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+Project Gutenberg's Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), by Vicente Blasco Ibañez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mare Nostrum (Our Sea)
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibañez
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11697]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, GF Untermeyer and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Mare Nostrum
+
+(_OUR SEA_)
+
+
+
+A Novel
+
+By
+
+Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,"
+"The Shadow of the Cathedral,"
+"Blood and Sand,"
+"La Bodega," etc.
+
+
+
+Authorized translation from the Spanish by Charlotte Brewster Jordan
+
+Translator of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"
+
+
+
+1919
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER I  CAPTAIN ULYSSES FERRAGUT
+
+   CHAPTER II  MATER AMPHITRITE
+
+  CHAPTER III  PATER OCEANUS
+
+   CHAPTER IV  FREYA
+
+    CHAPTER V  THE AQUARIUM OF NAPLES
+
+   CHAPTER VI  THE WILES OF CIRCE
+
+  CHAPTER VII  THE SIN OF ULYSSES
+
+CHAPTER  VIII  THE YOUNG TELEMACHUS
+
+   CHAPTER IX  THE ENCOUNTER AT MARSEILLES
+
+    CHAPTER X  IN BARCELONA
+
+   CHAPTER XI  "FAREWELL, I AM GOING TO DIE"
+
+  CHAPTER XII  AHPHITRITE!... AMPHITRITE!
+
+
+
+
+Mare Nostrum
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+CAPTAIN ULYSSES FERRAGUT
+
+His first gallantries were with an empress. He was ten years old, and
+the empress six hundred.
+
+His father, Don Esteban Ferragut--third quota of the College of
+Notaries--had always had a great admiration for the things of the past.
+He lived near the cathedral, and on Sundays and holy days, instead of
+following the faithful to witness the pompous ceremonials presided over
+by the cardinal-archbishop, used to betake himself with his wife and
+son to hear mass in _San Juan del Hospital_,--a little church sparsely
+attended the rest of the week.
+
+The notary, who had read Walter Scott in his youth, used to gaze on the
+old and turreted walls surrounding the church, and feel something of
+the bard's thrills about his own, his native land. The Middle Ages was
+the period in which he would have liked to have lived. And as he trod
+the flagging of the _Hospitolarios_, good Don Esteban, little, chubby,
+and near-sighted, used to feel within him the soul of a hero born too
+late. The other churches, huge and rich, appeared to him with their
+blaze of gleaming gold, their alabaster convolutions and their jasper
+columns, mere monuments of insipid vulgarity. This one had been erected
+by the Knights of Saint John, who, united with the Templars, had aided
+King James in the conquest of Valencia.
+
+Upon crossing the covered passageway leading from the street to the
+inner court, he was accustomed to salute the Virgin of the Conquest, an
+image of rough stone in faded colors and dull gold, seated on a bench,
+brought thither by the knights of the military order. Some sour orange
+trees spread their branching verdure over the walls of the church,--a
+blackened, rough stone edifice perforated with long, narrow,
+window-like niches now closed with mud plaster. From the salient
+buttresses of its reinforcements jutted forth, in the highest parts,
+great fabled monsters of weather-beaten, crumbling stone.
+
+In its only nave was now left very little of this romantic exterior.
+The baroque taste of the seventeenth century had hidden the Gothic arch
+under another semi-circular one, besides covering the walls with a coat
+of whitewash. But the medieval reredos, the nobiliary coats of arms,
+and the tombs of the Knights of Saint John with their Gothic
+inscriptions still survived the profane restoration, and that in itself
+was enough to keep up the notary's enthusiasm.
+
+Moreover the quality of the faithful who attended its services had to
+be taken into consideration. They were few but select, always the same.
+Some of them would drop into their places, gouty and relaxed, supported
+by an old servant wearing a shabby lace mantilla as though she were the
+housekeeper. Others would remain standing during the service holding up
+proudly their emaciated heads that presented the profile of a fighting
+cock, and crossing upon the breast their gloved hands,--always in black
+wool in the winter and in thread in the summer time. Ferragut knew all
+their names, having read them in the _Trovas_ of Mosen Febrer, a
+metrical composition in Provençal, about the warriors that came to the
+neighborhood of Valencia from Aragon, Catalunia, the South of France,
+England and remote Germany.
+
+At the conclusion of the mass, the imposing personages would nod their
+heads, saluting the faithful nearest them. "Good day!" To these, it was
+as if the sun had just arisen: the hours before did not count. And the
+notary with meek voice would enlarge his response: "Good day, Señor
+Marquis!" "Good day, Señor Baron!" Although his relations never went
+beyond this salutation, Ferragut used to feel toward these noble
+personages the sympathy that the customers have for an establishment,
+looking upon them with affectionate eyes for many years without
+presuming to exchange more than a greeting with them.
+
+His son Ulysses was exceedingly bored as he followed the monotonous
+incidents of the chanted mass in the darkened, almost deserted, church.
+The rays of the sun, oblique beams of gold that filtered in from above,
+illuminating the spirals of dust, flies and moths, made him think in a
+homesick way of the lush green of the orchard, the white spots of the
+hamlets, the black smoke columns of the harbor filled with steamships,
+and the triple file of bluish convexities crowned with froth that were
+discharging their contents with a sonorous surge upon the
+bronze-colored beach.
+
+When the embroidered mantles of the three priests ceased to gleam
+before the high altar, and another priest in black and white appeared
+in the pulpit, Ulysses would turn his glance toward a side chapel. The
+sermon always represented for him a half hour of somnolence, peopled
+with his own lively imaginings. The first thing that his eyes used to
+see in the chapel of Santa Barbara was a chest nailed to the wall high
+above him, a sepulcher of painted wood with no other adornment than the
+inscription: "_Aqui yace Doña Constansa Augusta, Emperatriz de
+Grecia_,"--Here lies Constance Augusta, Empress of Greece.
+
+The name of Greece always had the power of exciting the little fellow's
+imagination. His godfather, the lawyer Labarta, poet-laureate, could
+not repeat this name without a lively thrill passing across his
+grizzled beard and a new light in his eyes. Sometimes the mysterious
+power of such a name evoked a new mystery and a more intense
+interest,--Byzantium. How could that august lady, sovereign of remote
+countries of magnificence and vision, have come to leave her remains in
+a murky chapel of Valencia within a great chest like those that
+treasured the remnants of old trumpery in the garrets of the notary?...
+
+One day after mass Don Esteban had rapidly recounted her history to his
+little son. She was the daughter of Frederick the Second of Suabia, a
+Hohenstaufen, an emperor of Germany who esteemed still more his crown
+of Sicily. In the palaces of Palermo,--veritable enchanted bowers of
+Oriental gardens,--he had led the life both of pagan and savant,
+surrounded by poets and men of science (Jews, Mahometans and
+Christians), by Oriental dancers, alchemists, and ferocious Saracen
+Guards. He legislated as did the jurisconsults of ancient Rome, at the
+same time writing the first verses in Italian. His life was one
+continual combat with the Popes who hurled upon him excommunication
+upon excommunication. For the sake of peace he had become a crusader
+and set forth upon the conquest of Jerusalem. But Saladin, another
+philosopher of the same class, had soon come to an agreement with his
+Christian colleague. The position of a little city surrounded with
+untilled land and an empty sepulcher was really not worth the trouble
+of decapitating mankind through the centuries. The Saracen monarch,
+therefore, graciously delivered Jerusalem over to him, and the Pope
+again excommunicated Frederick for having conquered the Holy Land
+without bloodshed.
+
+"He was a great man," Don Esteban used to murmur. "It must be admitted
+that he was a great man...."
+
+He would say this timidly, regretting that his enthusiasm for that
+remote epoch should oblige him to make this concession to an enemy of
+the Church. He shuddered to think of those sacrilegious books that
+nobody had seen, but whose paternity Rome was accustomed to attribute
+to this Sicilian Emperor--especially _Los Tres Impostores_ (The Three
+Imposters), in which Frederick measured Moses, Jesus and Mahomet, by
+the same standard. This royal author was, moreover, the most ancient
+journalist of history, the first that in the full thirteenth century
+had dared to appeal to the judgment of public opinion in his
+manifestoes against Rome.
+
+His daughter had married an Emperor of Byzantium, Juan Dukas Vatatzés,
+the famous "Vatacio," when he was fifty and she fourteen. She was a
+natural daughter soon legitimized like almost all his progeny,--a
+product of his free harem, in which were mingled Saracen beauties and
+Italian marchionesses. And the poor young girl married to "Vatacio the
+heretic," by a father in need of political alliances had lived long
+years in the Orient as a _basilisa_ or empress, arrayed in garments of
+stiff embroidery representing scenes from the holy books, shod with
+buskins laced with purple which bore on their soles eagles of
+gold,--the highest symbol of the majesty of Rome.
+
+At first she had reigned in Nicaea, refuge of the Greek Emperors while
+Constantinople was in the power of the Crusaders, founders of a Latin
+dynasty; then, when Vatacio died, the audacious Miguel Paleólogo
+reconquered Constantinople, and the imperial widow found herself
+courted by this victorious adventurer. For many years she resisted his
+pretensions, finally maneuvering that her brother Manfred should return
+her to her own country, where she arrived just in time to receive news
+of her brother's death in battle, and to follow the flight of her
+sister-in-law and nephews. They all took refuge in a castle defended by
+Saracens in the service of Frederick, the only ones faithful to his
+memory.
+
+The castle fell into the power of the warriors of the Church, and
+Manfred's wife was conducted to a prison where her life was shortly
+after extinguished. Obscurity swallowed up the last remnants of the
+family accursed by Rome. Death was always hovering around the
+_basilisa_. They all perished--her brother Manfred, her half-brother,
+the poetic and lamented Encio, hero of so many songs, and her nephew,
+the knightly Coradino, who was to die later on under the axe of the
+executioner upon attempting the defense of his rights. As the Oriental
+empress did not represent any danger for the dynasty of Anjou, the
+conqueror let her follow out her destiny, as lonely and forsaken as a
+Shakespearian Princess.
+
+As the widow of the late Emperor she was supposed to have a rental of
+three thousand _besantes_ of fine gold. But this remote rental never
+arrived, and almost as a pauper she embarked with her niece, Constanza,
+in a ship going toward the perfumed shores of the Gulf of Valencia,
+where she entered the convent of Santa Barbara. In the poverty of this
+recently founded convent, the poor Empress lived until the following
+century, recalling the adventures of her melancholy destiny and seeing
+in imagination the palace of golden mosaics on Lake Nicaea, the gardens
+where "Vatacio" had wished to die under a purple tent, the gigantic
+walls of Constantinople, and the arches of Saint Sophia, with its
+hieratic galaxies of saints and crowned monarchs.
+
+From all her journeys and glittering fortunes she had preserved but one
+thing--a stone--the sole baggage that accompanied her upon disembarking
+on the shore of Valencia. It was a fragment from Nicodemia that had
+miraculously sent forth water for the baptism of Santa Barbara.
+
+The notary used to point out this rough, sacred stone inlaid in a
+baptismal font of Holy Water. Without ceasing to admire these historic
+bits of knowledge, Ulysses, nevertheless, used to receive them with a
+certain ingratitude.
+
+"My godfather could explain things to me in a better way.... My
+godfather knows more."
+
+When surveying the chapel of Santa Barbara during the Mass, he used
+always to turn his eyes away from the funeral chest. The thought of
+those bones turned to dust filled him with repugnance. That Doña
+Constanza did not exist for him. The one who was interesting to him was
+the other one, a little further on who was painted in a small picture.
+Doña Constanza had had leprosy--an infirmity that in those days was not
+permitted to Empresses--so Santa Barbara had miraculously cured her
+devotee. In order to perpetuate this event, Santa Barbara was depicted
+on the canvas as a lady dressed in a full skirt and slashed sleeves,
+and at her feet was the _basilisa_ in the dress of a Valencian peasant
+arrayed in great jewels. In vain Don Esteban affirmed that this picture
+had been painted centuries after the death of the Empress. The child's
+imagination vaulted disdainfully over such difficulties. Just as she
+appeared on the canvas, Doña Constanza must have been--flaxen-haired,
+with great black eyes, exceedingly handsome and a little inclined to
+stoutness, perhaps, as was becoming to a woman accustomed to trailing
+robes of state and who had consented to disguise herself as a
+country-woman, merely because of her piety.
+
+The image of the Empress obsessed his childish thoughts. At night when
+he felt afraid in bed, impressed by the enormousness of the room that
+served as his sleeping chamber, it was enough for him to recall the
+sovereign of Byzantium to make him forget immediately his disquietude
+and the thousand queer noises in the old building. "Doña Constanza!"...
+And he would go off to sleep cuddling the pillow, as though it were the
+head of the _basilisa_, his closed eyes continuing to see the black
+eyes of the regal Señora, maternal and affectionate.
+
+All womankind, on coming near him, took on something of that other one
+who had been sleeping for the past six centuries in the upper part of
+the chapel wall. When his mother, sweet and pallid Doña Cristina, would
+stop her fancy work for an instant to give him a kiss, he always saw in
+her smile something of the Empress. When Visenteta, a maid from the
+country--a brunette, with eyes like blackberries, rosy-cheeked and
+soft-skinned--would help him to undress, or awaken him to take him to
+school, Ulysses would always throw his arms around her as though
+enchanted by the perfume of her vigorous and chaste vitality.
+"Visenteta!... Oh, Visenteta!..." And he was thinking of Doña
+Constanza; Empresses must be just that fragrant.... Just like that must
+be the texture of their skin!... And mysterious and incomprehensible
+thrills would pass over his body like light exhalations, bubbling up
+from the slime that is sleeping in the depths of all infancy and coming
+to the surface during adolescence.
+
+His father guessed in part this imaginary life upon seeing his pet
+plays and readings.
+
+"Ah, comedian!... Ah, play-actor!... You are like your godfather."
+
+He used to say this with an ambiguous smile in which were equally
+mingled his contempt for useless idealism and his respect for the
+artist--a respect similar to the veneration that the Arabs feel for the
+demented, believing their insanity to be a gift from God.
+
+Doña Cristina was very anxious that this only son, as spoiled and
+coddled as though he were a Crown Prince, should become a priest. To
+see him intone his first Mass!... Then a canon; then a prelate! Who
+knew if perhaps when she was no longer living, other women might not
+admire him when preceded by a cross of gold, trailing the red state
+robe of a cardinal-archbishop, and surrounded by a robed staff--envying
+the mother who had given birth to this ecclesiastical magnate!...
+
+In order to guide the inclinations of her son she had installed a
+chapel in one of the empty rooms of the great old house. Ulysses'
+school companions on free afternoons would hasten thither, doubly
+attracted by the enchantment, of "playing priest" and by the generous
+refreshment that Doña Cristina used to prepare for all the parish
+clergy.
+
+This solemnity would begin with the furious pealing of some bells
+hanging over the parlor door, causing the notary's clients, seated in
+the vestibule waiting for the papers that the clerks were just
+scribbling off at full speed, to raise their heads in astonishment. The
+metallic uproar rocked the edifice whose corners had seemed so full of
+silence, and even disturbed the calm of the street through which a
+carriage only occasionally passed.
+
+While some of his chums were lighting the candles on the shrines and
+unfolding the sacred altar cloths of beautiful lace work made by Doña
+Cristina, the son and his more intimate friends were arraying
+themselves before the faithful, covering themselves with surplices and
+gold-worked vestments and putting wonderful caps on their heads. The
+mother, who was peeping from behind one of the doors, had to make a
+great effort not to rush in and devour Ulysses with kisses. With what
+grace he was imitating the mannerisms and genuflections of the chief
+priest!...
+
+Up to this point all went perfectly. The three officiating near the
+pyramid of lights were singing at the top of their lungs, and the
+chorus of the faithful were responding from the end of the room with
+tremors of impatience. Suddenly surged forth Protest, Schism and
+Heresy. Those at the altar had already done more than enough. They must
+now give up their chasubles to those who were looking on in order that
+they, in their turn, might exercise the sacred ministry. That was what
+they had agreed upon. But the clergy resisted with the haughtiness and
+majesty of acquired right, and impious hands began pulling off the garb
+of the saints, profaning them and even tearing them. Yells, kicks,
+images and wax candles on the floor!... Scandal and abominations as
+though the Anti-Christ were already born!... The prudence of Ulysses
+put an end to the struggle: "What if we should go up in the _pòrche_ to
+play?..."
+
+The _pòrche_ was the immense garret of the great old house, so all
+accepted the plan with enthusiasm. Church was over! And like a flock of
+birds they went flying up the stairs over the landings of multi-colored
+tiles with their chipped glaze, disclosing the red brick underneath.
+The Valencian potters of the eighteenth century had adorned these tiles
+with Berber and Christian galleys, birds from nearby Albufera,
+white-wigged hunters offering flowers to a peasant girl, fruits of all
+kinds, and spirited horsemen on steeds that were half the size of their
+bodies parading before houses and trees that scarcely reached to the
+knees of their prancing coursers.
+
+The noisy group spread themselves over the upper floor as in the most
+terrible invasions of history. Cats and mice fled together to the
+far-away corners. The terrified birds sped like arrows through the
+skylights of the roof.
+
+The poor notary!... He had never returned empty-handed when called
+outside of the city by the confidence of the rich farmers, incapable of
+believing in any other legal science than his. That was the time when
+the antique dealers had not yet discovered rich Valencia, where the
+common people dressed in silks for centuries, and furniture, clothing
+and pottery seemed always to be impregnated with the light of steady
+sunshine and with the blue of an always clear atmosphere.
+
+Don Esteban, who believed himself obliged to be an antiquarian by
+virtue of his membership in various local societies, was continually
+filling up his house with mementoes of the past picked up in the
+villages, or that his clients freely gave him. He was not able to find
+wall space enough for the pictures, nor room in his salons for the
+furniture. Therefore, the latest acquisitions were provisionally taking
+their way to the _pòrche_ to await definite installation. Years
+afterward, when he should retire from his profession, he might be able
+to construct a medieval castle--the most medieval possible on the
+coasts of the _Marina_; near to the village where he had been born, he
+would put each object in a place appropriate to its importance.
+
+Whatever the notary deposited in the rooms of the first floor would
+soon make its appearance in the garret as mysteriously as though it had
+acquired feet; for Doña Cristina and her servants, obliged to live in a
+continual struggle with the dust and cobwebs of an edifice that was
+slowly dropping to pieces, were beginning to feel a ferocious hatred of
+everything old.
+
+Up here on the top floor, discords and battles because of lack of
+things to dress up in, were not possible among the boys. They had only
+to sink their hands into any one of the great old chests, pulsing with
+the dull gnawing of the wood-borers, whose iron fretwork, pierced like
+lace, was dropping away from its supports. Some of the youngsters,
+brandishing short, small swords with hilts of mother-of-pearl, or long
+blades such as the Cid carried, would then wrap themselves in mantles
+of crimson silk darkened by ages. Others would throw over their
+shoulders damask counterpanes of priceless old brocade, peasant skirts
+with great flowers of gold, farthingales of richly woven texture that
+crackled like paper.
+
+When they grew tired of imitating comedians with noisy clashing of
+spades and death-blows, Ulysses and the other active lads would propose
+the game of "Bandits and Bailiffs." But thieves could not go clad in
+such rich cloths; their attire ought to be inconspicuous. And so they
+overturned some mountains of dull-colored stuffs that appeared like
+mere sacking in whose dull woven designs could be dimly discerned legs,
+arms, heads, and branching sprays of metallic green.
+
+Don Esteban had found these fragments already torn by the farmers into
+covers for their large earthen jars of oil or into blankets for the
+work-mules. They were bits of tapestry copied from cartoons of Titian
+and Rubens which the notary was keeping only out of historic respect.
+Tapestry then, like all things that are plentiful, had no special
+merit. The old-clothes dealers of Valencia had in their storehouses
+dozens of the same kind of remnants and when the festival of _Corpus
+Christi_ approached they used them to cover the natural barricades
+formed by the ground, instead of building new ones in the street
+followed by the processions.
+
+At other times, Ulysses repeated the same game under the name of
+"Indians and Conquerors." He had found in the mountains of books stored
+away by his father, a volume that related in double columns, with
+abundant wood cuts, the navigations of Columbus, the wars of Hernando
+Cortez, and the exploits of Pizarro.
+
+This book cast a glamor over the rest of his existence. Many times
+afterwards, when a man, he found this image latent in the background of
+his likes and desires. He really had read few of its paragraphs, but
+what interested him most were the engravings--in his estimation more
+worthy of admiration than all the pictures in the garret.
+
+With the point of his long sword he would trace on the ground, just as
+Pizarro had done before his discouraged companions, ready on the Island
+of Gallo to desist from the conquest: "Let every good Castilian pass
+this line...." And the good Castilians--a dozen little scamps with long
+capes and ancient swords whose hilts reached up to their mouths--would
+hasten to group themselves around their chief, who was imitating the
+heroic gestures of the conqueror. Then was heard the war-cry: "At them!
+Down with the Indians!"
+
+It was agreed that the Indians should flee and on that account they
+were modestly clad in scraps of tapestry and cock feathers on their
+head. But they fled treacherously, and upon finding themselves upon
+_vargueños_, tables and pyramids of chairs, they began to shy books at
+their persecutors. Venerable leather volumes decorated with dull gold,
+and folios of white parchment fell face downward on the floor, their
+fastenings breaking apart and spreading abroad a rain of printed or
+manuscript pages and yellowing engravings--as though tired of living,
+they were letting their life-blood flow from their bodies.
+
+The uproar of these wars of conquest brought Doña Cristina to the
+rescue. She no longer cared to harbor little imps who preferred the
+adventurous whoops of the garret to the mystic delights of the
+abandoned chapel. The Indians were most worthy of execration. In order
+to make splendor of attire counterbalance the humility of their role,
+they had slashed their sinful scissors into entire tapestries,
+mutilating vestments so as to arrange upon their breasts the head of a
+hero or goddess.
+
+Finding himself without playfellows, Ulysses discovered a new
+enchantment in the garret life. The silence haunted by the creaking of
+wood and the scampering of invisible animals, the inexplicable fall of
+a picture or of some piled-up books, used to make him thrill with a
+sensation of fear and nocturnal mystery, despite the rays of sunlight
+that came filtering in through the skylights; but he began to enjoy
+this solitude when he found that he could people it to his fancy. Real
+beings soon annoyed him like the inopportune sounds that sometimes
+awoke him from beautiful dreams. The garret was a world several
+centuries old that now belonged entirely to him and adjusted itself to
+all his fancies.
+
+Seated in a trunk without a lid, he made it balance itself, imitating
+with his mouth the roarings of the tempest. It was a caravel, a
+galleon, a ship such as he had seen in the old books, its sails painted
+with lions and crucifixes, a castle on the poop and a figure-head
+carved on the prow that dipped down into the waves, only to reappear
+dripping with foam.
+
+The trunk, by dint of vigorous pushing, could be made to reach the
+rugged coast at the corner of the old chest, the triangular gulf made
+of two chests of drawers, and the smooth beach formed by some bundles
+of clothes. And the navigator, followed by a crew as numerous as it was
+imaginary, would leap ashore, sword in hand, scaling some mountains of
+books that were the Andes, and piercing various volumes with the tip of
+an old lance in order to plant his standard there. Oh, why had he not
+been one of the conquerors?...
+
+Fragments of a conversation between his godfather and his father, who
+believed everything was already known regarding the surface of the
+earth, left him unconvinced. Something must still be left for him to
+discover! He was the meeting point of two families of sailors. His
+mother's brothers had ships on the coast of Catalunia. His father's
+ancestors had been valorous and obscure navigators, and there in the
+_Marina_ was his uncle, the doctor, a genuine man of the sea.
+
+When he grew tired of these imaginative orgies, he used to examine the
+portraits of different epochs stowed away in the garret. He preferred
+those of the women--noble dames with short-cropped, curled hair bound
+by a knot of ribbon on the temple, like those that Velazquez loved to
+paint, and long faces of the century following, with cherry-colored
+mouth, two patches on the cheeks, and a tower of white hair. The memory
+of the Grecian _basilisa_ appeared to emanate from these paintings. All
+the high-born dames seemed to have something in common with her.
+
+Among the portraits of the men there was one of a bishop that irritated
+him by its absurd childishness. He appeared almost his own age, an
+adolescent bishop, with imperious and aggressive eyes. These eyes used
+to inspire the sensitive lad with a certain terror, and he therefore
+decided to have done with them. "Take that!" and he ran his sword
+through the old chipped picture, making two gashes replace the
+challenging eyes. Then he added a few gashes more for good measure....
+That same evening, his godfather having been invited to supper, the
+notary spoke of a certain portrait acquired a few months before in the
+neighborhood of Játiva, a city that he had always regarded with
+interest on account of the Borgias having been born in one of its
+suburbs. The two men were of the same opinion. That almost infantile
+prelate could have been no other than Caesar Borgia, made Archbishop of
+Valencia when sixteen years old by his father, the Pope. On their first
+free day they would examine the portrait with particular attention....
+And Ulysses, hanging his head, felt every mouthful sticking in his
+throat.
+
+For the fanciful lad, a pleasure even more intense and substantial than
+his lonely games in the garret was a visit to his godfather's home; to
+his childish eyes, this godparent, the lawyer, Don Carmelo Labarta, was
+the personification of the ideal life, of glory, of poesy. The notary
+was wont to speak of him with enthusiasm, yet pitying him at the same
+time.
+
+"That poor Don Carmelo!... The leading authority of the age in civilian
+matters! By applying himself he might earn some money, but verses
+attracted him more than lawsuits."
+
+Ulysses used to enter his office with keen emotion. Above rows of
+multicolored and gilded books that covered the walls, he saw some great
+plaster heads with towering foreheads and vacant eyes that seemed
+always to be contemplating an immense nothingness.
+
+The child could repeat their names like a fragment from a choir book,
+from Homer to Victor Hugo. Then his glance would seek another head
+equally glorious although less white, with blonde and grizzled beard,
+rubicund nose and bilious cheeks that in certain moments scattered bits
+of scale. The sweet eyes of his godfather--yellowish eyes spotted with
+black dots--used to receive Ulysses with the doting affection of an
+aging, old bachelor who needs to invent a family. He it was who had
+given him at the baptismal font the name which had awakened so much
+admiration and ridicule among his school companions; with the patience
+of an old grand-sire narrating saintly stories to his descendants, he
+would tell Ulysses over and over the adventures of the navigating King
+of Ithaca for whom he had been named.
+
+With no less devotion did the lad regard all the souvenirs of glory
+that adorned his house--wreaths of golden leaves, silver cups, nude
+marble statuettes, placques of different metals upon plush backgrounds
+on which glistened imperishably the name of the poet Labarta. All this
+booty the tireless Knight of Letters had conquered by means of his
+verse.
+
+When the Floral Games were announced, the competitors used to tremble
+lest it might occur to the great Don Carmelo to hanker after some of
+the premiums. With astonishing facility he used to carry off the
+natural flower awarded for the heroic ode, the cup of gold for the
+amorous romance, the pair of statues dedicated to the most complete
+historical study, the marble bust for the best legend in prose, and
+even the "art bronze" reward of philological study. The other aspirants
+might try for the left-overs.
+
+Fortunately he had confined himself to local literature, and his
+inspiration would not admit any other drapery than that of Valencian
+verse. Next to Valencia and its past glories, Greece claimed his
+admiration. Once a year Ulysses beheld him arrayed in his frock coat,
+his chest starred with decorations and in his lapel the golden cicada,
+badge of the poets of Provence.
+
+He it was who was going to be celebrated in the fiesta of Provençal
+literature, in which he always played the principal role; he was the
+prize bard, lecturer, or simple idol to whom other poets were
+dedicating their eulogies--clerics given to rhyming, personifiers of
+religious images, silk-weavers who felt the vulgarity of their
+existence perturbed by the itchings of inspiration--all the brotherhood
+of popular bards of the ingenuous and domestic brand who recalled the
+_Meistersingers_ of the old German cities.
+
+His godson always imagined him with a crown of laurel on his brows just
+like those mysterious blind poets whose portraits and busts ornamented
+the library. In real life he saw perfectly well that his head had no
+such adornment, but reality lost its value before the firmness of his
+conceptions. His godfather certainly must wear a wreath when he was not
+present. Undoubtedly he was accustomed to wear it as a house cap when
+by himself.
+
+Another thing which he greatly admired about the grand man was his
+extensive travels. He had lived in distant Madrid--the scene of almost
+all the novels read by Ulysses--and once upon a time he had crossed the
+frontier, going courageously into a remote country called the south of
+France, in order to visit another poet whom he was accustomed to call
+"My friend, Mistral." And the lad's imagination, hasty and illogical in
+its decisions, used to envelop his godfather in a halo of historic
+interest, similar to that of the conquerors.
+
+At the stroke of the twelve o'clock chimes Labarta, who never permitted
+any informality in table matters, would become very impatient, cutting
+short the account of his journeys and triumphs.
+
+"Doña Pepa!... We have a guest here."
+
+Doña Pepa was the housekeeper, the great man's companion who for the
+past fifteen years had been chained to the chariot of his glory. The
+portières would part and through them would advance a huge bosom
+protruding above an abdomen cruelly corseted. Afterwards, long
+afterwards, would appear a white and radiant countenance, a face like a
+full moon, and while her smile like a night star was greeting the
+little Ulysses, the dorsal complement of her body kept on coming
+in--forty carnal years, fresh, exuberant, tremendous.
+
+The notary and his wife always spoke of Doña Pepa as of a familiar
+person, but the child never had seen her in their home. Doña Cristina
+used to eulogize her care of the poet--but distantly and with no desire
+to make her acquaintance--while Don Esteban would make excuses for the
+great man.
+
+"What can you expect!... He is an artist, and artists are not able to
+live as God commands. All of them, however dignified they may appear,
+are rather carnal at heart. What a pity! such an eminent lawyer!... The
+money that he could make...!"
+
+His father's lamentations opened up new horizons to the little fellow's
+suspicions. Suddenly he grasped the prime motive force of our
+existence, hitherto only conjectured and enveloped in mystery. His
+godfather had relations with a woman; he was enamored like the heroes
+of the novels! And the boy recalled many of his Valencian poems, all
+rhapsodizing a lady--sometimes singing of her great beauty with the
+rapture and noble lassitude of a recent possession; at others
+complaining of her coldness, begging of her that disposition of her
+soul without which the gift of the body is as naught.
+
+Ulysses imagined to himself a grand señora as beautiful as Doña
+Constanza. At the very least, she must be a Marchioness. His godfather
+certainly deserved that much! And he also imagined to himself that
+their rendezvous must be in the morning, in one of the strawberry
+gardens near the city, where his parents were accustomed to take him
+for his breakfast chocolate after hearing the first dawn service on the
+Sundays of April and May.
+
+Much later, when seated at his godfather's table, he surprised the poet
+exchanging glances over his head with the housekeeper, and began to
+suspect that possibly Doña Pepa might be the inspiration of so much
+lachrymose and enthusiastic verse. But his great loyalty rebelled
+before such a supposition. No, no, it could not be possible; assuredly
+there must be another!
+
+The notary, who for long years had been friendly with Labarta, kept
+trying to direct him with his practical spirit, like the boy who guides
+a blind man. A modest income inherited from his parents was enough for
+the poet to live upon. In vain his friend brought him cases that
+represented enormous fees. The voluminous documents would become
+covered with dust on his table and Don Esteban would have to saddle
+himself with the dates in order that the end of the legal procedures
+should not slip by.
+
+His son, Ulysses would be a very different sort of man, thought the
+notary. In his mind's eye he could see the lad as a great civilian
+jurist like his godfather, but with a positive activity inherited from
+his father. Fortune would enter through his doors on waves of stamped
+paper.
+
+Furthermore, he would also possess the notarial studio--the dusty
+office with its ancient furniture and great wardrobes, with its screen
+doors and green curtains, behind which reposed the volumes of the
+protocol, covered with yellowing calfskin with initials and numbers on
+their backs. Don Esteban realized fully all that his study represented.
+
+"There is no orange grove," he would say in his expansive moments;
+"there are no rice plantations that can produce what this estate does.
+Here there are no frosts, nor strong sea winds, nor inundations."
+
+The clientele was certain--people from the church, who had the devotees
+back of them and considered Don Esteban as one of their class, and
+farmers, many rich farmers. The families of the country folk, whenever
+they heard any talk about smart men, always thought immediately of the
+notary from Valencia. With religious veneration they saw him adjust his
+spectacles in order to read as an expert the bill of sale or dowry
+contract that his amanuenses had just drawn up. It was written in
+Castilian and for the better understanding of his listeners he would
+read it, without the slightest hesitation, in Valencian. What a man!...
+
+Afterwards, while the contracting parties were signing it, the notary
+raising the little glass window at the front, would entertain the
+assembly with some local legends, always decent, without any illusions
+to the sins of the flesh, but always those in which the digestive
+organs figured with every degree of license. The clients would roar
+with laughter, captivated by this funny eschatalogy, and would haggle
+less in the matter of fees. Famous Don Esteban!... Just for the
+pleasure of hearing his yarns they would have liked a legal paper drawn
+up every month.
+
+The future destiny of the notarial crown prince was the object of many
+after-dinner conversations on the special days when the poet was an
+invited guest.
+
+"What do you want to be?" Labarta asked his godson.
+
+His mother's supplicating glance seemed desperately to implore the
+little fellow: "Say Archbishop, my king." For the good señora, her son
+could not make his début in any other way than in a church career. The
+notary always used to speak very positively from his own viewpoint,
+without consulting the interested party. He would be an eminent
+jurisconsult; thousands of dollars were going to roll toward him as
+though they were pennies; he was going to figure in university
+solemnities in a cloak of crimson satin and an academic cap announcing
+from its multiple sides the tasseled glory of the doctorate. The
+students in his lecture-room would listen to him most respectfully. Who
+knew what the government of his country might not have in store for
+him!...
+
+Ulysses interrupted these images of future grandeur:
+
+"I want to be a captain."
+
+The poet approved. He felt the unreflective enthusiasm which all
+pacific and sedentary beings have for the plume and the sword. At the
+mere sight of a uniform his soul always thrilled with the amorous
+tenderness of a child's nurse when she finds herself courted by a
+soldier.
+
+"Fine!" said Labarta. "Captain of what?... Of artillery?... Of the
+staff?..."
+
+A pause.
+
+"No; captain of a ship."
+
+Don Esteban looked up at the roof, raising his hands in horror. He well
+knew who was guilty of this ridiculous idea, the one who had put such
+absurd longings in his son's head!
+
+And he was thinking of his brother, the retired doctor, who was living
+in the paternal home over there in the _Marina:_--an excellent man, but
+a little crazy, whom the people on the coast called the _Dotor_, and
+the poet Labarta had nicknamed the _Triton_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+MATER AMPHITRITE
+
+When the _Triton_ occasionally appeared in Valencia, thrifty Doña
+Cristina was obliged to modify the dietary of her family. This man ate
+nothing but fish, and her soul of an economical housewife worried
+greatly at the thought of the extraordinarily high price that fish
+brings in a port of exportation.
+
+Life in that house, where everything always jogged along so uniformly,
+was greatly upset by the presence of the doctor. A little after
+daybreak, just when its inhabitants were usually enjoying the dessert
+of their night's sleep, hearing drowsily the rumble of the early
+morning carts and the bell-ringing of the first Masses, the house would
+reëcho to the rude banging of doors and heavy footsteps making the
+stairway creak. It was the _Triton_ rushing out on the street,
+incapable of remaining between four walls after the first streak of
+light. Following the currents of the early morning life, he would reach
+the market, stopping before the flower stands where were the most
+numerous gatherings of women.
+
+The eyes of the women turned toward him instinctively with an
+expression of interest and fear. Some blushed as he passed by,
+imagining against their will what an embrace from this hideous and
+restless Colossus must be.
+
+"He is capable of crushing a flea on his arm," the sailors of his
+village used to boast when trying to emphasize the hardness of his
+biceps. His body lacked fat, and under his swarthy skin bulged great,
+rigid and protruding muscles--an Herculean texture from which had been
+eliminated every element incapable of producing strength. Labarta found
+in him a great resemblance to the marine divinities. He was Neptune
+before his head had silvered, or Poseidon as the primitive Greek poets
+had seen him with hair black and curly, features tanned by the salt
+air, and with a ringleted beard whose two spiral ends seemed formed by
+the dripping of the water of the sea. The nose somewhat flattened by a
+blow received in his youth, and the little eyes, oblique and tenacious,
+gave to his countenance an expression of Asiatic ferocity, but this
+impression melted away when his mouth parted in a smile, showing his
+even, glistening teeth, the teeth of a man of the sea accustomed to
+live upon salt food.
+
+During the first few days of his visit he would wander through the
+streets wavering and bewildered. He was afraid of the carriages; the
+patter of the passers-by on the pavements annoyed him; he, who had seen
+the most important ports of both hemispheres, complained of the bustle
+in the capital of a province. Finally he would instinctively take the
+road from the harbor in search of the sea, his eternal friend, the
+first to salute him every morning upon opening the door of his own home
+down there on the _Marina_.
+
+On these excursions he would oftentimes be accompanied by his little
+nephew. The bustle on the docks,--(the creaking of the cranes, the dull
+rumble of the carts, the deafening cries of the freighters),--always
+had for him a certain music reminiscent of his youth when he was
+traveling as a doctor on a transatlantic steamer.
+
+His eyes also received a caress from the past upon taking in the
+panorama of the port--steamers smoking, sailboats with their canvas
+spread out in the sunlight, bulwarks of orange crates, pyramids of
+onions, walls of sacks of rice and compact rows of wine casks paunch to
+paunch. And coming to meet the outgoing cargo were long lines of
+unloaded goods being lined up as they arrived--hills of coal coming
+from England, sacks of cereal from the Black Sea, dried codfish from
+Newfoundland sounding like parchment skins as they thudded down on the
+dock, impregnating the atmosphere with their salty dust, and yellow
+lumber from Norway that still held a perfume of the pine woods.
+
+Oranges and onions fallen from the crates were rotting in the sun,
+scattering their sweet and acrid juices. The sparrows were hopping
+around the mountains of wheat, flitting timidly away when hearing
+approaching footsteps. Over the blue surface of the harbor waters the
+sea gulls of the Mediterranean, small, fine and white as doves, twined
+in and out in their interminable contra-dances.
+
+The _Triton_ went on enumerating to his nephew the class and specialty
+of every kind of vessel; and upon discovering that Ulysses was capable
+of confusing a brigantine with a frigate, he would roar in scandalized
+amazement.
+
+"Heavens! Then what in the devil do they teach your in school?..."
+
+Upon passing near the citizens of Valencia seated on the wharves,
+fishing rod in hand, he would shoot a glance of commiseration toward
+their empty baskets. Over there by his house on the coast, before the
+sun would be up, he would already have covered the bottom of his boat
+with enough to eat for a week. The misery of the cities!
+
+Standing on the last points of the rocky ledge, his glance would sweep
+the immense plain, describing to his nephew the mysteries hidden beyond
+the horizon. At their left, beyond the blue mountains of Oropesa, which
+bound the Valencian gulf, he could see in imagination Barcelona, where
+he had numerous friends, Marseilles, that prolongation of the Orient
+fastened on the European coast, and Genoa with its terraced palaces on
+hills covered with gardens. Then his vision would lose itself on the
+horizon stretching out in front of him. That was the road of his happy
+youth.
+
+Straight ahead in a direct line was Naples with its smoking mountain,
+its music and its swarthy dancing girls with hoop earrings; further on,
+the Isles of Greece; at the foot of an Aquatic Street, Constantinople;
+and still beyond, bordering the great liquid court of the Black Sea, a
+series of ports where the Argonauts--sunk in a seething mass of races,
+fondled by the felinism of slaves, the voluptuosity of the Orientals,
+and the avarice of the Jews--were fast forgetting their origin.
+
+At their right was Africa; the Egyptian ports with their traditional
+corruption that at sunset was beginning to tremble and steam like a
+fetid morass; Alexandria in whose low coffee houses were imitation
+Oriental dancers with no more clothes than a pocket handkerchief, every
+woman of a different nation and shrieking in chorus all the languages
+of the earth....
+
+The doctor withdrew his eyes from the sea in order to observe his
+flattened nose. He was recalling a night of Egyptian heat increased by
+the fumes of whiskey; the familiarity of the half-clad public women,
+the scuffle with some ruddy Northern sailors, the encounter in the dark
+which obliged him to flee with bleeding face to the ship that,
+fortunately, was weighing anchor at dawn. Like all Mediterranean men,
+he never went ashore without wearing a dagger hidden on his person, and
+he had to "sting" with it in order to make way for himself.
+
+"What times those were!" said the _Triton_ with more regret and
+homesickness than remorse; and then he would add by way of excuse, "Ay,
+but then I was only twenty-four years old!"
+
+These memories made him turn his eyes toward a huge bluish bulk
+extending out into the sea and looking to the casual spectator like a
+great barren island. It was the promontory crowned by the Mongó, the
+great Ferrarian promontory of the ancient geographers, the
+furthest-reaching point of the peninsula in the lower Mediterranean
+that closes the Gulf of Valencia on the south.
+
+It had the form of a hand whose digits were mountains, but lacked the
+thumb. The other four fingers extended out into the waves, forming the
+capes of San Antonio, San Martin, La Nao and Almoraira. In one of their
+coves was the _Triton's_ native village, and the home of the
+Ferraguts--hunters of black pirates in other days, contrabandists at
+times in modern days, sailors in all ages, appearing originally,
+perhaps, from those first wooden horses that came leaping over the foam
+seething around the promontory.
+
+In that home in the _Marina_ he wished to live and die, with no further
+desire of seeing more lands, with that sudden immovability that attacks
+the vagabonds of the waves and makes them fix themselves upon a ledge
+of the coast like a mollusk or bunch of seaweed.
+
+Soon the _Triton_ grew tired of these strolls to the harbor. The sea of
+Valencia was not a real sea for him. The waters of the river and of the
+irrigation canals disturbed him. When it rained in the mountains of
+Aragon, an earthy liquid always discharged itself into the Gulf,
+tinting the waves with flesh color and the foam with yellow. Besides,
+it was impossible to indulge in his daily sport of swimming. One winter
+morning, when he began to undress himself on the beach, the crowd
+gathered around him as though attracted by a phenomenon. Even the fish
+of the Gulf had to him an insufferable slimy taste.
+
+"I'm going back home," he would finally say to the notary and his wife.
+"I can't understand how in the world you are able to live here!"
+
+In one of these retreats to the _Marina_ he insisted upon taking
+Ulysses home with him. The summer season was beginning, the boy would
+be free from school for three months, and the notary, who was not able
+to go far away from the city, was going to pass the summer with his
+family on the beach at Cabañal checkered by bad-smelling irrigation
+canals near a forlorn sea. The little fellow was looking very pale and
+weak on account of his studies and hectoring. His uncle would make him
+as strong and agile as a dolphin. And in spite of some very lively
+disputes, he succeeded in snatching the child away from Doña Cristina.
+
+The first things that Ulysses admired upon entering the doctor's home
+were the three frigates adorning the ceiling of the dining-room--three
+marvelous vessels in which there was not lacking a single sail nor
+pulley rope, nor anchor, and which might be made to sail over the sea
+at a moment's notice.
+
+They were the work of his grandfather Ferragut. Wishing to release his
+two sons from the marine service which had weighed upon the family for
+many centuries, he had sent them to the University of Valencia in order
+that they might become inland gentlemen. The older, Esteban, had
+scarcely terminated his career before he obtained a notaryship in
+Catalunia. The younger one, Antonio, became a doctor so as not to
+thwart the old man's wishes, but as soon as he acquired his degree he
+offered his services to a transatlantic steamer. His father had closed
+the door of the sea against him and he had entered by the window.
+
+And so, as Ferragut Senior began to grow old, he lived completely
+alone. He used to look after his property--a few vineyards scattered
+along the coast in sight of his home--and was in frequent
+correspondence with his son, the notary. From time to time there came a
+letter from the younger one, his favorite, posted in remote countries
+that the old Mediterranean seaman knew only by hearsay. And during his
+long, dull hours in the shade of his arbor facing the blue and luminous
+sea, he used to entertain himself constructing these little models of
+boats. They were all frigates of great tonnage and fearless sail. Thus
+the old skipper would console himself for having commanded during his
+lifetime only heavy and clumsy merchant vessels like the ships of other
+centuries, in which he used to carry wine from Cette or cargo
+prohibited in Gibraltar and the coast of Africa.
+
+Ulysses was not long in recognizing the rare popularity enjoyed by his
+uncle, the doctor--a popularity composed of the most antagonistic
+elements. The people used to smile in speaking of him as though he were
+a little touched, yet they dared to indulge in these smiles only when
+at a safe distance, for he inspired a certain terror in all of them. At
+the same time they used to admire him as a local celebrity, for he had
+traversed all seas, and possessed, besides, a violent and tempestuous
+strength which was the terror and pride of his neighbors. The husky
+youths when testing the vigor of their fists, boxing with crews of the
+English vessels that came there for cargoes of raisins, used to evoke
+the doctor's name as a consolation in case of defeat. "If only the
+_Dotor_ could have been here!... Half a dozen Englishmen are nothing to
+him!"
+
+There was no vigorous undertaking, however absurd it might be, that
+they would not believe him capable of. He used to inspire the faith of
+the miracle-working saints and audacious highway captains. On calm,
+sunshiny winter mornings the people would often go running down to the
+beach, looking anxiously over the lonely sea. The veterans who were
+toasting themselves in the sun near the overturned boats, on scanning
+the broad horizon, would finally discern an almost imperceptible point,
+a grain of sand dancing capriciously on the waves.
+
+They would all break into shouts and conjectures. It was a buoy, a
+piece of masthead, the drift from a distant shipwreck. For the women it
+was somebody drowned, so bloated that it was floating like a leather
+bottle, after having been many days in the water.
+
+Suddenly the same supposition would arise in every perplexed mind. "I
+wonder if it could be the _Dotor!_" A long silence.... The bit of wood
+was taking the form of a head; the corpse was moving. Many could now
+perceive the bubble of foam around his chest that was advancing like
+the prow of a ship, and the vigorous strokes of his arms.... "Yes, it
+surely was the _Dotor!_"... The old sea dogs loaned their telescopes to
+one another in order to recognize his beard sunk in the water and his
+face, contracted by his efforts or expanded by his snortings.
+
+And the _Dotor_ was soon treading the dry beach, naked and as serenely
+unashamed as a god, giving his hand to the men, while the women
+shrieked, lifting their aprons in front of one eye--terrified, yet
+admiring the dripping vision.
+
+All the capes of the promontory challenged him to double them, swimming
+like a dolphin; he felt impelled to measure all the bays and coves with
+his arms, like a proprietor who distrusts another's measurements and
+rectifies them in order to affirm his right of possession. He was a
+human bark who, with the keel of his breast, cut the foam, whirling
+through the sunken rocks and the pacific waters in whose depths
+sparkled fishes among mother-of-pearl twigs and stars moving like
+flowers.
+
+He used to seat himself to rest on the black rocks with overskirts of
+seaweed that raised or lowered their fringe at the caprice of the wave,
+awaiting the night and the chance vessel that might come to dash
+against them like a piece of bark. Like a marine reptile he had even
+penetrated certain caves of the coast, drowsy and glacial lakes
+illuminated by mysterious openings where the atmosphere is black and
+the water transparent, where the swimmer has a bust of ebony and legs
+of crystal. In the course of these swimming expeditions he ate all the
+living beings he encountered fastened to the rocks by antennas and
+arms. The friction of the great, terrified fish that fled, bumping
+against him with the violence of a projectile, used to make him laugh.
+
+In the night hours passed before his grandfather's little ships,
+Ulysses used to hear the _Triton_ speak of the _Peje Nicolao_, a
+man-fish of the Straits of Messina mentioned by Cervantes and other
+authors, who lived in the water maintaining himself by the donations
+from the ships. His uncle must be some relative of this _Peje Nicolao_.
+At other times this uncle would mention a certain Greek who in order to
+see his lady-love swam the Hellespont every night. And he, who used to
+know the Dardanelles, was longing to return there as a simple passenger
+merely that a poet named Lord Byron might not be the only one to
+imitate the legendary crossing.
+
+The books that he kept in his home, the nautical charts fastened to the
+walls, the flasks and jars filled with the animal and vegetable life of
+the sea, and more than all this, his tastes which were so at variance
+with the customs of his neighbors, had given the _Triton_ the
+reputation of a mysterious sage, the fame of a wizard.
+
+All those who were well and strong considered him crazy, but the moment
+that there was the slightest break in their health they would share the
+same faith as the poor women who oftentimes passed long hours in the
+home of the _Dotor_, seeing his bark afar off and patiently awaiting
+his return from the sea, in order to show him the sick children they
+carried in their arms. He had an advantage over all other doctors, as
+he made no charge for his services; better still, many sick people came
+away from his house with money in their hands.
+
+The _Dotor_ was rich--the richest man in the countryside; a man who
+really did not know what to do with his money. His maid-servant--an old
+woman who had known his father and served his mother--used daily to
+receive from his hands the fish provided for the two with a regal
+generosity. The _Triton_, who had hoisted sail at daybreak, used to
+disembark before eleven, and soon the purpling lobster was crackling on
+the red coals, sending forth delicious odors; the stew pot was bubbling
+away, thickening its broth with the succulent fat of the sea-scorpion;
+the oil in the frying pan was singing, browning the flame-colored skin
+of the salmonettes; and the sea urchins and the mussels opened hissing
+under his knife, were emptying their still living pulp into the boiling
+stew pan. Furthermore, a cow with full udders was mooing in the yard,
+and dozens of chickens with innumerable broods were cackling
+incessantly.
+
+The flour kneaded and baked by his servant, and the coffee thick as
+mud, was all that the _Triton_ purchased with his money. If he hunted
+for a bottle of brandy on his return from a swim, it was only to use it
+in rubbing himself down.
+
+Money entered through his doors once a year, when the girls of the
+vintage lined up among the trellises of his vineyards, cutting the
+bunches of little, close fruit and spreading them out to dry in some
+small sheds called _riurraus_. Thus was produced the small raisin
+preferred by the English for the making of their puddings. The sale was
+a sure thing, the boats always coming from the north to get the fruit.
+And the _Triton_, upon finding five or six thousand pesetas in his
+hand, would be greatly perplexed, inwardly asking himself what a man
+was ever going to do with so much money.
+
+"All this is yours," he said, showing the house to his nephew.
+
+His also the boat, the books and the antique furniture in whose drawers
+the money was so openly hid that it invited attention.
+
+In spite of seeing himself lord of all that surrounded him, a rough and
+affectionate despotism, kept nevertheless, weighing the child down. He
+was very far from his mother, that good lady who was always closing the
+windows near him and never letting him go out without tying his
+neckscarf around him with an accompaniment of kisses.
+
+Just when he was sleeping soundest, believing that the night would
+still be many hours longer, he would feel himself awakened by a violent
+tugging at his leg. His uncle could not touch him in any other way.
+"Get up, cabin boy!" In vain he would protest with the profound
+sleepiness of youth.... Was he, or was he not the "ship's cat" of the
+bark of which his uncle was the captain and only crew?...
+
+His uncle's paws bared him to the blasts of salt air that were entering
+through the windows. The sea was dark and veiled by a light fog. The
+last stars were sparkling with twinkles of surprise, ready to flee. A
+crack began to appear on the leaden horizon, growing redder and redder
+every minute, like a wound through which the blood is flowing. The
+ship's cat was loaded up with various empty baskets, the skipper
+marching before him like a warrior of the waves, carrying the oars on
+his shoulders, his feet rapidly making hollows on the sand. Behind him
+the village was beginning to awaken and, over the dark waters, the
+sails of the fishermen, fleeing the inner sea, were slipping past like
+ghostly shrouds.
+
+Two vigorous strokes of the oar sent their boat out from the little
+wharf of stones, and soon he was untying the sails from the gunwales
+and preparing the ropes. The unfurled canvas whistled and swelled in
+bellying whiteness. "There we are! Now for a run!"
+
+The water was beginning to sing, slipping past both sides of the prow.
+Between it and the edge of the sail could be seen a bit of black sea,
+and coming little by little over its line, a great red streak. The
+streak soon became a helmet, then a hemisphere, then an Arabian arch
+confined at the bottom, until finally it shot up out of the liquid mass
+as though it were a bomb sending forth flashes of flame. The
+ash-colored clouds became stained with blood and the large rocks of the
+coast began to sparkle like copper mirrors. As the last stars were
+extinguished, a swarm of fire-colored fishes came trailing along before
+the prow, forming a triangle with its point in the horizon. The mist on
+the mountain tops was taking on a rose color as though its whiteness
+were reflecting a submarine eruption. "_Bon dia!_" called the doctor to
+Ulysses, who was occupied in warming his hands stiffened by the wind.
+
+And, moved with childlike joy by the dawn of a new day, the _Triton_
+sent his bass voice booming across the maritime silence, several times
+intoning sentimental melodies that in his youth he had heard sung by a
+vaudeville prima donna dressed as a ship's boy, at other times caroling
+in Valencian the chanteys of the coast--fishermen's songs invented as
+they drew in their nets, in which most shameless words were flung
+together on the chance of making them rhyme. In certain windings of the
+coast the sail would be lowered, leaving the boat with no other motion
+than a gentle rocking around its anchor rope.
+
+Upon seeing the space which had been obscured by the shadow of the
+boat's hulk, Ulysses found the bottom of the sea so near that he almost
+believed that he could touch it with the point of his oar. The rocks
+were like glass. In their interstices and hollows the plants were
+moving like living creatures, and the little animals had the
+immovability of vegetables and stones. The boat appeared to be floating
+in the air and athwart the liquid atmosphere that wraps this abysmal
+world, the fish hooks were dangling, and a swarm of fishes was swimming
+and wriggling toward its encounter with death.
+
+It was a sparkling effervescence of yellowing flames, of bluish backs
+and rosy fins. Some came out from the caves silvered and vibrant as
+lightning flashes of mercury; others swam slowly, big-bellied, almost
+circular, with a golden coat of mail. Along the slopes, the crustaceans
+came scrambling along on their double row of claws attracted by this
+novelty that was changing the mortal calm of the under-sea where all
+follow and devour, only to be devoured in turn. Near the surface
+floated the medusae, living parasols of an opaline whiteness with
+circular borders of lilac or red bronze. Under their gelatinous domes
+was the skein of filaments that served them for locomotion, nutrition
+and reproduction.
+
+The fishermen had only to pull in their lines and a new prisoner would
+fall into their boat. Their baskets were filling up so fast that the
+_Triton_ and his nephew grew tired of this easy fishing.... The sun was
+now near the height of its curve, and every wavelet was carrying away a
+bit of the golden band that divided the blue immensity. The wood of the
+boat appeared to be on fire.
+
+"We've earned our day's pay," said the _Triton_, looking at the sky and
+then at the baskets. "Now let's clean up a little bit."
+
+And stripping off his clothing, he threw himself into the sea. Ulysses
+saw him descend from the center of the ring of foam opened by his body,
+and could gauge by it the profundity of that fantastic world composed
+of glassy rocks, animal plants and stone animals. As it went down, the
+tawny body of the swimmer took on the transparency of porcelain. It
+appeared of bluish crystal--a statue made of a Venetian mirror
+composition that was going to break as soon as it touched the bottom.
+
+Like a god he was passing through the deeps, snatching plants out by
+the roots, pursuing with his hands the flashes of vermilion and gold
+hidden in the cracks of the rocks. Minutes would pass by; he was going
+to stay down forever; he would never come up again. And the boy was
+beginning to think uneasily of the possibility of having to guide the
+bark back to the coast all alone. Suddenly the body of white crystal
+began taking on a greenish hue, growing larger and larger, becoming
+dark and coppery, until above the surface appeared the head of the
+swimmer, who, spouting and snorting, was holding up all his submarine
+plunder to the little fellow.
+
+"Now then, your turn!" he ordered in an imperious tone.
+
+All attempts at resistance were useless. His uncle either insulted him
+with the harshest kind of words or coaxed him with promises of safety.
+He never knew certainly whether he threw himself into the water or
+whether a tug from the doctor jerked him from the boat. The first
+surprise having passed, he had the impression of remembering some long
+forgotten thing. He was swimming instinctively, divining what he ought
+to do before his master told him. Within him was awakening the
+ancestral experience of a race of sailors who had struggled with the
+sea and, sometimes, had remained forever in its bosom.
+
+Recollection of what was existing beyond his feet suddenly made him
+lose his serenity,--his lively imagination making him shriek,
+
+"Uncle!... Uncle!"
+
+And he clutched convulsively at the hard island of bearded and smiling
+muscles. His uncle came up immovable, as though his feet of stone were
+fastened to the bottom of the ocean. He was like the nearby promontory
+that was darkening and chilling the water with its ebony shadow.
+
+Thus would slip by the mornings devoted to fishing and swimming; then
+in the afternoons there were tramps over the steep shores of the coast.
+
+The _Dotor_ knew the heights of the promontory as well as its depths.
+Up the pathways of the wild goat they clambered to its peaks in order
+to get a view of the Island of Ibiza. At sunset the distant Balearic
+Islands appeared like a rose-colored flame rising out of the waves. At
+other times the cronies made trips along the water's edge, and the
+_Triton_ would show his nephew hidden caves into which the
+Mediterranean was working its way with slow undulations. These were
+like maritime roadsteads where boats might anchor completely concealed
+from view. There the galleys of the Berbers had often hidden, in order
+to fall unexpectedly upon a nearby village.
+
+In one of these caves, on a rocky pedestal, Ulysses often saw a heap of
+bundles.
+
+"Well, now, what of it!" expostulated the doctor. "Every man must gain
+his living as best he can."
+
+When they stumbled upon a solitary custom house officer resting upon
+his gun and looking out toward the sea, the doctor would offer him a
+cigar and give him medical advice if he were sick. "Poor men! so badly
+paid!"... But his sympathies were always going out to the others--to
+the enemies of the law. He was the son of his sea, and in the make-up
+of all Mediterranean heroes and sailors there had always been something
+of the pirate or smuggler. The Phoenicians, who by their navigation
+spread abroad the first works of civilization, instituted this service,
+reaping their reward by filling their barks with stolen women, rich
+merchandise of easy transportation.
+
+Piracy and smuggling had formed the historic past of all the villages
+that Ulysses was visiting, some huddled in the shelter of the
+promontory crowned with a lighthouse, others opening on the concavity
+of a bay dotted with barren islands girdled with foam. The old churches
+had turrets on their walls and loopholes in their doors for shooting
+with culverins and blunderbusses. The entire neighborhood used to take
+refuge in them when the smoke columns from their watchmen would warn
+them of the landing of pirates from Algiers. Following the curvings of
+the promontory there was a dotted line of reddish towers, each one
+accompanied by a smaller pair for lookouts. This line extended along
+the south toward the Straits of Gibraltar, and on its northern side
+reached to France.
+
+The doctor had seen their counterpart in all the islands of the western
+Mediterranean, on the coasts of Naples and in Sicily. They were the
+fortifications of a thousand-year war, of a struggle ten centuries long
+between Moors and Christians for the domination of the blue sea, a
+struggle of piracy in which the Mediterranean men--differentiated by
+religion, but identical at heart--had prolonged the adventures of the
+Odyssey down to the beginnings of the nineteenth century.
+
+Ferragut gradually became acquainted with many old men of the village
+who in their youth had been slaves in Algiers. On winter evenings the
+oldest of them were still singing romances of captivity and speaking
+with terror of the Berber brigantines. These thieves of the sea must
+have had a pact with the devil, who notified them of opportune
+occasions. If in a convent some beautiful novices had just made their
+profession, the doors would give away at midnight under the
+hatchet-blows of the bearded demons who were advancing inland from the
+galleys prepared to receive their cargo of feminine freight. If a girl
+of the coast, celebrated for her beauty, was going to be married, the
+infidels, lying in wait, would surround the door of the church,
+shooting their blunderbusses and knifing the unarmed men as they came
+out, in order to carry away the women in their festal robes.
+
+On all the coast, the pirates stood in awe only of the navigators from
+the _Marina_, so fearless and warlike were they. If their villages were
+ever attacked, it was because their seafaring defenders were on the
+Mediterranean and, in their turn, had gone to sack and burn some
+village on the coast of Africa.
+
+The _Triton_ and his nephew used to eat their supper under the arbor in
+the long summer twilights. After the cloth was removed Ulysses would
+manipulate his grandfather's little frigates, learning the technical
+parts and names of the different apparatus, and the management of the
+sets of sails. Sometimes the two would stay out on the rustic porch
+until a late hour gazing out over the luminous sea sparkling under the
+splendor of the moon, or streaked with a slender wake of starry light
+in the murky nights.
+
+All that mankind had ever written or dreamed about the Mediterranean,
+the doctor had in his library and could repeat to his eager little
+listener. In Ferragut's estimation the _mare nostrum_ ["Mare Nostrum"
+(Our Sea), the classic name for the Mediterranean.] was a species of
+blue beast, powerful and of great intelligence--a sacred animal like
+the dragons and serpents that certain religions adored, believing them
+to be the source of life. The rivers that threw themselves impetuously
+into its bosom in order to renew it were few and scanty. The Rhone and
+the Nile appeared to be pitiful little rivulets compared with the river
+courses of other continents that empty into the oceans.
+
+Losing by evaporation three times more liquid than the rivers bring to
+it, this sunburnt sea would soon have been converted into a great salt
+desert were not the Atlantic sending it a rapid current of renewal that
+was precipitated through the Straits of Gibraltar. Under this
+superficial current existed still another, flowing in an opposite
+direction, that returned a part of the Mediterranean to the ocean,
+because the Mediterranean waters were more salt and dense than those of
+the Atlantic. The tide scarcely made itself felt on its strands. Its
+basin was mined by subterranean fires that were always seeking
+extraordinary outlets through Vesuvius and Aetna and breathed
+continually through the mouth of Stromboli. Sometimes these Plutonic
+ebullitions would come to the surface, making new islands rise up upon
+the waters like tumors of lava.
+
+In its bosom exist still double the quantity of animal species that
+abound in other seas, although less numerous. The tunny fish, playful
+lambs of the blue pasture lands, were gamboling over its surface or
+passing in schools under the furrows of the waves. Men were setting
+netted traps for them along the coasts of Spain and France, in
+Sardinia, the Straits of Messina and the waters of the Adriatic. But
+this wholesale slaughter scarcely lessened the compact, fishy
+squadrons. After wandering through the windings of the Grecian
+Archipelago, they passed the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, stirring
+the two narrow passageways with the violence of their invisible
+gallopade and making a turn at the bowl of the Black Sea, swimming
+back, decimated but impetuous, to the depths of the Mediterranean.
+
+Red coral was forming immovable groves on the substrata of the Balearic
+Islands, and on the coasts of Naples and Africa. Ambergris was
+constantly being found on the steep shores of Sicily. Sponges were
+growing in the tranquil waters in the shadow of the great rocks of
+Mallorca and the Isles of Greece. Naked men without any equipment
+whatever, holding their breath, were still descending to the bottom as
+in primitive times, in order to snatch these treasures away.
+
+The doctor gave up his geographic descriptions to discourse on the
+history of his sea, which had indeed been the history of civilization,
+and was more fascinating to him. At first miserable and scanty tribes
+had wandered along its coasts seeking their food from the crustaceans
+drawn from the waves--a life similar to that of the rudimentary people
+that Ferragut had seen in the islands of the Pacific. When stone saws
+had hollowed out the trunks of trees and human arms had ventured to
+spread the first rawhides to the forces of the atmosphere, the coasts
+became rapidly populated.
+
+Temples were constructed on the promontories, and maritime cities--the
+first nuclei of modern civilization--came into existence. On this
+landlocked sea mankind had learned the art of navigation. Every one
+looked at the waves before looking at the sky. Over this blue highway
+had arrived the miracles of life, and out of its depths the gods were
+born. The Phoenicians--Jews, become navigators--abandoned their cities
+in the depths of the Mediterranean sack, in order to spread the
+mysterious knowledge of Egypt and the Asiatic monarchies all along the
+shores of the interior sea. Afterwards the Greeks of the maritime
+republics took their places.
+
+In Ferragut's estimation the greatest honor to which Athens could lay
+claim was that she had been a democracy of sailors, her freemen serving
+their country as rowers and all her famous men as great marine
+officials.
+
+"Themistocles and Pericles," he added, "were admirals of fleets, and
+after commanding ships, governed their country."
+
+On that account Grecian civilization had spread itself everywhere and
+had become immortal instead of lessening and disappearing without fruit
+as in the interior lands. Then Rome, terrestrial Rome, in order to hold
+its own against the superiority of the Semitic navigators of Carthage,
+had to teach the management of the oar and marine combat to the
+inhabitants of Latium, to their legionaries with faces hardened by the
+chin straps of their helmets, who did not know how to adjust their
+world-dominating iron-shod feet to the slippery planks of a vessel.
+
+The divinities of _mare nostrum_ always inspired a most loving devotion
+in the doctor. He knew that they had not existed, but he, nevertheless,
+believed in them as poetic phantasms of natural forces.
+
+The ancient world only knew the immense ocean in hypothesis, giving it
+the form of an aquatic girdle around the earth. Oceanus was an old god
+with a long beard and horned head who lived in a maritime cavern with
+his wife, Tethys, and his three hundred daughters, the Oceanides. No
+Argonaut had ever dared to come in contact with these mysterious
+divinities. Only the grave Aeschylus had dared to portray the
+Oceanides--virgins fresh and demure, weeping around the rock to which
+Prometheus was bound.
+
+Other more approachable deities were those of the eternal sea on whose
+borders were founded the opulent cities of the Syrian coast; the
+Egyptian cities that sent sparks of their ritual civilization to
+Greece; the Hellenic cities, hearths of clear fire that had fused all
+knowledge, giving it eternal form; Rome, mistress of the world;
+Carthage, famed for her audacious geographical discoveries, and
+Marseilles, which had made western Europe share in the civilization of
+the Greeks, scattering it along the lower coast from settlement to
+settlement, even to the Straits of Cadiz.
+
+A brother of the Oceanides, the prudent Nereus, used to reign in the
+depths of the Mediterranean. This son of Oceanus had a blue beard,
+green eyes, and bunches of sea rushes on his eyebrows and breast. His
+fifty daughters, the Nereids, bore his orders across the waves or
+frolicked around the ships, splashing in the faces of the rowers the
+foam tossed up by their arms. But the sons of Father Time, on
+conquering the giant, had reapportioned the world, determining its
+rulers by lot. Zeus remained lord of the land, the obscure Hades, lord
+of the underworld, reigned in the Plutonic abysses, and Poseidon became
+master of the blue surfaces.
+
+Nereus, the dispossessed monarch, fled to a cavern of the Hellenic sea
+in order to live the calm existence of the philosopher-counselor of
+mankind, and Poseidon installed himself in the mother-of-pearl palaces
+with his white steeds tossing helmets of bronze and manes of gold.
+
+His amorous eyes were fixed on the fifty Mediterranean princesses, the
+Nereids, who took their names from the aspect of the waves--the Blue,
+the Green, the Swift, the Gentle.... "Nymphs of the green abysses with
+faces fresh as a rosebud, fragrant virgins that took the forms of all
+the monsters of the deep," sang the Orphic hymn on the Grecian shore.
+And Poseidon singled out among them all the Nereid of the Foam, the
+white Amphitrite who refused to accept his love.
+
+She knew about this new god. The coasts were peopled with cyclops like
+Polyphemus, with frightful monsters born of the union of Olympian
+goddesses and simple mortals; but an obliging dolphin came and went,
+carrying messages between Poseidon and the Nereid, until, overwhelmed
+by the eloquence of this restless rover of the wave, Amphitrite agreed
+to become the wife of the god, and the Mediterranean appeared to take
+on still greater beauty.
+
+She was the aurora that shows her rosy finger-tips through the immense
+cleft between sky and sea, the warm hour of midday that makes the
+waters drowsy under its robe of restless gold, the bifurcated tongue of
+foam that laps the two faces of the hissing prow, the aroma-laden
+breeze that like a virgin's breath swells the sail, the compassionate
+kiss that lulls the drowned to rest, without wrath and without
+resistance, before sinking forever into the fathomless abyss.
+
+Her husband--Poseidon on the Greek coast and Neptune on the Latin--on
+mounting his chariot, used to awaken the tempest. The brazen-hoofed
+horses with their stamping would paw up the huge waves and swallow up
+the ships. The tritons of his cortege would send forth from their white
+shells the bellowing blasts that snap off the masts like reeds.
+
+_O, mater Amphitrite_!... and Ferragut would describe her as though she
+were just passing before his eyes. Sometimes when swimming around the
+promontories, feeling himself enveloped like primitive man in the blind
+forces of Nature, he used to believe that he saw the white goddess
+issuing forth from the rocks with all her smiling train after a rest in
+some marine cave.
+
+A shell of pearl was her chariot and six dolphins harnessed with
+purpling coral used to draw it along. The tritons, her sons, handled
+the reins. The Naiads, their sisters, lashed the sea with their scaly
+tails, lifting their mermaid bodies wrapped in the magnificence of
+their sea-green tresses between whose ringlets might be seen their
+heaving bosoms. White seagulls, cooing like the doves of Aphrodite,
+fluttered around their nude sea-queen, serenely contemplating them from
+her movable throne, crowned with pearls and phosphorescent stars drawn
+from the depths of her dominion. White as the cloud, white as the sail,
+white as the foam, entirely, dazzlingly white was her fair majesty
+except where a rosy blush tinted the petal-like skin of her heels or
+her bosom.
+
+The entire history of European man--forty centuries of wars,
+emigrations, and racial impact--was due, according to the doctor, to
+the desire of possessing this harmoniously framed sea, of enjoying the
+transparency of its atmosphere and the vivacity of its light.
+
+The men from the North who needed the burning log and alcoholic drink
+in order to defend their life from the clutches of the cold, were
+always thinking of these Mediterranean shores. All their warlike or
+pacific movements were with intent to descend from the coasts of the
+glacial seas to the beaches of the warm _mare nostrum_. They were eager
+to gain possession of the country where the sacred olive alternates its
+stiff old age with the joyous vineyard; where the pine rears its cupola
+and the cypress erects its minaret. They longed to dream under the
+perfumed snow of the interminable orange groves; to be masters of the
+sheltered valleys where the myrtle and the jasmine spice the salty air;
+where the aloe and the cactus grow between the stones of extinct
+volcanoes; where the mountains of marble extend their white veins down
+even into the depths of the sea and refract the African heat emitted by
+the opposite coast.
+
+The South had replied to the invasion from the North with defensive
+wars that had extended even into the center of Europe. And thus history
+had gone on repeating itself with the same flux and reflux of human
+waves--mankind struggling for thousands of years to gain or hold the
+blue vault of Amphitrite.
+
+The Mediterranean peoples were to Ferragut the aristocracy of humanity.
+Its potent climate had tempered mankind as in no other part of the
+planet, giving him a dry and resilient power. Tanned and bronzed by the
+profound absorption of the sun and the energy of the atmosphere, its
+navigators were transmuted into pure metal. The men from the North were
+stronger, but less robust, less acclimitable than the Catalan sailor,
+the Provençal, the Genoese or the Greek. The sailors of the
+Mediterranean made themselves at home in all parts of the world. Upon
+their sea man had developed his highest energies. Ancient Greece had
+converted human flesh into spiritual steel.
+
+Exactly the same landscapes and races bordered the two shores. The
+mountains and the flowers on both shores were identical. The Catalan,
+the Provençal and the South Italian were more like the inhabitants of
+the African coast than their kindred who lived inland back of them.
+This fraternity had shown itself instinctively in the thousand-year
+war. The Berber pirates, the Genoese sailors, the Spaniards, and the
+Knights of Malta used implacably to behead each other on the decks of
+their galleys and, upon becoming conquerors, would respect the life of
+their prisoners, treating them like gentlemen. The Admiral Barbarossa,
+eighty-four years of age, used to call Doria, his eternal rival nearly
+ninety years old, "my brother." The Grand Master of Malta clasped the
+hand of the terrible Dragut upon finding him his captive.
+
+The Mediterranean man, fixed on the shores that gave him birth, was
+accustomed to accept all the changes of history, as the mollusks
+fastened to the rocks endure the tempests. For him the only important
+thing was not to lose sight of his blue sea. The Spaniard used to pull
+an oar on the Liburnian felucca, the Christian would join the crews of
+the Saracen ships of the Middle Ages; the subjects of Charles V would
+pass through the fortunes of war from the galleys of the Cross to those
+of the Crescent, and would end by becoming rulers of Algiers, rich
+captains of the sea, or by making their names famous as renegades.
+
+In the eighth century the inhabitants of the Valencian coast united
+with the Andalusian Moors to carry the war to the ends of the
+Mediterranean and to the island of Crete, taking possession of it and
+giving it the name of Candia. This nest of pirates was the terror of
+Byzantium, taking Salonica by assault and selling as slaves the
+patricians and most important ladies of the realm. Years afterwards,
+when dislodged from Candia, the Valencian adventurers returned to their
+native shores and there established a town in a fertile valley, giving
+it the name of the distant island which was changed to Gandia.
+
+Every type of human vigor had sprung from the Mediterranean
+race,--fine, sharp and dry as flint, doing good and evil on a large
+scale with the exaggeration of an ardent character that discounts
+halfway measures and leaps from duplicity to the greatest extremes of
+generosity. Ulysses was the father of them all, a discreet and prudent
+hero, yet at the same time complex and malicious. So was old Cadmus
+with his Phoenician miter and curled beard, a great old sea-wolf,
+scattering by means of his various adventures the art of writing and
+the first notions of commerce.
+
+In one of the Mediterranean islands Hannibal was born, and twenty
+centuries after, in another of them, the son of a lawyer without briefs
+embarked for France, with no other outfit than his cadet's uniform, in
+order to make famous his name of Napoleon.
+
+Over the Mediterranean waves had sailed Roger de Lauria, knight-errant
+of vast tracts of sea, who wished to clothe even the fishes with the
+colors of Aragon. A visionary of obscure origin named Columbus had
+recognized as his country the republic of Genoa. A smuggler from the
+coasts of Laguria came to be Messina, the marshal beloved by Victory,
+and the last personage of this stock of Mediterranean heroes associated
+with the heroes of fabulous times was a sailor from Nice, simple and
+romantic, a warrior called Garibaldi, an heroic tenor of all seas and
+lands who cast over his century the reflection of his red shirt,
+repeating on the coast of Marseilles the remote epic of the Argonauts.
+
+Then Ferragut summed up the various defects of his race. Some had been
+bandits and others saints, but none mediocre. Their most audacious
+undertakings had much about them that was prudent and practical. When
+they devoted themselves to business they were at the same time serving
+civilization. In them the hero and the trader were so intermingled that
+it was impossible to discern where one ended and the other began. They
+had been pirates and cruel men, but the navigators from the foggy seas
+when imitating the Mediterranean discoveries in other continents had
+not shown themselves any more gentle or loyal.
+
+After these conversations, Ulysses felt greater esteem for the old
+pottery and the shabby little figures that adorned his uncle's bedroom.
+
+They were objects vomited up by the sea, Grecian amphoras wrested from
+the shells of mollusks after a submarine interment centuries long. The
+deep waters had embossed these petrified ornaments with strange
+arabesques that made one think of the art of another planet, and,
+twined in with the pottery that had held the wine and water of a
+shipwrecked Liburnian felucca, were bits of rope hardened by limey
+deposit and flukes of anchors whose metal was disintegrating into
+reddish scales. Various little statues corroded by the salt sea
+inspired in the boy as much admiration as his grandfather's frigates.
+He laughed and trembled before these _Cabiri_ coming from the
+Phoenician or Carthaginian biremes,--grotesque and terrible gods that
+contracted their faces with grimaces of lust and ferocity.
+
+Some of these muscular and bearded marine divinities bore a remote
+resemblance to his uncle. Ulysses had overheard certain strange
+conversations among the fishermen and had noticed, besides, the
+precipitation of the women and their uneasy glances when they found the
+doctor near them in a solitary part of the coast. Only the presence of
+his nephew had made them recover tranquility and check their step.
+
+At times the sea seemed to craze him with gusts of amorous fury. He was
+Poseidon rising up unexpectedly on the banks in order to surprise
+goddesses and mortals. The women of the _Marina_ ran away as terrified
+as those Greek princesses on the painted vases when surprised, washing
+their robes, by the apparition of a passionate triton.
+
+Some nights at the hour when the lighthouses were beginning to pierce
+the coming dusk with their fresh shafts of light, he would become
+melancholy and, forgetting the difference in their age, would talk with
+his nephew as though he were a sailor companion.
+
+He regretted never having married.... He might have had a son by this
+time. He had known many women of all colors--white, red, yellow, and
+bronze--but only once had he really been in love, very far away on the
+other side of the planet, in the port of Valparaiso.
+
+He could still see in imagination a certain graceful Chilean maiden,
+wrapped in her great black veil like the ladies of the Calderonian
+theater, showing only one of her dark and liquid eyes, pale and
+slender, speaking in a plaintive voice.
+
+She enjoyed love-songs, always provided that they were sung "with great
+sadness"; and Ferragut would devour her with his eyes while she plucked
+the guitar, chanting the song of Malek-Adhel and other romances about
+"Roses, sighs and Moors of Granada," that from childhood the doctor had
+heard sung by the Berbers of his country. The simple attempt at taking
+one of her hands always provoked her modest resistance.... "That,
+then...." She was ready to marry him; she wished to see Spain.... And
+the doctor might have fulfilled her wishes had not a good soul informed
+him that in later hours of the night, others were accustomed to come in
+turns to hear her romantic solos.... Ah, these women! and then, on
+recalling the finale of his trans-oceanic idyl, Ferragut would become
+reconciled to his celibacy.
+
+Late in the Fall the notary had to go in person to the _Marina_ to make
+his brother give Ulysses up. The boy held the same opinion as did his
+uncle. The very idea of losing the winter fishing, the cold sunny
+morning, the spectacle of the great tempests, just for the silly reason
+that the Institute had commenced, and he must study for his bachelor's
+degree!...
+
+The following year Doña Cristina tried to prevent the _Triton's_
+carrying off her son, since he could learn nothing but bad words and
+boastful bullying in the old home of the Ferraguts. And trumping up the
+necessity of seeing her own family, she left the notary alone in
+Valencia, going with her boy to spend the summer on the coast of
+Catalunia near the French frontier.
+
+This was Ulysses' first important journey. In Barcelona he became
+acquainted with his uncle, the rich and talented financier of the
+Blanes family,--one of his mother's brothers, proprietor of a great
+hardware shop situated in one of the damp, narrow and crowded streets
+that ran into the Rambla. He soon came to know other maternal uncles in
+a village near the Cape of Creus. This promontory with its wild coasts
+reminded him of that other one where the _Triton_ lived. The first
+Hellenic sailors had also founded a city here, and the sea had also
+cast up amphoras, little statues and petrified bits of iron.
+
+The Blanes family had gone much to sea. They loved it as intensely as
+did the doctor, but with a cold and silent love, appreciating it less
+for its beauty than for the profits which it offered to the fortunate.
+Their trips had been to America, in their own sailing vessels,
+importing sugar from Havana and corn from Buenos Ayres. The
+Mediterranean was for them only a port that they crossed carelessly on
+departure and arrival. None of them knew the white Amphitrite even by
+name.
+
+Moreover, they did not have the devil-may-care and romantic appearance
+of the bachelor of the _Marina_, ready to live in the water like an
+amphibian. They were gentlemen of the coast who, having retired from
+the sea, were entrusting their barks to captains who had been their
+pilots,--middle class citizens who never laid aside the cravat and silk
+cap that were the symbols of their high position in their natal town.
+
+The gathering-place of the rich was the Athenæum,--a society that in
+spite of its title offered no other reading matter than two Catalunian
+periodicals. A large telescope mounted on a tripod before the door used
+to fill the club members with pride. For the uncles of Ulysses, it was
+enough merely to put one eyebrow to the glass to be able to state
+immediately the class and nationality of the ship that was slipping
+along over the distant horizon line. These veterans of the sea were
+accustomed to speak only of the freight cargoes, of the thousands and
+thousands of dollars gained in other times with only one round trip,
+and of the terrible rivalry of the steamship.
+
+Ulysses kept hoping in vain that sometimes they would allude to the
+Nereids and other poetic beings that the _Triton_ had conjured around
+his promontory. The Blanes had never seen these extraordinary
+creatures. Their seas contained fish only. They were cold, economical
+men of few words, friends of order and social preferment. Their nephew
+suspected that they had the courage of men of the sea but without
+boasting or aggressiveness; their heroism was that of traders capable
+of suffering all kinds of adventures provided their stock ran no risks,
+but becoming wild beasts if any one attacked their riches.
+
+The members of the Athenaeum were all old, the only masculine beings in
+the village. Besides them there were only the carbineers installed in
+the barracks and various calkers making their mallets resound on the
+hull of a schooner ordered by the Blanes brothers.
+
+All the active men were on the sea. Some were sailing to America as
+crew of the brigs and barks of the Catalunian coast. The more timid and
+unfortunate ones were always fishing. Others, more valiant and anxious
+for ready money, had become smugglers on the French coast whose shores
+began on the other side of the promontory.
+
+In the village there were only women, women of all kinds:--women seated
+before their doors, making lace on great cylindrical pillows on their
+knees, along whose length their bobbins wove strips of beautiful
+openwork, or grouped on the street corners in front of the lonely sea
+where their men were, or speaking with an electric nervousness that
+oftentimes would break out suddenly in noisy tempests.
+
+Only the parish priest, whose fishing recreations and official
+existence were embittered by their constant quarrels, understood the
+feminine irritability which embroiled the village. Alone and having to
+live incessantly in such close contact, the women had come to hate each
+other as do passengers isolated on a boat for many months. Besides,
+their husbands had accustomed them to the use of coffee, the seaman's
+drink, and they tried to beguile their tedium with strong cups of the
+thick liquid.
+
+A common interest, nevertheless, united these women miraculously when
+living alone. When the carbineers inspected the houses in search of
+contraband goods smuggled in by the men, the Amazons worked off their
+nervous energy in hiding the illegal merchandise, making it pass from
+one place of concealment to another with the cunning of savages.
+
+Whenever the government officers began to suspect that certain packages
+had gone to hide themselves in the cemetery, they would find there only
+some empty graves, and in the bottom of them a few cigars between
+skulls that were mockingly stuck up in the ground. The chief of the
+barracks did not dare to inspect the church, but he looked
+contemptuously upon Mosen Jòrdi, the priest, as a simpleton quite
+capable of permitting tobacco to be hidden behind the altars in
+exchange for the privilege of fishing in peace.
+
+The rich people lived with their backs turned on the village,
+contemplating the blue expanse upon which were erected the wooden
+houses that represented all their fortune. In the summer-time the sight
+of the smooth and brilliant Mediterranean made them recall the dangers
+of the winter. They spoke with religious terror of the land breeze, the
+wind from the Pyrenees, the _Tramontana_ that oftentimes snatched
+edifices from their bases and had overturned entire trains in the
+nearby station. Furthermore, on the other side of the promontory began
+the terrible Gulf of Lyons. Upon its surface, not more than ninety
+yards in extent, the waters driven by the strong sea winds often became
+so rough, and raised up waves so high and so solid that upon clashing
+together and finding no intermediate space upon which to fall, they
+piled one upon another, forming regular towers.
+
+This gulf was the most terrible of the Mediterranean. The transatlantic
+liners returning from a good voyage to the other hemisphere used here
+to tremble with a pre-monition of danger and sometimes even turned
+back. The captains who had just crossed the great Atlantic would here
+furrow their brows with uneasiness.
+
+From the door of the Athenaeum the experts used to point out the Latin
+sailboats that were about to double the promontory. They were merchant
+vessels such as that elder Ferragut had commanded, embarkations from
+Valencia that were bringing wine to Cette and fruits to Marseilles.
+Upon seeing the blue surface of the Gulf on the other side of the Cape
+with no other roughness than that of a long and infinitely heavy swell,
+the Valencians would exclaim happily:
+
+"Let us cross quickly, while the lion sleeps."
+
+Ulysses had one friend, the secretary of the city-hall, and the only
+inhabitant that had any books in his house. Treated by the rich with a
+certain contempt, the official used to seek the boy's company because
+he was the only creature who would listen to him attentively.
+
+He adored the _mare nostrum_ as much as Doctor Ferragut, but his
+enthusiasm was not concerned with the Phoenician and Egyptian ships
+whose keels had first plowed these waves. He was equally indifferent to
+Grecian and Carthaginian Triremes, Roman warships, and the monstrous
+galleys of the Sicilian tyrants,--palaces moved by oars, with statues,
+fountains and gardens. That which most interested him was the
+Mediterranean of the Middle Ages, that of the kings of Aragon, the
+Catalunian Sea. And the poor secretary would give long daily
+dissertations about them in order to pique the local pride of his
+juvenile listener.
+
+One day after dilating at length on Roger de Lauria and the Catalan
+navy, he wound up his tedious history by telling the little fellow how
+Alfonso V, his brother the King of Navarre, and all his cortege of
+magnates, had remained prisoners of the Republic of Genoa, which,
+terrified by the importance of its royal prey, had entrusted the
+captives to the guard of the Duke of Milan.... But the monarchs easily
+came to an understanding in order to deceive the democratic
+governments, and the Milanese sovereign released the King of Aragon
+with all his suite. Thereupon he immediately blockaded Genoa with an
+enormous fleet. The Provençal navy came promptly to the relief of its
+neighbors, and the Aragonese King forced the port of Marseilles,
+bearing away as trophy the chains that closed its entrance.
+
+Ulysses nodded affirmatively. The sailor king had deposited these
+chains in the cathedral of Valencia. His godfather, the poet, had
+pointed them out to him in a Gothic chapel, forming a garland of iron
+over the black hewn stones.
+
+The Catalan navy still continued to dominate the Mediterranean
+commercially, adding to its ancient vessels great galleons, lighter
+galleys, caravels, cattle boats, and other ships of the period.
+
+"But Christopher Columbus," concluded the Catalan sadly, "discovered
+the Indies, thereby giving a death blow to the maritime riches of the
+Mediterranean. Besides, Aragon and Castile became united and their life
+and power were then concentrated in the center of the Peninsula, far
+from the sea."
+
+Had Barcelona been the capital of Spain, Catalunia would have preserved
+the Mediterranean domination. Had Lisbon been the capital, the Spanish
+colonial realm would have developed into something organic and solid
+with a robust life. But what could you expect of a nation which had
+stuck its head into a pillow of yellow interior steppes, the furthest
+possible from the world's highways, showing only its feet to the
+waves!...
+
+The Catalan would always end by speaking sadly of the decadence of the
+Mediterranean marine. Everything that was pleasing to his tastes made
+him hark back to the good old time of the domination of the
+Mediterranean by the Catalan marine. One day he offered Ulysses a sweet
+and perfumed wine.
+
+"It is Malvasian, the first stock the Almogavars brought here from
+Greece."
+
+Then he said in order to flatter the boy:
+
+"It was a citizen of Valencia, Ramon Muntaner, who wrote of the
+expeditions of the Catalans and Aragonese against Constantinople."
+
+The mere recollection of this novel-like adventure, the most unheard-of
+in history, used to fill him with enthusiasm, and, in passing, he paid
+highest tribute to the Almogavar chronicler, a rude Homer in song,
+Ulysses and Nestor in council, and Achilles in hard action.
+
+Doña Cristina's impatience to rejoin her husband and to return to the
+comforts of her well-regulated household finally carried Ulysses away
+from this life by the coast.
