Chapter 1
• The narrator, who is introduced as a scholar, sits in a bar full of sailors and reminisces on his relationship with his good friend who is a soldier.
• The narrator feels sad that he and his soldier friend could not be more vulnerable in expressing their love and recalls the pact they made to warn one another telepathically of foreboding danger.
• The narrator meets a new friend, Alexis Zorba and journeys to Crete to undertake a more adventurous life.
• The narrator hires Zorba to act as the foreman of the narrator's lignite mine.