made of drops of my blood, which marks my course amidst people, passions and ideas. Each man
worth to be called the son of man bears his cross and walks up his Golgotha -many, most, reach
the first, the second step, get out of breath, collapse in the middle of the course and never
reach the peak of Golgotha -the peak of their duty I mean-
to get crucified, resurrected and thus redeem their souls. They lose heart, they are scared of crucifixion, and
they forget that crucifixion is the only way to resurrection -there is no other.
There have been four decisive steps in my uphill route, and each of them bears a sacred name:
Jesus Christ, Buddha, Lenin, Odysseus. I strive to depict in my Travelogue this bloody route from one
of these great souls to the other, now that the sun is going to set, to draw a man walking -out of
breath- up the rough mountain of his destiny. My whole soul is a Scream
and my whole Work, a comment on this Scream.
A word has been torturing me, all my life; the word Ascent has been torturing and whipping me;
I would like to depict here this Ascent, by truth and imagination at the same time, to represent
the red marks that my uphill course had left. [...]I summon the memory
to recall, I summon my life in thin air, I stand a soldier before the general and
make my report to Greco since he is made of the same Cretan soil as myself, and can
feel me better than all fighter who lives or has lived. Hasn't he himself left
the same red trail upon the stones?
Í. Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, Athens, Eleni Kazantzaki editions,
1962, pp. 15-16.
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