+
+For many years thereafter he saw no other sea than the Gulf of
+Valencia. The notary, under various pretexts, contrived to prevent the
+doctor's again carrying off his nephew; and the _Triton_ made his trips
+to Valencia less frequently, rebelling against all the inconveniences
+and dangers of these terrestrial adventures.
+
+And Labarta, when occupied with the future of Ulysses, used to take on
+a certain air of a good-natured regent charged with the guardianship of
+a little prince. The boy appeared to belong to them more than to his
+own father; his studies and his future destiny filled completely their
+after-dinner conversations when the doctor was in town.
+
+Don Esteban felt a certain satisfaction in annoying his brother by
+eulogizing the sedentary and prosperous life.
+
+Over there on the coasts of Catalunia lived his brothers-in-law, the
+Blanes, genuine wolves of the sea. The doctor would not be able to
+contradict that. Very well, then,--their sons were in Barcelona, some
+as business clerks, others making a name for themselves in the office
+of their rich uncle. They were all sailors' sons and yet they had
+completely freed themselves from the sea. Their business was entirely
+on _terra firma_. Only crazyheads could think of ships and adventures.
+
+The _Triton_ used to smile humbly before such pointed allusions, and
+exchange glances with his nephew.
+
+A secret existed between the two. Ulysses, who was finishing his
+studies for a bachelor's degree, was at the same time taking the
+courses of pilotage at the institute. Two years would be sufficient for
+the completion of these latter studies. The uncle had provided the
+matriculation fees and the books, besides recommending the boy to a
+former sailor comrade.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+PATER OCEANUS
+
+When Don Esteban died very suddenly, his eighteen-year-old son was
+still studying in the university.
+
+In his latter days the notary had begun to suspect that Ulysses was not
+going to be the celebrated jurist that he had dreamed. He had a way of
+cutting classes in order to pass the morning in the harbor, exercising
+with the oars. If he entered the university, the beadles were on their
+guard fearing his long-reaching hands: for he already fancied himself a
+sailor and liked to imitate the men of the sea who, accustomed to
+contend with the elements, considered a quarrel with a man as a very
+slight affair. Alternating violently between study and laziness, he was
+laboriously approaching the end of his course when neuralgia of the
+heart carried off the notary.
+
+Upon coming out from the stupefaction of her grief, Doña Cristina
+looked around her with aversion. Why should she linger on in Valencia?
+Since she could no longer be with the man who had brought her to this
+country, she wanted to return to her own people. The poet Labarta would
+look after her properties that were not so valuable nor numerous as the
+income of the notary had led them to suppose. Don Esteban had suffered
+great losses in extravagant business speculations good-naturedly
+accepted, but there was still left a fortune sufficient to enable his
+wife to live as an independent widow among her relatives in Barcelona.
+
+In arranging her new existence, the poor lady encountered no opposition
+except the rebelliousness of Ulysses. He refused to continue his
+college course and he wished to go to sea, saying that for that reason
+he had studied to become a pilot. In vain Doña Cristina entreated the
+aid of relatives and friends, excluding the _Triton_, whose response
+she could easily guess. The rich brother from Barcelona was brief and
+affirmative, "But wouldn't that bring him in the money?"... The Blanes
+of the coast showed a gloomy fatalism. It would be useless to oppose
+the lad if he felt that to be his vocation. The sea had a tight clutch
+upon those who followed it, and there was no power on earth that could
+dissuade him. On that account they who were already old were not
+listening to their sons who were trying to tempt them with the
+convenience of life in the capital. They needed to live near the coast
+in agreeable contact with the dark and ponderous monster which had
+rocked them so maternally when it might just as easily have dashed them
+to pieces.
+
+The only one who protested was Labarta. A sailor?... that might be a
+very good thing, but a warlike sailor, an official of the Royal Armada.
+And in his mind's eye the poet could see his godson clad in all the
+splendors of naval elegance,--a blue jacket with gold buttons for every
+day, and for holiday attire a coat trimmed with galloon and red
+trappings, a pointed hat, a sword....
+
+Ulysses shrugged his shoulders before such grandeur. He was too old now
+to enter the naval school. Besides he wanted to sail over all oceans,
+and the officers of the navy only had occasion to cruise from one port
+to another like the people of the coast trade, or even passed years
+seated in the cabinet of the naval executive. If he had to grow old in
+an office, he would rather take up his father's profession of notary.
+
+After seeing Doña Cristina well established in Barcelona, surrounded
+with a cortège of nephews fawning upon the rich aunt from Valencia, her
+son embarked as apprentice on a transatlantic boat which was making
+regular trips to Cuba and the United States. Thus began the seafaring
+life of Ulysses Ferragut, which terminated only with his death.
+
+The pride of the family placed him on a luxurious steamer, a
+mail-packet full of passengers, a floating hotel on which the officials
+were something like the managers of the Palace Hotel, while the real
+responsibility devolved upon the engineers, who were always going
+below, and upon returning to the light, invariably remained modestly in
+a second place, according to a hieratical law anterior to the progress
+of mechanics.
+
+He crossed the ocean several times, as do those making a land journey
+at the full speed of an express train. The august calm of the sea was
+lost in the throb of the screws and in the deafening roar of the
+machinery. However blue the sky might be, it was always darkened by the
+floating crepe band from the smokestacks. He envied the leisurely
+sailboats that the liner was always leaving behind. They were like
+reflective wayfarers who saturate themselves with the country
+atmosphere and commune deeply with its soul. The people of the steamer
+lived like terrestrial travelers who sleepily survey from the
+car-windows a succession of indefinite and dizzying views streaked by
+telegraph wires.
+
+When his novitiate was ended he became second mate on a sailing vessel
+bound for Argentina for a cargo of wheat. The slow day's run with
+little wind and the long equatorial calms permitted him to penetrate a
+little into the mysteries of the oceanic immensity, severe and dark,
+that for ancient peoples had been "the night of the abyss," "the sea of
+utter darkness," "the blue dragon that daily swallows the sun."
+
+He no longer regarded Father Ocean as the capricious and tyrannical god
+of the poets. Everything in his depths was working with a vital
+regularity, subject to the general laws of existence. Even the tempests
+roared within prescribed and charted quadrangles.
+
+The fresh trade-winds pushed the bark toward the Southeast, maintaining
+a heavenly serenity in sky and sea. Before the prow hissed the silken
+wings of flying fish, spreading out in swarms, like little squadrons of
+diminutive aeroplanes.
+
+Over the masts and yards covered with canvas, the albatross, eagles of
+the Atlantic desert, traced their long, sweeping circles, flashing
+across the purest blue their great, sail-like wings. From time to time
+the boat would meet floating prairies, great fields of seaweed
+dislodged from the Sargasso Sea. Enormous tortoises drowsed in the
+midst of these clumps of gulf-weed, serving as islands of repose to the
+seagulls perched on their shells. Some of the seaweeds were green,
+nourished by the luminous water of the surface; others had the reddish
+color of the deep where enters only the deadly chill of the last rays
+of the sun. Like fruits of the oceanic prairies, there floated past
+close bunches of dark grapes, leathery capsules filled with brackish
+water.
+
+As they approached the equator, the breeze kept falling and falling,
+and the atmosphere became suffocating in the extreme. It was the zone
+of calms, the ocean of dark, oily waters, in which boats remained for
+entire weeks with sails limp, without the slightest breath rippling the
+atmosphere.
+
+Clouds the color of pit coal reflected the ship's slow progress over
+the sea; showers of rain like whipcord occasionally lashed the deck,
+followed by a flaming sun that was soon blotted out by a new downpour.
+These clouds, pregnant with cataracts, this night descending upon the
+full daylight of the Atlantic, had been the terror of the ancients, and
+yet, thanks to just such phenomena, the sailors could pass from one
+hemisphere to another without the light wounding them to death, or the
+sea scorching them like a burning glass. The heat of the equator,
+raising up the water in steam, had formed a band of shade around the
+earth. From other worlds it must appear like a girdle of clouds almost
+similar to the sidereal rings.
+
+In this gloomy, hot sea was the heart of the ocean, the center of the
+circulatory life of the planet. The sky was a regulator that, absorbing
+and returning, restored the evaporation to equilibrium. From this place
+were sent forth the rains and dews to all the rest of the earth,
+modifying its temperatures favorably for the development of animal and
+vegetable life. There were exchanged the exhalations of the two worlds;
+and, converted into clouds, the water of the southern hemisphere--the
+hemisphere of the great seas with no other points of relief than the
+triangular extremities of Africa and America, and the humps of the
+oceanic archipelagoes--was always reinforcing the rills and rivers of
+the northern hemisphere with its inhabited lands.
+
+From this equatorial zone, the heart of the globe, come forth two
+rivers of tepid water that heat the coasts of the north. They are the
+two currents that issue from the Gulf of Mexico and the Java Sea. Their
+enormous liquid masses, fleeing ceaselessly from the equator, govern a
+vast assemblage of water from the poles that comes to occupy their
+space, and these chilled and fresher currents are constantly
+precipitating themselves on the electric hearth of the equator that
+warms and salts them anew, renewing with its systole and diastole the
+life of the world. The ocean struggles vainly to condense these two
+warm currents without ever succeeding in mingling itself with them.
+They are torrents of a deep blue, almost black, that flow across the
+cold and green waters.
+
+The Atlantic current, upon reaching Newfoundland, divides its arms,
+sending one of them to the North Pole. With the other, weak and
+exhausted by its long journey, it modifies the temperature of the
+British Isles, tempering refreshingly the coasts of Norway. The Indian
+current that the Japanese call, because of its color, "the black
+river," circulates between the islands, maintaining for a longer time
+than the other its prodigious powers of creation and agitation which
+enable it to trail over the planet an enormous tail of life.
+
+Its center is the apogee of terrestrial energy in the vegetable and
+animal creations, in monsters and in fish. One of its arms, escaping
+toward the south, goes on forming the mysterious world of the coral
+sea. In a space as large as four continents, the polyps, strengthened
+by the lukewarm water, are building up thousands of atolls, ring-shaped
+islands, reefs and submarine pillars that, when united together by the
+work of a thousand years, are going to create a new land, an exchange
+continent in case the human species should lose its present base in
+some cataclysm of Nature.
+
+The pulse of the blue god is the tides. The earth turns towards the
+moon and the stars with a sympathetic rotation like that of the flowers
+that turn towards the sun. Its most movable part--the fluid mass of the
+atmosphere--dilates twice daily, swelling its cavities; and this
+atmospheric suction, the work of universal attraction, is reflected in
+the tidal waters. Closed seas, like the Mediterranean, scarcely feel
+its effects, the tides stopping at their door. But on the oceanic coast
+the marine pulsation vexes the army of the waves, hurrying them daily
+to their assault of the steep cliffs, making them roar with fury among
+the islands, promontories and straits, and impelling them to swallow up
+extensive lands which they return hours afterward.
+
+This salty sea, like our body, that has a heart, a pulse and a
+circulation of two different bloods incessantly renewed and
+transformed, becomes as furious as an organic creature when the
+horizontal currents of its interior come to unite themselves with the
+vertical currents descending from the atmosphere. The violent passage
+of the winds, the crises of evaporation, and the obscure electrical
+forces produce the tempests.
+
+These are no more than cutaneous shudderings. The storms, so deadly for
+mankind, merely contract the marine epidermis while the profound mass
+of its waters remains in murky calm, fulfilling its great function of
+nourishing and renewing life. Father Ocean completely ignores the
+existence of the human insects that dare to slip across his surface in
+microscopic cockle-shells. He does not inform himself as to the
+incidents that may be taking place upon the roof of his dwelling. His
+life continues on,--balanced, calm, infinite, engendering millions upon
+millions of beings in the thousandth part of a second.
+
+The majesty of the Atlantic on tropical nights made Ulysses forget the
+wrathful storms of its black days. In the moonlight it was an immense
+plane of vivid silver streaked with serpentine shadows. Its soft
+doughlike undulations, replete with microscopic life, illuminated the
+nights. The infusoria, a-tremble with love, glowed with a bluish
+phosphorescence. The sea was like luminous milk. The foam breaking
+against the prow sparkled like broken fragments of electric globes.
+
+When it was absolutely tranquil and the ship remained immovable with
+drooping sail, the stars passing slowly from one side of the mast to
+the other, the delicate medusae, that the slightest wave was able to
+crush, would come to the surface floating on the waters, around the
+island of wood. There were thousands of these umbrellas filing slowly
+by, green, blue, rose, with a vague coloring similar to oil-lights,--a
+Japanese procession seen from above, that on one side was lost in the
+mystery of the black waters and incessantly reappeared on the other
+side.
+
+The young pilot loved navigation in a sailing ship,--the struggle with
+the wind, the solitude of its calms. He was far nearer the ocean here
+than on the bridge of a transatlantic liner. The bark did not beat the
+sea into such rabid foam. It slipped discreetly along as in the
+maritime silence of the first millennium of the new-born earth. The
+oceanic inhabitants approached it confidently upon seeing it rolling
+like a mute and inoffensive whale.
+
+In six years Ulysses changed his boat many times. He had learned
+English, the universal language of the blue dominions, and was
+refreshing himself with a study of Maury's charts--the sailors'
+Bible--the patient work of an obscure genius who first snatched from
+ocean and atmosphere the secret of their laws.
+
+Desirous of exploring new seas and new lands, he did not stop in the
+usual travel zones or ports, and the British, Norwegian, and North
+American captains received cordially this good-mannered official so
+little exacting as to salary. So Ulysses wandered over the oceans as
+had the king of Ithaca over the Mediterranean, guided by a fatality
+which impelled him with a rude push far from his country every time
+that he proposed to return to it. The sight of a boat anchored near by
+and ready to set sail for some distant port was a temptation that
+invariably made him forget to return to Spain.
+
+He traveled in filthy, old, happy-go-lucky sea-tramps, in which the
+crews used to spread all the sails to the tempest, get drunk and fall
+asleep, confident that the devil, friend of the brave, would awaken
+them on the following morning. He lived in white boats as silent and
+scrupulously clean as a Dutch home, whose captains were taking wife and
+children with them, and where white-aproned stewardesses took care of
+the galley and the cleaning of the floating hearthside, sharing the
+dangers of the ruddy and tranquil sailors exempt from the temptation
+that contact with women provokes. On Sundays, under the tropic sun or
+in the ash-colored light of the northern heavens, the boatswain would
+read the Bible. The men would listen thoughtfully with uncovered heads.
+The women had dressed themselves in black with lace headdress and
+mittened hands.
+
+He went to Newfoundland to load codfish. There is where the warm
+current from the Gulf of Mexico meets that from the Poles. In the
+meeting of these two marine rivers the infinitesimal little beings that
+the gulf stream drags thither die, suddenly frozen to death, and a rain
+of minute corpses descends across the waters. The cod gather there to
+gorge themselves on this manna which is so abundant that a great part
+of it, freed from their greedy jaws, drops to the bottom like a
+snowstorm of lime.
+
+In Iceland (the _Ultima Thule_ of the ancients), they showed Ulysses
+bits of wood that the equatorial current had brought thither from the
+Antilles. On the coasts of Norway, as he watched the herring during the
+spawning season, he marveled at the formidable fertility of the sea.
+
+From their refuge in the shadowy depths, these fish mount to the
+surface moved by the message of the spring, desirous of taking their
+part in the joy of the world. They swim one against another, close,
+compact, forming strata that subdivide and float out to sea. They look
+like an island just coming to the surface, or a continent beginning to
+sink. In the narrow passages the shoals are so numerous that the waters
+become solidified, making almost impossible the advance of a row boat.
+Their number is beyond the possibilities of calculation, like the sands
+and the stars.
+
+Men and carnivorous fish fall upon them, opening great furrows of
+destruction in their midst: but the breaches are closed instantly and
+the living bank continues on its way, growing denser every moment, as
+though defying death. The more their enemies destroy them, the more
+numerous they become. The thick and close columns ceaselessly reproduce
+themselves _en route_. At sunrise the waves are greasy and
+viscous,--replete with life that is fermenting rapidly. For a space of
+hundreds of leagues the salt ocean around them is like milk.
+
+The fecundity of these fishy masses was placing the world in danger.
+Each individual could produce up to seventy thousand eggs. In a few
+generations there would be enough to fill the ocean, to make it solid,
+to make it rot, extinguishing other beings, depopulating the globe....
+But death was charged with saving universal life. The cetaceans bore
+down upon this living density and with their insatiable mouths devoured
+the nourishment by ton loads. Infinitely little fish seconded the
+efforts of the marine giants, stuffing themselves with the eggs of the
+herring. The most gluttonous fish, the cod and the hake, pursued these
+prairies of meat, pushing them, toward the coasts and finally
+dispersing them.
+
+The cod increases its species most prodigiously, surfeiting itself upon
+hake, until the world is again menaced. The ocean might be converted
+into a mass of cod, for each one can produce as many as nine million
+eggs.... Mankind might be overwhelmed under the onslaught of the more
+fertile fishes, and the cod might maintain immense fleets, creating,
+besides, colonies and cities. Human generations might become exhausted
+without succeeding in conquering this monstrous reproduction. The great
+marine devourers, therefore, are those that reëstablish equilibrium and
+order. The sturgeon, insatiable stomach, intervenes in the oceanic
+banquet, relishing in the cod the concentrated substance of armies of
+herring. But this oviparous devourer of such great reproductive power
+would, in turn, continue the world danger were it not that another
+monster as avid in appetite as it is weak in procreation, intervenes
+and cuts down with one blow the ever-increasing fecundity of the ocean.
+
+The superior glutton is the shark,--that mouth with fins, that natatory
+intestine which swallows with equal indifference the dead and the
+living, flesh and wood, cleanses the waters of life and leaves a desert
+behind its wriggling tail; but this destroyer brings forth only one
+shark that is born armed and ferocious ready from the very first moment
+to continue the paternal exploits, like a feudal heir.
+
+Ferragut's wandering life as a pilot abounded in dramatic
+adventures,--a few always standing out clearly from his many confused
+recollections of exotic lands and interminable seas.
+
+In Glasgow he embarked as second mate on an old sailing tramp that was
+bound for Chile, to unload coal in Valparaiso and take on saltpeter in
+Iquique. The crossing of the Atlantic was good, but upon leaving the
+Malvina Islands the boat had to go out in the teeth of a torrid,
+furious blast that closed the passage to the Pacific. The Straits of
+Magellan are for ships that are able to avail themselves at will of a
+propelling force. The sailboat needs a wide sea and a favorable wind in
+order to double Cape Horn,--the utmost point of the earth, the place of
+interminable and gigantic tempests.
+
+While summer was burning in the other hemisphere, the terrible southern
+winter came to meet the navigators. The boat had to turn its course to
+the west, just as the winds were blowing from the west, barring its
+route.
+
+Eight weeks passed and it was still contending with sea and tempest.
+The wind carried off a complete set of sails. The wooden ship, somewhat
+strained by this interminable struggle, commenced to leak, and the crew
+had to work the hand-pumps night and day. Nobody was able to sleep for
+many hours running. All were sick from exhaustion. The rough voice and
+the oaths of the captain could hardly maintain discipline. Some of the
+seamen lay down wishing to die, and had to be roused by blows.
+
+Ulysses knew for the first time what waves really were. He saw
+mountains of water, literally mountains, pouring over the hull of the
+boat, their very immensity making them form great slopes on both sides
+of it. When the crest of one broke upon the vessel Ferragut was able to
+realize the monstrous weight of salt water. Neither stone nor iron had
+the brutal blow of this liquid force that, upon breaking, fled in
+torrents or dashed up in spray. They had to make openings in the
+bulwarks in order to provide a vent for the crushing mass.
+
+The southern day was a livid and foggy eclipse, repeating itself for
+weeks and weeks without the slightest streak of clearing, as though the
+sun had departed from the earth forever. Not a glimmer of white existed
+in this tempestuous outline; always gray,--the sky, the foam, the
+seagulls, the snows.... From time to time the leaden veils of the
+tempest were torn asunder, leaving visible a terrifying apparition.
+Once it was black mountains with glacial winding sheets from the
+Straits of Beagle. And the boat tacked, fleeing away from this narrow
+aquatic passageway full of perilous ledges. Another time the peaks of
+Diego Ramirez, the most extreme point of the cape, loomed up before the
+prow, and the bark again tacked, fleeing from this cemetery of ships.
+The wind shifting, then brought their first icebergs into view and at
+the same time forced them to turn back on their course in order not to
+be lost in the deserts of the South Pole.
+
+Ferragut came to believe that they would never double the Cape,
+remaining forever in full tempest, like the accursed ship of the legend
+of the Flying Dutchman. The captain, a regular savage of the sea,
+taciturn and superstitious, shook his fist at the promontory, cursing
+it as an infernal divinity. He was convinced that they would never
+succeed in doubling it until it should be propitiated with a human
+offering. This Englishman appeared to Ulysses like one of those
+Argonauts who used to placate the wrath of the marine deities with
+sacrifices.
+
+One night one of the crew was washed overboard and lost; the following
+day a man fell from the topmast, that no one might think salvation
+impossible. And as though the Southern Demon had only been awaiting
+this tribute, the gale from the west ceased, the bark no longer had the
+impassable barrier of a hostile sea before its prow, and was able to
+enter the Pacific, anchoring twelve days later in Valparaiso.
+
+Ulysses appreciated now the agreeable memory that this port always
+leaves in the memory of sailors. It was a resting-place after the
+struggle of doubling the cape; it was the joy of existence, after
+having felt the blast of death; it was life again in the cafés and in
+the pleasure houses, eating and drinking until surfeited, with the
+stomach still suffering from the salty food and the skin still smarting
+from boils due to the sea-life.
+
+His admiring gaze followed the graceful step of the women veiled in
+black who reminded him of his uncle, the doctor. In the nights of the
+_remolienda_, [a popular gathering or festival in Chile] his glance
+was many times distracted from the dark-hued and youthful beauties
+dancing the _Zamacueca_ [the national dance of Chile.] in the middle of
+the room, to the matrons swathed in black veils, who were playing the
+harp and piano, accompanying the dance with languishing songs which
+interested him greatly. Perhaps one of these sentimental, bearded
+ladies might have been his aunt.
+
+While his ship finished loading its cargo in Iquique, he
+came in contact with the crowd of workers from the saltpeter
+works,--"broken-down" [originally a term of contempt is now a
+complimentary by-name] Chileans, laboring men from all countries, who
+did not know how to spend their day's wages in the monotony of these
+new settlements. Their intoxication diverted itself with most mistaken
+magnificence. Some would let the wine run from an entire cask just to
+fill a single glass. Others used the bottles of champagne lined up on
+the shelves of the cafés as a target for their revolvers, paying cash
+for all that they broke.
+
+From this trip Ferragut gained a feeling of pride and confidence that
+made him scornful of every danger. Afterwards he encountered the
+tornadoes of the Asiatic seas, those horrible circular tempests that in
+the northern hemisphere revolve from right to left, and in the south
+from left to right--rapid incidents of a few hours or days at the most.
+He had doubled Cape Horn in mid-winter after a struggle against the
+elements that had lasted two months. He had been able to run all risks;
+the ocean had exhausted for him all its surprises.... And yet,
+nevertheless, the worst of his adventures occurred in a calm sea.
+
+He had been at sea seven years and was thinking of returning once more
+to Spain when, in Hamburg, he accepted the post of first mate of a
+swift-sailing ship that was setting out for Cameroon and German East
+Africa. A Norwegian sailor tried to dissuade him from this trip. It was
+an old ship, and they had insured it for four times its value. The
+captain was in league with the proprietor, who had been bankrupt many
+times.... And just because this voyage was so irrational, Ulysses
+hastened to embark. For him, prudence was merely a vulgarity, and
+obstacles and dangers but tempted more irresistibly his reckless
+daring.
+
+One evening in the latitude of Portugal, when they were far from the
+regular route of navigation, a column of smoke and flames suddenly
+swept the deck, breaking through the hatchways and devouring the sails.
+While Ferragut at the head of a band of negroes was trying to get
+control of the fire, the captain and the German crew were escaping from
+the ship in two prepared lifeboats. Ferragut felt sure that the
+fugitives were laughing at seeing him run about the deck that was
+beginning to warp and send up fire through all its cracks.
+
+Without ever knowing exactly how, he found himself in a boat with some
+negroes and different objects piled together with the precipitation of
+flight,--a half-empty barrel of biscuits and another that contained
+only water.
+
+They rowed all one night, having behind them as their unlucky star the
+burning boat that was sending its blood-red gleams across the water. At
+daybreak they noted on the sun's disk some light, black, wavy lines. It
+was land ... but so far away!
+
+For two days they wandered over the moving crests and gloomy valleys of
+the blue desert. Several times Ferragut collapsed in mortal lethargy,
+with his feet in the water filling the bottom of the boat. The birds of
+the sea were tracing spirals around this floating hearse, following it
+with vigorous strokes of the wing, and uttering croakings of death. The
+waves raised themselves slowly and sluggishly over the boat's edge as
+though wishing to contemplate with their sea-green eyes this medley of
+white and dark bodies. The ship-wrecked men rowed with nervous
+desperation; then they lay down inert, recognizing the uselessness of
+their efforts, lost in the great immensity.
+
+The mate, drowsing on the hard stern, finally smiled with closed eyes.
+It was all a bad dream. He was sure of awaking in his bed surrounded
+with the familiar comforts of his stateroom. And when he opened his
+eyes, the harsh reality made him break forth into desperate orders,
+which the Africans obeyed as mechanically as though they were still
+sleeping.
+
+"I do not want to die!... I ought not to die!" asserted his inner
+monitor in a brazen tone.
+
+They shouted and made unavailing signals to distant boats that
+disappeared from the great watery expanse without ever seeing them. Two
+negroes died of the cold. Their corpses floated many hours near the
+boat as if unable to separate themselves from it. Then they were drawn
+under by an invisible tugging, and some triangular fins passed over the
+water's surface, cutting it like knives at the same time that its
+depths were darkened by swift, ebony shadows.
+
+When at last they approached land, Ferragut realized that death was
+nearer here than on the high sea. The coast rose up before them like an
+immense wall. Seen from the boat it appeared to cover half the sky. The
+long oceanic undulation became a ravenous wave upon encountering the
+outer bulwarks of these barren islands, breaking in the depths of their
+caves, and forming cascades of foam that rolled around them from top to
+bottom, raising up furious columns of spray with the report of a
+cannonade.
+
+An irresistible hand grasped the keel, making the landing a vertical
+one. Ferragut shot out like a projectile, falling in the foaming
+whirlpools and having the impression, as he sank, that men and casks
+together were rolling and raining into the sea.
+
+He saw bubbling streaks of white and black hulks. He felt himself
+impelled by contradictory forces. Some dragged at his head and others
+at his feet in different directions, making him revolve like the hands
+of a clock. Even his thoughts were working double. "It is useless to
+resist," Discouragement was murmuring in his brain, while his other
+half was affirming desperately, "I do not want to die!... I must not
+die!"
+
+Thus he lived through a few seconds that seemed to him like hours. He
+felt the brute force of hidden friction, then a blow in the abdomen
+that arrested his course between the two waters, and grasping at the
+irregularities of a projecting rock, he raised his head and was able to
+breathe. The wave was retreating, but another again overwhelmed him,
+detaching him from the point with its foamy churning, making him leave
+in the stony crevices bits of the skin of his hands, his breast, and
+his knees.
+
+The oceanic suction seemed dragging him down in spite of his desperate
+strokes. "It's no use! I'm going to die," half of his mind was saying
+and at the same time his other mental hemisphere was reviewing with
+lightning synthesis his entire life. He saw the bearded face of the
+_Triton_ in this supreme instant. He saw the poet Labarta just as when
+he was recounting to his godson the adventures of the old Ulysses, and
+his shipwrecked struggle with the rocky peaks and waves.
+
+Again the marine dilatation tossed him against a rock, and again he
+anchored himself to it with an instinctive clutch of his hands. But
+before this wave retired it hurled him desperately upon another ledge,
+the refluent water passing back below him. Thus he struggled a long
+time, clinging to the rocks when the sea overwhelmed him, and crawling
+along upon the jutting points whenever the retiring water permitted.
+
+Finding himself upon a projecting point of the coast, free at last from
+the suction of the waves, his energy suddenly disappeared. The water
+that dripped from his body was red, each time more red, spreading
+itself in rivulets over the greenish irregularities of the rock. He
+felt intense pain as though all his organism had lost the protection of
+its covering,--his raw flesh remaining exposed to the air.
+
+He wished to get somewhere, but over his head the coast was rearing its
+stark bulk,--a concave and inaccessible wall. It would be impossible to
+get away from this spot. He had saved himself from the sea only to die
+stationed in front of it. His corpse would never float to an inhabited
+shore. The only ones that were going to know of his death were the
+enormous crabs scrambling over the rocky points, seeking their
+nourishment in the surge; the sea gulls were letting themselves drop
+vertically with extended wings from the heights of the steep-sloped
+shore. Even the smallest crustaceans had the advantage of him.
+
+Suddenly he felt all his weakness, all his misery, while his blood
+continued crimsoning the little lakes among the rocks. Closing his eyes
+to die, he saw in the darkness a pale face, hands that were deftly
+weaving delicate laces, and before night should descend forever upon
+his eyelids, he moaned a childish cry:
+
+"_Mamá_!... _Mamá_!..."
+
+Three months afterward upon arriving at Barcelona, he found his mother
+just as he had seen her during his death-agony on the Portuguese
+coast.... Some fishermen had picked him up just as his life was ebbing
+away. During his stay in the hospital he wrote many times in a light
+and confident tone to Doña Cristina, pretending that he was detained by
+important business in Lisbon.
+
+Upon seeing him enter his home, the good lady dropped her eternal
+lace-work, turned pale and greeted him with tremulous hands and
+troubled eyes. She must have known the truth; and if she did not know
+it, her motherly instinct told her when she saw Ulysses convalescent,
+emaciated, hovering between courageous effort and physical breakdown,
+just like the brave who come out of the torture chamber.
+
+"Oh, my son!... How much longer!..."
+
+It was time that he should bring to an end his madness for adventure,
+his crazy desire for attempting the impossible, and encountering the
+most absurd dangers. If he wished to follow the sea, very well. But let
+it be in respectable vessels in the service of a great company,
+following a career of regular promotion, and not wandering capriciously
+over all seas, associated with the international lawlessness that the
+ports offer for the reinforcement of crews. Remaining quietly at home
+would be best of all. Oh, what happiness if he would but stay with his
+mother!...
+
+And Ulysses, to the astonishment of Doña Cristina, decided to do so.
+The good señora was not alone. A niece was living with her as though
+she were her daughter. The sailor had only to go down in the depths of
+his memory to recall a little tot of a girl four years old, creeping
+and frolicking on the shore while he, with the gravity of a man, had
+been listening to the old secretary of the town, as he related the past
+grandeurs of the Catalunian navy.
+
+She was the daughter of a Blanes (the only poor one in the family) who
+had commanded his relatives' ships, and had died of yellow fever in a
+Central American port. Ferragut had difficulty in reconciling the
+little creature crawling over the sand with this same slender,
+olive-colored girl wearing her mass of hair like a helmet of ebony,
+with two little spirals escaping over the ears. Her eyes appeared to
+have the changing tints of the sea, sometimes black and others blue, or
+green and deep where the light of the sun was reflected like a point of
+gold.
+
+He was attracted by her simplicity and by the timid grace of her words
+and smile. She was an irresistible novelty for this world-rover who had
+only known coppery maidens with bestial roars of laughter, yellowish
+Asiatics with feline gestures, or Europeans from the great ports who,
+at the first words, beg for drink, and sing upon the knees of the one
+who is treating, wearing his cap as a testimony of love.
+
+Cinta, that was her name, appeared to have known him all his life. He
+had been the object of her conversations with Doña Cristina when they
+spent monotonous hours together weaving lace, as was the village
+custom. Passing her room, Ulysses noticed there some of his own
+portraits at the time when he was a simple apprentice aboard a
+transatlantic liner. Cinta had doubtless taken them from her aunt's
+room, for she had been admiring this adventurous cousin long before
+knowing him. One evening the sailor told the two women how he had been
+rescued on the coast of Portugal. The mother listened with averted
+glance, and with trembling hands moving the bobbins of her lace.
+Suddenly there was an outcry. It was Cinta who could not listen any
+longer, and Ulysses felt flattered by her tears, her convulsive
+laments, her eyes widened with an expression of terror.
+
+Ferragut's mother had been greatly concerned regarding the future of
+this poor niece. Her only salvation was matrimony, and the good señora
+had focused her glances upon a certain relative a little over forty who
+needed this young girl to enliven his life of mature bachelorhood. He
+was the wise one of the family. Doña Cristina used to admire him
+because he was not able to read without the aid of glasses, and because
+he interlarded his conversation with Latin, just like the clergy. He
+was teaching Latin and rhetoric in the Institute of Manresa and spoke
+of being transferred some day to Barcelona,--glorious end of an
+illustrious career. Every week he escaped to the capital in order to
+make long visits to the notary's widow.
+
+"He doesn't come on my account," said the good señora, "who would
+bother about an old woman like me?... I tell you that he is in love
+with Cinta, and it will be good luck for the child to marry a man so
+wise, so serious...."
+
+As he listened to his mother's matrimonial schemes, Ulysses began to
+wonder which of a professor of rhetoric's bones a sailor might break
+without incurring too much responsibility.
+
+One day Cinta was looking all over the house for a dark, worn-out
+thimble that she had been using for many years. Suddenly she ceased her
+search, blushed and dropped her eyes. Her glance had met an evasive
+look on her cousin's face. He had it. In Ulysses' room might be seen
+ribbons, skeins of silk, an old fan--all deposited in books and papers
+by the same mysterious reflex that had drawn his portraits from his
+mother's to his cousin's room.
+
+The sailor now liked to remain at home passing long hours meditating
+with his elbows on the table, but at the same time attentive to the
+rustling of light steps that could be heard from time to time in the
+near-by hallway. He knew about everything,--spherical and rectangular
+trigonometry, cosmography, the laws of the winds and the tempest, the
+latest oceanographic discoveries--but who could teach him the approved
+form of addressing a maiden without frightening her?... Where the deuce
+could a body learn the art of proposing to a shy girl?...
+
+For him, doubts were never very long nor painful affairs. Forward
+march! Let every one get out of such matters as best he could. And one
+evening when Cinta was going from the parlor to her aunt's bedroom in
+order to bring her a devotional book, she collided with Ulysses in the
+passageway.
+
+If she had not known him, she might have trembled for her existence.
+She felt herself grasped by a pair of powerful hands that lifted her up
+from the floor. Then an avid mouth stamped upon hers two aggressive
+kisses. "Take that and that!"... Ferragut repented on seeing his cousin
+trembling against the wall, as pale as death, her eyes filled with
+tears.
+
+"I have hurt you. I am a brute ... a brute!"
+
+He almost fell on his knees, imploring her pardon; he clenched his
+fists as if he were going to strike himself, punishing himself for his
+audacity. But she would not let him continue.... "No, No!..." And while
+she was moaning this protest, her arms were forming a ring around
+Ulysses' neck. Her head drooped toward his, seeking the shelter of his
+shoulder. A little mouth united itself modestly to that of the sailor,
+and at the same time his beard was moistened with a shower of tears.
+
+And they said no more about it.
+
+When, weeks afterward, Doña Cristina heard her son's petition, her
+first movement was one of protest. A mother listens with benevolent
+appreciation to any request for the hand of her daughter, but she is
+ambitious and exacting where her son is concerned. She had dreamed of
+something so much more brilliant; but her indecision was short. That
+timid girl was perhaps the best companion for Ulysses, after all.
+Furthermore the child was well suited to be the wife of a man of the
+sea, having seen its life from her infancy.... Good-by Professor!
+
+They were married. Soon afterwards Ferragut, who was not able to lead
+an inactive life, returned to the sea, but as first officer of a
+transatlantic steamer that made regular trips to South America. To him
+this seemed like being employed in a floating office, visiting the same
+ports and invariably repeating the same duties. His mother was
+extremely proud to see him in uniform. Cinta fixed her gaze on the
+almanac as the wife of a clerk fixes it on the clock. She had the
+certainty that when three months should have passed by she would see
+him reappear, coming from the other side of the world laden down with
+exotic gifts, just as a husband who returns from the office with a
+bouquet bought in the street.
+
+Upon his return from his first two voyages, she went to meet him on the
+wharf, her eager glance searching for his blue coat and his cap with
+its band of gold among the transatlantic passengers fluttering about
+the decks, rejoicing at their arrival in Europe.
+
+On the following trip, Doña Cristina obliged her to remain at home,
+fearing that the excitement and the crowds at the harbor might affect
+her approaching maternity. After that on each of his return trips
+Ferragut saw a new son, although always the same one; first it was a
+bundle of batiste and lace carried by a showily-uniformed nurse; then
+by the time he was captain of the transatlantic liner, a little cherub
+in short skirts, chubby-cheeked, with a round head covered with a silky
+down, holding out its little arms to him; finally a boy who was
+beginning to go to school and at sight of his father would grasp his
+hard right hand, admiring him with his great eyes, as though he saw in
+his person the concentrated perfection of all the forces of the
+universe.
+
+Don Pedro, the professor, continued visiting the house of Doña
+Cristina, although with less assiduity. He had the resigned and coldly
+wrathful attitude of the man who believes that he has arrived too late
+and is convinced that his bad luck was merely the result of his
+carelessness.... If he had only spoken before! His masculine
+self-importance never permitted him to doubt that the young girl would
+have accepted him jubilantly.
+
+In spite of this conviction, he was not able to refrain at times from a
+certain ironical aggressiveness which expressed itself by inventing
+classic nicknames. The young wife of Ulysses, bending over her
+lace-making, was Penelope awaiting the return of her wandering husband.
+
+Doña Cristina accepted this nickname because she knew vaguely that
+Penelope was a queen of good habits. But the day that the professor, by
+logical deduction, called Cinta's son Telemachus, the grandmother
+protested.
+
+"He is named Esteban after his grandfather.... Telemachus is nothing
+but a theatrical name."
+
+On one of his voyages Ulysses took advantage of a four-hour stop in the
+port of Valencia to see his godfather. From time to time he had been
+receiving letters from the poet,--each one shorter and sadder,--written
+in a trembling script that announced his age and increasing infirmity.
+
+Upon entering the office Ferragut felt just like the legendary sleepers
+who believe themselves awaking after a few hours of sleep when they
+have really been dozing for dozens of years. Everything there was still
+just as it was in his infancy:--the busts of the great poets on the top
+of the book-cases, the wreaths in their glass cases, the jewels and
+statuettes, prizes for successful poems--were still in their crystal
+cabinets or resting on the same pedestals; the books in their
+resplendent bindings formed their customary close battalions the length
+of the bookcases. But the whiteness of the busts had taken on the color
+of chocolate, the bronzes were reddened by oxidation, the gold had
+turned greenish, and the wreaths were losing their leaves. It seemed as
+though ashes might have rained down upon perpetuity.
+
+The occupants of this spell-bound dwelling presented the same aspect of
+neglect and deterioration. Ulysses found the poet thin and yellow, with
+a long white beard, with one eye almost closed and the other very
+widely opened. Upon seeing the young officer, broad-chested, vigorous
+and bronzed, Labarta, who was huddled in a great arm chair, began to
+cry with a childish hiccough as though he were weeping over the misery
+of human illusions, over the brevity of a deceptive life that
+necessitates continual renovation.
+
+Ferragut found even greater difficulty in recognizing the little and
+shrunken señora who was near the poet. Her flabby flesh was hanging
+from her skeleton like the ragged fringe of past splendor; her head was
+small; her face had the wrinkled surface of a winter apple or plum, or
+of all the fruits that shrink and wither when they lose their juices.
+"Doña Pepa!..." The two old people were thee-ing and thou-ing each
+other with the tranquil non-morality of those that realize that they
+are very near to death, and forget the tremors and scruples of a life
+crumbling behind them.
+
+The sailor shrewdly suspected that all this physical misery was the sad
+finale of an absurd, happy-go-lucky and childish dietary,--sweets
+serving as the basis of nutrition, great heavy rice dishes as a daily
+course, watermelons and cantaloupes filling in the space between meals,
+topped with ices served in enormous glasses and sending out a perfume
+of honeyed snow.
+
+The two told him, sighing, of their infirmities, which they thought
+incomprehensible, attributing them to the ignorance of the doctors. It
+was really the morbid wasting away that suddenly attacks people of the
+abundant, food-yielding countries. Their life was one continual stream
+of liquid sugar.... And yet Ferragut could easily guess the
+disobedience of the two old folks to the discipline of diet, their
+childish deceptions, their cunning in order to enjoy alone the fruits
+and syrups which were the enchantment of their existence.
+
+The interview was a short one. The captain had to return to the port of
+Grao where his steamer was awaiting him, ready to weigh anchor for
+South America.
+
+The poet wept again, kissing his god-son. He never would see again this
+Colossus who seemed to repel his weak embraces with the bellows of his
+respiration.
+
+"Ulysses, my son!... Always think of Valencia.... Do for her all that
+you can.... Keep her ever in mind, always Valencia!"
+
+He promised all that the poet wished without understanding exactly what
+it was that Valencia might expect from him, a simple sailor, wandering
+over all the seas. Labarta wished to accompany him to the door but he
+sank down in his seat, obedient to the affectionate despotism of his
+companion who was always fearing the greatest catastrophes for him.
+
+Poor Doña Pepa!... Ferragut felt inclined to laugh and to weep at the
+same time upon receiving a kiss from, her withered mouth whose down had
+turned into pin points. It was the kiss of an old beauty who remembers
+the gallantry of a youthful lover, the kiss of a childless woman
+caressing the son she might have had.
+
+"Poor unhappy Carmelo!... He no longer writes, he no longer reads....
+Ay! what will ever become of me?..."
+
+She always spoke of the poet's failing powers with the commiseration of
+a strong and healthy person, and she became terrified when thinking of
+the years in which she might survive her lord. Taken up with caring for
+him, she never even glanced at herself.
+
+A year afterward, on returning from the Philippines, the captain found
+a letter from his god-father awaiting him at Port Said. Doña Pepa had
+died, and Labarta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low
+spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle. Ulysses ran his eyes
+over the enclosed newspaper clipping containing the last verses of the
+poet. The stanzas were in Castilian. A bad sign!... After that there
+could be no doubt that his end must be very near.
+
+Ferragut never again had an opportunity to see his god-father, who died
+while he was on one of his trips. Upon disembarking at Barcelona, Doña
+Cristina handed him a letter written by the poet almost in his
+death-agony. "Valencia, my son! Always Valencia!" And after repeating
+this recommendation many times, he announced that he had made his
+god-son his heir.
+
+The books, the statues, all the glorious souvenirs of the
+poet-laureate, came to Barcelona to adorn the sailor's home. The little
+Telemachus amused himself pulling apart the old wreaths of the
+troubador, and tearing out the old prints from his volumes with the
+inconsequence of a lively child whose father is very far away and who
+knows that he is idolized by two indulgent ladies. Besides his
+trophies, the poet left Ulysses an old house in Valencia, some real
+estate and a certain amount in negotiable securities,--total, thirty
+thousand dollars.
+
+The other guardian of his infancy, the vigorous _Triton_, seemed to be
+unaffected by the passing of the years. Upon his return to Barcelona,
+Ferragut frequently found him installed in his home, in mute hostility
+to Doña Cristina, devoting to Cinta and her son a part of the affection
+that he had formerly lavished upon Ulysses alone.
+
+He was very desirous that the little Esteban should know the home of
+his great grandparents.
+
+"You will let me have him?... You know well enough," he coaxed, "that
+down in the _Marina_ men become as strong as though made of bronze.
+Surely you will let me have him?..."
+
+But he quailed before the indignant gesture of the suave Doña Cristina.
+Entrust her grandson to the _Triton_, and let him awaken in him the
+love of maritime adventure, as he had done with Ulysses?... Behind me,
+thou blue devil!
+
+The doctor used to wander around bewildered by the port of
+Barcelona.... Too much noisy bustle, too much movement! Walking proudly
+along by the side of Ulysses, he loved to recount to him the adventures
+of his life as a sailor and cosmopolitan vagabond. He considered his
+nephew the greatest of the Ferraguts, a true man of the sea like his
+ancestors but with the title of captain;--an adventurous rover over all
+oceans, as he had been, but with a place on the bridge, invested with
+the absolute command that responsibility and danger confer. When
+Ulysses reëmbarked, the _Triton_ would take himself off to his own
+dominions.
+
+"It will be next time, sure!" he would say in order to console himself
+for having to part with his nephew's son; and after a few months had
+passed by, he would reappear, each time larger, uglier, more tanned,
+with a silent smile which broke into words before Ulysses just as
+tempestuous clouds break forth in thunder claps.
+
+Upon his return from a trip to the Black Sea, Doña Cristina announced
+to her son: "Your uncle has died."
+
+The pious señora lamented as a Christian the departure of her
+brother-in-law, dedicating a part of her prayers to him; but she
+insisted with a certain cruelty in giving an account of his sad end,
+for she had never been able to pardon his fatal intervention in the
+destiny of Ulysses. He had died as he had lived,--in the sea, a victim,
+of his own rashness, without confession, just like any pagan.
+
+Another legacy thus fell to Ferragut.... His uncle had gone out
+swimming one sunny, winter morning and had never come back. The old
+folks on the shore had their way of explaining how the accident had
+happened,--a fainting spell probably, a clash against the rocks. The
+_Dotor_ was still vigorous, but the years do not pass without leaving
+their footprints. Some believed that he must have had a struggle with a
+shark or some other of the carnivorous fish that abound in the
+Mediterranean waters. In vain the fishermen guided their skiffs through
+all the twisting entrances and exits of the waters around the
+promontory, exploring the gloomy caves and the lower depths of
+crystalline transparency. No one was ever able to find the _Triton's_
+body.
+
+Ferragut recalled the cortege of Aphrodite which the doctor had so
+often described to him on summer evenings, by the light of the far-away
+gleam of the lighthouse. Perhaps he had come upon that gay retinue of
+nereids, joining it forever!
+
+This absurd supposition that Ulysses mentally formulated with a sad and
+incredulous smile, frequently recurred in the simple thoughts of many
+of the people of the _Marina_.
+
+They refused to believe in his death. A wizard is never drowned. He
+must have found down below something very interesting and when he got
+tired of living in the green depths, he would probably some day come
+swimming back home.
+
+No: the _Dotor_ had not died.
+
+And for many years afterwards the women who were going along the coast
+at nightfall would quicken their steps, crossing themselves upon
+distinguishing on the dark waters a bit of wood or a bunch of sea weed.
+They feared that suddenly would spring forth the _Triton_, bearded,
+dripping, spouting, returning from his excursion into the mysterious
+depths of the sea.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+FREYA
+
+The name of Ulysses Ferragut began to be famous among the captains of
+the Spanish ports, although the nautical adventures of his early days
+contributed very little to this popularity. The most of them had
+encountered greater dangers, but they appreciated him because of the
+instinctive respect that energetic and simple men have for an
+intelligence which they consider superior to their own. Reading nothing
+except what pertained to their career, they used to speak with
+consternation of the numerous books that filled Ferragut's stateroom,
+many of them upon matters which appeared to them most mysterious. Some
+even made inexact statements in order to enlarge the prestige of their
+comrade.
+
+"He knows much.... He is a lawyer as well as a sailor."
+
+Consideration of his fortune also contributed to the general
+appreciation. He was an important share-holder of the company by which
+he was employed. His companions loved to calculate with proud
+exaggeration the riches of his mother, piling it up into millions.
+
+He met friends on every ship carrying the Spanish flag, whatever might
+be its home port or the nationality of its crews.
+
+They all liked him:--the Basque captains, economical in words, rude and
+sparing in affectionate discourse; the Asturian and Galician captains,
+self-confident and spendthrift in strange contrast to their sobriety
+and avaricious character when ashore; the Andalusian captains,
+reflecting in their witty talk white Cadiz and its luminous wines; the
+Valencian captains who talk of politics on the bridge, imagining that
+they are going to become the navy of a future republic; and the
+captains from Catalunia and Mallorca as thoroughly acquainted with
+business affairs as are their ship-owners. Whenever necessity obliged
+them to defend their rights, they immediately thought of Ulysses.
+Nobody could write as he could.
+
+The old mates who had worked their way up from the lower ranks, men of
+the sea who had begun their career on coasting vessels and could only
+with great difficulty adjust their practical knowledge to the handling
+of books, used to speak of Ferragut with pride.
+
+"They say that men of the sea are an uncultivated people.... Here they
+have _Don Luis_ who is one of us. They may ask him whatever they
+wish.... A real sage!"
+
+The name of Ulysses always made them stammer. They believed it a
+nickname, and not wishing to show any lack of respect, they had finally
+transformed it into "Don Luis." For some of them, Ferragut's only
+defect was his good luck. So far not a single boat of which he had had
+command had been lost. And every sailor constantly on the sea ought to
+have at least one of these misfortunes in his history in order to be a
+real captain. Only landlubbers never lose their boats.
+
+When his mother died, Ulysses was very undecided about the future, not
+knowing whether to continue his sea life, or undertake something
+entirely different. His relatives at Barcelona, merchants quick to
+understand and appraise a fortune, added up what the notary and his
+wife had left him and put with that what Labarta and the doctor had
+contributed, until it amounted to a million pesetas.... And was a man
+with as much money as that to go on living like a poor captain
+dependent upon wages to maintain his family!...
+
+His cousin, Joaquin Blanes, proprietor of a factory for knit goods,
+urged him repeatedly to follow his example. He ought to remain on shore
+and invest his capital in Catalan industry. Ulysses belonged to this
+country both on his mother's side and because he was born in the
+neighboring land of Valencia. There was great need of men of fortune
+and energy to take part in the government. Blanes was entering local
+politics with the enthusiasm of a middle-class man for novel adventure.
+
+Cinta never said a word to influence her husband. She was the daughter
+of a sailor and had accepted the life of a sailor's wife. Furthermore,
+she looked upon matrimony in the light of the old familiar
+traditions:--the woman absolute mistress of the interior of the home,
+but trusting outside affairs to the will of the lord, the warrior, the
+head of the hearth, without permitting herself opinions or objections
+to their acts.
+
+It was Ulysses, therefore, who decided to abandon the seafaring life.
+Worked upon by the suggestions of his cousins, it needed only a little
+dispute with one of the directors of the shipping firm to make him hand
+in his resignation, and refuse to reconsider it, although urged by the
+protests and entreaties of the other stockholders.
+
+In the first months of his existence ashore, he was amazed at the
+desperate immovability of everything. The world was made up of
+revolting rigidity and solidity. He felt almost nauseated at seeing all
+his possessions remain just where he left them, without the slightest
+fluctuation, or the least bit of casual caprice.
+
+In the mornings upon opening his eyes, he at first experienced the
+sweet sensation of irresponsible liberty. Nothing affected the fate of
+that house. The lives of those that were sleeping on the other floors
+above and below him had not been entrusted to his vigilance.... But in
+a few days he began to feel that there was something lacking, something
+which had been one of the greatest satisfactions of his existence,--the
+sensation of power, the enjoyment of command.
+
+Two maids were now always hastening to him with a frightened air at the
+sound of his voice, or the ringing of his bell. That was all that was
+left to him who had commanded dozens of men of such ugliness of temper
+that they struck terror to all beholders when they went ashore in the
+ports. Nobody consulted him now, while on the sea everybody was seeking
+his counsel and many times had to interrupt his sleep. The house could
+go on without his making the rounds daily from the cellars to the roof,
+overseeing even the slightest spigot. The women who cleaned it in the
+mornings with their brooms were always obliging him to flee from his
+office. He was not permitted to make any comment nor could he extend a
+gold-striped arm as when he used to scold the barefooted, bare-breasted
+deck-swabbers, insisting that the deck should be as clean as the
+saloon. He felt himself belittled, laid to one side. He thought of
+Hercules dressed as a woman and spinning wool. His love of family life
+had made him renounce that of a powerful man.
+
+Only the considerate treatment of his wife, who surrounded him with
+assiduous care as though wishing to compensate for their long
+separations, made the situation bearable. Furthermore, his conscience
+was enjoying a certain satisfaction in being a land-father, taking much
+interest in the life of his son who was beginning to prepare to enter
+the institute, looking over his books, and aiding him in understanding
+the notes.
+
+But even these pleasures were not of long duration. The family
+gatherings in his home or at his relatives' bored him unspeakably; so
+did the conversations with his cousins and nephews about profits and
+business deals, or about the defects of centralized tyranny. According
+to them, all the calamities of heaven and earth were coming from
+Madrid. The governor of the province was the "Consul of Spain."
+
+These merchants interrupted their criticisms only to listen in
+religious silence to Wagner's music banged out on the piano by the
+girls of the family. A friend with a tenor voice used to sing
+_Lohengrin_ in Catalan. Enthusiasm made the most excitable roar, "the
+hymn ... the hymn!" It was not possible to misunderstand. For them
+there was only one hymn in existence, and in a trilling undertone they
+would accompany the liturgic music of _Los Segadores_ (The Reapers).
+[The revolutionary song of Catalunia, originated by a band of reapers
+in the seventeenth century.]
+
+Ulysses used to recall with homesickness his life as commander of a
+transatlantic liner,--a wide, universal life of incessant and varied
+horizons, and cosmopolitan crowds. He could see himself detained on
+deck by groups of elegant maidens who would beg him for new dances in
+the coming week. His footsteps were surrounded with white fluttering
+skirts, veils that waved like colored clouds, laughter and trills,
+Spanish chatter that appeared set to music:--all the frolicsome jargon
+of a cage of tropical birds.
+
+Ex-presidents of the South American republics,--generals or doctors who
+were going to Europe to rest,--used to relate to him on the bridge,
+with Napoleonic gravity, the principal events in their history. The
+business men starting out for America confided to him their stupendous
+plans:--rivers turned from their courses, railroads built across the
+virgin forests, monstrous electric forces extracted from huge
+waterfalls varying in breadth, cities vomited from the desert in a few
+weeks, all the marvels of an adolescent world that desires to realize
+whatever its youthful imagination may conceive. He was the demi-urge of
+this little floating world: he disposed of joy and love as the spirit
+moved him.
+
+In the scorching evenings around the equator, it was enough for him to
+give an order to rouse things and beings from their brutish drowsiness.
+"Let the music begin, and refreshments be served." And in a few moments
+dancers would be revolving the whole length of the deck, and smiling
+lips and eyes would become brilliantly alight with illusion and desire.
+Behind him, his praises were always being sounded. The matrons found
+him very distinguished. "It is plain to be seen that he is an
+exceptional person." Stewards and crew circulated exaggerated accounts
+of his riches and his studies. Some young girls sailing for Europe with
+imaginations seething with romance were very much aghast to learn that
+the hero was married and had a son. The solitary ladies stretched out
+on a _chaise-longue,_ book in hand, upon seeing him would arrange the
+corolla of their petticoats, hiding their legs with so much
+precipitation that it always left them more uncovered; then fixing upon
+him a languishing glance, they would begin a dialogue always in the
+same way.
+
+"How is it that any one so young as you has already become a
+captain?..."
+
+Ah, the misery of it!... He who had gallantly passed many years
+cruising from one extreme of the Atlantic to the other with a rich,
+gay, perfumed world, at times resisting feminine caprice through mere
+prudence, yielding at others with the secrecy of a discreet sailor, now
+found himself with no other admirers than the mediocre tribe of the
+Blanes, with no other hallucinations than those which his cousin the
+manufacturer might suggest, when waxing enthusiastic because the great
+apostles of politics were taking a certain interest in the captain.
+
+Every morning, on awaking, his taste now received a rude shock. The
+first thing that he contemplated was a room "without personality," a
+dwelling that was not characteristic of him in any way, arranged by the
+maids with excessive cleanliness and a lack of logic that was
+constantly changing the situation of his things.
+
+He recalled with longing his compact and well-ordered stateroom where
+there was not a piece of furniture that could escape his glance nor a
+drawer whose contents he did not know down to the slightest detail. His
+body was accustomed to slip without embarrassment through the spaces of
+his cabin furnishings. He had adapted himself to all incoming and
+outgoing angles just as the body of the mollusk adapts itself to the
+winding curves of its shells. The cabin seemed formed by the secretions
+of his being. It was a covering, a sheath, that went with him from one
+extreme of the ocean to the other, heating itself with the high
+temperature of the tropics, or becoming as cosy as an Esquimo hut on
+approaching the polar seas.
+
+His love for it was somewhat like that which the friar has for his
+cell; but this cell was a secular one, and entering it after a
+tempestuous night on the bridge, or a trip ashore in most curious and
+foreign ports, he found it always the same, with his papers and books
+untouched on the table, his clothes hanging from their hooks, his
+photographs fixed on the walls. The daily spectacle of seas and lands
+was always changing--the temperature, the course of the stars, and the
+people that one week were bundled up in winter greatcoats, and were
+clad in white the week after, hunting the heavens for the new stars of
+another hemisphere.... Yet his cozy little stateroom was always the
+same, as though it were the corner of a planet apart, unaffected by the
+variations of this world.
+
+Upon awaking in it, he found himself every morning enwrapped in a
+greenish and bland atmosphere as though he might have been sleeping in
+the bottom of an enchanted lake. The sun traced over the whiteness of
+his ceiling and sheets a restless network of gold whose meshes
+constantly succeeded each other. This was the reflection of the
+invisible water. When his ship was immovable in the ports, there always
+came in through his window the whirling noise of the cranes, the cries
+of the stevedores and the voices of those who were in the neighboring
+vessels. On the high sea the cool and murmuring silence of immensity
+used to fill his sleeping room. A wind of infinite purity that came
+perhaps from the other side of the planet--slipping past thousands of
+leagues, over the salty deserts without touching a single bit of
+corruption--would come stealing into Ferragut's throat like an
+effervescent wine. His chest always expanded to the impulses of this
+life-giving draught as his eyes roved over the sparkling, luminous blue
+of the horizon.
+
+Here in his home, the first thing that he saw through the window upon
+awaking was a Catalunian edifice, rich and monstrous, like the palaces
+that the hypnotist evolves in his dreams,--an amalgamation of Persian
+flowers, Gothic columns, trunks of trees, with quadrupeds, reptiles and
+snails among the cement foliage. The paving wafted up to him through
+its drains the fetidity of sewers dry for lack of water; the balconies
+shed the dust of shaken rugs; the absurd palace appropriated, with the
+insolence of the new-rich, all the heaven and sun that used to belong
+to Ferragut.
+
+One night he surprised his relatives by informing them that he was
+about to return to the sea. Cinta assented to this resolution in
+painful silence, as though she had foreseen it long before. It was
+something inevitable and fatal that she must accept. The manufacturer,
+Blanes, stammered with astonishment. Return to his life of adventures,
+when the great gentlemen of the district were becoming interested in
+his personality!... Perhaps in the next elections they might have made
+him a member of the municipal council!
+
+Ferragut laughed at his cousin's simplicity. He wanted to command a
+vessel again, but one of his own, without being obliged to consider the
+restrictions of the ship owners. He could permit himself this luxury.
+It would be like an enormous yacht, ready to set forth according to his
+tastes and convenience, yet at the same time bringing him in untold
+profits. Perhaps his son might in time become director of a maritime
+company, this first ship laying the foundation of an enormous fleet in
+the years to come.
+
+He knew every port in the world, every highway of traffic, and he would
+be able to find the places where, lacking transportation facilities,
+they paid the highest freight rates. Until now he had been a salaried
+man, brave and care-free. He was going to begin an absolutely
+independent life as a speculator of the sea.
+
+Two months afterwards he wrote from England saying that he had bought
+the _Fingal_, a mail packet of three thousand tons that had made trips
+twice a week between London and a port of Scotland.
+
+Ulysses appeared highly delighted with the cheapness of his
+acquisition. The _Fingal_ had been the property of a Scotch captain
+who, in spite of his long illness, had never wished to give up command,
+dying aboard his vessel. His heirs, inland men tired by their long
+wait, were anxious to get rid of it at any price.
+
+When the new proprietor entered the aft saloon surrounded with
+staterooms,--the only habitable place in the ship,--memories of the
+dead came forth to meet him. On the wall-panels were painted the heroes
+of the Scotch Iliad,--the bard Ossian with his harp, Malvina with the
+round arms and waving golden tresses, the undaunted warriors with their
+winged helmets and protruding biceps, exchanging gashes on their
+shields while awaking the echoes of the green lochs.
+
+A deep and spongy arm chair opened its arms before a stove. There the
+owner of the ship had passed his last years, sick at heart and with
+swollen legs, directing from his seat a course that was repeated every
+week across the foggy winter waves tossing bits of ice snatched from
+the icebergs. Near the stove was a piano and upon its top an orderly
+collection of musical scores yellowed by time,--_La Sonnambula, Lucia_,
+Romances of Tosti, Neapolitan songs, breezy and graceful melodies that
+the old chords of the instrument sent forth with the fragile and
+crystalline tinkling of an old music box. The poor old captain with
+sick heart and legs of stone had always turned to the sea of light for
+distraction. It was music that made appear in the foggy heavens the
+peaks of Sorrento covered with orange and lemon trees, and the coast of
+Sicily, perfumed by its flaming flora.
+
+Ferragut manned his boat with friendly people. His first mate was a
+pilot who had begun his career in a fishing smack. He came from the
+same village as Ulysses' ancestors, and he remembered the _Dotor_ with
+respect and admiration. He had known this new captain when he was a
+little fellow and used to go fishing with his uncle. In those days Toni
+was already a sailor on a coast-trading vessel, and his superiority in
+years had then justified his using the familiar thee and thou when
+talking with the lad Ulysses.
+
+Finding himself now under his orders, he wished to change his mode of
+address, but the captain would not permit it. Perhaps he and Toni were
+distant relatives,--all those living in that village of the _Marina_
+had become related through long centuries of isolated existence and
+common danger. The entire crew, from the first engineer to the lowest
+seaman, showed an equal familiarity in this respect. Some were from the
+same land as the captain, others had been sailing a long time under his
+orders.
+
+As shipowner, Ulysses now underwent numberless experiences whose
+existence he had never before suspected. He went through the anguishing
+transformation of the actor who becomes a theatrical manager, of the
+author who branches out into publishing, of the engineer with a hobby
+for odd inventions who becomes the proprietor of a factory. His
+romantic love for the sea and its adventures was now overshadowed by
+the price and consumption of coal, by the maddening competition that
+lowered freight rates, and by the search for new ports with fast and
+remunerative freight.
+
+The _Fingal_ which had been rebaptized by its new proprietor with the
+name of _Mare Nostrum_, in memory of his uncle, turned out to be a
+dubious purchase in spite of its low price. As a navigator Ulysses had
+been most enthusiastic upon beholding its high and sharp prow disposed
+to confront the worst seas, the slenderness of the swift craft, its
+machinery, excessively powerful for a freight steamer,--all the
+conditions that had made it a mail packet for so many years. It
+consumed too much fuel to be a profitable investment as a transport of
+merchandise. The captain during his navigation could now think only of
+the ravenous appetite of the boilers. It always seemed to him that the
+_Mare Nostrum_ was speeding along with excess steam.
+
+"Half speed!" he would shout down the tube to his first engineer.
+
+But in spite of this and many other precautions, the expense for fuel
+was enormously disproportioned to the tonnage of the vessel. The boat
+was eating up all the profits. Its speed was insignificant compared
+with that of a transatlantic steamer, though absurd compared with that
+of the merchant vessels of great hulls and little machinery that were
+going around soliciting cargo at any price, from all points.
+
+A slave of the superiority of his vessel and in continual struggle with
+it, Ferragut had to make great efforts in order to continue sailing
+without actual heavy loss. All the waters of the planet now saw the
+_Mare Nostrum_ specializing in the rarest kind of transportation.
+Thanks to this expedient, the Spanish flag waved in ports that had
+never seen it before.
+
+Under this banner, he made trips through the solitary seas of Syria and
+Asia Minor, skirting coasts where the novelty of a ship with a smoke
+stack made the people of the Arabian villages run together in crowds.
+He disembarked in Phoenician and Greek ports choked up with sand that
+had left only a few huts at the foot of mountains of ruins, and where
+columns of marble were still sticking up like trunks of lopped-off palm
+trees. He anchored near to the terrible breakers of the western coast
+of Africa under a sun which scorched the deck, in order to take on
+board india-rubber, ostrich feathers, and elephants' tusks, brought out
+in long pirogues by negro oarsmen, from a river filled with crocodiles
+and hippopotamuses, and bordered by groups of huts with straw cones for
+roofs.
+
+When there were no more of these extraordinary voyages, the _Mare
+Nostrum_ turned its course towards South America, resigning itself to
+competition in rates with the English and Scandinavians who are the
+muleteers of the ocean. His tonnage and draught permitted him to sail
+up the great rivers of North America, even reaching the cities of the
+remote interior where rows of factory chimneys smoked on the border of
+a fresh-water lake converted into a port.
+
+He sailed up the ruddy Paraná to Rosario and Colastiné, in order to
+load Argentine wheat; he anchored in the amber waters of Uruguay
+opposite Paysandú and Fray Ventos, taking on board hides destined to
+Europe and salt for the Antilles. From the Pacific he sailed up the
+Guayas bordered with an equatorial vegetation, in search of cocoa from
+Guayaquil. His prow cut the infinite sheet of the Amazon,--dislodging
+gigantic tree-trunks dragged down by the inundations of the virgin
+forest--in order to anchor opposite Pará or Manaos, taking on cargoes
+of tobacco and coffee. He even carried from Germany implements of war
+for the revolutionists of a little republic.
+
+These trips that in other times would have awakened Ferragut's
+enthusiasm now resulted disastrously. After having paid all expenses
+and lived with maddening economy, there was scarcely anything left for
+the owner. Each time the freight boats were more numerous and the
+transportation rates cheaper. Ulysses with his elegant _Mare Nostrum_
+could not compete with the southern captains, drunken and taciturn,
+eager to accept freight at any price in order to fill their miserable
+transports crawling across the ocean at the speed of a tortoise.
+
+"I can do no more," he said sadly to his mate. "I shall simply ruin my
+son. If anybody will buy the _Mare Nostrum,_ I'm going to sell it."
+
+On one of his fruitless expeditions, just when he was most discouraged,
+some unexpected news changed the situation for him. They had just
+arrived at Teneriffe with maize and bales of dry alfalfa from
+Argentina.
+
+When Toni returned aboard after having cleared the vessel, he shouted
+in Valencian, the language of intimacy, "War, _Che_!"
+
+Ulysses, who was pacing the bridge, received the news with
+indifference. "War?... What war is that?..." But upon learning that
+Germany and Austria had begun hostilities with France and Russia, and
+that England was just intervening in behalf of Belgium, the captain
+began quickly to calculate the political consequences of this
+conflagration. He could see nothing else.
+
+Toni, less disinterested, spoke of the future of the vessel.... Their
+misery was at last at an end! Freightage at thirteen shillings a ton
+was going to be henceforth but a disgraceful memory. They would no
+longer have to plead for freight from port to port as though begging
+alms. Now they were on the point of achieving importance, and were
+going to find themselves solicited by consignors and disdainful
+merchants. The _Mare Nostrum_ was going to be worth its weight in gold.
+
+Such predictions, though Ferragut refused to accept them, began to be
+fulfilled in a very short time. Ships on the ocean routes suddenly
+became very scarce. Some of them were taking refuge in the nearest
+neutral ports, fearing the enemy's cruisers. The greater part were
+mobilized by their governments for the enormous transportation of
+material that modern war exacts. The German corsairs, craftily taking
+advantage of the situation, were increasing with their captures the
+panic of the merchant marine.
+
+The price of freight leaped from thirteen shillings a ton to fifty,
+then to seventy, and a few days later to a hundred. It couldn't climb
+any further, according to Captain Ferragut.
+
+"It will climb higher yet," affirmed the first officer with cruel joy.
+"We shall see tonnage at a hundred and fifty, at two hundred.... We are
+going to become rich!..."
+
+And Toni always used the plural in speaking of the future riches
+without its ever occurring to him to ask his captain a penny more than
+the forty-five dollars that he was receiving each month. Ferragut's
+fortune and that of the ship, he invariably looked upon as his own,
+considering himself lucky if he was not out of tobacco, and could send
+his entire wages home to his wife and children living down there in the
+_Marina_.
+
+His ambition was that of all modest sailors--to buy a plot of land and
+become an agriculturist in his old age. The Basque pilots used to dream
+of prairies and apple orchards, a little cottage on a peak and many
+cows. He pictured to himself a vineyard on the coast, a little white
+dwelling with an arbor under whose shade he could smoke his pipe while
+all his family, children and grandchildren, were spreading out the
+harvest of raisins on the frame-hurdles.
+
+A familiar admiration like that of an ancient squire for his paladin,
+or of an old subaltern for a superior officer, bound him to Ferragut.
+The books that filled the captain's stateroom recalled his agonies upon
+being examined in Cartagena for his license as a pilot. The grave
+gentlemen of the tribunal had made him turn pale and stutter like a
+child before the logarithms and formulas of trigonometry. But just let
+them consult _him_ on practical matters and his skill as master of a
+bark habituated to all the dangers of the sea, and he would reply with
+the self-possession of a sage!
+
+In the most difficult perils,--days of storm and sinister shoals in the
+neighborhood of the treacherous coasts, Ferragut could decide to rest
+only when Toni replaced him on the bridge. With him, he had no fear
+that, through carelessness, a wave would sweep across the deck and stop
+the machinery, or that an invisible ledge would drive its stony point
+into the vitals of the vessel. He held the helm to the course
+indicated. Silent and immovable he stood, as though sleeping on his
+feet; but at the right moment he always uttered the brief word of
+command.
+
+He was very skinny, with the dried up leanness of the bronzed
+Mediterranean. The salt wind more than his years had tanned his face,
+wrinkling it with deep crevices. A capricious coloring had darkened the
+depths of these cracks while the part exposed to the sun appeared
+washed several shades lighter. His short stiff beard extended over all
+the furrows and crests of his skin. Furthermore, he had hair in his
+ears, hair in the nasal passages, coarse and vibrating growths, ready
+to tremble in moments of wrath or admiration.... But this ugliness
+disappeared under the light of his little eyes with pupils between
+green and olive color,--mild eyes with a canine expression of
+resignation, when the captain made fun of his beliefs.
+
+Toni was a "man of ideas." Ferragut only knew of his having four or
+five, but they were hard, crystallized, tenacious, like the mollusks
+that stick to the rocks and eventually become a part of the stony
+excrescence. He had acquired them in twenty-five years of Mediterranean
+coast service by reading all the periodicals of lyric radicalism that
+were thrust upon him on entering the harbors. Furthermore, at the end
+of every journey was Marseilles; and in one of its little side alleys
+was a red room adorned with symbolic columns where sailors of all races
+and tongues met together, fraternally understanding each other by means
+of mysterious signs and ritual words.
+
+Whenever Toni entered a South American port after a long absence, he
+particularly admired the rapid progress of the new villages,--enormous
+wharves constructed within the year, interminable streets that were not
+in existence on his former voyage, shady and elegant parks, replacing
+old, dried-up lakes.
+
+"That's only natural," he would affirm roundly. "With good reason they
+are republics!"
+
+Upon entering the Spanish ports, the slightest deviation in the
+docking, a discussion with the official employees, the lack of space
+for a good anchorage would make him smile with bitterness. "Unfortunate
+country!... Everything here is the work of the altar and the throne!"
+
+In the Thames, and before the docks of Hamburg, Captain Ferragut would
+chaff his subordinate.
+
+"There's no republic here, Toni!... But, nevertheless this is rather
+worth while."
+
+But Toni never gave in. He would contract his hairy visage, making a
+mental effort to formulate his vague ideas, clothing them with words.
+In the very background of these grandeurs existed the confirmation of
+the idea he was so vainly trying to express. Finally he admitted
+himself checkmated, but not convinced.
+
+"I don't know how to explain it; I haven't the words for it ... but ...
+it's the _people_ who are doing all this."
+
+Upon receiving in Teneriffe the news of war, he summed up all his
+doctrines with the terseness of a victor.
+
+"In Europe there are too many kings.... If all the nations could be
+republics!... This calamity just had to come!"
+
+And this time Ferragut did not venture to ridicule the
+single-mindedness of his second.
+
+All the people of the _Mare Nostrum_ showed great enthusiasm over the
+new business aspect of things. The seamen who in former voyages were
+taciturn, as though foreseeing the ruin or exhaustion of their captain,
+were now working as eagerly as though they were going to participate in
+the profits.
+
+In the forward mess room many of them set themselves to work on
+commercial calculations. The first trip of the war would be equal to
+ten of their former ones; the second, perhaps, might bring in the
+profit of twenty. And recalling their former bad business ventures,
+they rejoiced for Ferragut, with the same disinterestedness as the
+first officer. The engineers were no longer called to the captain's
+cabin in order to contrive new economies in fuel. They had to take
+advantage of the time and opportunity; and the _Mare Nostrum_ was now
+going at full steam, making fourteen knots an hour, like a passenger
+vessel, stopping only when its course was blocked at the entrance of
+the Mediterranean by an English destroyer, sending out an officer to
+make sure that they were not carrying on board enemy passengers.
+
+Abundance reigned equally between bridge and forecastle where were the
+sailors' quarters and the galley,--the space respected by every one on
+the boat as the incontestable realm of Uncle Caragol.
+
+This old man, nicknamed "Caracol" (snail), another old friend of
+Ferragut's, was the ship's cook, and, although he did not dare to talk
+as familiarly to the captain as in former times, the tone of his voice
+made it understood that mentally he was continuing to use the old,
+affectionate form. He had known Ulysses when he used to run away from
+the classrooms to row in the harbor and, on account of the bad state of
+his eyes, he had finally retired from the navigation of coast vessels,
+descending to be a simple bargeman. His gravity and corpulence had
+something almost priestly in character. He was the obese type of
+Mediterranean with a little head, voluminous neck and triple chin,
+seated on the stern of his fishing skiff like a Roman patrician on the
+throne of his trireme.
+
+His culinary talent suffered eclipse whenever rice did not figure as
+the fundamental basis of his compositions. All that this food could
+give of itself, he knew perfectly. In the tropical ports, the crews
+surfeited with bananas, pineapples, and alligator-pears, would greet
+with enthusiasm the apparition of a great frying pan of rice with cod
+and potatoes, or a casserole of rice from the oven with its golden
+crust perforated by the ruddy faces of garbanzos and points of black
+sausage. At other times, under the leaden-colored sky of the northern
+seas, the cook made them recall their distant native land by giving
+them the monastic rice dish with beet roots, or buttery rice with
+turnips and beans.
+
+On Sundays and the fiestas of the Valencian saints who for Uncle
+Caragol were the first in heaven,--_San Vicente Mártir, San Vicente
+Ferrer, La Virgin de los Desamparados_ and the _Cristo del Grao_--would
+appear the smoking _paella_, a vast, circular dish of rice upon whose
+surface of white, swollen grains were lying bits of various fowls. The
+cook loved to surprise his following by distributing rotund, raw
+onions, with the whiteness of marble and an acrid surprise that brought
+tears to the eyes. They were a princely gift maintained in secret. One
+had only to break them with one blow and their sticky juices would gush
+forth and lose themselves in the palate like crisp mouthfuls of a sweet
+and spicy bread, alternating with knifefuls of rice. The boat was at
+times near Brazil in sight of Fernando de Noroña,--yet even while
+viewing the conical huts of the negroes installed on an island under an
+equatorial sun, the crews could almost believe--thanks to Uncle
+Caragol's magic--that they were eating in a cabin of the farmland of
+Valencia, as they passed from hand to hand the long-spouted jug filled
+with strong wine from Liria.
+
+When they anchored in ports where fish was abundant, he achieved the
+great work of cooking a rice _abanda_. The cabin boys would bring to
+the captain's table the pot in which was boiled the rich sea food mixed
+with lobsters, mussels, and every kind of shell-fish available, but the
+_chef_ invariably reserved for himself the honor of offering the
+accompanying great platter with its pyramid, of rice, every grain
+golden and distinct.
+
+Boiled apart (_abanda_) each grain was full of the succulent broth of
+the stew-pot. It was a rice dish that contained within it the
+concentration of all the sustenance of the sea. As though he were
+performing a liturgical ceremony, the _chef_ would go around delivering
+half a lemon to each one of those seated at the table. The rice should
+only be eaten after moistening it with this perfumed dew which called
+to mind the image of an oriental garden. Only the unfortunate beings
+who lived inland were ignorant of this exquisite confection, calling
+any mess of rice a Valencian rice dish.
+
+Ulysses would humor the cook's notions, carrying the first spoonful to
+his mouth with a questioning glance.... Then he would smile, giving
+himself up to gastric intoxication. "Magnificent, Uncle Caragol!" His
+good humor made him affirm that only the gods should be nourished with
+rice _abanda_ in their abodes on Mount Olympus. He had read that in
+books. And Caragol, divining great praise in all this, would gravely
+reply, "That is so, my captain." Toni and the other officers by this
+time would be chewing away with heads down, only interrupting their
+feast to regret that the old Ganymede should have skimped them when
+measuring the ambrosia.
+
+In his estimation, oil was as precious as rice. In the time of their
+money-losing navigation, when the captain was making special efforts at
+economy, Caragol used to keep an especially sharp eye on the great oil
+bottles in his galley, for he suspected that the cabin boys and the
+young seamen appropriated it to dress their hair when they wanted to
+play the dandy, using the oil as a pomade. Every head that put itself
+within reach of his disturbed glance he grasped between his arms,
+raising it to his nose. The slightest perfume of olive oil would arouse
+his wrath. "Ah, you thief!"... And down would fall his enormous hand,
+soft and heavy as a fencing gauntlet.
+
+Ulysses believed him quite capable of climbing the bridge, and
+declaring that navigation could not go on because of his having
+exhausted the leathern bottles of amethyst-colored liquid proceeding
+from the Sierra de Espadán.
+
+In the ports, his short-sighted eyes recognized immediately the
+nationality of the boats anchored on both sides of the _Mare Nostrum_.
+His nose would sniff the air sadly. "Nothing!..." They were unsavory
+barks, barks from the North that prepared their dinner with lard or
+butter,--Protestant barks, perhaps.
+
+Sometimes he would sneak along the gunwale, following an intoxicating
+trail until he planted himself in front of the galley of the
+neighboring boat, breathing in its rich perfume. "Hello, brothers!"
+Impossible to fool him, they were probably Spaniards and, if not, they
+were from Genoa or Naples,--in short, were compatriots accustomed to
+live and eat in all latitudes just as though they were in their own
+little inland sea. Soon they would begin a speech in the Mediterranean
+idiom, a mixture of Spanish, Provençal and Italian, invented by the
+hybrid peoples of the African coast from Egypt to Morocco. Sometimes
+they would send each other presents, like those that are exchanged
+between tribes,--fruits from distant countries. At other times,
+suddenly inimical, without knowing why, they would shake their fists
+over the railing, yelling insults at each other in which, between every
+two or three words, would appear the names of the Virgin and her holy
+Son.
+
+This was the signal for Uncle Caragol, religious soul, to return in
+haughty silence to his galley. Toni, the mate, used to make fun of his
+devout enthusiasm. On the other hand, the foremast hands, materialistic
+and gluttonous, used to listen to him with deference, because he was
+the one who doled out the wine and the choicest tid-bits. The old man
+used to speak to them of the _Cristo del Grao_, whose pictures occupied
+the most prominent site in the kitchen, and they would all listen as to
+a new tale, to the story of the arrival by sea of the sacred image,
+mounted upon a ladder in a boat that had dissolved in smoke after
+discharging its miraculous cargo.
+
+This had been when the _Grao_ was no more than a group of huts far from
+the walls of Valencia and threatened by the raids of the Moorish
+pirates. For many years Caragol, barefooted, had carried this sacred
+ladder on his shoulder on the day of the fiesta. Now other men of the
+sea were enjoying such honor and he, old and half-blind, would be
+waiting among the public for the procession to pass in order that he
+might throw himself upon the enormous relic, touching his clothes to
+the wood.
+
+All his outer garments were sanctified by this contact. In reality they
+weren't very many, since he usually strolled about the boat very
+lightly clad, with the immodesty of a man who sees poorly and considers
+himself above human preoccupations.
+
+A shirt with the tail always floating, and a pair of pantaloons of
+dirty cotton or yellow flannel, according to the season, constituted
+his entire outfit. The bosom of the shirt was open on all occasions,
+leaving visible a thatch of white hair. The pantaloons were fastened
+together with a single button. A palm leaf hat always covered his head
+even when he was working among his cooking pots.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ could not be shipwrecked nor suffer any harm while
+it carried him aboard. In the days of tempest, when waves were sweeping
+the deck from prow to poop, and the sailors were treading warily,
+fearing that a heavy sea might carry them overboard, Caragol would
+stick his head out through the door of the galley, scorning a danger
+which he could not see.
+
+The great water-spouts would pass over him, even putting out his fires,
+but only increasing his faith. "Courage, boys! Courage, lads!" The
+_Cristo del Grao_ had special charge of them and nothing bad could
+happen to the ship... Some of the seamen were silent, while others said
+this and that about the image without arousing the indignation of the
+old devotee. God, who sends dangers to the men of the sea, knows that
+their bad words lack malice.
+
+His religiosity extended to the very deeps. He did not wish to say
+anything about the ocean fish, for they inspired him with the same
+indifference as those cold and unperfumed boats that were ignorant of
+olive oil, and all that was cooked with "pomade." They must be
+heretics.
+
+He was better acquainted with the fish of the Mediterranean and even
+came to believe that they must be good Catholics, since in their own
+way they proclaimed the glory of God. Standing near the taffrail on
+torrid evenings in the tropics, he would recount, in honor of the
+inhabitants of his distant sea, the portentous miracle which had taken
+place in the glen of Alboraya.
+
+A priest was one day fording on horseback the mouth of a river in order
+to carry the eucharist to a dying person, when his beast stumbled and
+the ciborium, falling open, the Hosts fell out and were carried off by
+the current. From that time on, mysterious lights glowed every night on
+the water, and at sunrise a swarm of little fishes would come to range
+themselves opposite the glen, their heads emerging from the water, in
+order to show the Host which each one of them was carrying in his
+mouth. In vain the fishermen wished to take them away from them. They
+fled to the inland sea with their treasures. Only when the clergy, with
+cross erect and with the same priest, fell on their knees in the glen
+did they decide to approach; and one after the other deposited his Host
+in the ciborium, retiring then from wave to wave, gracefully waggling
+their little tails.
+
+In spite of the vague hope for a jug of choice wine that was animating
+most of his hearers, a murmur of incredulity always arose at the end of
+this tale. The devout Caragol then became as wrathful and foul-mouthed
+as a prophet of old when he considered his faith in danger. "Who was
+that son of a flea?... Who _was_ that son of a flea daring to doubt
+what I myself have seen?..." And what he had seen was the fiesta of the
+_Peixet_ that was celebrated every year, simply listening to most
+learned men discoursing about the miracle in a commemorative chapel
+built on the banks of the glen.
+
+This prodigy of the little fishes was almost always followed with what
+he called the miracle of the _Peixot_, endeavoring with the weight of
+such a marvelous fish tale to crush the doubts of the impious.
+
+The galley of Alphonso V of Aragon (the only sailor king of Spain),
+upon coming out of the Gulf of Naples, once struck a hidden rock near
+the island of Capri which took away a side of the ship without making
+it leak; and the vessel continued on with all sails spread, carrying
+the king, the ladies of his court, and the retinue of mail-clad barons.
+Twenty days afterward they arrived at Valencia safe and sound like all
+sailors who in moments of danger ask aid of the _Virgen del Puig_. Upon
+inspecting the hull of the galley, the master calkers beheld a
+monstrous fish detach itself from its bottom with the tranquility of an
+upright person who has fulfilled his duty. It was a dolphin sent by the
+most holy Señora in order that his side might stop up the open breach.
+And thus, like a plug, it had sailed from Naples to Valencia without
+allowing a drop of water to pass in.
+
+The _chef_ would not admit any criticisms nor protests. This miracle
+was undeniable. He had seen it with his own eyes, and they were good.
+He had seen it in an ancient picture in the monastery of Puig,
+everything appearing on the tablet with the realism of truth,--the
+galley, the king, the _peixòt_ and the Virgin above giving the order.
+
+At this juncture the breeze would flap the narrator's shirt tail,
+disclosing his abdomen divided into hemispheres by the tyranny of its
+only pantaloon button.
+
+"Uncle Caragol, look out!" warned a teasing voice.
+
+The holy man would smile with the seraphic calm of one who sees beyond
+the pomps and vanities of existence, and would begin the relation of a
+new miracle.
+
+Ferragut used to attribute his cook's periods of exaltation to the
+lightness of his clothing in all weathers. Within him was burning a
+fire incessantly renewed. On foggy days he would climb to the bridge
+with some glasses of a smoking drink that he used to call _calentets_.
+Nothing better for men that had to pass long hours in the inclement
+weather in motionless vigilance! It was coffee mixed with rum, but in
+unequal proportions, having more alcohol than black liquid. Toni would
+drink rapidly all the glasses offered. The captain would refuse them,
+asking for clear coffee.
+
+His sobriety was that of the ancient sailor,--the sobriety of Father
+Ulysses who used to mix wine with water in all his libations. The
+divinities of the old sea did not love alcoholic drinks. The white
+_Amphitrite_ and the Nereids only accepted on their altars the fruits
+of the earth, sacrifices of doves, libations of milk. Perhaps because
+of this the seafaring men of the Mediterranean, following an hereditary
+tendency, looked upon intoxication as the vilest of degradations. Even
+those who were not temperate avoided getting frankly drunk like the
+sailors of other seas, dissimulating the strength of their alcoholic
+beverage with coffee and sugar.
+
+Caragol was the understudy charged with drinking all which the captain
+refused, together with certain others which he dedicated to himself in
+the mystery of the galley. On warm days he manufactured _refresquets_,
+and these refreshments were enormous glasses, half of water and half of
+rum upon a great bed of sugar,--a mixture that made one pass like a
+lightning flash, without any gradations, from vulgar serenity to most
+angelic intoxication.
+
+The captain would scold him upon seeing his inflamed and reddened eyes.
+He was going to make himself blind.... But the guilty one was not moved
+by this threat. He had to celebrate the prosperity of the vessel in his
+own way. And of this prosperity the most interesting thing for him was
+his ability to use oil and brandy lavishly without any fear of
+recriminations when the accounts were settled. _Cristo del Grao_!...
+would that the war would last forever!...
+
+The _Mare Nostrum's_ third voyage from South America to Europe came
+suddenly to an end in Naples, where they were unloading wheat and
+hides. A collision at the entrance of the port, with an English
+hospital ship that was going to the Dardanelles, injured her stern,
+carrying away a part of the screw.
+
+Toni roared with impatience upon learning that they would have to
+remain nearly a month in enforced idleness. Italy had not yet
+intervened in the war, but her defensive precautions were monopolizing
+all naval industries. It was not possible to make the repairs sooner,
+although Ferragut well knew what this loss of time would represent in
+his business. Valuable freight was waiting for him in Marseilles and
+Barcelona, but, wishing to tranquillize himself and to pacify his mate,
+he would say repeatedly:
+
+"England will indemnify us.... The English are just."
+
+And in order to soothe his impatience he went ashore.
+
+Compared with other celebrated Italian cities, Naples did not appear to
+him of much importance. Its true beauty was its immense gulf between
+hills of orange trees and pines, with a second frame of mountains one
+of which outlined upon the azure heavens its eternal crest of volcanic
+vapors.
