Captain Corelli's Mandolin

by Louis de Bernières

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 love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. But sometimes the petals fall away and the roots have not entwined. Imagine giving up your home and your people, only to discover after six months, a year, three years, that the trees have had no roots and have fallen over. Imagine the desolation. Imagine the imprisonment.

Whom the gods love, die young.”

Sleep long and well. You will not be curbed by age, you will not grow weak, you will not know sorrows nor infirmity. As long as we remember you, you will be remembered fair and young.

My words for my beautiful son. John Grant.

The truth will make us free. We overcome by looking it in the eyes.’

When loved ones die, you have to live on their behalf. See things as though with their eyes. Remember how they used to say things, and use those words oneself. Be thankful that you can do things that they cannot, and also feel the sadness of it.

Note to self

For your boys you should make music and enjoy yourself, doing it for them.

Amen

‘You men are all so stupid!’ she exclaimed. ‘You should give the world to women, and see how much fighting there is then.’

‘We have deep memories,’ replied Corelli. ‘Whether they make us glad or sad is up to us. I shall not forget you, and I will come back.’

In his mind’s eye he saw the incredible turquoise of Kiriaki Bay seen from above in the summer on the journey back from Assos, and the beauty of the memory increased his sense of loss.

Chris's beach

O my poor father, who never tired of healing, who could not heal himself and died without his daughter; my throat aches from the hour you died alone.

I realised that without his soul he was so light and thin that even I could lift him. And I raised up his body and clasped his head in my breast, and a great cry came out that must have been mine, and I saw as clearly as one sees a mountain that he was the only man I’ve loved who loved me to the end, and never bruised my heart, and never for a single moment failed me.

Yes.

‘She wasn’t mad before. The thing about ghosts is that they can appear to anyone they choose, and no one else sees them.