Farfoulas rushed into the street. A terrible uproar was heard again just after he took a few steps.
- Without a doubt, something serious is happening, he said and began to half-run.
A tough guy appeared to be coming running. He was coming from the noise and was running like his angel, striking the stones hard with his bare feet. Farfoulas wanted to ask him, but before he could open his mouth, he had passed by. At the turn of the street, he threw his hat high, shouting:
- Long live!... And he disappeared.
- Long live! Whose long live? Farfoulas said in wonder, running in fear of not catching up.
And the noise sometimes fell as if it were gathering its wings and sometimes spread and flapped loudly. He stopped at the corner of the main market street. People, a frenzied crowd shouted, jumped, danced, looking at the trees along the street, where something was hanging on the branches. Dogs!!!
The crowd burst out in a wild voice again:
- Down with the taxes! Down with the taxes!...
The stories of this edition were published in 1935 by the newspaper Independent, titled "The Song of the Hanged." The then 63-year-old Demosthenes Voutyras (1872-1958) was at the peak of his creative career, while Greece was experiencing a particularly tumultuous time filled with social and political explosions. This collection focuses mainly on urban life with its paradoxes and contradictions. The everyday life of the neighborhood, the atmosphere of the tavern, and the bohemian lifestyle prevail in most stories, while some feature marginal and antisocial heroes, who turn against their environment, even against themselves, making any attempt at their integration into society futile.
"Farfoulas," finally, is an openly anarchistic short story by Voutyras, where an entire city spontaneously revolts against the oppressive and absurd taxes constantly imposed by the central authority. The story is indicative of Voutyras's revolutionary ideology, but at the same time, it highlights the problem of the fluid psychology of the rebellious masses, which, like many characters in his vast work, can easily turn from heroes to antiheroes...
The collection is being reissued for the first time and includes the stories: "The Song of the Hanged," "The Neighborhood of Love," "For Revenge," "Farfoulas," "The Happy Store," "The Oath of Pythagoras," "At the Edge of the Hill," "The Lion and the People," "The Inventor," "Women Hunters," "The Revenge of Fate," "The Mute," "Allah," "I Saw Him!".
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