We sat down to eat, and Zorba filled the glasses.

"To her health! May the devil not think of taking her off for a long while yet!"

We ate and drank for some time in silence. The wind carried up to us, like the droning of bees, the distant, passionate notes of the lyre. Christ was being reborn again on the village terraces. The paschal lamb and the Easter cakes were being transformed ínto love songs.

When Zorba had eaten and drunk quite copiously, he put his hand to his big hairy ear.

"The lyre…" he murmured. "They're dancing in the village."

He stood up suddenly. The wine had gone to his head.

"What ever are we doing here, all alone, like a pair of cuckoos? Let's go and dance! Aren't you sorry for the lamb we've been eating? Are you going to let it fizzle out into nothing, like that? Come on! Turn it into song and dance! Zorba is reborn!"

"Wait a minute, Zorba, you idiot, are you crazy?"

"Honestly, boss, I don't care! But I'm sorry for the lamb, and I'm sorry for the red eggs, the Easter cakes and the cream cheese! If I'd just scoffed a few bits of bread and some olives, I'd say: 'Oh, let's go to sleep; I don't need to go celebrating!' Olives and bread are nothing, are they? What can you expect from them? But, let me tell you, it's a sin to waste food like that! Come on, let's celebrate the Resurrection, boss!"

"I don't feel like it today. You go-you can dance for me as well."

Zorba took my arm and pulled me up.

"Christ is reborn, my friend! Ah! if only I was as young as you! I'd throw myself headlong into everything! Headlong into work, wine, love-everything, and I'd fear neither God nor devil! That's youth for you!"

"It's the lamb talking, Zorba! It's turned wild inside you, changed into a wolf!"

"The lamb's changed into Zorba, that's all, and Zorba's talking to you! Listen, you can swear at me afterwards! I'm a Sinbad the Sailor… I don't mean I've wandered all over the world; not at all! But I've robbed, killed, lied, slept with heaps of women and broken all the commandments. How many are there? Ten? Why aren't there twenty, fifty, a hundred? So I could break them all? Yet, if there is a God, I shan't be afraid to appear before him when the time comes. I don't know how to put it to make you understand. I don't think any of that's important, do you see? Would God bother to sit over the earthworms and keep count of everything they do? And get angry and storm and fret himself silly because one went astray with the female earthworm next door or swallowed a mouthful of meat on Good Friday? Bah! Get away with you, all you soup-swilling priests! Bah!"

"Well, Zorba," I said, to make him wild, "God may not ask you what you ate, but he'll certainly ask you what you did."

"And I say he won't ask that either! 'And how do you know that, Zorba, you ignoramus?' you'll ask me. I just know! I'm sure of it! If I had two sons, one quiet, careful, moderate and pious, and the other rascally, greedy, lawless and a woman-chaser, my heart would go out to the second one. Perhaps because he'd be like me? But who's to say I'm not more like God himself than old Pappa Stephanos, who spends his days and nights going down on his knees, and collecting money?

"God enjoys himself, kills, commits injustice, makes love, works, likes impossible things, just the same as I do. He eats what he pleases; takes the woman he chooses. If you see a lovely woman going by, as fresh as clear water, your heart leaps at the sight. Suddenly the ground opens and she disappears. Where does she go? Who takes her? If she's a good woman, they say: 'God has taken her.' If she's a harlot, they say: 'The devil's carríed her off.' But, boss, I've said so before, and I say it again, God and the devil are one and the same thing!"

Zorba picked up his stick, pushed his cap to one side, perkily, looked at me with pity and his lips moved for a moment as if he wanted to add something to what he had just said. But he said nothing and went off with his head in the air towards the village.

In the evening light I could see his giant shadow and his swinging stick. The whole beach came alive as Zorba passed by. I listened for some time, picking out his steps as they grew fainter and fainter. As soon as I felt myself to be absolutely alone, I leaped up. Why? To go where? I did not know. My mind had made no decision. It was my body that had leaped up. My body alone was deciding and was not consulting me.

"Go on! Forward!" it commanded.

I went towards the village with quick determined steps, stopping here and there to enjoy a deep breath of spring. The earth smelled of camomile, and as I approached the gardens I ran into wave upon wave of perfume from the blossom on the lemon and orange trees and the laurels. In the west the evening star began to dance merrily in the sky.

"Sea, women, wine and hard work!" I was murmuring Zorba's words in spite of myself as I walked. "Sea, women, wine and hard work! Throwing yourself headlong into your work, into wine, and love, and never being afraid of either God or devil… that's what youth is!" I kept saying it to myself and repeating it as if to give myself courage, and I walked on.

Suddenly I stopped dead. As though I had come to my destination. Where? I looked round: I was in front of the widow's garden. Behind the hedge of reeds and prickly pear I could hear someone humming in a soft, feminine voice. I went near and parted the reeds. Beneath the orange tree was a woman, dressed in black, with a great swelling bosom. She was cutting branches of blossom and singing as she did so. In the dusk I could see the white globes of her half-naked breasts.

It took my breath away. She's a wild beast, I thought, and she knows it. What poor, vain, absurd, defenceless creatures men are to her! She is fat and voracious, just like some female insects-the praying mantis, the grasshopper, the spider-and she too must devour the males at dawn.

Had the widow become aware of my gaze? She suddenly ceased her song and turned round. Our eyes met. I felt my knees give way, as though I had seen a tigress behind the reeds.

"Who is it?" she said in a strangled voice. She pulled her neckerchief over her bosom. Her face darkened.

I was on the point of leaving, but Zorba's words suddenly filled my heart. I gathered strength. "Sea, women, wine…"

"It's me," I answered. "It's me. Let me in."

I had hardly said these words when a feeling of terror gripped me and I was just about to run away again. But I controlled myself, though filled with shame.

"Who d'you mean, you?"

She took a slow, cautious step forward, leaning in my direction. She half-closed her eyes to see more clearly, advanced another step, with head forward, on the alert.

Suddenly her face lit up. She put the tip of her tongue out and licked her lips.

"The boss!" she said in a softer voice.

She came forward again, crouching as if ready to leap.

"You, boss?" she asked hoarsely.

"Yes."

"Come!"

Dawn was breaking. Zorba was home already, sitting before the hut on the beach. He was smoking, looking out to sea. He seemed to be waiting for me.

As soon as I appeared he raised his head and fixed me with his gaze. His nostrils were quiveríng, like those of a greyhound. He craned his neck and took a long sniff… he was scenting me. In a second his face lit up with joy; he had scented the widow.

He stood up slowly, smiled with his whole being and stretched out his arms to me.

"My blessing on you!" he saíd.

I went to bed, closed my eyes. I heard the sea quietly, rhythmically breathing, and I felt myself rise and fall on it like a seagull. Thus, gently rocked, I fell asleep and dreamed: I saw, as it were, a giant negress crouching on the ground, and she looked to me like a gigantic old temple in granite. I was going round and round her desperately trying to find the entrance. I was scarcely as big as her little toe. Suddenly, as I rounded her heel, I saw a dark opening, rather like a cave. A great voice commanded: "Enter!"