What is your favorite part of the book?

Despite the trouble at the mines, Zorba has another plan to make them wildly rich: they will build a timber railway from the top of a nearby mountain to the harbor, facilitating a lucrative timber export trade. While Zorba is away buying supplies and cavorting with a younger woman, the narrator is compelled to propose to Madame Hortense on his behalf. Zorba agrees to marry her, but Hortense falls ill and dies before they can perform the wedding. Nevertheless, in agreeing to make her an honest woman, Zorba has given Hortense her heart's greatest desire. The timber railway, however, is a colossal disaster, but by this point the men's friendship is so strong that they are beyond caring about financial ruin.