Zorba the Greek [antikvár]

I FIRST met him in Piraeus. I wanted to take the boat for Crete and had gone down to the port. It was almost daybreak and raining. A strong sirocco was blowing the spray from the waves as far as the little café, whose glass doors were shut The café reeked of brewing ^ge and hiunan 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 goatskin reefer-jackets, were drinking coffee or s^e and gazing out of the misty windows at the sea. The fish, dazed by the blows of the raging waters, had taken refuge in the depths, where they were waiting till calm was restored above. The fishermen crowding in the cafés were also waiting for the end of the storm, when the fish, reassured, would rise to the surface after the bait. Soles, hog-fish and skate were returning 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! Good night—^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 his philosophy from the Karagiozis^ theatre. " Yes, a life-sentence. Ber damned to it." * Kan^euz, or Kangfiz, meaning " Black Eyed A puppet ihadow-iday ((iveo in cafts and common to Anbia, Turk^, Syria and North Africa. Thes^uys were tiie only dramatic performance» known to orthodox Mohammedans. The Karagheuz play, which is coinici C3n oc coinpsrcd to Punch and Judy. It derived its Aadow technique from Java thanks to XIV century Arab traders C. W. 5