of holes ín it and was covered with blots.

Dear Boss! Mister Capitalist!

I take up the pen to ask if your health is favorable. We are quite well, too, God be praised!

I have realized for some time I didn't come into this world to be a horse, or an ox. Only animals live to eat. To escape the above accusation, I invent jobs for myself day and night. I risk my daily bread for an idea, I turn the proverb round and say: "Better be a lean moorhen on a pond than a fat sparrow in a cage."

Lots of people are patriots without it costing them anything. I am not a patriot, and will not be, whatever it costs me. Lots of people belíeve in paradise and they keep an ass tethered there. I have no ass, I am free! I am not afraid of hell where my ass would die. I don't long for paradise either, where he would stuff himself with clover. I am an ignorant blockhead, I don't know how to put things, but you understand me, boss.

Lots of people have been afraid of the vanity of things! I've overcome it. Lots reflect hard; I have no need to reflect. I don't rejoice over the good and don't despair over the bad. If I hear that the Greeks have taken Constantinople, it's just the same to me as if the Turks were taking Athens.

If you think from the balderdash I talk I'm going soft in the head, write to me. I go into the shops here in Candia, trying to buy cable, and I laugh.

"What are you laughing at, brother?" they keep asking. But how can I tell them? I laugh because, just when I hold out my hand to see if the steel cable is good, I think about what mankind is and why he ever came onto this earth and what good he is… No good at all, if you ask me. It makes no difference whether I have a woman or whether I don't, whether I'm honest or not, whether I'm a pasha or a street-porter. The only thing that makes any difference is whether I'm alive or dead. Whether the devil or God calls me (and do you know what, boss? I think the devil and God are the same), I shall die, turn into a reeking corpse, and stink people out. They'll be obliged to shove me at least four feet down in the earth, so that they won't get choked!

By the way, I'm going to ask you about something that rather scares me-the only thing, mind-and it leaves me no peace, night or day What scares me, boss, is old age. Heaven preserve us from that! Death is nothing-just pff! and the candle is snuffed out. But old age is a disgrace.

I consider it a deep disgrace to admit I'm getting on, and I do all I can to stop people seeing I've grown old: I hop about, dance, my back aches but I keep dancing. I drink, get dizzy, everything spins round, but I don't sit down, I just act as if everything's hunky-dory. I sweat, so I plunge into the sea, catch cold and want to cough-gooh! gooh!-to relieve myself but I feel ashamed, boss, and force back the cough. Have you ever heard me cough? Never! And not, as you might think, just when there are other people about, but when I'm by myself, too! I feel ashamed in front of Zorba-what do you think of that, boss? I'm ashamed in front of him!

One day on Mount Athos-because I've been there, and I'd have One day on Mount Athos-because I've been there, and I'd have One day on Mount Athos-because I've been there, and I'd have done better to cut off my right hand!-I met a monk, Father Lavrentio, a native of Chios. He, poor fellow, believed he had a devil inside him and he'd even given him a name: he called him Hodja. "Hodja wants to eat meat on Good Friday!" poor Lavrentio used to roar, beating his head on the church wall. "Hodja wants to sleep with a woman. Hodja wants to kill the Abbot. It's Hodja, Hodja, it isn't me!" And he'd bang his head on the stone.

I've a kind of devil inside me, too, boss, and I call him Zorba! The inner Zorba doesn't want to grow old, not at all, and he hasn't grown old, he never will grow old. He's an ogre, he's got hair as black as jet, thirty-two (figures: 32) teeth, and a red carnation behind his ear. But the outer Zorba, poor devil, has got a bit of a corporation and quite a few white hairs. He's shrivelled and gone wrinkled; his teeth fall out and his big ear is full of the white hair of old age, long ass's hair!

What can he do, boss? How long will these two Zorbas fight each other? Which one will win? If I kick the bucket soon, it'll be all right, I don't care. But if I go on living for a long time yet, I'm done. Done, boss! The day will come when I'll be disgraced. I'll lose my liberty: my daughter-in-law and daughter will order me to keep watch on some infant, a fearful little monster of theirs, so that he doesn't burn himself, or fall over, or dirty himself. And if he does dirty himself, pooh! they'll make me clean him up!

You'll have to go through the same sort of shame, boss, although you're young. You watch out. Listen to what I tell you, follow the same road as me, there's no other salvation: let's go up into the mountains, mine them for coal, copper, iron and calamine; let's make our pile so that relatíves respect us and friends lick our boots and all the well-to-do raise tbeir hats to us. If we don't succeed, boss, we might as well pack up, be killed by wolves, or bears, or any wild beast we can find-and much good may it do them! That's why God sent wild beasts on earth: to finish off a few people like us, so they don't fall too low.

Here Zorba had drawn with colored pencils a tall, lean man, fleeing under some green trees, with seven red wolves at his heels, and at the top of the picture, in big letters, was written: "Zorba and the Seven Deadly Sins." Then he went on: