The old siren, all at once, realized that I had ceased reading; her vision suddenly stopped and she raised her heavy lids:

"Doesn't he say anything else?" she asked in a tone of reproach, licking her lips greedily.

"What more do you want, Madame Hortense? Don't you see? The whole letter talks about you and nothing else. Look, four sheets of it! And there's a heart here in the corner, too. Zorba says he drew it himself, with his own hand. Look, love has pierced it through, and underneath, look, two doves embracing, and on their wings, in small microscopic letters in red ink, two names intertwined: Hortense-Zorba!"

There were neither doves nor names, but the old siren's small eyes had filled with tears and could see anything they wished.

"Nothing else? Nothing else?" she asked again, still not satisfied.

Wings, the barber's soapy water, the little doves-that was all very well, a lot of fine words all that, nothing but air. Her practical woman's mind wanted something else, something more tangible, solid. How many times in her life had she heard this sort of nonsense! And what good had it done her? After years of hard work, she had been left all alone, high and dry.

"Nothing else?" she murmured again reproachfully. "Nothing else?"

She looked at me with eyes like those of a hind at bay. I took pity on her.

"He says something else very, very important, Madame Hortense," I said. "That's why I kept it till the end."

"What is it…?" she said with a sigh.

"He writes that, as soon as he gets back, he'll go on his knees to implore you, with tears in his eyes, to marry him. He can't wait any longer. He wants to make you, he says, his own little wife, Madame Hortense Zorba, so that you need never be separated again."

This time the tears really began to flow. This was the supreme joy, the ardently desired haven; this was what she had hitherto regretted not having in her life! Tranquillity and lying in an honest bed, nothing more!

She covered her eyes with her hands.

"All right," she said, with the condescension of a great lady, "I accept. But please write to him; say that here in the village there are no orange-blossom wreaths. He'll have to bring them from Candia. He must bring two white candles as well, with pink ribbons and some good sugared almonds. Then he must buy me a wedding dress, a white one, and silk stockings and satin court shoes. We've got sheets, tell him, so he needn't bring any. We've also got a bed."

She arranged her list of orders, already making an errand boy of her husband. She stood up. She had suddenly taken on the look of a dignified married woman.

"I've something to ask you," she said. "Something serious." Then she waited, moved.

"Go on, Madame Hortense, I'm at your service."

"Zorba and I are very fond of you. You are very kind, and you'll not disgrace us. Would you care to be our witness?"

I shuddered. Formerly, at my parents' house, we had had an old serving-woman named Diamandoula, who was over sixty, an old maid with a moustache, half-crazed by virginity, nervous, shrivelled up and flat-chested. She fell in love with Mitso, the local grocer's boy, a dirty, well-fed and beardless young peasant lad.

"When is it you be going to marry me?" she used to ask him every Sunday. "Marry me now! How can you wait so long? I can't bear it!"

"I can't either!" said the cunning grocer's boy, who was getting round her for her custom. "I can't hold out any longer, Diamandoula; but all the same, we can't get married till I've a moustache as well as you…"

The years went past like that, and old Diamandoula waited. Her nerves became calmer, she had fewer headaches, her bitter lips that had never been kissed learned to smile. She washed the clothes more carefully now, broke fewer dishes, and never burned the food.

"Will you come and be our witness, young master?" she asked me one evening on the sly.

"Certainly I will, Diamandoula," I answered, a lump forming in my throat, out of pity for her.

The very suggestion had wrung my heart; that is why I shuddered when I heard Dame Hortense ask the same thing.

"Certainly I would," I replied. "It will be an honor, Madame Hortense."

She rose, patted the little ringlets that hung from beneath her little hat and licked her lips.

"Good night," she said. "Good night, and may he soon come back to us!"

I watched her waddling away, swaying her old body with all the affected airs of a young girl. Joy gave her wings, and her twisted old court shoes made deep impressions in the sand.

She had hardly rounded the headland than shrill cries and wailing came from along the shore.

I leaped up and ran in the direction from which the noise was coming. On the opposite headland women were howling as though they were singing a funeral dirge. I climbed a rock and looked. Men and women were running up from the village; behind them dogs were barking. Two or three were on horseback and going on ahead. A thick cloud of dúst was rising from the ground.

"There's been an accident," I thought, and ran round the bay.

The hubbub was growing more intense. Two or three spring clouds stood still in the light of the setting sun. The Fig Tree of Our Young Lady was covered with fresh green leaves.

Suddenly Dame Hortense staggered up to me. She was running back again, dishevelled, out of breath, and one of her shoes had come off. She was holding it in her hand and was crying as she ran.

"My God… my God…" she sobbed as she saw me. She stümbled and nearly fell.

I caught her.

"What are you crying for? What's happened?" And I helped her put on her worn shoe.

"I'm frightened… I'm frightened…"

"Of what?"

"Of death."

She had scented with terror the smell of death in the air.

I took her limp arm to lead her to the place, but her ageing body resisted and trembled.

"I don't want to… I don't want to…" she cried. The poor wretch was terrified of going close to a place where death had appeared. Charon must not see her and remember her… Like all old people our poor siren tried to hide herself by taking on the green color of grass, or by taking on an earthly color, so that Charon could not distinguish her from earth or grass. She had tucked her head into her fat, rounded shoulders, and was trembling.

She dragged herself to an olive tree, spread out her patched coat and sank to the ground.

"Put thís over me, wíll you? Put this over me and you go and have a look."

"Are you feeling cold?"

"I am. Cover me up."

I covered her up as well as I could, so that she was indistinguishable from the earth, then I went off.

I came up to the headland and now clearly heard the songs of lamentation. Mimiko came running past me.

"What is it, Mimiko?" I asked.

"He's drowned himself! Drowned himself!" he shouted without stopping.

"Who?"

"Pavli, Mavrandoni's son."

"Why?"

"The widow…"

The word hung in the evening air and conjured up the dangerous, supple body of that woman.

I reached the rocks and there found the whole village assembled. The men were silent, bare-headed; the women, with their kerchiefs thrown back over their shoulders, were tearing their hair and uttering piercing cries. A swollen, livíd corpse lay on the pebbled beach. Old Mavrandoni was standing motionless over it, gazing at it. With his right hand he was leaning on his staff. With hís left he was holding his curly grey beard.

"A curse on you, widow!" a shrill voice said suddenly. "God shall make you pay for this!"

A woman leaped up and turned to the men.

"Isn't there a single man in the village to throw her across his knees and cut her throat like a sheep? Bah! you cowards!"

And she spat at the men, who looked at her without a word.

Kondomanolio, the café proprietor, answered her: