ZORBA THE GREEK.

Nikos Kazantzakis.

Narrator, poet and Greek playwright whose novels enjoy great popularity. In 1906, when he wrote the first of them, The Snake and the Lily, and his first play, Point the day, he received a doctorate in law from the University of Athens.

ZORBA THE GREEK.

I met him for the first time in Piraeus. I had gone down to the port to embark for Crete. It was a rainy sunrise. The syrup was blowing strongly; The splash of the waves reached the port cafe. The glass doors were closed, the place smelled of human emanations and infusion of sage. It was cold outside; the breath clouded the glass. Five or six sailors, who had been sailing all night, dressed in goatskin blouses, drank coffee or sage and watched the sea through the murky crystals. The fish, stunned by the violence of the waves, had taken refuge in the calm waters of the depths and waited for calm to rise again. The fishermen agglomerated in the cafes were also waiting for the storm to subside and the fish, reassured, to appear on the surface and bite the hooks. The soles, scratches and stripes returned from their nocturnal expeditions. It was dawn.

The stained glass door opened giving way to a port worker, chubby, busted, bareheaded, barefoot, muddy.

- Hello, Kostandi! - shouted an old sea lion wrapped in a gray-gray cape - what is your life, old man?