Free Captain Corelli's mandolin by Louis De Bernières Page B

only ever gave me daughters, what happened to the man I married? All that stuff, it's driving me crazy: `Have you tried beating her?'
    `No, Iatre. Last time I struck her she broke a plate across my head. I still have the scar. Look.'
    The old man leaned forward and indicated something invisible upon his forehead.
    `Well, you shouldn't beat her anyway,' said the doctor. `They just find more subversive ways of getting at you. Like oversalting the food. My advice is to be nice to her.'
    Stamatis was shocked. It was a course of action so inconceivable that he had never even conceived of conceiving it. Iatre . . .' he protested, but could find no other words.
    `Just bring in the wood before she asks for it, and bring her a flower every time you come back from the field. If it's cold put a shawl around her shoulders, and if it's hot, bring her a glass of water. It's simple. Women only nag when they feel unappreciated. Think of her as your mother who has fallen ill, and treat her accordingly.'
    `Then you won't put back the . . . the, er . . . disputatious and pugnacious extraordinary embodiment?'
    `Certainly not. It would be against the Hippocratic oath. I can't allow that. It was Hippocrates, incidentally, who said that "extreme remedies are most appropriate for extreme diseases."
    Stamatis appeared downcast: 'Hippocrates says so? So I've got to be nice to her?'
    The doctor nodded paternally, and Stamatis replaced his hat. `O God,' he said.
    The doctor watched the old man from his window. Stamatis went out into the road and began to walk away. He paused and looked down at a small purple flower in the embankment. He leaned down to pick it, but immediately straightened up. He peered about himself to ensure that no one was watching. He pulled at his belt in the manner of girding up his loins, glared at the flower, and turned on his heel. He began to stroll away, but then stopped. Like a little boy involved in a petty theft he darted back, snapped the stem of the flower, concealed it within his coat, and sauntered away with an exaggeratedly insouciant and casual air. The doctor leaned out of the window and called after him, `Bravo Stamatis,' just for the simple but malicious pleasure of witnessing his embarrassment and shame. 8 A Funny Kind of Cat Lemoni ran into the courtyard of Dr Iannis' house just as he was departing for the kapheneion for breakfast; he had been planning to meet all the mangas there and argue about the problems of the world. Yesterday he had been disputing vehemently with Kokolios about Communism, and during the night he had come up with a splendid argument which he had been rehearsing in his head so much that it had prevented sleep, obliging him to get up and write a little more of his history, a little diatribe about the Orsini family. This was his speech to Kokolios: `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 as a flash, he would come back with, `But look, Kokolio', the only way the state can get a profit is by selling the goods abroad, and the only way that this can happen is if the foreign states are capitalist and have a surplus from their taxes to buy things with. Or else you've got to sell to capitalist companies. So it's obvious that Communism cannot survive without capitalism, and this makes it self-contradictory, because Communism is supposed to be the end of capitalism, and moreover it is supposed to be internationalist. It follows from my argument that if