Captain Corelli’s Mandolin: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

A few mornings later, Dr. Iannis prepares to leave for the kapheneia to eat breakfast and argue with Kokolios about communism. He imagines shutting down Kokolios's arguments definitively when Lemoni tugs on his sleeve and asks him to come--she found "a funny kind of cat." Dr. Iannis is disappointed that he'll have to postpone his argument with Kokolios, but he agrees to follow Lemoni. Lemoni leads him quickly down the road, through an olive grove, and then through a patch of scrub. 

Lemoni and Dr. Iannis emerge in a clearing with a barbed-wire fence running through it. Lemoni points vaguely towards the tired "cat," but Dr. Iannis sighs and explains it's actually a pine marten that's caught in the barbed wire. Dr. Iannis insists that it'd be best to kill it, which makes Lemoni cry. She strokes the marten and ignores Dr. Iannis's warnings that it may bite her and give her rabies. He kneels down and decides, for Lemoni's sake, to rescue the animal and kill it at home. He carefully unwinds it from the fence as Lemoni watches and then examines where the barb of the fence pierced the skin. It's superficial; the marten is likely just dehydrated. Dr. Iannis tells Lemoni the marten is a girl and puts it in his pocket.

At home, Dr. Iannis finds Mandras and Pelagia flirting. Mandras explains that his nail wound is giving him trouble, but Dr. Iannis insists he's only here to flirt with Pelagia. In an annoyed tone he gives Mandras permission to talk to Pelagia, asks her to grind up dead mice and gather straw, and then goes inside. Dr. Iannis drips goat's milk into the marten's mouth and decides to kill it later.