And I entered.

I woke towards midday. The sun was coming in through the window, bathing the bedclothes in light; its rays were beating with such force on the small mirror hanging on the wall that they seemed to be shattering it into a thousand fragments.

The dream about the giant negress came back to my mind, I could hear the sea murmuring, I closed my eyes again and I was deeply happy. My body was light and contented, like an animal after the hunt, when it has caught and eaten íts prey and is lying in the sun, licking its lips. My mind, a body too in its way, was resting, contented. It seemed to have found a marvellously simple answer to the vital, complicated problems which tormented it.

All of the joy of the prevíous night flowed back from the innermost depths of my being, spread out ínto fresh courses and abundantly watered the earth of which I was made. As I lay, with my eyes closed, I seemed to hear my being bursting its shell and growing larger. That night, for the first time, I felt clearly that the soul is flesh as well, perhaps more volatile, more diaphanous, perhaps freer, but flesh all the same. And the flesh is soul, somewhat turgid perhaps, somewhat exhausted by its long journeys, and bowed under the burden it has inherited.

I felt a shadow fall across me and opened my eyes; Zorba was standing in the doorway looking at me happily.

"Don't wake, don't wake, old chap!…" he said gently with an almost maternal solicitude. "It's a holiday today, too. Sleep on!"

"I've slept enough," I said, sitting up.

"I'll beat up an egg for you," said Zorba, smiling. "It builds you up!"

I made no answer but ran down to the sea, dived into the water, then dried in the sun. But I could still feel a sweet, persistent odor in my nostrils, on my lips and fingers. The scent of orange water and of the laurel oil with which Cretan women dress their hair.

Last night she had cut an armful of orange blossom which she was going to take to Christ that evening when the villagers were dancing beneath the white poplars in the square and the church was empty. The iconostasis above her bed was loaded with lemon flowers, and through the petals could be seen the mourning Virgin, with large almond eyes.

Zorba brought the egg in a cup down to the beach for me, with two oranges and a small Easter bun. He served me quietly and happily, as a mother would her son when he returns from the wars. He looked at me fondly and then went away.

"I'm going to put a few pylons in," he said.

I calmly chewed my food in the sun and felt a deep physical happiness as if I was floating on the cool, green waters of the sea. I did not allow my mind to take possession of this carnal joy, to press it into its own moulds, and make thoughts of it. I let my whole body rejoice from head to foot, like an animal. Now and then, nevertheless, in ecstasy, I gazed about me and within me, at the miracle of this life: What is happening? I said to myself. How did it come about that the world is so perfectly adapted to our feet and hands and bellies? And once again I closed my eyes and was silent.

Suddenly I stood up and went into the hut; there I picked up the Buddha manuscript and opened it. I had finished it. At the end, Buddha was lying beneath the flowering tree. He had raised his hand and ordered the five elements he was made of-earth, water, fire, air, spirit-to dissolve.

I had no more need of this image of my torment; I had gone beyond it, I had completed my service with Buddha-I, too, raised my hand, and ordered the Buddha within me to dissolve.

In great haste, with the help of words and their great exorcising power, I devastated his body, mind and spirit. Pitilessly I scratched the final words onto the paper, uttered the ultimate cry and wrote my name with a big red pencil. It was finished.

I took a thick piece of string and tied up the manuscript. I felt a strange sort of pleasure, as though I were tying up the hands and feet of a redoubtable enemy, or as savages must feel as they bind the bodies of their loved ones when they die, so that they shall not climb out of their graves and turn into ghosts.

A little girl suddenly ran up to me, barefoot. She was wearing a yellow dress and clasping a red egg tightly in her hand. She stopped and looked at me, terror-stricken.

"Well," I asked her, smíling to encourage her, "díd you want something?"

She sniffed and answered in a small, breathless voice.

"The lady has sent me to ask you to come. She is in bed. Are you the one they call Zorba?"

"All right. I'll come."

I slipped another red egg ínto her other tiny hand and she ran off.

I rose and started along the road. The village noises grew louder: the sweet sounds of the lyre, shouts, gunshots, joyous songs. When I came to the square, youths and girls had gathered beneath the fresh foliage of the poplars and were about to begin dancing. Sitting on the benches round the trees, the old men were watching, with their chins resting on their sticks. The old women were standing. behind. The brilliant lyre player, Fanurio, an April rose stuck behind his ear, was lording it amidst the dancers. With his left hand he held the lyre upright on his knee and with the right he was trying his bow with its noisy bells.

"Christ is reborn!" I shouted as I passed.

"He is, indeed!" came the answer in a joyful murmur from them all.

I looked round quickly. Well-built youths, with slim waists, wearing puffed-out breeches and, on their heads, kerchiefs with fringes which fell over their foreheads and temples like curly locks. And young girls, with sequins round their necks, embroidered white fichus, and lowered eyes, were trembling with expectation.

"Wouldn't you care to stay with us, sir?" asked a few voices.

But I had already passed.

Madame Hortense was lying in her big bed, the only piece of furniture she had always managed to hold on to. Her cheeks were burning with fever, and she was coughing.

As soon as she saw me she sighed complainingly.

"And Zorba? Where is Zorba?"

"He's not very well. Since the day you fell ill, he's been sick, too. He keeps holding your photograph in his hand and sighing as he gazes at it."

"Tell me more, tell me more…" murmured the poor old siren, closing her eyes in happiness.

"He's sent me to ask you if you want anything. He'll come himself this evening, he said, although he can't get about very well himself. He can't bear being away from you any longer…"

"Go on, please, go on…"

"He's had a telegram from Athens. The wedding clothes are ready, and the wreaths. They are on the boat and should be here soon… with the white candles and their pink ribbons…"

"Go on, go on…"

Sleep had won, her breathing changed; she began to talk deliriously. The room smelled of eau-de-Cologne, ammonia and sweat. Through the open window came the pungent odor of the excrement from the hens and rabbits in the yard.

I rose and slipped out of the room. At the door I ran across Mimiko. He was wearing new breeches and boots, and he had pushed a sprig of sweet basil behind his ear.

"Mimiko," I said to him, "run to Kalo village, will you, and bring the doctor!"

Mimiko had his boots off before I had finished speaking-he did not mean to spoil them on the way. He tucked them under his arm.

"Find the doctor, give him my respects and tell him to mount his old mare and come over here without fail. Tell him the lady's dangerously ill. She's caught cold, poor thing, she's feverish and she's dying, say. Don't forget to tell him that. Now be off!"

"Right away!"

He spat into his hands, clapped them joyously against one another, but didn't move. He looked at me with a gay twinkle in his eye.

"Get going! Didn't I say?"

He still did not budge. He winked at me and smiled satanically.