+
+The town did not abound in famous edifices. The monarchs of Naples had
+generally been foreigners who had resided far away and had governed
+through their delegates. The best streets, the palaces, the monumental
+fountain, had come from the Spanish viceroys. A sovereign of mixed
+origin, Charles the III, Castilian by birth and Neapolitan at heart,
+had done the most for the city. His building enthusiasm had embellished
+the ancient districts with works similar to those that he erected years
+afterward, upon occupying the throne of Spain.
+
+After admiring the Grecian statuary in the museum, and the excavated
+objects that revealed the intimate life of the ancients, Ulysses
+threaded the tortuous and often gloomy arteries of the popular
+districts.
+
+There were streets clinging to the slopes forming landings flanked with
+narrow and very high houses. Every vacant space had its balconies, and
+from every railing to its opposite were extended lines spread with
+clothes of different colors, hung out to dry. Neapolitan fertility made
+these little alleys seethe with people. Around the open-air kitchens
+there crowded patrons, eating, while standing, their boiled macaroni or
+bits of meat.
+
+The hucksters were hawking their goods with melodious, song-like cries,
+and cords to which little baskets were fastened were lowered down to
+them from balconies. The bargaining and purchases reached from the
+depth of the street gutters to the top of the seventh floor, but the
+flocks of goats climbed the winding steps with their customary agility
+in order to be milked at the various stair landings.
+
+The wharves of the Marinela attracted the captain because of the local
+color of this Mediterranean port. Italian unity had torn down and
+reconstructed much of it, but there still remained standing various
+rows of little low-roofed houses with white or pink facades, green
+doors, and lower floors further forward than the upper ones, serving as
+props for galleries with wooden balustrades. Everything there that was
+not of brick was of clumsy carpentry resembling the work of ship
+calkers. Iron did not exist in these terrestrial constructions
+suggestive of the sailboat whose rooms were as dark as staterooms.
+Through the windows could be seen great conch-shells upon the chests of
+drawers, harsh and childish oil paintings representing frigates, and
+multi-colored shells from distant seas.
+
+These dwellings repeated themselves in all the ports of the
+Mediterranean just as though they were the work of the same hand. As a
+child, Ferragut had seen them in the _Grao_ of Valencia and continually
+ran across them in Barcelona, in the suburbs of Marseilles, in old
+Nice, in the ports of the western islands, and in the sections of the
+African coast occupied by Maltese and Sicilians.
+
+Over the town, lined up along the Marinela, the churches of Naples
+reared their domes and towers with glazed roofs, green and yellow,
+which appeared more like pinnacles of Oriental baths than the roofs of
+Christian temples.
+
+The barefooted _lazzarone_ with his red cap no longer existed, but the
+crowd,--clad like the workmen of all ports--still gathered around the
+daubed poster that represented a crime, a miracle or a prodigious
+specific, listening in silence to the harangue of the narrator or
+charlatan. The old popular comedians were declaiming with heroic
+gesticulations the epic octavos of Tasso, and harps and violins were
+sounding accompaniments to the latest melody that Naples had made
+fashionable throughout the entire world. The stands of the oyster-men
+constantly sent forth an organic perfume from the spent wave, and all
+around them empty shells scattered their disks of pearly lime over the
+mud.
+
+Near to the ancient Captaincy of the port, the palace of Charles
+III,--blue and white, with an image of the immaculate conception,--were
+assembled the unloading trucks, whose teams still preserved their
+ancient hybrid originality. In some instances the shafts were occupied
+by a white ox, sleek with enormous and widely branching horns, an
+animal similar to those that used to figure in the religious ceremonies
+of the ancients. At his right would be hooked a horse, at his left, a
+great raw-boned mule, and this triple and discordant team appeared in
+all the carts, standing immovable before the ships the length of the
+docks, or dragging their heavy wheels up the slopes leading to the
+upper city.
+
+In a few days the captain grew tired of Naples and its bustle. In the
+cafés of the Street of Toledo and the Gallery of Humbert I, he had to
+defend himself from some noisy youths with low-cut vests, butterfly
+neckties and little felt hats perched upon their manes, who, in low
+voices, proposed to him unheard-of spectacles organized for the
+diversion of foreigners.
+
+He had also seen enough of the paintings and domestic objects excavated
+from the ancient cities. The lewdness of the secret cabinets finally
+irritated him. It appeared to him the reverse of recreation to
+contemplate so many childish fantasies of sculpture and painting having
+the antique symbol of masculinity as its principal motif.
+
+One morning he boarded a train and, after skirting the smoking mountain
+of Vesuvius, passing between rose-colored villages surrounded with
+vineyards, he stopped at the station of Pompeii.
+
+From the funereal solitudes of hotels and restaurants, the guides came
+forth like a suddenly awakened swarm of wasps, lamenting that the war
+had cut off the tourist trade. Perhaps he would be the only one who
+would come that day. "_Signor_, at your service, at any price
+whatever!..." But the sailor continued on alone. Always, in recalling
+Pompeii, he had wished to see it again alone, absolutely alone, so as
+to get a more direct impression of the ancient life.
+
+His first view of it had been seventeen years ago when, as a mate of a
+Catalan sailing vessel anchored in the port of Naples, he had taken
+advantage of the cheapness of Sunday rates and had seen everything as
+one of a crowd that was pushing and treading on everybody's feet so as
+to listen to the nearest guide.
+
+At the head of the expedition had been a priest, young and elegant, a
+Roman _Monsignor_, clad in silk, and with him two showy foreign women,
+who were always climbing up in the highest places, raising their skirts
+rather high for fear of the star lizards that were writhing in and out
+of the ruins. Ferragut, in humble admiration, always remained below,
+glimpsing the country from behind their legs. "Ay! Twenty-two
+years!..." Afterwards when he heard Pompeii spoken of, it always evoked
+in his memory several strata of images. "Very beautiful! Very
+interesting!" And in his mind's eye he saw again the palaces and
+temples, but as a secondary consideration, like a shrouded background,
+while in the forefront were four magnificent legs standing forth,--a
+human colonnade of slender shafts swathed in transparent black silk.
+
+The solitude so long desired for his second visit was now aggressively
+in evidence. In this deserted, dead city there were to-day no other
+sounds than the whirring of insect wings over the plants beginning to
+clothe themselves with springtime verdure, and the invisible scampering
+of reptiles under the layers of ivy.
+
+At the gate of Herculaneum, the guardian of the little museum left
+Ferragut to examine in peace the excavations of the various corpses,
+petrified Pompeiians of plaster still in the attitudes of terror in
+which death had surprised them. He did not abandon his post in order to
+trouble the captain with his explanations; he scarcely raised his eyes
+from the newspaper that he had before him. The news from Rome,--the
+intrigues of the German diplomats, the possibility that Italy might
+enter the war,--were absorbing his entire attention.
+
+Afterwards on the solitary streets the sailor found everywhere the same
+preoccupation. His footsteps resounded in the sunlight as though
+treading the depths of the hollow tombs. The moment he stopped, silence
+again enveloped him,--"A silence of two thousand years," thought
+Ferragut to himself, and in the midst of this primeval silence sounded
+far-away voices in the violence of a sharp discussion. They were the
+guardians and the employees of the excavations who, lacking work, were
+gesticulating and insulting each other in these strongholds twenty
+centuries old so profoundly isolated from patriotic enthusiasm or fear
+of the horrors of war.
+
+Ferragut, map in hand, passed among these groups without annoyance from
+insistent guides. For two hours he fancied himself an inhabitant of
+ancient Pompeii who had remained alone in the city on a holiday devoted
+to the rural divinities. His glance could reach to the very end of the
+straight streets without encountering persons or things recalling
+modern times.
+
+Pompeii appeared to him smaller than ever in this solitude,--an
+intersection of narrow roads with high sidewalks paved with polygonal
+blocks of blue lava. In its interstices Spring was forming green grass
+plots dotted with flowers. Carriages,--of whose owners not even the
+dust was left,--had with their deep wheels opened up ridges in the
+pavement more than a thousand years ago. In every crossway was a public
+fountain with a grotesque mask which had spouted water through its
+mouth.
+
+Certain red letters on the walls were announcements of elections to be
+held in the beginning of that era,--candidates for aedile or duumvir
+who were recommended to the Pompeiian voters. Some doors showed above,
+the _phallus_ for conjuring the evil eyes; others, a pair of serpents
+intertwined, emblem of family life. In the corners of the alleyways, a
+Latin verse engraved on the walls asked the passerby to observe the
+laws of sanitation, and there still could be seen on the stuccoed walls
+caricatures and scribbling, handiwork of the little street gamins of
+Caesar's day.
+
+The houses were lightly constructed upon floors cracked by minor
+earthquakes before the arrival of the final catastrophe. The lower
+floors were of bricks or concrete and the others, of wood, had been
+devoured by the volcanic fire, only the stairways remaining.
+
+In this gracious city of amiable and easy-going life, more Greek than
+Roman, all the lower floors of the plebeian houses had been occupied by
+petty traders. They were shops with doors the same size as the
+establishment, four-sided caves like the Arabian _zocos_ whose
+furthermost corners were visible to the buyer stopping in the street.
+Many still had their stone counters and their large earthen jars for
+the sale of wine and oil. The private dwellings had no facades, and
+their outer walls were smooth and unapproachable, but with an interior
+court providing the surrounding chambers with light as in the palaces
+of the Orient. The doors were merely half-doors of escape, parts of
+larger ones. All life was concentrated around the interior, the central
+patio, rich and magnificent, adorned with fish ponds, statues and
+flower-bordered beds.
+
+Marble was rare. The columns constructed of bricks were covered with a
+stucco that offered a fine surface for painting. Pompeii had been a
+polychrome city. All the columns, red or yellow, had capitals of divers
+colors. The center of the walls was generally occupied with a little
+picture, usually erotic, painted on black varnished walls varied with
+red and amber hues. On the friezes were processions of cupids and
+tritons, between rustic and maritime emblems.
+
+Tired of his excursion through the dead city, Ferragut seated himself
+on a stone bench among the ruins of the temple, and looked over the map
+spread out on his knees, enjoying the titles with which the most
+interesting constructions had been designated because of a mosaic or a
+painting,--Villa of Diomedes, the House of Meleager, of the wounded
+Adonis, of the Labryinth, of the Faun, of the Black Wall. The names of
+the streets were not less interesting: The Road of the Hot Baths, the
+Road of the Tombs, the Road of Abundance, the Road of the Theaters.
+
+The sound of footsteps made the sailor raise his head. Two ladies were
+passing, preceded by a guide. One was tall, with a firm tread. They
+were wearing face-veils and still another larger veil crossing behind
+and coming over the arms like a shawl. Ferragut surmised a great
+difference in the ages of the two. The stout one was moving along with
+an assumed gravity. Her step was quick, but with a certain authority
+she planted on the ground her large feet, loosely shod and with low
+heels. The younger one, taller and more slender, tripping onwards with
+little steps like a bird that only knows how to fly, was teetering
+along on high heels.
+
+The two looked uneasily at this man appearing so unexpectedly among the
+ruins. They had the preoccupied and timorous air of those going to a
+forbidden place or meditating a bad action. Their first movement was an
+impulse to go back, but the guide continued on his way so imperturbably
+that they followed on.
+
+Ferragut smiled. He knew where they were going. The little cross street
+of the _Lupanares_ was near. The guard would open a door, remaining on
+watch with dramatic anxiety as though he were endangering his job by
+this favor in exchange for a tip. And the two ladies were about to see
+some tarnished, clumsy paintings showing nothing new or original in the
+world,--nude, yellowish figures, just alike at first glance with no
+other novelty than an exaggerated emphasis on sex distinction.
+
+Half an hour afterwards Ulysses abandoned his bench, for his eyes had
+tired of the severe monotony of the ruins. In the street of the Hot
+Baths (_Thermae_), he again visited the house of the tragic poet. Then
+he admired that of Pansa, the largest and most luxurious in the city.
+This Pansa had undoubtedly been the most pretentious citizen of
+Pompeii. His dwelling occupied an entire block. The _xystus_, or
+garden, adjoining the house had been laid out like a Grecian landscape
+with cypresses and laurels between squares of roses and violets.
+
+Following along the exterior wall of the garden, Ferragut again met the
+two ladies. They were looking at the flowers across the bars of the
+door. The younger one was expressing in English her admiration for some
+roses that were flinging their royal color around the pedestal of an
+old faun.
+
+Ulysses felt an irresistible desire to show off in a gallant and
+intrepid fashion. He wished to pay the two foreign ladies some
+theatrical homage. He felt that necessity of attracting attention in
+some gay and dashing way that characterizes Spaniards far from home.
+
+With the agility of a mast-climber, he leaped the garden wall in one
+bound. The two ladies gave a cry of surprise, as though they had
+witnessed some impossible maneuver. This audacity appeared to upset the
+ideas of the older one, accustomed to life in disciplined towns that
+rigidly respect every established prohibition. Her first movement was
+of flight, so as not to be mixed up in the escapade of this stranger.
+But after a few steps she paused. The younger one was smiling, looking
+at the wall, and as the captain reappeared upon it she almost clapped
+with enthusiasm as though applauding a dangerous acrobatic feat.
+
+Believing them to be English, the sailor spoke in that language when
+presenting to them the two roses that he carried in his hand. They were
+merely flowers, like all others, grown in a land like other lands, but
+the frame of the thousand-year-old wall, the propinquity of the alcoves
+and drinking shops of a house built by Pansa in the time of the first
+Caesars, gave them the interest of roses two thousand years old,
+miraculously preserved.
+
+The largest and most luxuriant he gave to the young woman, and she
+accepted it smilingly as her natural right. Her companion as soon as
+she acknowledged the gift, appeared impatient to get away from the
+stranger. "Thanks!... Thanks!" And she pushed along the other one, who
+had not yet finished smiling,--the two going hurriedly away. A corner
+adorned with a fountain soon hid their steps.
+
+When Ulysses, after a light lunch in the restaurant of Diomedes, came
+running to the station, the train was just about to start. He was
+planning to see Salerno, celebrated in the Middle Ages for its
+physicians and navigators, and then the ruined temples of Paestum. As
+he climbed into the nearest coach, he fancied that he spied the veils
+of the two ladies vanishing behind a little door that was just closing.
+
+In the station of Salerno he again caught sight of them in a distant
+hack disappearing in a neighboring street, and during the afternoon he
+frequently ran across them as travelers will in a small city. They met
+one another in the harbor, so fatally threatened with bars of moving
+sand; they saw each other in the gardens bordering the sea, near the
+monument of Carlo Pisacana, the romantic duke of San Juan, a precursor
+of Garibaldi, who died in extreme youth for the liberty of Italy.
+
+The young woman smiled whenever she met him. Her companion passed on
+with a casual glance, trying to ignore his presence.
+
+At night they saw more of each other, as they were stopping at the same
+hotel, a lodging house like all those in the small ports with excellent
+meals and dirty rooms. They had adjoining tables, and after a coldly
+acknowledged greeting, Ferragut had a good look at the two ladies who
+were speaking very little and in a low tone, fearing to be overheard by
+their neighbor.
+
+Upon looking at the older one without her veils, he found his original
+impression confirmed. In other times, perhaps, she might have destroyed
+the peace of male admirers, but she could now continue her hostile and
+distant attitude with impunity. The captain was not at all affected by
+it.
+
+She must have been over forty. Her excessive flesh still had a certain
+freshness, the result of hygienic care and gymnastic exercise. On the
+other hand, her white complexion showed underneath it a yellowish
+subcutaneous, granular condition that looked as though made up of
+particles of bran. Upon her ancient switch, reddish in tone, were piled
+artificial curls hiding bald spots and gray hairs. Her green pupils,
+when freed from their near-sighted glasses, had the tranquil opacity of
+ox-eyes; but the minute these gold-mounted crystals were placed between
+her and the outer world, the two glaucous drops took on a sharpness
+which fairly perforated persons and objects. At other times they
+appeared a glacial and haughty void, like the circle that a sword
+traces.
+
+The young woman was less intractable. She appeared to be smiling out of
+the corners of her eyes, while her back was half turned to Ferragut,
+acknowledging his mute and scrutinizing admiration. She had her hair
+loosely arranged like a woman who is not afraid of naturalness in her
+coiffure, and lets her waving locks peep out under her hat in all their
+original willfulness.
+
+She was a dainty ash-blonde with a high color in striking contrast to
+her general delicacy of tone. Her great, almond-shaped, black eyes
+appeared like those of an Oriental dancer, and were yet further
+prolonged by skillful retouching of shadows that augmented the
+seductive contrast with her dull gold hair.
+
+The whiteness of her skin became very evident when her arm showed
+outside her sleeve and at the opening of her low-necked dress. But this
+whiteness was now temporarily effaced by a ruddy mask. Her vigorous
+beauty had been fearlessly exposed to the sun and the breath of the
+sea, and a scarlet triangle emphasized the sweet curve of her bosom,
+accentuating the low cut of her gown. Upon her sunburned throat a
+necklace of pearls hung in moonlight drops. Further up, in a face
+tanned by the inclemency of the weather, the mouth parted its two
+scarlet, bow-shaped lips with an audacious and serene smile, showing
+the reflection of her strong and handsome teeth.
+
+Ferragut reviewed his past without finding a single woman that could be
+exactly compared with her. The distant perfume of her person and her
+genteel elegance reminded him of certain dubious ladies who were always
+traveling alone when he was captain of the transatlantic liners. But
+these acquaintances had been so rapid and were so far away!... Never in
+his history as a world-rover had he had the good luck to chance upon a
+woman just like this one.
+
+Again exchanging glances with her, he felt that throb in the heart and
+flash in the brain which accompany a lightning-like and unexpected
+discovery... He had known that woman: he could not recall where he had
+seen her, but he was sure that he must have known her.
+
+Her face told his memory nothing, but those eyes had exchanged glances
+with his on other occasions. In vain he reflected, concentrating his
+thoughts.... And the queer thing about it all was that, by some
+mysterious perception, he became absolutely certain that she was doing
+the same thing at the very same moment. She also had recognized him,
+and was evidently making great effort to give him a name and place in
+her memory. He had only to notice the frequency with which she turned
+her eyes toward him and her new smile, more confident and spontaneous,
+such as she would give to an old friend.
+
+Had her dragon not been present, they would have talked together
+enthusiastically, instinctively, like two restless, curious beings
+wishing to clear up the mystery; but the gold-rimmed glasses were
+always gleaming authoritatively and inimically, coming between the two.
+Several times the fat lady spoke in a language that reached Ferragut
+confusedly and which was not English, and their dinner was hardly
+finished before they disappeared just as they had done in the streets
+of Pompeii,--the older one evidently influencing the other with her
+iron will.
+
+The following morning they all met again in a first-class coach in the
+station of Salerno. Undoubtedly they had the same destination. As
+Ferragut began to greet them, the hostile dame deigned to return his
+salutation, looking then at her companion with a questioning
+expression. The sailor guessed that during the night they had been
+discussing him while he, under the same roof, had been struggling
+uselessly, before falling asleep, to concentrate his recollections.
+
+He never knew with certainty just how the conversation began. He found
+himself suddenly talking in English with the younger one, just as on
+the preceding morning. She, with the audacity that quickly makes the
+best of a dubious situation, asked him if he was a sailor. And upon
+receiving an affirmative response, she then asked if he was Spanish.
+
+"Yes, Spanish."
+
+Ferragut's answer was followed by a triumphant glance toward the
+chaperone, who seemed to relax a little and lose her hostile attitude.
+And for the first time she smiled upon the captain with her mouth of
+bluish-rose color, her white skin sprinkled with yellow, and her
+glasses of phosphorescent splendor.
+
+Meanwhile, the young woman was talking on and on, verifying her
+extraordinary powers of memory.
+
+She had traveled all over the world without forgetting a single one of
+the places which she had seen. She was able to repeat the titles of the
+eighty great hotels in which those who make the world's circuit may
+stay. Upon meeting with an old traveling companion, she always
+recognized his face immediately, no matter how short a time she had
+seen him, and oftentimes she could even recall his name. This last was
+what she had been puzzling over, wrinkling her brows with the mental
+effort.
+
+"You are a captain?... Your name is?..."
+
+And she smiled suddenly as her doubts came to an end.
+
+"Your name is," she said positively, "Captain Ulysses Ferragut."
+
+In long and agreeable silence she relished the sailor's astonishment.
+Then, as though she pitied his stupefaction, she made further
+explanations. She had made a trip from Buenos Ayres to Barcelona in a
+steamship which he had commanded.
+
+"That was six years ago," she added. "No; seven years ago."
+
+Ferragut, who had been the first to suspect a former acquaintance,
+could not recall this woman's name and place among the innumerable
+passengers that filled his memory. He thought, nevertheless, that he
+must lie for gallantry's sake, insisting that he remembered her well.
+
+"No, Captain; you do not remember me. I was accompanied by my husband
+and you never looked at me.... All your attentions on that trip were
+devoted to a very handsome widow from Brazil."
+
+She said this in Spanish, a smooth, sing-song Spanish learned in South
+America, to which her foreign accent contributed a certain childish
+charm. Then she added coquettishly:
+
+"I know you, Captain. Always the same!... That affair of the rose at
+Pompeii was very well done.... It was just like you."
+
+The grave lady of the glasses, finding herself forgotten, and unable to
+understand a word of the new language employed in the conversation, now
+spoke aloud, rolling her eyes in her enthusiasm.
+
+"Oh, Spain!..." she said in English. "The land of knightly
+gentlemen.... Cervantes ... Lope!... The Cid!..."
+
+She stopped hunting for more celebrities. Suddenly she seized the
+sailor's arm, exclaiming as energetically as though she had just made a
+discovery through the little door of the coach. "Calderon de la Barca!"
+Ferragut saluted her. "Yes, Señora." After that the younger woman
+thought that it was necessary to present her companion.
+
+"Doctor Fedelmann.... A very wise woman distinguished in philology and
+literature."
+
+After clasping the doctor's hand, Ferragut indiscreetly set himself to
+work to gather information.
+
+"The Señora is German?" he said in Spanish to the younger one.
+
+The gold-rimmed spectacles appeared to guess the question and shot a
+restless gleam at her companion.
+
+"No," she replied. "My friend is a Russian, or rather a Pole."
+
+"And you, are you Polish, too?" continued the sailor.
+
+"No, I am Italian."
+
+In spite of the assurance with which she said this, Ferragut felt
+tempted to exclaim, "You little liar!" Then, as he gazed upon the full,
+black, audacious eyes fixed upon him, he began to doubt.... Perhaps she
+was telling the truth.
+
+Again he found himself interrupted by the wordiness of the doctor. She
+was now speaking in French, repeating her eulogies on Ferragut's
+country. She could read Castilian in the classic works, but she would
+not venture to speak it. "Ah, Spain! Country of noble traditions...."
+And then, seeking to relieve these eulogies by some strong contrast,
+she twisted her face into a wrathful expression.
+
+The train was running along the coast, having on one side the blue
+desert of the Gulf of Salerno, and on the other the red and green
+mountains dotted with white villages and hamlets. The doctor took it
+all in with her gleaming glasses.
+
+"A country of bandits," she said, clenching her fists. "Country of
+mandolin-twangers, without honor and without gratitude!..."
+
+The girl laughed at this outburst with that hilarity of
+light-heartedness in which no impressions are durable, considering as
+of no importance anything which does not bear directly upon its own
+egoism.
+
+From a few words that the two ladies let fall, Ulysses inferred that
+they had been living in Rome and had only been in Naples a short time,
+perhaps against their will. The younger one was well acquainted with
+the country, and her companion was taking advantage of this enforced
+journey in order to see what she had so many times admired in books.
+
+The three alighted in the station of Battipaglia in order to take the
+train for Paestum. It was a rather long wait, and the sailor invited
+them to go into the restaurant, a little wooden shanty impregnated with
+the double odor of resin and wine.
+
+This shack reminded both Ferragut and the young woman of the houses
+improvised on the South American deserts; and again they began to speak
+of their oceanic voyage. She finally consented to satisfy the captain's
+curiosity.
+
+"My husband was a professor, a scholar like the doctor.... We were a
+year in Patagonia, making scientific explorations."
+
+She had made the dangerous journey through an ocean of desert plains
+that had spread themselves out before them as the expedition advanced;
+she had slept in ranch houses whose roofs shed bloodthirsty insects;
+she had traveled on horseback through whirlwinds of sand that had
+shaken her from the saddle; she had suffered the tortures of hunger and
+thirst when losing the way, and she had passed nights in intemperate
+weather with no other bed than her poncho and the trappings of the
+horses. Thus they had explored those lakes of the Andes between
+Argentina and Chile that guard in their pure and untouched desert
+solitude the mystery of the earliest days of creation.
+
+Rovers over these virgin lands, shepherds and bandits, used to talk of
+glimpses of gigantic animals at nightfall on the shores of the lakes
+devouring entire meadows with one gulp; and the doctor, like many other
+sages, had believed in the possibility of finding a surviving
+prehistoric animal, a beast of the monstrous herds anterior to the
+coming of man, still dwelling in this unexplored section of the planet.
+
+They saw skeletons dozens of yards long in the foot-hills of the
+Cordilleras so frequently agitated by volcanic cataclysms. In the
+neighborhood of the lakes the guides pointed out to them the hides of
+devoured herds, and enormous mountains of dried material that appeared
+to have been deposited by some monster. But no matter how far they
+penetrated into the solitude, they were always unable to find any
+living descendant of prehistoric fauna.
+
+The sailor listened absent-mindedly, thinking of something else that
+was quickening his curiosity.
+
+"And you, what is your name?" he said suddenly.
+
+The two women laughed at this question, amusing because so unexpected.
+
+"Call me Freya. It is a Wagnerian name. It means the earth, and at the
+same time liberty.... Do you like Wagner?"
+
+And before he could reply she added in Spanish, with a Creole accent
+and flashing eyes:
+
+"Call me, if you wish, 'the merry widow.' The poor doctor died as soon
+as we returned to Europe."
+
+The three had to run to catch the train ready to start for Paestum. The
+landscape was changing on both sides of the way, as now they were
+crossing over marshy portions of land. On the soft meadows flocks of
+buffaloes, rude animals that appeared carved out in hatchet strokes,
+were wading and grazing.
+
+The doctor spoke of Paestum, the ancient Poseidonia, the city of
+Neptune, founded by the Greeks of Sybaris six centuries before Christ.
+
+Commercial prosperity once dominated the entire coast. The gulf of
+Salerno was called by the Romans the Gulf of Paestum. And this city
+with mountains like those of Athens had suddenly become extinguished
+without being swallowed up by the sea, and with no volcano to cover it
+with ashes.
+
+Fever, the miasma of the fens, had been the deadly lava for this
+Pompeii. The poisonous air had caused the inhabitants to flee, and the
+few who insisted upon living within the shadow of the ancient temples
+had had to escape from the Saracen invasions, founding in the
+neighboring mountains a new country--the humble town of Capaccio
+Vecchio. Then the Norman kings, forerunners of Frederick II (the father
+of Doña Constanza, the empress beloved by Ferragut), had plundered the
+entire deserted city, carrying off with them its columns and sculpture.
+
+All the medieval constructions of the kingdom of Naples were the spoils
+of Paestum. The doctor recalled the cathedral of Salerno, seen the
+afternoon before, where Hildebrand, the most tenacious and ambitious of
+the popes, was buried. Its columns, its sarcophagi, its bas-reliefs had
+come from this Grecian city, forgotten for centuries and centuries
+and only in modern times--thanks to the antiquarians and
+artists--recovering its fame.
+
+In the station of Paestum, the wife of the only employee looked
+curiously at this group arriving after the war had blocked off the
+trail of tourists.
+
+Freya spoke to her, interested in her malarial and resigned aspect.
+They were yet in good time. The spring sun was warming up these
+lowlands just as in midsummer, but she was still able to resist it.
+Later, during the summer, the guards of the ruins and the workmen in
+the excavations would have to flee to their homes in the mountains,
+handing the country over to the reptiles and insects of the marshy
+fields.
+
+The lodging keeper and his wife in the little station were the only
+evidences of humankind still able to exist in this solitude, trembling
+with fever, trying to endure the corrupt air, the poisonous sting of
+the mosquito, and the solar fire that was sucking from the mud the
+vapors of death. Every two years this humble stopping place through
+which passed the lucky ones of the earth,--the millionaires of two
+hemispheres, beautiful and curious dames, rulers of nations, and great
+artists,--was obliged to change its station-master.
+
+The three tourists passed near the remains of an aqueduct and an
+antique pavement. Then they went through the _Porta della Sirena_, an
+entrance arch into a forgotten quarter of the city, and continued along
+a road bordered on one side by marshy lands of exuberant vegetation and
+on the other by the long mud wall of a grange, through whose mortar
+were sticking out fragments of stones or columns. On turning the last
+corner, the imposing spectacle of the dead city, still surviving in the
+magnificent proportions of its temples, presented itself to view.
+
+There were three of these temples, and their colonnades stood forth
+like mast heads of ships becalmed in a sea of verdure. The doctor,
+guide-book in hand, was pointing them out with masterly authority--that
+was Neptune's, that Ceres', and that was called the Basilica without
+any special reason.
+
+Their grandeur, their solidity, their elegance made the edifices of
+Rome sink into insignificance. Athens alone could compare the monuments
+of her Acropolis with these temples of the most severe Doric style.
+That of Neptune had well preserved its lofty and massive columns,--as
+close together as the trees of a nursery,--enormous trunks of stone
+that still sustained the high entablature, the jutting cornice and the
+two triangular walls of its façades. The stone had taken on the mellow
+color of the cloudless countries where the sun toasts readily and the
+rain does not deposit a grimy coating.
+
+The doctor recalled the departed beauties and the old covering of these
+colossal skeletons,--the fine and compact coating of stucco which had
+closed the pores of the stone, giving it a superficial smoothness like
+marble,--the vivid colors of its flutings and walls making the antique
+city a mass of polychrome monuments. This gay decoration had become
+volatilized through the centuries and its colors, borne away by the
+wind, had fallen like a rain of dust upon a land in ruins.
+
+Following an old guard, they climbed the blue, tiled steps of the
+temple of Neptune. Above, within four rows of columns, was the real
+sanctuary, the _cella_. Their footsteps on the tiled flags, separated
+by deep cracks filled with grass, awoke all the animal world that was
+drowsing there in the sun.
+
+These actual inhabitants of the city,--enormous lizards with green
+backs covered with black warts,--ran in all directions. In their flight
+they scurried blindly over the feet of the visitors. The doctor raised
+her skirts in order to avoid them, at the same time breaking into
+nervous laughter to hide her terror.
+
+Suddenly Freya gave a cry, pointing to the base of the ancient altar.
+An ebony-hued snake, his sides dotted with red spots, was slowly and
+solemnly uncoiling his circles upon the stones. The sailor raised his
+cane, but before he could strike he felt his arm grasped by two nervous
+hands. Freya was throwing herself upon him with a pallid face and eyes
+dilated with fear and entreaty.
+
+"No, Captain!... Leave it alone!"
+
+Ulysses thrilled upon feeling the contact of her firm, curving bosom
+and noting her respiration, her warm breath charged with distant
+perfume. It would have suited him if she had remained in this position
+a long time, but Freya freed herself in order to advance toward the
+reptile, coaxing it and holding out her hands to it as though she were
+trying to caress a domestic animal. The black tail of the serpent was
+just slipping away and disappearing between two square tiles. The
+doctor who had fled down the steps at this apparition, by her repeated
+calls, obliged Freya also to descend.
+
+The captain's aggressive attitude awoke in his companion a nervous
+animosity. She believed she knew this reptile. It was undoubtedly the
+divinity of the dead temple that had changed its form in order to live
+among the ruins. This serpent must be twenty centuries old. If it had
+not been for Ferragut she would have been able to have taken it up in
+her hands.... She would have spoken to it.... She was accustomed to
+converse with others....
+
+Ulysses was about to express his doubts rudely as to the mental
+equilibrium of the exasperated widow when the doctor interrupted them.
+She was contemplating the swampy plains of acanthus and ferns trembling
+under the shrill chirping of the cicadas, and this spectacle of green
+desolation made her recall the roses of Paestum of which the poets of
+ancient Rome had sung. She even recited some Latin verses, translating
+them to her hearers so as to make them understand that the rose bushes
+of this land used to bloom twice a year. Freya smoothed out her brow
+and began to smile again. She forgot her recent ill humor and expressed
+a great longing for one of the marvelous rose bushes: and at this
+caprice of childish vehemence, Ferragut spoke to the custodian with
+authority. He had to have at once a rose bush from Paestum, cost what
+it might.
+
+The old fellow made a bored gesture. Everybody asked the same thing,
+and he who belonged to that country had never seen a rose of
+Paestum.... Sometimes, just in order to satisfy the whim of tourists,
+he would bring rose bushes from Capaccio Vecchio and other mountain
+villages,--rose bushes just like others with no difference except in
+price.... But he didn't wish to take advantage of anybody. He was sad
+and greatly troubled over the possibility of war.
+
+"I have eight sons," he said to the doctor, because she seemed to be
+the most suitable one to receive his confidences. "If they mobilize the
+army, six of them will leave me."
+
+And he added with resignation:
+
+"That's the way it ought to be if we would end forever, in one blow,
+our eternal enmity with the Goth. My sons will battle against them,
+just as my father fought."
+
+The doctor stalked haughtily away, and then said in a low voice to her
+companions that the old guard was an imbecile.
+
+They wandered for two hours through the ancient district of the
+city,--exploring the network of its streets, the ruins of the
+amphitheater and the _Porta Aurea_ which opened upon a road flanked
+with tombs. By the _Porta di Mare_ they climbed to the walls, ramparts
+of great limestone blocks, extending a distance of five kilometers. The
+sea, which from the lowlands had looked like a narrow blue band, now
+appeared immense and luminous,--a solitary sea with a feather-like
+crest of smoke, without a sail, given completely over to the sea-gulls.
+
+The doctor walked stiffly ahead of them, still ill-humored about the
+guide's remark and consulting the pages of her guide book. Behind her
+Ulysses came close up to Freya, recalling their former contact.
+
+He thought that it would be an easy matter now to get possession of
+this capricious and free-mannered woman. "Sure thing, Captain!" The
+rapid triumphs that he had always had in his journeys assured him that
+there was not the slightest doubt of success. It was enough for him to
+see the widow's smile, her passionate eyes, and the little tricks of
+malicious coquetry with which she responded to his gallant advances.
+"Forward, sea-wolf!"... He took her hand while she was speaking of the
+beauty of the solitary sea, and the hand yielded without protest to his
+caressing fingers. The doctor was far away and, sighing hypocritically,
+he encircled Freya's waist with his other arm while he inclined his
+head upon her open throat as though he were going to kiss her pearls.
+
+In spite of his strength, he found himself energetically repulsed and
+saw Freya freed from his arms, two steps away, looking upon him with
+hostile eyes that he had not noticed before.
+
+"None of your child's play, Captain!... It is useless with me.... You
+are just wasting time."
+
+And she said no more. Her stiffness and her silence during the rest of
+the walk made the sailor understand the enormity of his mistake. In
+vain he tried to keep beside the widow. She always maneuvered that the
+doctor should come between the two.
+
+Upon returning to the station they took refuge from the heat in a
+little waiting room with dusty velvet divans. In order to beguile the
+time while waiting for the train, Freya took from her handbag a gold
+cigarette-case and the light smoke of Egyptian tobacco charged with
+opium whirled among the shafts of sunlight from the partly-opened
+windows.
+
+Ferragut, who had gone out in order to ascertain the exact hour of the
+arrival of the train, on returning stopped near the door, amazed at the
+animation with which the two ladies were speaking in a new language.
+Recollections of Hamburg and Bremen came surging up in his memory. His
+companions were talking German with the ease of a familiar idiom. At
+sight of the sailor, they instantly continued their conversation in
+English.
+
+Wishing to take part in the dialogue, he asked Freya how many languages
+she spoke.
+
+"Very few,--no more than eight. The doctor, perhaps, knows twenty. She
+knows the languages of people who passed away many centuries ago."
+
+And the young woman said this with gravity, without looking at him, as
+though she had lost forever that smile of a light woman which had so
+deceived Ferragut.
+
+In the train she became more like a human being, even losing her
+offended manner. They were soon going to separate. The doctor grew less
+and less approachable as the cars rolled towards Salerno. It was the
+chilliness that appears among companions of a day, when the hour of
+separation approaches and each one draws into himself, not to be seen
+any more.
+
+Words fell flat, like bits of ice, without finding any echo in their
+fall. At each turn of the wheel, the imposing lady became more reserved
+and silent. Everything had been said. They, too, were going to remain
+in Salerno in order to take a carriage-trip along the gulf. They were
+going to Amalfi and would pass the night on the Alpine peak of Ravello,
+a medieval city where Wagner had passed the last months of his life,
+before dying in Venice. Then, passing over to the Gulf of Naples, they
+would rest in Sorrento and perhaps might go to the island of Capri.
+
+Ulysses wished to say that his line of march was exactly the same, but
+he was afraid of the doctor. Furthermore, their trip was to be in a
+vehicle which they had already rented and they would not offer him a
+seat.
+
+Freya appeared to surmise his sadness and wished to console him.
+
+"It is a short trip. No more than three days.... Soon we shall be in
+Naples."
+
+The farewell in Salerno was brief. The doctor was careful not to
+mention their stopping-place. For her, the friendship was ending then
+and there.
+
+"It is probable that we shall run across each other again," she said
+laconically. "It is only the mountains that never meet."
+
+Her young companion was more explicit, mentioning the hotel on the
+shores of S. Lucia in which she lodged.
+
+Standing by the step of the carriage, he saw them take their departure,
+just as he had seen them appear in a street of Pompeii. The doctor was
+lost behind a screen of glass, talking with the coachman who had come
+to meet them. Freya, before disappearing, turned to give him a faint
+smile and then raised her gloved hand with a stiff forefinger,
+threatening him just as though he were a mischievous and bold child.
+
+Finding himself alone in the compartment that was carrying toward
+Naples the traces and perfumes of the absent one, Ulysses felt as
+downcast as though he were returning from a burial, as if he had just
+lost one of the props of his life.
+
+His appearance on board the _Mare Nostrum_ was regarded as a calamity.
+He was capricious and intractable, complaining of Toni and the other
+two officials because they were not hastening repairs on the vessel. In
+the same breath he said it would be better not to hurry things too
+much, so that the job would be better done. Even Caragol was the victim
+of his bad humor which flamed forth in the form of cruel sermons
+against those addicted to the poison of alcohol.
+
+"When men need to be cheered up, they have to have something better
+than wine. That which brings greater ecstasy than drink ... is woman,
+Uncle Caragol. Don't forget this counsel!"
+
+Through mere force of habit the cook replied, "That is so, my
+captain...." But down in his heart he was pitying the ignorance of
+those men who concentrate all their happiness on the whims and grimaces
+of this most frivolous of toys.
+
+Two days afterwards those on board drew a long breath when they saw the
+captain taken ashore. The ship was moored in a very uncomfortable
+place,--near some that were discharging coal,--with the stern shored up
+so that the screw of the steamer might be repaired. The workmen were
+replacing the damaged and broken plates with ceaseless hammering. Since
+they would undoubtedly have to wait nearly a month, it would be much
+more convenient for the owner to go to a hotel; so he sent his baggage
+to the _Albergo Partenope_, on the ancient shore of S. Lucia,--the very
+one that Freya had mentioned.
+
+Upon installing himself in an upper room, with a view of the blue
+circle of the gulf framed by the outlines of the balcony, Ferragut's
+first move was to change a bill for five liras into coppers,
+preparatory to asking various questions. The jaundiced and mustached
+steward listened to him attentively with the complacency of a
+go-between, and at last was able to formulate a complete personality
+with all its data. The lady for whom he was inquiring was the _Signora_
+Talberg. She was at present away on an excursion, but she might return
+at any moment.
+
+Ulysses passed an entire day with the tranquillity of one who awaits at
+a sure place, gazing at the gulf from the balcony. Below him was the
+_Castello dell' Ovo_ connected with the land by a bridge.
+
+The _bersaglieri_ were occupying their ancient castle, work of the
+viceroy, Pedro of Toledo. Many turrets of dark rose color were crowded
+together upon this narrow, egg-shaped island, where, in other days, the
+pusillanimous Spanish garrison was locked in the fortress for the
+purpose of aiming bombards and culverins at the Neapolitans when they
+no longer wished to pay taxes and imposts. Its walls had been raised
+upon the ruins of another castle in which Frederick II had guarded his
+treasures, and whose chapel Giotto had painted. And the medieval castle
+of which only the memory now remained had, in its turn, been erected
+upon the remnants of the Palace of Lucullus, who had located the center
+of his celebrated gardens in this little island, then called _Megaris_.
+
+The cornets of the _bersaglieri_ rejoiced the captain like the
+announcement of a triumphal entry. "She's going to come! She's going to
+come at any moment!..." And he would look across the double mountain of
+the island of Capri, black in the distance, closing the gulf like a
+promontory, and the coast of Sorrento as rectilinear as a wall. "There
+she is...." Then he would lovingly follow the course of the little
+steamboats plowing across the immense blue surface, opening a triangle
+of foam. In some of these Freya must be coming.
+
+The first day was golden and full of hope. The sun was sparkling in a
+cloudless sky, and the gulf was foaming with bubbles of light under an
+atmosphere so calm that not the slightest zephyr was rippling its
+surface. The smoke plume of Vesuvius was upright and slender, expanding
+upon the horizon like a pine tree of white vapor. At the foot of the
+balcony the strolling musicians kept succeeding each other from time to
+time, singing voluptuous barcarolles and love serenades.... And--she
+did not come!
+
+The second day was silvery and desperate. There was fog on the gulf;
+the sun was no more than a reddish disk such as one sees in the
+northern countries; the mountains were clothed with lead; the clouds
+were hiding the cone of the volcano; the sea appeared to be made of
+tin, and a chilly wind was distending sails, skirts, and overcoats,
+making the people scurry along the promenade and the shore. The
+musicians continued their singing but with melancholy sighs in the
+shelter of a corner, to keep out of the furious blasts from the sea.
+"To die.... To die for thee!" a baritone voice groaned between the
+harps and violins. And--she came!
+
+Upon learning from the waiter that the _signora_ Talberg was in her
+room on the floor below, Ulysses thrilled with restlessness. What would
+she say upon finding him installed in her hotel?...
+
+The luncheon hour was at hand, and he impatiently awaited the usual
+signals before going down to the dining room. First an explosion would
+be heard behind the _albergo_ making the walls and roofs tremble,
+swelling out into the immensity of the gulf. That was the midday
+cannonade from the high castle of S. Elmo. Then cornets from the
+_Castello dell' Ovo_ would respond with their joyous call to the
+smoking _olio_, and up the stairway of the hotel would come the beating
+of the Chinese gong, announcing that luncheon was served.
+
+Ulysses went down to take his place at table, looking in vain at the
+other guests who had preceded him. Freya perhaps was going to come in
+with the delay of a traveler who has just arrived and has been occupied
+in freshening her toilet.
+
+He lunched badly, looking continually at a great glass doorway
+decorated with pictures of boats, fishes, and sea gulls, and every time
+its polychromatic leaves parted, his food seemed to stick in his
+throat. Finally came the end of the lunch, and he slowly sipped his
+coffee. She did not appear.
+
+On returning to his room, he sent the whiskered steward in search of
+news.... The _signora_ had not lunched in the hotel; the _signora_ had
+gone out while he was in the dining-room. Surely she would show herself
+in the evening.
+
+At dinner time he had the same unpleasant experience, believing that
+Freya was going to appear every time that an unknown hand or a vague
+silhouette of a woman pushed the door open from the other side of the
+opaque glass.
+
+He strolled up and down the vestibule a long time, chewing rabidly on a
+cigar, and finally decided to accost the porter, an astute brunette
+whose blue lapels embroidered with keys of gold were peeping over the
+edge of his writing desk, taking in everything, informing himself of
+everything, while he appeared to be asleep.
+
+The approach of Ulysses made him spring up as though he heard the
+rustling of paper money. His information was very precise. The
+_signora_ Talberg very seldom ate at the hotel. She had some friends
+who were occupying a furnished flat in the district of Chiaja, with
+whom she usually passed almost the entire day. Sometimes she did not
+even return to sleep.... And he again sat down, his hand closing
+tightly upon the bill which his imagination had foreseen.
+
+After a bad night Ulysses arose, resolved to await the widow at the
+entrance to the hotel. He took his breakfast at a little table in the
+vestibule, read the newspaper, had to go to the door in order to avoid
+the morning cleaning, pursued by the dust of brooms and shaken rugs.
+And once there, he pretended to take great interest in the wandering
+musicians, who dedicated their love songs and serenades to him, rolling
+up the whites of their eyes upon presenting their hats for coins.
+
+Some one came to keep him company. It was the porter who now appeared
+very familiar and confidential, as though since the preceding night a
+firm friendship, based upon their secret, had sprung up between the
+two.
+
+He spoke of the beauties of the country, counseling the Spaniard to
+take divers excursions.... A smile, an encouraging word from Ferragut,
+and he would have immediately proposed other recreations whose
+announcement appeared to be fluttering around his lips. But the sailor
+repelled all such amiability, glowering with displeasure. This vulgar
+fellow was going to spoil with his presence the longed-for meeting.
+Perhaps he was hanging around just to see and to know.... And taking
+advantage of one of his brief absences, Ulysses went off down the long
+_Via Partenope_, following the parapet that extends along the coast,
+pretending to be interested in everything that he met, but without
+losing sight of the door of the hotel.
+
+He stopped before the oystermen's stands, examining the valves of
+pearly shells piled up on the shelves, the baskets of oysters from
+Fusaro and the enormous conch-shells in whose hollow throats, according
+to the peddlers, the distant roll of the sea was echoing like a
+haunting memory. One by one he looked at all the motor launches, the
+little regatta skiffs, the fishing barks, and the coast schooners
+anchored in the quiet harbor of the island _dell' Ova_. He stood a long
+time quietly watching the gentle waves that were combing their foam on
+the rocks of the dikes under the horizontal fishing rods of various
+fishermen.
+
+Suddenly he saw Freya following the avenue beside the houses. She
+recognized him at once and this discovery made her stop near a
+street-opening, hesitating whether to continue on or to flee toward the
+interior of Naples. Then she came over to the seaside pavement,
+approaching Ferragut with a placid smile, greeting him afar off, like a
+friend whose presence is only to be expected.
+
+Such assurance rather disconcerted the captain. They shook hands and
+she asked him calmly what he was doing there looking at the waves, and
+if the repairs of his boat were progressing satisfactorily.
+
+"But admit that my presence has surprised you!" said Ulysses, rather
+irritated by this tranquillity. "Confess that you were not expecting to
+find me here."
+
+Freya repeated her smiles with an expression of sweet compassion.
+
+"It is natural that I should find you here. You are in your district,
+within sight of a hotel.... We are neighbors."
+
+In order more thoroughly to amuse herself with the captain's
+astonishment, she made a long pause. Then she added:
+
+"I saw your name on the list of arrivals yesterday, on my return to the
+hotel. I always look them over. It pleases me to know who my neighbors
+are."
+
+"And for that reason you did not come down to the dining-room?..."
+
+Ulysses asked this question hoping that she would respond negatively.
+She could not answer it in any other way, if only for good manners'
+sake.
+
+"Yes, for that reason," Freya replied simply. "I guessed that you were
+waiting to meet me and I did not wish to go into the dining-room.... I
+give you fair warning that I shall always do the same."
+
+Ulysses uttered an "Ah!" of amazement.... No woman had ever spoken to
+him with such frankness.
+
+"Neither has your presence here surprised me," she continued. "I was
+expecting it. I know the innocent wiles of you men. 'Since he did not
+find me in the hotel, he will wait for me to-day in the street,' I said
+to myself, upon arising this morning.... Before coming out, I was
+following your footsteps from the window of my room...."
+
+Ferragut looked at her in surprise and dismay. What a woman!...
+
+"I might have escaped through any cross street while your back was
+turned. I saw you before you saw me.... But these false situations
+stretching along indefinitely are distasteful to me. It is better to
+speak the entire truth face to face.... And therefore I have come to
+meet you...."
+
+Instinct made him turn his head toward the hotel. The porter was
+standing at the entrance looking out over the sea, but with his eyes
+undoubtedly turned toward them.
+
+"Let us go on," said Freya. "Accompany me a little ways. We shall talk
+together and then you can leave me.... Perhaps we shall separate
+greater friends than ever."
+
+They strolled in silence all the length of the _Via Partenope_ until
+they reached the gardens along the beach of Chiaja, losing sight of the
+hotel. Ferragut wished to renew the conversation, but could not begin
+it. He feared to appear ridiculous. This woman was making him timid.
+
+Looking at her with admiring eyes, he noted the great changes that had
+been made in the adornment of her person. She was no longer clad in the
+dark tailor-made in which he had first seen her. She was wearing a blue
+and white silk gown with a handsome fur over her shoulders and a
+cluster of purple heron feathers on top of her wide hat.
+
+The black hand-bag that had always accompanied her on her journeys had
+been replaced by a gold-meshed one of showy richness,--Australian gold
+of a greenish tone like an overlay of Florentine bronze. In her ears
+were two great, thick emeralds, and on her fingers a half dozen
+diamonds whose facets twinkled in the sunlight. The pearl necklace was
+still on her neck peeping out through the V-shaped opening of her gown.
+It was the magnificent toilet of a rich actress who puts everything on
+herself,--of one so enamored with jewels that she is not able to live
+without their contact, adorning herself with them the minute she is out
+of bed, regardless of the hour and the rules of good taste.
+
+But Ferragut did not take into consideration the unsuitableness of all
+this luxury. Everything about her appeared to him admirable.
+
+Without knowing just how, he began to talk. He was astonished at
+hearing his own voice, saying always the same thing in different words.
+His thoughts were incoherent, but they were all clustered around an
+incessantly repeated statement,--his love, his immense love for Freya.
+
+And Freya continued marching on in silence with a compassionate
+expression in her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. It pleased her
+pride as a woman to contemplate this strong man stuttering in childish
+confusion. At the same time she grew impatient at the monotony of his
+words.
+
+"Don't say any more, Captain," she finally interrupted. "I can guess
+all that you are going to say, and I've heard many times what you have
+said,--You do not sleep--you do not eat--you do not live because of me.
+Your existence is impossible if I do not love you. A little more
+conversation and you will threaten me with shooting yourself, if I am
+not yours.... Same old song! They all say the same thing. There are no
+creatures with less originality than you men when you wish
+something...."
+
+They were in one of the avenues of the promenade. Through the palm
+trees and glossy magnolias the luminous gulf could be seen on one side,
+and on the other the handsome edifices of the beach of Chiaja. Some
+ragged urchins kept running around them and following them, until they
+took refuge in an ornamental little white temple at the end of the
+avenue.
+
+"Very well, then, enamored sea-wolf," continued Freya; "you need not
+sleep, you need not eat, you may kill yourself if the fancy strikes
+you; but I am not able to love you; I shall never love you. You may
+give up all hope; life is not mere diversion and I have other more
+serious occupations that absorb all my time."
+
+In spite of the playful smile with which she accompanied these words,
+Ferragut surmised a very firm will.
+
+"Then," he said in despair, "it will all be useless?... Even though I
+make the greatest sacrifices?... Even though I give proofs of love
+greater than you have ever known?..."
+
+"All useless," she replied roundly, without a sign of a smile.
+
+They paused before the ornamental little temple-shaped building, with
+its dome supported by white columns and a railing around it. The bust
+of Virgil adorned the center,--an enormous head of somewhat feminine
+beauty.
+
+The poet had died in Naples in "Sweet Parthenope," on his return from
+Greece and his body, turned to dust, was perhaps mingled with the soil
+of this garden. The Neapolitan people of the Middle Ages had attributed
+to him all kinds of wonderful things, even transforming the poet into a
+powerful magician. The wizard Virgil in one night had constructed the
+_Castello dell' Ovo_, placing it with his own hands upon a great egg
+(_Ovo_) that was floating in the sea. He also had opened with his magic
+blasts the tunnel of Posilipo near which are a vineyard and a tomb
+visited for centuries as the last resting place of the poet. Little
+scamps, playing around the railing, used to hurl papers and stones
+inside the temple. The white head of the powerful sorcerer attracted
+them and at the same time filled them with admiration and fear.
+
+"Thus far and no further," ordered Freya. "You will continue on your
+way. I am going to the high part of Chiaja.... But before separating as
+good friends, you are going to give me your word not to follow me, not
+to importune me with your amorous attentions, not to mix yourself in my
+life."
+
+Ulysses did not reply, hanging his head in genuine dismay. To his
+disillusion was added the sting of wounded pride. He who had imagined
+such very different things when they should see each other again
+together, alone!...
+
+Freya pitied his sadness.
+
+"Don't be a Baby!... This will soon pass. Think of your business
+affairs, and of your family waiting for you over there in Spain....
+Besides, the world is full of women; I'm not the only one."
+
+But Ferragut interrupted her. "Yes, she was the only one!... The only
+one!..." And he said it with a conviction that awakened another one of
+her compassionate smiles.
+
+This man's tenacity was beginning to irritate her.
+
+"Captain, I know your type very well. You are an egoist, like all other
+men. Your boat is tied up in the harbor because of an accident; you've
+got to remain ashore a month; you meet on one of your trips a woman who
+is idiot enough to admit that she remembers meeting you at other times,
+and you say to yourself, Magnificent occasion to while away agreeably a
+tedious period of waiting!...' If I should yield to your desire, within
+a few weeks, as soon as your boat was ready, the hero of my love, the
+knight of my dreams, would betake himself to the sea, saying as a
+parting salute: 'Adieu, simpleton!'"
+
+Ulysses protested with energy. No: he wished that his boat might never
+be repaired. He was computing with agony the days that remained. If it
+were necessary, he would abandon it, remaining forever in Naples.
+
+"And what have I to do in Naples?" interrupted Freya. "I am a mere bird
+of passage here, just as you are. We knew each other on the seas of
+another hemisphere, and we have just happened to run across each other
+here in Italy. Next time, if we ever meet again, it will be in Japan or
+Canada or the Cape.... Go on your way, you enamored old shark, and let
+me go mine. Imagine to yourself that we are two boats that have met
+when becalmed, have signaled each other, have exchanged greetings, have
+wished each other good luck, and afterwards have continued on our way,
+perhaps never to see each other again."
+
+Ferragut shook his head negatively. Such a thing could not be, he could
+not resign himself to losing sight of her forever.
+
+"These men!" she continued, each time a little more irritated. "You all
+imagine that things must be arranged entirely according to your
+caprices. 'Because I desire thee, thou must be mine....' And what if I
+don't want to?... And if I don't feel any necessity of being loved?...
+If I wish only to live in liberty, with no other love than that which I
+feel for myself?..."
+
+She considered it a great misfortune to be a woman. She always envied
+men for their independence. They could hold themselves aloof,
+abstaining from the passions that waste life, without anybody's coming
+to importune them in their retreat. They were at liberty to go wherever
+they wanted to, to travel the wide world over, without leaving behind
+their footsteps a wake of solicitors.
+
+"You appear to me, Captain, a very charming man. The other day I was
+delighted to meet you; it was an apparition from the past; I saw in you
+the joy of my youth that is beginning to fade away, and the melancholy
+of certain recollections.... And nevertheless, I am going to end by
+hating you. Do you hear me, you tedious old Argonaut?... I shall loathe
+you because you will not be a mere friend; because you know only how to
+talk everlastingly about the same thing; because you are a person out
+of a novel, a Latin, very interesting, perhaps, to other women,--but
+insufferable to me."
+
+Her face contracted with a gesture of scorn and pity. "Ah, those
+Latins!..."
+
+"They're all the same,--Spaniards, Italians, Frenchmen.... They were
+born for the same thing. They hardly meet an attractive woman but they
+believe that they are evading their obligations if they do not beg for
+her love and what comes afterward.... Cannot a man and woman simply be
+friends? Couldn't you be just a good comrade and treat me as a
+companion?"
+
+Ferragut protested energetically. No; no, he couldn't. He loved her
+and, after being repelled with such cruelty, his love would simply go
+on increasing. He was sure of that.
+
+A nervous tremor made Freya's voice sharp and cutting, and her eyes
+took on a dangerous gleam. She looked at her companion as though he
+were an enemy whose death she longed for.
+
+"Very well, then, if you must know it. I abominate all men; I abominate
+them, because I know them so well. I would like the death of all of
+them, of every one!... The evil that they have wrought in my life!... I
+would like to be immensely beautiful, the handsomest woman on earth,
+and to possess the intellect of all the sages concentrated in my brain,
+to be rich and to be a queen, in order that all the men of the world,
+crazy with desire, would come to prostrate themselves before me.... And
+I would lift up my feet with their iron heels, and I would go trampling
+over them, crushing their heads ... so ... and so ... and so!..."
+
+She struck the sands of the garden with the soles of her little shoes.
+An hysterical sneer distorted her mouth.
+
+"Perhaps I might make an exception of you.... You who, with all your
+braggart arrogance, are, after all, outright and simple-hearted. I
+believe you capable of assuring a woman of all kinds of love-lies ...
+believing them yourself most of all. But the others!... _Ay, the
+others!_... How I hate them!..."
+
+She looked over toward the palace of the Aquarium, glistening white
+between the colonnade of trees.
+
+"I would like to be," she continued pensively, "one of those animals of
+the sea that can cut with their claws, that have arms like scissors,
+saws, pincers ... that devour their own kind, and absorb everything
+around them."
+
+Then she looked at the branch of a tree from which were hanging several
+silver threads, sustaining insects with active tentacles.
+
+"I would like to be a spider, an enormous spider, that all men might be
+drawn to my web as irresistibly as flies. With what satisfaction would
+I crunch them between my claws! How I would fasten my mouth against
+their hearts!... And I would suck them.... I would suck them until
+there wasn't a drop of blood left, tossing away then their empty
+carcasses!..."
+
+Ulysses began to wonder if he had fallen in love with a crazy woman.
+His disquietude, his surprise and questioning eyes gradually restored
+Freya's serenity.
+
+She passed one hand across her forehead, as though awakening from a
+nightmare and wishing to banish remembrance with this gesture. Her
+glance became calmer.
+
+"Good-by, Ferragut; do not make me talk any more. You will soon doubt
+my reason.... You are doing so already. We shall be friends, just
+friends and nothing more. It is useless to think of anything else....
+Do not follow me.... We shall see each other.... I shall hunt you
+up.... Good-by!... Good-by!"
+
+And although Ferragut felt tempted to follow her, he remained
+motionless, seeing her hurry rapidly away, as though fleeing from the
+words that she had just let fall before the little temple of the poet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE AQUARIUM OF NAPLES
+
+In spite of her promise, Freya made no effort to meet the sailor. "We
+shall see each other.... I shall hunt you up." But it was Ferragut who
+did the hunting, stationing himself around the hotel.
+
+"How crazy I was the other morning!... I wonder what you could have
+thought of me!" she said the first time that she spoke to him again.
+
+Not every day did Ulysses have the pleasure of a conversation which
+invariably developed from the _Via Partenope_ to Virgil's monument. The
+most of the mornings he used to wait in vain opposite the oyster
+stands, listening to the musicians who were bombarding the closed
+windows of the hotel with their sentimental romances and mandolins.
+Freya would not appear.
+
+His impatience usually dragged Ulysses back to the hotel in order to
+beg information of the porter. Animated by the hope of a new bill, the
+flunkey would go to the telephone and inquire of the servants on the
+upper floor. And then with a sad and obsequious smile, as though
+lamenting his own words: "The _signora_ is not in. The _signora_ has
+passed the night outside of the _albergo_." And Ferragut would go away
+furious.
+
+Sometimes he would go to see how the repairs were getting on in his
+boat,--an excellent pretext for venting his wrath on somebody. On other
+mornings he would go to the garden of the beach of Chiaja,--to the very
+same places through which he had strolled with Freya. He was always
+looking for her to appear from one moment to another. Everything 'round
+about suggested some reminder of her. Trees and benches, pavements and
+electric lights knew her perfectly because of having formed a part of
+her regular walk.
+
+Becoming convinced that he was waiting in vain, a last hope made him
+glance toward the white building of the Aquarium. Freya had frequently
+mentioned it. She was accustomed to amuse herself, oftentimes passing
+entire hours there, contemplating the life of the inhabitants of the
+sea. And Ferragut blinked involuntarily as he passed rapidly from the
+garden boiling under the sun into the shadow of the damp galleries with
+no other illumination than that of the daylight which penetrated to the
+interior of the Aquarium,--a light that, seen through the water and the
+glass, took on a mysterious tone, the green and diffused tint of the
+subsea depths.
+
+This visit enabled him to kill time more placidly. There came to his
+mind old readings confirmed now by direct vision. He was not the kind
+of sailor that sails along regardless of what exists under his keel. He
+wanted to know the mysteries of the immense blue palace over whose roof
+he was usually navigating, devoting himself to the study of
+oceanography, the most recent of sciences.
+
+Upon taking his first steps in the Aquarium, he immediately pictured
+the marine depths which exploration had divided and charted so
+unequally. Near the shores, in the zone called "the littoral" where the
+rivers empty, the materials of nourishment were accumulated by the
+impulse of the tides and currents, and there flourished sub-aquatic
+vegetation. This was the zone of the great fish and reached down to
+within two hundred fathoms of the bottom,--a depth to which the sun's
+rays never penetrate. Beyond that there was no light; plant life
+disappeared and with it the herbivorous animals.
+
+The submarine grade, a gentle one down to this point, now becomes very
+steep, descending rapidly to the oceanic abysses,--that immense mass of
+water (almost the entire ocean), without light, without waves, without
+tides, without currents, without oscillations of temperature, which is
+called the "abyssal" zone.
+
+In the littoral, the waters, healthfully agitated, vary in saltiness
+according to the proximity of the rivers. The rocks and deeps are
+covered with a vegetation which is green near the surface, becoming
+darker and darker, even turning to a dark red and brassy yellow as it
+gets further from the light. In this oceanic paradise of nutritive and
+luminous waters charged with bacteria and microscopic nourishment, life
+is developed in exuberance. In spite of the continual traps of the
+fishermen, the marine herds keep themselves intact because of their
+infinite powers of reproduction.
+
+The fauna of the abyssal depths where the lack of light makes all
+vegetation impossible, is largely carnivorous, the weak inhabitants
+usually devouring the residuum and dead animals that come down from the
+surface. The strong ones, in their turn, nourish themselves on the
+concentrated sustenance of the little cannibals.
+
+The bottom of the ocean, a monotonous desert of mud and sand, the
+accumulated sediment of hundreds of centuries, has occasional oases of
+strange vegetation. These grove-like growths spring up like spots of
+light just where the meeting of the surface currents rain down a manna
+of diminutive dead bodies. The twisted limestone plants, hard as stone,
+are really not plants at all, but animals. Their leaves are simply
+inert and treacherous tentacles which contract very suddenly, and their
+flowers, avid mouths, which bend over their prey, and suck it in
+through their gluttonous openings.
+
+A fantastic light streaks this world of darkness with multicolored
+shafts, animal light produced by living organisms. In the lowest
+abysses sightless creatures are very scarce, contrary to the common
+opinion, which imagines that almost all of them lack eyes because of
+their distance from the sun. The filaments of the carnivorous trees are
+garlands of lamps; the eyes of the hunting animals, electric globes;
+the insignificant bacteria, light-producing little glands all of which
+open or close with phosphorescent switches according to the necessity
+of the moment,--sometimes in order to persecute and devour, and at
+others in order to keep themselves hidden in the shadows.
+
+The animal-plants, motionless as stars, surround their ferocious mouths
+with a circle of flashing lights, and immediately their diminutive prey
+feel themselves as irresistibly drawn toward them as do the moths that
+fly toward the lamp, and the birds of the sea that beat against the
+lighthouse.
+
+None of the lights of the earth can compare with those of this abyssal
+world. All artificial fires pale before the varieties of its organic
+brilliance.
+
+The living branches of polyps, the eyes of the animals, even the mud
+sown with brilliant points, emit phosphoric shafts like sparks whose
+splendors incessantly vanish and reappear. And these lights pass
+through many gradations of colors:--violet, purple, orange, blue, and
+especially green. On perceiving a victim nearby, the gigantic
+cuttle-fishes become illuminated like livid suns, moving their arms
+with death-dealing strokes.
+
+All the abyssal beings have their organs of sight enormously developed
+in order to catch even the weakest rays of light. Many have enormous,
+protruding eyes. Others have them detached from the body at the end of
+two cylindrical tentacles like telescopes.
+
+Those that are blind and do not throw out any radiance are compensated
+for this inferiority by the development of the tactile organs. Their
+antennae and swimming organs are immeasurably prolonged in the
+darkness. The filaments of their body, long hairs rich in nerve
+terminals, can distinguish instantaneously the appetizing prey, or the
+enemy lying in wait.
+
+The abyssal deeps have two floors or roofs. In the highest, is the
+so-called neritic zone,--the oceanic surface, diaphanous and luminous,
+far from any coast. Next is seen the pelagic zone, much deeper, in
+which reside the fishes of incessant motion, capable of living without
+reposing on the bottom.
+
+The corpses of the neritic animals and of those that swim between the
+two waters are the direct or indirect sustenance of the abyssal fauna.
+These beings with weak dental equipment and sluggish speed, badly armed
+for the conquest of living prey, nourish themselves with the dropping
+of this rain of alimentary material. The great swimmers, supplied with
+formidable mandibles and immense and elastic stomachs, prefer the
+fortunes of war, the pursuit of living prey, and devour,--as the
+carnivorous devour the herbivorous on land,--all the little feeders on
+débris and _plancton_. This word of recent scientific invention
+presented to Captain Ferragut's mind the most humble and interesting of
+the oceanic inhabitants. The _plancton_ is the life that floats in
+loose clusters or forming cloud-like groups across the neritic surface,
+even descending to the abyssal depths.
+
+Wherever the _plancton_ goes, there is living animation, grouping
+itself in closely packed colonies. The purest and most translucent salt
+water shows under certain luminous rays a multitude of little bodies as
+restless as the dust motes that dance in shafts of sunlight. These
+transparent beings mingled with microscopic algae and embryonic
+mucosities are the _plancton_. In its dense mass, scarcely visible to
+the human eye, float the _siphonoforas_, garlands of entities united by
+a transparent thread as fragile, delicate and luminous as Bohemian
+crystal. Other equally subtle organisms have the form of little glass
+torpedoes. The sum of all the albuminous materials floating on the sea
+are condensed in these nutrient clouds to which are added the
+secretions of living animals, the remnants of cadavers, the bodies
+brought down by the rivers, and the nourishing fragments from the
+meadows of algae.
+
+When the _plancton_, either by chance or following some mysterious
+attraction, accumulates on some determined point of the shore, the
+waters boil with fishes of an astonishing fertility. The seaside towns
+increase in number, the sea is filled with sails, the tables are more
+opulent, industries are established, factories are opened and money
+circulates along the coast, attracted thither from the interior by the
+commerce in fresh and dried fish.
+
+If the _plancton_ capriciously withdraws itself, floating toward
+another shore, the marine herds emigrate behind these living meadows,
+and the blue plain remains as empty as a desert accursed. The fleets of
+fishing boats are placed high and dry on the beach, the shops are
+closed, the stewpot is no longer steaming, the horses of the
+gendarmerie charge against protesting and famine stricken crowds, the
+Opposition howls in the Chambers, and the newspapers make the
+Government responsible for everything.
+
+This animal and vegetable dust nourishes the most numerous species
+which, in their turn, serve as pasture for the great swimmers armed
+with teeth.
+
+The whales, most bulky of all the oceanic inhabitants, close this
+destructive cycle, since they devour each other in order to live. The
+Pacific giant, without teeth, supplies his organism with _plancton_
+alone, absorbing it by the ton; that imperceptible and crystalline
+manna nourishes his body (looking like an overturned belfry), and makes
+purple, fatty rivers of warm blood circulate under its oily skin.
+
+The transparency of the beings in the _plancton_ recalled to Ferragut's
+memory the marvelous colorings of the inhabitants of the sea, adjusted
+exactly to their needs of preservation. The species that live on the
+surface have, as a general rule, a blue back and silver belly. In this
+way it is possible for them to escape the sight of their enemies; seen
+from the shadows of the depths, they are confounded with the white and
+luminous color of the surface. The sardines that swim in shoals are
+able to pass unnoticed, thanks to their backs blue as the water, thus
+escaping the fish and the birds which are hunting them.
+
+Living in the abysses where the light never penetrates, the pelagic
+animals are not obliged to be transparent or blue like the neritic
+beings on the surface. Some are opaque and colorless, others, bronzed
+and black; most of them are clad in somber hues, whose splendor is the
+despair of the artist's brush, incapable of imitating them. A
+magnificent red seems to be the base of this color scheme, fading
+gradually to pale pink, violet, amber, even losing itself in the milky
+iris of the pearls and in the opalescence of the mother-of-pearl of the
+mollusks. The eyes of certain fish placed at the end of jaw bones
+separated from the body, sparkle like diamonds in the ends of a double
+pin. The protruding glands, the warts, the curving backs, take on the
+colorings of jewelry.
+
+But the precious stones of earth are dead minerals that need rays of
+light in order to emit the slightest flash. The animated gems of the
+ocean--fishes and corals--sparkle with their own colors that are a
+reflex of their vitality. Their green, their rose color, their intense
+yellow, their metallic iridescence, all their liquid tints are
+eternally glazed by a moist varnish which cannot exist in the
+atmospheric world.
+
+Some of these beings are capable of a marvelous power of mimicry that
+makes them identify themselves with inanimate objects, or in a few
+moments run through every gamut of color. Some of great nervous
+activity, make themselves absolutely immovable and contract, filling
+themselves with wrinkles, taking on the dark tone of the rocks. Others
+in moments of irritation or amorous fever, cover themselves with
+streaks of light and tremulous spots, different colored clouds passing
+over their epidermis with every thrill. The cuttlefish and ink fish,
+upon perceiving that they are pursued, enwrap themselves in a cloud of
+invisibility, just as did the enchanters of old in the books of
+chivalry, darkening the water with the ink stored in their glands.
+
+Ferragut continued to pass slowly along the Aquarium between the two
+rows of vertical tanks,--stone cases with thick glass that permitted
+full view of the interior. The clear and shining walls that received
+the fire of the sun through their upper part, spread a green reflection
+over the shadows of the corridors. As they made the rounds, the
+visitors took on a livid paleness, as though they were marching through
+a submarine defile.
+
+The tranquil water within the tanks was scarcely visible. Behind the
+thick glass there appeared to exist only a marvelous atmosphere, an air
+of dreamland in which drifted up and down various floating beings of
+many colors. The bubbles of their respiration was the only thing that
+announced the presence of the liquid. In the upper part of these
+aquatic cages, the luminous atmosphere vibrated under a continual spray
+of transparent dust,--the sea water with air injected into it that was
+renewing the conditions of existence for these guests of the Aquarium.
+
+Seeing these revivifying streams, the captain admired the nourishing
+force of the blue water upon which he had passed almost all his life.
+
+Earth lost its pride when compared with the aquatic immensity. In the
+ocean had appeared the first manifestations of life, continuing then
+its evolutionary cycle over the mountains which had also come up from
+its depths. If the earth was the mother of man, the sea was his
+grandmother.
+
+The number of terrestrial animals is most insignificant compared with
+the maritime ones. Upon the earth's surface (much smaller than the
+ocean) the beings occupy only the surface of the soil, and an
+atmospheric canopy of a certain number of meters. The birds and insects
+seldom go beyond this in their flights. In the sea, the animals are
+dispersed over all its levels, through many miles of depth multiplied
+by thousands and thousands of longitudinal leagues. Infinite quantities
+of creatures, whose number it is impossible to calculate, swim
+incessantly in all the strata of its waters. Land is a surface, a
+plane; the sea is a volume.
+
+The immense aquatic mass, three times more salty than at the beginning
+of the planet, because of a millennarian evaporation that has
+diminished the liquid without absorbing its components, retains mixed
+with its chlorides, copper, nickel, iron, zinc, lead, and even gold,
+from the metallic veins that planetary upheaval deposits upon the
+oceanic bottom; compared with this mass, the veins of mountains with
+their golden sands deposited by the rivers are but insignificant
+tentacles.
+
+Silver also is dissolved in its waters. Ferragut knew by certain
+calculations that with the silver floating in the ocean could be
+erected pyramids more enormous than those in Egypt.
+
+The men who once had thought of exploiting these mineral riches had
+given up the visionary idea because the minerals were too diluted and
+it would be impossible to make use of them. The oceanic beings know
+better how to recognize their presence, letting them filter through
+their bodies for the renovation and coloration of their organs. The
+copper accumulates in their blood; the gold and silver are discovered
+in the texture of the animal-plants; the phosphorus is absorbed by the
+sponges; the lead and the zinc by species of algae.
+
+Every oceanic creature is able to extract from the water the residuum
+from certain metals dissolved into particles so incalculably tiny that
+no chemical process could ever capture them. The carbonates of lime
+deposited by the rivers or dragged from the coast serve innumerable
+species for the construction of their coverings, skeletons, and spiral
+shells. The corals, filtering the water across their flabby and mucous
+bodies, solidify their hard skeletons so that they may finally be
+converted into habitable islands.
+
+The beings of disconcerting diversity that were floating, diving, or
+wiggling around Ferragut were no more than oceanic water. The fish were
+water made into flesh; the slimy, mucilaginous animals were water in a
+gelatinous state; the crustaceans and the polypi were water turned to
+stone.
+
+In one of the tanks he saw a landscape which appeared like that of
+another planet, grandiose yet at the same time reduced, like a woods
+seen in a diorama. It was a palm grove, surging up between the rocks,
+but the rocks were only pebbles, and the palm trees,--annelides of the
+sea,--were simply worms holding themselves in upright immovability.
+
+They kept their ringed bodies within a leathern tube that formed their
+protective case, and from this rectilinear, marble-colored trunk sent
+forth, like a spout of branches, the constantly moving tentacles which
+served them as organs for breathing and eating.
+
+Endowed with rare sensitiveness, it was enough for a cloud to pass
+before the sun to make them shrink quickly within these tubes, deprived
+of their showy capitals, like beheaded palm trees. Then, slowly and
+prudently the animated pincers would come protruding again through the
+opening of their cylindrical scabbards, floating in the water with
+anxious hope. All these trees and flower-animals developed a mechanical
+voracity whenever a microscopic victim fell under the power of their
+tentacles; then the soft clusters of branches would contract, close,
+drawing in their prey, and the worm, withdrawing into the lowest part
+of the slender tower secreted by himself, would digest his conquest.
+
+The other tanks then attracted the attention of the sailor.
+
+Slipping over the stones, introducing themselves into their caverns,
+drowsing, half buried in the sand,--all the varied and tumultuous
+species of crustaceans were moving their cutting and tentacular
+grinders and making their Japanese armor gleam: some of their frames
+were red--almost black--as though guarding the dry blood of a remote
+combat; others were of a scarlet freshness as though reflecting the
+first fires of the flaming dawn.
+
+The largest of the lobsters (the _homard_, the sovereign of the tables
+of the rich) was resting upon the scissors of its front claws, as
+powerful as an arm, or a double battle-axe. The spiny lobster was
+leaping with agility over the peaks, by means of the hooks on its
+claws, its weapons of war and nutrition. Its nearest relative, the
+cricket of the sea, a dull and heavy animal, was sulking in the corners
+covered with mire and with sea weed, in an immovability that made it
+easily confounded with the stones. Around these giants, like a
+democracy accustomed to endure from time to time the attack of the
+strong, crayfish and shrimps were swimming in shoals. Their movements
+were free and graceful, and their sensitiveness so acute that the
+slightest agitation made them start, taking tremendous springs.
+
+Ulysses kept thinking of the slavery that Nature had imposed upon these
+animals, giving them their beautiful, defensive envelopment.
+
+They were born armored and their development obliged them repeatedly to
+change their form of arms. They sloughed their skins like reptiles, but
+on account of their cylindrical shape were able to perform this
+operation with the facility of a leg that abandons its stocking. When
+it begins to crack, the crustaceans have to withdraw from out their
+cuirass the multiple mechanism of their members and appendages,--claws,
+antennae and the great pincers,--a slow and dangerous operation in
+which many perish, lacerated by their own efforts. Then, naked and
+disarmed, they have to wait until a new skin forms that in time is also
+converted into a coat of mail,--all this in the midst of a hostile
+environment, surrounded with greedy beasts, large and small, attracted
+by their rich flesh,--and with no other defense than that of keeping
+themselves in hiding.
+
+Among the swarm of small crustaceans moving around on the sandy bottom,
+hunting, eating, or fighting with a ferocious entanglement of claws,
+the onlookers always search for a bizarre and extravagant little
+creature, the _paguro_, nicknamed "Bernard, the Hermit." It is a snail
+that advances upright as a tower, upon crab claws, yet having as a
+crown the long hair of a sea-anemone.
+
+This comical apparition is composed of three distinct animals one upon
+the other--or, rather, of two living beings carrying a bier between
+them. The _paguro_ crab is born with the lower part of his case
+unprotected,--a most excellent tid-bit, tender and savory for hungry
+fishes. The necessity for defending himself makes him seek a snail
+shell in order to protect the weak part of his organism. If he
+encounters an empty dwelling of this class, he appropriates it. If not,
+he eats the inhabitant, introducing his posterior armed with two hooked
+claws into its mother-of-pearl refuge.
+
+But these defensive precautions are not sufficient for the weak
+_paguro_. In order to live he needs rather to put himself on the
+offensive, to inspire respect in devouring monsters, especially in the
+octopi that are seeking as prey his trunk and hairy claws, exposed to
+locomotion outside his tower.
+
+In course of time a sea-anemone comes along and attaches itself to the
+calcareous peak, the number often amounting to five or six, although
+there is no bodily relation between the _paguro_ and the organisms on
+top. They are simply partners with a reciprocal interest. The
+animal-plants sting like nettles; all the monsters without a shell flee
+from the poison of their tingling organs, and the fragments of their
+hair burn like pins of fire. In this manner the humble _paguro_,
+carrying upon his back his tower crowned with formidable batteries,
+inspires terror in the gigantic beasts of the deep. The anemones on
+their part are grateful to him for being thus able to pass incessantly
+from one side to the other, coming in contact with every class of
+animals. In this way, they can eat with greater facility than their
+sisters fixed on the rocks; for they do not have to wait, as the others
+must, until food drifts casually to their tentacles. Besides this,
+there is always floating on top some of the remains of the booty that
+the crafty crab in his wandering impunity has gathered below.
+
+Ferragut, on passing from one tank to the other, mentally established
+the gradation of the fauna from the primitive protoplast to the perfect
+organism.
+
+The sponges of the Mediterranean swam as soon as they were born, when
+they were like pin-heads, with vibratory movements. Then they remained
+immovable, the water filtering through the cracks and crannies of their
+texture, protecting their delicate flesh with a bristling of
+spikes,--sharp limestone needles with which they pierced the passing
+fishes and rendered them immovable, availing themselves of the
+nourishment of their putrefying remains.
+
+The nettles of the sea spread out their stinging threads by the
+thousands, discharging a venom that stupefies the victim and makes him
+fall into their corolla. With unlimited voracity, and fastened to the
+rocks, they overpower fish much larger than they, and at the first hint
+of danger shrink together in such a way that it is very difficult to
+see them. The sea-plumes lie flabby and dark as dead animals, until
+absorbing water, they suddenly rear themselves up, transparent and full
+of leaves. Thus they go from one side to the other, with the lightness
+of a feather, or, burrowing in the sand, send forth a phosphoric glow.
+The belles of the sea, the elegant Medusae, open out the floating
+circle of their fragile beauty. They are transparent fungi, open
+umbrellas of glass that advance by means of their contractions. From
+the inner center of their dome hangs a tube equally transparent and
+gelatinous,--the mouth of the animal. Long filaments depend from the
+edges of their circular forms, sensitive tentacles that at the same
+time maintain their floating equilibrium.
+
+These fragile beings, that appear to belong to an enchanted fauna,
+white as rock crystal with soft borders of rose color or violet, sting
+like nettles and defend themselves by their fiery touch. Some subtle
+and colorless parasols were living here in the tank under the
+protection of a second enclosure of crystal, and their mucous mistiness
+scarcely showed itself within this bell-shaped glass except as a pale
+line of blue vapor.
+
+Below these transparent and ethereal forms that burn whatever they
+touch, venturing to capture prey much larger than themselves, were
+grouped as in gardens the so-called "flower of blood," the red coral,
+and especially the star-fish, forming with their corolla an
+orange-colored ring.
+
+The captain had seen these stony vegetations, like submerged groves, in
+the depths of the Dead Sea and also in the southern seas. He had sailed
+over them under the illusion that through the bluish depths of the
+ocean were circulating broad rivers of blood.
+
+The _oseznos_ (bear-cubs) and the star-fish were slowly waving the
+forms that had given rise to their names, secreting poisons in order to
+paralyze their victims, contracting themselves until they formed a ball
+of lances that grasped their prey in a deadly embrace or cut it with
+the bony knives of their radiating body. The iris of the sea balanced
+themselves on end, moving their members as though they were petals.
+
+Upon the fine sandy depths or attached to the rocks, the mollusks lived
+in the protection of their shells.
+
+The necessity of giving themselves up to sleep with relative security,
+without fear of the general rapacity which is the oceanic law, is a
+matter of concern to all of these marine beings, making them
+constructive and inventive. The crustaceans live within their shells or
+take advantage of ready-made refuges of limestone, expelling their
+former owners; the animal-plants exhale toxins; the _planctonic_
+beings, transparent and gelatinous, burn like a crystal exposed to
+fire; some organisms apparently weak and flabby, have in their tails
+the force of a carpenter's bit, perforating the rock sufficiently to
+create a cavern of refuge in its hard interior.... And the timid
+mollusks, trembling and succulent pulp, have fabricated for their
+protection the strong shields of their valves,--two concave walls that
+on opening form their door, and on closing, their house.
+
+A bit of flesh protrudes outside these shells, like a white tongue. In
+some it takes the form of a sole, and serves as a foot, the mollusk
+marching with his dwelling upon the back of this unique support. In
+others it is a swimmer, and the shell, opening and shutting its valves
+like a propelling mouth, ascends in a straight line to the surface,
+falling afterwards with the two shields closed.
+
+These herbivorous fresh-water animals live by drinking in the
+light,--feeling the necessity of the surface waters or the shallow
+depths with their limpid glades--and this light, spreading over the
+white interior of their dwelling, decorates it with all the fleeting
+colors of the iris, giving to the limestone the mysterious shimmer of
+mother-of-pearl.
+
+Ulysses admired the odd forms of their winding passageways. They were
+like the palaces of the Orient, dark and forbidding on the outside,
+glistening within like a lake of pearl. Some received their terrestrial
+names because of the special form of their shell--the rabbit, the
+helmet, triton's horn, the cask, the Mediterranean parasol.
+
+They were grazing with bucolic tranquillity on the maritime pasture
+lands, contemplated from afar by the mussels, the oysters, and other
+bi-valves, attached to the rocks by a hard and horny hank of silk that
+enwrapped their enclosures. Some of these shells, called hams,--clams
+of great size, with valves in the form of a club,--had fixed themselves
+upright in the mire, giving the appearance of a submerged Celtic camp,
+with a succession of obelisks swallowed up by the depths of the sea.
+
+The one called the date-shell can, assisted by its liquid acid, pierce
+the hardest stone with its cylindrical gimlet. The columns of Hellenic
+temples, submerged in the Gulf of Naples and brought to light by an
+earthquake, are bored from one end to the other by this diminutive
+perforator.
+
+Cries of surprise and nervous laughter suddenly reached Ferragut. They
+came from that part of the Aquarium where the fish tanks were. In the
+corridor was a little trough of water and at the bottom a kind of rag,
+flabby and gray, with black rings on the back. This animal always
+attracted the immediate curiosity of the visitors. Everybody would ask
+for it.
+
+Groups of countrymen, city families preceded by their offspring, pairs
+of soldiers, all might be seen consulting before it and experimenting,
+advancing their hands over the trough with a certain hesitation.
+Finally they would touch the living rag at the bottom,--the gelatinous
+flesh of the fish-torpedo,--receiving a series of electric shocks which
+quickly made them loosen their prey, laughing and raising the other
+hand to their jerking arms.
+
+Ulysses on reaching the fish tanks had the sensation of a traveler who,
+after having lived among inferior humanity, encounters beings that are
+almost of his own race.
+
+There was the oceanic aristocracy, the fish free as the sea, swift,
+undulating and slippery, like the waves. They all had accompanied him
+for many years, appearing in the transparencies opened by the prow of
+his vessel.
+
+They were vigorous and therefore had no neck,--the most fragile and
+delicate portion of terrestrial organism,--making them more like the
+bull, the elephant and all the battering animals. They needed to be
+light, and in order to be so had dispensed with the rigid and hard
+shell of the crustacean that prevents motion, preferring the coat of
+mail covered with scales, which expands and contracts, yields to the
+blow but is not injured. They wished to be free, and their body, like
+that of the ancient wrestlers, was covered with a slippery oil, the
+oceanic mucus that becomes volatilized at the slightest pressure.
+
+The freest animals on earth cannot be compared with them. The birds
+need to perch and to rest during their sleep, but the fish continue
+floating around and moving from place to place while asleep. The entire
+world belongs to them. Wherever there is a mass of water,--ocean, river
+or lake, in whatever altitude or latitude, a mountain peak lost in the
+clouds, a valley boiling like a whirlpool, a sparkling and tropical sea
+with a forest of colors in its bosoms, or a polar sea encrusted with
+ice and people, with sea-lions and white bears,--there the fish always
+appears.
+
+The public of the Aquarium, seeing the flat heads of the swimming
+animals near the glass, would scream and wave their arms as though they
+could be seen by the fishy eyes of stupid fixity. Then they would
+experience a certain dismay upon perceiving that the fish continued
+their course with indifference.
+
+Ferragut smiled before this deception. The crystal that separated the
+water from the atmosphere had the density of millions of leagues,--an
+insuperable obstacle interposed between two worlds that do not know
+each other.
+
+The sailor recalled the imperfect vision of the ocean inhabitants. In
+spite of their bulging and movable eyes that enable them to see before
+and behind them, their visual power extends but a short distance. The
+splendors with which Nature clothes the butterfly cannot be appreciated
+by them. Absolutely color-blind, they can appreciate only the
+difference between light and darkness.
+
+Complete silence accompanies their incomplete vision. All the aquatic
+animals are deaf, or rather they completely lack the organs of hearing,
+because they are unnecessary to them. Atmospheric agitations,
+thunder-bolts and hurricanes do not penetrate the water. Only the
+cracking shell of certain crabs and the dolorous moaning near the
+surface of certain fishes, called snorers, alter this silence.
+
+Since the ocean lacks acoustic waves, their inhabitants have never
+needed to form the organs that transform them into sound. They feel
+impetuously the primal necessities of animal life,--hunger and love.
+They suffer madly the cruelty of sickness and pain; among themselves
+they fight to the death for a meal or a mate. But all in absolute
+silence, without the howl of triumph or agony with which terrestrial
+animals accompany the same manifestations of their existence.
+
+Their principal sense is that of smell, as is that of sight in the
+bird. In the twilight world of the ocean, streaked with phosphorescent
+and deceptive splendors, the big fish trust only to their sense of
+smell and at times to that of touch.
+
+Sometimes buried in the mud, they will ascend hundreds of yards,
+attracted by the odor of the fish that are swimming on the surface.
+This prodigious faculty renders useless, in part, the colors in which
+the timid species clothe themselves in order to confound themselves
+with lights or shadows. The greatest flesh-eaters see badly, but they
+scrape the bottom with a divining touch and scent their prey at
+astonishing distances.
+
+Only the Mediterranean fishes, especially those of the Gulf of Naples,
+were living in the tanks of this Aquarium. Some were lacking,--the
+dolphin, of nervous movement, and the tunny, so impetuous in its
+career. The captain smiled upon thinking of the mischievous pranks of
+these ungovernable guests whose presence had been declined.
+
+The voracious shark (_cabeza de olla_), the persecuting wolf of the
+Mediterranean herds, was not here either. In his place were swimming
+other animals of the same species, whitish and long, with great fins,
+with eyes always open for lack of movable eyelids, and a mouth split
+like a half-moon, under the head at the beginning of the stomach.
+
+Ferragut sought on the bottom of the tanks the fishes of the
+deep,--flattened animals that pass the greater part of their time sunk
+in the sand under a coverlet of algae. The dark _uranoscopo_, with its
+eyes almost united on the peak of its enormous head and its body in the
+form of a club, leaves visible only a long thread coming from its lower
+jaw, waving it in all directions in order to attract its prey.
+Believing it a worm, the victims usually chase the moving bait until
+pounced upon by the teeth of the hunter who then springs from his bed,
+floats around for a few moments, and falls heavily to the bottom,
+opening a new pit with his pectoral, shovel-shaped swimming bladders.
+
+The toad fish, the most hideous animal of the Mediterranean, goes
+hunting in the same way. Three-fourths of his flattened body is made up
+of head, mostly mouth, armed with hooks and curved knives. Guided by
+his yellowish eyes fixed on top, he waves his pointed little beard, cut
+like leaves, and a pair of dorsal appendages like feathers. This false
+bait attracts the unwary ones and soon the cavernous mandibles close
+upon them.
+
+The plane fishes swim quickly over these monsters of the mire, that are
+always horizontally flat resting upon their bellies, whilst the
+flatness of the soles and others of the same species is vertical. The
+two sides of the bodies of the soles, compressed laterally, have
+different colorings. In this way, when lying down, they are able to
+merge themselves at the same time with the light of the surface and the
+shadow of the bottom, thus getting rid of their persecutors.
+
+All the infinite varieties of the Mediterranean fauna were moving in
+the other tanks.
+
+There passed by the greenish plates of glass the giltheads, the
+cackerels, and the sea roaches, clad in vivid silver with bands of gold
+on their sides. There also flashed past the purple of the salmonoids,
+the brilliant majesty of the gold fish, the bluish belly of the sea
+bream, the striped back of the sheep's head, the trumpet-mouthed marine
+sun-fish, the immovable sneer of the so-called "joker," the dorsal
+pinnacle of the peacock-fish which appears made of feathers, the
+restless and deeply bifurcated tail of the horse mackerel, the
+fluttering of the mullet with its triple wings, the grotesque rotundity
+of the boar-fish and the pig-fish, the dark smoothness of the
+sting-ray, floating like a fringe, the long snout of the woodcock-fish,
+the slenderness of the haddock, agile and swift as a torpedo, the red
+gurnard all thorns, the angel of the sea with its fleshy wings, the
+gudgeon, bristling with swimming angularities, the notary, red and
+white, with black bands similar to the flourishes on signatures, the
+modest _esmarrido_, the little sand fish, the superb turbot almost
+round with fan tail and a swimming fringe spotted with circles, and the
+gloomy conger-eel whose skin is as bluish black as that of the ravens.
+
+Hidden between two rocks like the hunting crustaceans was the
+_rascaza_,--the scorpion of the Valencian sea that Ferragut had known
+in his childhood, the animal beloved by his uncle, the _Triton_,
+because of its substantial flesh which thickened the seamen's soup, the
+precious component sought by Uncle Caragol for the broth of his
+succulent rice dishes. The enormous head had a pair of eyes entirely
+red. Its great swimming bladders stung venomously. The heavy body with
+its dark bands and stripes was covered with singular appendages in the
+form of leaves and could easily take the color of the deep where, in
+the semi-obscurity, it looked like a stone covered with plants. With
+this mimicry it was accustomed to escape its enemies and could better
+detect its prey.
+
+A gloomy creature, in Ferragut's opinion like a beadle of the Holy
+Office, was parading through the upper part of the tanks, passing from
+glass to glass, reflected like a double animal when it approached the
+surface. It was the ray-fish with a flat head, ferocious eyes, and
+thong-like tail, moving the black mantle of its fleshy wings with a
+deliberation that rippled the edges.
+
+From the sandy bottom was struggling forth a convex shield that, when
+floating, showed its lower face smooth and yellow. The four wrinkled
+paws and the serpent-like head of the turtle were emerging from its
+cuirass of tortoise-shell. The little sea horses, slender and graceful
+as chess-pieces, were rising and descending in the bluish environment,
+wiggling their tails and twisting themselves in the form of
+interrogation points.
+
+When the captain approached the end of the four galleries of the
+Aquarium without having seen more than the maritime animals behind the
+glistening glasses and a few uninteresting people in the greenish
+semi-light, he felt all the discouragement of a day lost.
+
+"She won't come now!..."
+
+In passing from this damp, cellar-like atmosphere to the sunlit garden,
+the report of the midday gun struck him like an atmospheric blow. Lunch
+hour!... And surely Freya was not going to lunch in the hotel!
+
+During the afternoon his footsteps strayed instinctively toward the
+hill streets of the district of Chiaja. All old buildings of manorial
+aspect invariably attracted his attention. These were great, reddish
+houses of the time of the Spanish viceroys, or palaces of the reign of
+Charles III. Their broad staircases were adorned with polychrome busts
+brought from the first excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii.
+
+Ulysses had faint hopes of running across the widow while passing in
+front of one of these mansions, now rented in floors and displaying
+little metal door-plates indicative of office and warehouse. In one of
+these undoubtedly must be living the family that was so friendly to
+Freya.
+
+Then, noticing the whiteness of the showy constructions rising up
+around the old districts, he became dubious. The doctor would dwell
+only in a modern and hygienic edifice. But not daring to ask questions,
+he passed on, fearing to be seen from a window.
+
+Finally he gave it up. Chiaja had many streets and he was wandering
+aimlessly, since the concierge of the hotel had not been able to give
+him any precise directions. The _signora_ Talberg was evidently bent on
+outwitting all his finesse, trying to keep from him the address of her
+friends.
+
+The following morning the captain took up his usual watch in the
+promenade near the white Virgil. It was all in vain. After ten o'clock
+he again wandered into the Aquarium, animated by a vague hope.
+
+"Perhaps she may come to-day...."
+
+With the superstition of the enamored and all those who wait, he kept
+hunting certain places preferred by the widow, believing that in this
+way he would attract her from her distant preoccupation, obliging her
+to come to him.
+
+The tanks of the molluscas had always been especially interesting to
+her. He recalled that Freya had several times spoken to him of this
+section.
+
+Among its aquatic cases she always preferred the one marked number
+fifteen, the exclusive dominion of the polypi (cuttlefish). A vague
+presentiment warned him that something very important in his life was
+going to be unrolled in that particular spot. Whenever Freya visited
+the Aquarium, it was to see these repulsive and gluttonous animals eat.
+There was nothing to do but to await her before this cavern of horrors.
+
+And while she was making her way thither, the captain had to amuse
+himself like any landlubber, contemplating the ferocious chase and
+laborious digestion of these monsters.
+
+He had seen them much larger in the deep-sea fishing grounds; but by
+curtailing his imaginative powers he could pretend that the blue sheet
+of the tank was the entire mass of the ocean--the rough bits of stone
+on the bottom its submarine mountains, and by contracting his own
+personality, he could reduce himself to the same scale as the little
+victims that were falling under the devouring tentacles. In this manner
+he could fancy of gigantic dimensions these cuttlefish of the Aquarium,
+just as the monstrous oceanic octopi must be that, thousands of yards
+down, were illuminating the gloom of the waters with the greenish star
+of their phosphorescent nuclei.
+
+From prehistoric times the men of the sea had known this great, ropy
+beast of the abysses. The geographers of antiquity used to speak of it,
+giving the measurement of its terrible arms.
+
+Pliny used to recount the destruction accomplished by a gigantic
+octopus in the vivarium of the Mediterranean. When some sailors
+succeeded in killing it they carried it to the epicure, Lucullus,--the
+head as big as a barrel, and some of its tentacles so huge that one
+person could hardly reach around them. The chroniclers of the Middle
+Ages had also spoken of the gigantic cuttlefish that on more than one
+occasion had, with its serpentine arms, snatched men from the decks of
+the ships.
+
+The Scandinavian navigators, who had never encountered it in their
+fjords, nicknamed it the _kraken_, exaggerating its proportions and
+even converting it into a fabulous being. If it came to the surface,
+they confounded it with an island; if it remained between the two
+waters, the captains, on making their soundings, became confused in
+their calculations, finding the depth less than that marked on their
+charts. In such cases they had to escape before the _kraken_ should
+awake and sink the vessel as though it were a fragile skiff among its
+whirlpools of foam.
+
+During many long years Science had laughed at the gigantic polypus and
+at the sea serpent, another prehistoric animal many times encountered,
+supposing them to be merely the inventions of an imaginative sailor,
+stories of the forecastle made up to pass the night-watch. Wise men can
+only believe what they can study directly and then catalogue in their
+museums....
+
+And Ferragut laughed in his turn at poor Science, ignorant and
+defenseless before the mysterious immensity of the ocean, and having
+scarcely achieved the measurement of its great depth. The apparatus of
+the diver could go down but a few meters; their only instrument of
+exploration was the metal diving-bell, less important than a spider-web
+thread that might try to explore the earth by floating across its
+atmosphere.
+
+The great cuttlefish living in the tremendous depths do not deign to
+come to the surface in order to become acquainted with mankind.
+Sickness and oceanic war are the only agents that from time to time
+announce their existence in a casual way, as they float over the waves
+with members relaxed, snatched at by the iron jaws of the flesh-eating
+fish. The great danger for them is that a chance current might place
+this plunder of the immense marine desert before the prow of a
+slow-going sailboat.
+
+A corvette of the French navy once encountered near the Canary Isles a
+complete specimen of one of these monsters floating upon the sea, sick
+or wounded. The officials sketched its form and noted its
+phosphorescence and changes of color, but after a two-hour struggle
+with its indomitable force and its slippery mucosity constantly
+escaping the pressure of blows and harpoons, they had to let it slip
+back into the ocean.
+
+It was the Prince of Monaco, supreme pontiff of oceanographic science,
+who established forever the existence of the fabulous _kraken_. In one
+of his intelligent excursions across oceanic solitudes he fished up an
+arm of a cuttlefish eight yards long. Furthermore the stomachs of
+sharks, upon being opened, had revealed to him the gigantic fragments
+of the adversary.
+
+Short and terrible battles used to agitate the black and phosphorescent
+water, thousands of fathoms from the surface, with whirlwinds of death.
+
+The shark would descend, attracted by the appetizing prospect of a
+boneless animal,--all flesh and weighing several tons. He would make
+his hostile invasion in all haste so as not to be obliged to endure for
+a long time the formidable pressure of the abyss. The struggle between
+the two ferocious warriors disputing oceanic dominion was usually brief
+and deadly,--the mandible battling with the sucker; the solid and
+cutting equipment of teeth with the phosphorescent mucosity incessantly
+slipping by and opposing the blow of the demolishing head like a
+battering ram, with the lashing blow of tentacles thicker and heavier
+than an elephant's trunk. Sometimes the shark would remain down
+forever, enmeshed in a skein of soft snakes absorbing it with
+gluttonous deliberation; at other times it would come to the surface
+with its skin bristling with black tumors,--open mouths and slashes big
+as plates,--but with its stomach full of gelatinous meat.
+
+These cuttlefish in the Aquarium were nothing more than the seaside
+inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast,--poor relations of the gigantic
+octopus that lighten the black gloom of the oceanic night with their
+bluish gleam of burned-out planets. But in spite of their relative
+smallness, they are animated by the same destructive iniquity as the
+others. They are rabid stomachs that cleanse the waters of all animal
+life, digesting it in a vacuum of death. Even the bacteria and
+infusoria appear to flee from the liquid that envelops these ferocious
+solitudes.
+
+Ferragut passed many mornings contemplating their treacherous
+immovability, followed by deadly unfoldings the moment that their prey
+came down into the tank. He began to hate these monsters for no other
+reason than because they were so interesting to Freya. Their stupid
+cruelty appeared to him but a reflex of that incomprehensible woman's
+character that was repulsing him by fleeing from him and yet, at the
+same time, by her smiles and her signals, was sending out a wireless in
+order to keep him prisoner.
+
+Masculine wrath convulsed the sailor after each futile daily trip in
+pursuit of her invisible personality.
+
+"She's just doing it to lead me on!..." he exclaimed. "It's got to come
+to an end! I won't stand any more bull-baiting.... I'll just show her
+that I'm able to live without her!"
+
+He swore not to seek her any more. It was an agreeable diversion for
+the weeks that he had to spend in Naples, but why keep it up when she
+was fatiguing him in such an insufferable way?...
+
+"All is ended," he said again, clenching his hands.
+
+And the following day he was waiting outside of the hotel just as on
+other days. Then he would go for his customary stroll, afterwards
+entering the Aquarium in the same, old hope of seeing her before the
+tanks of the cuttlefish.
+
+He finally met her there one morning, about midday. He had been over to
+his boat and on returning entered, through force of habit, sure that at
+this hour he would find nobody but the employees feeding the fishes.
+
+His dazzled eyes were affected with almost instantaneous blindness
+before becoming accustomed to the shadows of the greenish galleries....
+And when the first images began to be vaguely outlined on his retina,
+he stepped hastily backward, so great was his surprise.
+
+He couldn't believe it and raised his hand to his eyes as though
+wishing to clarify his vision with an energetic rubbing. Was that
+really Freya?... Yes, it was she, dressed in white, leaning on the bar
+of iron that separated the tanks from the public, looking fixedly at
+the glass which covered the rocky cavern like a transparent door. She
+had just opened her hand-bag, giving some coins to the guardian who was
+disappearing at the end of the gallery.
+
+"Oh, is that you?" she said, on seeing Ferragut, without any surprise,
+as if she had left him but a short time before.
+
+Then she explained her presence at this late hour. She had not visited
+the Aquarium for a long time. The tank of cuttlefish was to her like a
+cage of tropical birds, full of colors and cries that enlivened the
+solitude of a melancholy matron.
+
+She always adored the monsters living on the other side of these
+crystals, and before going to lunch she had felt an irresistible desire
+to see them. She feared that the guard had not been taking good care of
+them during her absence.
+
+"Just see how beautiful they are!..."
+
+And she pointed to a tank that appeared empty. Neither in its quiet
+still waters nor on the floor of the oily sand could be seen the
+slightest animal motion. Ferragut followed the direction of her eyes
+and after long contemplation discovered there three occupants. With the
+amazing mimicry of their species, they had changed themselves to appear
+like minerals. Only a pair of expert eyes would have been able to
+discover them, heaped together, each one huddled in a crack of the
+rocks, voluntarily raising his smooth skin into stone-like
+protuberances and ridges. Their faculty of changing color permitted
+them to take on that of their hard base and, disguised in this way like
+three rocky excrescences, they were treacherously awaiting the passing
+of their victim, just as though they were in the open sea.
+
+"Soon we shall see them in all their majesty," continued Freya as
+though she were speaking of something belonging to her. "The guardian
+is going to feed them.... Poor things! Nobody pays any attention to
+them; everybody detests them. To me they owe whatever they get between
+meals."
+
+As if scenting the proximity of food, one of the three stones suddenly
+shuddered with a polychromatic chill. Its elastic covering began
+swelling. There passed over its surface stripes of color, reddish
+clouds changing from crimson to green, circular spots that became
+inflated in the swelling, forming tremulous excrescences. Between two
+cracks there appeared a yellowish eye of ferocious and stupid fixity; a
+darkened and malignant globe like that of serpents, was now looking
+toward the crystal as though seeing far beyond that diamond wall.
+
+"They know me!" exclaimed Freya joyously. "I'm sure that they know
+me!..."
+
+And she enumerated the clever traits of these monsters to whom she
+attributed great intelligence. They were the ones that, like astute
+builders, had dappled the stones piled up on the bottom, forming
+bulwarks in whose shelter they had disguised themselves in order to
+pounce upon their victims. In the sea, when wishing to surprise a
+meaty, toothsome oyster, they waited in hiding until the two valves
+should open to feed upon the water and the light, and had often
+introduced a pebble between the shells and then inserted their
+tentacles in the crevice.
+
+Their love of liberty was another thing which aroused Freya's
+enthusiasm. If they should have to endure more than a year of enclosure
+in the Aquarium, they would become sick with sadness and would gnaw
+their claws until they killed themselves.
+
+"Ah, the charming and vigorous bandits!" she continued in hysterical
+enthusiasm. "I adore them. I should like to have them in my home, as
+they have gold-fishes in a globe, to feed them every hour, to see how
+they would devour...."
+
+Ferragut felt a recurrence of the same uneasiness that he had
+experienced one morning in the temple of Virgil.
+
+"She's crazy!" he said to himself.
+
+But in spite of her craziness, he greatly enjoyed the faint perfume
+that exhaled through the opening at her throat.
+
+He no longer saw the silent world that, sparkling with color, was
+swimming or paddling behind the crystal. She was now the only creature
+who existed for him. And he listened to her voice as though it were
+distant music as it continued explaining briefly all the particulars
+about those stones that were really animals, about those globes that,
+on distending themselves, showed their organs and again hid themselves
+under a gelatinous succession of waves.
+
+They were a sac, a pocket, an elastic mask, in whose interior existed
+only water or air. Between their armpits was their mouth, armed with
+long jaw bones, like a parrot's beak. When breathing, a crack of their
+skin would open and close alternately. From one of their sides came
+forth a tube in the form of a tunnel that swallowed equally the
+respirable water and drew it through both entrances into its branching
+cavity. Their multiple arms, fitted out with cupping glasses,
+functioned like high-pressure apparatus for grasping and holding prey,
+for paddling and for running.
+
+The glassy eye of one of the monsters appearing and disappearing among
+its soft folds, stirred Freya's memories. She began speaking in a low
+tone as if to herself, without paying any attention to Ferragut who was
+perplexed at the incoherence of her words. The appearance of this
+octopus brought to her mind "the eye of the morning."
+
+The sailor asked: "What is the 'eye of the morning'?"... And he again
+told himself that Freya was crazy when he learned that this was the
+name of a tame serpent, a reptile of checkered sides that she wore as
+necklace or bracelet over there in her home in the island of Java,--an
+island where groves exhaled an irresistible perfume, covered in the
+sunlight with trembling and monstrous flowers like animals, peopled at
+night with phosphorescent stars that leaped from tree to tree.
+
+"I used to dance naked, with a transparent veil tied around my hips and
+another floating from my head ... I would dance for hours and hours,
+just like a Brahman priestess before the image of the terrible Siva,
+and the 'eye of the morning' would follow my dances with elegant
+undulations ... I believe in the divine Siva. Don't you know who Siva
+is?..."
+
+Ferragut uttered an impatient aside to the gloomy god. What he wanted
+to know was the reason that had taken her to Java, the paradisiacal and
+mysterious island.
+
+"My husband was a Dutch commandant," she said. "We were married in
+Amsterdam and I followed him to Asia."
+
+Ulysses protested at this piece of news. Had not her husband been a
+great student?... Had he not taken her to the Andes in search of
+prehistoric beasts?...
+
+Freya hesitated a moment in order to be sure, but her doubts were
+short.
+
+"So he was," she said as a matter of course. "That professor was my
+second husband. I have been married twice."
+
+The captain had not time to express his surprise. Over the top of the
+tank, on the crystalline surface silvered by the sun, passed a human
+shadow. It was the silhouette of the keeper. Down below, the three
+shapeless bags began to move. Freya was trembling with emotion like an
+enthusiastic and impatient spectator.
+
+Something fell into the water, descending little by little, a bit of
+dead sardine that was scattering filaments of meat and yellow scales.
+An odd community interest appeared to exist among these monsters: only
+the one nearest the prey bestirred himself to eat. Perhaps they
+voluntarily took turns; perhaps their glance only reached a little
+beyond their tentacles.
+
+The one nearest to the glass suddenly unfolded itself with the violence
+of a spring escaping from an explosive projectile. He gave a bound,
+remaining fastened to the ground by one of his radiants, and raised the
+others like a bundle of reptiles. Suddenly he converted himself into a
+monstrous star, filling almost the entire glassy tank, swollen with
+rage, and coloring his outer covering with green, blue, and red.
+
+His tentacles clutched the miserable prey, doubling it inward in order
+to bear it to his mouth. The beast then contracted, and flattened
+himself out so as to rest on the ground. His armed feet disappeared and
+there only remained visible a trembling bag through which was passing
+like a succession of waves, from one extreme to the other, the
+digestive swollen mass which became a bubbling, mucous pulpiness in a
+dye-pot that colored and discolored itself with contortions of
+assimilative fury; from time to time the agglomeration showed its
+stupid and ferocious eyes.
+
+New victims continued falling down through the waters and other
+monsters leaped in their turn, spreading out their stars, then
+shrinking together in order to grind their prey in their entrails with
+the assimilation of a tiger.
+
+Freya gazed upon this horrifying digestive process with thrills of
+rapture. Ulysses felt her resting instinctively upon him with a contact
+growing more intimate every moment. From shoulder to ankle the captain
+could see the sweet reliefs of her soft flesh whose warmth made itself
+perceptible through her clothing and filled him with nervous tremors.
+
+Frequently she turned her eyes away from the cruel spectacle, glancing
+at him quickly with an odd expression. Her pupils appeared enlarged,
+and the whites of her eyes had a wateriness of morbid reflection.
+Ferragut felt that thus the insane must look in their great crises.
+
+She was speaking between her teeth, with emotional pauses, admiring the
+ferocity of the cuttlefish, grieving that she did not possess their
+vigor and their cruelty.
+
+"If I could only be like them!... To be able to go through the streets
+ ... through the world, stretching out my talons!... To devour!... to
+devour! They would struggle uselessly to free themselves from the
+winding of my tentacles.... To absorb them!... To eat them!... To cause
+them to disappear!..."
+
+Ulysses beheld her as on that first day near the temple of the poet,
+possessed with a fierce wrath against men, longing extravagantly for
+their extermination.
+
+Their digestion finished, the polypi had begun to swim around, and were
+now horizontal skeins, fluting the tank with elegance. They appeared
+like torpedo boats with a conical prow, dragging along the heavy, thick
+and long hair of their tentacles. Their excited appetite made them
+glide through the water in all directions, seeking new victims.
+
+Freya protested. The guard had only brought them dead bodies. What she
+wanted was the struggle, the sacrifice, the death. The bits of sardine
+were a meal without substance for these bandits that had zest only for
+food seasoned with assassination.
+
+As though the pulps had understood her complaints, they had fallen on
+the sandy bottom, flaccid, inert, breathing through their funnels.
+
+A little crab began to descend at the end of a thread desperately
+moving its claws.
+
+Freya pressed still closer to Ulysses, excited at the thought of the
+approaching spectacle. One of the bags, transformed into a star,
+suddenly leaped forward. Its arms writhed like serpents seeking the
+recent arrival. In vain the guard pulled the thread up, wishing to
+prolong the chase. The tentacles clamped their irresistible openings
+upon the body of the victim, pulling upon the line with such force that
+it broke, the octopus falling on the bottom with his prey.
+
+Freya clapped her hands in applause.
+
+"Bravo!..." She was exceedingly pale, though a feverish heat was
+coursing through her body.
+
+She leaned toward the crystal in order to see better the devouring
+activity of that pyramidal stomach which had on its sharp point a
+diminutive parrot head with two ferocious eyes and around its base the
+twisted skeins of its arms full of projecting disks. With these it
+pressed the crab against its mouth, injecting under its shell the
+venomous output of its salivary glands, paralyzing thus every movement
+of existence. Then it swallowed its prey slowly with the deglutition of
+a boa constrictor.
+
+"How beautiful it is!" she said.
+
+The other beasts also seized their live victims, paralyzed and devoured
+them, moving their flabby bodies in order to permit the passage of
+their swelling nutritive waves and clouds of various colors.
+
+Then the guard tossed in a crab, but one without any string whatever.
+Freya screamed with enthusiasm.
+
+This was the kind of hunt that takes place in the ferocious mystery of
+the sea, a race with death, a destruction preceded with emotional agony
+and hazards. The poor crustacean, divining its danger, was swimming
+towards the rocks hoping to take refuge in the nearest crevice. A
+polypus came up behind it, whilst the others continued their digestion.
+
+"It's escaping!... It's escaping!" cried Freya, palpitating with
+interest.
+
+The crab scrambled through the stones, sheltering itself in their
+windings. The polypus was no longer swimming; it was running like a
+terrestrial animal, climbing over the rocks by its armed extremities,
+which were now serving as apparatus of locomotion. It was the struggle
+of a tiger with a mouse. When the crab had half of its body already
+hidden within the green lichens of a hole, one of the heavy serpents
+fell upon its back clutching it with the irresistible suction of his
+air-holes, and causing it to disappear within his skein of tentacles.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Freya, throwing herself back as though she were going to
+faint on Ulysses' breast.
+
+He shuddered, feeling that a serpentine band of tremulous pressure had
+encircled his body. The acts of that unbalanced creature were fraying
+his nerves.
+
+He felt as though a monster of the same class as those in the tank but
+much larger--a gigantic octopus from the oceanic depths--must have
+slipped treacherously behind him and was clutching him in one of its
+tentacles. He could feel the pressure of its feelers around his waist,
+growing closer and more ferocious.
+
+Freya was holding him captive with one of her arms. She had wound
+herself tightly around him and was clasping his waist with all her
+force, as though trying to break his vigorous body in two.
+
+Then he saw the head of this woman approaching him with an aggressive
+swiftness as if she were going to bite him.... Her enlarged eyes,
+tearful and misty, appeared to be far off, very far off. Perhaps she
+was not even looking at him.... Her trembling mouth, bluish with
+emotion, a round and protruding mouth like an absorbing duct, was
+seeking the sailor's mouth, taking possession of it and devouring it
+with her lips.
+
+It was the kiss of a cupping-glass, long, dominating, painful. Ulysses
+realized that he had never before been kissed in this way. The water
+from that mouth surging across her row of teeth, discharged itself in
+his like swift poison. A shudder unfamiliar until then ran the entire
+length of his back, making him close his eyes.
+
+He felt as if all his interior had turned to liquid. He had a
+presentiment that his life was going to date from this kiss, that with
+it was going to begin a new existence, that he never would be able to
+free himself from these deadly and caressing lips with their faint
+savor of cinnamon, of incense, of Asiatic forests haunted with
+sensuousness and intrigue.
+
+And he let himself be dragged down by the caress of this wild beast,
+with thought lost and body inert and resigned, like a castaway who
+descends and descends the infinite strata of the abyss without ever
+reaching bottom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE WILES OF CIRCE
+
+After that kiss, the lover believed that all his desires were about to
+be immediately realized. The most difficult part of the road was
+already passed. But with Freya one always had to expect something
+absurd and inconceivable.
+
+The midday gun aroused them from a rapture that had lasted but a few
+seconds as long as years. The steps of the guard, growing nearer all
+the time, finally separated the two and unlocked their arms.
+
+Freya was the first to calm herself. Only a slight haze flitted across
+her pupils now, like the vapor from a recently extinguished fire.
+
+"Good-by.... They are waiting for me."
+
+And she went out from the Aquarium followed by Ferragut, still
+stammering and tremulous. The questions and petitions with which he
+pursued her while crossing the promenade were of no avail.
+
+"So far and no further," she said at one of the cross streets of
+Chiaja. "We shall see one another.... I formally promise you that....
+Now leave me."
+
+And she disappeared with the firm step of a handsome huntress, as
+serene of countenance as though not recalling the slightest
+recollection of her primitive, passional paroxysm.
+
+This time she fulfilled her promise. Ferragut saw her every day.
+
+They met in the mornings near the hotel, and sometimes she came down
+into the dining-room, exchanging smiles and glances with the sailor,
+who fortunately was sitting at a distant table. Then they took strolls
+and chatted together, Freya laughing good-naturedly at the amorous vows
+of the captain.... And that was all.
+
+With a woman's skillfulness in sounding a man's depth and penetrating
+into his secrets,--keeping fast-locked and unapproachable her own,--she
+gradually informed herself of the incidents and adventures in the life
+of Ulysses. Vainly he spoke, in a natural reciprocity, of the island of
+Java, of the mysterious dances before Siva, of the journeys through the
+lakes of the Andes. Freya had to make an effort to recall them. "Ah!...
+Yes!" And after giving this distracted exclamation for every answer,
+she would continue the process of delving eagerly into the former life
+of her lover. Ulysses sometimes began to wonder if that embrace in the
+Aquarium could have occurred in his dreams.
+
+One morning the captain managed to bring about the realization of one
+of his ambitions. He was jealous of the unknown friends that were
+lunching with Freya. In vain she affirmed that the doctor was the only
+companion of the hours that she passed outside of the hotel. In order
+to tranquillize himself, the sailor insisted that the widow should
+accept his invitations. They ought to extend their strolls; they ought
+to visit the beautiful outskirts of Naples, lunching in their gay
+little _trattorias_ or eating-houses.
+
+They ascended together the funicular road of Monte Vomero to the
+heights crowned by the castle of S. Elmo and the monastery of S.
+Martino. After admiring in the museum of the abbey the artistic
+souvenirs of the Bourbon domination and that of Murat, they entered
+into a nearby _trattoria_ with tables placed on an esplanade from whose
+balconies they could take in the unforgetable spectacle of the gulf,
+seeing Vesuvius in the distance and the chain of mountains smoking on
+the horizon like an immovable succession of dark rose-colored waves.
+
+Naples was extended in horseshoe form on the bow-shaped border of the
+sea tossing up from its enormous white mass, as though they were bits
+of foam, the clusters of houses in the suburbs.
+
+A swarthy oysterman, slender, with eyes like live coals, and enormous
+mustaches, had his stand at the door of the restaurant, offering
+cockles and shell fish of strong odor that had been half a week perhaps
+in ascending from the city to the heights of Vomero. Freya jested about
+the oysterman's typical good looks and the languishing glances that he
+was forever casting toward all the ladies that entered the
+establishment ... a prime discovery for a tourist anxious for
+adventures in local color.
+
+In the background a small orchestra was accompanying a tenor voice or
+was playing alone, enlarging upon the melodies and amplifying the
+measures with Neapolitan exaggeration.
+
+Freya felt a childish hilarity upon seating herself at the table,
+seeing over the cloth the luminous summit. Bisected in the foreground
+by a crystal vase full of flowers, the distant panorama of the city,
+the gulf, and its capes spread itself before her eager eyes. The air on
+this peak enchanted her after two weeks passed without stirring outside
+of Naples. The harps and violins gave the situation a pathetic thrill
+and served as a background for conversation, just as the vague murmurs
+of a hidden orchestra give the effect in the theater of psalmody or of
+melancholy verses moving the listener to tears.
+
+They ate with the nervousness which joy supplies. At some tables
+further on a young man and woman were forgetting the courses in order
+to clasp hands underneath the cloth and place knee against knee with
+frenzied pressure. The two were smiling, looking at the landscape and
+then at each other. Perhaps they were foreigners recently married,
+perhaps fugitive lovers, realizing in this picturesque spot the billing
+and cooing so many times anticipated in their distant courtship.
+
+Two English doctors from a hospital ship, white haired and uniformed,
+were disregarding their repast in order to paint directly in their
+albums, with a childish painstaking crudeness, the same panorama that
+was portrayed on the postal cards offered for sale at the door of the
+restaurant.
+
+A fat-bellied bottle with a petticoat of straw and a long neck
+attracted Freya's hands to the table. She ridiculed the sobriety of
+Ferragut, who was diluting with water the reddish blackness of the
+Italian wine.
+
+"Thus your ancestors, the Argonauts, must have drunk," she said gayly.
+"Thus your grandfather, Ulysses, undoubtedly drank."
+
+And herself filling the captain's glass with an exaggeratedly careful
+division of the parts of water and wine, she added gayly:
+
+"We are going to make a libation to the gods."
+
+These libations were very frequent. Freya's peals of laughter made the
+Englishmen, interrupted in their conscientious work, turn their glances
+toward her. The sailor felt himself overcome by a warm feeling of
+well-being, by a sensation of repose and confidence, as though this
+woman were unquestionably his already.
+
+Seeing that the two lovers, terminating their luncheon hastily, were
+arising with blushing precipitation as though overpowered by some
+sudden desire, his glance became tender and fraternal.... Adieu, adieu,
+companions!
+
+The voice of the widow recalled him to reality.
+
+"Ulysses, make love to me.... You haven't yet told me this whole day
+long that you love me."
+
+In spite of the smiling and mocking tone of this order, he obeyed her,
+repeating once more his promises and his desires. Wine was giving to
+his words a thrill of emotion; the musical moaning of the orchestra was
+exciting his sensibilities and he was so touched with his own eloquence
+that his eyes slightly filled with tears.
+
+The high voice of the tenor, as though it were an echo of Ferragut's
+thought, was singing a romance of the fiesta of Piedigrotta, a
+lamentation of melancholy love, a canticle of death, the final mother
+of hopeless lovers.
+
+"All a lie!" said Freya, laughing. "These Mediterraneans.... What
+comedians they are for love!..."
+
+Ulysses was uncertain as to whether she was referring to him or to the
+singer. She continued talking, placid and disdainful at the same time,
+because of their surroundings.
+
+"Love,... love! In these countries they can't talk of anything else. It
+is almost an industry, somewhat scrupulously prepared for the credulous
+and simple people from the North. They all harp on love: this howling
+singer, you ... even the oysterman...."
+
+Then she added maliciously:
+
+"I ought to warn you that you have a rival. Be very careful, Ferragut!"
+
+She turned her head in order to look at the oysterman. He was occupied
+in the contemplation of a fat lady with grisled hair and abundant
+jewels, a lady escorted by her husband, who was looking with
+astonishment at the vendor's killing glances without being able to
+understand them.
+
+The lady-killer was stroking his mustache affectedly, looking from time
+to time at his cloth suit in order to smooth out the wrinkles and brush
+off the specks of dust. He was a handsome pirate disguised as a
+gentleman. Upon noticing Freya's interest, he changed the course of his
+glances, poised his fine figure and replied to her questioning eyes
+with the smile of a bad angel, making her understand his discretion and
+skillfulness in ingratiating himself behind husbands and escorts.
+
+"There he is!" cried Freya with peals of laughter. "I already have a
+new admirer!..."
+
+The swarthy charmer was restrained by the scandalous publicity with
+which this lady was receiving his mysterious insinuations. Ferragut
+spoke of knocking the scamp down on his oyster shells with a good pair
+of blows.
+
+"Now don't be ridiculous," she protested. "Poor man! Perhaps he has a
+wife and many children.... He is the father of a family and wants to
+take money home."
+
+There was a long silence between the two. Ulysses appeared offended by
+the lightness and cruelty of his companion.
+
+"Now don't you be cross," she said. "See here, my shark! Smile a bit.
+Show me your teeth.... The libations to the gods are to blame. Are you
+offended because I wished to compare you with that clown?... What if
+you are the only man that I appreciate at all!... Ulysses, I am
+speaking to you seriously,--with all the frankness that wine gives. I
+ought not to tell you so, but I admit it.... If I should ever love a
+man, that man would be you."
+
+Ferragut instantly forgot all his irritation in order to listen to her
+and envelop her in the adoring light of his eyes. Freya averted her
+glance while speaking, not wishing to meet his eye, as though she were
+weighing what she was saying while her glance wandered over the
+widespread landscape.
+
+Ulysses' origin was what interested her most. She who had traveled over
+almost the entire world, had trodden the soil of Spain only a few
+hours, when disembarking in Barcelona from the transatlantic liner
+which he had commanded. The Spaniards inspired her both with fear and
+attraction. A noble gravity reposed in the depths of their ardent
+hyperbole.
+
+"You are an exaggerated being, a meridional who enlarges everything and
+lies about everything, believing all his own lies. But I am sure that
+if you should ever be really in love with me, without fine phrases or
+passionate fictions, your affection would be more sane and deep than
+that of other men.... My friend, the doctor, says that you are a crude
+people and that you have only simulated the nervousness, unbalanced
+behavior, and intrigues that accompany love in other civilized
+countries even to refinement."
+
+Freya looked at the sailor, making a long pause.
+
+"Therefore you strike," she continued, "therefore you kill when you
+feel love and jealousy. You are brutes but not mediocre. You do not
+abandon a woman intentionally; you do not exploit her.... You are a new
+species of man for me, who has known so many. If I were able to believe
+in love, I would have you at my side all my life.... All my life long!"
+
+A light, gentle music, like the vibration of fragile and delicate
+crystal, spread itself over the terrace. Freya followed its rhythm with
+a light motion of the head. She was accustomed to this cloying music,
+this _Serenata_ of Toselli,--a passionate lament that always touches
+the soul of the tourist in the halls of the grand hotels. She, who at
+other times had ridiculed this artificial and refined little music, now
+felt tears welling up in her eyes.
+
+"Not to be able to love anybody!" she murmured. "To wander alone
+through the world!... And love is such a beautiful thing!"
+
+She guessed what Ferragut was going to say,--his protest of eternal
+passion, his offer to unite his life to hers forever, and she cut his
+words short with an energetic gesture.
+
+"No, Ulysses, you do not know me; you do not know who I am.... Go far
+from me. Some days ago it was a matter of indifference to me. I hate
+men and do not mind injuring them, but now you inspire me with a
+certain interest because I believe you are good and frank in spite of
+your haughty exterior.... Go! Do not seek me. This is the best proof of
+affection that I can give you."
+
+She said this vehemently, as if she saw Ferragut running toward danger
+and was crying out in order to ward him from it.
+
+"On the stage," she continued, "there is a role that they call 'The
+Fatal Woman,' and certain artists are not able to play any other part.
+They were born to represent this personage.... I am a 'Fatal Woman,'
+but really and truly.... If you could know my life!... It is better
+that you do not know it; even I wish to ignore it. I am happy only when
+I forget it.... Ferragut, my friend, bid me farewell, and do not cross
+my path again."
+
+But Ferragut protested as though she were proposing a cowardly thing to
+him. Flee? Loving her so much? If she had enemies, she could rely upon
+him for her defense; if she wanted wealth, he wasn't a millionaire,
+but....
+
+"Captain," interrupted Freya, "go back to your own people. I was not
+meant for you. Think of your wife and son; follow your own life. I am
+not the conquest that is cherished for a few weeks, no more. Nobody can
+trust me with impunity. I have suckers just like the animals that we
+saw the other day; I burn and sting just like those transparent
+parasols in the Aquarium. Flee, Ferragut!.... Leave me alone....
+Alone!"
+
+And the image of the immense barrenness of her lonely future made the
+tears gush from her eyes.
+
+The music had ceased. A motionless waiter was pretending to look far
+away, while really listening to their conversation. The two Englishmen
+had interrupted their painting in order to glare at this _gentleman_
+who was making a lady weep. The sailor began to feel the nervous
+disquietude which a difficult situation creates.
+
+"Ferragut, pay and let us go," she said, divining his state of mind.
+
+While Ulysses was giving money to the waiters and musicians, she dried
+her eyes and repaired the ravages to her complexion, drawing from her
+gold-mesh bag a powder puff and little mirror in whose oval she
+contemplated herself for a long time.
+
+As they passed out, the oysterman turned his back, pretending to be
+very much occupied in the arrangement of the lemons that were adorning
+his stand. She could not see his face, but she guessed, nevertheless,
+that he was muttering a bad word,--the most terrible that can be said
+of a woman.
+
+They went slowly toward the station of the funicular road, through
+solitary streets and between garden walls one side of which was yellow
+in the golden sunlight and the other blue in the shade. She it was who
+sought Ulysses' arm, supporting herself on it with a childish abandon
+as if fatigue had overcome her after the first few steps.
+
+Ferragut pressed this arm close against his body, feeling at once the
+stimulus of contact. Nobody could see them; their footsteps resounded
+on the pavements with the echo of an abandoned place. The fermented
+ardor of those libations to the gods was giving the captain a new
+audacity.
+
+"My poor little darling!... Dear little crazy-head!..." he murmured,
+drawing closer to him Freya's head which was resting on one of his
+shoulders.
+
+He kissed her without her making any resistance. And she in turn kissed
+him, but with a sad, light, faint-hearted kiss that in no way recalled
+the hysterical caress of the Aquarium. Her voice, which appeared to be
+coming from afar off, was repeating what she had counseled him in the
+_trattoria_.
+
+"Begone, Ulysses! Do not see me any more. I tell you this for your own
+good.... I bring trouble. I should be sorry to have you curse the
+moment in which you met me."
+
+The sailor took advantage of all the windings of the streets in order
+to cut these recommendations short with his kisses. She advanced limply
+as though towed by him with no will power of her own, as though she
+were walking in her sleep. A voice was singing with diabolic
+satisfaction in the captain's brain:
+
+"Now it is ripe!... Now it is ripe!..."
+
+And he continued pulling her along always in a direct line, not knowing
+whither he was going, but sure of his triumph.
+
+Near the station an old man approached the pair,--a white-haired,
+respectable gentleman with an old jacket and spectacles. He gave them
+the card of a hotel which he owned in the neighborhood, boasting of the
+good qualities of its rooms. "Every modern comfort.... Hot water."
+Ferragut spoke to her familiarly:
+
+"Would you like?... Would you like?..."
+
+She appeared to wake up, dropping his arm brusquely.
+
+"Don't be crazy, Ulysses.... That will never be.... Never!"
+
+And drawing herself up magnificently, she entered the station with a
+haughty step, without looking around, without noticing whether Ferragut
+was following her or abandoning her.
+
+During the long wait and the descent to the city Freya appeared as
+ironical and frivolous as though she had no recollection of her recent
+indignation. The sailor, under the weight of his failure and the
+unusual libations, relapsed into sulky silence.
+
+In the district of Chiaja they separated. Ferragut, finding himself
+alone, felt more strongly than ever the effects of the intoxication
+that was dominating him, the intoxication of a temperate man overcome
+by the intense surprise of novelty.
+
+For a moment he had a forlorn idea of going to his boat. He needed to
+give orders, to contend with somebody; but the weakness of his knees
+pushed him toward his hotel and he flung himself face downward on the
+bed,--whilst his hat rolled on the floor,--content with the sobriety
+with which he had reached his room without attracting the attention of
+the servants.
+
+He fell asleep immediately, but scarcely had night fallen before his
+eyes opened again, or at least he believed that they opened, seeing
+everything under a light which was not that of the sun.
+
+Some one had entered the room, and was coming on tiptoe towards his
+bed. Ulysses, who was not able to move, saw out of the tail of one eye
+that what was approaching was a woman and that this woman appeared to
+be Freya. Was it really she?...
+
+She had the same countenance, the blonde hair, the black and oriental
+eyes, the same oval face. It was Freya and it was not, just as twins
+exactly alike physically, nevertheless have an indefinable something
+which differentiates them.
+
+The vague thoughts which for some time past had been slowly undermining
+his subconsciousness with dull, subterranean labor, now cleared the air
+with explosive force. Whenever he had seen the widow this
+subconsciousness had asserted itself, forewarning him that he had known
+her long before that transatlantic voyage. Now, under a light of
+fantastic splendor, these vague thoughts assumed definite shape.
+
+The sleeper thought he was looking at Freya clad in a bodice with
+flowing sleeves adjusted to the arms with filagree buttons of gold;
+some rather barbarous gems were adorning her bosom and ears, and a
+flowered skirt was covering the rest of her person. It was the classic
+costume of a farmer's wife or daughter of other centuries that he had
+seen somewhere in a painting. Where?... Where?...
+
+"Doña Constanza!..."
+
+Freya was the counterpart of that august Byzantian queen. Perhaps she
+was the very same, perpetuated across the centuries, through
+extraordinary incarnations. In that moment Ulysses would have believed
+anything possible.
+
+Besides he was very little concerned with the reasonableness of things
+just now; the important thing to him was that they should exist; and
+Freya was at his side; Freya and that other one, welded into one and
+the same woman, clad like the Grecian sovereign.
+
+Again he repeated the sweet name that had illuminated his infancy with
+romantic splendor. "Doña Constanza! Oh, Doña Constanza!..." And night
+overwhelmed him, cuddling his pillow as when he was a child, and
+falling asleep enraptured with thoughts of the young widow of "Vatacio
+the Heretic."
+
+When he met Freya again the next day, he felt attracted by a new
+force,--the redoubled interest that people in dreams inspire. She might
+really be the empress resuscitated in a new form as in the books of
+chivalry, or she might simply be the wandering widow of a learned
+sage,--for the sailor it was all the same thing. He desired her, and to
+his carnal desire was added others less material,--the necessity of
+seeing her for the mere pleasure of seeing her, of hearing her, of
+suffering her negatives, of being repelled in all his advances.
+
+She had pleasant memories of the expedition to the heights of S.
+Martino.
+
+"You must have thought me ridiculous because of my sensitiveness and my
+tears. You, on the other hand, were as you always are, impetuous and
+daring.... The next time we shall drink less."
+
+The "next time" was an invitation that Ferragut repeated daily. He
+wanted to take her to dine at one of the _trattorias_ on the road to
+Posilipo where they could see spread at their feet the entire gulf,
+colored with rose by the setting sun.
+
+Freya had accepted his invitation with the enthusiasm of a school girl.
+These strolls represented for her hours of joy and liberty, as though
+her long sojourns with the doctor were filled with monotonous service.
+
+One evening Ulysses was waiting for her far from the hotel so as to
+avoid the porter's curious stares. As soon as they met and glanced
+toward the neighboring cab-stand, four vehicles advanced at the same
+time--like a row of Roman chariots anxious to win the prize in the
+circus--with a noisy clattering of hoofs, cracking of whips, wrathful
+gesticulations and threatening appeals to the Madonna. Listening to
+their Neapolitan curses, Ferragut believed for an instant that they
+were going to kill one another.... The two climbed into the nearest
+vehicle, and immediately the tumult ceased. The empty coaches returned
+to occupy their former place in the line, and the deadly rivals renewed
+their placid and laughing conversation.
+
+An enormous upright plume was waving on their horses' heads. The
+cabman, in order not to be discourteous to his two clients, would
+occasionally turn half-way around, giving them explanations.
+
+"Over there," and he pointed with his whip, "is the road of
+Piedigrotta. The gentleman ought to see it on a day of fiesta in
+September. Few return from it with a firm step. _S. Maria di
+Piedigrotta_ enabled Charles III to put the Austrians to flight in
+Velletri.... _Aooo!_"
+
+He moved his whip like a fishing rod over the upright plume, increasing
+the steed's pace with a professional howl.... And as though his cry
+were among the sweetest of melodies, he continued talking, by
+association of ideas:
+
+"At the fiesta of _Piedigrotta_, when I was a boy, were given out the
+best songs of the year. There was proclaimed the latest fashionable
+love song, and long after we had forgotten it foreigners would come
+here repeating it as though it was a novelty."
+
+He made a short pause.
+
+"If the lady and gentleman wish," he continued, "I will take them, on
+returning, to _Piedigrotta_. Then we'll see the little church of _S.
+Vitale_. Many foreign ladies hunt for it in order to put flowers on the
+sepulcher of a hunch-back who made verses,--Giacomo Leopardi."
+
+The silence with which his two clients received these explanations made
+him abandon his mechanical oratory in order to take a good look at
+them. The gentleman was taking the lady's hand and was pressing it,
+speaking in a very low tone. The lady was pretending not to listen to
+him, looking at the villas and the gardens at the left of the road
+sloping down toward the sea.
+
+With noble magnanimity, however, the driver still wished to instruct
+his indifferent clients, showing them with the point of his whip the
+beauty and wonders of his repertoire.
+
+"That church is _S. Maria del Parto_, sometimes called by others the
+_Sannazaro._ _Sannazaro_ was also a noted poet who described the loves
+of shepherdesses, and Frederick II of Aragon made him the gift of a
+villa with gardens in order that he might write with greater comfort...
+Those were other days, sir! His heirs converted it into a church
+and----"
+
+The voice of the coachman stopped short. Behind him the pair were
+talking in an incomprehensible language, without paying the slightest
+attention to him, without acknowledging his erudite explanations.
+Ignorant foreigners!... And he said no more, wrapping himself in
+offended silence, relieving his Neapolitan verbosity with a series of
+shouts and grunts to his horse.
+
+The new road from Posilipo, the work of Murat, skirted the gulf, rising
+along the mountain edge and constantly emphasizing the declivity
+between the covering of its feet and the border of the sea. On this
+hanging slope may be seen villas with white or rosy facades midst the
+splendor of a vegetation that is always green and glossy. Beyond the
+colonnades of palm trees and parasol pines, appeared the gulf like a
+blue curtain, its upper edge showing above the murmuring tops of the
+trees.
+
+An enormous edifice appeared facing the water. It was a palace in
+ruins, or rather a roofless palace never finished, with thick walls and
+huge windows. On the lower floor the waves entered gently through doors
+and windows which served as rooms of refuge for the fishermen's skiffs.
+
+The two travelers were undoubtedly talking about this ruin, and the
+forgiving coachman forgot his snub in order to come to their aid.
+
+"That is what many people call the Palace of Queen Joanna.... A
+mistake, sir. Ignorance of the uneducated people! That is the _Palazzo
+di Donn' Anna_, and _Donna Anna Carafa_ was a great Neapolitan
+_signora_, wife of the Duke of Medina, the Spanish viceroy who
+constructed the palace for her and was not able to finish it."...
+
+He was about to say more but stopped himself. Ah, no! By the
+Madonna!... Again they had begun to talk, without listening to him....
+And he finally took refuge in offended silence, while they chattered
+continually behind his back.
+
+Ferragut felt an interest in the remote love-affairs of the Neapolitan
+great lady with the prudent and aristocratic Spanish magnate. His
+passion had made the grave viceroy commit the folly of constructing a
+palace in the sea. The sailor was also in love with a woman of another
+race and felt equal desires to do whimsical things for her.
+
+"I have read the mandates of Nietzsche," he said to her, by way of
+explaining his enthusiasm,--"'seek thy wife outside thy country.' That
+is the best thing."
+
+Freya smiled sadly.
+
+"Who knows?... That would complicate love with the prejudices of
+national antagonism. That would create children with a double country
+who would end by belonging to none, who would wander through the world
+like mendicants with no place of refuge.... I know something about
+that."
+
+And again she smiled with sadness and skepticism.
+
+Ferragut was reading the signs of the _trattorias_ on both sides of the
+highway: "The Ledge of the Siren," "The Joy of Parthenope," "The
+Cluster of Flowers."... And meanwhile he was squeezing Freya's hand,
+putting his fingers upon the inner side of her wrist and caressing her
+skin that trembled at every touch.
+
+The coachman let the horse slowly ascend the continuous ascent of
+Posilipo. He was now concerned in not turning around and not being
+troublesome. He knew well what they were talking about behind him.
+"Lovers,--people who do not wish to arrive too soon!" And he forgot to
+be offended, gloating over the probable generosity of a gentleman in
+such good company.
+
+Ulysses made him stop on the heights of Posilipo. It was there where he
+had eaten a famous "sailor's soup," and where they sold the best
+oysters from Fusaro. At the right of the road, there arose a
+pretentious and modern edifice with the name of a restaurant in letters
+of gold. On the opposite side was the annex, a terraced garden that
+slipped away down to the sea, and on these terraces were tables in the
+open air or little low roofed cottages whose walls were covered with
+climbing vines. These latter constructions had discreet windows opening
+upon the gulf at a great height thus forestalling any outside
+curiosity.
+
+Upon receiving Ferragut's generous tip, the coachman greeted him with a
+sly smile, that confidential gesture of comradeship which passes down
+through all the social strata, uniting them as simple men. He had
+brought many folk to this discreet garden with its locked dining-rooms
+overlooking the gulf. "A good appetite to you, _Signore_!"
+
+The old waiter who came to meet them on the little sloping footpath
+made the identical grimace as soon as he spied Ferragut. "I have
+whatever the gentleman may need." And crossing a low, embowered terrace
+with various unoccupied tables, he opened a door and bade them enter a
+room having only one window.
+
+Freya went instinctively toward it like an insect toward the light,
+leaving behind her the damp and gloomy room whose paper was hanging
+loose at intervals. "How beautiful!" The gulf pictured through the
+window appeared like an unframed canvas,--the original, alive and
+palpitating,--of the infinite copies throughout the world.
+
+Meanwhile the captain, while informing himself of the available dishes,
+was secretly following the discreet sign language of the waiter. With
+one hand he was holding the door half open, his fingers fumbling with
+an enormous archaic bolt on the under side which had belonged to a much
+larger door and looked as though it were going to fall from the wood
+because of its excessive size.... Ferragut surmised that this bolt was
+going to count heavily, with all its weight, in the bill for dinner.
+
+Freya interrupted her contemplation of the panorama on feeling
+Ferragut's lips trying to caress her neck.
+
+"None of that, Captain!... You know well enough what we have agreed.
+Remember that I have accepted your invitation on the condition that you
+leave me in peace."
+
+She permitted his kiss to pass across her cheek, even reaching her
+mouth. This caress was already an accepted thing. As it had the force
+of custom, she did not resist it, remembering the preceding ones, but
+fear of his abusing it made her withdraw from the window.
+
+"Let us examine the enchanted palace which my true love has promised
+me," she said gayly in order to distract Ulysses from his insistence.
+
+In the center there was a table made of planks badly planed and with
+rough legs. The covers and the dishes would hide this horror. Passing
+her eyes scrutinizingly over the old seats, the walls with their loose
+papering and the chromos in greenish frames, she spied something dark,
+rectangular and deep occupying one corner of the room. She did not know
+whether it was a divan, a bed or a funeral catafalque. The shabby
+covers that were spread over it reminded one of the beds of the
+barracks or of the prison.
+
+"Ah, no!..." Freya made one bound toward the door. She would never be
+able to eat beside that filthy piece of furniture which had come from
+the scum of Naples. "Ah, no! How loathesome!"
+
+Ulysses was standing near the door, fearing that Freya's discoveries
+might go further, and hiding with his back that bolt which was the
+waiter's pride. He stammered excuses but she mistook his insistence,
+thinking that he was trying to lock her in.
+
+"Captain, let me pass!" she said in an angry voice. "You do not know
+me. That kind of thing is for others.... Back, if you do not wish me to
+consider you the lowest kind of fellow...."
+
+And she pushed him as she went out, in spite of the fact that Ulysses
+was letting her pass freely, reiterating his excuses and laying all the
+responsibility on the stupidity of the servant.
+
+She stopped under the arbor, suddenly tranquillized upon finding
+herself with her back to the room.
+
+"What a den!"... she said. "Come over here, Ferragut. We shall be much
+more comfortable in the open air looking at the gulf. Come, now, and
+don't be babyish!... All is forgotten. You were not to blame."
+
+The old waiter, who was returning with table-covers and dishes, did not
+betray the slightest astonishment at seeing the pair installed on the
+terrace. He was accustomed to these surprises and evaded the lady's eye
+like a convicted criminal, looking at the gentleman with the forlorn
+air which he always employed when announcing that there was no more of
+some dish on the bill of fare. His gestures of quiet protection were
+trying to console Ferragut for his failure. "Patience and tenacity!"...
+He had seen much greater difficulties overcome by his clientele.
+
+Before serving dinner he placed upon the table, in the guise of an
+aperitive, a fat-bellied bottle of native wine, a nectar from the
+slopes of Vesuvius with a slight taste of sulphur. Freya was thirsty
+and was suspicious of the water of the _trattoria_. Ulysses must forget
+his recent mortification.... And the two made their libations to the
+gods, with an unmixed drink in which not a drop of water cut the
+jeweled transparency of the precious wine.
+
+A group of singers and dancers now invaded the terrace. A coppery-hued
+girl, handsome and dirty, with wavy hair, great gold hoops in her ears
+and an apron of many colored stripes, was dancing under the arbor,
+waving on high a tambourine that was almost the size of a parasol. Two
+bow-legged youngsters, dressed like ancient lazzarones in red caps,
+were accompanying with shouts the agitated dance of the _tarantella_.
+
+The gulf was taking on a pinkish light under the oblique rays of the
+sun, as though there were growing within it immense groves of coral.
+The blue of the sky had also turned rosy and the mountain seemed aflame
+in the afterglow. The plume of Vesuvius was less white than in the
+morning; its nebulous column, streaked with reddish flutings by the
+dying light, appeared to be reflecting its interior fire.
+
+Ulysses felt the friendly placidity that a landscape contemplated in
+childhood always inspires. Many a time he had seen this same panorama
+with its dancing girls and its volcano there in his old home at
+Valencia; he had seen it on the fans called "Roman Style" that his
+father used to collect.
+
+Freya felt as moved as her companion. The blue of the gulf was of an
+extreme intensity in the parts not reflected by the sun; the coast
+appeared of ochre; although the houses had tawdry façades, all these
+discordant elements were now blended and interfused in subdued and
+exquisite harmony. The shrubbery was trembling rhythmically under the
+breeze. The very air was musical, as though in its waves were vibrating
+the strings of invisible harps.
+
+This was for Freya the true Greece imagined by the poets, not the
+island of burned-out rocks denuded of vegetation that she had seen and
+heard spoken of in her excursions through the Hellenic archipelago.
+
+"To live here the rest of my life!" she murmured with misty eyes. "To
+die here, forgotten, alone, happy!..."
+
+Ferragut also would like to die in Naples ... but with her!... And his
+quick and exuberant imagination described the delights of life for the
+two,--a life of love and mystery in some one of the little villas, with
+a garden peeping out over the sea on the slopes of Posilipo.
+
+The dancers had passed down to the lower terrace where the crowd was
+greater. New customers were entering, almost all in pairs, as the day
+was fading. The waiter had ushered some highly-painted women with
+enormous hats, followed by some young men, into the locked dining-room.
+Through the half-open door came the noise of pursuit, collision and
+rebound with brutal roars of laughter.
+
+Freya turned her back, as if the memory of her passage through that den
+offended her.
+
+The old waiter now devoted himself to them, beginning to serve dinner.
+To the bottle of Vesuvian wine had succeeded another kind, gradually
+losing its contents.
+
+The two ate little but felt a nervous thirst which made them frequently
+reach out their hands toward the glass. The wine was depressing to
+Freya. The sweetness of the twilight seemed to make it ferment, giving
+it the acrid perfume of sad memories.
+
+The sailor felt arising within him the aggressive fever of temperate
+men when becoming intoxicated. Had he been with a man he would have
+started a violent discussion on any pretext whatever. He did not relish
+the oysters, the sailor's soup, the lobster, everything that another
+time, eaten alone or with a passing friend in the same site, would have
+appeared to him as delicacies.
+
+He was looking at Freya with enigmatical eyes while, in his thought,
+wrath was beginning to bubble. He almost hated her on recalling the
+arrogance with which she had treated him, fleeing from that room.
+"Hypocrite!..." She was just amusing herself with him. She was a
+playful and ferocious cat prolonging the death-agony of the mouse
+caught in her claws. In his brain a brutal voice was saying, as though
+counseling a murder: "This will be her last day!... I'll finish her
+to-day!... No more after to-day!..." After several repetitions, he was
+disposed to the greatest violence in order to extricate himself from a
+situation which he thought ridiculous.
+
+And she, ignorant of her companion's thought, deceived by the
+impassiveness of his countenance, continued chatting with her glance
+fixed on the horizon, talking in an undertone as though she were
+recounting to herself her illusions.
+
+The momentary suggestion of living in a cottage of Posilipo, completely
+alone, an existence of monastic isolation with all the conveniences of
+modern life, was dominating her like an obsession.
+
+"And yet, after all," she continued, "this atmosphere is not favorable
+to solitude; this landscape is for love. To grow old slowly, two who
+love each other, before the eternal beauty of the gulf!... What a pity
+that I have never been really loved!..."
+
+This was an offense against Ulysses who expressed his annoyance with
+all the aggressiveness that was seething beneath his bad humor. How
+about him?... Was he not loving her and disposed to prove it to her by
+all manner of sacrifices?...
+
+Sacrifices as proof of love always left this woman cold, accepting them
+with a skeptical gesture.
+
+"All men have told me the same thing," she added; "they all promise to
+kill themselves if I do not love them.... And with the most of them it
+is nothing more than a phrase of passionate rhetoric. And what if they
+did kill themselves really? What does that prove?... To leave life on
+the spur of a moment that gives no opportunity for repentance;--a
+simple nervous flash, a posture many times assumed simply for what
+people will say, with the frivolous pride of an actor who likes to pose
+in graceful attitudes. I know what all that means. A man once killed
+himself for me...."
+
+On hearing these last words Ferragut jerked himself out of his sullen
+silence. A malicious voice was chanting in his brain, "Now there are
+three!..."
+
+"I saw him dying," she continued, "on a bed of the hotel. He had a red
+spot like a star on the bandage of his forehead,--the hole of the
+pistol shot. He died clutching my hands, swearing that he loved me and
+that he had killed himself for me ... a tiresome, horrible scene....
+And nevertheless I am sure that he was deceiving himself, that he did
+not love me. He killed himself through wounded vanity on seeing that I
+would have nothing to do with him,--just for stubbornness, for
+theatrical effect, influenced by his readings.... He was a Roumanian
+tenor. That was in Russia.... I have been an actress a part of my
+life...."
+
+The sailor wished to express the astonishment that the different
+changes of this mysterious wandering existence, always showing a new
+facet, were producing in him; but he contained himself in order to
+listen better to the cruel counsels of the malignant voice speaking
+within his thoughts.... He was not trying to kill himself for her.
+Quite the contrary! His moody aggressiveness was considering her as the
+next victim. There was in his eyes something of the dead _Triton_ when
+in pursuit of a distant woman's skirt on the coast.
+
+Freya continued speaking.
+
+"To kill one's self is not a proof of love. They all promise me the
+sacrifice of their existence from the very first words. Men don't know
+any other song. Don't imitate them, Captain."
+
+She remained pensive a long time. Twilight was rapidly falling; half
+the sky was of amber and the other half of a midnight blue in which the
+first stars were beginning to twinkle. The gulf was drowsing under the
+leaden coverlet of its water, exhaling a mysterious freshness that was
+spreading to the mountains and trees. All the landscape appeared to be
+acquiring the fragility of crystal. The silent air was trembling with
+exaggerated resonance, repeating the fall of an oar in the boats that,
+small as flies, were slipping along under the sky arching above the
+gulf, and prolonging the feminine and invisible voices passing through
+the groves on the heights.
+
+The waiter went from table to table, distributing candles enclosed in
+paper shades. The mosquitoes and moths, revived by the twilight, were
+buzzing around these red and yellow flowers of light.
+
+Her voice was again sounding in the twilight air with the vagueness of
+one speaking in a dream.
+
+"There is a sacrifice greater than that of life,--the only one that can
+convince a woman that she is beloved. What does life signify to a man
+like you?... Your profession puts it in danger every day and I believe
+you capable of risking your life, when tired of land, for the slightest
+motive...."
+
+She paused again and then continued.
+
+"Honor is worth more than life for certain men,--respectability, the
+preservation of the place that they occupy. Only the man that would
+risk his honor and position for me, who would descend to the lowest
+depths without losing his will to live, would ever be able to convince
+me.... That indeed would be a sacrifice!"
+
+Ferragut felt alarmed at such words. What kind of sacrifice was this
+woman about to propose to him?... But he grew calmer as he listened to
+her. It was all a fancy of her disordered imagination. "She is crazy,"
+again affirmed the hidden counselor in his brain.
+
+"I have dreamed many times," she continued, "of a man who would rob for
+me, who would kill if it was necessary and might have to pass the rest
+of his years in prison.... My poor thief!... I would live only for him,
+spending night and day near the walls of his prison, looking through
+the bars, working like a woman of the village in order to send a good
+dinner to my outlaw.... That is genuine love and not the cold lies, the
+theatrical vows of our world."
+
+Ulysses repeated his mental comment, "She certainly is crazy"--and his
+thought was so clearly reflected in his eyes that she guessed it.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Ferragut," she said, smiling. "I have no thought of
+exacting such a sacrifice of you. All this that I am talking about is
+merely fancy, a whimsy invented to fill the vacancy of my soul. 'Tis
+the fault of the wine, of our exaggerated libations,--that to-day have
+been without water,--to the gods.... Just look!"
+
+And she pointed with comical gravity to the two empty bottles that were
+occupying the center of the table.
+
+Night had fallen. In the dark sky twinkled infinite eyes of starry
+light. The immense bowl of the gulf was reflecting their sparkles like
+thousands of will o' the wisps. The candle shades in the restaurant
+were throwing purplish spots upon the table covers, casting upon the
+faces of those who were eating around them violent contrasts of light
+and shade. From the locked rooms were escaping sounds of kisses,
+pursuit and falling furniture.
+
+"Let us go!" ordered Freya.
+
+The noise of this vulgar orgy was annoying her as though it were
+dishonoring the majesty of the night. She needed to move about, to walk
+in the darkness, to breathe in the freshness of the mysterious shade.
+
+At the garden gate they hesitated before the appeals of various
+coachmen. Freya was the one who refused their offers. She wished to
+return to Naples on foot, following the easy descent of the road of
+Posilipo after their long inaction in the restaurant. Her face was warm
+and flushed because of the excess of wine.
+
+Ulysses gave her his arm and they began to move through the shadows,
+insensibly impelled in their march by the ease of the downward slope.
+Freya knew just what this trip would mean. At the very first step the
+sailor advised her with a kiss on the neck. He was going to take
+advantage of all the windings of the road, of the hills and terraces
+cut through in certain places to show the phosphorescent gulf across
+the foliage, and of the long shadowy stretch broken only now and then
+by the public echoes or the lanterns of carriages and tramways....
+
+But these liberties were already an accepted thing. She had taken the
+first step in the Aquarium: besides, she was sure of her ability to
+keep her lover at whatever distance she might choose to fix.... And
+convinced of her power of checking herself in time, she gave herself up
+like a lost woman.
+
+Never had Ferragut had such a propitious occasion. It was a
+trysting-place in the mystery of the night with plenty of time ahead of
+them. The only trouble was the necessity of walking on, of accompanying
+his embraces and protests of love with the incessant activity of
+walking. She protested, coming out from her rapture every time that the
+enamored man would propose that they sit down on the side of the road.
+
+Hope made Ulysses very obedient to Freya, desirous of reaching Naples
+as soon as possible. Down there in the curve of the light near the gulf
+was the hotel, and the sailor looked upon it as a place of happiness.
+
+"Say yes," he murmured in her ear, punctuating his words with kisses,
+"say that it will be to-night!..."
+
+She did not reply, leaning on the arm that the captain had passed
+around her waist, letting herself be dragged along as if she were
+half-fainting, rolling her eyes and offering her lips.
+
+While Ulysses was repeating his pleadings and caresses the voice in his
+brain was chanting victoriously, "Here it is!... It's settled now....
+The thing now is to get her to the hotel."
+
+They roamed on for nearly an hour, fancying that only a few minutes had
+passed by.
+
+Approaching the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_, near the Aquarium,
+they stopped an instant. There were fewer people and more life here
+than in the road to Posilipo. They avoided the electric lights of the
+_Via Caracciolo_ reflected in the sea,--the two instinctively
+approaching a bench, and seeking the ebony shade of the trees.
+
+Freya had suddenly become very composed. She appeared annoyed at
+herself for her languor during the walk. Finding herself near the
+hotel, she recovered her energy as though in the presence of danger.
+
+"Good-by, Ulysses! We shall see each other again to-morrow.... I am
+going to pass the night in the doctor's home."
+
+The sailor withdrew a little in the shock of surprise. "Was it a
+jest?..." But no, he could not think that. The very tone of her words
+displayed firm resolution.
+
+He entreated her humbly with a thick and threatening voice not to go
+away. At the same time his mental counselor was rancorously chanting,
+"She's making a fool of you!... It's time to put an end to all this....
+Make her feel your masculine authority." And this voice had the same
+ring as that of the dead _Triton_.
+
+Suddenly occurred a violent, brutal, dishonorable thing. Ulysses threw
+himself upon her as though he Were going to kill her, holding her
+tightly in his arms, and the two fell upon the bench, panting and
+struggling. But this only lasted an instant.
+
+The vigorous Ferragut, trembling with emotion, was only using half of
+his powers. He suddenly sprang back, raising his two hands to his
+shoulders. He felt a sharp pain, as though one of his bones had just
+broken. She had repelled him with a certain Japanese fencing trick that
+employs the hands as irresistible weapons.
+
+"Ah!... _Tal!_..." he roared, hurling upon her the worst of feminine
+insults.
+
+And he fell upon her again as though he were a man, uniting to his
+original purpose the desire of maltreating her, of degrading her, of
+making her his.
+
+Freya awaited him firmly... Seeing the icy glitter of her eyes, Ulysses
+without knowing why recalled the "eye of the morning," the
+companionable reptile of her dances.
+
+In this furious onslaught he was stopped by the simple contact on his
+forehead of a diminutive metal circle, a kind of frozen thimble that
+was resting on his skin.
+
+He looked... It was a little revolver, a deadly toy of shining nickel.
+It had appeared in Freya's hand, drawn secretly from her clothes, or
+perhaps from that gold-mesh bag whose contents seemed inexhaustible.
+
+She was looking at him fixedly with her finger on the trigger. He
+surmised her familiarity with the weapon that she had in her hand. It
+could not be the first time that she had had recourse to it.
+
+The sailor's indecision was brief. With a man, he would have taken
+possession of the threatening hand, twisting it until he broke it,
+without the slightest fear of the revolver. But he had opposite him a
+woman ... and this woman was entirely capable of wounding him, and at
+the same time placing him in a ridiculous situation.
+
+"Retire, sir!" ordered Freya with a ceremonious and threatening tone as
+though she were speaking to an utter stranger.
+
+But it was she who retired finally, seeing that Ulysses stepped back,
+thoughtful and confused. She turned her back on him at the same time
+that the revolver disappeared from her hand.
+
+Before departing, she murmured some words that Ferragut was not able to
+understand, looking at him for the last time with contemptuous eyes.
+They must be terrible insults, and just because she was uttering them
+in a mysterious language, he felt her scorn more deeply.
+
+"It cannot be.... It is all ended. It is ended forever!..."
+
+She said this repeatedly before returning to her hotel. And he thought
+of it during all the wakeful night between agonizing attacks of
+nightmare. When the morning was well advanced the bugles of the
+_bersaglieri_ awakened him from a heavy sleep.
+
+He paid his bill in the manager's office and gave a last tip to the
+porter, telling him that a few hours later a man from the ship would
+come for his baggage.
+
+He was happy, with the forced happiness of one obliged to accommodate
+himself to circumstances. He congratulated himself upon his liberty as
+though he had gained this liberty of his own free will and it had not
+been imposed upon him by her scorn. Since the memory of the preceding
+day pained him, putting him in a ridiculous and gross light, it was
+better not to recall the past.
+
+He stopped in the street to take a last look at the hotel. "Adieu,
+accursed _albergo_!... Never will I see you again. Would that you might
+burn down with all your occupants!"
+
+Upon treading the deck of the _Mare Nostrum_, his enforced satisfaction
+became immeasurably increased. Here only could he live far from the
+complications and illusions of terrestrial life.
+
+All those aboard who in previous weeks had feared the arrival of the
+ill-humored captain, now smiled as though they saw the sun coming out
+after a tempest. He distributed kindly words and affectionate grasps of
+the hand. The repairs were going to be finished the following day....
+Very good! He was entirely content. Soon they would be on the sea
+again.
+
+In the galley he greeted Uncle Caragol.... That man _was_ a
+philosopher. All the women in the world were not in his estimation
+worth a good dish of rice. Ah, the great man!... He surely was going to
+live to be a hundred! And the cook flattered by such praises, whose
+origin he did not happen to comprehend, responded as always,--"That is
+so, my captain."
+
+Toni, silent, disciplined and familiar, inspired him with no less
+admiration. His life was an upright life, firm and plain, as the road
+of duty. When the young officials used to talk in his presence of
+boisterous suppers on shore with women from distant countries, the
+pilot had always shrugged his shoulders. "Money and pleasure ought to
+be kept for the home," he would say sententiously.
+
+Ferragut had laughed many times at the virtue of his mate who, timid
+and torpid, used to pass over a great part of the planet without
+permitting himself any distraction whatever, but would awake with an
+overpowering tension whenever the chances of their voyage brought him
+the opportunity of a few days' stay in his home in the _Marina_.
+
+And with the tranquil grossness of the virtuous stay-at-home, he was
+accustomed to calculate the dates of his voyages by the age of his
+eight children. "This one was on returning from the Philippines....
+This other one after I was in the coast trade in the Gulf of
+California...."
+
+His methodical serenity, incapable of being perturbed by frivolous
+adventures, made him guess from the very first the secret of the
+captain's enthusiasm and wrath. "It must be a woman," he said to
+himself, upon seeing him installed in a hotel in Naples, and after
+feeling the effects of his bad humor in the fleeting appearances that
+he made on board.
+
+Now, listening to Ferragut's jovial comments on his mate's tranquil
+life and philosophic sagacity, Toni again ejaculated mentally, without
+the captain's suspecting anything from his impassive countenance: "Now
+he has quarreled with the woman. He has tired of her. But better so!"
+
+He was more than ever confirmed in this belief on hearing Ferragut's
+plans. As soon as the boat could be made ready, they were going to
+anchor in the commercial port. He had been told of a certain cargo for
+Barcelona,--some cheap freight,--but that was better than going
+empty.... If the cargo should be delayed, they would set sail merely
+with ballast. More than anything else, he wished to renew his trips.
+Boats were scarcer and more in demand all the time. It was high time to
+stop this enforced inertia.
+
+"Yes, it's high time," responded Toni who, during the entire month, had
+only gone ashore twice.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ left the repair dock coming to anchor opposite the
+commercial wharf, shining and rejuvenated, with no imperfections
+recalling her recent injuries.
+
+One morning when the captain and his second were in the saloon under
+the poop undecided whether to start that night--or wait four days
+longer, as the owners of the cargo were requesting,--the third officer,
+a young Andalusian, presented himself greatly excited by the piece of
+news of which he was the bearer. A most beautiful and elegant lady (the
+young man emphasized his admiration with these details) had just
+arrived in a launch and, without asking permission, had climbed the
+ladder, entering the vessel as though it were her own dwelling.
+
+Toni felt his heart thump. His swarthy countenance became ashy pale.
+"_Cristo!_... The woman from Naples!" He did not really know whether
+she was from Naples; he had never seen her, but he was certain that she
+was coming as a fatal impediment, as an unexpected calamity.... Just
+when things were going so well, too!...
+
+The captain whirled around in his arm chair, jumped up from the table,
+and in two bounds was out on deck.
+
+Something extraordinary was perturbing the crew. They, too, were all on
+deck as though some powerful attraction had drawn them from the orlop,
+from the depths of the hold, from the metallic corridors of the engine
+rooms. Even Uncle Caragol was sticking his episcopal face out through
+the door of the kitchen, holding a hand closed in the form of a
+telescope to one of his eyes, without being able to distinguish clearly
+the announced marvel.
+
+Freya was a few steps away in a blue suit somewhat like a sailor's, as
+though this visit to the ship necessitated the imitative elegance and
+bearing of the multi-millionaires who live on their yachts. The seamen,
+cleaning brass or polishing wood, were pretending extraordinary
+occupations in order to get near her. They felt the necessity of being
+in her atmosphere, of living in the perfumed air that enveloped her,
+following her steps.
+
+Upon seeing the captain, she simply extended her hand, as though she
+might have seen him the day before.
+
+"Do not object, Ferragut!... As I did not find you in the hotel, I felt
+obliged to visit you on your ship. I have always wanted to see your
+floating home. Everything about you interests me."
+
+She appeared an entirely different woman. Ulysses noted the great
+change that had taken place in her person during the last days. Her
+eyes were bold, challenging, of a calm seductiveness. She appeared to
+be surrendering herself entirely. Her smiles, her words, her manner of
+crossing the deck toward the staterooms of the vessel proclaimed her
+determination to end her long resistance as quickly as possible,
+yielding to the sailor's desires.
+
+In spite of former failures, he felt anew the joy of triumph. "Now it
+is going to be! My absence has conquered her...." And at the same time
+that he was foretasting the sweet satisfaction of love and triumphant
+pride, there arose in him a vague instinct of suspicion of this woman
+so suddenly transformed, perhaps loving her less than in former days
+when she resisted and advised him to be gone.
+
+In the forward cabin he presented her to his mate. The crude Toni
+experienced the same hallucination that had perturbed all the others on
+the boat. What a woman!... At the very first glance he understood and
+excused the captain's conduct. Then he fixed his eyes upon her with an
+expression of alarm, as though her presence made him tremble for the
+fate of the steamer: but finally he succumbed, dominated by this lady
+who was examining the saloon as though she had come to remain in it
+forever.
+
+For a few moments Freya was interested in the hairy ugliness of Toni.
+He was a true Mediterranean, just the kind she had imagined to
+herself,--a faun pursuing nymphs. Ulysses laughed at the eulogies which
+she passed on his mate.
+
+"In his shoes," she continued, "he ought to have pretty little hoofs
+like a goat's. He must know how to play the flute. Don't you think so,
+Captain?..."
+
+The faun, wrinkled and wrathful, took himself off, saluting her
+stolidly as he went away. Ferragut felt greatly relieved at his
+absence, since he was fearful of some rude speech from Toni.
+
+Finding herself alone with Ulysses, she ran through the great room from
+one side to the other.
+
+"Is here where you live, my dear shark?... Let me see everything. Let
+me poke around everywhere. Everything of yours interests me. You will
+not say now that I do not love you. What a boast for Captain Ferragut!
+The ladies come to seek him on his ship...."
+
+She interrupted her ironic and affectionate chatter in order to defend
+herself gently from the sailor. He, forgetting the past, and wishing to
+take advantage of the happiness so suddenly presented to him, was
+kissing the nape of her neck.
+
+"There,... there!" she sighed. "Now let me look around. I feel the
+curiosity of a child."
+
+She opened the piano,--the poor piano of the Scotch captain--and some
+thin and plaintive chords, showing many years' lack of tuning, filled
+the saloon with the melancholy of resuscitated memories.
+
+The melody was like that of the musical boxes that we find forgotten in
+the depths of a wardrobe among the clothes of some deceased old lady.
+Freya declared that it smelled of withered roses.
+
+Then, leaving the piano, she opened one after the other, all the doors
+of the staterooms surrounding the saloon. She stopped at the captain's
+sleeping room without wishing to pass the threshold, without loosening
+her hold on the brass doorknob in her right hand. Ferragut behind her,
+was pushing her with treacherous gentleness, at the same time repeating
+his caresses on her neck.
+
+"No; here, no," she said. "Not for anything in the world!... I will be
+yours, I promise you; I give you my word of honor. But where I will and
+when it seems best to me.... Very soon, Ulysses!"
+
+He felt complete gratification in all these affirmations made in a
+caressing and submissive voice, all possible pride in such spontaneous,
+affectionate address, equivalent to the first surrender.
+
+The arrival of one of Uncle Caragol's acolytes made them recover their
+composure. He was bringing two enormous glasses filled with a ruddy and
+foamy cocktail,--an intoxicating and sweet mixture, a composite of all
+the knowledge acquired by the _chef_ in his intercourse with the
+drunkards of the principal ports of the world.
+
+She tested the liquid, rolling up her eyes like a greedy tabby. Then
+she broke forth into praises, lifting up the glass in a solemn manner.
+She was offering her libation to Eros, the god of Love, the most
+beautiful of the gods, and Ferragut who always had a certain terror of
+the infernal and agreeable concoctions of his cook, gulped the glass in
+one swallow, in order to join in the invocation.
+
+All was arranged between the two. She was giving the orders. Ferragut
+would return ashore, lodging in the same _albergo_. They would continue
+their life as before, as though nothing had occurred.
+
+"This evening you will await me in the gardens of the _Villa
+Nazionale_.... Yes, there where you wished to kill me, you
+highwayman!..."
+
+Before he should clearly recall that night of violence, Freya continued
+her recollections with feminine astuteness.... It was Ulysses who had
+wanted to kill her; she reiterated it without admitting any reply.
+
+"We shall visit the doctor," she continued. "The poor woman wants to
+see you and has asked me to bring you. She is very much interested in
+you because she knows that I love you, my pirate!"
+
+After having arranged the hour of meeting, Freya wished to depart. But
+before returning to her launch, she felt curious to inspect the boat,
+just as she Had examined the saloon and the staterooms.
+
+With the air of a reigning princess, preceded by the captain and
+followed by the officials, she went over the two decks, entered the
+galleries of the engine room and the four-sided abyss of the hatchways,
+sniffing the musty odor of the hold. On the bridge she touched with
+childish enthusiasm the large brass hood of the binnacle and other
+steering instruments glistening as though made of gold.
+
+She wished to see the galley and invaded Uncle Caragol's dominions,
+putting his formal lines of casseroles into lamentable disorder, and
+poking the tip of her rosy little nose into the steam arising from the
+great stew in which was boiling the crew's mess.
+
+The old man was able to see her close with his half-blind eyes. "Yes,
+indeed, she was pretty!" The frou-frou of her skirts and the frequent
+little clashes that he had with her in her comings and goings,
+perturbed the apostle. His _chef_-like, sense of smell made him feel
+annoyed by the perfume of this lady. "Pretty, but with the smell of
+ ..." he repeated mentally. For him all feminine perfume merited this
+scandalous title. Good women smelled of fish and kitchen pots; he was
+sure of that.... In his faraway youth, the knowledge of poor Caragol
+had never gone beyond that.
+
+As soon as he was alone, he snatched up a rag, waving it violently
+around, as though he were driving away flies. He wished to clear the
+atmosphere of bad odors. He felt as scandalized as though she had let a
+cake of soap fall into one of his delicious rice compounds.
+
+The men of the crew crowded to the railings in order to follow the
+course of the little launch that was making toward shore.
+
+Toni, standing on the bridge, also contemplated her with enigmatic
+eyes.
+
+"You are handsome, but may the sea swallow you up before you come
+back!"
+
+A handkerchief was waving from the stern of the little boat. "Good-by,
+Captain!" And the captain nodded his head, smiling and gratified by the
+feminine greeting while the sailors were envying him his good luck.
+
+Again one of the men of the crew carried Ferragut's baggage to the
+_albergo_ on the shore of _S. Lucia_. The porter, as though foreseeing
+the chance of getting an easy fee from his client, took it upon himself
+to select a room for him, an apartment on a floor lower than on his
+former stay, near that which the _signora_ Talberg was occupying.
+
+They met in mid-afternoon in the _Villa Nazionale_, and began their
+walk together through the streets of Chiaja. At last Ulysses was going
+to know where the doctor was hiding her majestic personality. He
+anticipated something extraordinary in this dwelling-place, but was
+disposed to hide his impressions for fear of losing the affection and
+support of the wise lady who seemed to be exercising so great a power
+over Freya.
+
+They entered into the vestibule of an ancient palace. Many times the
+sailor had stopped before this door, but had gone on, misled by the
+little metal door plates announcing the offices and counting-houses
+installed on the different floors.
+
+He beheld an arcaded court paved with great tiled slabs upon which
+opened the curving balconies of the four interior sides of the palace.
+They climbed up a stairway of resounding echoes, as large as one of the
+hill-side streets, with broad turnings which in former time permitted
+the passage of the litters and chairmen. As souvenirs of the
+white-wigged personages and ladies of voluminous farthingales who had
+passed through this palace, there were still some classic busts on the
+landing places, a hand-wrought iron railing, and various huge lanterns
+of dull gold and blurred glass.
+
+They stopped on the first floor before a row of doors rather
+weather-beaten by the years.
+
+"Here it is," said Freya.
+
+And thereupon she pointed to the only door that was covered with a
+screen of green leather displaying a commercial sign,--enormous, gilded
+and pretentious. The doctor was lodging in an office.... How could he
+ever have found it!
+
+The first room really was an office, a merchant's room with files for
+papers, maps, a safe for stocks, and various tables. One employee only
+was working here,--a man of uncertain age with a childish face and a
+clipped beard. His obsequious and smiling attitude was in striking
+contrast to his evasive glance,--a glance of alarm and distrust.
+
+Upon seeing Freya he arose from his seat. She greeted him, calling him
+Karl, and passed on as though he were a mere porter. Ulysses upon
+following her, surmised that the suspicious glance of the writer was
+fixed upon his back.
+
+"Is he a Pole, too?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, a Pole.... He is a protégé of the doctor's."
+
+They entered a salon evidently furnished in great haste, with the
+happy-go-lucky and individual knack of those accustomed to traveling
+and improvising a dwelling place;--divans with cheap and showy
+chintzes, skins of the American llama, glaring imitation-Oriental rugs,
+and on the walls, prints from the periodicals between gilt moldings. On
+a table were displayed their marble ornaments and silver things, a
+great dressing-case with a cover of cut leather, and a few little
+Neapolitan statuettes which had been bought at the last moment in order
+to give a certain air of sedentary respectability to this room which
+could be dismantled suddenly and whose most valuable adornments were
+acquired _en route_.
+
+Through a half-drawn portière they descried the doctor writing in the
+nearby room. She was bending over an American desk, but she saw them
+immediately in a mirror which she kept always in front of her in order
+to spy on all that was passing behind her.
+
+Ulysses surmised that the imposing dame had made certain additions to
+her toilette in order to receive him. A gown as close as a sheath
+molded the exuberance of her figure. The narrow skirt drawn tightly
+over the edge of her knees appeared like the handle of an enormous
+club. Over the green sea of her dress she was wearing a spangled white
+tulle draped like a shawl. The captain, in spite of his respect for
+this wise lady, could not help comparing her to a well-nourished
+mother-mermaid in the oceanic pasture lands.
+
+With outstretched hands and a joyous expression on her countenance
+irradiating even her glasses, she advanced toward Ferragut. Her meeting
+was almost an embrace.... "My dear Captain! Such a long time since I
+have seen you!..." She had heard of him frequently through her young
+friend, but even so, she could not but consider it a misfortune that
+the sailor had never come to see her.
+
+She appeared to have forgotten her coldness when bidding him farewell
+in Salerno and the care which she had taken to hide from him her home
+address.
+
+Neither did Ferragut recall this fact now that he was so agreeably
+touched by the doctor's amiability. She had seated herself between the
+two as though wishing to protect them with all the majesty of her
+person and the affection of her eyes. She was a real mother for her
+young friend. While speaking, she was patting Freya's great locks of
+hair, which had just escaped from underneath her hat, and Freya,
+adapting herself to the tenderness of the situation, cuddled down
+against the doctor, assuming the air of a timid and devoted child while
+she fixed on Ulysses her eyes of sweet promise.
+
+"You must love her very much, Captain," continued the matron. "Freya
+speaks only of you. She has been so unfortunate!... Life has been so
+cruel to her!..."
+
+The sailor felt as though he were in the placid bosom of a family. That
+lady was discreetly taking everything for granted, speaking to him as
+to a son-in-law. Her kindly glance was somewhat melancholy. It was the
+sweet sadness of mature people who find the present monotonous, the
+future circumscribed, and taking refuge in memories of the past, envy
+the young who enjoy the reality of what they can taste only in memory.
+
+"Happy you!... You love each other so much!... Life is worth living
+only because of love."
+
+And Freya, as though irresistibly affected by these counsels, threw
+one arm around the doctor's globular, corseted figure, while
+convulsively clasping Ulysses' right hand.
+
+The gold-rimmed spectacles, with their protecting gleam, appeared to
+incite them to even greater intimacy. "You may kiss each other...." And
+the imposing dame, trumping up an insignificant pretext, so as to
+facilitate their love-making was about to go out when the drapery of
+the door between the salon and office was raised.
+
+There entered a man of Ferragut's age, but shorter, with a
+weather-beaten face. He was dressed in the English style with
+scrupulous correctness. It was plain to be seen that he was accustomed
+to take the most excessive and childish interest in everything
+referring to the adornment of his person. The suit of gray wool
+appeared to have achieved its finishing touch in the harmony of cravat,
+socks, and handkerchief sticking out of his pocket,--all in the same
+tone. The three pieces were blue, without the slightest variation in
+shade, chosen with the exactitude of a man who would undoubtedly suffer
+cruel discomfort if obliged to go out into the street with his cravat
+of one color and his socks of another. His gloves had the same dark tan
+tone as his shoes.
+
+Ferragut thought that this dandy, in order to be absolutely perfect,
+ought to be clean shaved. And yet, he was wearing a beard, close
+clipped on the cheeks and forming over the chin a short, sharp point.
+The captain suspected that he was a sailor. In the German fleet, in the
+Russian, in all the navies of the North where they are not shaved in
+the English style, they use this traditional little beard.
+
+The newcomer bowed, or, more properly speaking, doubled himself over at
+right angles, with a brusque stiffness, upon kissing the hands of the
+two ladies. Then he raised his impertinent monocle and fixed it in one
+of his eyes while the doctor made the introduction.
+
+"Count Kaledine ... Captain Ferragut."
+
+The count gave the sailor his hand, a hard hand, well-cared for and
+vigorous, which for a long time enclosed that of Ulysses, wishing to
+dominate it with an ineffectual pressure.
+
+The conversation continued in English which was the language employed
+by the doctor in her relations with Ulysses.
+
+"The gentleman is a sailor?" asked Ferragut in order to clarify his
+doubts.
+
+The monocle did not move from its orbit, but a light ripple of surprise
+appeared to cross its luminous convexity. The doctor hastened to reply.
+
+"The count is an illustrious diplomat who is now on leave, regaining
+his health. He has traveled a great deal, but he is not a sailor."
+
+And she continued her explanations.
+
+The Kaledines were of a Russian family ennobled in the days of
+Catherine the Great. The doctor, being a Polish woman, had been
+connected with them for many years.... And she ceased speaking, giving
+Kaledine his cue in the conversation.
+
+At the beginning the count appeared cold and rather disdainful in his
+words, as though he could not possibly lay aside his diplomatic
+haughtiness. But this hauteur gradually melted away.
+
+Through his "distinguished friend,--Madame Talberg," he had heard of
+many of Ferragut's nautical adventures. Men of action, the heroes of
+the ocean, were always exceedingly interesting to him.
+
+Ulysses suddenly noticed in his noble interlocutor a warm affection, a
+desire to make himself agreeable, just like the doctor's. What a lovely
+home this was in which everybody was making an effort to be gracious to
+Captain Ferragut!
+
+The count, smiling amiably, ceased to avail himself of his English, and
+soon began talking to him in Spanish, as though he had reserved this
+final touch in order to captivate Ulysses' affection with this most
+irresistible of flatteries.
+
+"I have lived in Mexico," he said, in order to explain his knowledge of
+the language. "I made a long trip through the Philippines when I was
+living in Japan."
+
+The seas of the extreme Far East were those least frequented by
+Ulysses. Only twice had he entered the Chinese and Nipponese harbors,
+but he knew them sufficiently to keep up his end of the conversation
+with this traveler who was displaying in his tastes a certain artistic
+refinement. For half an hour, there filed through the vulgar atmosphere
+of this salon, images of enormous pagodas with superimposed roofs whose
+strings of bells vibrated in the breeze like an Aeolian harp, monstrous
+idols--carved in gold, in bronze, or in marble-houses made of paper,
+thrones of bamboo, furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay, screens with
+flocks of flying storks.
+
+The doctor disappeared, bored by a dialogue of which she could only
+understand a few words. Freya, motionless, with drowsy eyes, and a knee
+between her crossed hands, held herself aloof, understanding the
+conversation, but without taking any part in it, as though she were
+offended at the forgetfulness in which the two men were leaving her.
+Finally she slipped discreetly away, responding to the call of a hand
+peeping through the portières. The doctor was preparing tea and needed
+help.
+
+The conversation continued on in no way affected by their absence.
+Kaledine had abandoned the Asiatic waters in order to pass to the
+Mediterranean, and there he anchored himself with admirable insistence.
+Another sign of affection for Ferragut who was finding him more and
+more charming in spite of his slightly glacial attitude.
+
+He suddenly noticed that it was not as a Russian count that he was
+speaking since, with brief and exact questions, he was making Ferragut
+reply just as though he were undergoing an examination.
+
+These signs of interest shown by the great traveler in the little _mare
+nostrum_, and especially in the details of its western bowl which he
+wished to know most minutely, pleased Ferragut greatly.
+
+He might ask him whatever he wished. Ferragut knew mile for mile all
+its shores,--Spanish, French, and Italian, the surface and also its
+depths.
+
+Perhaps because he was staying in Naples, Kaledine insisted upon
+learning especially about that part of the Mediterranean enclosed
+between Sardinia, southern Italy, and Sicily,--the part which the
+ancients had called the Tyrrhenian Sea.... Did the captain happen to
+know those little frequented and almost forgotten islands opposite
+Sicily?
+
+"I know all about all of them," replied the sailor boastfully. And
+without realizing exactly whether it was curiosity on the part of the
+listener, or whether he was being submitted to an interesting
+examination, he talked on and on.
+
+He was well acquainted with the archipelago of the Lipari Islands with
+their mines of sulphur and pumice-stone,--a group of volcanic peaks
+which rise up from the depths of the Mediterranean. In these the
+ancients had placed Aeolus, lord of the winds; in these was Stromboli,
+vomiting forth enormous balls of lava which exploded with the roar of
+thunder. Its volcanic slag fell again into the chimneys of the crater
+or rolled down the mountain slopes, falling into the waves.
+
+More to the west, isolated and solitary in a sea free from shoals, was
+Ustica,--an abrupt and volcanic island that the Phoenicians had
+colonized and which had served as a refuge for Saracen pilots. Its
+population was scant and poor. There was nothing to see on it, apart
+from certain fossil shells interesting to men of science.
+
+But the count showed himself wonderfully interested in this extinct and
+lonely crater in the midst of a sea frequented only by fishing smacks.
+
+Ferragut had also seen, although far off, at the entrance of the harbor
+of Trapani, the archipelago of the Aegadian Islands where are the great
+fishing grounds of the tunny. Once he had disembarked in the island of
+Pantellaria, situated halfway between Sicily and Africa. It was a very
+high, volcanic cone that came up in the midst of the strait and had at
+its base alkaline lakes, sulphurous fumes, thermal waters, and
+prehistoric constructions of great stone blocks similar to those in
+Sardinia and the Balearic Islands. Boats bound for Tunis and Tripoli
+used to carry cargoes of raisins, the only export from this ancient
+Phoenician colony.
+
+Between Pantellaria and Sicily the ocean floor was considerably
+elevated, having on its back an aquatic layer that in some points was
+only twelve yards thick. It was the great shoal called the Aventura, a
+volcanic swelling, a double submerged island, the submarine pedestal of
+Sicily.
+
+The ledge of Aventura also appeared to interest the count greatly.
+
+"You certainly know the sea well," he said in an approving tone.
+
+Ferragut was about to go on talking when the two ladies entered with a
+tray which contained the tea service and various plates of cakes. The
+captain saw nothing strange in their lack of servants. The doctor and
+her friend were to him a pair of women of extraordinary customs, and so
+he thought all their acts were logical and natural. Freya served the
+tea with modest grace as though she were the daughter of the house.
+
+They passed the rest of the afternoon conversing on distant voyages.
+Nobody alluded to the war, nor to Italy's problem at that moment as to
+whether she should maintain or break her neutrality. They appeared to
+be living in an inaccessible place thousands of leagues from all human
+bustle.
+
+The two women were treating the count with the well-bred familiarity of
+persons in the same rank of life, but at times the sailor fancied that
+he noted that they were afraid of him.
+
+At the end of the afternoon this personage arose and Ferragut did the
+same, understanding that he was expected to bring his visit to an end.
+The count offered to accompany him. While he was bidding the doctor
+good-by, thanking her with extreme courtesy for having introduced him
+to the captain, Ferragut felt that Freya was clasping his hand in a
+meaning way.
+
+"Until to-night," she murmured lightly, hardly moving her lips. "I
+shall see you later.... Expect me."
+
+Oh, what happiness!... The eyes, the smile, the pressure of her hand
+were telling him much more than that.
+
+Never did he take such an agreeable stroll as when walking beside
+Kaledine through the streets of Chiaja toward the shore. What was that
+man saying?... Insignificant things in order to avoid silence, but to
+him they appeared to be observations of most profound wisdom. His voice
+sounded musical and affectionate. Everything about them seemed equally
+agreeable,--the people who were passing through the streets, the
+Neapolitan sounds at nightfall, the dark seas, the entire life.
+
+They bade each other good-by before the door of the hotel. The count,
+in spite of his offers of friendship, went away without mentioning his
+address.
+
+"It doesn't matter," thought Ferragut. "We shall meet again in the
+doctor's house."
+
+He passed the rest of his watch agitated alternately by hope and
+impatience. He did not wish to eat; emotion had paralyzed his
+appetite.... And yet, once seated at the table, he ate more than ever
+with a mechanical and distraught avidity.
+
+He needed to stroll around, to talk with somebody, in order that time
+might fly by with greater rapidity, beguiling his uneasy wait. She
+would not return to the hotel until very late.... And he therefore
+retired to his room earlier than usual, believing with illogical
+superstition that by so doing Freya might arrive earlier.
+
+His first movement upon finding himself alone in his room, was one of
+pride. He looked up at the ceiling, pitying the enamored sailor that a
+week before had been dwelling on the floor above. Poor man! How they
+must have made fun of him!... Ulysses admired himself as though he were
+an entirely new personality, happy and triumphant, completely separated
+from that other creature by dolorous periods of humiliations and
+failures that he did not wish to recall.
+
+The long, long hours in which he waited with such anxiety!... He
+strolled about smoking, lighting one cigar with the remnant of the
+preceding one. Then he opened the window, wishing to get rid of the
+perfume of strong tobacco. She only liked Oriental cigarettes.... And
+as the acrid odor of the strong, succulent Havana cigar persisted in
+the room, he searched in his dressing-case and sprinkled around the
+contents of various perfumed essences which he had long ago forgotten.
+
+A sudden uneasiness disturbed his waiting. Perhaps she who was going to
+come did not know which was his room. He was not sure that he had given
+her the directions with sufficient clearness. It was possible that she
+might make a mistake.... He began to believe that really she had made a
+mistake.
+
+Fear and impatience made him open his door, taking his stand in the
+corridor in order to look down toward Freya's closed room. Every time
+that footsteps sounded on the stairway or the grating of the elevator
+creaked, the bearded sailor trembled with a childish uneasiness. He
+wanted to hide himself and yet at the same time he wanted to look to
+see if she was the one who was coming.
+
+The guests occupying the same floor kept seeing him withdraw into his
+room in the most inexplicable attitudes. Sometimes he would remain
+firmly in the corridor as though, worn out with useless calling, he
+were looking for the domestics; and at other times they surprised him
+with his head poking out of the half-open door or hastily withdrawing
+it. An old Italian count, passing by, gave him a smile of intelligence
+and comradeship.... He was in the secret! The man was undoubtedly
+waiting for one of the maids of the hotel.
+
+He ended by settling himself in his room, but leaving his door ajar.
+The rectangle of bright light that it marked on the floor and wall
+opposite would guide Freya, showing her the way....
+
+But he was not able to keep up this signal very long. Scantily clad
+dames in kimonos and gentlemen in pyjamas were slipping discreetly down
+the passage way in soft, slipper-clad silence, all going in the same
+direction, and casting wrathful glances toward the lighted doorway.
+
+Finally he had to close the door. He opened a book, but it was
+impossible to read two paragraphs consecutively. His watch said twelve
+o'clock.
+
+"She will not come!... She will not come!" he cried in desperation.
+
+A new idea revived his drooping spirits. It was ridiculous that so
+discreet a person as Freya should venture to come to his room while
+there was a light under the door. Love needed obscurity and mystery.
+And besides, this visible hope might attract the notice of some curious
+person.
+
+He snapped off the electric light and in the darkness found his bed,
+throwing himself down with an exaggerated noise, in order that nobody
+might doubt that he had retired for the night. The darkness reanimated
+his hope.
+
+"She's going to come.... She will come at any moment."
+
+Again he arose cautiously, noiselessly, going on tiptoe. He must
+overcome any possible difficulty at the entrance. He put the door
+slightly ajar so as to avoid the swinging noise of the door-fastening.
+A chair in the frame of the doorway easily held it unlatched.
+
+He got up several times more, arranging things to his satisfaction and
+then threw himself upon the bed, disposed to keep his watch all night,
+if it was necessary. He did not wish to sleep. No, he ought not to
+drowse.... And half an hour later he was slumbering profoundly without
+knowing at what moment he had slid down the soft slopes of sleep.
+
+Suddenly he awoke as if some one had hit his head with a club. His ears
+were buzzing.... It was the rude impression of one who sleeps without
+wishing to and feels himself shaken by reviving restlessness. Some
+moments passed without his taking in the situation. Then he suddenly
+recalled it all.... Alone! She had not come!... He did not know whether
+minutes or hours had passed by.
+
+Something besides his uneasiness had brought him back to life. He
+suspected that in the dark silence some real thing was approaching. A
+little mouse appeared to be moving down the corridor. The shoes placed
+outside one of the doors were moved with a slight creaking. Ferragut
+had the vague impression of air that is displaced by the slow advance
+of a body.
+
+The door trembled. The chair was pushed back, little by little, very
+gently pushed. In the darkness he descried a moving shadow, dark and
+dense. He made a movement.
+
+"Shhhh-h!" sighed a ghostly voice, a voice from the other world. "It is
+I."
+
+Instinctively he raised his right hand to the wall and turned on the
+light.
+
+Under the electric light it was she,--a different Freya from any that
+he had ever seen, with her wealth of hair falling in golden serpents
+over her shoulders covered with an Asiatic tunic that enveloped her
+like a cloud.
+
+It was not the Japanese kimono, vulgarized by commerce. It was made in
+one piece of Hindustanic cloth, embroidered with fantastic flowers and
+capriciously draped. Through its fine texture could be perceived the
+flesh as though it were a wrapping of multicolored air.
+
+She uttered a protest. Then, imitating Ulysses' gesture, she reached
+her hand toward the wall ... and all was darkness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon awakening, he felt the sunlight on his face. The window, whose
+curtains he had forgotten to draw, was blue,--blue sky above and the
+blue of the sea in its lower panes.
+
+He looked around him.... Nobody! For a moment he believed he must have
+been dreaming, but the sweet perfume of her hair still scented the
+pillow. The reality of awakening was as joyous for Ulysses, as sweet as
+had been the night hours in the mystery of the darkness. He had never
+felt so strong and so happy.
+
+In the window sounded a baritone voice singing one of the songs of
+Naples,--"Oh, sweet land, sweet gulf!..." That certainly was the most
+beautiful spot in the world. Proud and satisfied with his fate, he
+would have liked to embrace the waves, the islands, the city, Vesuvius.
+
+A bell jangled impatiently in the corridor. Captain Ferragut was
+hungry. He surveyed with the glance of an ogre the _café au lait_, the
+abundant bread, and the small pat of butter that the waiter brought
+him. A very small portion for him!... And while he was attacking all
+this with avidity, the door opened and Freya, rosy and fresh from a
+recent bath and clad like a man, entered the room.
+
+The Hindu tunic had been replaced with masculine pyjamas of violet
+silk. The pantaloons had the edges turned up over a pair of white
+Turkish slippers into which were tucked her bare feet. Over her heart
+there was embroidered a design whose letters Ulysses was not able to
+decipher. Above this device the point of her handkerchief was sticking
+out of the pocket. Her opulent hair, twisted on top of her head and the
+voluptuous curves that the silk was taking in certain parts of her
+masculine attire were the only things that announced the woman.
+
+The captain forgot his breakfast, enthusiastic over this novelty. She
+was a second Freya,--a page, an adorable, freakish novelty.... But she
+repelled his caresses, obliging him to seat himself.
+
+She had entered with a questioning expression in her eyes. She was
+feeling the disquietude of every woman on her second amorous interview.
+She was trying to guess his impressions, to convince herself of his
+gratitude, to be certain that the fascinations of the first hours had
+not been dissipated during her absence.
+
+While the sailor was again attacking his breakfast with the familiarity
+of a lover who has achieved his ends and no longer needs to hide and
+poetize his grosser necessities, she seated herself on an old _chaise
+longue_, lighting a cigarette.
+
+She cuddled into this seat, her crossed legs forming an angle within
+the circle of one of her arms. Then she leaned her head on her knees,
+and in this position smoked a long time, with her glance fixed on the
+sea. He guessed that she was about to say something interesting,
+something that was puckering her mental interior, struggling to come
+out.
+
+Finally she spoke with deliberation, without taking her eyes off the
+gulf. From time to time she would stop this contemplation in order to
+fasten her eyes on Ulysses, measuring the effect of her words. He
+stopped occupying himself definitely with the breakfast tray,
+foreseeing that something very important was coming.
+
+"You have sworn that you will do for me whatever I ask you to do....
+You do not wish to lose me forever."
+
+Ulysses protested. Lose her?... He could not live without her.
+
+"I know your former life; you have told me all about it.... You know
+nothing about me and you ought to know about me--now that I am really
+yours."
+
+The sailor nodded his head; nothing could be more just.
+
+"I have deceived you, Ulysses. I am not Italian."
+
+Ferragut smiled. If that was all the deception consisted of!... From
+the day in which they had spoken together for the first time going to
+Paestum, he had guessed that what she had told him about her
+nationality was false.
+
+"My mother was an Italian. I swear it.... But my father was not...."
+
+She stopped a moment. The sailor listened to her with interest, with
+his back turned to the table.
+
+"I am a German woman and ..."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE SIN OF ULYSSES
+
+Every morning on awaking at the first streak of dawn, Toni felt a
+sensation of surprise and discouragement.
+
+"Still in Naples!" he would say, looking through the port-hole of his
+cabin.
+
+Then he would count over the days. Ten had passed by since the _Mare
+Nostrum_, entirely repaired, had anchored in the commercial harbor.
+
+"Twenty-four hours more," the mate would add mentally.
+
+And he would again take up his monotonous life, strolling over the
+empty and silent deck of the vessel, without knowing what to do,
+looking despondently at the other steamers which were moving their
+freighting antennae, swallowing up boxes and bundles and beginning to
+send out through their chimneys the smoke announcing departure.
+
+He suffered great remorse in calculating what the boat might have
+gained were it now under way. The advantage was all for the captain,
+but he could not avoid despairing over the money lost.
+
+The necessity of communicating his impressions to somebody, of
+protesting in chorus against this lamentable inertia, used to impel him
+toward Caragol's dominions. In spite of their difference in rank, the
+first officer always treated the cook with affectionate familiarity.
+
+"An abyss is separating us!" Toni would say gravely.
+
+This "abyss" was a metaphor extracted from his reading of radical
+papers and alluded to the old man's fervid and simple beliefs. But
+their common affection for the captain, all being from the same land,
+and the employment of the Valencian dialect as the language of
+intimacy, made the two seek each other's company instinctively. For
+Toni, Caragol was the most congenial spirit aboard ... after himself.
+
+As soon as he stopped at the door of the galley, supporting his elbow
+in the doorway and obstructing the sunlight with his body, the old cook
+would reach out for his bottle of brandy, preparing a "refresco" or a
+"caliente" in honor of his visitor.
+
+They would drink slowly, interrupting their relish of the liquor to
+lament together the immovability of the _Mare Nostrum_. They would
+count up the cost as though the boat were theirs. While it was being
+repaired, they had been able to tolerate the captain's conduct.
+
+"The English always pay," Toni would say. "But now nobody is paying and
+the ship isn't earning anything, and we are spending every day....
+About how much are we spending?"
+
+And he and the cook would again calculate in detail the cost of keeping
+up the steamer, becoming terrified on reaching the total. One day
+without moving was costing more than the two men could earn in a month.
+
+"This can't go on!" Toni would protest.
+
+His indignation took him ashore several times in search of the captain.
+He was afraid to speak to him, considering it a lack of discipline to
+meddle in the management of the boat, so he invented the most absurd
+pretext in order to run afoul of Ferragut.
+
+He looked with antipathy at the porter of the _albergo_ because he
+always told him that the captain had just gone out. This individual
+with the air of a procurer must be greatly to blame for the
+immovability of the steamer; his heart told him so.
+
+Because he couldn't come to blows with the man, and because he could
+not stand seeing him laugh deceitfully while watching him wait hour
+after hour in the vestibule, he took up his station in the street,
+spying on Ferragut's entrances and exits.
+
+The three times that he did succeed in speaking with the captain, the
+result was always the same. The captain was as greatly delighted to see
+him as if he were an apparition from the past with whom he could
+communicate the joy of his overflowing happiness.
+
+He would listen to his mate, congratulating himself that all was going
+so well on the ship, and when Toni, in stuttering tones, would venture
+to ask the date of departure, Ulysses would hide his uncertainty under
+a tone of prudence. He was awaiting a most valuable cargo; the longer
+they waited for it, the more money they were going to gain.... But his
+words were not convincing to Toni. He remembered the captain's protests
+fifteen days before over the lack of good cargo in Naples, and his
+desire to leave without loss of time.
+
+Upon returning aboard, the mate would at once hunt Caragol, and both
+would comment on the changes in their chief. Toni had found him an
+entirely different man, with beard shaved, wearing his best clothes,
+and displaying in the arrangement of his person a most minute nicety, a
+decided wish to please. The rude pilot had even come to believe that he
+had detected, while talking to him, a certain feminine perfume like
+that of their blonde visitor.
+
+This news was the most unbelievable of all for Caragol.
+
+"Captain Ferragut perfumed!... The captain scented!... The wretch!" And
+he threw up his arms, his blind eyes seeking the brandy bottles and the
+oil flasks, in order to make them witnesses of his indignation.
+
+The two men were entirely agreed as to the cause of their despair. She
+was to blame for it all; she who was going to hold the boat spellbound
+in this port until she knew when, with the irresistible power of a
+witch.
+
+"Ah, these females!... The devil always follows after petticoats like a
+lap-dog.... They are the ruination of our life."
+
+And the wrathful chastity of the cook continued hurling against
+womankind insults and curses equal to those of the first fathers of the
+church.
+
+One morning the men washing down the deck sent a cry passing from stem
+to stern,--"The captain!" They saw him approaching in a launch, and the
+word was passed along through staterooms and corridors, giving new
+force to their arms, and lighting up their sluggish countenances. The
+mate came up on deck and Caragol stuck his head out through the door of
+his kitchen.
+
+At the very first glance, Toni foresaw that something important was
+about to happen. The captain had a lively, happy air. At the same time,
+he saw in the exaggerated amiability of his smile a desire to
+conciliate them, to bring sweetly before them something which he
+considered of doubtful acceptation.
+
+"Now you'll be satisfied," said Ferragut, giving his hand, "we are
+going to weigh anchor soon."
+
+They entered the saloon. Ulysses looked around his boat with a certain
+strangeness as though returning to it after a long voyage. It looked
+different to him; certain details rose up before his eyes that had
+never attracted his attention before.
+
+He recapitulated in a lightning cerebral flash all that had occurred in
+less than two weeks. For the first time he realized the great change in
+his life since Freya had come to the steamer in search of him.
+
+He saw himself in his room in the hotel opposite her, dressed like a
+man, and looking out over the gulf while smoking.
+
+"I am a German woman, and ..."
+
+Her mysterious life, even its most incomprehensible details, was soon
+to be explained.
+
+She was a German woman in the service of her country. Modern war had
+aroused the nations _en masse_; it was not as in other centuries, a
+clash of diminutive, professional minorities that have to fight as a
+business. All vigorous men were now going to the battlefield, and the
+others were working in industrial centers which had been converted into
+workshops of war. And this general activity was also taking in the
+women who were devoting their labor to factories and hospitals, or
+their intelligence on the other side of the frontiers, to the service
+of their country.
+
+Ferragut, surprised by this outright revelation, remained silent, but
+finally ventured to formulate his thought.
+
+"According to that, you are a spy?"...
+
+She heard the word with contempt. That was an antiquated term which had
+lost its primitive significance. Spies were those who in other
+times,--when only the professional soldiers took part in war,--had
+mixed themselves in the operations voluntarily or for money, surprising
+the preparations of the enemy. Nowadays, with the mobilization of the
+nations _en masse_, the old official spy--a contemptible and villainous
+creature, daring death for money--had practically disappeared. Nowadays
+there only existed patriots--anxious to work for their country, some
+with weapons in their hands, others availing themselves of their
+astuteness, or exploiting the qualities of their sex.
+
+Ulysses was greatly disconcerted by this theory.
+
+"Then the doctor?..." he again questioned, guessing; what the imposing
+dame must be.
+
+Freya responded with an expression of enthusiasm and respect. Her
+friend was an illustrious patriot, a very learned woman, who was
+placing all her faculties at the service of her country. She adored
+her. She was her protector; she had rescued her in the most difficult
+moment of her existence.
+
+"And the count?" Ferragut continued asking.
+
+Here the woman made a gesture of reserve.
+
+"He also is a great patriot, but do not let us talk about him."
+
+In her words there were both respect and fear. He suspected that she
+did not wish to have anything to do with this haughty personage.
+
+A long silence. Freya, as if fearing the effects of the captain's
+meditations, suddenly cut them short with her headlong chatter.
+
+The doctor and she had come from Rome to take refuge in Naples, fleeing
+from the intrigues and mutterings of the capital. The Italians were
+squabbling among themselves; some were partisans of the war, others of
+neutrality; none of them wished to aid Germany, their former ally.
+
+"We, who have protected them so much!" she exclaimed. "False and
+ungrateful race!..."
+
+Her gestures and her words recalled to Ulysses' mind the image of the
+doctor, execrating the Italian country from a little window of the
+coach, the first day that they had talked together.
+
+The two women were in Naples, whiling away their tedious waiting with
+trips to neighboring places of interest, when they met the sailor.
+
+"I have a very pleasant recollection of you," continued Freya. "I
+guessed from the very first instant that our friendship was going to
+terminate as it has terminated."
+
+She read a question in his glance.
+
+"I know what you are going to say to me. You wonder that I have made
+you wait so long, that I should have made you suffer so with my
+caprices.... It was because while I was loving you, at the same time I
+wished to separate myself from you. You represented an attraction and a
+hindrance. I feared to mix you up in my affairs.... Besides, I need to
+be free in order to dedicate myself wholly to the fulfillment of my
+mission."
+
+There was another long pause. Freya's eyes were fixed on those of her
+lover with scrutinizing tenacity. She wished to sound the depths of his
+thoughts, to study the ripeness of her preparation--before risking the
+decisive blow. Her examination was satisfactory.
+
+"And now that you know me," she said with painful slowness, "begone!...
+You cannot love me. I am a spy, just as you say,--a contemptible
+being.... I know that you will not be able to continue loving me after
+what I have revealed to you. Take yourself away in your boat, like the
+heroes of the legends; we shall not see each other more. All our
+intercourse will have been a beautiful dream.... Leave me alone. I am
+ignorant of what my own fate may be, but what is more important to me
+is your tranquillity."
+
+Her eyes filled with tears. She threw herself face downward on the
+divan, hiding her face in her arms, while a sobbing outburst set all
+the adorable curves of her back a-tremble.
+
+Touched by her grief, Ulysses at the same time admired Freya's
+shrewdness in divining all his thoughts. The voice of good
+counsel,--that prudent voice that always spoke in one-half of his brain
+whenever the captain found himself in difficult situations,--had begun
+to cry out, scandalized at the first revelations made by this woman:
+
+"Flee, Ferragut!... Flee! You are in a bad fix. Do not agree to any
+relations with such people. What have you to do with the country of
+this adventuress? Why should you encounter dangers for a cause that is
+of no importance to you? What you wanted of her, you already have
+gotten. Be an egoist, my son!"
+
+But the voice in his other mental hemisphere, that boasting and idiotic
+voice which always impelled him to embark on vessels bound to be
+shipwrecked, to be reckless of danger for the mere pleasure of putting
+his vigor to the proof, also gave him counsel. It was a villainous
+thing to abandon a woman. Only a coward would do such a thing.... And
+this German woman appeared to love him so much!...
+
+And with his ardent, meridional exuberance, he embraced her and lifted
+her up, patting the loosened ringlets on her forehead, petting her like
+a sick child, and drinking in her tears with interminable kisses.
+
+No; he would not abandon her.... He was more disposed to defend her
+from all her enemies. He did not know who her enemies were, but if she
+needed a man,--there he was....
+
+In vain his inner monitor reviled him while he was making such offers;
+he was compromising himself blindly; perhaps this adventure was going
+to be the most terrible in his history.... But in order to quiet his
+scruples, the other voice kept crying, "You are a gentleman; and a
+gentleman does not desert a lady, through fear, a few hours after
+having won her affection. Forward, Captain!"
+
+An excuse of cowardly selfishness arose in his thoughts, fabricated
+from one single piece. He was a Spaniard, a neutral, in no way involved
+in the conflict of the Central Powers. His second had often spoken to
+him of solidarity of race, of Latin nations, of the necessity of
+putting an end to militarism, of going to war in order that there might
+be no more wars.... Mere vaporings of a credulous reader! He was
+neither English nor French. Neither was he German; but the woman he
+loved was, and he was not going to give her up for any antagonisms in
+which he was not concerned.
+
+Freya must not weep. Her lover affirmed repeatedly that he wished to
+live forever at her side, that he was not thinking of abandoning her
+because of what she had said: and he even pledged his word of honor
+that he would aid her in everything that she might consider possible
+and worthy of him.
+
+Thus Captain Ulysses Ferragut impetuously decided his destiny.
+
+When his beloved again took him to the doctor's home, he was received
+by her just as though he really belonged to the family. She no longer
+had to hide her nationality. Freya simply called her _Frau Doktor_ and
+she, with the glib enthusiasm of the professor, finally succeeded in
+converting the sailor, explaining to him the right and reason of her
+country's entrance into war with half of Europe.
+
+Poor Germany had to defend herself. The Kaiser was a man of peace in
+spite of the fact that for many years he had been methodically
+preparing a military force capable of crushing all humanity. All the
+other nations had driven him to it; they had all been the first in
+aggression. The insolent French, long before the war, had been sending
+clouds of aeroplanes over German cities, bombarding them.
+
+Ferragut blinked with surprise. This was news to him. It must have
+occurred while he was on the high seas. The verbose positiveness of the
+doctor did not permit any doubt whatever.... Besides, that lady ought
+to know better than those who lived on the ocean.
+
+Then had arisen the English provocation.... Like a traitor of
+melodrama, the British government had been preparing the war for a long
+time, not wishing to show its hand until the last moment; and Germany,
+lover of peace, had had to defend herself from this enemy, the worst
+one of all.
+
+"God will punish England!" affirmed the doctor, looking at Ulysses.
+
+And he not wishing to defraud her of her expectations, gallantly nodded
+his head.... For all he cared, God might punish England.
+
+But in expressing himself in such a way, he felt himself agitated by a
+new duality. The English had been good comrades; he remembered
+agreeably his voyages as an official aboard the British boats. At the
+same time, their increasing power, invisible to the men on shore,
+monstrous for those who were living on the sea, had been producing in
+him a certain irritation. He was accustomed to find them either as
+dominators of all the seas, or else solidly installed on all the
+strategic and commercial coasts.
+
+The Doctor, as though guessing the necessity of arousing his hatred of
+the great enemy, appealed to his historical memories: Gibraltar, stolen
+by the English; the piracies of Drake; the galleons of America seized
+with methodical regularity by the British fleets; the landings on the
+coast of Spain that in other centuries had perturbed the life of the
+peninsula. England at the beginning of her greatness in the reign of
+Elizabeth, was the size of Belgium; if she had made herself one of the
+great powers, it was at the cost of the Spaniards and then of Holland,
+even dominating the entire world. And the doctor spoke in English and
+with so much vehemence about England's evil deeds against Spain that
+the impressionable sailor ended by saying spontaneously:
+
+"May God punish her!"
+
+But just here reappeared the Mediterranean navigator, the complicated
+and contradictory Ulysses. He suddenly remembered the repairs on his
+vessel that must be paid for by England.
+
+"May God punish them ... but may He wait a little bit!" he murmured in
+his thoughts.
+
+The imposing professor became greatly exasperated when speaking of the
+land in which she was living.
+
+"Mandolin players! Bandits!" she always cried when referring to the
+Italians.
+
+How much they owed to Germany! The Emperor Wilhelm had been a father to
+them. All the world knew that!... And yet when the war was breaking
+out, they were going to refuse to follow their old friends. Now German
+diplomacy must busy itself, not to keep them at her side, but to
+prevent their going with the adversary. Every day she was receiving
+news from Rome. She had hoped that Italy might keep herself neutral,
+but who could trust the word of such people?... And she repeated her
+wrathful insults.
+
+The sailor immediately adapted himself to this home, as though it were
+his own. On the few occasions that Freya separated herself from him, he
+used to go in search of her in the salon of the imposing dame who was
+now assuming toward Ulysses the air of a good-natured mother-in-law.
+
+In various visits he met the count. This taciturn personage would offer
+his hand instinctively though keeping a certain distance between them.
+Ulysses now knew his real nationality, and he knew that he knew it. But
+the two kept up the fiction of Count Kaledine, Russian diplomat, and
+this man exacted respect from every one in the doctor's dwelling.
+Ferragut, devoted to his amorous selfishness, was not permitting
+himself any investigation, adjusting himself to the hints dropped by
+the two women.
+
+He had never known such happiness. He was experiencing the great
+sensuousness of one who finds himself seated at table in a well-warmed
+dining-room and sees through the window the tempestuous sea tossing a
+bark that is struggling against the waves.
+
+The newsboys were crying through the streets terrible battles in the
+center of Europe; cities were burning under bombardment; every
+twenty-four hours thousands upon thousands of human beings were
+dying.... And he was not reading anything, not wishing to know
+anything. He was continuing his existence as though he were living in a
+paradisiacal felicity. Sometimes, while waiting for Freya, his memory
+would gloat over her wonderful physical charm, the refinements and
+fresh sensations which his passion was enjoying; at other times, the
+actual embrace with its ecstasy blotted out and suppressed all
+unpleasant possibilities.
+
+Something, nevertheless, suddenly jerked him from his amorous egoism,
+something that was overshadowing his visage, furrowing his forehead
+with wrinkles of preoccupation, and making him go aboard his vessel.
+
+When seated in the large cabin of his ship opposite his mate, he leaned
+his elbows on the table and commenced to chew on a great cigar that had
+just gone out.
+
+"We're going to start very soon," he repeated with visible abstraction.
+"You will be glad, Toni; I believe that you will be delighted."
+
+Toni remained impassive. He was waiting for something more. The captain
+in starting on a voyage had always told him the port of destiny and the
+special nature of the cargo. Therefore, noting that Ferragut did not
+want to add anything more, he ventured to ask:
+
+"Is it to Barcelona that we are going?"
+
+Ulysses hesitated, looking toward the door, as though fearing to be
+overheard. Then he leaned over toward Toni.
+
+The voyage was going to be one without any danger, but one which must
+be shrouded in mystery.
+
+"I am counting on you, because you know all my affairs, because I
+consider you as one of my family."
+
+The pilot did not appear to be touched with this sample of confidence.
+He still remained impassive, though within him all the uneasiness that
+had been agitating him in former days was reawakening.
+
+The captain continued talking. These were war times and it was
+necessary to take advantage of them. For those two it would not be any
+novelty to transport cargoes of military material. Once he had carried
+from Europe arms and munitions for a revolution in South America. Toni
+had recounted to him his adventures in the Gulf of California, in
+command of a little schooner which had served as a transport to the
+insurrectionists of the southern provinces in the revolt against the
+Mexican government.
+
+But the mate, while nodding his head affirmatively, was at the same
+time looking at him with questioning eyes. What were they going to
+transport on this trip?...
+
+"Toni, it is not a matter of artillery nor of guns. Neither is it an
+affair of munitions.... It is a short and well-paid job that will make
+us go very little out of our way on our return to Barcelona."
+
+He stopped himself in his confidences, feeling a curious hesitation and
+finally he added, lowering his voice:
+
+"The Germans are paying for it!... We are going to supply their
+Mediterranean submarines with petrol."
+
+Contrary to all Ferragut's expectations, his second did not make any
+gesture of surprise. He remained as impassive as if this news were
+actually incomprehensible to him. Then he smiled lightly, shrugging his
+shoulders as though he had heard something absurd.... The Germans,
+perhaps, had submarines in the Mediterranean? It was likely, was it,
+that one of these navigating machines would be able to make the long
+crossing from the North Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar?...
+
+He knew all about the great atrocities that the submarines were causing
+in the vicinity of England, but in a greatly reduced zone in the
+limited radius of action of which they were capable. The Mediterranean,
+fortunately for the merchant vessels, was quite beyond the range of
+their treacherous lying-in-wait.
+
+Ferragut interrupted with his meridional vehemence. Beside himself with
+passion, he was already beginning to express himself as though the
+doctor were speaking through his mouth.
+
+"You are referring to the submarines, Toni, to the little submarines
+that were in existence at the beginning of the war--little grasshoppers
+of fragile steel that moved with great difficulty when on a level with
+the water and might be overwhelmed at the slightest shock.... But
+to-day there is something more: there is a submersible that is like a
+submarine protected by a ship's hull which is able to go hidden between
+the two waters and, at the same time, can navigate over the surface
+better than a torpedo-boat.... You have no idea what these Germans are
+capable of! They are a great nation, the finest in the world!..."
+
+And with impulsive exaggeration, he insisted in proclaiming German
+greatness and its inventive spirit as though he had some share in this
+mechanical and destructive glory.
+
+Then he added confidentially, placing his hand on Toni's arm:
+
+"I'm going to tell it only to you: you are the only person who knows
+the secret, aside from those who have told it to me.... The German
+submersibles are going to enter the Mediterranean. We are going to meet
+them in order to renew their supplies of oil and combustibles."
+
+He became silent, looking fixedly at his subordinate, and smiling in
+order to conquer his scruples.
+
+For two seconds he did not know what to expect. Toni was remaining
+pensive with downcast eyes. Then, little by little, he drew himself
+erect, abandoned his seat, and said simply:
+
+"No!"
+
+Ulysses also left his revolving chair with the impulsiveness of
+surprise. "No?... And why not?"
+
+He was the captain and they all ought to obey him. For that reason he
+was responsible for the boat, for the life of its crew, for the fate of
+the cargo. Besides, he was the proprietor; no one exceeded him in
+command; his power was unlimited. Through friendly affection and
+custom, he had consulted his mate, making him share in his secrets and
+here Toni, with an ingratitude never seen before, was daring to
+rebel.... What did this mean?...
+
+But the mate, instead of giving any explanation, merely confined
+himself to answering, each time more obstinately and wrathfully:
+
+"No!... No!"
+
+"But why not?" insisted Ferragut, waxing impatient and in a voice
+trembling with anger.
+
+Toni, without losing energy in his negatives, was
+hesitating,--confused, bewildered, scratching his beard, and lowering
+his eyes in order to reflect better.
+
+He did not know just how to explain himself. He envied his captain's
+facility in finding just the right word. The simplest of his ideas
+suffered terribly before coming anxiously from his mouth.... But,
+finally, little by little, between his stutterings, he managed to
+express his hatred of those monsters of modern industry which were
+dishonoring the sea with their crimes.
+
+Each time that he had read in the newspapers of their exploits in the
+North Sea a wave had passed over the conscience of this simple, frank
+and upright man. They were accustomed to attack treacherously hidden in
+the water, disguising their long and murderous eyes like the visual
+antennae of the monsters of the deep. This aggression without danger
+appeared to revive in his soul the outraged souls of a hundred
+Mediterranean ancestors, cruel and piratical perhaps, but who,
+nevertheless, had sought the enemy face to face with naked breast,
+battle-axe in hand, and the barbed harpoon for boarding ship as their
+only means of struggle.
+
+"If they would torpedo only the armed vessels!" he added. "War is a
+form of savagery, and it is necessary to shut the eyes to its
+treacherous blows, accepting them as glorious achievements.... But
+there is something more than that: you know it well. They sink merchant
+vessels, and passenger ships carrying women, carrying little
+children...."
+
+His weather-beaten cheeks assumed the color of a baked brick. His eyes
+flashed with a bluish splendor. He was feeling the same wrath that he
+had experienced when reading the accounts of the first torpedoing of
+the great transatlantic steamer on the coast of England.
+
+He was seeing the defenseless and peaceable throng crowding to the
+boats that were capsizing; the women throwing themselves into the sea
+with children in their arms; all the deadly confusion of a
+catastrophe.... Then the submarine arising to contemplate its work; the
+Germans grouped on the decks of dripping steel, laughing and joking,
+satisfied with the rapid result of their labors; and for a distance of
+many miles the sea was filled with black bulks dragged slowly along by
+the waves--men floating on their backs, immovable, with their glassy
+eyes fixed on the sky; children with their fair hair clinging like
+masks to their livid face; corpses of mothers pressing to their bosom
+with cold rigidity little corpses of babies, assassinated before they
+could even know what life might mean.
+
+When reading the account of these crimes, Toni had naturally thought of
+his own wife and children, imagining what their condition might have
+been on that steamer, experiencing the same fate as its innocent
+passengers. This imagination had made him feel so intense a wrath that
+he even mistrusted his own self-control on the day that he should again
+encounter German sailors in any port.... And Ferragut, an honorable
+man, a good captain whose praises every one was sounding, could he
+possibly aid in transplanting such horrors as these to the
+Mediterranean?...
+
+Poor Toni!... He did not know how to express himself properly, but the
+very possibility that his beloved sea might witness such crimes gave
+new vehemence to his indignation. The soul of Doctor Ferragut appeared
+to be reviving in this rude Mediterranean sailor. He had never seen the
+white Amphitrite, but he trembled for her with a religious fervor,
+without even knowing her. Was the luminous blue from which had arisen
+the early gods to be dishonored by the oily spot that would disclose
+assassination _en masse_!... Were the rosy strands from whose foam
+Venus had sprung to receive clusters of corpses, impelled by the
+waves!... Were the sea-gull wings of the fishing-boats to flee
+panic-stricken before those gray sharks of steel!... Were his family
+and neighbors to be terrified, on awakening, by this floating cemetery
+washed to their doors during the night!...
+
+He was thinking all this, he was seeing it; but not succeeding in
+expressing it, so he limited himself to insisting upon his protest:
+
+"No!... I won't tolerate it in our sea!"
+
+Ferragut, in spite of his impetuous character, now adopted a
+conciliatory tone like that of a father who wishes to convince his
+scowling and stubborn son.
+
+The German submersibles would confine themselves, in the Mediterranean,
+to military actions only. There was no danger of their attacking
+defenseless barks as in the northern seas. Their drastic exploits there
+had been imposed by circumstances, by the sincere desire of terminating
+the war as quickly as possible, by giving terrifying and unheard-of
+blows.
+
+"I assure you that in our sea there will be nothing of that sort.
+People who ought to know have told me so.... If that had not been the
+case, I should not have promised to give them aid."
+
+He affirmed this several times in good faith, with absolute confidence
+in the people who had given him their promise.
+
+"They will sink, if they can, the ships of the Allies that are in the
+Dardanelles. But what does that matter to us?... That is war! When we
+were carrying cannons and guns to the revolutionists in South America
+we did not trouble ourselves about the use which they might make of
+them, did we?"
+
+Toni persisted in his negative.
+
+"It is not the same thing.... I don't know how to express myself, but
+it is not the same. There, cannon can be answered by cannon. He who
+strikes also receives blows.... But to aid the submarines is a very
+different thing. They attack, hidden, without danger.... And I, for my
+part, do not like treachery."
+
+Finally his mate's insistence exasperated Ferragut, exhausting his
+enforced good nature.
+
+"We will say no more about it," he said haughtily. "I am the captain
+and I command as I see fit.... I have given my promise, and I am not
+going to break it just to please you.... We have finished."
+
+Toni staggered as though he had just received a blow on the breast. His
+eyes shone again, becoming moist. After a long period of reflection, he
+held out his shaggy right hand to the captain.
+
+"Good-by, Ulysses!..."
+
+He could not obey, and a sailor who takes disrespectful exception to
+the orders of his chief must leave the ship. In no other boat could he
+ever live as in the _Mare Nostrum_. Perhaps he might not get another
+job, perhaps the other captains might not like him, considering him to
+have grown too habituated to excessive familiarity. But, if it should
+be necessary, he would again become the skipper of a little
+coast-trader.... Good-by! He would not sleep on board that night.
+
+Ferragut was very indignant, even yelling angrily:
+
+"But, don't be such a barbarian!... What a stubborn fool you are!...
+What do these exaggerated scruples amount to?..."
+
+Then he smiled malignly and said in a low tone, "You know already what
+we know, and I know very well that in your youth you carried
+contraband."
+
+Toni drew himself up haughtily. Now it was he who was indignant.
+
+"I have carried contraband, yes. And what is there astonishing about
+that?... Your grandparents did the same thing. There is not a single
+honorable sailor on our sea who has not committed this little
+offense.... Who is the worse for that?..."
+
+The only one who could complain was the State, a vague personality
+whose whereabouts and place nobody knew and who daily experienced a
+million of similar violations. In the custom-houses Toni had seen the
+richest tourists eluding the vigilance of the employees in order to
+evade an insignificant payment. Every one down in his heart was a
+smuggler.... Besides, thanks to these fraudulent navigators, the poor
+were able to smoke better and more cheaply. Whom were they
+assassinating with their business?... How did Ferragut dare to compare
+these evasions of the law which never did anybody any harm with the job
+of aiding submarine pirates in continuing their crimes?...
+
+The captain, disarmed by this simple logic, now appealed to his powers
+of persuasion.
+
+"Toni, at least you will do it for me. Do it for my sake. We shall
+continue friends as we have always been. On some other occasion I'll
+sacrifice myself. Think.... I have given my word of honor."
+
+And the mate, although much touched by his pleadings, replied
+dolefully:
+
+"I cannot.... I cannot!"
+
+He was anxious to say something more to round out his thought, and
+added:
+
+"I'm a _Republican_...."
+
+This profession of faith he brought forward as an insurmountable
+barrier, striking himself at the same time on the breast, in order to
+prove the hardness of the obstacle.
+
+Ulysses felt tempted to laugh, as he had always done, at Toni's
+political affirmations. But the situation was not one for joking, and
+he continued talking in the hope of convincing him.
+
+He had always loved liberty and been on the side opposed to
+despotism!... England was the great tyrant of the sea; she had provoked
+the war in order to strengthen her jurisdiction and if she should
+achieve the victory, her haughtiness would have no limit. Poor Germany
+had done nothing more than defend herself.... Ferragut repeated all
+that he had heard in the doctor's home, winding up in a tone of
+reproach:
+
+"And are you on the side of the English, Toni? You, a man of advanced
+ideas?..."
+
+The pilot scratched his beard with an expression of perplexity,
+searching for the elusive words. He knew what he ought to say. He had
+read it in the writings of gentlemen who knew quite as much as his
+captain; besides, he had thought a great deal about this matter in his
+solitary pacing on the bridge.
+
+"I am where I ought to be. I am with France...."
+
+He expressed this thought sluggishly, with stutterings and half-formed
+words. France was the country of the great Revolution, and for that
+reason he considered it as something to which he belonged, uniting its
+faith with that of his own person.
+
+"And I do not need to say more. As to England...."
+
+Here he made a pause like one who rests and gathers all his forces
+together for a difficult leap.
+
+"There always has to be one nation on top," he continued. "We hardly
+amount to anything at present and, according to what I have read, Spain
+was once mistress of the entire world for a century and a half. Once we
+were everywhere; now we are in the soup. Then came France's turn. Now
+it is England's.... It doesn't bother me that one nation places itself
+above the rest. The thing that interests me is what that nation
+represents,--the fashion it, will set."
+
+Ferragut was concentrating his attention in order to comprehend what
+Toni wished to say.
+
+"If England triumphs," the pilot continued, "_Liberty_ will be the
+fashion. What does their haughtiness amount to with me, if there always
+has to be one dominating Nation?... The nations will surely copy the
+victor.... England, so they say, is really a republic that prefers to
+pay for the luxury of a king for its grand ceremonials. With her, peace
+would be inevitable, the government managed by the people, the
+disappearance of the great armies, the true civilization. If Germany
+triumphs, we shall live as though we were in barracks. Militarism will
+govern everything. We shall bring up our children, not that they may
+enjoy life, but that they may become soldiers and go forth to kill from
+their very youth. Might as the only Right, that is the German
+method,--a return to barbarous times under the mask of civilization."
+
+He was silent an instant, as though mentally recapitulating all that he
+had said in order to convince himself that he had not left any
+forgotten idea in the corners of his cranium. Again he struck himself
+on the breast. Yes, he was where he ought to be, and it was impossible
+for him to obey his captain.
+
+"I am a Republican!... I am a _Republican_!" he repeated energetically,
+as though having said that, there was nothing more to add.
+
+Ferragut, not knowing how to answer this simple and solid enthusiasm,
+gave way to his temper.
+
+"Get out, you brute!... I don't want to see you again, ungrateful
+wretch! I shall do the thing alone; I don't need you. It is enough for
+me to take my boat where it pleases me and to follow out my own
+pleasure. Be off with all the old lies with which you have crammed your
+cranium.... You blockhead!"
+
+His wrath made him fall into his armchair, swinging his back toward the
+mate, hiding his head in his hands, in order to make him understand
+that with this scornful silence everything between them had come to an
+end.
+
+Toni's eyes, growing constantly more distended and glassy, finally
+released a tear.... To separate thus, after a fraternal life in which
+the months were like years!...
+
+He advanced timidly in order to take possession of one of Ferragut's
+soft, inert, inexpressive hands. Its cold contact made him hesitate. He
+felt inclined to yield.... But immediately he blotted out this weakness
+with a firm, crisp tone:
+
+"Good-by, Ulysses!..."
+
+The captain did not answer, letting him go away without the slightest
+word of farewell. The mate was already near the door when he stopped to
+say to him with a sad and affectionate expression:
+
+"Do not fear that I shall say anything about this to anybody....
+Everything remains between us two. I will make up some excuse in order
+that those aboard will not be surprised at my going."
+
+He hesitated as though he were afraid to appear importunate, but he
+added:
+
+"I advise you not to undertake that trip. I know how our men feel about
+these matters; you can't rely upon them. Even Uncle Caragol, who only
+concerns himself with his galley, will criticize you.... Perhaps they
+will obey you because you are the captain, but when they go ashore, you
+will not be the master of their silence.... Believe me; do not attempt
+it. You are going to disgrace yourself. You well know for what
+cause.... Good-by, Ulysses!"
+
+When the captain raised his head the pilot had already disappeared and
+solitude, with its deadly burden, soon weighed upon his thoughts. He
+felt afraid to carry out his plans without Toni's aid. It appeared to
+him that the chain of authority which united him to his men had been
+broken. The mate was carrying away a part of the prestige that Ferragut
+exercised over the crew. How could he explain his disappearance on the
+eve of an illegal voyage which exacted such great secrecy? How could he
+rely upon the silence of everybody?... He remained pensive a long time,
+then suddenly leaping up from his armchair, he went out on deck,
+shouting to the seamen:
+
+"Where is Don Antonio? Go find him. Call him for me."
+
+"_Don Antoni!... Don Antoni!_..." replied a string of voices from poop
+to prow, while Uncle Caragol's head poked itself out of the door of his
+dominions.
+
+"_Don Antoni_" appeared through the hatchway. He had been going all
+over the boat, after taking leave of his captain. Ferragut received him
+with averted face, avoiding his glance, and with a complex and
+contradictory gesture. He felt angry at being vanquished and the shame
+of weakness yet, allied to these sensations, was the instinctive
+gratitude which one experiences upon being freed from an unwise step by
+a violent hand which mistreats and saves.
+
+"You are to remain, Toni!" he said in a dull voice. "There is nothing
+to say. I will redeem my word as best I can.... To-morrow you shall
+know certainly what we are going to do."
+
+The solar face of Caragol was beaming beatifically without seeing
+anything, without hearing anything. He had suspected something serious
+in the captain's arrival, his long interview alone with the mate, and
+the departure of the latter passing silent and scowling before the door
+of his galley. Now the same presentiment advised him that a
+reconciliation between the two men whose figures he could only
+distinguish confusedly, must have taken place. Blessed be the Christ of
+the Grao!... And upon learning that the captain would remain aboard
+until afternoon, he set himself to the confection of one of his
+masterly rice-dishes in order to solemnize the return of peace.
+
+A little before sunset Ulysses again found himself with his mistress in
+the hotel. He had returned to land, nervous and uneasy. His uneasiness
+made him fear this interview while at the same time he wished it.
+
+"Out with it! I am not a child to feel such fears," he said to himself
+upon entering his room and finding Freya awaiting him.
+
+He spoke to her with the brusqueness of one who wishes to conclude
+everything quickly.... "I could not undertake the service that the
+doctor asked. I take back my word. The mate on board would not consent
+to it."
+
+Her wrath burst forth without any finesse, with the frankness of
+intimacy. She always hated Toni. "Hideous old faun!..." From the very
+first moment she had suspected that he would prove an enemy.
+
+"But you are master of your own boat," she continued. "You can do what
+you want to, and you don't need his permission to sail."
+
+When Ulysses furthermore said that he was not sure of his crew either,
+and that the voyage was impossible, the woman again became furious at
+him. She appeared to have grown suddenly ten years older. To the sailor
+she seemed to have another face, of an ashy pallor, with furrowed
+brows, eyes filled with angry tears, and a light foam in the corners of
+her mouth.
+
+"Braggart.... Fraud.... Southerner! Meridional!"
+
+Ulysses tried to calm her. It might be possible to find another boat.
+He would try to help them find another. He was going to send the _Mare
+Nostrum_ to await him in Barcelona, and he himself would stay in
+Naples, just as long as she wished him to.
+
+"Buffoon!... And I believed in you! And I yielded myself to you,
+believing you to be a hero, believing your offer of sacrifice to be the
+truth!..."
+
+She marched off, furious, giving the door a spiteful slam.
+
+"She is going to see the doctor," thought Ferragut. "It is all over."
+
+He regretted the loss of this woman, even after having seen her in her
+tragic and fleeting ugliness. At the same time, the injurious word, the
+cutting insults with which she had accompanied her departure caused
+sharp pain. He already was tired and sick of hearing himself called
+"meridional," as though it were a stigma.
+
+Yet he rather relished his enforced happiness, the sensation of false
+liberty which every enamored person feels after a quarrelsome break.
+"Now to live again!..." He wished to return at once to the ship, but
+feared a revival of the memories evoked by silence. It would be better
+to remain in Naples, to go to the theater, to trust to the luck of some
+chance encounter just as when he used to come ashore for a few hours.
+The next morning he would leave the hotel, with all his baggage, and
+before sunset he would be sailing the open sea.
+
+He ate outside of the _albergo_, and he passed the night elbowing women
+in cabarets where an insipid variety show served as a pretext to
+disguise the baser object. The recollection of Freya, fresh-looking and
+gay, kept rising between him and those painted mouths every time that
+they smiled upon him, trying to attract his attention.
+
+At one o'clock in the morning he went up the hotel stairway, surprised
+at seeing a ray of light underneath the door of his room. He
+entered.... She was awaiting him--reading, tranquil and smiling. Her
+face, refreshed and retouched with juvenile color, did not show the
+slightest trace of the morning's spasmodic outbreak. She was clad in
+pyjamas.
+
+Seeing Ulysses enter, she arose with outstretched arms.
+
+"Tell me that you are not still angry with me!... Tell me that you will
+forgive me!... I was very naughty toward you this afternoon, I admit
+it."
+
+She was embracing him, rubbing her mouth against his neck with a feline
+purr. Before the captain could respond she continued with a childish
+voice:
+
+"My shark! My sea-wolf!--who has made me wait all these hours!... Swear
+to me that you have not been unfaithful!... I can perceive at once the
+trace of another woman."
+
+Sniffing his beard and face, her mouth approached the sailor's.
+
+"No, you have not been unfaithful.... I still find my own perfume....
+Oh, Ulysses! My hero!..."
+
+She kissed him with that absorbing kiss, which appeared to take all the
+life from him, obscuring his thoughts and annulling his will-power,
+making him tremble from head to foot. All was forgotten,--offenses,
+slights, plans of departure.... And, as usual, he fell, conquered by
+that vampire caress.
+
+In the darkness he heard Freya's gentle voice. She was recapitulating
+what they had not said, but what the two were thinking of at the same
+time.
+
+"The doctor believes that you ought to remain. Let your boat go with
+its hideous old faun, who is nothing but a drawback. You are to remain
+here, on land.... You will be able to do us a great favor.... You know
+you will; you will remain?... What happiness!"
+
+Ferragut's destiny was to obey this idolized and dominating voice....
+And the following morning Toni saw him approaching the vessel with an
+air of command which admitted no opposition. The _Mare Nostrum_ must
+set forth at once for Barcelona. He would entrust the command to his
+mate. He would join it just as soon as he could finish certain affairs
+that were detaining him in Naples.
+
+Toni opened his eyes with a gesture of surprise. He wished to respond,
+but stood with his mouth open, not venturing to speak a single word....
+This was his captain, and he was not going to permit any objections to
+his orders.
+
+"Very well," he said finally. "I only ask you that you return as soon
+as possible to take up your command.... Do not forget what we are
+losing while the boat is tied up."
+
+A few days after the departure of the steamer Ulysses radically changed
+his method of living.
+
+Freya no longer wished to continue lodging in the hotel. Attacked by a
+sudden modesty, the curiosity and smiles of the tourists and servants
+were annoying her. Besides, she wished to enjoy complete liberty in her
+love affairs. Her friend, who was like a mother to her, would
+facilitate her desire. The two would live in her house.
+
+Ferragut was greatly surprised to discover the extreme size of the
+apartment occupied by the doctor. Beyond her salon there was an endless
+number of rooms, somewhat dismantled and without furniture, a labyrinth
+of partitioned walls and passageways, in which the captain was always
+getting lost, and having to appeal to Freya for aid; all the doors of
+the stair-landings that appeared unrelated to the green screen of the
+office were so many other exits from the same dwelling.
+
+The lovers were lodged in the extreme end, as though living in a
+separate house. One of the doors was for them only. They occupied a
+grand salon, rich in moldings and gildings and poor in furniture. Three
+armchairs, an old divan, a table littered with papers, toilet articles
+and eatables, and a rather narrow couch in one of the corners, were all
+the conveniences of this new establishment.
+
+In the street it was hot, and yet they were shivering with cold in this
+magnificent room into which the sun's rays had never penetrated.
+Ulysses attempted to make a fire on a hearth of colored marble, big as
+a monument, but he had to desist half-suffocated by the smoke. In order
+to reach the doctor's apartment they had to pass through a row of
+numberless connecting rooms, long since abandoned.
+
+They lived as newly-wed people, in an amorous solitude, commenting with
+childish hilarity on the defects of their quarters and the thousand
+little inconveniences of material existence. Freya would prepare
+breakfast on a small alcohol stove, defending herself from her lover,
+who believed himself more skilled than she in culinary affairs. A
+sailor knows something of everything.
+
+The mere suggestion of hunting a servant for their most common needs
+irritated the German maiden.
+
+"Never!... Perhaps she might be a spy!"
+
+And the word "spy" on her lips took on an expression of immense scorn.
+
+The doctor was absent on frequent trips and Karl the employee in the
+study, was the one who received visitors. Sometimes he would pass
+through the row of deserted rooms in order to ask some information of
+Freya, and she would follow him out, deserting her lover for a few
+moments.
+
+Left to himself, Ulysses would suddenly realize the dual nature of his
+personality. Then the man he was before that meeting in Pompeii would
+assert himself, and he would see his vessel and his home in Barcelona.
+
+"What have you got yourself into?" he would ask himself remorsefully.
+"How is all this affair ever going to turn out?..."
+
+But at the sound of her footsteps in the next room, on perceiving the
+atmospheric wave produced by the displacement of her adorable body,
+this second person would fold itself back and a dark curtain would fall
+over his memory, leaving visible only the actual reality.
+
+With the beatific smile of an opium-smoker, he would accept the
+impetuous caress of her lips, the entwining of her arms, strangling him
+like marble boas.
+
+"Ulysses, my master!... The moments that separate me from you weigh
+upon me like centuries!"
+
+He, on the other hand, had lost all notion of time. The days were all
+confused in his mind, and he had to keep asking in order to realize
+their passing. After a week passed in the doctor's home, he would
+sometimes suppose that the sweet sequestration had been but forty-eight
+hours long, at others that nearly a month had flitted by.
+
+They went out very little. The mornings slipped away insensibly between
+the late awakening and preparations for a breakfast made by themselves.
+If it was necessary to go after some eatable forgotten the day before,
+it was she who took charge of the expedition, wishing to keep him from
+all contact with outside life.
+
+The afternoons were afternoons of the harem, passed upon the divan or
+stretched on the floor. In a low voice she would croon Oriental songs,
+incomprehensible and mysterious. Suddenly she would spring up
+impetuously like a spring that is unwound, like a serpent that uncoils
+itself, and would begin to dance, almost without moving her feet,
+waving her lithe limbs.... And he would smile with stupefied
+infatuation, extending a right hand toward an Arabian tabaret, covered
+with bottles.
+
+Freya took even greater care of the supply of liquor than of things to
+eat. The sailor was half-drunk, but with a drunkenness wisely tempered
+that never went beyond the rose-colored period. But he was so happy!...
+
+They dined outside the house. Sometimes their excursions were at midday
+and they would go to the restaurants of Posilipo or Vomero, the very
+places that he had known when he was a hopeless suppliant, and which
+saw him now with her hanging on his arm, with a proud air of
+possession. If nightfall surprised them, they would hastily betake
+themselves to a café in the interior of the city, a beer-garden whose
+proprietor always spoke to Freya in German in a low voice.
+
+Whenever the doctor was in Naples she would seat herself at their
+table, with the air of a good mother who is receiving her daughter and
+son-in-law. Her scrutinizing glasses appeared to be searching
+Ferragut's very soul, as though doubtful of his fidelity. Then she
+would become more affectionate in the course of these banquets,
+composed of cold meats with a great abundance of drinks, in the German
+style. For her, love was the most beautiful thing in existence, and she
+could not look upon these two enamored ones without a mist of emotion
+blurring the crystals of her second eyes.
+
+"Ah, Captain!... How much she loves you!... Do not disappoint her; obey
+her in every respect.... She adores you."
+
+Frequently she returned from her trips in evident bad humor. Ulysses
+surmised that she had been in Rome. At other times she would appear
+very gay, with an ironic and tedious gayety. "The mandolin-strummers
+appear to be coming to their senses. Germany is constantly receiving
+more support from their ranks. In Rome the 'German propaganda' is
+distributed among millions."
+
+One night emotion overcame her rugged sensibilities. She had brought
+back from her trip a portrait which she pressed lovingly against her
+vast bosom before showing it.
+
+"Look at it," she said to the two. "It is the hero whose name brings
+tears of enthusiasm to all Germans.... What an honor for our family!"
+
+Pride made her hasty, snatching the photograph from Freya's hand in
+order to pass it on to Ulysses. He saw a naval official rather mature,
+surrounded by a numerous family. Two children with long blonde hair
+were seated on his knees. Five youngsters, chubby and tow-headed,
+appeared at his feet with crossed legs, lined up in the order of their
+ages. Near his shoulder extended a double line of brawny young girls
+with coronal braids imitating the coiffures of empresses and grand
+duchesses.... Behind these, proudly erect, was his virtuous and
+prolific companion, aged by too continuous maternity.
+
+Ferragut contemplated this patriotic warrior very deliberately. He had
+the face of a kindly person with clear eyes and grayish, pointed beard.
+He almost inspired a tender compassion by his overwhelming duties as a
+father.
+
+Meanwhile the doctor's voice was chanting the glories of her relative.
+
+"A hero!... Our gracious Kaiser has decorated him with the Iron Cross.
+They have given him honorary citizenship in various capitals.... May
+God punish England!"
+
+And she extolled this patriarch's unheard-of exploit. He was the
+commandant of the submarine that had torpedoed one of the greatest
+English transatlantic steamers. Out of the twelve hundred passengers
+from New York more than eight hundred were drowned.... Women and
+children had gone down in the general destruction.
+
+Freya, more quick-witted than the doctor, read Ulysses' thoughts in his
+eyes.... He was now surveying with astonishment the photograph of this
+official surrounded with his biblical progeny, like a good-natured
+burgher. And a man who appeared so complacent had committed such
+butchery without encountering any danger whatever!--hidden in the water
+with his eye glued to the periscope, he had coldly ordered the sending
+of a torpedo against this floating and defenseless city?...
+
+"Such is war," said Freya.
+
+"Of course it is war!" retorted the doctor as if offended at the
+propitiatory tone of her friend. "And it is our right also. They
+blockade us, and they wish our women and children to die of hunger, and
+so we kill theirs."
+
+The captain felt obliged to protest, in spite of the hidden nudges and
+gestures of his mistress. The doctor had many times told him that,
+thanks to her organization, Germany could never know hunger, and that
+she could exist years and years on the consumption of her own product.
+
+"That is so," replied the dame, "but war has to make itself ferocious,
+implacable, in order that it may not last so long. It is our human duty
+to terrify the enemy with a cruelty beyond what they are able to
+imagine."
+
+The sailor slept badly that night, evidently greatly troubled. Freya
+guessed the presence of something beyond the influence of her caresses.
+The following day his pensive reserve continued and she, well knowing
+the cause, tried to dissipate it with her words....
+
+The torpedoing of defenseless steamers was only made on the coast of
+England. They had to cut short, cost what it might, the source of
+supplies for that hated island.
+
+"In the Mediterranean nothing of that kind will ever occur. I can
+assure you of that.... The submarines will attack battleships only."
+
+And, as if fearing a reappearance of Ulysses' scruples, she redoubled
+her seductions on their afternoons of voluptuous imprisonment. She was
+constantly devising new fascinations, that her lover might never be
+surfeited. He, on his part, came to believe that he was living with
+several women at the same time, like an Oriental personage. Freya upon
+multiplying her charms, had to do no more than to swing around on
+herself, showing a new facet of her past existence.
+
+The sentiment of jealousy, the bitterness of not having been the first
+and only one, rejuvenated the sailor's passion, alleviating the tedium
+of satiety, yet at the same time giving to her caresses an acrid,
+desperate and attractive relish due to his enforced fraternity with
+unknown predecessors.
+
+Desisting from her enchantments, she came and went through the salon,
+sure of her beauty, proud of her firm and superb physique, which had
+not yielded in the slightest degree to the passing of the years. A
+couple of colored shawls served as her transparent clothing. Waving
+them as rainbow shafts around her marble-white body, she used to
+interpret the priestess dances to the terrible Siva that she had
+learned in Java.
+
+Suddenly the chill of the room would begin biting in awaking her from
+her tropical dream. With a final bound, she sought refuge in his arms.
+
+"Oh, my beloved Argonaut!... My shark!"
+
+She threw herself on the sailor's breast, stroking his beard, and
+pushing him so as to edge in on the divan which was too narrow for the
+two.
+
+She guessed at once the cause of his furrowed brow, the listlessness
+with which he responded to her caresses, the gloomy fire that was
+smouldering in his eyes. The exotic dance had made him recall her past
+and in order to regain her sway over him, subjecting him in sweet
+passivity, she sprang up from the divan, running about the room.
+
+"What shall I give to my bad little man, in order to make him smile a
+bit?... What shall I do in order to make him forget his wrong
+ideas?..."
+
+Perfumes were her pet fad. As she herself used to say, it was possible
+for her to do without eating but never without the richest and most
+expensive essences. In that scantily furnished room, like the interior
+of an army and navy supply store, the cut glass flasks with gold and
+nickel stoppers, protruded among the clothing and papers, and stood up
+in the corners denouncing the forgetfulness of their enchanting breath.
+
+"Take it! Take it!"
+
+And she sprinkled the precious perfumes as though they were water on
+Ferragut's hair, over his curled beard, advising the sailor to close
+his eyes in order not to be blinded by this crazy baptism.
+
+Anointed and fragrant as an Asiatic despot, the strong Ulysses would
+sometimes revolt against this effeminateness. At others, he would
+accept it with the delight of a new pleasure.
+
+Suddenly a window-shutter would seem to swing open in his imagination,
+and, passing by this luminous square, he would see the melancholy
+Cinta, his son Esteban, the bridge of his vessel and Toni at the helm.
+
+"Forget!" cried the voice of his evil counselor, blotting out the
+vision. "Enjoy the present!... There is plenty of time to go in search
+of them."
+
+And again he would sink himself in his refined and artificial luxurious
+state with the selfishness of the satrap who, after ordering various
+cruelties, locks himself in his harem.
+
+The very finest linens, scattered by chance, enveloped his body or
+served as cushions. They were her lingerie, stray petals of her beauty,
+that still kept the warmth and perfume of her body. If Ferragut needed
+any object belonging to him, he had to hunt for it through sheaves of
+skirts, silk petticoats, white negligees, perfumes and portraits, all
+scattered over the furniture or tossed in the corners. When Freya,
+tired of dancing in the center of the salon, was not curling herself up
+in his arms she took delight in opening a box of sandalwood. In this
+she used to keep all her jewels, taking them out again and again with a
+nervous restlessness, as though she feared they might have evaporated
+in their enclosure. Her lover had to listen to the gravest explanations
+accompanying the display of her treasures.
+
+"Kiss it," she said, offering him the string of pearls almost always on
+her neck.
+
+These grains of moonlight splendor were to her little living beings,
+little creatures that she needed in contact with her skin. She was
+impregnated with the essence of all that she wore; she drank their
+life.
+
+"They have slept upon me so many nights," she would murmur,
+contemplating them amorously. "This light amber tone I have given them
+with the warmth of my body."
+
+They were no longer a piece of jewelry, they formed a part of her
+organism. They might grow pale and die if they were to pass many days
+forgotten in the depths of her casket.
+
+After that she kept on ransacking the perfumed jewel-box for all the
+gems that were her great pride,--earrings and finger-rings of great
+price, mixed with other exotic jewels of bizarre form and slight value,
+picked up on her voyages.
+
+"Look carefully at this," she said gravely to Ferragut, while she
+rubbed against her bare arm an enormous diamond in one of her rings.
+
+Warmed by the friction, the precious stone became converted into a
+magnet. A bit of paper placed a few inches away was attracted to it
+with an irresistible fluttering.
+
+She then rubbed one of the barbaric imitation-jewels of thick cut
+glass, and the scrap of paper remained motionless without the slightest
+evidence of attraction.
+
+Satisfied with these experiments, she replaced her treasures in the
+casket and set herself to beguiling the passing monotony, again
+devoting herself to Ulysses.
+
+These long imprisonments in an atmosphere charged with perfumes,
+Oriental tobaccos, and feminine seduction were gradually disordering
+Ferragut's mind. Besides this, he was drinking heavily in order to give
+new vigor to his organism which was beginning to break down under the
+excesses of his voluptuous seclusion. At the slightest sign of
+weariness, Freya would fall upon him with her dominating lips. If she
+freed herself from his embraces, it was to offer him a glass full of
+the strongest liquor.
+
+When the spell of intoxication overcame him, weighing down his eyes, he
+always recalled the same dream. In his maudlin siestas, satiated and
+happy, there would always reappear another Freya who was not Freya, but
+Doña Constanza, the Empress of Byzantium. He could see her dressed as a
+peasant girl, just as she was portrayed in the picture in the church of
+Valencia, and at the same time completely undressed, like the other
+houri, who was dancing in the salon.
+
+This double image, which disappeared and reappeared capriciously with
+the arbitrariness of dreams, was always telling him the same thing.
+Freya was Doña Constanza perpetuated across the centuries, taking on a
+new form. She was born of the union of a German and an Italian, just
+like this other one.... But the chaste empress was now smiling in her
+nudeness, satisfied with being simply Freya. Marital infidelity,
+persecution and poverty had been the result of her first existence when
+she was tranquil and virtuous.
+
+"Now I know the truth," Doña Constanza would say with a sweetly
+immodest smile. "Only love exists; all the rest is illusion. Kiss me,
+Ferragut!... I have returned to life in order to recompense you. You
+gave me the first of your childish affection; you longed for me before
+you became a man."
+
+And her kiss was like that of the spy--an absorbing kiss throughout his
+entire person, making him awake.... Upon opening his eyes he saw Freya
+with her mouth close to his.
+
+"Arise, my sea-wolf!... It is already night. We are going to dine."
+
+Outside the house, Ulysses would breathe in the twilight breeze and
+look at the first stars that were beginning to sparkle above the roofs.
+He felt the fresh delight and trembling limbs of the odalisque coming
+out of retreat.
+
+The dinner finished, they would stroll through the darkest street or
+the promenades along the shore, avoiding the people. One night they
+stopped in the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_, near the bench that
+had witnessed their struggle when returning from Posilipo.
+
+"You wished to kill me, you little rascal!... You threatened me with
+your revolver, my bandit!..."
+
+Ulysses protested. What a way to remember things! But she refuted his
+correction with a bold and lying authority.
+
+"It was you!... It way you! I say so, and that is enough. You must
+become accustomed to accepting whatever I may affirm."
+
+In the beer garden, where they used to dine almost every night--an
+imitation medieval saloon, with paneled beams made by machinery,
+plaster walls imitating oak, and neo-Gothic crystals--the proprietor
+used to exhibit as a great curiosity a jar of grotesque little figures
+among the porcelain steins that adorned the brackets of the pedestals.
+
+Ferragut recognized it immediately; it was an ancient Peruvian jar.
+
+"Yes, it is a _huaca_," she said. "I have been in that, too.... We were
+engaged in manufacturing antiques."
+
+Freya misunderstood the gesture that her lover made. She thought that
+he was astonished at the audacity of this manufacture of souvenirs.
+"Germany is great; nothing can resist the adaptive powers of her
+industries...."
+
+And her eyes burned with a proud light as she enumerated these exploits
+of false historical resurrection. They had filled museums and private
+collections with Egyptian and Phoenician statuettes recently
+reproduced. Then, on German soil, they had manufactured Peruvian
+antiquities in order to sell them to the tourists who visit the ancient
+realm of the Incas. Some of the inhabitants received wages for
+disinterring these things opportunely with a great deal of publicity.
+Now the fad of the moment was the black art, and collectors were
+hunting horrible wooden idols carved by tribes in the interior of
+Africa.
+
+But what had really impressed Ferragut was the plural which she had
+employed in speaking of such industries. Who had fabricated these
+Peruvian antiquities?... Was it her husband, the sage?...
+
+"No," replied Freya tranquilly. "It was another one--an artist from
+Munich. He had hardly any talent for painting, but great intelligence
+in business matters. We returned from Peru with the mummy of an Inca
+which we exhibited in almost all the museums of Europe without finding
+a purchaser. Bad business! We had to keep the Inca in our room in the
+hotel, and ..."
+
+Ferragut was not interested in the wanderings of the poor Indian
+monarch, snatched from the repose of his tomb.... One more! Each of
+Freya's confidences evoked a new predecessor from the haze of her past.
+
+Coming out of the beer-garden, the captain stalked along with a gloomy
+aspect. She, on the other hand, was laughing at her memories surveying
+across the years, with a flattering optimism, this far-away adventure
+of her Bohemian days, and growing very merry on recalling the remains
+of the Inca on his passage from hotel to hotel.
+
+Suddenly Ulysses' wrath blazed forth.... The Dutch, officer, the
+natural history sage, the singer who killed himself in one shot and now
+the fabricator of antiquities.... How many more men had there been in
+her existence? How many were there still to be told of? Why had she not
+brought them all out at once?...
+
+Freya was astounded at his abrupt violence. The sailor's wrath was
+terrifying. Then she laughed, leaning heavily on his arm, and putting
+her face close to his.
+
+"You are jealous!... My shark is jealous! Go on talking. You don't know
+how much I like to hear you. Complain away!... Beat me!... It's the
+first time that I've seen a jealous man. Ah, you Southerners!...
+Meridionals!... With good reason the women adore you."
+
+And she was telling the truth. She was experiencing a new sensation
+before this manly wrath, provoked by amorous indignation. Ulysses
+appeared to her a very different man from all the others she had known
+in her former life,--cold, compliant and selfish.
+
+"My Ferragut!... My Mediterranean hero! How I love you! Come ...
+come.... I must reward you!"
+
+They were in a central street, near the corner of a sloping little
+alley with stairs. She pushed him toward it, and at the first step in
+the narrow and dark passageway embraced him, turning her back on the
+movement and light in the great street, in order to kiss him with that
+kiss which always made the captain's knees tremble.
+
+Although his temper was soothed, he continued complaining during the
+rest of the stroll. How many had preceded him?... He must know. He
+wished to know, no matter how horrible the knowledge might be. It was
+the delight of the jealous who persist in scratching open the wound.
+
+"I want to know you," he repeated. "I ought to know you, since you
+belong to me. I have the right!..."
+
+This right recalled with childish obstinacy made Freya smile
+dolorously. Long centuries of experience appeared to peep out from the
+melancholy curl of her lips. In her gleamed the wisdom of the woman,
+more cautious and foresighted than that of the man, since love was her
+only preoccupation.
+
+"Why do you wish to know?" she asked discouragingly. "How much further
+could you go on that?... Would you perchance be any happier when you
+did know?..."
+
+She was silent for some steps and then said as though disclosing a
+secret:
+
+"In order to love, it is not necessary for us to know one another.
+Quite the contrary. A little bit of mystery keeps up the illusion and
+dispells monotony.... He who wishes to know is never happy."
+
+She continued talking. Truth perhaps was a good thing in other phases
+of existence, but it was fatal to love. It was too strong, too crude.
+Love was like certain women, beautiful as goddesses under a discreet
+and artificial light, but horrible as monsters under the burning
+splendors of the sun.
+
+"Believe me; put away these bugbears of the past. Is not the present
+enough for you?... Are you not happy?"
+
+And, trying to convince him that he was, she redoubled her exertions,
+chaining Ulysses in bonds which were sweet yet weighed heavily upon
+him. Strongly convinced of his vileness, he nevertheless adored and
+detested this woman, with her tireless sensuality.... And it was
+impossible to separate himself from her!...
+
+Anxious to find some excuse, he recalled the image of his cook
+philosophizing in his culinary dominion. Whenever he had wished to call
+down the greatest of evils upon an enemy, the astute fellow had always
+uttered this anathema:
+
+"May God send you a female to your taste!..."
+
+Ferragut had found the "female to his taste" and was forever slave of
+his destiny. It would follow him through every form of debasement which
+she might desire, and each time would leave him with less energy to
+protest, accepting the most disgraceful situations in exchange for
+love.... And it would always be so! And he who but a few months before
+used to consider himself a hard and overbearing man, would end by
+pleading and weeping if she should go away!... Ah, misery!...
+
+In hours of tranquillity, when satiety made them converse placidly like
+two friends of the same sex, Ulysses would avoid allusions to the past,
+questioning her only about her actual life. These questions were
+chiefly concerned with the doctor's mysterious work; he wished to know
+with the interest that the slightest actions of a beloved person always
+inspire, the part that Freya was playing in them. Did he not belong now
+to the same association since he was obeying its orders?...
+
+The responses were very incomplete. She had limited herself to obeying
+the doctor, who knew everything.... Then she hesitated and corrected
+herself. No, her friend could not know everything, because above her
+were the count and other personages who used to come from time to time
+to visit her like passing tourists. And the chain of agents, from the
+lowest to the highest, were lost in mysterious heights that made Freya
+turn pale, imposing on her eyes and voice an expression of
+superstitious respect.
+
+She was free to speak only of her work, and she did this very
+cautiously, relating the measures she had employed, but without
+mentioning her co-workers nor stating what her final aim was to be. The
+most of the time she had been moved about without knowing toward what
+her efforts were converging, like a whirling wheel which knows only its
+immediate environments and is ignorant of the machinery as a whole and
+the class of production to which it contributes.
+
+Ulysses marveled at the grotesque and dubious proceedings employed by
+the agents of the spy system.
+
+"But that is like the paper novels! They are ridiculous and worn-out
+measures that any one can learn from books and melodramas."
+
+Freya assented. For that very reason they were employing them. The
+surest way of bewildering the enemy was to avail themselves of obvious
+methods; thus the modern world, so intelligent and subtle, would refuse
+to believe in them. By simply telling the truth, Bismarck had deceived
+all European diplomacy, for the very reason that nobody was expecting
+the truth from his lips.
+
+German espionage was comporting itself like the personages in a
+political novel, and people consequently could not seem to believe in
+it,--although it was taking place right under their eyes,--just because
+its methods appeared too exaggerated and antiquated.
+
+"Therefore," she continued, "every time that France uncovers a part of
+our maneuvers, the opinion of the world which believes only in
+ingenious and difficult things ridicules it, considering it attacked
+with a delirium of persecution."
+
+Women for some time past had been deeply involved in the service of
+espionage. There were many as wise as the doctor, as elegant as Freya,
+and many venerable ones with famous names, winning the confidence that
+illustrious dowagers inspire. They were very numerous, but they did not
+know each other. Sometimes they met out in the world and were
+suspicious of each other, but each continued on her special mission,
+pushed in different directions by an omnipotent and hidden force.
+
+She showed him some portraits that were taken a few years before.
+Ulysses was slow to recognize her as a slim Japanese young girl, clad
+in a dark kimono.
+
+"It is I when I was over there. It was to our interest to know the real
+force of that nation of little men with rat-like eyes."
+
+In another portrait she appeared in short skirt, riding boots, a man's
+shirt, and a felt cowboy hat.
+
+"That was from the Transvaal."
+
+She had gone to South Africa in company with other German women of the
+"service" in order to sound the state of mind of the Boers under
+English domination.
+
+"I've been everywhere," she affirmed proudly.
+
+"In Paris, too?" questioned the sailor.
+
+She hesitated before answering, but finally nodded her head.... She had
+been in Paris many times. The outbreak of the war had found her living
+in the Grand Hotel. Fortunately, two days before the rupture of
+hostilities, she had received news enabling her to avoid being made
+prisoner in a concentration camp.... And she did not wish to say more.
+She was verbose and frank in the relation of her far-distant
+experiences, but the memory of the more recent ones enshrouded her in a
+restless and frightened reserve.
+
+To change the course of conversation, she spoke of the dangers that had
+threatened her on her journeys.
+
+"We have to be very courageous.... The doctor, just as you see her, is
+a heroine.... You laugh, but if you should know her arsenal, perhaps it
+might strike fear to your heart. She is a scientist."
+
+The grave lady had an invincible repugnance for vulgar weapons, and
+Freya referred freely to a portable medicine case full of anesthetics
+and poisons.
+
+"Besides this she carries on her person a little bag full of certain
+powders of her own invention,--tobacco, red pepper.... Perfect little
+devils! Whoever gets them in the eyes is blinded for life. It is as
+though she were throwing flames."
+
+She herself was less complicated in her measures of defense. She had
+her revolver, a species of firearms which she managed to keep hidden
+just as certain insects hide their sting, without knowing certainly
+when it might be necessary to draw it forth. And if she could not avail
+herself of that, she always relied on her hatpin.
+
+"Just look at it!... With what gusto I could pierce the heart of many a
+person!..."
+
+And she showed him a kind of hidden poniard, a keen, triangular
+stiletto of genuine steel, capped by a large glass pearl that served as
+its hilt.
+
+"Among what kind of people are you living!" murmured the practical
+voice in Ferragut's interior. "What have you mixed yourself up with, my
+son!" But his tendency to discount danger, not to live like other
+people, made him find a deep enchantment in this novel-like existence.
+
+The doctor no longer went on excursions, but her visitors were
+increasing in number. Sometimes, when Ulysses was starting toward her
+room, Freya would stop him.
+
+"Don't go.... They're having a consultation."
+
+Upon opening the door of the landing that corresponded to his quarters
+he saw, on various occasions, the green screened door of the office
+closing behind many men, all of them of Teutonic aspect, travelers who
+had just disembarked in Naples with a certain precipitation, neighbors
+from the city who used to receive orders from the doctor.
+
+She appeared much more preoccupied than usual. Her eyes would pass over
+Freya and the sailor as though she did not see them.
+
+"Bad news from Rome," Ferragut's companion told him. "Those accursed
+mandolin-strummers are getting away from us."
+
+Ulysses began to feel a certain boredom in these monotonously
+voluptuous days. His senses were becoming blunted with so many
+indulgences mechanically repeated. Besides, a monstrous debilitation
+was making him think in self-defense of the tranquil life of the
+hearth. He timidly began calculating the time of his seclusion. How
+long had he been living with her?... His confused and crowded memory
+besought her aid.
+
+"Fifteen days," replied Freya.
+
+Again he persisted in his calculations, and she affirmed that only
+three weeks had passed by since his steamer had left Naples.
+
+"I shall have to go," said Ulysses hesitatingly. "They will be
+expecting me in Barcelona; I have no news.... What will become of my
+vessel?..."
+
+She who generally listened to these inquiries with a distraught air,
+not wishing to understand his timid insinuations, responded one
+afternoon unequivocally:
+
+"The time is approaching when you are going to fulfill your word of
+honor in regard to sacrificing yourself for me. Soon you will be able
+to go to Barcelona, and I--I shall join you there. If I am not able to
+go, we shall meet again.... The world is very small."
+
+Her thought did not go beyond this sacrifice exacted of Ferragut. After
+that, who could tell where she would stop?...
+
+Two afternoons later, the doctor and the count summoned the sailor. The
+lady's voice, always so good-natured and protecting, now assumed a
+slight accent of command.
+
+"Everything is all ready, Captain." As she had not been able to avail
+herself of his steamer, she had prepared another boat for him. He was
+merely to follow the instructions of the count who would show him the
+bark of which he was going to take command.
+
+The two men went away together. It was the first time that Ulysses had
+gone out in the street without Freya, and in spite of his enamored
+enthusiasm, he felt an agreeable sensation of freedom.
+
+They went down to the shore and in the little harbor of the _Castello
+dell' Ovo_ passed over the plank that served as a bridge between the
+dock and a little schooner with a greenish hull. Ferragut, who had
+taken in its exterior with a single glance, ran his eye over its
+deck.... "Eighty tons." Then he examined the apparatus and the
+auxiliary machinery,--a petroleum motor which permitted it to make
+seven miles an hour whenever the sails did not find a breeze.
+
+He had seen on the poop the name of the boat and its destination,
+guessing at once the class of navigation to which it was dedicated. It
+was a Sicilian schooner from Trapani, built for fishing. An artistic
+calker had sculptured a wooden cray-fish climbing over the rudder. From
+the two sides of the prow dangled a double row of cray-fish carved with
+the innocent prolixity of medieval imagination.
+
+Coming out of the hatchway, Ferragut saw half of the hold full of
+boxes. He recognized this cargo; each one of these boxes contained two
+cans of gasoline.
+
+"Very well," he said to the count, who had remained silent behind him,
+following him in all his evolutions. "Where is the crew?..."
+
+Kaledine pointed out to him three old sailors huddled on the prow and a
+ragged boy. They were veterans of the Mediterranean, silent and
+self-centered, accustomed to obey orders mechanically, without
+troubling themselves as to where they were going, nor who was
+commanding them.
+
+"Are there no more?" Ferragut asked.
+
+The count assured him that other men would come to reënforce the crew
+at the moment of its departure. This would be just as soon as the
+loading was finished. They had to take certain precautions in order not
+to attract attention.
+
+"In any case, you will be ready to embark quickly, Captain. Perhaps you
+may be advised with only a couple of hours' notice."
+
+Talking it over with Freya at night, Ulysses was astonished at the
+promptness with which the doctor had found a boat, the discretion with
+which she had had it loaded,--with all the details of this business
+that had been developing so easily and mysteriously right in the very
+mouth of a great harbor without any one's taking any notice of it.
+
+His companion affirmed proudly that Germany well understood how to
+conduct such affairs. It was not the doctor only who was working such
+miracles. All the German merchants of Naples and Sicily had been giving
+aid.... And convinced that the captain might be sent for at any moment,
+she arranged his baggage, packing the little suit-case that always
+accompanied him on short trips.
+
+The next day at twilight the count came in search of him. All was
+ready; the boat was awaiting its captain.
+
+The doctor bade Ulysses farewell with a certain solemnity. They were in
+the salon, and in a low voice she gave an order to Freya, who went out,
+returning immediately with a tall, thin bottle. It was mellow Rhine
+wine, the gift of a merchant of Naples, that the doctor was saving for
+an extraordinary occasion. She filled four glasses, and, raising hers,
+looked around her uncertainly.
+
+"Where is the North?..."
+
+The count pointed it out silently. Then the lady continued raising her
+glass, with solemn slowness, as though offering a religious libation to
+the mysterious power hidden in the North, far, far away. Kaledine
+imitated her with the same fervid manner.
+
+Ulysses was going to raise the glass to his lips, wishing to hide a
+ripple of laughter provoked by the imposing lady's gravity.
+
+"Do like the others," murmured Freya in his ear.
+
+And the two quietly drank to his health with their eyes turned toward
+the North.
+
+"Good luck to you, Captain!" said the doctor. "You will return promptly
+and with all happiness, since you are working for such a just cause. We
+shall never forget your services."
+
+Freya wished to accompany him, even to the boat. The count began a
+protest, but stopped on seeing the good-natured gesture of the
+sentimental lady.
+
+"They love each other so much!... Something must be conceded to
+love...."
+
+The three went down the sloping streets of Chiaja to the shore of S.
+Lucia. In spite of his preoccupation, Ferragut could not but look
+attentively at the count's appearance. He was now dressed in blue, with
+a yachts-man's black cap, as though prepared to take part in a regatta.
+He had undoubtedly adopted this attire in order to make the farewell
+more solemn.
+
+In the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_ Kaledine stopped, giving an
+order to Freya. He could not permit her to go any further. She would
+attract attention in the little harbor _dell' Ovo_ frequented only by
+fishermen. As the tone of his order was sharp and imperious, she obeyed
+without protest, as though accustomed to such superiority.
+
+"Good-bye!... Good-bye."
+
+Forgetting the presence of the haughty witness, she embraced Ulysses
+ardently; then she burst out weeping with a nervous sobbing. It seemed
+to him that she had never been so sincere as in that moment. And he had
+to make a great effort to disentangle himself from her embrace.
+
+"Good-bye!... Good-bye!..."
+
+Then he followed the count without daring to turn his head, suspecting
+that her eyes were still upon him.
+
+On the shores of S. Lucia, he saw in the distance his old hotel with
+its illuminated windows. The porter was preceding a young man who was
+just descending from a carriage, carrying a suit-case. Ferragut was
+instantly reminded of his son Esteban. The young tourist bore a certain
+resemblance to him.... And Ferragut continued on, smiling rather
+bitterly at this inopportune recollection.
+
+On entering the schooner he encountered Karl, the doctor's factotum,
+who had brought his little baggage and had just installed it in his
+cabin. "He could retire."... Then he looked over the crew. In addition
+to the three old Sicilians he now saw seven husky young fellows, blonde
+and stout, with rolled-up sleeves. They were talking Italian, but the
+captain had no doubt as, to their real nationality.
+
+As some of them were already beginning to weigh anchor, Ferragut looked
+at the count as though inviting him to depart. The boat was gradually
+detaching itself from the dock. They were going to draw in the
+gangplank which had served as a bridge.
+
+"I'm going, too," said Kaledine. This trip interests Ulysses, who was
+disposed not to be surprised at anything in this extraordinary voyage,
+merely exclaimed courteously, "So much the better!" He was no longer
+concerned with him, and devoted all his efforts to conducting the boat
+out of the little harbor, directing its course through the gulf. The
+glass windows on the shore of S. Lucia trembled with the vibration of
+the motor of the decrepit steamer--an old and scandalous piece of
+machinery imitating the paddling of a tired dog. Meanwhile the sails
+were unfurled and swelling under the first gusts of the wind.
+
+The trip lasted three days. The first night, the captain enjoyed the
+selfish delights of resting alone. He was living among men.... And he
+appreciated the satisfaction chastity offered with all the enchantments
+of novelty.
+
+The second night, in the narrow and noisome cabin of the skipper, he
+felt wakeful because of the memories that were again springing up. Oh,
+Freya!... When would he ever see her again?
+
+The count and he conversed little, but passed long hours together,
+seated at the side of the wheel looking out on the sea. They were more
+friendly than on land, although they exchanged very few words. The
+common life lessened the haughtiness of the pretended diplomat and
+enabled the captain to discover new merits in his personality. The
+freedom with which he was going through the boat, and certain technical
+words employed against his will, left no doubt in Ferragut's mind
+regarding his true profession.
+
+"You are in the navy," he said suddenly.
+
+And the count assented, judging dissimulation useless.
+
+Yes, he was a naval officer.
+
+"Then what am I doing here? Why have you given the command to me?..."
+So Ferragut was thinking without discovering why this man should seek
+his assistance when he could direct a boat himself, without any outside
+aid.
+
+Undoubtedly he was a naval officer, and all the blonde sailors that
+were working like automatons must also have come from some fleet.
+Discipline was making them respect Ferragut's orders, but the captain
+suspected that for them he was merely a proxy, the true chief on board
+being the count.
+
+The schooner passed within sight of the Liparian archipelago; then,
+twisting its course toward the west, followed the coast of Sicily, from
+Cape Gallo to the Cape of Vito. From there it turned its prow to the
+southeast, heading toward the Aegadian Islands.
+
+It had to wait in the waters where the Mediterranean was beginning to
+narrow between Tunis and Sicily, where the volcanic peak of the
+Pantellarian Island rises up in the middle of the immense strait.
+
+Brief indications from the count were sufficient to make the course
+followed by Ferragut in accordance with his desire. He finally could
+not hide his admiration for the Spaniard's mastery of navigation.
+
+"You know your sea well," said the count.
+
+The captain shrugged his shoulders, smiling. It truly was his. He could
+call it "_mare nostrum_" just as the Romans and their former rulers had
+done.
+
+As though divining the subsea depths by a simple glance, he kept his
+boat within the limits of the extensive ledge of the Aventura. He was
+navigating slowly with only a few sails, crossing and recrossing the
+same water.
+
+Kaledine, after two days had passed by, began to grow uneasy. Several
+times it sounded to Ferragut as though he were muttering the name of
+Gibraltar. The passage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean was the
+greatest danger for those that he was expecting.
+
+From the deck of the schooner he was able to see only a short distance,
+and the count clambered up the rigging in order that his eyes might
+take in a more extensive sweep.
+
+One morning up aloft he called something to the captain, pointing out a
+speck on the horizon. He must steer in that very direction. What he was
+seeking was over there.
+
+Ferragut obeyed him, and half an hour later there appeared, one after
+the other, two long, low boats, moving with great velocity. They were
+like destroyers, but without mastheads, without smokestacks, skimming
+along almost on a level with the water, painted in a gray that made
+them seem a short distance away of the same color as the sea. They came
+around on both sides of the sailboat as though they were going to crush
+it with the meeting of their hulls. Various metallic cables came up
+from their decks and were thrown over the bitts of the schooner,
+fastening it to them, and forming the three vessels into a solid mass
+that, united, followed the slow undulation of the sea.
+
+Ulysses examined curiously his two companions in this improvised float.
+Were these the famous submarines?... He saw on their steel decks round
+and protruding hatchways like chimneys through which groups of heads
+were sticking out. The officers and crews were dressed like fishermen
+from the northern coast with waterproof suits of one piece and oilskin
+hats. Many of them were swinging their tarpaulins over their heads, and
+the count replied to them by waving his cap. The blonde sailors of the
+schooner shouted in reply to the acclamations of their comrades on the
+submersibles, "_Deutchsland über alles_!..."
+
+But this enthusiasm, equivalent to a song of triumph in the midst of
+the solitude of the sea, lasted but a very short time. Whistles
+sounded, men ran over the steel decks and Ferragut saw his vessel
+invaded by two files of seamen. In a moment the hatchways were opened;
+there sounded the crash of breaking pieces of wood, and the cases of
+petrol began to be carried off on both sides. The water all around the
+sailboat was filled with broken cases that were gently floating away.
+
+The count on the poop deck was listening to an officer dressed in
+waterproof garments.
+
+He was recounting their passage through the Strait of Gibraltar,
+completely submerged, seeing through the periscope the English
+torpedo-chasers on patrol.
+
+"Nothing, Commandant," continued the officer. "Not even the slightest
+incident.... A magnificent voyage!"
+
+"May God punish England!" said the count now called Commandant.
+
+"May God punish her!" replied the official as though he were saying
+"Amen."
+
+Ferragut saw himself forgotten, ignored, by all the men aboard the
+schooner. Some of the sailors even pushed him to one side in the haste
+of their work. He was the mere master of a sailing vessel who counted
+for nothing in this hierarchy of warlike men.
+
+He now began to understand why they had given him the command of the
+little vessel. The count was in possession of the situation. Ferragut
+saw him approaching as though he had suddenly recollected him,
+stretching out his right hand with the affability of a comrade.
+
+"Many thanks, Captain. This service is of the kind that is not easily
+forgotten. Perhaps we shall never see each other again.... But if at
+any time you need me, you may know who I am."
+
+And, as though presenting him to another person, he gave his name and
+titles ceremoniously:--Archibald von Kramer, Naval Lieutenant of the
+Imperial Navy.... His diplomatic rôle had not been entirely false....
+He had served as Naval Attaché in various embassies.
+
+He then gave instructions for the return trip. Ferragut was to wait
+opposite Palermo where a boat would come out after him and take him
+ashore. Everything had been foreseen.... He must deliver the command to
+the true owner of the schooner, a timorous man who had made them pay
+very high for the hire of the boat without venturing to jeopardize his
+own person. In the cabin were the customary papers for clearing the
+vessel.
+
+"Salute the ladies in my name. Tell them that they will soon have news
+of us. We are going to make ourselves lords of the Mediterranean."
+
+The unloading of combustibles still continued. Ferragut saw von Kramer
+slipping through the openings of one of the submarines. Then he thought
+he recognized on the submersible two of the sailors of the crew of the
+schooner who, after being received with shouts and embraces by their
+comrades, disappeared through a tubular hatchway.
+
+The unloading lasted until mid-afternoon. Ulysses had not imagined that
+the little boat could carry so many cases. When the hold was empty, the
+last German sailors disappeared and with them the cables that had
+lashed them to the sailboat. An officer shouted to him that he could
+get under way.
+
+The two submersibles with their cargo of oil and gasoline were nearer
+the level of the sea than on their arrival and now began to disappear
+in the distance.
+
+Finding himself alone in the stern of the schooner, the Spaniard felt a
+sudden disquietude.
+
+"What have you done!... What have you done!" clamored a voice in his
+brain.
+
+But contemplating the three old men and the boy who had remained as the
+only crew, he forgot his remorse. He would have to bestir himself
+greatly in order to supply the lack of men. For two nights and a day he
+scarcely rested, managing almost at the same time both helm and motor,
+since he did not dare to let out all his sails with this scarcity of
+sailors.
+
+When he found himself opposite the port of Palermo, just as it was
+beginning to extinguish its night lights, Ferragut was able to sleep
+for the first time, leaving the watch of the boat in charge of one of
+the seamen, who maintained it with sails furled. In the middle of the
+morning he was awakened by some voices shouting from the sea:
+
+"Where is the captain?"
+
+He saw a skiff and various men leaping aboard the schooner. It was the
+owner who had come to claim, his boat in order to bring it into port in
+the customary legal form. The skiff was commissioned to take Ulysses
+ashore with his little suitcase. He was accompanied by a red-faced, fat
+gentleman who appeared to have great authority over the skipper.
+
+"I suppose you are already informed of what is happening," he said to
+Ferragut while the two oarsmen made the skiff glide over the waves.
+"Those bandits!... Those mandolin-players!..."
+
+Ulysses, without knowing why, made an affirmative gesture. This
+indignant burgher was a German, one of those that were useful to the
+doctor.... It was enough just to listen to him.
+
+A half hour later Ferragut leaped on the dock without any one's
+opposing his disembarking, as though the protection of his obese
+companion had made all the guards drowsy. The good gentleman showed,
+notwithstanding, a fervent desire to separate himself from his
+charge--to hurry away, attending to his own affairs.
+
+He smiled upon learning that Ulysses wished to go immediately to
+Naples. "You do well.... The train leaves in two hours." And putting
+him in a vacant hack, he disappeared with precipitation.
+
+Finding himself alone, the captain almost believed that he had dreamed
+of those two preceding days.
+
+He was again seeing Palermo after an absence of long years: and he
+experienced the joy of an exiled Sicilian on meeting the various carts
+of the countryside, drawn by broken-down horses with plumes, whose
+badly-painted wagon bodies represented scenes from "Jerusalem
+Delivered." He recalled the names of the principal roads,--the roads of
+the old Spanish viceroys. In one square he saw the statue of four kings
+of Spain.... But all these souvenirs only inspired in him a fleeting
+interest. What he particularly noticed was the extraordinary movement
+in the streets, the people grouping themselves together in order to
+listen to the reading of the daily papers. Many windows displayed the
+national flag, interlaced with those of France, England, and Belgium.
+
+Upon arriving at the station he learned the truth,--was informed of the
+event to which the merchant had alluded while they were in the skiff.
+It was war!... Italy had broken her relations the day before with the
+Central Powers.
+
+Ulysses felt very uneasy on remembering what he had done out on the
+Mediterranean. He feared that the popular groups, thronging past him
+and giving cheers behind their flags, were going to guess his exploit
+and fall upon him. It was necessary to get away from this patriotic
+enthusiasm, and he breathed more freely when he found himself in one of
+the coaches of a train.... Besides, he was going to see Freya. And it
+was enough for him merely to evoke her image to make all his remorse
+vanish.
+
+The short journey proved long and difficult. The necessities of war had
+made themselves felt from the very first moment, absorbing all means of
+communication. The train would remain immovable for hours together in
+order to give the right of way to other trains loaded with men and
+military materials.... In all the stations were soldiers in campaign
+uniform, banners and cheering crowds.
+
+When Ferragut arrived at Naples, fatigued by a journey of forty-eight
+hours, it seemed to him that the coachman was going too slowly toward
+the old palace of Chiaja.
+
+Upon crossing the vestibule with his little suit-case, the portress,--a
+fat old crone with dusty, frizzled hair whom he had sometimes caught a
+glimpse of in the depths of her hall cavern,--stopped his passage.
+
+"The ladies are no longer living in the house.... The ladies have
+suddenly left with Karl, their employee." And she explained the rest of
+their flight with a hostile and malignant smile.
+
+Ferragut saw that he must not insist. The slovenly old wife was furious
+over the flight of the German ladies, and was examining the sailor as a
+probable spy fit for patriotic denunciation. Nevertheless, through
+professional honor, she told him that the blonde _signora_, the younger
+and more attractive one, had thought of him on going away, leaving his
+baggage in the porter's room.
+
+Ulysses hastened to disappear. He would soon send some one to collect
+those valises. And taking another carriage, he betook himself to the
+_albergo_ of S. Lucia.... What an unexpected blow!
+
+The porter made a gesture of surprise and astonishment upon seeing him
+enter. Before Ferragut could inquire for Freya, with the vague hope
+that she might have taken refuge in the hotel, this man gave him some
+news.
+
+"Captain, your son has been here waiting for you."
+
+The captain stuttered in dismay, "What son?..."
+
+The man with the embroidered keys brought the register, showing him one
+line, "Esteban Ferragut, Barcelona." Ulysses recognized his son's
+handwriting, and at the same time his heart was oppressed with
+indefinable anguish.
+
+Surprise made him speechless, and the porter took advantage of his
+silence to continue speaking. He was such a charming and intelligent
+lad!... Some mornings he had accompanied him in order to point out to
+him the best things in the city. He had inquired among the consignees
+of the _Mare Nostrum_, hunting everywhere for news of his father.
+Finally convinced that the captain must already be returning to
+Barcelona, he also had gone the day before.
+
+"If you had only come twelve hours sooner, you would have found him
+still here."
+
+The porter knew nothing more. Occupied in doing errands for some South
+American ladies, he had been unable to say good-bye to the young man
+when he left the hotel, undecided whether to make the trip in an
+English steamer to Marseilles or to go by railroad to Genoa, where he
+would find boats direct to Barcelona.
+
+Ferragut wished to know when he had arrived. And the porter, rolling
+his eyes, gave himself up to long mental calculation.... Finally he
+reached a date and the sailor, in his turn, concentrated his powers of
+recollection.
+
+He struck himself on the forehead with his clenched hand. It must have
+been his son then, that youth whom he had seen entering the _albergo_
+the very day that he was going to take charge of the schooner, to carry
+combustibles to the German submarines!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE YOUNG TELEMACHUS
+
+Whenever the _Mare Nostrum_ returned to Barcelona, Esteban Ferragut had
+always felt as dazzled as though a gorgeous stained glass window had
+opened upon his obscure and monotonous life as the son of the family.
+
+He now no longer wandered along the harbor admiring from afar the great
+transatlantic liners in front of the monument of Christopher Columbus,
+nor the cargo steamers that were lined up along the commercial docks.
+An important boat was going to be his absolute property for some weeks,
+while its captain and officers were passing the time on land with their
+families. Toni, the mate, was the only one who slept aboard. Many of
+the seamen had begged permission to live in the city, and so the
+steamer had been entrusted to the guardianship of Uncle Caragol with
+half a dozen men for the daily cleaning. The little Ferragut used to
+play that he was the captain of the _Mare Nostrum_ and would pace the
+bridge, pretending that a great tempest was coming up, and examine the
+nautical instrument with the gravity of an expert. Sometimes he used to
+race through all the habitable parts of the boat, climbing down to the
+holds that, wide open, were being ventilated, waiting for their cargo;
+and finally he would clamber into the ship's gig, untying it from the
+landing in order to row in it for a few hours, with even more
+satisfaction than in the light skiffs of the Regatta Club.
+
+His visits always ended in the kitchen, invited there by Uncle Caragol,
+who was accustomed to treat him with fraternal familiarity. If the
+youthful oarsman was perspiring greatly.... "A refresquet?" And the
+_chef_ would prepare his sweet mixture that made men, after one gulp,
+fall into the haziness of intoxication.
+
+Esteban esteemed highly the "refrescos" of the cook. His imagination,
+excited by the frequent reading of novels of travel, had made him
+conceive a type of heroic, gallant, dashing sailor--a regular
+swash-buckler capable of swallowing by the pitcherful the most rousing
+drinks without moving an eyelid. He wanted to be that kind; every good
+sailor ought to drink.
+
+Although on land he was not acquainted with other liquors than those
+innocent and over-sweet ones kept by his mother for family fiestas,
+once he trod the deck of a vessel he felt the necessity for alcoholic
+liquids so as to make it evident that he was entirely a man. "There
+wasn't in the whole world a drink that could do _him_ any harm...." And
+after a second "refresco" from Uncle Caragol, he became submersed in a
+placid nirvana, seeing everything rose-colored and considerably
+enlarged,--the sea, the nearby boats, the docks, and Montjuich in the
+background.
+
+The cook, looking at him affectionately with his bleared eyes, believed
+that he must have bounded back a dozen years and be still in Valencia,
+talking with that other Ferragut boy who was running away from the
+university in order to row in the harbor. He almost came to believe
+that he had lived twice.
+
+He always listened patiently to the lad's complaints, interrupting him
+with solemn counsels. This fifteen-year-old Ferragut appeared
+discontented with life. He was a man and he had to live with women--his
+mother and two nieces, who were always making laces,--just as in other
+times his mother had been the lace-making companion of her
+mother-in-law, Doña Cristina. He wanted to be a seaman and they were
+obliging him to study the uninteresting courses leading to a bachelor's
+degree. It was scarcely likely, was it, that a captain would have to
+know Latin?... He wanted to bring his student life to an end so as to
+become a pilot and continue practicing on the bridge, beside his
+father. Perhaps at thirty years of age, he might achieve the command of
+the _Mare Nostrum_ or some similar boat.
+
+Meanwhile the lure of the sea dragged him far from the classroom,
+prompting him to visit Uncle Caragol at the very hour that his
+professors were calling the roll and noting the students' absence.
+
+The old man and his protégé used to betake themselves in the galley
+with the uneasy conscience of the guilty. Steps and voices on deck
+always changed their topic of conversation. "Hide yourself!" and
+Esteban would dodge under the table or hide in the provision-closet
+while the cook sallied forth with a seraphic countenance to meet the
+recent arrival.
+
+Sometimes it was Toni, and the boy would then dare to come out, relying
+on his silence; for Toni liked him, too, and approved of his aversion
+to books.
+
+If it was the captain who was coming to the boat for a few moments,
+Caragol would talk with him, obstructing the door with his bulk at the
+same time that he was smiling maliciously.
+
+For Esteban the two most wonderful things in all the world were the sea
+and his father. All those romantic heroes that had come from the pages
+of novels to take their place in his imagination had the face and ways
+of Captain Ferragut.
+
+From babyhood he had seen his mother weeping occasionally in resigned
+sadness. Years later, recognizing with the precocity of a
+little-watched boy the relations that exist between men and women, he
+suspected that all these tears must be caused by the flirtations and
+infidelities of the distant sailor.
+
+He adored his mother with the passion of an only and spoiled child, but
+he admired the captain no less, excusing every fault that he might
+commit. His father was the bravest and handsomest man in all the world.
+
+And when rummaging one day through the drawers in his father's
+stateroom, he chanced upon various photographs having the names of
+women from foreign countries, the lad's admiration was greater still.
+Everybody must have been madly in love with the captain of the _Mare
+Nostrum. Ay_! No matter what he might do when he became a man, he could
+never hope to equal this triumphant creature who had given him
+existence....
+
+When the boat, on its return from Naples, arrived at Barcelona without
+its owner, Ferragut's son did not feel any surprise.
+
+Toni, who was always a man of few words, was very lavish with them on
+the present occasion. Captain Ferragut had remained behind because of
+important business, but he would not be long in returning. His second
+was looking for him at any moment. Perhaps he would make the trip by
+land, in order to arrive sooner.
+
+Esteban was astounded to see that his mother did not accept this
+absence as an insignificant event. The good lady appeared greatly
+troubled and her eyes filled with tears. Her feminine instinct made her
+suspect something ominous in her husband's delay.
+
+In the afternoon, when her old lover, the professor, visited her as
+usual, the two talked slowly with guarded words but with eyes of
+understanding and long intervals of silence.
+
+When Don Pedro reached the height of his glorious career, the
+possession of a professorship in the institute of Barcelona, he used to
+visit Cinta every afternoon, passing an hour and a half in her parlor
+with chronometric exactitude. Never did the slightest impure thought
+agitate the professor. The past had fallen into oblivion.... But he
+needed to see daily the captain's wife weaving laces with her two
+little nieces, as he had seen Ferragut's widow years before.
+
+He informed them of the most important events in Barcelona and in the
+entire world; they would comment together on the future of Esteban, and
+the former suitor used to listen rapturously to her sweet voice,
+conceding great importance to the details of domestic economy or
+descriptions of religious fiestas, solely because it was she who was
+recounting them.
+
+Many times they would remain in a long silence. Don Pedro represented
+patience, even temper, and silent respect, in that tranquil and
+immaculate house which lost its monastic calm only when its head
+presented himself there for a few days between voyages.
+
+Cinta had accustomed herself to the professor's visits. At half-past
+three by the clock his footsteps could always be heard in the
+passageway.
+
+If any afternoon he did not come, the sweet Penelope was greatly
+disappointed.
+
+"I wonder what can be the matter with Don Pedro?" she would ask her
+nieces uneasily.
+
+She oftentimes asked this question of her son; but Esteban, without
+exactly hating the visitor, appreciated him very slightly.
+
+Don Pedro belonged to that group of gentlemen at the Institute whom the
+government paid to annoy youth with their explanations and their
+examinations. He still remembered the two years that he had passed in
+his course, as in the torture chamber, enduring the torments of Latin.
+Besides that, the professor was a timid man who was always afraid of
+catching cold, and who never dared to venture into the street on cloudy
+days without an umbrella. Let people talk to him about courageous men!
+
+"I don't know," he would reply to his mother. "Perhaps he's gone to bed
+with seven kerchiefs on his head."
+
+When Don Pedro returned, the house recovered its normality of a quiet
+and well-regulated clock. Doña Cinta, after many consultations, had
+come to believe his collaboration indispensable. The professor mildly
+supplemented the authority of the traveling husband, and took it upon
+himself to represent the head of the family in all outside matters....
+Many times Ferragut's wife would be awaiting him with impatience in
+order to ask his mature counsel, and he would emit his opinion in a
+slow voice after long reflection.
+
+Esteban found it intolerable that this gentleman, who was no more than
+a distant relative of his grandmother, should meddle in the affairs of
+the house, pretending to oversee him as though he were his father. But
+it irritated him still more to see him in a good humor and trying to be
+funny. It made him furious to hear his mother called "Penelope" and
+himself "the young Telemachus."... "Stupid, tedious old bore!"
+
+The young Telemachus was not slow to wrath nor vengeance. From babyhood
+he had interrupted his play in order to "work" in the reception room
+near to the hatrack by the door. And the poor professor on his
+departure would find his hat crown dented in or its nap roughened up,
+or he would sally home innocently carrying spitballs on the skirts of
+his overcoat.
+
+Now the boy contented himself with simply ignoring the existence of the
+family friend, passing in front of him without recognizing him and only
+greeting him when his mother ordered him to do so.
+
+The day in which he brought the news of the return of the ship without
+its captain, Don Pedro made a longer visit than usual. Cinto shed two
+tears upon the lace, but had to stop weeping, vanquished by the good
+sense of her counselor.
+
+"Why weep and get your mind overwrought with so many suppositions
+without foundation?... What you ought to do, my daughter, is to call in
+this Toni who is mate of the vessel; he must know all about it....
+Perhaps he may tell you the truth."
+
+Esteban was told to hunt him up the following day, and he quickly
+noticed Toni's extreme disquietude upon learning that Doña Cinta wished
+to talk with him. The mate left the boat in lugubrious silence as
+though he were being taken away to mortal torment: then he began to hum
+loudly, an indication that he was in deep thought.
+
+The young Telemachus was not able to be present at the interview but he
+hung around the closed door and succeeded in hearing a few loud words
+which slipped through the cracks. His mother was speaking with greater
+frequency. Toni was reiterating in a dull voice the same excuse:--"I
+don't know. The captain will come at any moment...." But when the mate
+found himself outside the house, his wrath broke out against himself,
+against his cursed character that did not know how to lie, against all
+women bad and good. He believed he had said too much. That lady had the
+skill of a judge in getting words out of him.
+
+That night, at the supper hour, the mother scarcely opened her mouth.
+Her fingers communicated a nervous trembling to the plates and forks,
+and she looked at her son with tragic commiseration as though she
+foresaw terrible troubles about to burst upon his head. She opposed a
+desperate silence to Esteban's questions and finally exclaimed:
+
+"Your father is deserting us!... Your father has forgotten us!..."
+
+And she left the dining-room to hide her overflowing tears.
+
+The boy slept rather restlessly, but he slept. The admiration which he
+always felt for his father and a certain solidarity with the strong
+examples of his sex made him take little account of these complaints.
+Matters for women! His mother just didn't know how to be the wife of an
+extraordinary man like Captain Ferragut. He who was really a man, in
+spite of his few years, was going to intervene in this affair in order
+to show up the truth.
+
+When Toni, from the deck of the vessel, saw the lad coming along the
+wharf the following morning, he was greatly tempted to hide himself....
+"If Doña Cinta should call me again in order to question me!..." But he
+calmed himself with the thought that the boy was probably coming of his
+own free will to pass a few hours on the _Mare Nostrum_. Even so, he
+wished to avoid his presence as though he feared some slip in talking
+with him, and so pretended that he had work in the hold. Then he left
+the boat going to visit a friend on a steamer some distance off.
+
+Esteban entered the galley, calling gayly to Uncle Caragol. He wasn't
+the same, either. His humid and reddish eyes were looking at the child
+with an extraordinary tenderness. Suddenly he stopped his talk with an
+expression of uneasiness on his face. He looked uncertainly around him,
+as though fearing that a precipice might open at his feet.
+
+Never forgetful of the respect due to every visitor in his dominion, he
+prepared two "refrescos." He was going to treat Esteban for the first
+time on this return trip. On former days, incredible as it may seem, he
+had not thought of making even one of his delicious beverages. The
+return from Naples to Barcelona had been a sad one: the vessel had a
+funereal air without its master.
+
+For all these reasons, Caragol's hand lavishly measured out the rum
+until the liquid took on a tobacco tone.
+
+They drank.... The young Telemachus began to talk about his father when
+the glasses were only half empty, and the cook waved both hands in the
+air, giving a grunt which signified that he had no wish to bother about
+the captain's absence.
+
+"Your father will return, Esteban," he added. "He will return but I
+don't know when. Certainly later than Toni says."
+
+And not wishing to say more, he gulped down the rest of the glass,
+devoting himself hastily to the confection of the second "refresco" in
+order to make up for lost time.
+
+Little by little he slipped away from the prudent barrier that was
+hedging in his verbosity and spoke with his old time abandon; but his
+flow of words did not exactly convey news.
+
+Caragol preached morality to Ferragut's son,--morality from his
+standpoint, interrupted by frequent caresses of the glass.
+
+"Esteban, my son, respect your father greatly. Imitate him as a seaman.
+Be good and just toward the men that you command.... But avoid the
+females!"
+
+The women!... There was no better theme for his piously drunken
+eloquence. The world inspired his pity. It was all governed by the
+infernal attraction exercised by the female of the species. The men
+were working, struggling, and trying to grow rich and celebrated, all
+in order to possess one of these creatures.
+
+"Believe me, my son, and do not imitate your father in this respect."
+
+The old man had said too much to back out now and he had to go on,
+letting out the rest of it, bit by bit. Thus Esteban learned that the
+captain was enamored with a lady in Naples and that he had remained
+there pretending business matters, but in reality dominated by this
+woman's influence.
+
+"Is she pretty?" asked the boy eagerly.
+
+"Very pretty," replied Caragol. "And such odors!... And such a swishing
+of fine clothes!..."
+
+Telemachus thrilled with contradictory sensations of pride and envy. He
+admired his father once more, but this admiration only lasted a few
+seconds. A new idea was taking possession of him while the cook
+continued:
+
+"He will not come now. I know what these elegant females are, reeking
+with perfume. They are true demons that dig their nails in when they
+clutch, and it is necessary to cut off their hands in order to loosen
+them.... And the boat as useless now as though it were aground, while
+the others are filling themselves with gold!... Believe me, my son,
+this is the only truth in the world."
+
+And he concluded by gulping in one draft all that was left in the
+second glass.
+
+Meanwhile the boy was forming in his mind an idea prompted by his
+pleasant intoxication. What if he should go to Naples in order to bring
+his father back!...
+
+At this moment everything seemed possible to him. The world was
+rose-colored as it always was when he looked at it, glass in hand, near
+to Uncle Caragol. All obstacles would turn out to be trifling:
+everything would arrange itself with wonderful facility. Men were able
+to progress by bounds.
+
+But hours afterward when his thoughts were cleared of their beatific
+visions, he felt a little fearful when recollecting his absent parent.
+How would he receive him upon his arrival?... What excuses could he
+give his father for his presence in Naples?... He trembled, recalling
+the image of his scowling brow and angry eyes.
+
+On the following day a sudden self-confidence replaced this uneasiness.
+He recalled the captain as he had seen him many times on the deck of
+his vessel, telling of his escapades when rowing in the harbor of
+Barcelona, or commenting to friends on his son's strength and
+intelligence. The image of the paternal hero now came to his mind with
+good-humored eyes and a smile passing like a fresh breeze over his
+face.
+
+He would tell him the whole truth. He would make him understand that he
+had come to Naples just to take him away with him, like a good comrade
+who comes to another's rescue in time of danger. Perhaps he might be
+irritated and give him a blow, but he would eventually accede to his
+proposition.
+
+Ferragut's character was reborn in him with all the force of decisive
+argument. And if the voyage should prove absurd and dangerous?... All
+the better! So much the better! That was enough to make him undertake
+it. He was a man and should know no fear.
+
+During the next two weeks he prepared his flight. He had never taken a
+long journey. Only once he had accompanied his father on a flying
+business trip to Marseilles. It was high time that he should go out in
+the world like the man that he was, acquainted with almost all the
+cities of the earth,--through his readings.
+
+The money question did not worry him any. Doña Cinta had it in
+abundance and it was easy to find her bunch of keys. An old and
+slow-going steamer, commanded by one of his father's friends, had just
+entered port and the following day would weigh anchor for Italy.
+
+This sailor accepted the son of his old comrade without any traveling
+papers. He would arrange all irregularities with his friends in Genoa.
+Between captains they ought to exchange such services, and Ulysses
+Ferragut, who was awaiting his son in Naples (so Esteban told him),
+would not wish to waste time just because of some ridiculous, red tape
+formality.
+
+Telemachus with a thousand pesetas in his pocket, extracted from a work
+box which his mother used as a cash box, embarked the following day. A
+little suit-case, taken from his home with deliberate and skillful
+precaution, formed his entire baggage.
+
+From Genoa he went to Rome, and from there to Naples, with the
+foolhardiness of the innocent, employing Spanish and Catalan words to
+reinforce his scanty Italian vocabulary acquired at the opera. The only
+positive information that guided him on his quest of adventure was the
+name of the _albergo_ on the shore of S. Lucia which Caragol had given
+him as his father's residence.
+
+He sought him vainly for many days and visited in Naples the consignees
+who thought that the captain had returned to his country some time ago.
+
+Not finding him, he began to be afraid. He ought to be back in
+Barcelona by this time and what he had begun as an heroic voyage was
+going to turn into a runaway, a boyish escapade. He thought of his
+mother who was perhaps weeping hours at a time, reading and rereading
+the letter that he had left for her explaining the object of his
+flight. Besides, Italy's intervention in the war,--an event which every
+one had been expecting but had supposed to be still a long way
+off,--had suddenly become an actual fact. What was there left for him
+to do in this country?... And one morning he had disappeared.
+
+Since the hotel porter could not tell him anything more, the father,
+after his first impression of surprise had passed, thought it would be
+a good plan to visit the firm of consignees. Perhaps there they might
+give him some news.
+
+The war was the only thing of interest in that office. But Ferragut,
+owner of a ship and a former client, was guided by the director to the
+employees who had received Esteban.
+
+They did not know much about it. They recalled vaguely a young Spaniard
+who said that he was the captain's son and was making inquiries about
+him. His last visit had been two days before. He was then hesitating
+between returning to his country by rail or embarking in one of the
+three steamers that were in port ready to sail for Marseilles.
+
+"I believe that he has gone by railroad," said one of the clerks.
+
+Another of the office force supported his companion's supposition with
+a positive affirmation in order to attract the attention of his chief.
+He was sure of his departure by land. He himself had helped him to
+calculate what the trip to Barcelona would cost him.
+
+Ferragut did not wish to know more. He must get away as soon as
+possible. This inexplicable voyage of his son filled him with remorse
+and immeasurable alarm. He wondered what could have occurred in his
+home....
+
+The director of the offices pointed out to him a French steamer from
+Suez that was sailing that very afternoon to Marseilles, and took upon
+himself all the arrangements concerning his passage and recommendation
+to the captain. There only remained four hours before the boat's
+departure, and Ulysses, after collecting his valises and sending them
+aboard, took a last stroll through all the places where he had lived
+with Freya. Adieu, gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_ and white
+Aquarium!... Farewell, _albergo_!...
+
+His son's mysterious presence in Naples had intensified his disgust at
+the German girl's flight. He thought sadly of lost love, but at the
+same time he thought with dolorous suspense of what might greet him
+when reentering his home.
+
+A little before sunset the French steamer weighed anchor. It had been
+many years since Ulysses had sailed as a simple passenger. Entirely out
+of his element, he wandered over the decks and among the crowds of
+tourists. Force of habit drew him to the bridge, talking with the
+captain and the officers, who from his very first words recognized his
+professional genius.
+
+Realizing that he was no more than an intruder in this place, and
+annoyed at finding himself on a bridge from which he could not give a
+single order, he descended to the lower decks, examining the groups of
+passengers. They were mostly French, coming from Indo-China. On prow
+and poop there were quartered four companies of Asiatic
+sharpshooters,--little, yellowish, with oblique eyes and voices like
+the miauling of cats. They were going to the war. Their officers lived
+in the staterooms in the center of the ship, taking with them their
+families who had aquired a foreign aspect during their long residence
+in the colonies.
+
+Ulysses saw ladies clad in white stretched out on their steamer chairs,
+having themselves fanned by their little Chinese pages; he saw bronzed
+and weather-beaten soldiers who appeared disgusted yet galvanized by
+the war that was snatching them from their Asiatic siesta, and
+children,--many children--delighted to go to France, the country of
+their dreams, forgetting in their happiness that their fathers were
+probably going to their death.
+
+The passage could not have been smoother. The Mediterranean was like a
+silver plain in the moonlight. From the invisible coast came warm puffs
+of garden perfumes. The groups on deck reminded one another, with
+selfish satisfaction, of the great dangers that threatened the people
+embarking in the North Sea, harassed by German submarines. Fortunately
+the Mediterranean was free from such calamity. The English had so well
+guarded the port of Gibraltar that it was all a tranquil lake dominated
+by the Allies.
+
+Before going to bed, the captain entered a room on the upper deck where
+was installed the wireless telegraph outfit. The hissing as of frying
+oil that the apparatus was sending out attracted him. The operator, a
+young Englishman, took off his nickel band with two earphones. Greatly
+bored by his isolation, he was trying to distract himself by conversing
+with the operators on the other vessels that came within the radius of
+his apparatus. They kept in constant communication like a group of
+comrades making the same trip and conversing placidly together.
+
+From time to time the operator, advised by the sparking of his
+induction coils, would put on the diadem with ear pieces in order to
+listen to his far-away comrades.
+
+"It is the man on the _Californian_ bidding me goodnight," he said
+after one of these calls. "He is going to bed. There's no news."
+
+And the young man eulogized Mediterranean navigation. At the outbreak
+of the war, he had been on another vessel going from London to New York
+and he recalled the unquiet nights, the days of anxious vigilance,
+searching the sea and the atmosphere, fearing from one moment to
+another the appearance of a periscope upon the waters, or the electric
+warning of a steamer torpedoed by the submarine. On this sea, one could
+live as tranquilly as in times of peace.
+
+Ferragut suspected that the poor operator was very anxious to enjoy the
+delights of such tranquillity. His companion in service was snoring in
+a nearby cabin and he was anxious to imitate him, putting his head down
+on the table of the apparatus.... "Until to-morrow!"
+
+The captain also fell asleep as soon as he had stretched himself out on
+the narrow ledge in his stateroom. His sleep was all in one piece,
+gloomy and complete, without sudden surprises or visions. Just as he
+was feeling that only a few moments had passed by, he was violently
+awakened as though some one had given him a shove. In the dim light he
+could make out only the round glass of the port hole, tenuously blue
+and veiled by the humidity of the maritime dew, like a tearful eye.
+
+Day was breaking and something extraordinary had just occurred on the
+boat. Ferragut was accustomed to sleep with the lightness of a captain
+who needs to awaken opportunely. A mysterious perception of danger had
+cut short his repose. He distinguished over his head the patter of
+quick runnings the whole length of the deck; he heard voices. While
+dressing as quickly as possible he realized that the rudder was working
+violently, and that the vessel was changing its course.
+
+Coming up on deck, one glance was sufficient to convince him that the
+ship was not running any danger. Everything about it presented a normal
+aspect. The sea, still dark, was gently lapping the sides of the vessel
+which continued going forward with regular motion. The decks were
+cleared of passengers. They were all sleeping in their staterooms. Only
+on the bridge he saw a group of persons:--the captain and all the
+officers, some of them dressed very lightly as though they had been
+roused from slumber.
+
+Passing by the wireless office, he obtained an explanation of the
+matter. The youth of the night before was near the door and his
+companion was now wearing the head phone and tapping the keys of the
+apparatus, listening and replying to invisible boats.
+
+An half hour before, just as the English operator was going off guard
+and giving place to his just awakened companion, a signal had kept him
+in his seat. The _Californian_ was sending out by wireless the danger
+call, the S.O.S., that is only employed when a ship needs help. Then in
+the space of a few seconds a mysterious voice had spread its tragic
+story over hundreds of miles. A submersible had just appeared a short
+distance from the _Californian_ and had fired several shells at it. The
+English boat was trying to escape, relying on its superior speed. Then
+the submarine had fired a torpedo....
+
+All this had occurred in twenty minutes. Suddenly the echoes of the
+distant tragedy were extinguished as the communication was cut off. A
+prolonged, intense, sibilant buzzing in the apparatus, and--nothing!...
+Absolute silence.
+
+The operator now on duty responded with negative movements to his
+companion's inquiring glances. He could hear nothing but the dialogue
+between the boats that had received the same warning. They too were
+alarmed by the sudden silence, and were changing their course going,
+like the French steamer, toward the place where the _Californian_ had
+met the submersible.
+
+"Can it be that they are already in the Mediterranean!" the operator
+exclaimed with astonishment on finishing his report. "How could the
+submarines possibly get 'way down here?..."
+
+Ferragut did not dare to go up on the bridge. He was afraid that the
+glances of those men of the sea might fasten themselves accusingly upon
+him. He believed that they could read his thoughts.
+
+A passenger ship had just been sunk at a relatively short distance from
+the boat on which he was traveling. Perhaps von Kramer was the author
+of the crime. With good reason he had charged Ulysses to tell his
+compatriots that they would soon hear of his exploits. And Ferragut had
+aided in the preparation of this maritime barbarity!...
+
+"What have you done? What have you done?" wrathfully demanded his
+mental voice of good counsel.
+
+An hour afterward he felt ashamed to remain on deck. In spite of the
+captain's orders, the news had got out and was circulating among the
+staterooms. Entire families were rushing up on deck, frightened out of
+the calmness usually reigning on the boat, arranging their clothes with
+precipitation, and struggling to adjust to their bodies the
+life-preservers which they were trying on for the first time. The
+children were howling, terrified by the alarm of their parents. Some
+nervous women were shedding tears without any apparent cause. The boat
+was going toward the place where the other one had been torpedoed, and
+that was enough to make the alarmists imagine that the enemy would
+remain absolutely motionless in the same place, awaiting their arrival
+in order to repeat their attack.
+
+Hundreds of eyes were fixed on the sea, scrutinizing the surface of the
+waves, believing every object which they saw,--bits of wood, seaweed or
+crates floating on the surface of the water,--to be the top of a
+periscope.
+
+The officials of the battalion of snipers had gone to prow and poop in
+order to maintain discipline among their men. But the Asiatics,
+scornful of death, had not abandoned their serene apathy. Some merely
+looked out over the sea with a childish curiosity, anxious to become
+acquainted with this new diabolical toy, invented by the superior
+races. On the decks reserved for first class passengers astonishment
+was as great as the uneasiness.
+
+"Submarines in the Mediterranean!... But is it possible?..."
+
+Those last to awake appeared very incredulous and could only be
+convinced of what had occurred when they heard the news from the boat's
+crew.
+
+Ferragut wandered around like a soul in torment. Remorse made him hide
+himself in his stateroom. These people with their complaints and their
+comments were causing him great annoyance. Soon he found that he could
+not remain in this isolation. He needed to see and to know,--like a
+criminal who returns to the place where he has committed his crime.
+
+At midday they began to see on the horizon various little clouds. They
+were the ships hastening from all sides, attracted by this unexpected
+attack.
+
+The French boat that was sailing ahead of them suddenly moderated its
+speed. They had come into the zone of the shipwreck. In the lookouts
+were sailors exploring the sea and shouting the orders that guided the
+steamer's course. During these evolutions, there began to slip past the
+vessel's sides the remains of the tragic event.
+
+The two rows of heads lined up on the different decks saw life
+preservers floating by empty, a boat with its keel in the air, and bits
+of wood belonging to a raft evidently constructed in great haste and
+never finished.
+
+Suddenly a howl from a thousand voices, followed by a funereal
+silence.... The body of a woman lying on some planks passed by. One of
+her legs was thrust into a gray silk stocking, her head was hanging on
+the opposite side, spreading its blonde locks over the water like a
+bunch of gilded seaweed.
+
+Her firm and juvenile bust was visible through the opening of a
+drenched nightgown which was outlining her body with unavoidable
+immodesty. She had been surprised by the shipwreck at the very moment
+that she had been trying to dress; perhaps terror had made her throw
+herself into the sea. Death had twisted her face with a horrible
+contraction, exposing the teeth. One side of her face was swollen from
+some blow.
+
+Looking over the shoulders of two ladies who were trembling and leaning
+against the deck-railing, Ferragut caught a glimpse of this corpse. In
+his turn the vigorous sailor trembled like a woman, and his eyes filmed
+with mistiness. He simply could not look at it!... And again he went
+down into his stateroom to hide himself.
+
+An Italian torpedo-destroyer was maneuvering among the remains of the
+shipwreck, as though seeking the footprints of the author of the crime.
+The steamers stopped their circular course of exploration to lower the
+lifeboats into the water and collect the corpses and bodies of the
+living near to death.
+
+The captain in his desperate imprisonment heard new shrieks announcing
+an extraordinary event. Again the cruel necessity of knowing what it
+could be dragged him from his stateroom!
+
+A boat full of people had been found by the steamer. The other ships
+were also meeting little by little the rest of the life boats occupied
+by the survivors of the catastrophe. The general rescue was going to be
+a very short piece of work.
+
+The most agile of the shipwrecked people, on reaching the deck, found
+themselves surrounded by sympathetic groups lamenting their misfortune
+and at the same time offering them hot drinks. Others, after staggering
+a few steps as though intoxicated, collapsed on the benches. Some had
+to be hoisted from the bottom of the boat and carried in a chair to the
+ship's hospital.
+
+Various British soldiers, serene and phlegmatic, upon climbing on deck
+asked for a pipe and began to smoke vigorously. Other shipwrecked
+people, lightly clad, simply rolled themselves up in shawls, beginning
+the account of the catastrophe as minutely and serenely as though they
+were in a parlor. A period of ten hours in the crowded narrowness of
+the boat, drifting at random in the hope of aid, had not broken down
+their energy.
+
+The women showed greater desperation. Ferragut saw in the center of a
+group of ladies a young English girl, blond, slender, elegant, who was
+sobbing and stammering explanations. She had found herself in a launch,
+separated from her parents, without knowing how. Perhaps they were dead
+by this time. Her slight hope was that they might have sought refuge in
+some other boat and been picked up by any one of the steamers that had
+happened to see them.
+
+A desperate grief, noisy, meridional, silenced with its meanings the
+noise of conversation. There had just climbed aboard a poor Italian
+woman carrying a baby in her arms.
+
+"_Figlia mia_!... _Mia figlia_!..." she was wailing with disheveled
+hair and eyes swollen by weeping.
+
+In the moment of the shipwreck she had lost a little girl, eight years
+old, and upon finding herself in the French steamer, she went
+instinctively toward the prow in search of the same spot which she had
+occupied on the other ship, as though expecting to find her daughter
+there. Her agonized voice penetrated down the stairway: "_Figlia
+mia_!... _Mia figlia!_"
+
+Ulysses could not stand it. That voice hurt him, as though its piercing
+cry were clawing at his brain.
+
+He approached a group in the center of which was a young barefooted lad
+in trousers and shirt open at the breast who was talking and talking,
+wrapping himself from time to time in a shawl that some one had placed
+upon his shoulders.
+
+He was describing in a mixture of French and Italian the loss of the
+_Californian_.
+
+He had been awakened by hearing the first shot fired by the submersible
+against his steamer. The chase had lasted half an hour.
+
+The most audacious and curious were on the decks and believed their
+salvation already sure as they saw their ship leaving its enemy behind.
+Suddenly a black line had cut the sea, something like a long thorn with
+splinters of foam which was advancing at a dizzying speed, in bold
+relief against the water.... Then came a blow on the hull of the vessel
+which had made it shudder from stem to stern, not a single plate nor
+screw escaping tremendous dislocation.... Then a volcanic explosion, a
+gigantic hatchet of smoke and flames, a yellowish cloud in which were
+flying dark objects:--fragments of metal and of wood, human bodies
+blown to bits.... The eyes of the narrator gleamed with an insane light
+as he recalled the tragic sight.
+
+"A friend of mine, a boy from my own country," he continued, sighing,
+"had just left me in order to see the submersible better and he put
+himself exactly in the path of the explosion.... He disappeared as
+suddenly as if he had been blotted out. I saw him and I did not see
+him.... He exploded in a thousand bits, as though he had had a bomb
+within his body."
+
+And the shipwrecked man, obsessed by this recollection, could hardly
+attach any importance to the scenes following,--the struggle of the
+crowds to gain the boats, the efforts of the officers to maintain
+order, the death of many that, crazy with desperation, had thrown
+themselves into the sea, the tragic waiting huddled in barks that were
+with great difficulty lowered to the water, fearing a second shipwreck
+as soon as they touched the waves.
+
+The steamer had disappeared in a few moments,--its prow sinking in the
+waters and then its smokestacks taking on a vertical position almost
+like the leaning tower of Pisa, and its rudders turning crazily as the
+shuddering ship went down.
+
+The narrator began to be left alone. Other shipwrecked folk, telling
+their doleful tales at the same time, were now attracting the curious.
+
+Ferragut looked at this young man. His physical type and his accent
+made him surmise that he was a compatriot.
+
+"You are Spanish?"
+
+The shipwrecked man replied affirmatively.
+
+"A Catalan?" continued Ulysses in the Catalan idiom.
+
+A fresh oratorical vehemence galvanized the shipwrecked boy. "The
+gentleman is a Catalan also?"... And smiling upon Ferragut as though he
+were a celestial apparition, he again began the story of his
+misfortunes.
+
+He was a commercial traveler from Barcelona, and in Naples he had taken
+the sea route because it had seemed to him the more rapid one, avoiding
+the railroads congested by Italian mobilization.
+
+"Were there other Spaniards traveling on your boat?" Ulysses continued
+inquiring.
+
+"Only one: my friend, that boy of whom I was just speaking. The
+explosion of the torpedo blew him into bits. I saw him...."
+
+The captain felt his remorse constantly increasing. A compatriot, a
+poor young fellow, had perished through his fault!...
+
+The salesman also seemed to be suffering a twinge of conscience. He was
+holding himself responsible for his companion's death. He had only met
+him in Naples a few days before, but they were united by the close
+brotherhood of young compatriots who had run across each other far from
+their country.
+
+They had both been born in Barcelona. The poor lad, almost a child, had
+wanted to return by land and he had carried him off with him at the
+last hour, urging upon him the advantages of a trip by sea. Whoever
+would have imagined that the German submarines were in the
+Mediterranean! The traveling man persisted in his remorse. He could not
+forget that half-grown lad who, in order to make the voyage in his
+company, had gone to meet his death.
+
+"I met him in Naples, hunting everywhere for his father."
+
+"Ah!..."
+
+Ulysses uttered this exclamation with his neck violently outstretched,
+as though he were trying to loosen his skull from the rest of his body.
+His eyes were protruding from their sockets.
+
+"The father," continued the youth, "commands a ship.... He is Captain
+Ulysses Ferragut."
+
+An outcry.... The people ran.... A man had just fallen heavily, his
+body rebounding on the deck.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE ENCOUNTER AT MARSEILLES
+
+Toni, who abominated railway journeys on account of his torpid
+immovability, now had to abandon the _Mare Nostrum_ and suffer the
+torture of remaining twelve hours crowded in with strange persons.
+
+Ferragut was sick in a hotel in the harbor of Marseilles. They had
+taken him off of a French boat coming from Naples, crushed with silent
+melancholia. He wished to die. During the trip they had to keep sharp
+watch so that he could not repeat his attempts at suicide. Several
+times he had tried to throw himself into the water.
+
+Toni learned of it from the captain of a Spanish vessel that had just
+arrived from Marseilles exactly one day after the newspapers of
+Barcelona had announced the death of Esteban Ferragut in the torpedoing
+of the _Californian_. The commercial traveler was still relating
+everywhere his version of the event, concluding it now with his
+melodramatic meeting with the father, the latter's fatal fall on
+receiving the news, and desperation upon recovering consciousness.
+
+The first mate had hastened to present himself at his captain's home.
+All the Blanes were there, surrounding Cinta and trying to console her.
+
+"My son!... My son!..." the mother was groaning, writhing on the sofa.
+
+And the family chorus drowned her laments, overwhelming her with a
+flood of fantastic consolations and recommendations of resignation. She
+ought to think of the father: she was not alone in the world as she was
+affirming: besides her own family, she had her husband.
+
+Toni entered just at that moment.
+
+"His father!" she cried in desperation. "His father!..."
+
+And she fastened her eyes on the mate as though trying to speak to him
+with them. Toni knew better than anyone what that father was, and for
+what reason he had remained in Naples. It was his fault that the boy
+had undertaken the crazy journey at whose end death was awaiting
+him..... The devout Cinta looked upon this misfortune as a chastisement
+from God, always complicated and mysterious in His designs. Divinity,
+in order to make the father expiate his crimes, had killed the son
+without thinking of the mother upon whom the blow rebounded.
+
+Toni went away. He could not endure the glances and the allusions made
+by Doña Cinta. And as though this emotion were not enough, he received
+the news a few hours later of his captain's wretched condition,--news
+which obliged him to make the trip to Marseilles immediately.
+
+On entering the quarters of the hotel frequented by the officials of
+merchant vessels, he found Ferragut seated near a balcony from which
+could be seen the entire harbor.
+
+He was limp and flabby, with eyes sunken and faded, beard unkempt, and
+a manifest disregard of his personal appearance.
+
+"Toni!... Toni!"
+
+He embraced his mate, moistening his neck with tears. For the first
+time he began to weep and this appeared to give him a certain relief.
+The presence of his faithful officer brought him back to life.
+Forgotten memories of business journeys crowded in his mind. Toni
+resuscitated all his past energies. It was as though the _Mare Nostrum_
+had come in search of him.
+
+He felt shame and remorse. This man knew his secret: he was the only
+one to whom he had spoken of supplying the German submarines.
+
+"My poor Esteban!... My son!"
+
+He did not hesitate to admit the fatal relationship between the death
+of his son and that illegal trip whose memory was weighing him down
+like a monstrous crime. But Toni was discreet. He lamented the death of
+Esteban like a misfortune in which the father had not had any part.
+
+"I also have lost sons.... And I know that nothing is gained by giving
+up to despair.... Cheer up!"
+
+He never said a word of all that had happened before the tragic event.
+Had not Ferragut known his mate so well, he might have believed that he
+had entirely forgotten it. Not the slightest gesture, not a gleam in
+his eyes, revealed the awakening of that malign recollection. His only
+anxiety was that the captain should soon regain his health....
+
+Reanimated by the presence and words of this prudent companion, Ulysses
+recovered his strength and a few days after, abandoned the room in
+which he had believed he was going to die, turning his steps toward
+Barcelona.
+
+He entered his home with a foreboding that almost made him tremble. The
+sweet Cinta, considered until then with the protecting superiority of
+the Orientals who do not recognize a soul in woman, now inspired him
+with a certain fear. What would she say on seeing him?...
+
+She said nothing of what he had feared. She permitted herself to be
+embraced, and drooping her head, burst into desperate weeping, as
+though the presence of her husband brought into higher relief the image
+of her son whom she would never see again. Then she dried her tears,
+and paler and sadder than ever, continued her habitual life.
+
+Ferragut saw her as serene as a school-mistress, with her two little
+nieces seated at her feet, keeping on with her eternal lace-work. She
+forgot it only in order to attend to the care of her husband, occupying
+herself with the very slightest details of his existence. That was her
+duty. From childhood, she had known what are the obligations of the
+wife of the captain of a ship when he stops at home for a few days,
+like a bird of passage. But back of such attentions, Ulysses divined
+the presence of an immovable obstacle. It was something enormous and
+transparent that had interposed itself between the two. They saw each
+other but without being able to touch each other. They were separated
+by a distance, as hard and luminous as a diamond, that made every
+attempt at drawing nearer together useless.
+
+Cinta never smiled. Her eyes were dry, trying not to weep while her
+husband was near her, but giving herself up freely to grief when she
+was alone. Her duty was to make his existence bearable, hiding her
+thoughts.
+
+But this prudence of a good house-mistress was trampling under foot
+their conjugal life of former times. One day Ferragut, with a return of
+his old affection, and desiring to illuminate Cinta's twilight
+existence with a pale ray of sunlight, ventured to caress her as in the
+early days of their marriage. She drew herself up, modest and offended,
+as though she had just received an insult. She escaped from his arms
+with the energy of one who is repelling an outrage.
+
+Ulysses looked upon a new woman, intensely pale, of an almost olive
+countenance, the nose curved with wrath and a flash of madness in her
+eyes. All that she was guarding in the depths of her thoughts came
+forth, boiling over, expelled in a hoarse voice charged with tears.
+
+"No, no!... We shall live together, because you are my husband and God
+commands that it shall be so; but I no longer love you: I cannot love
+you.... The wrong that you have done me!... I who loved you so much!...
+However much you may hunt in your voyages and in your wicked
+adventures, you will never find a woman that loves you as your wife has
+loved you."
+
+Her past of modest and submissive affection, of supine and tolerant
+fidelity, now issued from her mouth in one interminable complaint.
+
+"From our home my thoughts have followed you in all your voyages,
+although I knew your forgetfulness and your infidelity. All the papers
+found in your pockets, and photographs lost among your books, the
+allusions of your comrades, your smiles of pride, the satisfied air
+with which you many times returned, the series of new manners and
+additional care of your person that you did not have when you left,
+told me all.... I also suspected in your bold caresses the hidden
+presence of other women who lived far away on the other side of the
+world."
+
+She stopped her turbulent language for a few moments, letting the blush
+which her memories evoked fade away.
+
+"I loathed it all," she continued. "I know the men of the sea; I am a
+sailor's daughter. Many times I saw my mother weeping and pitied her
+simplicity. There is no use weeping for what men do in distant lands.
+It is always bitter enough for a woman who loves her husband, but it
+has no bad consequences and must be pardoned.... But now.... _Now_!..."
+
+The wife became irritated on recalling his recent infidelities.... Her
+rivals were not the public women of the great ports, nor the tourists
+who could give only a few days of love, like an alms which they tossed
+without stopping their progress. Now he had become enamored with the
+enthusiasm of a husky boy with an elegant and handsome dame, with a
+foreign woman who had made him forget his business, abandon his ship,
+and remain away, as though renouncing his family forever.... And poor
+Esteban, orphaned by his father's forgetfulness, had gone in search of
+him, with the adventurous impetuosity inherited from his ancestors: and
+death, a horrible death, had come to meet him on the road.
+
+Something more than the grief of the outraged wife vibrated in Cinta's
+laments. It was the rivalry with that woman of Naples, whom she
+believed a great lady with all the attractions of wealth and high
+birth. She envied her superior weapons of seduction; she raged at her
+own modesty and humility as a home-keeping woman.
+
+"I was resolved to ignore it all," she continued. "I had one
+consolation,--my son. What did it matter to me what you did?... You
+were far off, and my son was living at my side.... And now I shall
+never see him again!... My fate is to live eternally alone. You know
+very well that I shall not be a mother again,--that I cannot give you
+another son.... And it was you, you! who have robbed me of the only
+thing that I had!..."
+
+Her imagination invented the most improbable reasons for explaining to
+herself this unjust loss.
+
+"God wished to punish you for your bad life and has therefore killed
+Esteban, and is slowly killing me.... When I learned of his death I
+wished to throw myself off the balcony. I am still living because I am
+a Christian, but what an existence awaits me! What a life for you if
+you are really a father!... Think that your son might still be existing
+if you had not remained in Naples."
+
+Ferragut was a pitiful object. He hung his head without strength to
+repeat the confused and lying protests with which he had received his
+wife's first words.
+
+"If she knew all the truth!" the voice of remorse kept saying in his
+brain.
+
+He was thinking with horror of what Cinta could say if she knew the
+magnitude of his sin. Fortunately she was ignorant of the fact that he
+had been of assistance to the assassins of their son.... And the
+conviction that she never would know it made him admit her words with
+silent humility,--the humility of the criminal who hears himself
+accused of an offense by a judge ignorant of a still greater offense.
+
+Cinta finished speaking in a discouraged and gloomy tone. She was
+exhausted. Her wrath faded out, consumed by its own violence. Her sobs
+cut short her words. Her husband would never again be the same man to
+her; the body of their son was always interposing between the two.
+
+"I shall never be able to love you.... What have you done, Ulysses?
+What have you done that I should have such a horror of you?... When I
+am alone I weep: my sadness is great, but I admit my sorrow with
+resignation, as a thing inevitable.... As soon as I hear your
+footsteps, the truth springs forth. I realize that my son has died
+because of you, that he would still be living had he not gone in search
+of you, trying to make you realize that you were a father and what you
+owe to us.... And when I think of that I hate you, I _hate you_!... You
+have murdered my son! My only consolation is in the belief that if you
+have any conscience you will suffer even more than I."
+
+Ferragut came out from this horrible scene with the conviction that he
+would have to go away. That home was no longer his, neither was his
+wife his. The reminder of death filled everything, intervening between
+him and Cinta, pushing him away, forcing him again on the sea. His
+vessel was the only refuge for the rest of his life, and he must resort
+to it like the great criminals of other centuries who had taken refuge
+in the isolation of monasteries.
+
+He needed to vent his wrath on somebody, to find some responsible
+person whom he might blame for his misfortunes. Cinta had revealed
+herself to him as an entirely new being. He would never have suspected
+such energy of character, such passionate vehemence, in his sweet,
+obedient, little wife. She must have some counselor who was encouraging
+her complaints and making her speak badly of her husband.
+
+And he fixed upon Don Pedro, the professor, because there was still
+deep within him a certain dislike of the man since the days of his
+courtship. Besides, it offended him to see him in his home with a
+certain air of a noble personage whose virtue served as foil for the
+sins and shortcomings of the master of the house.
+
+The professor evidently considered Ferragut on a level with all the
+famous Don Juans,--liberal and care-free when in far-away homes,
+punctilious and suspiciously correct in his own.
+
+"That old blatherskite!" said Ulysses to himself, "is in love with
+Cinta. It is a platonic passion: with him, it couldn't be anything
+else. But it annoys me greatly.... I'm going to say a few things to
+him."
+
+Don Pedro, who was continuing his daily visits in order to console the
+mother, speaking of poor Esteban as though he were his own son, and
+casting servile smiles upon the captain, found himself intercepted by
+him one afternoon, on the landing of the stairway.
+
+The sailor aged suddenly while talking, and his features were accented
+with a vigorous ugliness. At that moment he looked exactly like his
+uncle, the _Triton_.
+
+With a threatening voice, he recalled a classic passage well known to
+the professor. His namesake, old Ulysses, upon returning to his palace,
+had found Penelope surrounded with suitors and had ended by hanging
+them on tenterhooks.
+
+"Wasn't that the way of it, Professor?... I do not find here more than
+one suitor, but this Ulysses swears to you that he will hang him in the
+same way if he finds him again in his home."
+
+Don Pedro fled. He had always found the rude heroes of the Odyssey very
+interesting, but in verse and on paper. In reality they now seemed to
+him most dangerous brutes, and he wrote a letter to Cinta telling her
+that he would suspend his visits until her husband should have returned
+to sea.
+
+This insult increased the wife's distant bearing. She resented it as an
+offense against herself. After having made her lose her son, Ulysses
+was terrifying her only friend.
+
+The captain felt obliged to go. By staying in that hostile atmosphere,
+which was only sharpening his remorse, he would pile one error upon
+another. Nothing but action could make him forget.
+
+One day he announced to Toni that in a few hours he was going to weigh
+anchor. He had offered his services to the allied navies in order to
+carry food to the fleet in the Dardanelles. The _Mare Nostrum_ would
+transport eatables, arms, munitions, aeroplanes.
+
+Toni attempted objection. It would be easy to find trips equally
+productive and much less dangerous; they might go to America....
+
+"And my revenge?" interrupted Ferragut. "I am going to dedicate the
+rest of my life to doing all the evil that I can to the assassins of my
+son. The Allies need boats, I'm going to give them mine and my person."
+
+Knowing what was troubling his mate, he added, "Besides, they pay well.
+These trips are very remunerative.... They will give me whatever I
+ask."
+
+For the first time in his existence on board the _Mare Nostrum_, the
+mate made a scornful gesture regarding the value of the cargo.
+
+"I almost forgot," continued Ulysses, smiling in spite of his sadness.
+"This trip flatters your ideals.... We are going to work for the
+Republic."
+
+They went to England and, taking on their cargo, set forth for the
+Dardanelles. Ferragut wished to sail alone without the protection of
+the destroyers that were escorting the convoys.
+
+He knew the Mediterranean well. Besides, he was from a neutral country
+and the Spanish flag was flying from the poop of his vessel. This abuse
+of his flag did not produce the slightest remorse, nor did it appear as
+disloyal to him. The German corsairs were coming closer to their prey,
+displaying neutral flags, in order to deceive. The submarines were
+remaining hidden behind pacific sailing ships in order to rise up
+suddenly near defenseless vessels. The most felonious proceedings of
+the ancient pirates had been resuscitated by the German fleet.
+
+He was not afraid of the submarines. He trusted in the speed of the
+_Mare Nostrum_ and in his lucky star.
+
+"And if any of them should cross our path," he said to his second,
+"just let them go before the prow!"
+
+He wished this so that he could send his vessel upon the submersible at
+full speed, daring it to come on.
+
+The Mediterranean was no longer the same sea that it had been months
+before when the captains knew all its secrets; he could no longer live
+on it as confidently as in the house of a friend.
+
+He stayed in his stateroom only to sleep. He and Toni spent long hours
+on the bridge talking without seeing each other, with their eyes turned
+on the sea, scanning the heaving blue surface. All the crew, excepting
+those that were resting, felt the necessity of keeping the same watch.
+
+In the daytime the slightest discovery would send the alarm from prow
+to poop. All the refuse of the sea, that weeks before had splashed
+unnoticed near the sides of the vessel, now provoked cries of
+attention, and many arms were outstretched, pointing it out. Bits of
+sticks, empty preserve cans sparkling in the sunlight, bunches of
+seaweed, a sea gull with outspread wings letting itself rock on the
+waves; everything made them think of the periscopes of the submarine
+coming up to the water's level.
+
+At night time the vigilance was even greater. To the danger of
+submersibles must also be added that of collision. The warships and the
+allied transports were traveling with few lights or completely dark.
+The sentinels on the bridge were no longer scanning the surface of the
+sea with its pale phosphorescence. Their gaze explored the horizon,
+fearing that before the prow there might suddenly surge up an enormous,
+swift, black form, vomited forth by the darkness.
+
+If at any time the captain tarried in his stateroom, instantly that
+fatal memory came to his mind.
+
+"Esteban!... My son!..."
+
+And his eyes were full of tears.
+
+Remorse and wrath made him plan tremendous vengeance. He was convinced
+that it would be impossible to carry it through, but it was a momentary
+consolation to his meridional character predisposed to the most bloody
+revenge.
+
+One day, running over some forgotten papers in a suit-case, he came
+across Freya's portrait. Upon seeing her audacious smile and her calm
+eyes fixed upon him, he felt within him a shameful reversion. He
+admired the beauty of this apparition, a thrill passing over his body
+as their past intercourse recurred to him.... And at the same time that
+other Ferragut existing within him thrilled with the murderous violence
+of the Oriental who considers death as the only means of vengeance. She
+was to blame for it all. "Ah!... _Tal_"
+
+He tore up the photograph, but then he put the fragments together again
+and finally placed them among his papers.
+
+His wrath was changing its objective. Freya really was not the
+principal person guilty of Esteban's death. He was thinking of that
+other one, of the pretended diplomat, of that von Kramer who perhaps
+had directed the torpedo which had blown his son to atoms.... Would he
+not raise the devil if he could meet him sometime?... What happiness if
+these two should find themselves face to face!
+
+Finally he avoided the solitude of a stateroom that tormented him with
+desires of impotent revenge. Near Toni on deck or on the bridge he felt
+better.... And with a humble condescension, such as his mate had never
+known before, he would talk and talk, enjoying the attention of his
+simple-hearted listener, just as though he were telling marvelous
+stories to a circle of children.
+
+In the Strait of Gibraltar he explained to him the great currents sent
+by the ocean into the Mediterranean, at certain times aiding the
+screw-propeller in the propulsion of the vessel.
+
+Without this Atlantic current the _mare nostrum_, which lost through
+atmospheric evaporation much more water than the rains and rivers could
+bring to it, would become dry in a few centuries. It had been
+calculated that it might disappear in about four hundred and seventy
+years, leaving as evidence of its former existence a stratum, of salt
+fifty-two meters thick.
+
+In its deep bosom were born great and numerous springs of fresh water,
+on the coast of Asia Minor, in Morea, Dalmatia and southern Italy; it
+received besides a considerable contribution from the Black Sea, which
+on returning to the Mediterranean accumulated from the rains and the
+discharge of its rivers, more water than it lost by evaporation,
+sending it across the Bosporous and the Dardenelles in the form of a
+superficial current. But all these tributaries, enormous as they were,
+sank into insignificance when compared with the renovation of the
+oceanic currents.
+
+The waters of the Atlantic poured into the Mediterranean so riotously
+that neither contrary winds nor reflex motion could stop them.
+Sailboats sometimes had to wait entire months for a strong breeze that
+would enable them to conquer the impetuous mouth of the strait.
+
+"I know that very well," said Toni. "Once going to Cuba we were in
+sight of Gibraltar more than fifty days, going backwards and forwards
+until a favorable wind enabled us to overcome the current and go out
+into the great sea."
+
+"Just such a current," added Ferragut, "was one of the causes that
+hastened the decadence of the Mediterranean navies in the sixteenth
+century. They had to go to the recently discovered Indies, and the
+Catalan or the Genoese ships would remain here in the strait weeks and
+weeks, struggling with the wind and the contrary current while the
+Galicians, the Basques, the French and the English who had left their
+ports at the same time were already nearing America.... Fortunately,
+navigation by steam has now equalized all that."
+
+Toni was silently admiring his captain. What he must have learned in
+those books that filled the stateroom!...
+
+It was in the Mediterranean that men had first entrusted themselves to
+the waves. Civilization emanated from India, but the Asiatic peoples
+were not able to master the art of navigation in their few seas whose
+coasts were very far apart and where the monsoons of the Indian Ocean
+blew six months together in one direction and six months in another.
+
+Not until he reached the Mediterranean by overland emigration did the
+white man wish to become a sailor. This sea that, compared with others,
+is a simple lake sown with archipelagoes, offered a good school. To
+whatever wind he might set his sails, he would be sure to reach some
+hospitable shore. The fresh and irregular breezes revolved with the sun
+at certain times of the year. The hurricane whirled across its bowl,
+but never stopped. There were no tides. Its harbors and water-ways were
+never dry. Its coasts and islands were often so close together that you
+could see from one to the other; its lands, beloved of heaven, were
+recipients of the sun's sweetest smiles.
+
+Ferragut recalled the men who had plowed this sea in centuries so
+remote that history makes no mention of them. The only traces of their
+existence now extant were the _nuraghs_ of Sardinia and the _talayots_
+of the Balearic Islands,--gigantic tables formed with blocks, barbaric
+altars of enormous rocks which recalled the Celtic obelisks and
+sepulchral monuments of the Breton coast. These obscure people had
+passed from isle to isle, from the extreme of the Mediterranean to the
+strait which is its door.
+
+The captain could imagine their rude craft made from trunks of trees
+roughly planed, propelled by one oar, or rather by the stroke of a
+stick, with no other aid than a single rudimentary sail spread to the
+fresh breeze. The navy of the first Europeans had been like that of the
+savages of the oceanic islands whose flotillas of tree trunks are still
+actually going from archipelago to archipelago.
+
+Thus they had dared to sally forth from the coast, to lose sight of
+land, to venture forth into the blue desert, advised of the existence
+of islands by the vaporous knobs of the mountains which were outlined
+on the horizon at sunset. Every advance of this hesitating marine over
+the Mediterranean had represented greater expenditure of audacity and
+energy than the discovery of America or the first voyage around the
+world.... These primitive sailors did not go forth alone to their
+adventures on the sea; they were nations _en masse_, they carried with
+them families and animals. Once installed on an island, the tribes sent
+forth fragments of their own life, going to colonize other nearby lands
+across the waves.
+
+Ulysses and his mate thought much about the great catastrophes ignored
+by history--the tempest surprising the sailing exodus, entire fleets of
+rough rafts swallowed up by the abyss in a few moments, families dying
+clinging to their domestic animals,--whenever they attempted a new
+advance of their rudimentary civilization.
+
+In order to form some idea of what these little embarkations were,
+Ferragut would recall the fleets of Homeric form, created many
+centuries afterwards. The winds used to impose a religious terror on
+those warriors of the sea, reunited in order to fall upon Troy. Their
+ships remained chained an entire year in the harbor of Aulis and,
+through fear of the hostility of the wind and in order to placate the
+divinity of the Mediterranean, they sacrificed the life of a virgin.
+
+All was danger and mystery in the kingdom of the waves. The abysses
+roared, the rocks moaned; on the ledges were singing sirens who, with
+their music, attracted ships in order to dash them to pieces. There was
+not an island without its particular god, without its monster and
+cyclops, or its magician contriving artifices.
+
+Before domesticating the elements, mankind had attributed to them their
+most superstitious fears.
+
+A material factor had powerfully influenced the dangers of
+Mediterranean life. The sand, moved by the caprice of the current, was
+constantly ruining the villages or raising them to peaks of unexpected
+prosperity. Cities celebrated in history were to-day no more than
+streets of ruins at the foot of a hillock crowned with the remains of a
+Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine or Saracen castle, or with a fortress
+contemporary with the Crusades. In other centuries these had been
+famous ports; before their walls had taken place naval battles; now
+from their ruined acropolis one could scarcely see the Mediterranean
+except as a light blue belt at the end of a low and marshy plain. The
+accumulating sand had driven the sea back miles.... On the other hand,
+inland cities had come to be places of embarkation because of the
+continual perforation of the waves that were forcing their way in.
+
+The wickedness of mankind had imitated the destructive work of nature.
+When a maritime republic conquered a rival republic, the first thing
+that it thought of was to obstruct its harbor with sand and stones in
+order to divert the course of its waters so as to convert it into an
+inland city, thereby ruining its fleets and its traffic. The Genoese,
+triumphant over Pisa, stopped up its harbor with the sands of the Arno;
+and the city of the first conquerors of Mallorca, of the navigators to
+the Holy Land, of the Knights of St. Stephen, guardians of the
+Mediterranean, came to be Pisa the Dead,--a settlement that knew the
+sea only by hearsay.
+
+"Sand," continued Ferragut, "has changed the commercial routes and
+historic destinies of the Mediterranean."
+
+Of the many deeds which had stretched along the scenes of the _mare
+nostrum_, the most famous in the captain's opinion was the unheard-of
+epic of Roger de Flor which he had known from childhood through the
+stories told him by the poet Labarta, by the _Triton_, and by that poor
+secretary who was always dreaming of the great past of the Catalan
+marine.
+
+All the world was now talking about the blockade of the Dardanelles.
+The boats that furrowed the Mediterranean, merchant vessels as well as
+battleships, were furthering the great military operation that was
+developing opposite Gallipoli. The name of the long, narrow maritime
+pass which separates Europe and Asia was in every mouth. To-day the
+eyes of mankind were converged on this point just as, in remote
+centuries, they had been fixed on the war of Troy.
+
+"We also have been there," said Ferragut with pride. "The Dardanelles
+have been frequented for many years by the Catalans and the Aragonese.
+Gallipoli was one of our cities governed by the Valencian, Ramon
+Muntaner."
+
+And he began the story of the Almogavars in the Orient, that romantic
+Odyssey across the ancient Asiatic provinces of the Roman Empire that
+ended only with the founding of the Spanish duchy of Athens and
+Neopatria in the city of Pericles and Minerva. The chronicles of the
+Oriental Middle Ages, the books of Byzantine chivalry, the fantastic
+tales of the Arab do not contain more improbable and dramatic
+adventures than the warlike enterprises of these Argonauts coming from
+the valleys of the Pyrenees, from the banks of the Ebro, and from the
+Moorish gardens of Valencia.
+
+"Eighty years," said Ferragut, terminating his account of the glorious
+adventures of Roger de Flor around Gallipoli, "the Spanish duchy of
+Athens and Neopatria flourished. Eighty years the Catalans governed
+these lands."
+
+And he pointed out on the horizon the place where the red haze of
+distant promontories and mountains outlined the Grecian land.
+
+Such a duchy was in reality a republic. Athens and Thebes were
+administered in accordance with the laws of Aragon and its code was
+"The book of Usages and Customs of the City of Barcelona." The Catalan
+tongue ruled as the official language in the country of Demosthenes,
+and the rude Almogavars married with the highest ladies of the country.
+
+The Parthenon was still intact as in the glorious times of ancient
+Athens. The august monument of Minerva converted into a Christian
+church, had not undergone any other modification than that of seeing a
+new goddess on its altars, _La Virgen Santisima_.
+
+And in this thousand-year-old temple of sovereign beauty the _Te Deum_
+was sung for eighty years in honor of the Aragonese dukes, and the
+clergy preached in the Catalan tongue.
+
+The republic of adventurers did not bother with constructing nor
+creating. There does not remain on the Grecian land any trace of their
+dominion,--edifices, seals, nor coins. Only a few noble families,
+especially in the islands, took the Catalan patronym.
+
+"Although they yet remember us confusedly, they do remember us," said
+Ferragut. "'May the vengeance of the Catalans overtake you' was for
+many centuries the worst of curses in Greece."
+
+Thus terminated the most glorious and bloody of the Mediterranean
+adventures of the Middle Ages,--the clash of western crudeness, almost
+savage but frank and noble, against the refined malice and decadent
+civilization of the Greeks,--childish and old at the same time,--which
+survived in Byzantium.
+
+Ferragut felt a pleasure in these relations of imperial splendor,
+palaces of gold, epic encounters and furious frays, while his ship was
+navigating through the black night and bounding over the dark sea
+accompanied by the throbbing of machinery and the noisy thrum of the
+screw, at times out of the water during the furious rocking from prow
+to poop.
+
+They were in the worst place in the Mediterranean where the winds
+coming from the narrow passage of the Adriatic, from the steppes of
+Asia Minor, from the African deserts and from the gap of Gibraltar
+tempestuously mingled their atmospheric currents. The waters boxed in
+among the numerous islands of the Grecian archipelago were writhing in
+opposite directions, enraged and clashing against the ledges on the
+coast with a retrograding violence that converted them into a furious
+surge.
+
+The captain, hooded like a friar and bowed before the wind that was
+striving to snatch him from the bridge, kept talking and talking to his
+mate, standing immovable near him and also covered with a waterproof
+coat that was spouting moisture from every fold. The rain was streaking
+with light, cobwebby lines the slaty darkness, of the night. The two
+sailors felt as though icy nettles were falling upon face and hands
+across the darkness.
+
+Twice they anchored near the island of Tenedos, seeing the movable
+archipelago of ironclads enveloped in floating veils of smoke. There
+came to their ears, like incessant thunderings, the echo of the cannons
+that were roaring at the entrance of the Dardanelles.
+
+From afar off they perceived the sensation caused by the loss of some
+English and French ships. The current of the Black Sea was the best
+armor for the defenders of this aquatic defile against the attacks of
+the fleets. They had only to throw into the strait a quantity of
+floating mines and the blue river which slipped by the Dardanelles
+would drag these toward the boats, destroying them with an infernal
+explosion. On the coast of Tenedos the Hellenic women with their
+floating hair were tossing flowers into the sea in memory of the
+victims, with a theatrical grief similar to that of the heroines of
+ancient Troy whose ramparts were buried in the hills opposite.
+
+The third trip in mid-winter was a very hard one, and at the end of a
+rainy night, when the faint streaks of dawn were beginning to dissipate
+the sluggish shadows, the _Mare Nostrum_ arrived at the roadstead of
+Salonica.
+
+Only once had Ferragut been in this port, many years before, when it
+still belonged to the Turks. At first he saw only some lowlands on
+which twinkled the last gleams from the lighthouses. Then he recognized
+the roadstead, a vast aquatic extension with a frame of sandy bars and
+pools reflecting the uncertain life of daybreak. The recently awakened
+sea-gulls were flying in groups over the immense marine bowl. At the
+mouth of the Vardar the fresh-water fowls were starting up with noisy
+cries, or standing on the edge of the bank immovable upon their long
+legs.
+
+Opposite the prow, a city was rising up out of the albuminous waves of
+fog. In a bit of the clear, blue sky appeared various minarets, their
+peaks sparkling with the fires of Aurora. As the vessel advanced, the
+morning clouds vanished, and Salonica became entirely visible from the
+cluster of huts at her wharves to the ancient castle topping the
+heights, a fortress of ruddy towers, low and strong.
+
+Near the water's edge, the entire length of the harbor, were the
+European constructions, commercial houses with gold-lettered signs,
+hotels, banks, moving-picture shows, concert halls, and a massive tower
+with another smaller one upon it,--the so-called White Tower, a remnant
+of the Byzantine fortifications.
+
+In this European conglomerate were dark gaps, open passageways, the
+mouths of sloping streets climbing to the hillock above, crossing the
+Grecian, Mohammedan and Jewish quarters until they reached a table-land
+covered with lofty edifices between dark points of cypress.
+
+The religious diversity of the Oriental Mediterranean made Salonica
+bristle with cupolas and towers. The Greek temple threw into prominence
+the gilded bulbs of its roof; the Catholic church made the cross
+glisten from the peak of its bell-tower; the synagogue of geometrical
+forms overflowed in a succession of terraces; the Mohammedan minaret
+formed a colonnade, white, sharp and slender. Modern life had added
+factory chimneys and the arms of steam-cranes which gave an
+anachronistic effect to this decoration of an Oriental harbor. Around
+the city and its acropolis was the plain which lost itself in the
+horizon,--a plain that Ferragut, on a former voyage, had seen desolate
+and monotonous, with few houses and sparsely cultivated, with no other
+Vegetation except that in the little oases of the Mohammedan cemetery.
+This desert extended to Greece and Servia or to the borders of Bulgaria
+and Turkey.
+
+Now the brownish-gray steppes coming out from the fleecy fog of
+daybreak were palpitating with new life. Thousands and thousands of men
+were encamped around the city, occupying new villages made of canvas,
+rectangular streets of tents, cities of wooden cabins, and
+constructions as big as churches whose canvas walls were trembling
+under the violent squalls of wind.
+
+Through his glasses, Ulysses could see warlike hosts occupied with the
+business of caring for strings of riderless horses that were going to
+watering places, parks of artillery with their cannon upraised like the
+tubes of a telescope, enormous birds with yellow wings that were trying
+to skip along the earth's surface with a noisy bumping, gradually
+reappearing in space with their waxy wings glistening in the first
+shafts of sunlight.
+
+All the allied army of the Orient returning from the bloody and
+mistaken adventure of the Dardanelles or proceeding from Marseilles and
+Gibraltar were massing themselves around Salonica.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ anchored at the wharves filled with boxes and bales.
+War had given a much greater activity to this port than in times of
+peace. Steamers of all the allied and neutral flags were unloading
+eatables and military materials.
+
+They were coming from every continent, from every ocean, drawn thither
+by the tremendous necessities of a modern army. They were unloading
+harvests from entire provinces, unending herds of oxen and horses, tons
+upon tons of steel, prepared for deadly work, and human crowds lacking
+only a tail of women and children to be like the great martial exoduses
+of history. Then taking on board the residuum of war, arms needing
+repair, wounded men, they would begin their return trip.
+
+These cargoes quietly transported through the darkness in spite of bad
+times and the submarine threats, were preparing the ultimate victory.
+Many of these steamers were formerly luxurious vessels, but now
+commandeered by military necessity, were dirty and greasy and used as
+cargo boats. Lined up, drowsing along the docks, ready to begin their
+work, were new hospital ships, the more fortunate transatlantic liners
+that still retained a certain trace of their former condition, quite
+clean with a red cross painted on their sides and another on their
+smokestacks.
+
+Some of the transports had reached Salonica most miraculously. Their
+crews would relate with the fatalistic serenity of men of the sea how
+the torpedo had passed at a short distance from their hulls. A damaged
+steamer lay on its side, with only the keel submerged, all its red
+exterior exposed to the air; on its water-line there had opened a
+breach, angular in outline. Upon looking from the deck into the depths
+of its hold filled with water, there might be seen a great gash in its
+side like the mouth of a luminous cavern.
+
+Ferragut, while his boat was discharging its cargo under Toni's
+supervision, passed his days ashore, visiting the city.
+
+From the very first moment he was attracted by the narrow lanes of the
+Turkish quarters--their white houses with protruding balconies covered
+with latticed blinds like cages painted red; the little mosques with
+their patios of cypresses and fountains of melancholy tinkling; the
+tombs of Mohammedan dervishes in kiosks which block the streets under
+the pale reflection of a lamp; the women veiled with their black
+_firadjes_; and the old men who, silent and thoughtful under their
+scarlet caps, pass along swaying to the staggering of the ass on which
+they are mounted.
+
+The great Roman way between Rome and Byzantium, the ancient road of the
+blue flagstones, passed through a street of modern Salonica. Still a
+part of its pavement remained and appeared gloriously obstructed by an
+arch of triumph near whose weatherbeaten stone base were working
+barefooted bootblacks wearing the scarlet fez.
+
+An endless variety of uniforms filed through the streets, and this
+diversity in attire as well as the ethnical difference in the men who
+wore it was very noticeable. The soldiers of France and the British
+Isles touched elbows with the foreign troops. The allied governments
+had sent out a call to the professional combatants and volunteers of
+their colonies. The black sharpshooters from the center of Africa
+showed their smiling teeth of marble to the bronze giants with huge
+white turbans who had come from India. The hunters from the glacial
+plains of Canada were fraternizing with the volunteers from Australia
+and New Zealand.
+
+The cataclysm of the world war had dragged mankind from the antipodes
+to this drowsy little corner of Greece where were again repeated the
+invasions of remote centuries which had made ancient Thessalonica bow
+to the conquest of Bulgarians, Byzantians, Saracens, and Turks.
+
+The crews of the battleships in the roadstead had just added to this
+medley of uniforms the monotonous note of their midnight blue, almost
+like that of all the navies of the world.... And to the military
+amalgamation was also added the picturesque variety of civil
+dress,--the hybrid character of the neighborhood of Salonica, composed
+of various races and religions that were mingled together without
+confusing their individuality. Files of black tunics and hats with
+brimless crowns passed through the streets, near the Catholic priests
+or the rabbis with their long, loose gowns. In the outskirts might be
+seen men almost naked, with no other clothing than a sheep-skin tunic,
+guiding flocks of pigs, just like the shepherds in the Odyssey.
+Dervishes, with their aspect of dementia, chanted motionless in a
+crossway, enveloped in clouds of flies, awaiting the aid of the good
+believers.
+
+A great part of the population was composed of Israelitish descendants
+of the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal. The oldest and most
+conservative were clad just like their remote ancestors with large
+kaftans striped with striking colors. The women, when not imitating the
+European fashions, usually wore a picturesque garment that recalled the
+Spanish apparel of the Middle Ages. Here they were not mere brokers or
+traders as in the rest of the world. The necessities of the city
+dominated by them had made them pick up all the professions, becoming
+artisans, fishermen, boatmen, porters and stevedores of the harbor.
+They still kept the Castilian tongue as the language of the hearth like
+an original flag whose waving reunited their scattered souls,--a
+Castilian in the making, soft and without consistency like one
+newly-born.
+
+"Are you a Spaniard?" they said brokenly to Captain Ferragut. "My
+ancestors were born there. It is a beautiful land."
+
+But they did not wish to return to it. The country of their grandsires
+inspired a certain amount of terror in them, and they feared that upon
+seeing them return, the present-day Spaniards would banish the
+bullfights and reëstablish the Inquisition, organizing an _auto de fé_
+every Sunday.
+
+Hearing them speak his language, the captain recalled a certain
+date--1492. In the very year that Christopher Columbus had made his
+first voyage, discovering the Indies, the Jews were expelled from the
+Spanish peninsula, and Nebrija brought out the first Castilian grammar.
+These Spaniards had left their native land months before their idiom
+had been codified for the first time.
+
+A sailor of Genoa, an old friend of Ulysses, took him to one of the
+harbor cafés, where the merchant captains used to gather together.
+These were the only ones wearing civilian clothes among the crowds of
+land and sea officers who crowded the divans, obstructed the tables,
+and grouped themselves before the doorway.
+
+These Mediterranean vagabonds who oftentimes could not converse
+together because of the diversity of their native idiom, instinctively
+sought each other out, keeping near together in a fraternal silence.
+Their passive heroism was in many instances more admirable than that of
+the men of war, who were able to return blow for blow. All the officers
+of the different fleets, seated near them, had at their disposition
+cannon, ram, torpedo, great speed and aerial telegraphy. These valorous
+muleteers of the sea defied the enemy in defenseless boats without
+wireless and without cannons. Sometimes when searching all the men of
+the crew, not a single revolver would be found among them, and yet
+these brave fellows were daring the greatest adventures with
+professional fatalism, and trusting to luck.
+
+In the social groups of the cafe the captains would sometimes relate
+their encounters on the sea, the unexpected appearance of a submarine,
+the torpedo missing aim a few yards away, the flight at full speed
+while being shelled by their pursuers. They would flame up for an
+instant upon recalling their danger, and then relapse into indifference
+and fatalism.
+
+"If I've got to die by drowning," they would always conclude, "it would
+be useless for me to try to avoid it."
+
+And they would hasten their departure in order to return a month later
+transporting a regular fortune in their vessel, completely alone,
+preferring free and wary navigation to the journey in convoy, slipping
+along from island to island and from coast to coast in order to outwit
+the submersibles.
+
+They were far more concerned about the state of their ships, that for
+more than a year had not been cleaned, than about the dangers of
+navigation. The captains of the great liners lamented their luxurious
+staterooms converted into dormitories for the troops, their polished
+decks that had been turned into stables, their dining-room where they
+used to sit among people in dress suits and low-neck gowns, which had
+now to be sprayed with every class of disinfectant in order to repel
+the invasion of vermin, and the animal odors of so many men and beasts
+crowded together.
+
+The decline of the ships appeared to be reflected in the bearing of
+their captains, more careless than before, worse dressed, with the
+military slovenliness of the trench-fighter, and with calloused hands
+as badly cared for as those of a stevedore.
+
+Among the naval men also there were some who had completely neglected
+their appearance. These were the commanders of "chaluteros," little
+ocean fishing steamers armed with a quickfirer, which had come into the
+Mediterranean to pursue the submersible. They wore oilskins and
+tarpaulins, just like the North Sea fishermen, smacking of fuel and
+tempestuous water. They would pass weeks and weeks on the sea whatever
+the weather, sleeping in the bottom of the hold that smelled
+offensively of rancid fish, keeping on patrol no matter how the tempest
+might roar, bounding from wave to wave like a cork from a bottle, in
+order to repeat the exploits of the ancient corsairs.
+
+Ferragut had a relative in the army which was assembling at Salonica
+making ready for the inland march. As he did not wish to go away
+without seeing the lad he passed several mornings making investigations
+in the offices of the general staff.
+
+This relative was his nephew, a son of Blanes, the manufacturer of knit
+goods, who had fled from Barcelona at the outbreak of the war with
+other boys devoted to singing _Los Segadores_ and perturbing the
+tranquillity of the "Consul of Spain" sent by Madrid. The son of the
+pacific Catalan citizen had enlisted in the battalion of the Foreign
+Legion made up to a great extent of Spaniards and Spanish-Americans.
+
+Blanes had asked the captain to see his son. He was sad yet at the same
+time proud of this romantic adventure blossoming out so unexpectedly in
+the utilitarian and monotonous existence of the family. A boy that had
+such a great future in his father's factory!... And then he had related
+to Ulysses with shaking voice and moist eyes the achievements of his
+son,--wounded in Champagne, two citations and the _Croix de Guerre_.
+Who would ever have imagined that he could be such a hero!... Now his
+battalion was in Salonica after having fought in the Dardanelles.
+
+"See if you can't bring him back with you," repeated Blanes. "Tell him
+that his mother is going to die of grief.... You can do so much!"
+
+But all that Captain Ferragut could do was to obtain a permit and an
+old automobile with which to visit the encampment of the legionaries.
+
+The arid plain around Salonica was crossed by numerous roads. The
+trains of artillery, the rosaries of automobiles, were rolling over
+recently opened roads that the rain had converted into mire. The mud
+was the worst calamity that could befall this plain, so extremely dusty
+in dry weather.
+
+Ferragut passed two long hours, going from encampment to encampment,
+before reaching his destination. His vehicle frequently had to stop in
+order to make way for interminable files of trucks. At other times
+machine-guns, big guns dragged by tractors, and provision cars with
+pyramids of sacks and boxes, blocked their road.
+
+On all sides were thousands and thousands of soldiers of different
+colors and races. The captain recalled the great invasions of
+history--Xerxes, Alexander, Genghis-Khan, all the leaders of men who
+had made their advance carrying villages _en masse_ behind their
+horses, transforming the servants of the earth into fighters. There
+lacked only the soldierly women, the swarms of children, to complete
+exactly the resemblance to the martial exoduses of the past.
+
+In half an hour more he was able to embrace his nephew, who was with
+two other volunteers, an Andulasian and a South American,--the three
+united by brotherhood of birth and by their continual familiarity with
+death.
+
+Ferragut took them to the canteen of a trader established near the
+cantonment. The customers were seated under a sail-cloth awning before
+boxes that had contained munitions and were converted into office
+tables. This discomfort was surpassed by the prices. In no Palace Hotel
+would drink have cost such an extraordinary sum.
+
+In a few moments the sailor felt a fraternal affection for these three
+youths to whom he gave the nickname of the "Three Musketeers," He
+wished to treat them to the very best which the canteen afforded, so
+the proprietor produced a bottle of champagne or rather ptisan from
+Rheims, presenting it as though it were an elixir fabricated of gold.
+
+The amber liquid, bubbling in the glasses, seemed to bring the three
+youths back to their former existence. Boiled by the sun and the
+inclemency of the weather, habituated to the hard life of war, they had
+almost forgotten the softness and luxuriant conveniences of former
+years.
+
+Ulysses examined them attentively. In the course of the campaign they
+had grown with youth's last rapid growth. Their arms were sticking out
+to an ungainly degree from the sleeves of their coats, already too
+short for them. The rude gymnastic exercise of the marches, with the
+management of the shovel, had broadened their wrists and calloused
+their hands.
+
+The memory of his own son surged up in his memory. If only he could see
+him thus, made into a soldier like his cousin! See him enduring all the
+hardships of military existence ... but living!
+
+In order not to be too greatly moved, he drank and paid close attention
+to what the three youths were saying. Blanes, the legionary, as
+romantic as the son of a merchant bent upon adventure should be, was
+talking of the daring deeds of the troops of the Orient with all the
+enthusiasm of his twenty-two years. There wasn't time to throw
+themselves upon the Bulgarians with bayonets and arrive at
+Adrianopolis. As a Catalan, this war in Macedonia was touching him very
+close.
+
+"We are going to avenge Roger de Flor," he said gravely.
+
+And his uncle wanted to weep and to laugh before this simple faith
+comparable only to the retrospective memory of the poet Labarta and
+that village secretary who was always lamenting the remote defeat of
+Ponza.
+
+Blanes explained like a knight-errant the impulse that had called him
+to the war. He wanted to fight for the liberty of all oppressed
+nations, for the resurrection of all forgotten nationalities,--Poles,
+Czechs, Jugo-Slavs.... And very simply, as though he were saying
+something indisputable, he included Catalunia among the people who were
+weeping tears of blood under the lashes of the tyrant. Thereupon his
+companion, the Andalusian, burst forth indignantly. They passed their
+time arguing furiously, exchanging insults and continually seeking each
+other's company as though they couldn't live apart.
+
+The Andalusian was not battling for the liberty of this or that people.
+He had a longer range of vision. He was not near-sighted and egoistic
+like his friend, "the Catalan." He was giving his blood in order that
+the whole world might be free and that all monarchies should disappear.
+
+"I am battling for France because it is the country of the great
+Revolution. Its former history makes no difference to me, for we still
+have kings of our own, but dating from the 14th of July, whatever
+France is, I consider mine and the property of all mankind."
+
+He stopped a few seconds, searching for a more concrete affirmation.
+
+"I am fighting, Captain, because of Danton and Hoche."
+
+Ferragut in his imagination saw the white, disheveled hair of Michelet
+and the romantic foretop of Lamartine upon a double pedestal of volumes
+which used to contain the story-poem of the Revolution.
+
+"And I am also fighting for France," concluded the lad triumphantly,
+"because it is the country of Victor Hugo."
+
+Ulysses suspected that this twenty-year-old Republican was probably
+hiding in his knapsack a blank book full of original verses written in
+lead pencil.
+
+The South American, accustomed to the disputes of his two companions,
+looked at his black fingernails with the melancholy desperation of a
+prophet contemplating his country in ruins. Blanes, the son of a
+middle-class citizen, used to admire him for his more distinguished
+family. The day of the mobilization he had gone to Paris in an
+automobile of fifty horse-power to enroll as a volunteer; he and his
+chauffeur had enlisted together. Then he had donated his luxurious
+vehicle to the cause.
+
+He had wished to be a soldier because all the young fellows in his club
+were leaving for the war. Furthermore, he felt greatly flattered that
+his latest sweetheart, seeing him in uniform, should devote a few tears
+of admiration and astonishment to him. He had felt the necessity of
+producing a touching effect upon all the ladies that had danced the
+tango with him up to the week before. Besides that, the millions of his
+grandfather, "the Galician," held rather tight by his father, the
+Creole, were slipping through his hands.
+
+"This experience is lasting too long, Captain."
+
+In the beginning he had believed in a six months' war. The shells
+didn't trouble him much; for him the terrible things were the vermin,
+the impossibility of changing his clothing, and being deprived of his
+daily bath. If he could ever have supposed!...
+
+And he summed up his enthusiasm with this affirmation:
+
+"I am fighting for France because it is a _chic_ country. Only in Paris
+do the women know how to dress. Those Germans, no matter how much they
+try, will always be very ordinary."
+
+It was not necessary to add anything to this. All had been said.
+
+The three recalled the hellish months suffered recently in the
+Dardanelles, in a space of three miles conquered by the bayonet. A rain
+of projectiles had fallen incessantly upon them. They had had to live
+underground like moles and, even so, the explosion of the great shells
+sometimes reached them.
+
+In this tongue of land opposite Troy through which had slipped the
+remote history of humanity, their shovels, on opening the trenches, had
+stumbled upon the rarest finds. One day Blanes and his companions had
+excavated pitchers, statuettes, and plates centuries old. At other
+times, when opening trenches that had served as cemeteries for Turks,
+they had hacked into repulsive bits of pulp exhaling an insufferable
+odor. Self-defense had obliged the legionaries to live with their faces
+on a level with the corpses that were piled up in the vertical yard of
+removed earth.
+
+"The dead are like the truffles in a pie," said the South American. "An
+entire day I had to remain with my nose touching the intestines of a
+Turk who had died two weeks before.... No, war is not _chic_, Captain,
+no matter how much they talk of heroism and sublime things in the
+newspapers and books."
+
+Ulysses wished to see the three musketeers again before leaving
+Salonica, but the battalion had broken camp and was now situated
+several kilometers further inland, opposite the first Bulgarian lines.
+The enthusiastic Blanes had already fired his gun against the assassins
+of Roger de Flor.
+
+In the middle of November the _Mare Nostrum_ arrived at Marseilles. Its
+captain always felt a certain admiration upon doubling Cape Croisette,
+and noting the vast maritime curves opening out before the prow. In the
+center of it was an abrupt and bare hill, jutting into the sea,
+sustaining on its peak the basilica and square-sided tower of
+_Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde._
+
+Marseilles was the metropolis of the Mediterranean, the terminal for
+all the navigators of the _mare nostrum_. In its bay with choppy waves
+were various yellowish islands fringed with foam and upon one of these
+the strong towers of the romantic _Château d'If_.
+
+All the crew, from Ferragut down to the lowest seaman, used to look
+upon this city somewhat as their own when they saw, appearing in the
+background of the bay, its forests of masts and its conglomeration of
+gray edifices upon which sparkled the Byzantian domes of the new
+cathedral. Around Marseilles there opened out a semi-circle of dry and
+barren heights brightly colored by the sun of Provence and spotted by
+white cottages and hamlets, and the pleasure villas of the merchants of
+the city. On beyond this semi-circle the horizon was bounded by an
+amphitheater of rugged and gloomy mountains.
+
+On former trips the sight of the gigantic gilded Virgin which glistened
+like a shaft of fire on the top of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ shed an
+atmosphere of joy over the bridge of the vessel.
+
+"Marseilles, Toni," the captain used to say gayly. "I invite you to a
+_bouillabaisse_ at Pascal's."
+
+And Toni's hairy countenance would break into a greedy smile, seeing in
+anticipation the famous restaurant of the port, its twilight shadows
+smelling of shell-fish and spicy sauces, and upon the table the deep
+dish of fish with its succulent broth tinged with saffron.
+
+But now Ulysses had lost his vigorous joy in living. He looked at the
+city with kindly but sad eyes. He could see himself disembarking there
+that last time, sick, without will-power, overwhelmed by the tragic
+disappearance of his son.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ approached the mouth of the old harbor having at its
+right the batteries of the _Phare_. This old port was the most
+interesting souvenir of ancient Marseilles, penetrating like an aquatic
+knife into the heart of its clustered homes. The city extended along
+the wharves. It was an enormous stretch of water into which all the
+streets flowed; but its area was now so insufficient for the maritime
+traffic that eight new harbors were gradually covering the north shore
+of the bay.
+
+An interminable jetty, a breakwater longer than the city itself, was
+parallel to the coast, and in the space between the shore and this
+obstacle which made the waves foam and roar were eight roomy
+communicating harbors stretching from Joliette at the entrance to the
+one which, farthest away, is connected inland by the great subterranean
+canal, putting the city in communication with the Rhone.
+
+Ferragut had seen anchored in this succession of harbors the navies of
+every land and even of every epoch. Near to the enormous transatlantic
+liners were some very ancient tartans and some Greek boats, heavy and
+of archaic form, which recalled the fleets described in the Iliad.
+
+On the wharves swarmed all kinds of Mediterranean men,--Greeks from the
+continent and from the islands, Levantines from the coast of Asia,
+Spaniards, Italians, Algerians, Moroccans, Egyptians. Many had kept
+their original costume and to this varied picturesque garb was united a
+diversity of tongues, some of them mysterious and well-nigh extinct. As
+though infected by the oral confusion, the French themselves began to
+forget their native language, speaking the dialect of Marseilles, which
+preserves indelible traces of its Greek origin.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ crossed the outer port, the inner harbor of
+Joliette, and slipped slowly along past groups of pedestrians and carts
+that were waiting the closing of the steel drawbridge now opening
+before their prow. Then they cast anchor in the basin of Arenc near the
+docks.
+
+When Ferragut could go ashore he noticed the great transformation which
+this port had undergone in war times.
+
+The traffic of the times of peace with its infinite variety of wares no
+longer existed. On the wharves there were piled up only the monotonous
+and uniform loads of provisions and war material.
+
+The legions of longshoremen had also disappeared. They were all in the
+trenches. The sidewalks were now swept by women, and squads of
+Senegalese sharpshooters were unloading the cargoes,--shivering with
+cold in the sunny winter days, and bent double as though dying under
+the rain or the breeze of the Mistral. They were working with red caps
+pulled down over their ears, and at the slightest suspension of their
+labor would hasten to put their hands in the pockets of their coats.
+Sometimes when formed in vociferating groups around a case that four
+men could have moved in ordinary times, the passing of a woman or a
+vehicle would make them neglect their work, their diabolical faces
+filled with childish curiosity.
+
+The unloaded cargoes piled up the same articles on the principal
+docks,--wheat, much wheat, sulphur and saltpeter for the composition of
+explosive material. On other piers were lined up, by the thousands,
+pairs of gray wheels, the support of cannons and trucks; boxes as big
+as dwellings that contained aeroplanes; huge pieces of steel that
+served as scaffolding for heavy artillery; great boxes of guns and
+cartridges; huge cases of preserved food and sanitary supplies,--all
+the provisioning of the army struggling in the extreme end of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Various squads of men, preceded and followed by bayonets, were marching
+with rhythmic tread from one port to another. They were German
+prisoners,--rosy and happy, in spite of their captivity, still wearing
+their uniforms of green cabbage color, with round caps on their shaved
+heads. They were going to work on the vessels, loading and unloading
+the material that was to serve for the extermination of their
+compatriots and friends.
+
+The ships at the docks seemed to be increasing in size, for on arrival
+they had extended only a few yards above the wharf; but now that their
+cargo was piled up on land, they appeared like towering fortresses.
+Two-thirds of the hull, usually hidden in the water, were now in
+evidence, showing the bright red of their curved shell. Only the keel
+kept itself in the water. The upper third, that which remained visible
+above the line of flotation in ordinary times, was now a simple black
+cornice that capped the long purple walls. The masts and smokestacks
+diminished by this transformation appeared to belong to other smaller
+boats.
+
+Each of these merchant and peaceful steamers carried a quickfirer at
+the stern in order to protect itself from the submarine corsairs.
+England and France had mobilized their tramp ships and were beginning
+to supply them with means of defense. Some of them had not been able to
+mount their cannon upon a fixed gun carriage, and so carried a field
+gun with its mouth sticking out between the wheels bolted to the deck.
+
+The captain in all his strolls invariably felt attracted by the famous
+Cannebiere, that engulfing roadway which sucks in the entire activity
+of Marseilles.
+
+Some days a fresh and violent wind would eddy through, littering it
+with dust and papers, and the waiters of the cafes would have to furl
+the great awnings as though they were the sails of a vessel. The
+Mistral was approaching and every owner of an establishment was
+ordering this maneuver in order to withstand the icy hurricane that
+overturns tables, snatches away chairs, and carries off everything
+which is not secured with marine cables.
+
+To Ferragut this famous avenue of Marseilles was a reminder of the
+antechamber of Salonica. The same types from the army of the East
+crowded its sidewalks,--English dressed in khaki, Canadians and
+Australians in hats with up-turned brims, tall, slender Hindoos with
+coppery complexion and thick fan-shaped beards, Senegalese
+sharpshooters of a glistening black, and Anammite marksmen with round
+yellow countenance and eyes forming a triangle. There was a continual
+procession of dark trucks driven by soldiers, automobiles full of
+officers, droves of mules coming from Spain that were going to be
+shipped to the Orient, leaving behind their quick-trotting hoofs a
+pungent and penetrating smell of the stable.
+
+The old harbor attracted Ferragut because of its antiquity which was
+almost as remote as that of the first Mediterranean navigations. On
+passing before the Palace of the Bourse he shot a glance at the statue
+of the two great Marseillaise navigators,--Eutymenes and Pytas,--the
+most remote ancestors of Mediterranean navigators. One had explored the
+coast of Senegambia, the other had gone further up to Ireland and the
+Orkney Islands.
+
+The ancient Greek colony had been, during long centuries, supplanted by
+others,--Venice, Genoa and Barcelona having held it in humble
+subjection. But when those had fallen and its hour of prosperity
+returned, that prosperity was accompanied by all the advantages of the
+present day. Steam machinery had been invented and boats were easily
+able to overcome the obstacles of the Strait of Cadiz without being
+obliged to wait weeks until the violence of the current sent by the
+Atlantic should abate. Industrialism was born and inland factories sent
+forward, over the recently-installed railroads, a downpour of products
+that the fleets were transporting to all the Mediterranean towns.
+Finally, upon the opening of the Isthmus of Suez, the city unfolded in
+a prodigious way, becoming a world port, putting itself in touch with
+the entire earth, multiplying its harbors, which became gigantic marine
+sheepfolds where vessels of every flag were gathered together in herds.
+
+The old port, boxed in the city, changed its aspect according to the
+time and state of the atmosphere. On calm mornings it was a yellowish
+green and smelled slightly of stale water,--organic water, animal
+water. The oyster stands established on its wharfs appeared sprinkled
+with this water impregnated by shell fish.
+
+On the days of a strong wind the waters turned a terrible dark green,
+forming choppy and continuous waves with a light yellowish foam. The
+boats would begin to dance, creaking and tugging at their hawsers.
+Between their hulls and the vertical surface of the wharfs would be
+formed mountains of restless rubbish eaten underneath by the fish and
+pecked above by the sea-gulls.
+
+Ferragut saw the swift torpedo destroyers dancing at the slightest
+undulation upon their cables of twisted steel, and examined the
+improvised submarine-chasers, robust and short little steamers,
+constructed for fishing, that carried quickfirers on their prows. All
+these vessels were painted a metallic gray to make them
+indistinguishable from the color of the water, and were going in and
+out of the harbor like sentinels changing watch.
+
+They mounted guard out on the high sea beyond the rocky and desert
+islands that closed the bay of Marseilles, accosting the incoming ships
+in order to recognize their nationality or running at full speed, with
+their wisps of horizontal smoke toward the point where they expected to
+surprise the periscope of the enemy hidden between two waters. There
+was no weather bad enough to terrify them or make them drowsy. In the
+wildest storms they kept the coast in view, leaping from wave to wave,
+and only when others came to relieve them would they return to the old
+port to rest a few hours at the entrance of the Cannebière.
+
+The narrow passageways of the right bank attracted Ferragut. This was
+ancient Marseilles in which may still be seen some ruined palaces of
+the merchants and privateers of other centuries. On these narrow and
+filthy slopes lived the bedizened and dismal prostitutes of the entire
+maritime city.
+
+In this district were huddled together the warriors of the
+French-African colonies, impelled by their ardor of race and by their
+desire to free themselves gluttonously from the restrictions of their
+Mahommedan country where the women live in jealous seclusion. On every
+corner were groups of Moroccan infantry, recently disembarked or
+convalescing from wounds, young soldiers with red caps and long cloaks
+of mustard yellow. The Zouaves of Algiers conversed with them in a
+Spanish spattered with Arabian and French. Negro youths who worked as
+stokers in the vessels, came up the steep, narrow streets with eyes
+sparkling restlessly as though contemplating wholesale rapine. Under
+the doorways disappeared grave Moorish horsemen, trailing long garments
+fastened at the head in a ball of whiteness, or garbed in purplish
+mantles, with sharp pointed hoods that gave them the aspect of bearded,
+crimson-clad monks.
+
+The captain went through the upper end of these streets, stopping
+appreciatively to note the rude contrast which they made with their
+terminal vista. Almost all descended to the old harbor with a ditch of
+dirty water in the middle of the gutter that dribbled from stone to
+stone. They were dark as the tubes of a telescope, and at the end of
+these evil smelling ditches occupied by abandoned womanhood, there
+opened out a great space of light and blue color where could be seen
+little white sailboats, anchored at the foot of the hill, a sheet of
+sparkling water and the houses of the opposite wharf diminished
+by the distance. Through other gaps appeared the mountain of
+_Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ with its sharp pointed Basilica topped by its
+gleaming statue, like an immovable, twisted tongue of flame. Sometimes
+a torpedo destroyer entering the old harbor could be seen slipping by
+the mouth of one of these passageways as shadowy as though passing
+before the glass of a telescope.
+
+Feeling fatigued by the bad smells and vicious misery of the old
+district, the sailor returned to the center of the city, strolling
+among the trees and flower stands of the avenues....
+
+One evening while awaiting with others a street car in the Cannebiere,
+he turned his head with a presentiment that some one was looking at his
+back.
+
+Sure enough! He saw behind him on the edge of the sidewalk an
+elegantly-dressed, clean-shaven gentleman whose aspect was that of an
+Englishman careful of his personal appearance. The dapper man had
+stopped in surprise as though he might have just recognized Ferragut.
+
+The two exchanged glances without awakening the slightest echo in the
+captain's memory.... He could not recall this man. He was almost sure
+of never having seen him before. His shaven face, his eyes of a
+metallic gray, his elegant pomposity did not enlighten the Spaniard's
+memory. Perhaps the unknown had made a mistake.
+
+This must have been the case, judging by the rapidity with which he
+withdrew his glance from Ferragut and went hastily away.
+
+The captain attached no importance to this encounter. He had already
+forgotten it when, taking the car but a few minutes later, it recurred
+to him in a new light. The face of the Englishman presented itself to
+his imagination with the distinct relief of reality. He could see it
+more clearly than in the dying splendor of the Cannebière.... He passed
+with indifference over his features; in reality he had seen them for
+the first time. But the eyes!... He knew those eyes perfectly. They had
+often exchanged glances with him. Where?... When?...
+
+The memory of this man accompanied him as an obsession even to his ship
+without giving the slightest answer to his questioning. Then, finding
+himself on board with Toni and the third officer, he again forgot it.
+
+Upon going ashore on the following days, his memory invariably
+experienced the same phenomena. The captain would be going through the
+city without any thought of that individual, but on entering the
+Cannebière the same remembrance, followed by an inexplicable anxiety,
+would again surge up in his mind.
+
+"I wonder where my Englishman is now," he would think. "Where have I
+seen him before?... Because there is no doubt that we are acquainted
+with each other."
+
+From that time on, he would look curiously at all the passersby and
+sometimes would hasten his step in order to examine more closely some
+one whose back resembled the haunting unknown. One afternoon he felt
+sure that he recognized him in a hired carriage whose horse was going
+at a lively trot through one of the avenues, but when he tried to
+follow it the vehicle had disappeared into a nearby street.
+
+Some days passed by and the captain completely forgot the meeting.
+Other affairs more real and immediate were demanding his attention. His
+boat was ready; they were going to send it to England in order to load
+it with munitions destined for the army of the Orient.
+
+The morning of its departure he went ashore without any thought of
+going to the center of the city.
+
+In one of the wharf streets there was a barber shop frequented by
+Spanish captains. The picturesque chatter of the barber, born in
+Cartagena, the gay, brilliant chromos on the walls representing
+bullfights, the newspapers from Madrid, forgotten on the divans, and a
+guitar in one corner made this shop a little bit of Spain for the
+rovers of the Mediterranean.
+
+Before sailing, Ferragut wished to have his beard clipped by this
+verbose master. When, an hour later, he left the barber-shop, tearing
+himself away from the interminable farewells of the proprietor, he
+passed down a broad street, lonely and silent, between two rows of
+docks.
+
+The steel-barred gates were closed and locked. The warehouses, empty
+and resounding as the naves of a cathedral, still exhaled the strong
+odors of the wares which they had kept in times of peace,--vanilla,
+cinnamon, rolls of leather, nitrates and phosphates for chemical
+fertilizers.
+
+In all the long street he saw only one man, coming toward him with his
+back to the inner harbor. Between the two long walls of brick appeared
+in the background the wharf with its mountains of merchandise, its
+squadrons of black stevedores, wagons and carts. On beyond were the
+hulls of the ships sustaining their grove of masts and smokestacks and,
+at the extreme end, the yellow breakwater and the sky recently washed
+by the rain, with flocks of little clouds as white and placid as silky
+sheep.
+
+The man who was returning from the dock and walking along with his eyes
+fixed on Ferragut suddenly stopped and, turning upon his tracks,
+returned again to the quay.... This movement awakened the captain's
+curiosity, sharpening his senses. Suddenly he had a presentiment that
+this pedestrian was his Englishman, though dressed differently and with
+less elegance. He could only see his rapidly disappearing back, but his
+instinct in this moment was superior to his eyes.... He did not need to
+look further.... It was the Englishman.
+
+And without knowing why, he hastened his steps in order to catch up
+with him. Then he broke into a run, finding that he was alone in the
+street, and that the other one had disappeared around the corner.
+
+When Ferragut reached the harbor he could see him hastening away with
+an elastic step which amounted almost to flight. Before him was a ridge
+of bundles piled up in uneven rows. He was going to lose sight of him;
+a minute later it would be impossible to find him.
+
+The captain hesitated. "What motive have I for pursuing this unknown
+person?..." And just as he was formulating this question, the other one
+slowed down a little in order to turn his head and see if he were still
+being followed.
+
+Suddenly a rapid phenomenal transformation took place in Ferragut. He
+had not recognized this man's glance when he had almost run into him on
+the sidewalk of the Cannebiere, and now that there was between the two
+a distance of some fifty yards, now that the other was fleeing and
+showing only a fugitive profile, the captain identified him despite the
+fact that he could not distinguish him clearly at such a distance.
+
+With a sharp click a curtain of his memory seemed to be dashed aside,
+letting in torrents of light.... It was the counterfeit Russian count,
+he was sure of that,--shaven and disguised, who undoubtedly was
+"operating" in Marseilles, directing new services, months after having
+prepared the entrance of the submersibles into the Mediterranean.
+
+Surprise held Ferragut spellbound. With the same imaginative rapidity
+with which a drowning person giddily recalls all the scenes of his
+former life, the captain now beheld his infamous existence in Naples,
+his expedition in the schooner carrying supplies to the submarines and
+then the torpedo which had opened a breach in the _Californian_.... And
+this man, perhaps, was the one who had made his poor son fly through
+the air in countless pieces!...
+
+He also saw his uncle, the _Triton_, just as when a little chap he used
+to listen to him in the harbor of Valencia. He recalled his story of a
+certain night of Egyptian orgy in a low café in Alexandria where he had
+had to "sting" a man with his dagger in order to force his way.
+
+Instinct made him carry his hand to his belt. Nothing!... He cursed
+modern life and its uncertain securities, which permit men to go from
+one side of the world to the other confident, disarmed, without means
+of attack. In other ports he would have come ashore with a revolver in
+the pocket of his trousers.... But in Marseilles! He was not even
+carrying a penknife; he had only his fists.... At that moment he would
+have given his entire vessel, his life even, for an instrument that
+would enable him to kill ... kill with one blow!...
+
+The bloodthirsty vehemence of the Mediterranean was overwhelming him.
+To kill!... He did not know how he was going to do it, but he must
+kill.
+
+The first thing was to prevent the escape of his enemy. He was going to
+fall upon him with his fists, with his teeth, staging a prehistoric
+struggle,--the animal fight before mankind had invented the club.
+Perhaps that other man was hiding firearms and might kill him; but he,
+in his superb vengeance, could see only the death of the enemy,
+repelling all fear.
+
+In order that his victim might not get out of his sight, he ran toward
+him without any dissimulation whatever, as though he might have been in
+the desert, at full speed. The instinct of attack made him stoop, grasp
+a piece of wood lying on the ground,--a kind of rustic handspike,--and
+armed in this primitive fashion he continued his race.
+
+All this had lasted but a few seconds. The other one, perceiving the
+hostile pursuit, was also running frankly, disappearing among the hills
+of packages.
+
+The captain saw confusedly that some shadows were leaping around him,
+preventing his progress. His eyes that were seeing everything red
+finally managed to distinguish a few black faces and some white
+ones.... They were the soldiers and civilian stevedores, alarmed by the
+aspect of this man who was running like a lunatic.
+
+He uttered a curse upon finding himself stopped. With the instinct of
+the multitude, these people were only concerned with the aggressor,
+letting the one who was fleeing go free. Ferragut could not keep his
+wrath bottled up on that account. He had to reveal his secret.
+
+"He is a spy!... A _Boche_ spy!..."
+
+He said this in a dull, disjointed voice and never did his word of
+command obtain such a noisy echo.
+
+"A spy!..."
+
+The cry made men rise up as though vomited forth by the earth; from
+mouth to mouth it leaped, repeating itself incessantly, penetrating
+through the docks and the boats, vibrating even beyond the reach of the
+eye, permeating everywhere with the confusion and rapidity of sound
+waves. "A spy!..." Men came running with redoubled agility; the
+stevedores were abandoning their loads in order to join the pursuit;
+people were leaping from the steamers in order to unite in the human
+hunt.
+
+The author of the noisy alarm, he who had given the cry, saw himself
+outdistanced and ignored by the pursuing streams of people which he had
+just called forth. Ferragut, always running, remained behind the negro
+sharpshooters, the stevedores, the harbor guard, the seamen that were
+hastening from all sides crowding in the alleyways between the boxes
+and bundles.... They were like the greyhounds that follow the windings
+of the forest, making the stag come out in the open field, like the
+ferrets that slip along through the subterranean valleys, obliging the
+hare to return to the light of day. The fugitive, surrounded in a
+labyrinth of passageways, colliding with enemies at every turn, came
+running out through the opposite end and continued his race the whole
+length of the wharf. The chase lasted but a few instants after coming
+out on ground free of obstacles. "A spy!..." The voice, more rapid than
+the legs, out distanced him. The cries of the pursuers warned the
+people who were working afar off, without understanding the alarm.
+
+Suddenly the fugitive was within a concave semi-circle of men who were
+awaiting him firmly, and a convex semi-circle following his footsteps
+in irregular pursuit. The two multitudes, closing their extremes,
+united and the spy was a prisoner.
+
+Ferragut saw that he was intensely pale, panting, casting his eyes
+around him with the expression of an animal at bay, but still thinking
+of the possibility of defending himself.
+
+His right hand was feeling around one of his pockets. Perhaps he was
+going to draw out a revolver in order to die, defending himself. A
+negro nearby raised a beam of wood which he was grasping as a club. The
+spy's hand, displaying a bit of paper between the fingers, was hastily
+raised toward his mouth; but the negro's blow, suspended in the air,
+fell upon his arm, making it hang inert. The spy bit his lips in order
+to keep back a roar of pain.
+
+The paper had rolled upon the ground and several hands at once tried to
+pick it up. A petty officer smoothed it out before examining it. It was
+a piece of thin paper sketched with the outline of the Mediterranean.
+The entire sea was laid out in squares like a chess board and in the
+center of each of these squares there was a number. These squares were
+charted sections whose numbers made the submarines know, by wireless,
+where they were to lie in wait for the allied vessels and torpedo them.
+
+Another officer explained rapidly to the people crowding close, the
+importance of the discovery. "Indeed he was a spy!" This affirmation
+awakened the joy of capture and that impulsive desire for vengeance
+that at certain times crazes a crowd.
+
+The men from the boats were the most furious, for the very reason that
+they were constantly encountering the treacherous submarine traps. "Ah,
+the bandit!..." Many cudgelings fell upon him, making him stagger under
+their blows.
+
+When the prisoner was protected by the breasts of various sub-officers,
+Ferragut could see him close by, with one temple spotted with blood and
+a cold and haughty expression in his eye. Then he realized that the
+prisoner had dyed his hair.
+
+He had fled in order to save himself; he had shown himself humble and
+timorous upon being approached, believing that it would still be
+possible to lie out of it. But the paper that he had tried to hide in
+his mouth was now in the hands of the enemy.... It was useless to
+pretend longer!...
+
+And he drew himself up proudly like every army man who considers his
+death certain. The officer of the military caste reappeared, looking
+haughtily at his unknown pursuers, imploring protection only from the
+kepis with its band of gold.
+
+Upon discovering Ferragut, he surveyed him fixedly with a glacial and
+disdainful insolence. His lips also curled with an expression of
+contempt.
+
+They said nothing, but the captain surmised his soundless words. They
+were insults. It was the insult of the man of the superior hierarchy to
+his faithless servant; the pride of the noble official who accuses
+himself for having trusted in the loyalty of a simple merchant marine.
+
+"Traitor!... Traitor!" his insolent eyes and murmuring, voiceless lips
+seemed to be saying.
+
+Ulysses became furious before this haughtiness, but his wrath was cold
+and self-contained on seeing the enemy deprived of defense.
+
+He advanced toward the prisoner, like one of the many who were
+insulting him, shaking his fist at him. His glance sustained that of
+the German and he spoke to him in Spanish with a dull voice.
+
+"My son.... My only son was blown to a thousand atoms by the torpedoing
+of the _Californian_!"
+
+These words made the spy change expression. His lips separated,
+emitting a slight exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Ah!..."
+
+The arrogant light in his pupils faded away. Then he lowered his eyes
+and soon after hung his head. The vociferating crowd was shoving and
+carrying him along without taking into consideration the man who had
+given the alarm and begun the chase.
+
+That very afternoon the _Mare Nostrum_ sailed from Marseilles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+IN BARCELONA
+
+Four months later Captain Ferragut was in Barcelona.
+
+During the interval he had made three trips to Salonica, and on the
+second had to appear before a naval captain of the army of the Orient.
+The French officer was informed of his former expeditions for the
+victualing of the allied troops. He knew his name and looked upon him
+as does a judge interested in the accused. He had received from
+Marseilles a long telegram with reference to Ferragut. A spy submitted
+to military justice was accusing him of having carried supplies to the
+German submarines.
+
+"How about that, Captain?..."
+
+Ulysses hesitated, looking at the official's grave face, framed by a
+grey beard. This man inspired his confidence. He could respond
+negatively to such questions; it would be difficult for the German to
+prove his affirmation; but he preferred to tell the truth, with the
+simplicity of one who does not try to hide his faults, describing
+himself just as he had been,--blind with lust, dragged down by the
+amorous artifices of an adventuress.
+
+"The women!... Ah, the women!" murmured the French chief with the
+melancholy smile of a magistrate who does not lose sight of human
+weaknesses and has participated in them.
+
+Nevertheless Ferragut's transgression was of gravest importance. He had
+aided in staging the submarine attack in the Mediterranean.... But when
+the Spanish captain related how he had been one of the first victims,
+how his son had died in the torpedoing of the _Californian_, the judge
+appeared touched, looking at him less severely.
+
+Then Ferragut related his encounter with the spy in the harbor of
+Marseilles.
+
+"I have sworn," he said finally, "to devote my ship and my life to
+causing all the harm possible to the murderers of my son.... That man
+is denouncing me in order to avenge himself. I realize that my headlong
+blindness dragged me to a crime that I shall never forget. I am
+sufficiently punished in the death of my son.... But that does not
+matter; let them sentence me, too."
+
+The chief remained sunk in deep reflection, forehead in hand and elbow
+on the table. Ferragut recognized here military justice, expeditious,
+intuitive, passional, attentive to the sentiments that have scarcely
+any weight in other tribunals, judging by the action of conscience more
+than by the letter of the law, and capable of shooting a man with the
+same dispatch that he would employ in setting him at liberty.
+
+When the eyes of the judge again fixed themselves upon him, they had an
+indulgent light. He had been guilty, not on account of money nor
+treason, but crazed by a woman. Who has not something like this in his
+own history?... "Ah, the women!" repeated the Frenchman, as though
+lamenting the most terrible form of enslavement.... But the victim had
+already suffered enough in the loss of his son. Besides, they owed to
+him the discovery and arrest of an important spy.
+
+"Your hand, Captain," he concluded, holding out his own. "All that we
+have said will be just between ourselves. It is a sacred, confessional
+secret. I will arrange it with the Council of War.... You may continue
+lending your services to our cause."
+
+And Ferragut was not annoyed further about the affair of Marseilles.
+Perhaps they were watching him discreetly and keeping sight of him in
+order to convince themselves of his entire innocence; but this
+suspected vigilance never made itself felt nor occasioned him any
+trouble.
+
+On the third trip to Salonica the French captain saw him once at a
+distance, greeting him with a grave smile which showed that he no
+longer was thinking of him as a possible spy.
+
+Upon its return, the _Mare Nostrum_ anchored at Barcelona to take on
+cloth for the army service, and other industrial articles of which the
+troops of the Orient stood in need. Ferragut did not make this trip for
+mercantile reasons. An affectionate interest was drawing him there....
+He needed to see Cinta, feeling that in his soul the past was again
+coming to life.
+
+The image of his wife, vivacious and attractive, as in the early years
+of their marriage, kept rising before him. It was not a resurrection of
+the old love; that would have been impossible.... But his remorse made
+him see her, idealized by distance, with all her qualities of a sweet
+and modest woman.
+
+He wished to reëstablish the cordial relations of other times, to have
+all the past pardoned, so that she would no longer look at him with
+hatred, believing him responsible for the death of her son.
+
+In reality she was the only woman who had loved him sincerely, as she
+was able to love, without violence or passional exaggeration, and with
+the tranquillity of a comrade. The other women no longer existed. They
+were a troop of shadows that passed through his memory like specters of
+visible shape but without color. As for that last one, that Freya whom
+bad luck had put in his way--... How the captain hated her! How he
+wished to meet her and return a part of the harm she had done him!...
+
+Upon seeing his wife, Ulysses imagined that no time had passed by. He
+found her just as at parting, with her two nieces seated at her feet,
+making interminable, complicated blonde lace upon the cylindrical
+pillows supported on their knees.
+
+The only novelty of the captain's stay in this dwelling of monastic
+calm was that Don Pedro abstained from his visits. Cinta received her
+husband with a pallid smile. In that smile he suspected the work of
+time. She had continued thinking of her son every hour, but with a
+resignation that was drying her tears and permitting her to continue
+the deliberate mechanicalness of existence. Furthermore, she wished to
+remove the impression of the angry words, inspired by grief,--the
+remembrance of that scene of rebellion in which she had arisen like a
+wrathful accuser against the father. And Ferragut for some days
+believed that he was living just as in past years when he had not yet
+bought the _Mare Nostrum_ and was planning to remain always ashore.
+Cinta was attentive to his wishes and obedient as a Christian wife
+ought to be. Her words and acts revealed a desire to forget, to make
+herself agreeable.
+
+But something was lacking that had made the past so sweet. The
+cordiality of youth could not be resuscitated. The remembrance of the
+son was always intervening between the two, hardly ever leaving their
+thoughts. And so it would always be!
+
+Since that house could no longer be a real home to him, he again began
+to await impatiently the hour of sailing. His destiny was to live
+henceforth on the ship, to pass the rest of his days upon the waves
+like the accursed captain of the Dutch legend, until the pallid virgin
+wrapped in black veils--Death--should come to rescue him.
+
+While the steamer finished loading he strolled through the city
+visiting his cousins, the manufacturers, or remaining idly in the
+cafés. He looked with interest on the human current passing through the
+Ramblas in which were mingled the natives of the country and the
+picturesque and absurd medley brought in by the war.
+
+The first thing that Ferragut noticed was the visible diminution of
+German refugees.
+
+Months before he had met them everywhere, filling the hotels and
+monopolizing the cafés,--their green hats and open-neck shirts making
+them recognized immediately. The German women in showy and extravagant
+gowns, were everywhere kissing each other when meeting, and talking in
+shrieks. The German tongue, confounded with the Catalan and the
+Castilian, seemed to have become naturalized. On the roads and
+mountains could be seen rows of bare-throated boys with heads
+uncovered, staff in hand, and Alpine knapsack on the back, occupying
+their leisure with pleasure excursions that were at the same time,
+perhaps, a foresighted study.
+
+These Germans had all come from South America,--especially from Brazil,
+Argentina, and Chile. From Barcelona they had, at the beginning of the
+war, tried to return to their own country but were now interned, unable
+to continue their voyage for fear of the French and English cruisers
+patrolling the Mediterranean.
+
+At first no one had wished to take the trouble to settle down in this
+land, and they had all clustered together in sight of the sea with the
+hope of being the first to embark at the very moment that the road of
+navigation might open for them.
+
+The war was going to be very short.... Exceedingly short! The Kaiser
+and his irresistible army would require but six months to impose their
+rule upon all Europe. The Germans enriched by commerce were lodged in
+the hotels. The poor who had been working in the new world as farmers
+or shop clerks were quartered in a slaughter house on the outskirts.
+Some, who were musicians, had acquired old instruments and, forming
+strolling street bands, were imploring alms for their roarings from
+village to village.
+
+But the months were passing by, the war was being prolonged, and nobody
+could now discern the end. The number of those taking arms against the
+medieval imperialism of Berlin was constantly growing greater, and the
+German refugees, finally convinced that their wait was going to be a
+very long one, were scattering themselves through the interior of the
+state, hunting a more satisfying and less expensive existence. Those
+who had been living in luxurious hotels were establishing themselves in
+villas and chalets of the suburbs; the poor, tired of the rations of
+the slaughter-house, were exerting themselves to find jobs in the
+public works of the interior.
+
+Many were still remaining in Barcelona, meeting together in certain
+beer gardens to read the home periodicals and talk mysteriously of the
+works of war.
+
+Ferragut recognized them at once upon passing them in the Rambla. Some
+were dealers, traders established for a long time in the country,
+bragging of their Catalan connections with that lying facility of
+adaptability peculiar to their race. Others came from South America and
+were associated with those in Barcelona by the free-masonry of
+comradeship and patriotic interest. But they were all Germans, and that
+was enough to make the captain immediately recall his son, planning
+bloody vengeance. He sometimes wished to have in his arm all the blind
+forces of Nature in order to blot out his enemies with one blow. It
+annoyed him to see them established in his country, to have to pass
+them daily without protest and without aggression, respecting them
+because the laws demanded it.
+
+He used to like to stroll among the flower stands of the Rambla,
+between the two walls of recently-cut flowers that were still guarding
+in their corollas the dews of daybreak. Each iron table was a pyramid
+formed of all the hues of the rainbow and all the fragrance that the
+earth can bring forth.
+
+The fine weather was beginning. The trees of the Ramblas were covering
+themselves with leaves and in their shady branches were twittering
+thousands of birds with the deafening tenacity of the crickets.
+
+The captain found special enjoyment in surveying the ladies in lace
+mantillas who were selecting bouquets in the refreshing atmosphere. No
+situation, however anguished it might be, ever left him insensible to
+feminine attractions.
+
+One morning, passing slowly through the crowds, he noticed that a woman
+was following him. Several times she crossed his path, smiling at him,
+hunting a pretext for beginning conversation. Such insistence was not
+particularly gratifying to his pride; for she was a female of
+protruding bust and swaying hips, a cook with a basket on her arm, like
+many others who were passing through the Rambla in order to add a bunch
+of flowers to the daily purchase of eatables.
+
+Finding that the sailor was not moved by her smiles nor the glances
+from her sharp eyes, she planted herself before him, speaking to him in
+Catalan.
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but are you not a ship captain named Don Ulysses?..."
+
+This started the conversation. The cook, convinced that it was he,
+continued talking with a mysterious smile. A most beautiful lady was
+desirous of seeing him.... And she gave him the address of a towered
+villa situated at the foot of Tibidabo in a recently constructed
+district. He could make his visit at three in the afternoon.
+
+"Come, sir," she added with a look of sweet promise. "You will never
+regret the trip."
+
+All questions were useless. The woman would say no more. The only thing
+that could be gathered from her evasive answers was that the person
+sending her had left her upon seeing the captain.
+
+When the messenger had gone away he wished to follow her. But the fat
+old wife shook her head repeatedly. Her astuteness was quite accustomed
+to eluding pursuit, and without Ferragut's knowing exactly how, she
+slipped away, mingling with the groups near the Plaza of Catalunia.
+
+"I shall not go," was the first thing that Ferragut said on finding
+himself alone.
+
+He knew just what that invitation signified. He recalled an infinite
+number of former unconfessable friendships that he had had in
+Barcelona,--women that he had met in other times, between voyages,
+without any passion whatever, but through his vagabond curiosity,
+anxious for novelty. Perhaps some one of these had seen him in the
+Rambla, sending this intermediary in order to renew the old relations.
+The captain probably enjoyed the fame of a rich man now that everybody
+was commenting upon the amazingly good business transacted by the
+proprietors of ships.
+
+"I shall not go," he again told himself energetically. He considered it
+useless to bother about this interview, to encounter the mercenary
+smile of a familiar but forgotten acquaintance.
+
+But the insistence of the recollection and the very tenacity with which
+he kept repeating to himself his promise not to keep the tryst, made
+Ferragut begin to suspect that it might be just as well to go after
+all.
+
+After luncheon his will-power weakened. He didn't know what to do with
+himself during the afternoon. His only distraction was to visit his
+cousins in their counting-houses, or to meander through the Rambla. Why
+not go?... Perhaps he might be mistaken, and the interview might prove
+an interesting one. At all events, he would have the chance of retiring
+after a brief conversation about the past.... His curiosity was
+becoming excited by the mystery.
+
+And at three in the afternoon he took a street car that conducted him
+to the new districts springing up around the base of Tibidabo.
+
+The commercial bourgeoisie had covered these lands with an
+architectural efflorescence, legitimate daughter of their dreams.
+Shopkeepers and manufacturers had wished to have here a pleasure house,
+traditionally called a _torre_, in order to rest on Sundays and at the
+same time make a show of their wealth with these Gothic, Arabic, Greek,
+and Persian creations. The most patriotic were relying on the
+inspiration of native architects who had invented a Catalan art with
+pointed arches, battlements, and ducal coronets. These medieval
+coronets, which were repeated even on the peaks of the chimney pots,
+were the everlasting decorative motif of an industrial city little
+given to dreams and lusting for lucre.
+
+Ferragut advanced through the solitary street between two rows of
+freshly transplanted trees that were just sending forth their first
+growth. He looked at the façades of the _torres_ made of blocks of
+cement imitating the stone of the old fortresses, or with tiles which
+represented fantastic landscapes, absurd flowers, bluish, glazed
+nymphs.
+
+Upon getting out of the street car he made a resolution. He would look
+at the outside only of the house. Perhaps that would aid him in
+discovering the woman! Then he would just continue on his way.
+
+But on reaching the _torre_, whose number he still kept in mind, and
+pausing a few seconds before its architecture of a feudal castle whose
+interior was probably like that of the beer gardens, he saw the door
+opening, and appearing in it the same woman that had talked with him in
+the flower Rambla.
+
+"Come in, Captain."
+
+And the captain was not able to resist the suggestive smile of the
+cook.
+
+He found himself in a kind of hall similar to the façade with a Gothic
+fireplace of alabaster imitating oak, great jars of porcelain, pipes
+the size of walking-sticks, and old armor adorning the walls. Various
+wood-cuts reproducing modern pictures of Munich alternated with these
+decorations. Opposite the fireplace William II was displaying one of
+his innumerable uniforms, resplendent in gold and a gaudy frame.
+
+The house appeared uninhabited. Heavy soft curtains deadened every
+sound. The corpulent go-between had disappeared with the lightness of
+an immaterial being, as though swallowed up by the wall. While scowling
+at the portrait of the Kaiser, the sailor began to feel disquieted in
+this silence which appeared to him almost hostile.... And he was not
+carrying arms.
+
+The smiling woman again presented herself with the same slippery
+smoothness.
+
+"Come in, Don Ulysses."
+
+She had opened a door, and Ferragut on advancing felt that this door
+was locked behind him.
+
+The first thing that he could see was a window, broader than it was
+high, of colored glass. A Valkyrie was galloping across it, with lance
+in rest and floating locks, upon a black steed that was expelling fire
+through its nostrils. In the diffused light of the stained glass he
+could distinguish tapestries on the walls and a deep divan with
+flowered cushions.
+
+A woman arose from the soft depths of this couch, rushing towards
+Ferragut with outstretched arms. Her impulse was so violent that it
+made her collide with the captain. Before the feminine embrace could
+close around him he saw a panting mouth, with avid teeth, eyes tearful
+with emotion, a smile that was a mixture of love and painful
+disquietude.
+
+"You!... You!" he stuttered, springing back.
+
+His legs trembled with a shudder of surprise. A cold wave ran down his
+back.
+
+"Ulysses!" sighed the woman, trying again to fold him in her arms.
+
+"You!... _You_!" again repeated the sailor in a dull voice.
+
+It was Freya.
+
+He did not know positively what mysterious force dictated his action.
+It was perhaps the voice of his good counselor, accustomed to speak in
+his brain in critical instants, which now asserted itself.... He saw
+instantaneously a ship that was exploding and his son blown to pieces.
+
+"Ah ... _tal_"
+
+He raised his robust arm with his fist clenched like a mace. The voice
+of prudence kept on giving him orders. "Hard!... No consideration!...
+This female is shifty." And he struck as though his enemy were a man,
+without hesitation, without pity, concentrating all his soul in his
+fist.
+
+The hatred that he was feeling and the recollection of the aggressive
+resources of the German woman made him begin a second blow, fearing an
+attack from her and wishing to repel it before it could be made.... But
+he stopped with his arm raised.
+
+"_Ay de mí_!..."
+
+The woman had uttered a child-like wail, staggering, swaying upon her
+feet, with arms drooping, without any attempt at defense whatever....
+She reeled from side to side as though she were drunk. Her knees
+doubled under her, and she fell with the limpness of a bundle of
+clothes, her head first striking against the cushions of the divan. The
+rest of her body remained like a rag on the rug.
+
+There was a long silence, interrupted from time to time by groans of
+pain. Freya was moaning with closed eyes, without coming out of her
+inertia.
+
+The sailor, scowling with a tragic ugliness, and transported with rage,
+remained immovable, looking grimly at the fallen creature. He was
+satisfied with his brutality; it had been an opportune relief; he could
+breathe better. At the same time he was beginning to feel ashamed of
+himself. "What have you done, you coward?..." For the first time in his
+existence he had struck a woman.
+
+He raised his aching right hand to his eyes. One of his fingers was
+bleeding. Perhaps it had become hooked in her earrings, perhaps a pin
+at her breast had scratched it. He sucked the blood from the deep
+scratch, and then forgot the wound in order to gaze again at the body
+outstretched at his feet.
+
+Little by little he was becoming accustomed to the diffused light of
+the room. He was already beginning to see objects clearly. His glance
+rested upon Freya with a look of mingled hatred and remorse.
+
+Her head, sunk in the cushions, presented a pitiful profile. She
+appeared much older, as though her age had been doubled by her tears.
+The brutal blow had made her freshness and her marvelous youth flit
+away with doleful suddenness. Her half-opened eyes were encircled with
+temporary wrinkles. Her nose had taken on the livid sharpness of the
+dead; her great mass of hair, reddening under the blow, was disheveled
+in golden, undulating tangles. Something black was winding through it
+making streaks upon the silk of the cushion. It was the blood that was
+dribbling between the heraldic flowers of the embroidery,--blood
+flowing from the hidden forehead, being absorbed by the dryness of the
+soft material.
+
+Upon making this discovery, Ferragut felt his shame increasing. He took
+one step over the extended body, seeking the door. Why was he staying
+there?... All that he had to do was already done; all that he could say
+was already said.
+
+"Do not go, Ulysses," sighed a plaintive voice. "Listen to me!... It
+concerns your life."
+
+The fear that he might get away made her pull herself together with
+dolorous groans and this movement accelerated the flow of blood.... The
+pillow continued drinking it in like a thirsty meadow.
+
+An irresistible compassion like that which he might feel for any
+stranger abandoned in the midst of the street, made the sailor draw
+back, his eyes fixed on a tall crystal vase which stood upon the floor
+filled with flowers. With a bang he scattered over the carpet all the
+springtime bouquet, arranged a little while before by feminine hands
+with the feverishness of one who counts the minutes and lives on hope.
+
+He moistened his handkerchief in the water of the vase and knelt down
+beside Freya, raising her head upon the cushion. She let the wound be
+washed with the abandon of a sick creature, fixing upon her aggressor a
+pair of imploring eyes, opening now for the first time.
+
+When the blood ceased to flow, forming on the temple a red, coagulated
+spot, Ferragut tried to raise her up.
+
+"No; leave me so," she murmured. "I prefer to be at your feet. I am
+your bondslave ... your plaything. Beat me more if it will appease your
+wrath."
+
+She wished to insist upon her humility, offering her lips with the
+timid kiss of a grateful slave.
+
+"Ah, no!... No!"
+
+To avoid this caress Ulysses stood up suddenly. He again felt intense
+hatred toward this woman, who little by little was appealing to his
+senses. Upon stopping the flow of blood his compassion had become
+extinguished.
+
+She, guessing his thoughts, felt obliged to speak.
+
+"Do with me what you will.... I shall not complain. You are the first
+man who has ever struck me.... And I have not defended myself! I shall
+not defend myself though you strike me again.... Had it been any one
+else, I would have replied blow for blow; but you!... I have done you
+so much wrong!..."
+
+She was silent for a few moments, kneeling before him in a supplicating
+attitude with her body resting upon her heels. She reached out her arms
+while speaking with a monotonous and sorrowful voice, like the specters
+in the apparitions of the theater.
+
+"I have hesitated a long time before seeing you," she continued. "I
+feared your wrath; I was sure that in the first moment you would let
+yourself be overpowered by your anger and I was terrified at the
+thought of the interview.... I have spied upon you ever since I knew
+that you were in Barcelona; I have waited near your home; many times I
+have seen you through the doorway of a café, and I have taken my pen to
+write to you. But I feared that you would not come, upon recognizing my
+handwriting, or that you would pay no attention to a letter in another
+hand.... This morning in the Rambla I could no longer contain myself.
+And so I sent that woman to you and I have passed some cruel hours
+fearing that you would not come.... At last I see you and your violence
+makes no difference to me. Thank you, thank you many times for having
+come!"
+
+Ferragut remained motionless with distracted glance, as though he did
+not hear her voice.
+
+"It was necessary to see you," she continued. "It concerns your very
+existence. You have set yourself in opposition to a tremendous power
+that can crush you. Your ruin is decided upon. You are one lone man and
+you have awakened the suspicion, without knowing it, of a world-wide
+organization.... The blow has not yet fallen upon you, but it is going
+to fall at any moment, perhaps this very day; I cannot find out all
+about it.... For this reason it was necessary to see you in order that
+you should put yourself on the defensive, in order that you should
+flee, if necessary."
+
+The captain, smiling scornfully, shrugged his shoulders as he always
+did when people spoke to him of danger, and counseled prudence.
+Besides, he couldn't believe a single thing that woman said.
+
+"It's a lie!" he said dully. "It's all a lie!...
+
+"No, Ulysses: listen to me. You do not know the interest that you
+inspire in me. You are the only man that I have ever loved... Do not
+smile at me in that way: your incredulity terrifies me.... Remorse is
+now united to my poor love. I have done you so much wrong!... I hate
+all men. I long to cause them all the harm that I can; but there exists
+one exception: you!... All my desires of happiness are for you. My
+dreams of the future always have you as the central personage.... Do
+you want me to remain indifferent upon seeing you in danger?... No, I
+am not lying.... Everything that I tell you this afternoon is the
+truth: I shall never be able to lie to you. It distresses me so that my
+artifices and my falsity should have brought trouble upon you....
+Strike me again, treat me as the worst of women, but believe what I
+tell you; follow my counsel."
+
+The sailor persisted disdainfully in his indifferent attitude. His
+hands were trembling impatiently. He was going away. He did not wish to
+hear any more.... Had she hunted him out just to frighten him with
+imaginary dangers?...
+
+"What have you done, Ulysses?... What have you done?" Freya kept saying
+desperately.
+
+She knew all that had occurred in the port of Marseilles, and she also
+knew well the infinite number of agents that were working for the
+greater glory of Germany. Von Kramer, from his prison, had made known
+the name of his informant. She lamented the captain's vehement
+frankness.
+
+"I understand your hatred; you cannot forget the torpedoing of the
+_Californian_.... But you should have denounced von Kramer without
+letting him suspect from whom the accusation came.... You have acted
+like a madman; yours is an impulsive character that does not fear the
+morrow."
+
+Ulysses made a scornful gesture. He did not like subterfuges and
+treachery. His way of doing was the better one. The only thing that he
+lamented was that that assassin of the sea might still be living, not
+having been able to kill him with his own hands.
+
+"Perhaps he may not be living still," she continued. "The French
+Council of War has condemned him to death. We do not know whether the
+sentence has been carried out; but they are going to shoot him any
+moment, and every one in our circle knows that you are the true author
+of his misfortune."
+
+She became terrified upon thinking of the accumulated hatred brought
+about by this deed, and upon the approaching vengeance. In Berlin the
+name of Ferragut was the object of special attention; in every nation
+of the earth, the civilian battalions of men and women engaged in
+working for Germany's triumph were repeating his name at this moment.
+The commanders of the submarines were passing along information
+regarding his ship and his person. He had dared to attack the greatest
+empire in the world. He, one lone man, a simple merchant captain,
+depriving the kaiser of one of his most valiant, valuable servants!
+
+"What have you done, Ulysses?... What have you done?" she wailed again.
+
+And Ferragut began to recognize in her voice a genuine interest in his
+person, a terrible fear of the dangers which she believed were
+threatening him.
+
+"Here, in your very own country, their vengeance will overtake you.
+Flee! I don't know where you can go to get rid of them, but believe
+me.... Flee!"
+
+The sailor came out of his scornful indifference. Anger was lending a
+hostile gleam to his glance. He was furious to think that those
+foreigners could pursue him in his own country; it was as though they
+were attacking him beside his own hearth. National pride augmented his
+wrath.
+
+"Let them come," he said. "I'd like to see them this very day."
+
+And he looked around, clenching his fists as though these innumerable
+and unknown enemies were about to come out from the walls.
+
+"They are also beginning to consider me as an enemy," continued the
+woman. "They do not say so, because it is a common thing with us to
+hide our thoughts; but I suspect the coldness that is surrounding
+me.... The doctor knows that I love you the same as before, in spite of
+the wrath that she feels against you. The others are talking of your
+'treason' and I protest because I cannot stand such a lie.... Why are
+you a traitor?... You are not one of our clan. You are a father who
+longs to avenge himself. We are the real traitors:--I, who entangled
+you in the fatal adventure,--they, who pushed me toward you, in order
+to take advantage of your services."
+
+Their life in Naples surged up in her memory and she felt it necessary
+to explain her acts.
+
+"You have not been able to understand me. You are ignorant of the
+truth.... When I met you on the road to Paestum, you were a souvenir of
+my past, a fragment of my youth, of the time in which I knew the doctor
+only vaguely, and was not yet compromised in the service of
+'information.'... From the very beginning your love and enthusiasm made
+an impression upon me. You represented an interesting diversion with
+your Spanish gallantry, waiting for me outside the hotel in order to
+besiege me with your promises and vows. I was greatly bored during the
+enforced waiting at Naples. You also found yourself obliged to wait,
+and sought in me an agreeable recreation.... One day I came to
+understand that you truly were interesting me greatly, as no other man
+had ever interested me.... I suspected that I was going to fall in love
+with you."
+
+"It's a lie!... It's a lie," murmured Ferragut spitefully.
+
+"Say what you will, but that was the way of it. We love according to
+the place and the moment. If we had met on some other occasion, we
+might have seen each other for a few hours, no more, each following his
+own road without further consideration. We belong to different
+worlds.... But we were mobilized in the same country, oppressed by the
+tedium of waiting, and what had to be ... was. I am telling you the
+entire truth: if you could know what it has cost me to avoid you!...
+
+"In the mornings, on arising in the room in my hotel, my first motion
+was to look through the curtains in order to convince myself that you
+were waiting for me in the street. 'There is my devoted: there is my
+sweetheart!' Perhaps you had slept badly thinking about me, while I was
+feeling my soul reborn within me, the soul of a girl of twenty,
+enthusiastic and artless.... My first impulse was to come down and join
+you, going with you along the gulf shores like two lovers out of a
+novel. Then reflection would come to my rescue. My past would come
+tumbling into my mind like an old bell fallen from its tower. I had
+forgotten that past, and its recurrence deafened me with its
+overwhelming jangle vibrating with memories. 'Poor man!... Into what a
+world of compromises and entanglements I am going to involve him!...
+No! No!' And I fled from you with the cunning of a mischievous
+schoolgirl, coming out from the hotel when you had gone off for a few
+moments, at other times doubling a corner at the very instant that you
+turned your eyes away.... I only permitted myself to approach coldly
+and ironically when it was impossible to avoid meeting you.... And
+afterwards, in the doctor's house, I used to talk about you, every
+instant, laughing with her over these romantic gallantries."
+
+Ferragut was listening gloomily, but with growing concentration. He
+foresaw the explanation of many hitherto incomprehensible acts. A
+curtain was going to be withdrawn from the past showing everything
+behind it in a new light.
+
+"The doctor would laugh, but in spite of my jesting she would assure me
+just the same: 'You are in love with this man; this Don José interests
+you. Be careful, Carmen!' And the queer thing was that she did not take
+amiss my infatuation, especially when you consider that she was the
+enemy of every passion that could not be made directly subservient to
+our work.... She told the truth; I was in love. I recognized it the
+morning the overwhelming desire to go to the Aquarium took possession
+of me. I had passed many days without seeing you: I was living outside
+of the hotel in the doctor's house in order not to encounter my
+inamorato. And that morning I got up very sad, with one fixed thought:
+'Poor captain!... Let us give him a little happiness.' I was sick that
+day.... Sick because of you! Now I understood it all. We saw each other
+in the Aquarium and it was I who kissed you at the same time that I was
+longing for the extermination of all men.... Of all men except you!"
+
+She made a brief pause, raising her eyes toward him, in order to take
+in the effect of her words.
+
+"You remember our luncheon in the restaurant of Vomero; you remember
+how I begged you to go away, leaving me to my fate. I had a foreboding
+of the future. I foresaw that it was going to be fatal for you. How
+could I join a direct and frank life like yours to my existence as an
+adventuress, mixed up in so many unconfessable compromises?... But I
+was in love with you. I wished to save you by leaving you, and at the
+same time I was afraid of not seeing you again. The night that you
+irritated me with the fury of your desires and I stupidly defended
+myself, as though it were an outrage, concentrating on your person the
+hatred which all men inspire in me,--that night, alone in my bed, I
+wept. I wept at the thought that I had lost you forever and at the same
+time I felt satisfied with myself because thus I was freeing you from
+my baleful influence.... Then von Kramer came. We were in need of a
+boat and a man. The doctor spoke, proud of her penetration which had
+made her suspect in you an available asset. They gave me orders to go
+in search of you, to regain the mastery over your self-control. My
+first impulse was to refuse, thinking of your future. But the sacrifice
+was sweet; selfishness directs our actions ... and I sought you! You
+know the rest."
+
+She became silent, remaining in a pensive attitude, as though relishing
+this period of her recollection, the most pleasing of her existence.
+
+"Upon going over to the steamer for you," she continued a few moments
+afterward, "I understood just what you represented in my life. What
+need I had of you!... The doctor was preoccupied with the Italian
+events. I was only counting the days, finding that they were passing by
+with more slowness than the others. One ... two ... three ... 'My
+adored sailor, my amorous shark, is going to come.... He is going to
+come!' And what came suddenly, while we were still believing it far
+away, was the blow of the war, rudely separating us. The doctor was
+cursing the Italians, thinking of Germany; I was cursing them, thinking
+of you, finding myself obliged to follow my friend, preparing for
+flight in two hours, through fear of the mob.... My only satisfaction
+was in learning that we were coming to Spain. The doctor was promising
+herself to do great things here.... I was thinking that in no place
+would it be easier for me to find you again."
+
+She had gained a little more bodily strength. Her hands were touching
+Ferragut's knees, longing to embrace them, yet not daring to do so,
+fearing that he might repel her and overcome that tragic inertia which
+permitted him to listen to her.
+
+"When in Bilboa I learned of the torpedoing of the _Californian_ and of
+the death of your son.... I shall not talk about that; I wept, I wept
+bitterly, hiding myself from the doctor. From that time on I hated her.
+She rejoiced in the event, passing indifferently over your name. You no
+longer existed for her, because she was no longer able to make use of
+you.... I wept for you, for your son whom I did not know, and also for
+myself, remembering my blame in the matter. Since that day I have been
+another woman.... Then we came to Barcelona and I have passed months
+and months awaiting this moment."
+
+Her former passion was reflected in her eyes. A flicker of humble love
+lit up her bruised countenance.
+
+"We established ourselves in this house which belongs to a German
+electrician, a friend of the doctor's. Whenever she went away on a trip
+leaving me free, my steps would invariably turn to the harbor. I was
+waiting to see your ship. My eyes followed the seamen sympathetically,
+thinking that I could see in all of them something of your person....
+'Some day he will come,' I would say to myself. You know how selfish
+love is! I gradually forgot the death of your son.... Besides, I am not
+the one who is really guilty: there are others. I have been deceived
+just as you have been. 'He is going to come, and we shall be happy
+again!'... _Ay_! If this room could speak ... if this divan on which I
+have dreamed so many times could talk!... I was always arranging some
+flowers in a vase, making believe that you were going to come. I was
+always fixing myself up a little bit, imagining it was for you.... I
+was living in your country, and it was natural that you should come.
+Suddenly the paradise that I was imagining vanished into smoke. We
+received the news, I don't know how, of the imprisonment of von Kramer,
+and that you had been his accuser. The doctor anathematized me, making
+me responsible for everything. Through me she had known you, and that
+was enough to make her include me in her indignation. All our band
+began to plan for your death, longing to have it accompanied with the
+most atrocious tortures...."
+
+Ferragut interrupted her. His brow was furrowed as though dominated by
+a tenacious idea.... Perhaps he was not listening to her.
+
+"Where is the doctor?"...
+
+The tone of the question was disquieting. He clenched his fists,
+looking around him as though awaiting the appearance of the imposing
+dame. His attitude was just like that which had accompanied his attack
+on Freya.
+
+"I don't know where she's traveling," said his companion. "She is
+probably in Madrid, in San Sebastian, or in Cadiz. She goes off very
+frequently. She has friends everywhere.... And I have ventured to ask
+you here simply because I am alone."
+
+And she described the life that she was leading in this retreat. For
+the time being her former protector was letting her remain in inaction,
+abstaining from giving her any work whatever. She was doing everything
+herself, avoiding all intermediaries. What had happened to von Kramer
+had made her so jealous and suspicious that when she needed aids, she
+admitted only her compatriots living in Barcelona.
+
+A ferocious and determined band, made up of refugees from the South
+American republics, parasites from the coast cities or vagabonds from
+the inland forests, had grouped itself around her. At their head, as
+message-bearer for the doctor, was Karl, the secretary that Ferragut
+had seen in the great old house of the district of Chiaja.
+
+This man, in spite of his oily aspect, had several bloody crimes in his
+life history. He was a worthy superintendent of the group of
+adventurers inflamed by patriotic enthusiasm who were forwarding
+supplies to the submarines in the Spanish Mediterranean. They all knew
+Captain Ferragut, because of the affair at Marseilles, and they were
+talking about his person with gloomy reticence.
+
+"Through them I learned of your arrival," she continued. "They are
+spying upon you, waiting for a favorable moment. Who knows if they have
+not already followed you here?... Ulysses, flee; your life is seriously
+threatened."
+
+The captain again shrugged his shoulders with an expression of disgust.
+
+"Flee, I repeat it!... And if you can, if I arouse in you a little
+compassion, if you are not completely indifferent to me ... take me
+with you!..."
+
+Ferragut began to wonder if all this preamble was merely a prelude to
+this final request. The unexpected demand produced an impression of
+scandalized amazement. Was he to flee with her, with the one who had
+done him so much harm?... Again unite his life to hers, knowing her as
+he now knew her!...
+
+The proposition was so absurd that the captain smiled sardonically.
+
+"I am just as much in danger as you are," continued Freya with a
+despairing accent. "I do not know exactly what the danger is that
+threatens me, nor whence it may come. But I suspect it, I foresee it
+hanging over my head.... I am of absolutely no use to them now; I no
+longer have their confidence, and I know too many things. Since I
+possess too many secrets for them to give me up, leaving me in peace,
+they have agreed to suppress me; I am sure of that. I can read it in
+the eyes of the one who was my friend and protector.... You cannot
+abandon me, Ulysses. You will not desire my death."
+
+Ferragut waxed indignant before these supplications, finally breaking
+his disdainful silence.
+
+"Comedienne!... All a lie!... Inventions to entangle yourself with me,
+making me intervene again in the network of your life, compromising me
+again in your work of detestable surveillance!..."
+
+He was now taking the right path. His desire for vengeance had placed
+him among Germany's adversaries. He was lamenting his former blindness
+and was satisfied with his new interests. He was making no secret of
+his conduct. He was serving the Allies.
+
+"And that is the reason you are hunting me up; that is the reason that
+you have arranged this interview, probably at the instigation of your
+friend, the doctor. You wish to employ me for a second time as the
+secret instrument of your espionage. 'Captain Ferragut is such an
+enamored simpleton,' you have said to one another. 'We have nothing to
+do but to make an appeal to his chivalry....' And you wish to live with
+me, perhaps to accompany me on my voyages, to follow my existence in
+order to reveal my secrets to your compatriots that I may again appear
+as a traitor. Ah, you hussy!..."
+
+This supposed treason again aroused his homicidal wrath. He raised his
+arm and foot, and was about to strike and crush the kneeling woman. But
+her passive humiliation, her complete lack of resistance, stopped him.
+
+"No, Ulysses ... listen to me!"
+
+She tried her utmost to prove her sincerity. She was afraid of her own
+people; she could see them now in a new light, and they filled her with
+horror. Her manner of looking at things had changed radically. Her
+remorse, on thinking of what she had done, was making her a martyr. Her
+conscience was beginning to feel the wholesome transformation of
+repentant women who were formerly great sinners. How could she wash her
+soul of her past crimes?... She had not even the consolation of that
+patriotic faith, bloody and ferocious though it was, which inflamed the
+doctor and her assistants.
+
+She had been reflecting a great deal. For her there were no longer
+Germans, English, nor French; there only existed men; men with mothers,
+with wives, with daughters. And her woman's soul was horrified at the
+thought of the combats and the killings. She hated war. She had
+experienced her first remorse upon learning of the death of Ferragut's
+son.
+
+"Take me with you," she urged. "If you do not take me out of my world I
+shall not know how to get away from it.... I am poor. In these last
+years, the doctor has supported me; I do not know any way of earning my
+living and I am accustomed to living well. Poverty inspires me with
+greater fear than death. You will be able to maintain me; I will accept
+of you whatever you wish to give me; I will be your handmaiden. On a
+boat they must need the care and well-ordered supervision of a
+woman.... Life locks its doors against me; I am alone."
+
+The captain smiled with cruel irony.
+
+"I divine what your smile means. I know what you wish to say to me....
+I can see myself; you believe without doubt that such has been my
+former life. No,... _no_! You are mistaken. I have not been _that_.
+There has to be a special predisposition, a certain talent for feigning
+what I do not feel.... I have tried to sell myself, and I cannot, I
+cannot avail myself of that. I embitter the life of men when they do
+not interest me; I am their adversary. I hate them and they flee from
+me."
+
+But the sailor prolonged his atrociously sinister smile.
+
+"It's a lie," he said again, "all a lie. Make no further effort.... You
+will not convince me."
+
+As though suddenly reanimated with new force, she rose to her
+feet:--her face on a level with Ferragut's eyes. He saw her left temple
+with the torn skin; the spot caused by the blow extended around one
+eye, reddened and swollen. On contemplating his barbarous handiwork,
+remorse again tormented him.
+
+"Listen, Ulysses; you do not know my true existence. I have always lied
+to you; I have eluded all your investigations in our happy days. I
+wished to keep my former life a secret ... to forget it. Now I must
+tell you the truth, the actual truth, just as though I were going to
+die. When you know it, you will be less cruel."
+
+But her listener did not wish to hear it. He protested in advance with
+a ferocious incredulity.
+
+"Lies!... new lies! I wonder when you will ever stop your inventions!"
+
+"I am not a German woman," she continued without listening to him.
+"Neither is my name Freya Talberg.... It is my _nombre de guerre_, my
+name as an adventuress. Talberg was the professor who accompanied me to
+the Andes, and who was not my husband, either.... My true name is
+Beatrice.... My mother was an Italian, a Florentine; my father was from
+Trieste."
+
+This revelation did not interest Ferragut.
+
+"One fraud more!" he said. "Another novel!... Keep on making them up."
+
+The woman was in despair. She raised her hands above her head, twisting
+the interlaced fingers. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.
+
+"_Ay!_ How can I succeed in making you believe me?... What oath can I
+take to convince you that I am telling you the truth?..."
+
+The captain's impassive air gave her to understand that all such
+extremes would be unavailing. There was no oath that could possibly
+convince him. Even though she should tell the truth, he would not
+believe her.
+
+She went on with her story, not wishing to protest against this
+impassable wall.
+
+"My father also was of Italian origin but was Austrian because of the
+place of his birth.... Furthermore, the Germanic empires always
+inspired him with a blind enthusiasm. He was among those who detest
+their native land, and see all the virtues in the northern people.
+
+"Inventor of marvelous business schemes, financial promoter of colossal
+enterprises, he had passed his existence besieging the directors of the
+great banking establishments and having interviews in the lobbies of
+the government departments. Eternally on the eve of surprising
+combinations that were bound to bring him dozens of millions, he had
+always lived in luxurious poverty, going from hotel to hotel--always
+the best--with his wife and his only daughter.
+
+"You know nothing about such a life, Ulysses; you come from a tranquil
+and well-to-do family. Your people have never known existence in the
+Palace Hotels, nor have you known difficulties in meeting the monthly
+account, managing to have it included with those of the former months
+with an unlimited credit."
+
+As a child she had seen her mother weeping in their extravagant hotel
+apartment while the father was talking with the aspect of an inspired
+person, announcing that the next week he was going to clear a million
+dollars. The wife, convinced by the eloquence of her remarkable
+husband, would finally dry her tears, powder her face, and adorn
+herself with her pearls and her blonde laces of problematic value. Then
+she would descend to the magnificent hall, filled with perfumes, with
+the hum of conversation and the discreet wailings of the violins, in
+order to take tea with her friends in the hotel,--formidable
+millionaires from the two hemispheres who vaguely suspected the
+existence of an infirmity known as poverty, but incapable of imagining
+that it might attack persons of their own world.
+
+Meanwhile the little girl used to play in the hotel garden of the
+Palace Hotel with other children dressed up and adorned like luxurious
+and fragile dolls, each one worth many millions.
+
+"From my childhood," continued Freya, "I had been a companion of women
+who are now celebrated for their riches in New York, Paris, and in
+London. I have been on familiar terms with great heiresses that are
+to-day, through their marriages, duchesses and even princesses of the
+blood royal. Many of them have since passed by me, without recognizing
+me, and I have said nothing, knowing that the equality of childhood is
+no more than a vague recollection...."
+
+Thus she had grown into womanhood. A few of her father's casual
+bargains had permitted them to continue this existence of brilliant and
+expensive poverty. The promoter had considered such environment
+indispensable for his future negotiations. Life in the most expensive
+hotels, an automobile by the month, gowns designed by the greatest
+modistes for his wife and daughter, summers at the most fashionable
+resorts, winter-skating in Switzerland,--all these luxuries were for
+him but a kind of uniform of respectability that kept him in the world
+of the powerful, permitting him to enter everywhere.
+
+"This existence molded me forever, and has influenced the rest of my
+life. Dishonor, death, anything is to me preferable to poverty.... I,
+who have no fear of danger, become a coward at the mere thought of
+that!"
+
+The mother died, credulous and sensuous, worn out with expecting a
+solid fortune that never arrived. The daughter continued with her
+father, becoming the type of young woman who lives among men from hotel
+to hotel, always somewhat masculine in her attitude;--a half-way virgin
+who knows everything, is not frightened at anything, guards ferociously
+the integrity of her sex, calculating just what it may be worth, and
+adoring wealth as the most powerful divinity on earth.
+
+Finding herself upon her father's death with no other fortune than her
+gowns and a few artistic gems of scant value, she had coldly decided
+upon her destiny.
+
+"In our world there is no other virtue than that of money. The girls of
+the people surrender themselves less easily than a young woman
+accustomed to luxury having as her only fortune some knowledge of the
+piano, of dancing, and a few languages.... We yield our body as though
+fulfilling a material function, without shame and without regret. It is
+a simple matter of business. The only thing that matters is to preserve
+the former life with all its conveniences ... not to come down."
+
+She passed hastily over her recollection of this period of her
+existence. An old acquaintance of her father, an old trader of Vienna,
+had been the first. Then she felt romantic flutterings which even the
+coldest and most positive women do not escape. She believed that she
+had fallen in love with a Dutch officer, a blonde Apollo who used to
+skate with her in Saint Moritz. This had been her only husband. Finally
+she had become bored with the colonial drowsiness of Batavia and had
+returned to Europe, breaking off her marriage in order to renew her
+life in the great hotels, passing the winter season at the most
+luxurious resorts.
+
+"_Ay_, money!... In no social plane was its power so evident as that in
+which she was accustomed to dwell. In the Palace Hotels she had met
+women of soldierly aspect and common hands, smoking at all hours, with
+their feet up and the white triangle of their petticoats stretched over
+the seat. They were like the prostitutes waiting at the doors of their
+huts. How were they ever permitted to live there!... Nevertheless, the
+men bowed before them like slaves, or followed as suppliants these
+creatures who talked with unction of the millions inherited from their
+fathers, of their formidable wealth of industrial origin which had
+enabled them to buy noble husbands and then give themselves up to their
+natural tastes as fast, coarse women.
+
+"I never had any luck.... I am too haughty for that kind of thing. Men
+find me ill-humored, argumentative, and nervous. Perhaps I was born to
+be the mother of a family.... Who knows but what I might have been
+otherwise if I had lived in your country?"
+
+Her announcement of her religious veneration for money took on an
+accent of hate. Poor and well-educated girls, if afraid of the misery
+of poverty, had no other recourse than prostitution. They lacked a
+dowry,--that indispensable requisite in many civilized families for
+honorable marriage and home-making.
+
+Accursed poverty!... It had weighed upon her life like a fatality. The
+men who had appeared good at first afterwards became poisoned, turning
+into egoists and wretches. Doctor Talberg, on returning from America,
+had abandoned her in order to marry a young and rich woman, the
+daughter of a trader, a senator from Hamburg. Others had equally
+exploited her youth, taking their share of her gayety and beauty only
+to marry, later, women who had merely the attractiveness of a great
+fortune.
+
+She had finally come to hate them all, desiring their extermination,
+exasperated at the very thought that she needed them to live and could
+never free herself from this slavery. Trying to be independent, she had
+taken up the stage.
+
+"I have danced. I have sung; but my successes were always because I was
+a woman. Men followed after me, desiring the female, and ridiculing the
+actress. Besides--the life behind the scenes!... A white-slave market
+with a name on the play-bills.... What exploitation!..."
+
+The desire of freeing herself from all this had led her to make friends
+with the doctor, accepting her propositions. It seemed to her more
+honorable to serve a great nation, to be a secret functionary, laboring
+in the shadow for its grandeur. Besides, at the beginning she was
+fascinated by the novelty of the work, the adventures on risky
+missions, the proud consideration that with her espionage she was
+weaving the web of the future, preparing the history of time to come.
+
+Here also she had, from the very first, stumbled upon sexual slavery.
+Her beauty was an instrument for sounding the depths of consciences, a
+key for opening secrets; and this servitude had turned out worse than
+the former ones, on account of its being irremediable,--she had tried
+to divorce herself from her life of tantalizing tourist and theatrical
+woman; but whoever enters into the secret service can nevermore go from
+it. She learns too many things; slowly she gains a comprehension of
+important mysteries. The agent becomes a slave of her functions; she is
+confined within them as a prisoner, and with every new act adds a new
+stone to the wall that is separating her from liberty.
+
+"You know the rest of my life," she continued. "The obligation of
+obeying the doctor, of seducing men in order to snatch their secrets
+from them, made me hate them with a deadly aggressiveness.... But you
+came. You, who are so good and generous! You who sought me with the
+enthusiastic simplicity of a growing boy, making me turn back a page in
+my life, as though I were still only in my teens and being courted for
+the first time!... Besides, you are not a selfish person. You gave with
+noble enthusiasm. I believe that if we had known each other in our
+early youth you would never have deserted me in order to make yourself
+rich by marrying some one else. I resisted you at first, because I
+loved you and did not wish to do you harm.... Afterwards, the mandates
+of my superiors and my passion made me forget these scruples.... I gave
+myself up. I was the 'fatal woman,' as always; I brought you
+misfortune.... Ulysses! My love!... Let us forget; there is no use in
+remembering the past. I know your heart so well, and finding myself in
+danger, I appeal to it. Save me! Take me with you!..."
+
+As she was standing opposite him, she had only to raise her hands in
+order to put them on his shoulders, starting the beginning of an
+embrace.
+
+Ferragut remained insensible to the caress. His immobility repelled
+these pleadings. Freya had traveled much through the world, had gone
+through shameful adventures, and would know how to free herself by her
+own efforts without the necessity of complicating him again in her net.
+The story that she had just told was nothing to him but a web of
+misrepresentations.
+
+"It is all false," he said in a heavy voice. "I do not believe you. I
+never shall believe you.... Each time that we meet you tell me a new
+tale.... Who are you?... When do you tell the truth,--all the truth at
+once?... You fraud!"
+
+Insensible to his insults, she continued speaking anxiously of her
+future, as though perceiving the mysterious dangers which were
+surrounding her.
+
+"Where shall I go if you abandon me?... If I remain in Spain, I
+continue under the doctor's domination. I cannot return to the empires
+where my life has been passed; all the roads are closed and in those
+lands my slavery would be reborn.... Neither can I go to France or to
+England; I am afraid of my past. Any one of my former achievements
+would be enough to make them shoot me: I deserve nothing less. Besides,
+the vengeance of my own people fills me with terror. I know the methods
+of the 'service,' when they find it necessary to rid themselves of an
+inconvenient agent who is in the enemy's territory. The 'service'
+itself denounces him, voluntarily making a stupid move in order that
+some documents may go astray, sending a compromising card with a false
+address in order that it may fall into the hands of the authorities of
+the country. What shall I do if you do not aid me?... Where can I
+flee?..."
+
+Ulysses decided to reply, moved to pity by her desperation. The world
+was large. She could go and live in the republics of America.
