Captain Corelli’s Mandolin: Chapter 43 Summary & Analysis

Pelagia hates preparing the snails. She's afraid that if she cooks them poorly then Corelli will like her less, but she receives conflicting information about how to prepare them. By the time she's ready to cook them, she's heard five different ways to do it and feels both disgusted by the snails and sorry for them. She thinks it's a cruel world in which powerful creatures survive by preying on weak creatures.

Pelagia's reverie is interrupted by Lemoni calling for Corelli. She comes every evening and tells Corelli about her day, even though Corelli still doesn't understand any Greek. Lemoni excitedly says that she found a "great big spiky rustball" on the beach and climbed on it. Pelagia translates and both Corelli and Carlo go pale: Lemoni found a mine.

The entire village goes with Corelli and Carlo to look at the mine. Carlo discovers that it's Turkish from the Great War, which Corelli says probably means the explosive material is too decayed to do much. Carlo is disappointed as he loves explosions, but Corelli says it'll still make a magnificent spectacle if Carlo fetches enough dynamite. Corelli returns to Pelagia and the villagers, asks her to warn children to not touch mysterious metal things. Then, he explains that he's going to explode the mine and needs men to dig him a trench so he can safely do so. Stamatis and Kokolios agree to do it for two chickens each.

Carlo returns with dynamite and a truckload of troops ready to enjoy the explosion. Corelli is annoyed, but Carlo says he can't move explosives alone because of the partisans. Corelli is even more annoyed when an engineer points out his trench is too close to the mine. They insult each other and Corelli threatens to press charges, but the engineer insists that dead men can't.

Corelli arranges the dynamite and soldiers pile up sand around the mine. Finally, Corelli gets in his trench and the villagers and soldiers head up the hill. He takes a deep breath and depresses the plunger. The mine blows straight up in the air. The shock wave hits the crowd suddenly and knocks them all down, and then wet sand and bits of metal rain down on them. Eventually they stand, unable to tell who is Greek and who is Italian. They discover that a piece of metal decapitated the engineer and only then do they start to look for Corelli. Carlo runs down to the beach and finds Corelli lying in the bottom of his trench, covered in sand and concussed. He's deaf for two days.

That evening, Dr. Iannis is angry and perplexed when a mass of sandy, unrecognizable people turn up in his courtyard. He loudly asks the crowd who filled his house with snails, and Pelagia is horrified to see that all her snails escaped. General Gandin later charges Corelli with acting without permission, because Axis troops swarmed to the island thinking the explosion was the work of the British.