The narrator, a bookish man, decides to experience life by going into mining operations on Crete. While the narrator is waiting with his crates of books for the weather to clear so that he can board his ship, Zorba enters the café and starts a conversation with him. Enchanted by Zorba’s dynamic personality, “the boss,” as Zorba calls the narrator, agrees to hire him as personal cook and foreman at the mine. Although he is in his sixties, Zorba possesses tremendous strength and a boundless appetite for physical pleasures.

They arrive at the village near the site of the narrator’s mine, where they were welcomed by an aging woman, Madame Hortense, who reveals to them her colorful past life as a courtesan. She drinks copiously while reminiscing about pleasures and love affairs, and about being the mistress of French, Italian, and Russian admirals and princes. She is now ready, however, to live a life of reflection and repentance.

Zorba’s infectious exuberance revives the broken harlot. As they dance, she regains her old sensuality and flirtatiousness. The night continues with music, dancing, food, wine, and lust. Zorba and Madame Hortense satisfy their sexual desires. The narrator witnesses all with wonder but cannot see himself engaging in such behavior.

He is profoundly moved by Zorba’s physicality but continues his meditations on philosophy and psychology, always searching for analytic explanations. The narrator is amused by Madame Hortense’s reminiscences but is touched at the same time by the power of experience reflected in her memory. He sees the same attachment and sensibility in Zorba, but in him the narrator can see it in concrete action. As Zorba ages, he grows more passionate, not less. The narrator is experiencing a sensual dimension of life that is absent from his abstract speculations.

As the narrator discovers more about Zorba’s past, he realizes that Zorba has had a full life as a lover, husband, father, landlord, and beggar. Zorba, however, has never lost his sense of freedom, which is untouched by conventional or Christian morality. His pure animal pleasure is his guide and his theology.

The narrator and Zorba meet a beautiful young widow in the town’s tavern, where she is being harassed by the young men of the town, as she often is. Zorba rescues her from her predicament, and the encounter triggers a long dialogue between Zorba and the narrator. Zorba theorizes that a man will burn in hell for allowing a woman to sleep alone, and he encourages the narrator to visit the widow, who is being courted by other men. There are indications that the widow is attracted to the narrator; for example, when she returns to him an umbrella that he has lent her, she also gives him a bottle of rose water and dainty Christmas cookies. He tries to hide these gifts, but Zorba discovers them and says that they are conclusive evidence of her interest. The image of the widow comes to haunt the narrator. He feels that the mere thought of her is taking away his freedom. If he had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, he would choose the book.

At the mining site, Zorba works diligently to restore the dilapidated mine, often exposing himself to danger as he does so. Progress with the work is slow and discouraging. They need wood for the mine, and in a series of delightful and humorous encounters with the leaders of a monastery, Zorba reaches an agreement to harvest wood from their forest. He persuades the boss to give him time and...