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It was common knowledge that the Yugoslavs hated each other more than they could ever hate a foreigner or an invader.
‘Listen, if everybody is employed by the state, it’s obvious that everyone gets paid by the state, yes? So all the tax that comes back to the state is money that came from the state in the first place, yes? So the state only ever gets back maybe one third of what it paid out last week. So this week the only way to pay everyone is to print more money, no? So it follows that in a Communist state the money very soon becomes imaginary, because the state has nothing for that money to represent.’ He envisaged Kokolios riposting thus: ‘Ah, Iatre, the missing money comes from profits,’ and then, quick
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‘Did you know that childhood is the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected?’
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he also knew that every man needs an obsession in order to enjoy life, and it was so much the better if that obsession was constructive.
We should care for each other more than we care for ideas, or else we will end up killing each other. Am I not right?’
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It was enough to see the young woman blooming with that peculiar beauty that derives from a sudden sense of vocation.
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in
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‘We Germans do not do this,’ said Günter Weber smugly, enjoying a little schadenfreude at Corelli’s expense. ‘Germans can’t sing,’ riposted Corelli irrelevantly, ‘and anyway, I’ll get this investigated, and I’ll put a stop to it. It’s too bad.’ Weber smiled, ‘You are very famous for defending the rights of Greeks. I wonder sometimes if you understand why you are here.’ ‘I’m not here to be a bastard,’ said Corelli, ‘and to be perfectly frank, I do not feel good about it. I try to think of it as a holiday. I don’t have your advantages, Günter.’ ‘Advantages?’ ‘Yes. I don’t have the advantage of
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‘It’s true,’ said the doctor. ‘I know you have not thought about it. Italians always act without thinking, it’s the glory and the downfall of your civilisation. A German plans a month in advance what his bowel movements will be at Easter, and the British plan everything in retrospect, so it always looks as though everything occurred as they intended. The French plan everything whilst appearing to be having a party, and the Spanish … well, God knows. Anyway, Pelagia is Greek, that’s my point. So can it work? Even disregarding
‘A lot of the Germans aren’t Germans.’ ‘What? Don’t be silly.’ ‘You can’t tell by the uniforms, you know. They recruited in Poland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania. You name it. You don’t know it, but on the mainland they’ve got Greeks they call “Security Battalions”.’ ‘It’s not true.’ ‘It is. I am sorry, but it is. Every nation has its share of shits. All those thugs and nonentities who want to feel superior. Exactly the same thing happened in Italy, they all joined the Fascists to see what they could get. All sons of clerks and peasants who wanted
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In all this there was both an irony and a tragedy. The irony was that if the Communists had continued their wartime policy of doing absolutely nothing, they would undoubtedly have become the first freely elected Communist government in the world. Whereas in France the Communists had earned themselves a rightful and respected place in political life, the Greek Communists made themselves permanently unelectable because even Communists could not bring themselves to vote for them. The tragedy was that this was yet another step along the fated path by which Communism was growing into the Greatest
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