Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba the Greek

NIKOS KAZANTZAKISZORBA THE GREEK'Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my dreams and my travels;very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggle ...' Prologue to the Greekedition of Zorba the GreekNikos Kazantzakis was born in 1883 in Herakleion on Crete, then part of the OttomanEmpire. His father, idealised as Captain Michales in Freedom and Death, was a farmtrader. During the Cretan revolt of 1897 the family was sent to the island of Naxos,where he attended the French School of the Holy Cross, run by the Franciscans.From 1902 to 1906 he studied law at Athens University. He also worked as a journalist. His first book, The Serpent and the Lily, was a lyric narrative influenced byD'Annunzio. He wrote several plays. His remarkable travels began in 1907 and therewere few countries in Europe or Asia that he didn't visit in the course of his life. Hemade four journeys to the USSR. He attended Bergson's lectures in Paris and in 1908wrote his doctoral dissertation on Nietzsche, as well as his first novel, Broken Souls.He worked for Venizelos during the first Balkan War and subsequently made apilgrimage to the ancient sites of Greece with the poet Sikelianos. They spent fortydays on Mount Athos. Two years later he unsuccessfully ran a lignite mine in thePeloponnesus with George Zorbas, immortalised in Zorba the Greek. He studiedBuddhism in Vienna and later belonged to a group of radical intellectuals in Berlin, andbegan his great epic The Odyssey (33,333 lines, completed in 1938). He wrote morenovels, plays, travel journals, articles and translations. He visited England in 1940 andspent the war years on the island of Aegina under German occupation. He wasMinister without Portfolio in the Sofoulis coalition government and worked briefly for Unesco. In 1954 the Vatican placed The Last Temptation on the Index. He finallysettled in Antibes with his second wife. He died of leukaemia in October 1957, shortlyafter his return from a journey to China and Japan. He is buried at Herakleion, wherethe epitaph on his tomb reads: 'I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.'This translation first published in Englandby John Lehmann Ltd 1952Published by Bruno Cassirer Ltd, Oxford 1959Published by Faber and Faber Limited3 Queen Square London wcin 3AUin Faber paper-covered editions 1961First published in this reset edition in 2000Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in England by Mackays of Chatham pic, Chatham, Kent All rights reserved© Nikos Kazantzakis, 1952Translation © Carl Wildman, 1952© Helen Kazantzakis, 1958Carl Wildman is hereby identified as translator of this workin accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988This book is sold subject to the condition thatit shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without thepublisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on thesubsequent purchaser A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0-571-20313-2ZORBA THE GREEK2468 10 9753II first met him in Piraeus. I wanted to take the boat for JL Crete and had gone down tothe port. It was almost daybreak and raining. A strong sirocco was blowing the sprayfrom the waves as far as the little cafe, whose glass doors were shut. The cafe reekedof brewing sage and human beings whose breath steamed the windows because of the cold outside. Five or six seamen, who had spent the night there, muffled in their brown goat-skin reefer-jackets, were drinking coffee or sage and gazing out of themisty windows at the sea. The fish, dazed by the blows of the raging waters, hadtaken refuge in the depths, where they were waiting till calm was restored above. Thefishermen crowding in the cafes were also waiting for the end of the storm, when thefish, reassured, would rise to the surface after the bait. Soles, hog-fish and skate werereturning from their nocturnal expeditions. Day was now breaking.The glass door opened and there entered a thick-set, mud-bespattered, weather-beaten dock labourer with bare head and bare feet.'Hi! Kostandi!' called out an old sailor in a sky-blue cloak. 'How are things with you?'Kostandi spat. 'What d'you think?' he replied testily. 'Good morning - the bar! Goodnight - my lodgings! That's the sort of life I'm leading. No work at all!'Some started laughing, others shook their heads and swore.'This world's a life-sentence,' said a man with a moustache who had picked up hisphilosophy from the Karagiozis* theatre. 'Yes, a life-sentence. Be damned to it.'