"I think, Zorba-but I may be wrong-that there are three kinds of men: those who make it their aim, as they say, to live their lives, eat, drink, make love, grow rich, and famous; then come those who make it their aim not to live their own lives but to concern themselves with the lives of all men-they feel that all men are one and they try to enlighten them, to love them as much as they can and do good to them; finally there are those who aim at living the life of the entire universe-everything, men, animals, trees, stars, we are all one, we are all one substance involved in the same terrible struggle. What struggle?… Turning matter into spirit."

Zorba scratched his head.

"I've got a thick skull, boss, I don't grasp these things easily… Ah, if only you could dance all that you've just said, then I'd understand."

I bit my lip in consternation. All those desperate thoughts, if only I could have danced them! But I was incapable of it; my life was wasted.

"Or if you could tell me all that in a story, boss. Like Hussein Aga did. He was an old Turk, a neighbor of ours. Very old, very poor, no wife, no children, completely alone. His clothes were worn, but shining with cleanliness. He washed them himself, did his own cooking, scrubbed and polished the floor, and at night used to come in to see us. He used to sit in the yard with my grandmother and a few other old women and knit socks.

"Well, as I was saying, this Hussein Aga was a saintly man. One day he took me on his knee and placed his hand on my head as though he were giving me his blessing. 'Alexis,' he said, 'I'm going to tell you a secret. You're too small to understand now, but you'll understand when you are bigger. Listen, little one: neither the seven stories of heaven nor the seven stories of the earth are enough to contain God; but a man's heart can contain him. So be very careful, Alexis-and may my blessing go with you-never to wound a man's heart!'"

I listened to Zorba in silence. If only I could never open my mouth, I thought, until the abstract idea had reached its highest point-and had become a story! But only the great poets reach a point like that, or a people, after centuries of silent effort.

Zorba stood up.

"I'm going to see what our firebrand's up to, and spread a blanket over him so that he doesn't catch cold. I'll take some scissors, too; it won't be a very first-class job."

He went off laughing along the edge of the sea, carrying the scissors and blanket. The moon had just come up and was spreading a livid, sickly light over the earth.

Alone by the dying fïre, I weighed Zorba's words-they were rich in meaning and had a warm earthy smell. You felt they came up from the depths of his being and that they still had a human warmth. My words were made of paper. They came down from my head, scarcely splashed by a spot of blood. If they had any value at all it was to that mere spot of blood they owed it.

Lying on my stomach, I was rummaging about in the warm cinders when Zorba returned, his arms hanging loosely by his side, and a look of amazement on his face.

"Boss, don't take it too hard…"

I leaped up.

"The monk is dead," he said.

"Dead?"

"I found him lying on a rock. He was in the full light of the moon. I went down on my knees and began cutting his beard off and the remains of his moustache. I kept cutting and cutting, and he didn't budge. I got excited and started cutting his thatch clean off; I must have taken at least a pound of hair off his face. Then when I saw him like that, shorn like a sheep, I just laughed, hysterically! 'I say, Signor Zaharia!' I cried, shaking him as I laughed. 'Wake up and see the miracle the Holy Virgin's performed!' Wake be damned! He didn't budge! I shook him again. Nothing happened! 'He can't have packed it in, poor fellow!' I said to myself. I opened his robe, bared his chest and put my hand over his heart. Tick-tick-tick? Nothing at all! The engine had stopped!"

As he talked Zorba regaíned his spirits. Death had made him speechless for an instant, but he had soon put it in its proper place.

"Now, what shall we do, boss? I think we ought to burn hím. He who kills others by paraffin shall perish by paraffin himself. Isn't there something like that in the Gospel? And with his clothes stiff with dirt and paraffin already, he'd flame up like Judas himself on Maundy Thursday!"

"Do what you like," I said, ill at ease.

Zorba became absorbed in profound meditation.

"It is a nuisance," he said at last, "a hell of a nuisance. If I set light to him, his clothes will flame like a torch, but he's all skin and bone himself, poor chap! Thin like he is, he'll take a devil of a time to burn to ashes. There's not an ounce of fat on him to help the fire."

Shaking his head, he added:

"If God existed, don't you think he would have known all this in advance and made him fat and fleshy to help us out? What do you think?"

"Don't mix me up with this business at all. You do just what you like, but do it quickly."

"The best thing would be if some sort of miracle occurred! The monks would have to believe that God himself had turned barber, shaved him and then did him in to punish him for the damage he did to the monastery."

He scratched his head.

"But what miracle? What miracle? This is where we've got you, Zorba!"

The crescent of the moon was on the point of disappearing below the horizon and was the color of burnished copper.

Tired, I went to bed. When I awoke at dawn, I saw Zorba making coffee close to me. He was white-faced and his eyes were all red and swollen from not sleeping. But his big goat-like lips wore a malicious smile.

"I haven't been to sleep, boss, I had some work to do."

"What work, you rascal?"

"I was doing the miracle."

He laughed and placed his finger across his lips. "I'm not going to tell you! Tomorrow is the inauguration ceremony for our cable railway. All those fat hogs will be here to give their blessing; then they'll learn about the new miracle performed by the Virgin of Revenge-great is her power!"

He served the coffee.

"You know, I'd make a good abbot, I think," he said. "If I started a monastery, I bet you I'd close all the others down and pinch all their customers. How would you like some tears? A tiny wet sponge behind the icons and the saints would weep at will. Thunder claps? I'd have a machine under the holy table which would make a deafening row. Ghosts? Two of the most trusty monks would roam about at night on the roof of the monastery wrapped in sheets. And every year I'd gather a crowd of cripples and blind and paralytics for her feast day and see that they all saw the líght of day again and stood up straight on their legs to dance to her glory!

"What is there to laugh at, boss? I had an uncle once who found an old mule on the point of death. He'd been left in the mountains to die. My uncle took him home. Every morning he took him out to pasture and at night back home. 'You there, Haralambos!' the people from the village shouted at him as he went past, 'what do you think you're doing wíth that old crock?' 'He's my dung factory!' answered my uncle. Well, boss, in my hands the monastery would be a miracle factory!"