Read Captain Corelli's mandolin for Free Online Page A

had resented being carried in the arms of a giant rather than being allowed to walk with dignity to the doctor's house, and he had not enjoyed having a bent nail from a donkey shoe extracted from his shoulder without anaesthetic. He had not enjoyed being held down by the giant as the doctor worked, since he had been quite capable of enduring the pain on his own. Nor had it been convenient or economic to have to cease fishing for two weeks whilst the wound healed.
    What he thanked Megalo Velisarios for was that in the doctor's house he first set eyes on Pelagia, the doctor's daughter. At some indefinable moment he had become aware that he was being bandaged, that there was a young woman's long hair tickling his face, and that it smelled of rosemary. He had opened his eyes, and found himself gazing into another pair of eyes that were alight with concern.
    `At that moment,' he liked to say, `I became aware of my destiny.'
    It was true that he only said this when somewhat in his cups, but he meant it nonetheless.
    Up on Mt Aenos, on the roof of the world, Alekos had heard the boom of the weapon, and wondered if it meant the start of another war. 4 L'Omosessuale (1) I, Carlo Piero Guercio, write these words with the intention that they should be found after my death, when neither scorn nor loss of reputation may dog my steps nor blemish me. The circumstance of life leaves it impossible that this testament of my nature should find its way into the world before I have drawn my last breath, and until that time I shall be condemned to wear the mask decreed by misfortune.
    I have been reduced to eternal and infinite silence, I have not even told the chaplain in confession. I know in advance what I will be told; that it is a perversion, an abomination in the sight of God, that I must fight the good fight, that I must marry and lead the life of a normal man, that I have a choice.
    I have not told a doctor. I know in advance that I will be called an invert, that I am in some strange way in love with myself, that I am sick and can be cured, that my mother is responsible, that I am an effeminate even though I am as strong as an ox and fully capable of lifting my own weight above my head, that I. must marry and lead the life of a normal man, that I have a choice.
    What could I say to such priests and doctors? I would say to the priest that God made me as I am, that I had no choice, that He must have made me like this for a purpose, that He knows the ultimate reasons for all things and that therefore it must be all to the good that I am as I am, even if we cannot know what that good is. I can say to the priest that if God is the reason for all things, then God is to blame and I should not be condemned.
    And the priest will say, `This is a matter of the Devil and not of God,' and I will reply, `Did God not make the Devil? Is He not omniscient? How can I be blamed for what He knew would occur from the very commencement of time?'
    And the priest will refer me to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and tell me that God's mysteries are not to be understood by us. He will tell me that we are commanded to be fruitful and multiply.
    I would say to the doctor, `I have been like this from the first, it is nature that has moulded me, how am I supped to change? How can I decide to desire women, any more than I can suddenly decide to enjoy eating anchovies, which I have always stated? I have been to the Casa Rosette, and I loathed it, and afterwards I felt sick. I felt cheapened. I felt I was a traitor. I had to do it to appear normal.'
    And the doctor will say, `How can this be natural? Nature serves its interests by making us reproduce. This is against nature. Nature wants us to be fruitful and multiply.'
    'This is a conspiracy of doctors and priests who repeat the same things in different words. It is medicinal theology and theological medicine. I am like a spy who has signed a covenant of perpetual secrecy, I am like someone who is the only person in