* Karagheuz, or Karagoz, meaning 'Black Eyed'. A puppet shadow-play given in cafesand common to Arabia, Turkey, Syria and North Africa. These plays were the onlydramatic performances known to orthodox Mohammedans. The Karagheuz play,which is comic, can be compared to Punch and Judy. It derived its shadow techniquefrom Java thanks to fourteenth-century Arab traders. A pale bluish-green light penetrated the dirty window-panes of the cafe and caughthands, noses and foreheads. It leapt on to the counter and lit the bottles. The electriclight faded, and the proprietor, half-asleep after his night up, stretched out his handand switched off.There was a moment's silence. All eyes were turned on the dirty-looking sky outside.The roar of the waves could be heard and, in the cafe, the gurgling of a few hookahs.The old sailor sighed; T wonder what has happened to Captain Lemoni? May Godhelp him!' He looked angrily at the sea, and growled: 'God damn you for a destroyer of homes!' He bit his grey moustache.I was sitting in a corner. I was cold and I ordered a second glass of sage. I wanted togo to sleep, but I struggled against the desire to sleep, and against my fatigue and thedesolation of the early hours of dawn. I looked through the steamy windows at theawakening port resounding with the ships' sirens and the cries of carters andboatmen. And, as I looked, an invisible net, woven from sea, air, and my departure,wound its tight meshes round my heart.My eyes were glued to the black bows of a large vessel. The whole of the hull was stillengulfed in darkness. It was raining and I could see the shafts of rain link sky andmud.I looked at the black ship, the shadows and the rain, and my sadness took shape.Memories arose. The rain and my spleen took on, in the humid atmosphere, thefeatures of my great friend. Was it last year? In another life? Yesterday? When was it Icame down to this same port to say goodbye to him? I remembered how it rained that

morning, too, and the cold, and the early light. At that time also, my heart was heavy.How bitter it is to be slowly separated from great friends! Far better make a cleanbreak and remain in solitude - the natural climate for man. And yet, in that rainy dawn,I could not leave my friend. (I understood why later, but, alas, too late.) I had gone onboard with him and was seated in his cabin amid scattered suitcases. I gazed at himintently for a long time, when his attention was fixed elsewhere, as if I wished to makemental note of his features, one by one - his bluish-green luminous eyes, his rounded,youthful face, his intelligent and disdainful expression, and, above all, his aristocratichands with their long, slender fingers.Once he caught me gazing lingeringly and eagerly at him. He turned round with thatmocking air he assumed when he wanted to hide his feelings. He looked at me and heunderstood. And to avoid the sadness of separation, he asked with an ironical smile:'How long?''What d'you mean, how long?''How long are you going on chewing paper and covering yourself with ink? Why don'tyou come with me? Away there in the Caucasus there are thousands of our people indanger. Let's go and save them.' He began to laugh as if in mockery of his noble plan.'Maybe, we shan't save them. Don't you preach: "The only way to save yourself is toendeavour to save others?" ... Well, forward, master. You're good at preaching. Whydon't you come with me!'I did not answer. I thought of this sacred land of the east, the old mother of the gods,the loud clamouring of Prometheus nailed to the rock. Nailed to these same rocks, our own race was crying out. Again it was in peril. It was calling to its sons for help. And Iwas listening, passively, as if pain was a dream and life some absorbing tragedy, inwhich nobody but a boor or a simpleton would rush on to the stage and take part inthe action.Without waiting for an answer, my friend rose. The boat sounded its siren for the thirdtime. He gave me his hand and again hid his emotion in raillery.'Au revoir, bookworm!'His voice trembled. He knew it was shameful not to be able to control one's feelings.Tears, tender words, unruly gestures, common familiarities, all seemed to him weak-nesses unworthy of man. We, who were so fond of each other, never exchanged anaffectionate word. We played and scratched at each other like wild beasts. He, theintelligent, ironical, civilised man; I, the barbarian. He exercised self-control andsuavely expressed all his feelings in a smile. I would suddenly utter a misplaced andbarbarous laugh.I also tried to camouflage my emotions with a hard word. But I felt ashamed. No, notexactly ashamed, but I didn't manage it. I grasped his hand. I held it and wouldn't let itgo. He looked at me, astonished.'Are you so moved?' he said, trying to smile.'Yes', I replied, with calm.'Why? Now, what did we say? Hadn't we agreed on this point years ago? What doyour beloved Japs say? "Fudoshin!" Ataraxia, Olympian calm, the face a smiling,unmoving mask. As for what happens behind the mask, that is our business.''Yes,' I replied again, trying not to compromise myself by embarking on a longsentence. I was not sure of being able to control my voice.The ship's gong sounded, driving the visitors from the cabins. It was raining gently.The air was filled with pathetic words of farewell, promises, prolonged kisses, andhurried, breathless injunctions. Mothers rushed to sons, wives to husbands, friends tofriends. As if they were leaving them for ever. As if this little separation recalled theother - the Great Separation. And suddenly, in the humid air, the sound of the gongechoed softly from stem to stern, like a funeral bell. I shuddered.My friend leaned over.'Listen,' he said in a low voice. 'Have you some foreboding?'