Zorba The Greek

t was becoming still lighter. Captain Lemoni, austere and taciturn, took out his amber rosary and began to tell his beads. I struggled not to see, not to hear, and to hold on a little longer to the vision which was melting away. If only I could live again the moment of that anger which surged up in me when my friend called me a bookworm! I recalled then that all my disgust at the life I had been leading was personified in those words. How could I, who loved life so intensely, have let myself be entangled for so long in that balderdash of books and paper blackened with ink! In that day of separation, my friend had helped me to see clearly. I was relieved. As I now knew the name of my affliction, I could perhaps conquer it more easily. It was no longer elusive and incorporeal; it had assumed a name and a shape, and it would be easier for me to combat it.

His expression must have made silent progress in me. I sought a pretext for abandoning my papers and flinging myself into a life of action. I resented bearing this miserable creature upon my escutcheon. A month earlier, the desired opportunity had presented itself. I had rented on the coast of Crete, facing Libya, a disused lignite mine, and I was going now to live with simple men, workmen and peasants, far from the face of bookworms!

I prepared excitedly for my departure, as if this journey had a mysterious significance. I had decided to change my mode of life. "Till now," I told myself, "you have only seen the shadow and been well content with it; now, I am going to lead you to the substance."

At last I was ready. On the eve of departure, while rummaging in my papers, I came across an unfinished manuscript. I took it and looked at it, hesitating. For two years, in the innermost depths of my being, a great desire, a seed had been quickening. I could feel it all the time in my bowels, feeding on me and ripening. It was growing, moving and beginning to kick against the wall of my body to come forth. I no longer had the courage to destroy it. I could not. It was too late to commit such spiritual abortion.

Suddenly, as I hesitatingly held the manuscript, I became conscious of my friend's sm