Translation:The High Mountains/54

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The High Mountains (1918)
by Zacharias Papantoniou, translated from Greek by Wikisource
Even Gkeka Is Delighted
Zacharias Papantoniou2728946The High Mountains — Even Gkeka Is Delighted1918Wikisource


Even Gkeka Is Delighted

They arrived back at nine o'clock in the evening.

Twenty children ran to Phanis and lifted him up joyfully. They wanted to know immediately where he had been and what he'd seen. How he got lost and how he'd been found. Everyone asked him at the same time.

—Slowly! Said Phanis, I'll tell you everything afterwards.

—We'll tell you all about the Moor, said Matthias.

—We went to his place and saw him.


—That's nothing, said Kaloyannis. We saw the drunken miller. He had drunk a whole vineyard of wine.

—And who ground the flour then? asked Dimitrakis.

—The mill ground the flour.

—And the miller, what did he do?

—He went like this...

Kaloyannis takes his jacket off and imitates the miller trying to put his on. And when he sings This land we walk on, we're all going to return to, it's exactly like Father Coukis.

They can't stop laughing! Even Gkeka's laughing. The children have the impression that he's laughing. He too has his jaws open and he lifts his head, as if he were chatting, as if he understood everything from A to Z; as if he too was talking about the miller: “Hahaha, Father Coukis!”