Free Captain Corelli's mandolin by Louis De Bernières

twirling his moustache, sucking pensively upon his pipe, and had divided his attention in two so that he was thinking simultaneously about the sacking of the island by crusaders and of what he was going to say to the priest. He envisaged the following scene: He would say, `Patir, I regret deeply the indignity inflicted upon you this morning,' and the priest would say, `I find this surprising in an irreligious man,' and he would reply, `But I do believe that a priest should be treated with respect. A village needs a priest as an island needs the sea. Please come and eat with us tomorrow. Pelagia is going to do lamb with potatoes in the fourno. I will also invite the teacher. I am sorry to hear, by the way, that you are unwell. Is there anything I can do?'
    But when he entered the church he was immediately apprised of the probability that this conversation was unlikely to occur. He heard groaning and retching from behind the screen. `Patir,' he called, `Are you all right? Patir?'
    There was another pitiful and wracking groan, and the doglike noise of painful vomiting. From his experience of the vomit of innumerable patients, he visualised that this would be of a predominantly yellow colour. He knocked a knuckle on the screen and called, `Patir, are you in there?'
    `O God, O God,' moaned the priest.
    The doctor was presented with an intractable problem. The fact was that only the ordained might pass behind the screen. He had long ago abandoned his religion in favour of a Machian variety of materialism, but he felt nonetheless that he could not break the prohibition. Such a taboo cannot be lightly cast aside even by one who places no credence in its premise. He could not enter there any more than he could have made sexual overtures to a nun. He knocked more urgently, `Patir, it's me, Doctor Iannis.'
    `Iatre,' wailed the priest, `I am grievously stricken. O God, wherefore bast thou made all men in vain? Help me for the love of God.'
    The doctor sent a prayer of penitence up to the God in whom he did not believe, and stepped behind the screen. He beheld the supine priest, helplessly recumbent in a pool of urine and vomit. One of the man's eyes was closed and the other was streaming with tears. The doctor noted with dispassionate surprise that the vomit was more white than yellow, and that it contrasted brightly with the dull blackness of the robes. `You've got to stand up,' he said. `You can lean an my shoulder, but I am afraid that I cannot carry you.'
    There ensued an unequal and impossible struggle in which the slight doctor contrived to raise the rotund cleric. He very quickly realised the futility of the effort, and stood upright. He noted the presence of three bottles of urine in that holy place. Out of professional curiosity he held one of the bottles up to the light and inspected it for the telltale mural streaks that indicate urethral infections. It was clear. He realised that he had some vomit on his hands. He looked at them for a moment; he was damned if he was going in wipe them on his trousers, and even more damned if he was going to do so on the back of the screen. He stooped down and cleaned them on the priest's robe. He went to fetch Velisarios.
    So it was that Velisarios' penance for submitting the priest to the indignity of the morning was that he should be obliged to carry the colossal weight of him to the doctor's house. It was possibly the most titanic feat of strength and determination that he had ever had to perform. He staggered twice and nearly fell once. Afterwards his arms and his back felt as though he had borne up the entire universe, and he understood how St Christopher must have felt after carrying Our Lord across the river. He sat sweating in the shade, panting, and experiencing a most alarming galloping of the heart whilst Pelagia plied him with lemon juice sweetened with honey, and she in turn was plied with smiles by Mandras, who had turned on his side in order to watch her. Pelagia felt his gaze