+
+She did not accept the advice. She had had the same thought, but the
+uncertain future made her afraid.
+
+"I am poor: I have scarcely enough to pay my traveling expenses.... The
+'service' recompenses well at the start. Afterwards when it has us
+surely in its clutches because of our past, it gives us only what is
+necessary in order to live with a certain freedom. What can I ever do
+in those lands?... Must I pass the rest of my existence selling myself
+for bread?... I will not do it. I would rather die first!"
+
+This desperate affirmation of her poverty made Ferragut smile
+sarcastically. He looked at the necklace of pearls everlastingly
+reposing on the admirable cushion of her bosom, the great emeralds in
+her ears, the diamonds that were sparkling coldly on her hands. She
+guessed his thoughts and the idea of selling these jewels gave her even
+greater apprehension than the terrors that the future involved.
+
+"You do not know what all this represents to me," she added. "It is my
+uniform, my coat-of-arms, the safe-conduct that enables me to sustain
+myself in the world of my youth. The women who pass alone through this
+world need jewels in order to free their pathway of obstructions. The
+managers of a hotel become human and smile before their brilliancy. She
+who possesses them does not arouse suspicion however late she may be in
+paying the weekly account.... The employees at the frontier become
+exceedingly gallant: there is no passport more powerful. The haughty
+ladies become more cordial before their sparkle, at the tea hour in the
+halls where one knows nobody.... What I have suffered in order to
+acquire them!... I would be reduced to hunger before I would sell them.
+With them, I am somebody. A person may not have a coin in her pocket
+and yet, with these glittering vouchers, may enter where the richest
+assemble, living as one of them."
+
+She would take no advice. She was like a hungry warrior in an enemy's
+country asked to surrender arms in exchange for gold. Once the
+necessity was satisfied, he would become a prisoner,--would be vilified
+and on a par with the miserable creatures who a few hours before were
+receiving his blows. She would meet courageously all dangers and
+sufferings rather than lay aside her helmet and shield, the symbols of
+her superior caste. The gown more than a year old, shabby, patched
+shoes, negligee with badly mended rents, did not distress her in the
+most trying moments. The important thing was to possess a stylish hat
+and to preserve a fur coat, a necklace of pearls, emeralds,
+diamonds,--all the honorable and glorious coat-of-mail in which she
+wished to die.
+
+Her glance appeared to pity the ignorance of the sailor in venturing to
+propose such absurdities to her.
+
+"It is impossible, Ulysses.... Take me with you! On the sea is where I
+shall be safest. I am not afraid of the submarines. People imagine them
+as numerous and close together as the flagstones of a pavement, but
+only one vessel in a thousand is the victim of their attacks....
+Besides, with you I fear nothing; if it is our destiny to perish on the
+sea, we shall die together."
+
+She became insinuating and enticing, passing her hands over his
+shoulders, pulling down his neck with a passion that was equal to an
+embrace. While speaking, her mouth came near to that of the sailor, the
+lips arched, beginning the rounding of a caressing kiss.
+
+"Would you live so badly with Freya?... Do you no longer remember our
+past?... Am I now another being?"
+
+Ulysses was remembering only too well that past, and began to recognize
+that this memory was becoming too vivid. She, who was following with
+astute eyes the seductive memories whirling through his brain, guessed
+what they were by the contraction of his face. And smiling
+triumphantly, she placed her mouth against his. She was sure of her
+power.... And she reproduced the kiss of the Aquarium, that kiss which
+had so thrilled the sailor, making his whole body tremble.
+
+But when she gave herself up with more abandon to this dominating
+ascendancy, she felt herself repelled, shot back by a brutal
+hand-thrust similar to the blow that had hurled her upon the cushions
+at the beginning of the interview.
+
+Some one had interposed between the two, in spite of their close
+embrace.
+
+The captain, who was beginning to lose consciousness of his acts, like
+a castaway, descending and descending through the enchanting domains of
+limitless pleasure, suddenly beheld the face of the dead Esteban with
+his glassy eyes fixed upon him. Further on he saw another image, sad
+and shadowy,--Cinta, who was weeping as though her tears were the only
+ones that should fall upon the mutilated body of their son.
+
+"Ah, no!... _No!_"
+
+He himself was surprised at his voice. It was the roar of a wounded
+beast, the dry howling of a desperate creature, writhing in torment.
+
+Freya, staggering under the rude push, again tried to draw near to him,
+enlacing him again in her arms, in order to repeat her imperious kiss.
+
+"My love!... My love!..."
+
+She could not go on. That tremendous hand again repelled her, but so
+violently that her head struck against the cushions of the divan.
+
+The door trembled with a rude shove that made its two leaves open at
+the same time, dragging out the bolt of the lock.
+
+The woman, tenacious in her desires, rose up quickly without noticing
+the pain of her fall. Nimbleness only could serve her now that Ferragut
+was escaping after mechanically picking up his hat.
+
+"Ulysses!... Ulysses!..."
+
+Ulysses was already in the street,--and in the little hallway various
+objects of bric-a-brac that had obtruded themselves and confused the
+fugitive in his blind flight were still trembling and then falling and
+breaking on the floor with a crash.
+
+Feeling on his forehead the sensation of the free air, the dangers to
+which Freya had referred now surged up in his mind. He surveyed the
+street with a hostile glance.... Nobody! He longed to meet the enemy of
+whom that woman had been speaking, to find vent for that wrath which he
+was feeling even against himself. He was ashamed and furious at his
+passing weakness which had almost made him renew their former
+existence.
+
+In the days following, he repeatedly recalled the band of refugees
+under the doctor's control. When meeting German-looking people on the
+street, he would glare at them menacingly. Was he perhaps one of those
+charged with killing him?... Then he would pass on, regretting his
+irritation, sure that they were tradesmen from South America,
+apothecaries or bank employees undecided whether to return to their
+home on the other side of the ocean, or to await in Barcelona the
+always-near triumph of their Emperor.
+
+Finally the captain began to ridicule Freya's recommendations.
+
+"Just her lies!... Inventions in order to engage my interest again and
+make me take her with me! Ah, the old fraud!"
+
+One morning, as he was stepping out on the deck of his steamer, Toni
+approached him with a mysterious air, his face assuming an ashy pallor.
+
+When they reached the saloon at the stern, the mate spoke in a low
+voice, looking around him.
+
+The night before he had gone ashore in order to visit the theater. All
+of Toni's literary tastes and his emotions were concentrated in
+vaudeville. Men of talent had never invented anything better. From it
+he used to bring back the humming songs with which he beguiled his long
+watches on the bridge. Besides, it had a feminine chorus brilliantly
+clad and bare-legged, a prima donna rich in flesh and poor in clothes,
+a row of rosy and voluptuous ninepins that delighted the seamen's
+imagination without making him forget the obligations of fidelity.
+
+At one o'clock in the morning, when returning to the boat along the
+solitary entrance pier, some one had tried to assassinate him. Hearing
+footsteps, he fancied that he had seen forms hiding behind a mountain
+of merchandise. Then there had sounded three reports, three revolver
+shots. A ball had whistled by one of his ears.
+
+"And as I was not carrying any arms, I ran. Fortunately, I was near the
+ship, almost to the prow. I had only to take a few leaps to put myself
+aboard the vessel.... And they did not shoot any more."
+
+Ferragut remained silent. He, too, had grown pale, but with surprise
+and anger. Then they were true, those reports of Freya's!... He could
+not pretend incredulity, nor show himself bold and indifferent to
+danger while Toni continued talking.
+
+"Take care, Ulysses!... I have been thinking a great deal about this
+thing. Those shots were not meant for me. What enemies have I? Who
+would want to harm a poor mate who never sees anybody?... Look out for
+yourself! You know perhaps where they came from; you have dealings with
+many people."
+
+The captain suspected that he was recalling the adventure of Naples and
+that disgraceful proposition guarded as a secret, relating it to this
+nocturnal attack. But neither his voice nor his eyes justified such
+suspicions. And Ferragut preferred not to seem to suspect what he was
+thinking about.
+
+"Does any one else know what occurred?..."
+
+Toni shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody...." He had leaped on the steamer,
+pacifying the dog on board, that was howling furiously. The man on
+guard had heard the shots, imagining that it was some sailors' fight.
+
+"You have not reported this to the authorities?"
+
+The mate became indignant on hearing this question, with the
+independence of the Mediterranean who never remembers authority in
+moments of danger and whose only defense is his manual dexterity.--"You
+take me, perhaps, for a police-informer?..."
+
+He had wanted to do the manly thing, but henceforth he would always go
+armed while he happened to be in Barcelona. _Ay_, with this he might
+shoot if he were not wounded!... And winking an eye, he showed his
+captain what he called his "instrument."
+
+The mate disliked firearms, crazy and noisy toys of doubtful result.
+With an ancestral affection which appeared to evoke the flashing
+battle-axes used by his ancestors, he loved the blow in silence, the
+gleaming weapon which was a prolongation of the hand.
+
+With gentle stealthiness he drew from his belt an English knife,
+acquired at the time that he was skipper of a small boat,--a shining
+blade which reproduced the faces of those looking at it, with the sharp
+point of a stiletto and the edge of a _razor_.
+
+Perhaps he would not be long in making use of his "instrument." He
+recalled various individuals who a few days ago were strolling slowly
+along the wharf examining the vessel, and spying upon those going on
+and off. If he could manage to see them again he would go off the
+steamer just to say a couple of words to them.
+
+"You are to do nothing at all," ordered Ferragut. "I'll take charge of
+this little matter."
+
+All day long he was troubled over this news. Strolling about Barcelona,
+he looked with challenging eyes at all passersby who appeared to be
+Germans. To the aggressiveness of his character was now added the
+indignation of a proprietor who finds himself assaulted within his
+home. Those three shots were for him; and he was a Spaniard: and the
+_boches_ were daring to attack him on his own ground! What audacity!...
+
+Several times he put his hand in the back part of his trousers,
+touching a long, metallic bulk. He was only awaiting the nightfall to
+carry out a certain idea that had clamped itself between his two
+eyebrows like a painful nail. Whilst he was not carrying it forward he
+could not be tranquil.
+
+The voice of his good counselor protested: "Don't do anything idiotic,
+Ferragut; don't hunt the enemy, don't provoke him. Simply defend
+yourself, nothing more."
+
+But that reckless courage which in times gone by had made him embark on
+vessels destined to shipwreck, and had pushed him toward danger for the
+mere pleasure of conquering it, was now crying louder than prudence.
+
+"In my own country!" he kept saying continually. "To try to assassinate
+me when I am on my own land!... I'll just show them that I am a
+Spaniard...."
+
+He knew well that waterfront saloon mentioned by Freya. Two men in his
+crew had given him some fresh information. The customers of the bar
+were poor Germans accustomed to endless drinking. Some one was paying
+for them, and on certain days even permitted them to invite the
+skippers of the fishing boats and tramp vessels. A gramophone was
+continually playing there, grinding out shrill songs to which the
+guests responded in roaring chorus. When war news favorable to the
+German Empire was received, the songs and drinking would redouble until
+midnight and the shrill music-box would never stop for an instant. On
+the walls were portraits of William II and various chromos of his
+generals. The proprietor of the bar, a fat-legged German with square
+head, stiff hair and drooping mustache, used to answer to the nickname
+of _Hindenburg_.
+
+The sailor grinned at the mere thought of putting that _Hindenburg_
+underneath his own counter.... He'd just like to see this establishment
+where his name had been uttered so many times!
+
+At nightfall, his feet took him toward the bar with an irresistible
+impulse which disdained all counsels of prudence.
+
+The glass door resisted his nervous hands, perhaps because he handled
+the latch with too much force. And the captain finally opened it by
+giving a kick to its lower part, made of wood.
+
+The panes almost flew out from the shock of this brutal blow. A
+magnificent entrance!... He saw much smoke, perforated by the red stars
+of three electric bulbs which had just been lit, and men around the
+various tables, facing him or with their backs turned. The gramophone
+was shrilling in a nasal tone like an old woman without teeth. Back of
+the counter appeared _Hindenburg_, his throat open, sleeves rolled up
+over arms as fat as legs.
+
+"I am Captain Ulysses Ferragut."
+
+The voice that said this had a power similar to that of the magic words
+of Oriental tales which held the life of an entire city in suspense,
+leaving persons and objects immovable in the very attitude in which the
+powerful conjurer surprised them.
+
+There was the silence of astonishment. Those were beginning to turn
+their heads, attracted by the noise of the door, did not go on with the
+movement. Those in front remained with their eyes fixed on the one who
+was entering, eyes widened with surprise as if they could not believe
+what they saw. The gramophone was suddenly hushed. _Hindenburg_, who
+was washing out a glass, remained with motionless hands, without even
+taking the napkin from its crystal cavity.
+
+Ferragut seated himself near an empty table with his back against the
+wall. A waiter, the only one in the establishment, hastened to find out
+what the gentleman wished. He was an Andalusian, small and sprightly,
+whose escapades had brought him to Barcelona. He usually served his
+customers with indifference, without taking any interest in their words
+and their hymns. He "didn't mix himself up in politics." Accustomed to
+the ways of gay and hot-blooded people, he suspected that this man had
+come to pick a quarrel, and hoped to soften him with his smiling and
+obsequious manner.
+
+The sailor spoke to him aloud. He knew that in that low cafe his name
+was frequently used and that there were many there who desired to see
+him. He could give them the message that Captain Ferragut was there at
+their disposition.
+
+"I shall do so," said the Andalusian.
+
+And he went away to the counter, bringing him, in a little while, a
+bottle and a glass.
+
+In vain Ulysses fixed his glance on those who were occupying the nearby
+tables. Some, turning their backs upon him, were absolutely rigid;
+others had their eyes cast down and were talking quietly with
+mysterious whispering.
+
+Finally two or three exchanged glances with the captain. In their
+pupils was the snap of budding wrath. The first surprise having
+vanished, they seemed disposed to rise up and fall upon the recent
+arrival. But some one behind him appeared to be controlling them with
+murmured orders, and they finally obeyed him, lowering their eyes in
+submissive restraint.
+
+Ulysses soon tired of this silence. He was beginning to find his
+attitude of animal-tamer rather ridiculous. He did not know whom to
+assail in a place where they avoided his glance and all contact with
+him. On the nearest table there was an illustrated newspaper, and he
+took possession of it, turning its leaves. It was printed in German,
+but he pretended to read it with great interest.
+
+He had seated himself at the side, leaving free the hip on which his
+revolver was resting. His hand, feigning distraction, passed near the
+opening of his pocket, ready to take up arms in case of attack. In a
+little while he regretted this excessively swaggering posture. They
+were going to fall upon him, taking advantage of his reading. But pride
+made him remain motionless, that they might not suspect his uneasiness.
+
+Then he laughed in an insolent way as though he were reading in the
+German illustration something that was provoking his jibes. As though
+this were not enough, he raised his eyes with aggressive curiosity in
+order to study the portraits adorning the wall.
+
+Then he realized the great transformation which had just taken place in
+the bar. Almost all the customers had filed silently out during his
+reading. There remained only four blear-eyed drunkards who were
+guzzling with satisfaction, occupied with the contents of their
+glasses. _Hindenburg_, turning his mighty back upon his clientele, was
+reading an evening newspaper on the counter. The Andalusian, seated in
+the background, was looking at the captain, smiling. "There's an old
+sport for you!..." He was mentally chuckling over the fact that one of
+his countrymen had put to flight the brawling and brutal drinkers who
+gave him so much trouble on other evenings.
+
+Ulysses consulted his watch: half-past seven. Already he had driven
+away all those people that Freya was so afraid of. What was left to do
+here?... He paid and went out.
+
+Night had fallen. Under the light of the electric lamp posts street
+cars and automobiles were passing toward the interior of the city.
+Following the arcades of the old edifices near the harbor, groups of
+workers from the maritime establishments were filing by. Barcelona,
+dazzling with splendor, was attracting the crowds. The inner harbor,
+black and solitary, was filled with weak little lights twinkling from
+the heights of the masts.
+
+Ferragut stood undecided whether to go home to eat, or to a restaurant
+in the Rambla. Then he suspected that some of the fugitives from that
+dirty cafe were near, intending to follow him. In vain he glanced
+searchingly around: he could not recognize anybody in the groups that
+were reading the papers or conversing while waiting for the street car.
+
+Suddenly he felt a desire to see Toni. Uncle Caragol would improvise
+something to eat while the captain was telling his mate all about his
+adventure at the bar. Besides, it seemed to him a fitting finale to his
+escapade to offer to any enemies that might be following him a
+favorable occasion for attacking him on the deserted wharf. The demon
+of false pride was whispering in his ears: "Thus they will see that you
+are not afraid of them."
+
+And he marched resolutely toward the harbor, passing over railroad
+tracks outlining the walls of long storehouses and winding in and out
+among mountains of merchandise. At first he met little groups going
+toward the city, then pairs, then single individuals, finally
+nobody--absolute solitude.
+
+Further on, the darkness was cut by silhouettes of ebony that sometimes
+were boats and at others, alleyways of packages or hills of coal. The
+black water reflected the red and green serpents from the lights on the
+boats. A transatlantic liner was prolonging its loading operations by
+the light of its electric reflectors, standing forth out of the
+darkness with the gayety of a Venetian fiesta.
+
+From time to time a man of slow step would come within the circle of
+the street lamp, the muzzle of his gun gleaming. Others were lying in
+ambush among the mountains of cargo. They were custom-house men and
+guardians of the port.
+
+Suddenly the captain felt an instinctive warning. They were following
+him.... He stopped in the shadows, close to a pile of crates and saw
+some men advancing in his direction, passing rapidly over the edge of
+the red spot made by the electric bulbs, so as not to be under the rain
+of light.
+
+Although it was impossible for him to recognize them, he was positive,
+nevertheless, that they were the enemy seen at the bar.
+
+His ship was far away, near the end of the dock most deserted at that
+hour. "You've done an idiotic thing," he said mentally.
+
+He began to repent of his rashness, but it was now far too late to turn
+back. The city was further away than the steamer, and his enemies would
+fall upon him just as soon as they saw him going back. How many were
+there?... That was the only thing that troubled him.
+
+"Go on!... _Go on_!" cried his pride.
+
+He had drawn out his revolver and was carrying it in his right hand
+with the barrel to the front. In this solitude he could not count upon
+the conventions of civilized life. Night was swallowing him up with all
+the ambushed traps of a virgin forest while before his eyes was
+sparkling a great city, crowned with electric diamonds, throwing a halo
+of flame into the blackness of space.
+
+Three times the Carabineers passed near him, but he did not wish to
+speak to them. "Forward! Only women had to ask assistance...." Besides,
+perhaps he was under an hallucination: he really could not swear that
+they were in pursuit of him.
+
+After a few steps, this doubt vanished. His senses, sharpened by
+danger, had the same perception as has the wild boar who scents the
+pack of hounds trying to cross his tracks. At his right, was the water.
+At his left, men were prowling behind the mountains of freight, wishing
+to cut him off; behind were coming still others to prevent his retreat.
+
+He might run, advancing toward those who were trying to hem him in. But
+ought a man to run with a revolver in his hand?... Those who were
+coming behind would join in the pursuit. A human hunt was going to take
+place in the night, and he, Ferragut, would be the deer pursued by the
+low crowds from the bar. "Ah, no!..." The captain recalled von Kramer
+galloping miserably in full daylight along the wharves of
+Marseilles.... If they must kill him, let it not be in flight.
+
+He continued his advance with a rapid step, seeing through his enemies'
+plans. They did not wish to show themselves in that part of the harbor
+obstructed by mountains of cases, fearing that he might hide himself
+there. They would await him near his ship in a safe, hidden spot by
+which he would undoubtedly have to pass.
+
+"Forward!" he kept repeating to himself. "If I have to die, let it be
+within sight of the _Mare Nostrum!_" The steamer was near. He could
+recognize now its black silhouette fast to the wharf. At that moment
+the dog on board began to bark furiously, announcing the captain's
+presence and danger at the same time.
+
+He abandoned the shelter of a hillock of coal, advancing over an open
+space. He concentrated all his will power upon gaining his vessel as
+quickly as possible.
+
+A swift flame flashed out, followed by a report. They were already
+shooting at him. Other little lights began to twinkle from different
+sides of the dock, followed by reports of a gun. It was a sharp
+cross-fire; behind him, they were firing, too. He felt various
+whistlings near his ears, and received a blow on the shoulder,--a
+sensation like that from a hot stone.
+
+They were going to kill him. His enemies were too many for him. And,
+without knowing exactly what he was doing, yielding to instinct, he
+threw himself on the ground like a dying person.
+
+Some few shots were still sounding. Then all was silent. Only on the
+nearby ship the dog was continuing its howling.
+
+He saw a shadow advancing slowly toward him. It was a man, one of his
+enemies, coming out from the group in order to examine him at close
+range. He let him come close up to him, with his right hand grasping
+his revolver still intact.
+
+Suddenly he raised his arm, striking the head that was bending over
+him. Two lightning streaks flashed from his hand, separated by a brief
+interval. The first flitting blaze of fire made him see a familiar
+face.... Was it really Karl, the doctor's factotum?... The second
+explosion aided his memory. Yes, it was Karl, with his features
+disfigured by a black gash in the temple.... The German pulled himself
+up with an agonizing shudder, then fell on his back, with his arms
+relaxed.
+
+This vision was instantaneous. The captain must think only of himself
+now, and springing up with a bound, he ran and ran, bending himself
+double, in order to offer the enemy the least possible mark.
+
+He dreaded a general discharge, a hail of bullets; but his pursuers
+hesitated a few moments, confused in the darkness and not knowing
+surely whether it was the captain who had fallen a second time.
+
+Only upon seeing a man running toward the ship did they recognize their
+error, and renew their shots. Ferragut passed between the balls along
+the edge of the wharf, the whole length of the _Mare Nostrum_. His
+salvation was now but a matter of seconds provided that the crew had
+not drawn in the gangplank between the steamer and the shore.
+
+Suddenly he found himself on the gangplank, at the same time seeing a
+man advancing toward him with something gleaming in one hand. It was
+the mate who had just come out with his knife drawn.
+
+The captain feared that he might make a mistake.
+
+"Toni, it is I," he said in a voice almost breathless because of the
+effort of his running.
+
+Upon treading the deck of his vessel, he instantly recovered his
+tranquillity.
+
+Already the shots had ceased and the silence was ominous. In the
+distance could be heard whistlings, cries of alarm, the noise of
+running. The Carabineers and guards were called and grouped together in
+order to charge in the dark, marching toward the spot where the
+shooting had sounded.
+
+"Haul in the gangplank!" ordered Ferragut.
+
+The mate aided three of the hands who had just come up to retire the
+gangplank hastily. Then he threatened the dog, to make it cease
+howling.
+
+Ferragut, near the railing, scanned carefully the darkness of the quay.
+It seemed to him that he could see some men carrying another in their
+arms. A remnant of his wrath made him raise his right hand, still
+armed, aiming at the group. Then he lowered it again.... He remembered
+that officers would be coming to investigate the occurrence. It was
+better that they should find the boat absolutely silent.
+
+Still panting, he entered the saloon under the poop and sat down.
+
+As soon as he was within the circle of pale light that a hanging lamp
+spread upon the table Toni fixed his glance on his left shoulder.
+
+"Blood!..."
+
+"It's nothing.... Merely a scratch. The proof of it is that I can move
+my arm."
+
+And he moved it, although with a certain difficulty, feeling the weight
+of an increasing swelling.
+
+"By-and-by I'll tell you how it happened.... I don't believe they'll be
+anxious to repeat it."
+
+Then he remained thoughtful for an instant.
+
+"At any rate, it's best for us to get away from this port quickly....
+Go and see our men. Not one of them is to speak about it!... Call
+Caragol."
+
+Before Toni could go out, the shining countenance of the cook surged up
+out of the obscurity. He was on his way to the saloon, without being
+called, anxious to know what had occurred, and fearing to find Ferragut
+dying. Seeing the blood, his consternation expressed itself with
+maternal vehemence.
+
+"_Cristo del Grao!_... My captain's going to die!..."
+
+He wanted to run to the galley in search of cotton and bandages. He was
+something of a quack doctor and always kept things necessary for such
+cases.
+
+Ulysses stopped him. He would accept his services, but he wished
+something more.
+
+"I want to eat, Uncle Caragol," he said gayly. "I shall be content with
+whatever you have.... Fright has given me an appetite."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"FAREWELL, I AM GOING TO DIE"
+
+When Ferragut left Barcelona the wound in his shoulder was already
+nearly healed. The rotund negative given by the captain and his pilot
+to the questions of the Carabineers freed them from further annoyance.
+They "knew nothing,--had seen nothing." The captain received with
+feigned indifference the news that the dead body of a man had been
+found that very night,--a man who appeared to be a German, but without
+papers, without anything that assured his identification,--on a dock
+some distance from the berth occupied by the _Mare Nostrum_. The
+authorities had not considered it worth while to investigate further,
+classifying it as a simple struggle among refugees.
+
+Provisioning the troops of the Orient obliged Ferragut, in the months
+following, to sail as part of a convoy. A cipher dispatch would
+sometimes summon him to Marseilles, at others to an Atlantic
+port,--Saint-Nazaire, Quiberon, or Brest.
+
+Every few days ships of different class and nationality were arriving.
+There were those that displayed their aristocratic origin by the fine
+line of the prow, the slenderness of the smokestacks and the still
+white color of their upper decks: they were like the high-priced steeds
+that war had transformed into simple beasts of battle. Former
+mail-packets, swift racers of the waves, had descended to the humble
+service of transport boats. Others, black and dirty, with the pitchy
+plaster of hasty reparation and a consumptive smokestack on an enormous
+hull, plowed along, coughing smoke, spitting ashes, panting with the
+jangle of old iron. The flags of the Allies and those of the neutral
+navies waved on the different ships. Reuniting, they formed a convoy in
+the broad bay. There were fifteen or twenty steamers, sometimes thirty,
+which had to navigate together, adjusting their different speeds to a
+common pace. The cargo boats, merchant steamers that made only a few
+knots an hour, exacted a desperate slowness of the rest of the convoy.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ had to sail at half speed, making its captain very
+impatient with these monotonous and dangerous peregrinations, extending
+over weeks and weeks.
+
+Before setting out, Ferragut, like all the other captains, would
+receive sealed and stamped orders. These were from the Commodore of the
+convoy,--the commander of a torpedo destroyer, or a simple officer of
+the Naval Reserve in charge of a motor trawler armed with a quickfiring
+gun.
+
+The steamers would begin belching smoke and hoisting anchors without
+knowing whither they were going. The official document was opened only
+at the moment of departure. Ulysses would break the seals and examine
+the paper, understanding with facility its formal language, written in
+a common cipher. The first thing that he would look out for was the
+port of destination, then, the order of formation. They were to sail in
+single file or in a double row, according to the number of vessels. The
+_Mare Nostrum_, represented by a certain number, was to navigate
+between two other numbers which were those of the nearest steamers.
+They were to keep between them a distance of about five hundred yards;
+it was important that they should not come any nearer in a moment of
+carelessness, nor prolong the line so that they would be out of sight
+of the watchful guardians.
+
+At the end, the general instructions for all the voyages were repeated
+with a laconic brevity that would have made other men, not accustomed
+to look death in the face, turn pale. In case of a submarine attack,
+the transports that carried guns were to come out from the line and aid
+the patrol of armed vessels, attacking the enemy. The others were to
+continue their course tranquilly, without paying any attention to the
+attack. If the boat in front of them or the one following was
+torpedoed, they were not to stop to give it aid. The torpedo boats and
+"chaluteros" were charged with saving the wrecked ship if it were
+possible. The duty of the transport was always to go forward, blind and
+deaf, without getting out of line, without stopping, until it had
+delivered at the terminal port the fortune stowed in its holds.
+
+This march in convoy imposed by the submarine war represented a leap
+backward in the life of the sea. It recalled to Ferragut's mind the
+sailing fleets of other centuries, escorted by navies in line,
+punctuating their course by incessant battles, and the remote voyages
+of the galleons of the Indies, setting forth from Seville in fleets
+when bound for the coast of the New World.
+
+The double file of black hulks with plumes of smoke advanced very
+placidly in fair weather. When the day was gray, the sea choppy, the
+sky and the atmosphere foggy, they would scatter and leap about like a
+troop of dark and frightened lambs. The guardians of the convoy, three
+little boats that were going at full speed, were the vigilant mastiffs
+of this marine herd, preceding it in order to explore the horizon,
+remaining behind it, or marching beside it in order to keep the
+formation intact. Their lightness and their swiftness enabled them to
+make prodigious bounds over the waves. A girdle of smoke curled itself
+around their double smokestacks. Their prows when not hidden were
+expelling cascades of foam, sometimes even showing the dripping
+forefoot of the keel.
+
+At night time they would all travel with few lights, simple lanterns at
+the prow, as warning to the one just ahead, and another one at the
+stern, to point out the route to the ship following. These faint lights
+could scarcely be seen. Oftentimes the helmsman would suddenly have to
+turn his course and demand slackened speed behind, seeing the
+silhouette of the boat ahead looming up in the darkness. A few moments
+of carelessness and it would come in on the prow with a deadly ram.
+Upon slowing down, the captain always looked behind uneasily, fearing
+in turn to collide with his following ship.
+
+They were all thinking about the invisible submarines. From time to
+time would sound the report of the guns; the convoy's escort was
+shooting and shooting, going from one side to the other with agile
+evolutions. The enemy had fled like wolves before the barking of
+watch-dogs. On other occasions it would prove a false alarm, and the
+shells would wound the desert water with a lashing of steel.
+
+There was an enemy more troublesome than the tempest, more terrible
+than the torpedoes, that disorganized the convoys. It was the fog,
+thick and pale as the white of an egg, enshrouding the vessels, making
+them navigate blindly in full daylight, filling space with the useless
+moaning of their sirens, not letting them see the water which sustained
+them nor the nearby boats that might emerge at any moment from the
+blank atmosphere, announcing their apparition with a collision and a
+tremendous, deadly crash. In this way the merchant fleets had to
+proceed entire days together and when, at the end, they found
+themselves free from this wet blanket, breathing with satisfaction as
+though awaking from a nightmare, another ashy and nebulous wall would
+come advancing over the waters enveloping them anew in its night. The
+most valorous and calm men would swear upon seeing the endless bar of
+mist closing off the horizon.
+
+Such voyages were not at all to Ferragut's taste. Marching in line like
+a soldier, and having to conform to the speed of these miserable little
+boats irritated him greatly, and it made him still more wrathful to
+find himself obliged to obey the Commodore of a convoy who frequently
+was nobody but an old sailor of masterful character.
+
+Because of all this he announced to the maritime authorities, on one of
+his arrivals at Marseilles, his firm intention of not sailing any more
+in this fashion. He had had enough with four such expeditions which
+were all well enough for timid captains incapable of leaving a port
+unless they always had in sight an escort of torpedo-boats, and whose
+crews at the slightest occurrence would try to lower the lifeboats and
+take refuge on the coast. He believed that he would be more secure
+going alone, trusting to his skill, with no other aid than his profound
+knowledge of the routes of the Mediterranean.
+
+His petition was granted. He was the owner of a vessel and they were
+afraid of losing his coöperation when means of transportation were
+growing so very scarce. Besides, the _Mare Nostrum_, on account of its
+high speed, deserved individual employment in extraordinary and rapid
+service.
+
+He remained in Marseilles some weeks waiting for a cargo of howitzers,
+and meandered as usual around the Mediterranean capital. He passed the
+evenings on the terrace of a cafe of the _Cannebière_. The recollection
+of von Kramer always loomed up in his mind at such times. "I wonder if
+they have shot him!..." He wished to know, but his investigations did
+not meet with much success. War Councils avoid publicity regarding
+their acts of justice. A Marseilles merchant, a friend of Ferragut,
+seemed to recall that some months before a German spy, surprised in the
+harbor, had been executed. Three lines, no more, in the newspapers,
+gave an account of his death. They said that he was an officer.... And
+his friend went on talking about the war news while Ulysses was
+thinking that the executed man could not have been any one else but von
+Kramer.
+
+On that same afternoon he had an encounter. While passing through the
+street of _Saint-Ferreol_, looking at the show windows, the cries of
+several conductors of cabs and automobiles who could not manage to
+drive their vehicles through the narrow and crowded streets, attracted
+his attention. In one carriage he saw a blonde lady with her back to
+him, accompanied by two officers of the English navy. Immediately he
+thought of Freya.... Her hat, her gown, everything about her
+personality, was so very distinctive. And yet, when the coach had
+passed on without his being able to get a glimpse of the face of the
+stranger, the image of the adventuress persisted in his mind.
+
+Finally he became very much irritated with himself, because of this
+absurd resemblance suspected without any reason whatever. How could
+that English-woman with the two officers be Freya?... How could a
+German refugee in Barcelona manage to slip into France where she was
+undoubtedly known by the military police?... And still more
+exasperating was his suspicion that this resemblance might have
+awakened a remnant of the old love which made him see Freya in every
+blonde woman.
+
+At nine o'clock the following morning, while the captain was in his
+stateroom dressing to go ashore, Toni opened the door.
+
+His face was scowling and timid at the same time, as though he had some
+bad news to give.
+
+"That creature is here," he said laconically.
+
+Ferragut looked at him with a questioning expression: "_What_
+creature?..."
+
+"Who else could it be?... The one from Naples! That blonde devil that
+brought us all so much trouble!... We'll see now if this witch is going
+to keep us immovable for I don't know how many weeks just as she did
+the other time."
+
+He excused himself as though he had just failed in discipline. The boat
+was fastened to the wharf by a bridgeway and anybody could come aboard.
+The pilot was opposed to these dockings which left the passage free to
+the curious and the importunate. By the time he had finished announcing
+her arrival, the lady was already on deck near the staterooms. She
+remembered well the way to the saloon. She had wished to go straight
+in, but it had been Caragol who had stopped her, while Toni went to
+advise the captain.
+
+"_Cristo_!" murmured Ulysses. "_Cristo!_..."
+
+And his astonishment, his surprise, did not permit him to utter any
+other exclamation.
+
+Then he burst out furiously. "Throw her overboard!... Let two men lay
+hold of her and put her back on the wharf, by main force, if
+necessary."
+
+But Toni hesitated, not daring to comply with such commands. And the
+impetuous Ferragut rushed outside of his cabin to do himself what had
+been ordered.
+
+When he reached the saloon some one entered at the same time from the
+deck. It was Caragol, who was trying to block the passage of a woman;
+but she, laughing and taking advantage of his purblind eyes, was
+slipping little by little in between his body and the wooden partition.
+
+On seeing the captain, Freya ran toward him, throwing out her arms.
+
+"You!" she cried in a merry voice. "I knew well enough that you were
+here, in spite of the fact that these men were assuring me to the
+contrary.... My heart told me so.... How do you do, Ulysses!"
+
+Caragol turned his eyes toward the place where he supposed the mate
+must be, as though imploring his pardon. With females he never could
+carry out any order.... Toni, on his part, appeared in an agony of
+shame before this woman who was looking at him defiantly.
+
+The two disappeared. Ferragut was not able to say exactly how they got
+away, but he was glad of it. He feared that the recent arrival might
+allude in their presence to the things of the past.
+
+He remained contemplating her a long time. He had believed the day
+before that he had recognized her back, and now he was sure that he
+might have passed on with indifference had he seen her face. Was this
+really the same woman that the two English officials were
+accompanying?... She appeared much taller than the other one, with a
+slenderness that made her skin appear more clear, giving it a delicate
+transparency. The nose was finer and more prominent. The eyes were
+sparkling, hidden in bluish black circles.
+
+These eyes began to look at the captain, humbly and pleadingly.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Ulysses in wonder. "You!... What are you coming here
+for?"...
+
+Freya replied with the timidity of a bondslave. Yes, it was she who had
+recognized him the day before, long before he had seen her, and at once
+had formed the plan of coming in search of him. He could beat her just
+as at their last meeting: she was ready to suffer everything ... but
+with him!
+
+"Save me, Ulysses! Take me with you!... I implore you even more
+anxiously than in Barcelona."
+
+"What are you doing here?..."
+
+She understood the captain's amazement on meeting her in a belligerent
+country, the disquietude he must naturally feel upon finding a spy on
+his vessel. She looked around in order to make sure that they were
+entirely alone and spoke in a low voice. The doctor had sent her to
+France in order that she should "operate" in its ports. Only to him
+could she reveal the secret.
+
+Ulysses was more indignant than ever at this confidence.
+
+"Clear out!" he said in a wrathful voice. "I don't want to know
+anything about you.... Your affairs do not interest me at all. I do not
+wish to know them.... Get out of here! What are you plaguing me for?"
+
+But she did not appear disposed to comply with his orders. Instead of
+departing, she dropped wearily down on one of the divans of the
+stateroom.
+
+"I have come," she said, "to beg you to save me. I ask it for the last
+time.... I'm going to die; I suspect that my end is very near if you
+will not hold out a helping hand; I foresee the vengeance of my own
+people.... Guard me, Ulysses! Do not make me go back ashore; I am
+afraid.... So safe I shall feel here at your side!..."
+
+Fear, sure enough, was reflected in her eyes as she recalled the last
+months of her life in Barcelona.
+
+"The doctor is my enemy.... She who protected me so in other times
+abandons me now like an old shoe that it is necessary to get rid of. I
+am positive that her superior officers have condemned me...."
+
+She shuddered on remembering the doctor's wrath when on her return from
+one of her trips she learned of the death of her faithful Karl. To her,
+Captain Ferragut was a species of invulnerable and victorious demon who
+was escaping all dangers and murdering the servants of a good cause.
+First von Kramer; now Karl.... As it was necessary for her to vent her
+wrath on somebody, she had made Freya responsible for all her
+misfortunes. Through her she had known the captain, and had mixed him
+up in the affairs of the "service."
+
+Thirst for vengeance made the imposing dame smile with a ferocious
+expression. The Spanish sailor was doomed by the Highest Command.
+Precise orders had been given out against him. "As to his
+accomplices!..." Freya was figuring undoubtedly among these accomplices
+for having dared to defend Ferragut, for remembering the tragic event
+of his son, for having refused to join the chorus desiring his
+extermination.
+
+Weeks afterwards the doctor again became as smiling and as amiable as
+in other times. "My dear girl, it is agreed that you should take a trip
+to France. We need there an agent who will keep us informed of the
+traffic of the ports, of the goings and comings of the vessels in order
+that our submersibles may know where to await them. The naval officials
+are very gallant, and a beautiful woman will be able to gain their
+affection."
+
+She had tried to disobey. To go to France!... where her pre-war work
+was already known!... To go back to danger when she had already become
+accustomed to the safe life of a neutral country!... But her attempts
+at resistance were ineffectual. She lacked sufficient will-power; the
+"service" had converted her into an automaton.
+
+"And here I am, suspecting that probably I am going to my death, but
+fulfilling the commissions given to me, struggling to be accommodating
+and retard in this way the fulfillment of their vengeance.... I am like
+a condemned criminal who knows that he is going to die, and tries to
+make himself so necessary that his sentence will be delayed for a few
+months."
+
+"How did you get into France?" he demanded, paying no attention to her
+doleful tones.
+
+"Freya shrugged her shoulders. In her business a change of nationality
+was easily accomplished. At present she was passing for a citizen of a
+South American republic. The doctor had arranged all the papers
+necessary to enable her to cross the frontier.
+
+"But here," she continued, "my accomplices have me more securely than
+as though I were in prison. They have given me the means of coming here
+and they only can arrange my departure. I am absolutely in their power.
+I wonder what they are going to do with me!..."
+
+At certain times terror had suggested most desperate expedients to her.
+She had thought of denouncing herself, of appearing before the French
+authorities, telling them her story and acquainting them with the
+secrets which she possessed. But her past filled her with terror, so
+many were the evils which she had brought against this country. Perhaps
+they might pardon her life, taking into account her voluntary action in
+giving herself up. But the prison, the seclusion with shaved head,
+dressed in some coarse serge frock, condemned to silence, perhaps
+suffering hunger and cold, filled her with invincible repulsion.... No,
+death before that!
+
+And so she was continuing her life as a spy, shutting her eyes to the
+future, living only in the present, trying to keep from thinking,
+considering herself happy if she could see before her even a few days
+of security.
+
+The meeting with Ferragut in the street of Marseilles had revived her
+drooping spirits, arousing new hope.
+
+"Get me out of here; keep me with you. On your ship I could live as
+forgotten by the world as though I were dead.... And if my presence
+annoys you, take me far away from France, leave me in some distant
+country!"
+
+She was anxious to evade isolation in the enemy's territory, obliged to
+obey her superiors like a caged beast who has to take jabs through the
+iron grating. Presentiment of her approaching death was making her
+tremble.
+
+"I do not want to die, Ulysses!... I am not old enough yet to die. I
+adore my physical charm. I am my own best lover and I am terrified at
+the thought that I might be shot."
+
+A phosphorescent light gleamed from her eyes and her teeth struck
+together with a chattering of terror.
+
+"I do not want to die!" she repeated. "There are moments in which I
+suspect that they are following me and closing me in.... Perhaps they
+have recognized me and at this moment are waiting to surprise me in the
+very act.... Do help me; get me away from here; my death is certain. I
+have done so much harm!..."
+
+She was silent a moment, as though calculating all the crimes of her
+former life.
+
+"The doctor," she continued, "depends upon her consuming patriotic
+enthusiasm as the impetus to her work. I lack her faith. I am not a
+German woman, and being a spy is very repugnant to me.... I feel
+ashamed when I think of my actual life; every night I think over the
+result of my abominable work; I calculate the use to which they will
+put my warnings and my information; I can see the torpedoed boats.... I
+wonder how many human beings have perished through my fault!... I have
+visions; my conscience torments me. Save me!... I can do no more. I
+feel a horrible fear. I have so much to expiate!..."
+
+Little by little she had raised herself from the divan, and, while
+begging Ferragut's protection, was going toward him with outstretched
+arms; abject, and yet at the same time caressing, through that desire
+of seduction that always predominated over all her acts.
+
+"Leave me!" shouted the sailor. "Do not come near me.... Do not touch
+me!"
+
+He felt that same wrath that had made him so brutal in their interview
+in Barcelona. He was greatly exasperated at the tenacity of this
+adventuress who, in addition to the tragic influence she had already
+exercised upon his life, was now trying to compromise him still
+further.
+
+But a sentiment of cold compassion made him check his anger and speak
+with a certain kindness.
+
+If she needed money in order to make her escape, he would give it to
+her without any haggling whatever. She could name the sum. The captain
+was disposed to satisfy all her desires except that of living with her.
+He would give her a substantial amount in order to make her fortune
+assured and never see her again.
+
+Freya made a gesture of protest at the same time that the sailor began
+repenting of his generosity.... Why should he do such a favor to a
+woman who reminded him of the death of his son?... What was there in
+common between the two?... Their vile love-affair in Naples had been
+sufficiently paid for with his bereavement.... Let each one follow his
+own destiny; they belonged to different worlds.... Was he going to have
+to defend himself all his life long from this insistent charmer?...
+
+Moreover, he was not at all sure that even now she was telling the
+truth.... Everything about her was false. He did not even know with
+certainty her true name and her past existence....
+
+"Clear out!" he roared in a threatening tone. "Leave me in peace."
+
+He raised his powerful hand against her, seeing that she was going to
+refuse to obey. He was going to pick her up roughly, carry her like a
+light bundle outside the room, outside the boat, flinging her away as
+though she were remorse.
+
+But her physique, so opulent in its seductions, now inspired him with
+an unconquerable repugnance; he was afraid of its contact and wished to
+avoid its electric surprises.... Besides, he wasn't going to maltreat
+her at every meeting like a professional Apache who mixes love and
+blows. He recalled with disgust his violence in Barcelona.
+
+And as Freya instead of going away sank back on the divan, with a
+faintness that seemed to challenge his wrath, it was he who fled in
+order to bring the interview to an end.
+
+He rushed into his stateroom, locking the door with a bang. This flight
+brought her out of her inertia. She wished to follow him with the leap
+of a young panther, but her hands collided with an obstacle that became
+impassable, while from within sounded the noise of keys and bolts.
+
+She pounded the door desperately, injuring her fists with her fruitless
+efforts.
+
+"Ulysses, open it!... Listen to me."
+
+In vain she shrieked as though she were giving an order, exasperated at
+finding that she was not obeyed. Her fury spent itself unavailingly
+against the solid immovability of the wood. Suddenly she began to cry,
+modifying her purpose upon finding herself as weak and defenseless as
+an abandoned creature. All her life appeared concentrated in her tears
+and in her pleading voice.
+
+She passed her fingers over the door, groping over the moldings,
+slipping them over the varnished surface as though seeking at random a
+crevice, a hole, something that would permit her to get to the man that
+was on the other side.
+
+Instinctively she fell upon her knees, putting her mouth to the
+keyhole.
+
+"My lord, my master!" she murmured in the voice of a beggar. "Open the
+door.... Do not abandon me. Remember that I am going to my death if you
+do not save me."
+
+Ferragut heard her, and, in order to evade her moaning, was getting as
+near as possible to the end of his stateroom. Then he unfastened the
+round window that opened on the deck, ordering a seaman to go after the
+mate.
+
+"_Don Antoni! Don Antoni!_" various voices cried the whole length of
+the ship.
+
+Toni appeared, putting his face in the circular opening only to receive
+the furious vituperation of his captain.
+
+Why had they left him alone with that woman?... They must take her off
+the boat at once, even if it had to be done by main force.... He
+commanded it.
+
+The mate went off with a confounded air, scratching his beard as though
+he had received an order very difficult to execute.
+
+"Save me, my love!" the imploring whisper kept moaning. "Forget who I
+am.... Think only of the one of Naples.... Of the one whom you knew at
+Pompeii.... Remember our happiness alone together in the days when you
+swore never to abandon me.... You are a gentleman!..."
+
+Her voice ceased for a moment. Ferragut heard footsteps on the other
+side of the door. Toni was carrying out his orders.
+
+But in a few seconds the pleading again burst forth, reconcentrated,
+tenacious, bent only upon carrying its point, scorning the new
+obstacles about to interpose between her and the captain.
+
+"Do you hate me so?... Remember the bliss that I gave you. You yourself
+swore to me that you had never been so happy. I can revive that past.
+You do not know of what things I am capable in order to make your
+existence sweet.... And you wish to lose and to ruin me!..."
+
+A clash against the door was heard, a struggle of bodies that were
+pushing each other, the friction of a scuffle against the wood.
+
+Toni had entered followed by Caragol.
+
+"Enough of that now, Señora," said the mate in a grim voice in order to
+hide his emotion. "Can't you see that the captain doesn't want to see
+you?... Don't you understand that you are disturbing him?... Come,
+now.... Get up!"
+
+He tried to help her to stand up, separating her mouth from the
+keyhole. But Freya repelled the vigorous sailor with facility. He
+appeared to be lacking in force, without the courage to repeat his
+rough action. The beauty of this woman made him afraid. He was still
+thrilled by the contact of her firm body which he had just torched
+during their short struggle. His drowsing virtue had suffered the
+torments of a fruitless resurrection. "Ah, no!... Let somebody else
+take charge of putting her off."
+
+"Ulysses, they're taking me away!" she cried, again putting her mouth
+to the keyhole. "And you, my love, will you permit it?... You who used
+to love me so?..."
+
+After this desperate call, she remained silent for a few instants. The
+door maintained its immobility; behind it there seemed to be no living
+being.
+
+"Farewell!" she continued in a low voice, her throat choked with sobs,
+"you will see me no more.... I am soon going to die; my heart tells me
+so.... To die because of you!... Perhaps some day you will weep on
+recalling that you might have saved me."
+
+Some one had intervened to force Freya from her rebellious standstill.
+It was Caragol, solicited by the mate's imploring eyes.
+
+His great hairy hands helped her to arise, without making her repeat
+the protest that had repelled Toni. Conquered and bursting into tears,
+she appeared to yield to the paternal aid and counsel of the cook.
+
+"Up now, my good lady!" said Caragol. "A little more courage and don't
+cry any more.... There is some consolation for everything in this
+world."
+
+In his bulky right hand he imprisoned her two, and, passing his other
+arm around her waist, he was guiding her little by little toward the
+exit from the salon.
+
+"Trust in God," he added. "Why do you seek the captain who has his own
+wife ashore?... Other men who are free are still in existence, and you
+could make some arrangement with them without falling into mortal sin."
+
+Freya was not listening to him. Near the door she again turned her
+head, beginning her return toward the captain's stateroom.
+
+"Ulysses!... Ulysses!" she cried.
+
+"Trust in God, Señora," said Caragol again, while he was pushing her
+along with his flabby abdomen and shaggy breast.
+
+A charitable idea was taking possession of his thoughts. He had the
+remedy for the grief of this handsome woman whose desperation but made
+her more interesting.
+
+"Come along, Señora.... Leave it to me, my child."
+
+Upon reaching the deck he continued driving her towards his dominions.
+Freya found herself seated in the galley, without knowing just exactly
+where she was. Through her tears she saw this obese old man of
+sacerdotal benevolence, going from side to side gathering bottles
+together and mixing liquids, stirring the spoon around in a glass with
+a joyous tinkling.
+
+"Drink without fear.... There is no trouble that resists this
+medicine."
+
+The cook offered her a glass and she, vanquished, drank and drank,
+making a wry face because of the alcoholic intensity of the liquid. She
+continued weeping at the same time that her mouth was relishing the
+heavy sweetness. Her tears were mingled with the beverage that was
+slipping between her lips.
+
+A comfortable warmth began making itself felt in her stomach, drying up
+the moisture in her eyes and giving new color to her cheeks. Caragol
+was keeping up his chat, satisfied with the outcome of his handiwork,
+making signs to the glowering Toni,--who was passing and repassing
+before the door, with the vehement desire of seeing the intruder march
+away, and disappear forever.
+
+"Don't cry any more, my daughter.... _Cristo del Grao!_ The very idea!
+A lady as pretty as you, who can find sweethearts by the dozen,
+crying!... Believe me; find somebody else. This world is just full of
+men with nothing to do.... And always for every disappointment that you
+suffer, have recourse to my cordial.... I am going to give you the
+recipe."
+
+He was about to note down on a bit of paper the proportions of brandy
+and sugar, when she arose, suddenly invigorated, looking around her in
+wonder.... But where was she? What had she to do with this good, kind,
+half-dressed man, who was talking to her as though he were her
+father?...
+
+"Thanks! Many thanks!" she said on leaving the kitchen.
+
+Then on deck she stopped, opening her gold-mesh bag, in order to take
+out the little glass and powder box. In the beveled edge of the oval
+glass she saw the faun-like countenance of Toni hovering behind her
+with glances of impatience.
+
+"Tell Captain Ferragut that I shall never trouble him again.... All has
+ended.... Perhaps he may hear me spoken of some time, but he will never
+see me again."
+
+And she left the boat without turning her head, with quickened step as
+though, fired by a sudden suggestion, she were hastening to put it into
+effect.
+
+Toni ran also, but toward Ulysses' stateroom window.
+
+"Has she gone yet?" asked the captain impatiently.
+
+The mate nodded his head. She had promised not to return.
+
+"Be it so!" said Ferragut.
+
+Toni experienced the same desire. Would to God they might never again
+see this blonde who always brought them misfortune!...
+
+In the days following, the captain rarely left his ship. He did not
+wish to run the risk of meeting her in the city streets for he was a
+little doubtful of the hardness of his character. He feared that upon
+seeing her again, weeping and pleading, he might yield to her
+beseeching.
+
+Ulysses' uneasiness vanished as soon as the loading of the vessel was
+finished. This trip was going to be shorter than the others. The _Mare
+Nostrum_ went to Corfu with war material for the Serbs who were
+reorganizing their battalions destined for Salonica.
+
+On the return trip Ferragut was attacked by the enemy. One day at dawn
+just as he mounted the bridge to relieve Toni, the two spied at the
+same time the tangible form that they were always seeing in
+imagination. Within the circle of their glasses there framed itself the
+end of a stick, black and upright, that was cutting the waters rosy in
+the sunrise, leaving a wake of foam.
+
+"Submarine!" shouted the captain.
+
+Toni said nothing, but shoving aside the helmsman with a stroke of his
+paw, he grasped the wheel, making the boat swerve in another direction.
+The movement was opportune. Only a few seconds had passed by when there
+began to be seen upon the water a black back of dizzying speed headed
+directly for the steamer.
+
+"Torpedo!" shouted the captain.
+
+The anxious waiting lasted but a few seconds. The projectile, hidden in
+the water, passed some six yards from the stern, losing itself in
+space. Had it not been for Toni's rapid tacking, the boat would have
+been hit squarely in the side.
+
+Through the speaking tube connecting with the engine-room the captain
+shouted energetic orders to put on full speed. Meanwhile the mate,
+clamped to the wheel, ready to die rather than leave it, was directing
+the boat in zigzags so as not to offer a fixed point to the submarine.
+
+All the crew were watching from the rail the distant and insignificant
+upright periscope. The third officer had rushed out of his stateroom,
+almost naked, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Caragol was in the stern, his
+loose shirt-tail flapping away as he held one hand to his eyebrows like
+a visor.
+
+"I see it!... I see it perfectly.... Ah, the bandit, the heretic!"
+
+And he extended his threatening fist toward a point in the horizon
+exactly opposite to the one upon which the periscope was appearing.
+
+Through the blue circle of the glasses Ferragut saw this tube climbing
+up and up, growing larger and larger. It was no longer a stick, it was
+a tower; and from beneath this tower was coming up on the sea a base of
+steel spouting cascades of smoke,--a gray whale-back that appeared
+little by little to be taking the form of a sailing vessel, long and
+sharp-pointed.
+
+A flag was suddenly run up upon the submarine. Ulysses recognized it.
+
+"They are going to shell us!" he yelled to Toni. "It's useless to keep
+up the zigzagging. The thing to do now is to outspeed them, to go
+forward in a straight line."
+
+The mate, skillful helmsman that he was, obeyed the captain. The hull
+vibrated under the force of the engines taxed to their utmost. Their
+prow was cutting the waters with increasing noise. The submersible upon
+augmenting its volume by emersion appeared, nevertheless, to be falling
+behind on the horizon. Two streaks of foam began to spring up on both
+sides of its prow. It was running with all its possible surface speed;
+but the _Mare Nostrum_ was also going at the utmost limit of its
+engines and the distance was widening between the two boats.
+
+"They are shooting!" said Ferragut with the glasses to his eyes.
+
+A column of water spouted near the prow. That was the only thing that
+Caragol was able to see clearly and he burst into applause with a
+childish joy. Then he waved on high his palm-leaf hat. "_Viva el Santo
+Cristo del Grao!_..."
+
+Other projectiles were falling around the _Mare Nostrum_, spattering it
+with jets of foam. Suddenly it trembled from poop to prow. Its plates
+trembled with the vibration of an explosion.
+
+"That's nothing!" yelled the captain, bending himself double over the
+bridge in order to see better the hull of his ship. "A shell in the
+stern. Steady, Toni!..."
+
+The mate, always grasping the wheel, kept turning his head from time to
+time to measure the distance separating them from the submarine. Every
+time that he saw an aquatic column of spray, forced up by a projectile,
+he would repeat the same counsel.
+
+"Lie down, Ulysses!... They are going to fire at the bridge!"
+
+This was a recollection of his far-away youth when, as a contrabandist,
+he used to stretch himself flat on the deck of his bark, manipulating
+the wheel and the sail under the fire of the custom-house officers on
+watch. He feared for the life of his captain while he was standing,
+constantly offering himself to the shots of the enemy.
+
+Ferragut was storming from side to side, cursing his lack of means for
+returning the aggression. "This will never happen another time!... They
+won't get another chance to amuse themselves chasing me!"
+
+A second projectile opened another breach in the poop. "If it only
+won't hit the engines!" the captain was thinking. After that the _Mare
+Nostrum_ received no more damage, the following shots merely raising up
+columns of water in the steamer's wake. Every time now, these white
+phantasms leaped up further and further away. Although out of the range
+of the enemy's gun, it continued shooting and shooting uselessly.
+Finally the firing ceased and the submarine disappeared from the view
+of the glasses and completely submerged, tired of vain pursuit.
+
+"That'll never happen again!" the captain kept repeating. "They'll
+never attack me another time with impunity!"
+
+Then it occurred to him that this submarine had attack him knowing just
+who he was. On the side of his vessel were painted the colors of Spain.
+At the first shot from the gun, the third officer had hoisted the flag,
+but the shots did not cease on that account. They had wished to sink it
+"without leaving any trace." He believed that Freya, in her relations
+with the directors of the submarine campaign, must have advised them of
+his trip.
+
+"Ah,... _tal!_ If I meet her another time!..."
+
+He had to remain several weeks in Marseilles while the damage to his
+steamer was being repaired.
+
+As Toni lacked occupation during this enforced idleness, he accompanied
+him many times on his strolls. They liked to seat themselves on the
+terrace of a café in order to comment upon the picturesque differences
+in the cosmopolitan crowd.
+
+"Look; people from our own country!" said the captain one evening.
+
+And he pointed to three seamen drawn into the current of different
+uniforms and types of various races flowing familiarly around the
+tables of the café.
+
+He had recognized them by their silk caps with visors, their blue
+jackets and their heavy obesity of Mediterranean sailors enjoying a
+certain prosperity. They must be skippers of small boats.
+
+As though Ferragut's looks and gestures had mysteriously notified them,
+the three turned, fixing their eyes on the captain. Then they began to
+discuss among themselves with a vehemence which made it easy to guess
+their words.
+
+"It is he!..." "No, it isn't!..."
+
+Those men knew him but couldn't believe that they were really seeing
+him.
+
+They went a little way off with marked indecision, turning repeatedly
+to look at him once more. In a few moments one of them, the oldest,
+returned, approaching the table timidly.
+
+"Excuse me, but aren't you Captain Ferragut?..." He asked this question
+in Valencian, with his right hand at his cap, ready to take it off.
+
+Ulysses stopped his salutation and offered him a seat. Yes, he was
+Ferragut. What did he want?...
+
+The man refused to sit down. He wished to tell him privately two
+special things. When the captain presented to him his mate as a man in
+whom they could have complete confidence, he then sat down. The two
+companions, breaking through the human current, were standing on the
+edge of the sidewalk, turning their backs to the café.
+
+He was skipper of a small craft; Ferragut had not been mistaken. He was
+speaking slowly, as though taken up with his final revelation to which
+all that he was saying was merely an introduction.
+
+"The times are not so bad.... Money is to be gained in the sea; more
+than ever. I am from Valencia.... We have brought three boats from
+there with wine and rice. A good trip, but it was necessary to navigate
+close to the coast, following the curve of the gulf, without venturing
+to pass from cape to cape for fear of the submarine.... I have met a
+submarine."
+
+Ulysses suspected that these last words contained the real motive which
+had made the man, overcoming his timidity, venture to address him.
+
+"It was not on this trip nor on the one before," continued the man of
+the sea. "I met it two days before last Christmas. In the winter I
+devote myself to fishing. I am the owner of a pair of fishing
+smacks.... We were near the island Columbretas when suddenly we saw a
+submarine appear near us. The Germans did not do us any harm; the only
+vexatious thing was that we had to give them a part of our fish for
+what they wished to give us. Then they ordered me to come aboard the
+deck of a submarine in order to meet the commander. He was a young
+fellow who could talk Castilian as I have heard it spoken over there in
+the Americas when I was a youngster sailing on a brigantine."
+
+The man stopped, rather reserved, as though doubtful whether to
+continue his story.
+
+"And what did the German say?" asked Ferragut, in order to encourage
+him to continue.
+
+"Upon learning that I was a Valencian, he asked me if I was acquainted
+with you. He asked me about your steamer, wanting to know if it
+generally sailed along the Spanish coast. I replied that I knew you by
+name, no more, and then he ..."
+
+The captain encouraged him with a smile on seeing that he was beginning
+to hesitate again.
+
+"He spoke badly about me. Isn't that so?..."
+
+"Yes, sir; very badly. He used ugly words. He said that he had an
+account to adjust with you and that he wished to be the first one to
+meet you. According to what he gave me to understand, the other
+submarines are hunting for you, too.... It is an order without doubt."
+
+Ferragut and his mate exchanged a long look. Meanwhile the captain
+continued his explanations.
+
+The two friends who were waiting a few steps off had seen the captain
+in Valencia and Barcelona many times. One of them had recognized him
+immediately; but the other was doubtful whether it might be he, and, as
+a matter of conscience, the old skipper had come back to give him this
+warning.
+
+"We countrymen must help one another.... These are bad times!"
+
+Seeing him standing, his two comrades now came up to Ferragut. "What
+would you like to drink?" He invited them to seat themselves at the
+table, but they were in a hurry. They were on their way to see the
+consignees of their boats.
+
+"Now you know it, Captain," said the skipper on bidding him farewell.
+"These demons are after you in order to pay you up for something in the
+past. You know what for.... Be very careful!"
+
+The rest of the evening Ferragut and Toni talked very little together.
+The two had exactly the same thought in their brain, but avoided
+putting it in shape because, as energetic men, they feared that some
+cowardly construction might be put upon such thoughts.
+
+At nightfall when they returned to the steamer the pilot ventured to
+break the silence.
+
+"Why do you not quit the sea?... You are rich. Besides, they'll give
+you whatever you ask for your ship. To-day boats are worth their weight
+in gold."
+
+Ulysses shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't thinking of money. What good
+would that do him?... He wanted to pass the rest of his life on the
+sea, giving aid to the enemies of his enemies. He had a vengeance to
+fulfill.... Living on land, he would be abandoning this vengeance,
+though remembering his son with even greater intensity.
+
+The mate was silent for a few moments.
+
+"The enemies are so many," he then said in dismay. "We are so
+insignificant!... We only escaped by a few yards being sent to the
+bottom on our last trip. What has not happened yet will surely happen
+some day.... _They_ have sworn to do away with you; and they are many
+... and they are at war. What could we do, we poor peaceable
+sailors?..."
+
+Toni did not add anything further but his silent thoughts were divined
+by Ulysses.
+
+He was thinking about his family over there in the _Marina_, enduring
+an existence of continual anxiety while he was aboard a vessel for
+which irresistible menace was lying in wait. He was thinking also of
+the wives and mothers of all the men of the crew who were suffering the
+same anguish. And Toni was asking himself for the first time whether
+Captain Ferragut had the right to drag them all to a sure death just
+because of his vengeful and crazy stubbornness.
+
+"No; I have not the right," Ulysses told himself mentally.
+
+But at the same time his mate, repentant of his former reflection, was
+affirming in a loud voice with heroic simplicity:
+
+"If I counsel you to retire, it is for your own good; don't think it is
+because I am afraid.... I will follow you wherever you sail. I've got
+to die some time and it would be far better that it should be in the
+sea. The only thing that troubles me is worrying about my wife and
+children."
+
+The captain continued walking in silence and, upon reaching his ship,
+spoke with brevity. "I was thinking of doing something that perhaps you
+would all like. Before next week your future will have been decided."
+
+He passed the following day on land. Twice he returned with some
+gentlemen who examined the steamer minutely, going down into the engine
+room and the holds. Some of these visitors appeared to be experts in
+matters pertaining to the sea.
+
+"He wants to sell the boat," said Toni to himself.
+
+And the mate began to repent of his counsels. Abandon the _Mare
+Nostrum_, the best of all the ships on which he had ever sailed!... He
+accused himself of cowardice, believing that it was he who had impelled
+the captain to reach this decision. What were the two going to do on
+land when the steamer was the property of others?... Would he not have
+to sail on an inferior boat, running the same risks?... He decided to
+undo his work, and was about to counsel Ferragut again, declaring that
+his ideas were mere conjecture and that he must continue living as he
+was at present, when the captain gave the order for departure. The
+repairs were not yet entirely completed.
+
+"We are going to Brest," said Ferragut laconically, "It's the last
+trip."
+
+And the steamer put to sea without cargo as though going to fulfill a
+special mission.
+
+"The last trip!" Toni admired his ship as though seeing it under a new
+light, discovering beauties hitherto unsuspected, lamenting like a
+lover the days that were running by so swiftly and the sad moment of
+separation that was approaching.
+
+Never had the mate been so active in his vigilance. His seaman's
+superstition filled him with a certain terror. Just because it was the
+last voyage something horrible might occur to them. He paced the bridge
+for entire days, examining the sea, fearing the apparition of a
+periscope, varying the course in agreement with the captain, who was
+seeking less-frequented waters where the submarines could not expect to
+find any prey.
+
+He breathed more freely upon entering one of the three semi-circular
+sea-ledges which enclose the roadstead of Brest. When they were
+anchored in this bit of sea, foggy and insecure, surrounded with black
+mountains, Toni awaited with anxiety the result of the captain's
+excursions ashore.
+
+During the entire course of the trip Ferragut had not been inclined to
+be confidential. The mate only knew that this voyage to Brest was the
+last. Who was going to be the new owner of the _Mare Nostrum_?...
+
+One rainy evening, upon returning to the boat, Ulysses gave orders that
+they should hunt up the mate while he was shaking out his waterproof in
+the entry to the stateroom.
+
+The roadstead was dark with its foamy waves, choppy and thick, leaping
+like sheep. The men-of-war were sending out smoke from their triple
+chimneys ready to confront the bad weather with their steam engines.
+
+The ship, anchored in the commercial port, was dancing restlessly,
+tugging at its hawsers, with a mournful croaking. All the nearby boats
+were tossing in the same way, just as though they were out on the high
+seas.
+
+Toni entered the saloon, and one look at the captain's face made him
+suspect that the moment for knowing the truth had arrived. Avoiding his
+glance, Ulysses told him curtly, trying to evade by the conciseness of
+his language all signs of emotion.
+
+He had sold the ship to the French:--a rapid and magnificent piece of
+business.... Whoever would have said when he bought the _Mare Nostrum_
+that some day they would give him such an enormous sum for it?... In no
+country could they find any vessels for sale. The invalids of the sea,
+rusting in the harbors as old iron, were now bringing fabulous prices.
+Boats, aground and forgotten on remote coasts, were placed afloat for
+enterprises that were gaining millions by this resurrection. Others,
+submerged in tropical seas, had been brought up to the surface after a
+ten years' stay under the water, renewing their voyages. Every month a
+new shipyard sprang into existence, but the world war could never find
+enough vessels for the transportation of food and instruments of death.
+
+Without any bargaining whatever, they had given Ferragut the price that
+he had exacted; fifteen hundred francs per ton,--four million and a
+half for the boat. And to this must be added the nearly two millions
+that it had gained in its voyages since the beginning of the war.
+
+"I am rotten with money," concluded the captain.
+
+And he said it sadly, remembering with a homesick longing the days of
+peace when he was wrestling with the problems of a badly paying
+business. But then his son was living. Of what avail was all this
+wealth that was assaulting him on all sides as though it were going to
+crush him with its weight?... His wife would be able to lavish money
+with full hands on works of charity; she would be able to give her
+nieces the dowry suitable for daughters of high-born personages....
+Nothing more! Neither he nor she could for one moment resuscitate their
+past. These useless riches could only bring him a certain tranquillity
+in thinking of the future of his wife, who was his entire family. She
+was at liberty henceforth to dispose freely of her existence. Cinta, on
+his death, would fall heir to millions.
+
+In order to evade the emotions of farewell, he spoke to Toni very
+authoritatively. A chart of the Atlantic was lying on the table and
+with his index finger he marked out the mate's course; this course was
+not across the sea, but far from it, following an inland route.
+
+"To-morrow," he said, "the French are coming to take possession. You
+may leave whenever you please, but it will be convenient to have you go
+as soon as possible...."
+
+He explained his return trip to Toni, just as though he were giving him
+a lesson in geography. This sea-rover became timid and downhearted when
+they talked to him about railroad time-tables and changing trains.
+
+"Here is Brest.... Follow this line to Bordeaux; from Bordeaux to the
+frontier. And once there, turn to Barcelona or go to Madrid, and from
+Madrid to Valencia."
+
+The mate contemplated the map silently, scratching his beard. Then he
+raised his canine eyes slowly until he fixed them upon Ulysses.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"I remain here. The captain of the _Mare Nostrum_, has sold himself
+with his vessel."
+
+Toni made a distressed gesture. For a moment he almost believed that
+Ferragut wanted to get rid of him and was discontented with his
+services. But the captain hastened to explain further.
+
+Because the _Mare Nostrum_ belonged to a neutral country, it could not
+be sold to one of the belligerent nations while hostilities lasted.
+Because of this, he had transferred it in a way that would not make it
+necessary to change the flag. Although no longer its owner, he would
+stay on board as its captain, and the ship would continue to be Spanish
+the same as before.
+
+"And why must I go away?" asked Toni in a tremulous tone, believing
+himself overlooked.
+
+"We are going to sail armed," replied Ulysses energetically. "I have
+made the sale on that account more than for the money. We are going to
+carry a quickfirer at the stern, wireless installation, a crew of men
+from the naval reserves,--everything necessary to defend ourselves. We
+shall make our voyages without hunting for the enemy, carrying freight
+as before; but if the enemy comes out to attack us, it will find some
+one who will answer."
+
+He was ready to die, if that was to be his fate, but attacking whoever
+attacked him.
+
+"And may I not go, too?" persisted the pilot.
+
+"No; back of you there is a family that needs you. You do not belong to
+a nation at war, nor have you anything to avenge.... I am the only one
+of the former crew that remains on board. All the rest of you are to
+go. The captain has a reason for exposing his life, and he does not
+wish to assume the responsibility of dragging all of you into his last
+adventure."
+
+Toni understood that it would be useless to insist. His eyes became
+moist.... Was it possible that within a few hours they would be bidding
+each other a last good-by?... Should he never again see Ulysses and the
+ship on which he had spent the greater part of his past?...
+
+In order to maintain his serenity, the captain tried to bring this
+interview promptly to an end.
+
+"The first thing to-morrow morning," he said, "you will call the crew
+together. Adjust all the accounts. Each one must receive as an extra
+bonus a year's pay. I wish them to have pleasant memories of Captain
+Ferragut."
+
+The mate attempted to oppose this generosity by a remnant of the keen
+interest that the business affairs of the boat had always inspired in
+him. But his superior officer would not let him continue.
+
+"I am rotten with money, I tell you," he repeated as though uttering a
+complaint. "I have more than I need.... I can do foolish things with it
+if I wish to."
+
+Then for the first time he looked his mate square in the face.
+
+"As for you," he continued, "I have thought what you must do.... Here,
+take this!"
+
+He gave him a sealed envelope and the pilot mechanically tried to open
+it.
+
+"No, don't open it at present. You will find out what it contains when
+you are in Spain. Within it is enclosed the future of your own folks."
+
+Toni looked with astonished eyes at the light scrap of paper which he
+held between his fingers.
+
+"I know you," continued Ferragut. "You are going to protest at the
+quantity. What to me is insignificant, to you will appear excessive....
+Do not open the envelope until you are in our country. In it you will
+find the name of the bank to which you must go. I wish you to be the
+richest man in your village that your sons may remember Captain
+Ferragut when he is dead."
+
+The mate made a gesture of protest before this possible death, and at
+the same time rubbed his eyes as though he felt in them an intolerable
+itching.
+
+Ulysses continued his instructions. He had rashly sold the home of his
+ancestors there in the _Marina_, the vineyards,--all his legacy from
+the _Triton_, when he had acquired the _Mare Nostrum_. It was his wish
+that Toni should redeem the property, installing himself in the ancient
+domicile of the Ferraguts.
+
+He had money to spare for that and much more.
+
+"I have no children and I like to feel that yours are occupying the
+house that was mine.... Perhaps when I get to be an old man--if they do
+not kill me, I will come to spend the summers with you. Courage now,
+Toni!... We shall yet go fishing together, as I used to go fishing with
+my uncle, the doctor."
+
+But the mate did not regain his spirits on hearing these optimistic
+affirmations. His eyes were swollen with tears that sparkled in the
+corners of his eyes. He was swearing between his teeth, protesting
+against the coming separation.... Never to see him again, after so many
+years of brotherly companionship!... _Cristo!_...
+
+The captain was afraid that he, too, might burst into tears and again
+ordered his mate to present the accounts of the crew.
+
+An hour later Toni reëntered the saloon, carrying in his hand the
+opened letter. He had not been able to resist the temptation of forcing
+the secret, fearing that Ferragut's generosity might prove excessive,
+and impossible to consider. He protested, handing to Ulysses the check
+taken from the envelope.
+
+"I could not accept it!... It's a crazy idea!..."
+
+He had read with terror the amount made out to him in the letter of
+credit, first in figures then in long hand. Two hundred and fifty
+thousand pesetas!... fifty thousand dollars!
+
+"That is not for me," he said again. "I do not deserve it.... What
+could I ever do with so much money?"
+
+The captain pretended to be irritated by his disobedience.
+
+"You take that paper, you brute!... I was just afraid that you were
+going to protest.... It's for your children, and so that you can take a
+rest. Now we won't talk any more about it or I shall get angry."
+
+Then, in order to conquer Toni's scruples, he abandoned his violent
+tone, and said sadly:
+
+"I have no heirs.... I don't know what to do with my useless fortune."
+
+And he repeated once more like a complaint against destiny: "I am
+rotten with money!..."
+
+The following morning, while Toni was in his cabin adjusting the
+accounts of the crew, astonished by the munificence of their
+paying-off, Uncle Caragol came into the saloon, asking to speak to
+Ferragut.
+
+He had placed an old cape over his flapping and scanty clothing, more
+as a decoration for the visit than because the cold of Brittany was
+really making him suffer.
+
+He removed from his shaved head his everlasting palm-leaf hat, fixing
+his bloodshot eyes on the captain who continued writing after replying
+to his greeting.
+
+"What does this mean, this order that I've just received to prepare to
+leave the boat within a few hours?... It must be some kind of a joke of
+Toni's; he's an excellent fellow but an enemy to holy things and likes
+to tease me because of my piety...."
+
+Ferragut laid aside his pen, swinging around toward the cook whose fate
+had troubled him as much as the first mate's.
+
+"Uncle Caragol, we are growing old and we must think about retiring....
+I am going to give you a paper; you will guard it just as though it
+were a sacred picture, and when you present it in Valencia they will
+give you ten thousand dollars. Do you know how much ten thousand
+dollars are?..."
+
+Bringing his mentality down to the level of this simple-minded man, he
+enjoyed tracing out for him a plan of living. He could invest his
+capital in whatever modest enterprise in the port of Valencia might
+appeal to his fancy; he could establish a restaurant which would soon
+become famous for its Olympian rice dishes. His nephews who were
+fishermen would receive him like a god. He could also be partner in a
+couple of barks, dedicated to fishing for the _bou_. There was awaiting
+him a happy and honorable old age; his former sailing companions were
+going to look upon him with envy. He could get up late in the morning;
+he could go to the cafés; as a rich devotee he could figure in all the
+religious processions of the Grau and of the Cabanal; he could have a
+place of honor in the holy processions....
+
+Heretofore, when Ferragut was talking, Uncle Caragol had always
+mechanically interrupted him, saying: "That is so, my captain." For the
+first time he was not nodding his head nor smiling with his sun-like
+face. He was pale and gloomy. He shook his round head energetically and
+said laconically:
+
+"No, my captain."
+
+Before the glance of astonishment which Ulysses flashed upon him, he
+found it necessary to explain himself.
+
+"What am I ever going to do ashore?... Who is expecting me there?... Or
+what business with my family would have any interest for me?..."
+
+Ferragut seemed to be hearing an echo of his own thoughts. He, like the
+cook, would have nothing to do on land.... He was mortally bored when
+far from the sea, just as in those months when, still young, he had
+believed that he could create for himself a new profession in
+Barcelona. Besides, it was impossible to return to his home, taking up
+life again with his wife; it would be simply losing his last illusions.
+It would be better to view from afar all that remained of his former
+existence.
+
+Caragol, meanwhile, was going on talking. His nephews would not
+remember the poor old cook and he had no reason to trouble himself
+about their fate, making them rich. He would prefer to remain just
+where he was, without money but happy.
+
+"Let the others go!" he said with childish selfishness. "Let Toni
+go!... I'm going to stay.... I've got to stay. When the captain goes,
+then Uncle Caragol will go."
+
+Ulysses enumerated the great dangers that the boat was about to face.
+The German submarines were lying in wait for it with deadly
+determination; there would be combats ... they would be torpedoed....
+
+The old man's smile showed contempt of all such dangers. He was certain
+that nothing bad could possibly happen to the _Mare Nostrum_. The
+furies of the sea were unavailing against it and still less could the
+wickedness of man injure it.
+
+"I know what I'm talking about, Captain.... I am sure that we shall
+come out safe and sound from all dangers."
+
+He thought of his miracle-working amulets, of his sacred pictures, of
+the supernatural protection that his pious prayers were bringing him.
+Furthermore, he was taking into consideration the Latin name of the
+ship which had always inspired him with religious respect. It belonged
+to the language used by the Church, to the idiom which brought about
+miracles and expelled the devil, making him run away aghast.
+
+"The _Mare Nostrum_ will not suffer any misfortune. If it should change
+its title ... perhaps. But while it is called _Mare Nostrum_,--how
+_could_ anything happen to it?..."
+
+Smiling before this faith, Ferragut brought forth his last argument.
+The entire crew was going to be made up of Frenchmen; how could they
+ever understand each other if he were ignorant of their language?...
+
+"I know it all," affirmed the old man superbly.
+
+He had made himself understood with men in all the different ports of
+the world. He was counting on something more than mere language,--on
+his eyes, his hands, the expressive cunning of an exuberant and
+gesticulating meridional.
+
+"I am just like _San Vicente Ferrer_," he added with pride.
+
+His saint had spoken only the Valencian dialect, and yet had traveled
+throughout half Europe preaching to throngs of different tongues,
+making them weep with mystic emotion and repent of their sins.
+
+While Ferragut retained the command, he was going to stay. If he didn't
+want him for a cook, he would be the cabin boy, washing up the pots and
+pans. The important thing for him was to continue treading the deck of
+the vessel.
+
+The captain had to give in. This old fellow represented a remnant of
+his past. He could betake himself from time to time to the galley to
+talk over the far-away days in which they first met.
+
+And Caragol retired, content with his success.
+
+"As for those Frenchmen," he said before departing, "just leave them to
+me. They must be good people.... We'll just see what they say about my
+rice dishes."
+
+In the course of the week the _Mare Nostrum_ was de-organized and
+re-manned. Its former crew went marching away in groups. Toni was the
+last to leave, and Ulysses did not wish to see him, fearing to show his
+emotion. They'd surely write to each other.
+
+A sympathetic curiosity impelled the cook toward the new marine force.
+He saluted the officers affably, regretting not to know their language
+sufficiently to begin a friendly conversation with them. The captain
+had accustomed him to such familiarity.
+
+There were two mates that the mobilization had converted into auxiliary
+lieutenants of the navy. The first day they presented themselves on
+board arrayed in their uniform; then they returned in civilian clothes
+in order to habituate themselves to being simply merchant officers on a
+neutral steamer. The two knew by hearsay, of Ferragut's former voyages
+and his services to the Allies, and they understood each other
+sympathetically without the slightest national prejudice. Caragol
+achieved equal success with the forty-five men who had taken possession
+of the machinery and the messrooms in the forecastle. They were dressed
+like seamen of the fleet, with a broad blue collar and a cap topped by
+a red pompom. Some displayed on the breast military medals and the
+recent _Croix de Guerre_. From their canvas bags which served them for
+valises, they unpacked their regulation suits, worn when they were
+working on the freight steamers, on the schooners plying to
+Newfoundland, or on the simple coasting smacks.
+
+The galley at certain hours was full of men listening to the old cook.
+Some knew the Spanish tongue on account of having sailed in brigs from
+Saint-Malo and Saint-Nazaire, going to the ports of the Argentine,
+Chili and Peru. Those who could not understand the old fellow's words,
+could guess at them from his gesticulations. They were all laughing,
+finding him bizarre and interesting. And this general gayety induced
+Caragol to bring forth liquid treasures that had been piling up in
+former voyages under Ferragut's careless and generous administration.
+
+The strong alcoholic wine of the coast of the Levant began falling into
+the glasses like ink crowned with a circle of rubies. The old man
+poured it forth with a prodigal hand. "Drink away, boys; in your land
+you don't have anything like this...." At other times he would concoct
+his famous "refrescoes," smiling with the satisfaction of an artist at
+seeing the sensuous grin that began flashing across their countenances.
+
+"When did you ever drink anything like that? What would ever become of
+you all without your Uncle Caragol?..."
+
+These Bretons, accustomed to the discipline and sobriety of other
+vessels, admired greatly the extraordinary privileges of a cook who
+could display as much generosity as the captain himself. He frequently
+communicated to Ferragut his opinion regarding his new comrades. With
+good reason he had said that they would understand each other!... They
+were serious and religious men, and he preferred them to the former
+Mediterranean crews, blasphemers and incapable of resignation, who at
+the slightest vexation would rip out God's name, trying to affront him
+with their curses.
+
+They were all muscular and well set-up with blue eyes and blonde
+mustaches, and were wearing hidden medallions. One of them had
+presented to the cook one of his religious charms which he had bought
+on a pilgrimage to _Ste. Anne d'Auray_. Caragol was wearing it upon his
+hairy chest, and experiencing a new-born faith in the miracles of this
+foreign image.
+
+"To her sanctuary, Captain, the pilgrims go in thousands. Every day she
+performs a miracle.... There's a holy staircase there which the devout
+climb on their knees and many of these lads have mounted it. I should
+like ..."
+
+On some of their voyages to Brest he was hoping that Ferragut would
+permit him to go to Auray long enough to climb that same stairway on
+his knees, to see _Ste. Anne_ and return aboard ship.
+
+The vessel was no longer in a commercial harbor. It had gone to a
+military harbor,--a narrow river winding through the interior of the
+city, dividing it in two. A great drawbridge put in communication the
+two shores bordered with vast constructions and high chimneys, naval
+shops, warehouses, arsenals, and dry-docks for cleaning up the boats.
+Tug-boats were continually stirring up its green and miry waters.
+Steamers undergoing repairs were lined up the length of the
+break-waters undergoing a continual pounding that made their plates
+resound. Lighters topped with hills of pit coal were going slowly to
+take their position along the flanks of the ships. Under the drawbridge
+launches were coming and going from the warships, leaving on the
+floating piers the crews celebrating their shore-leave with scandalous
+uproar.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ remained isolated while the workmen from the arsenal
+were installing on the poop rapid-fire guns and the wireless telegraph
+apparatus. No one could come aboard that did not belong to the crew.
+
+The sailors' families were waiting for them on the wharf, and Caragol
+had occasion to become acquainted with many Breton women,--mothers,
+sisters, or fiancées of his new friends. He liked these women: they
+were dressed in black with full skirts, and white, stiff caps which
+brought to his mind the wimples of the nuns.... Some tall, stout girls
+with blue and candid eyes laughed at the Spaniard without understanding
+a single word. The old women with faces as dark and wrinkled as winter
+apples touched glasses with Caragol in the low cafes near the port.
+They all could do honor to a goblet in an opportune moment, and had
+great faith in the saints. The cook did not require anything more....
+Most excellent and charming people!
+
+Certain lads decorated with the _Croix de Guerre_ used to relate their
+experiences to him. They were survivors of the battalion of marines who
+defended Dixmude. After the battle of the Marne they had been sent to
+intercept the enemy on the side of Flanders. There were not more than
+six thousand of them and, aided by a Belgian division, they had
+sustained the onrush of an entire army. Their resistance had lasted for
+weeks:--a combat of barricades in the street, of struggles the length
+of the canal with the bloodiness of the ancient piratical forays. The
+officers had shouted their orders with broken swords and bandaged
+heads. The men had fought on without thinking of their wounds, covered
+with blood, until they fell down dead.
+
+Caragol, hitherto little interested in military affairs, became most
+enthusiastic when relating this heroic struggle to Ferragut, simply
+because his new friends had taken part in it.
+
+"Many died, Captain.... Almost half of them. But the Germans couldn't
+make any headway.... Then, on learning that the marines had been no
+more than six thousand, the generals tore their hair. So great was
+their wrath! They had supposed that they were confronted by dozens of
+thousands.... It was just great to hear the lads relate what they did
+there."
+
+Among these "lads" wounded in the war, who had passed to the naval
+reserve and were manning the _Mare Nostrum_, one was especially
+distinguished by the old man's partiality. He could talk to him in
+Spanish, because of his transatlantic voyages, and besides he had been
+born in Vannes.
+
+If the youth ever approached the cook's dominions he was invariably met
+with a smile of invitation. "A refresco, Vicente?" The best seat was
+for him. Caragol had forgotten his name as not worth while. Since he
+came from Vannes, he could not have any other name but Vicente.
+
+The first day that they chatted together, the marine, in love with his
+country, described to the cook the beauties of Morbihan,--a great
+interior sea surrounded with groves and with islands covered with
+pines. Among the venerable antiquities of the city was the Gothic
+cathedral with its many tombs, among them that of a Spanish saint,--St.
+Vicente Ferrer.
+
+This gave a tug at Caragol's heart-strings. He had never before
+bothered to find out where the famous apostle of Valencia was
+entombed.... He recalled suddenly a strophe of the songs of praise that
+the devotees of his land used to sing before the altars of this saint.
+Sure enough he had gone to die in "Vannes, in Brittainy,"--a mere
+geographical name which until then had lacked any significance for
+him.... And so this lad was from Vannes? Nothing more was needed to
+make Caragol regard him with the respect due to one born in a
+miraculous country.
+
+He made him describe many times the tomb of the saint, the only one in
+the transept of the cathedral, the moth-eaten tapestries that
+perpetuated his miracles, the silver bust which guarded his heart....
+Furthermore, the principal portal of Vannes was called the gate of St.
+Vicente and recollections of the saint were still alive in their
+chronicles.
+
+Caragol proposed to visit this city also when the ship should return to
+Brest. Brittainy must be very holy ground, the holiest in the world,
+since the miracle-working Valencian, after traversing so many nations,
+had wished to die there.
+
+It, therefore, did not produce the slightest astonishment that this
+slip of a boy who had been picked up at Dixmude covered with wounds,
+was now showing himself sane and vigorous.... On board the _Mare
+Nostrum_ he was the head gunner. He and two comrades had charge of the
+quickfirers. For Caragol there was not the slightest doubt as to the
+fate of every submarine that should venture to attack them; the "lad
+from Vannes" would send them to smithereens at the first shot. A
+picture post-card, a gift of the lad from Brittany, showing the tomb of
+the saint, occupied the position of honor in the galley. The old man
+used to pray before it as though it were a miracle-working print, and
+the _Cristo del Grao_ was relegated to second place.
+
+One morning Caragol went in search of the captain and found him writing
+in his stateroom. He had just come from making purchases in the shore
+market. While passing through the _rue de Siam_, the most important
+road in Brest, where the theaters are, the moving-picture shows, and
+the cafes, he had had an encounter. "An unexpected meeting," he
+continued with a mysterious smile. "Who do you suppose it was with?..."
+Ferragut shrugged his shoulders. And, noting his indifference, the old
+man could not keep the secret any longer.
+
+"The lady-bird!" he added. "That handsome, perfumed lady-bird that used
+to come to see you.... The one from Naples.... The one from
+Barcelona...." The captain turned pale, first with surprise and then
+with anger. Freya in Brest!... Her spy work was reaching even here?...
+
+Caragol went on with his story. He was returning to the ship, and she,
+who was walking through the _rue de Siam,_ had recognized him, speaking
+to him affectionately.
+
+"She asked to be remembered to you.... She has been informed that no
+foreigner can come aboard. She told me that she had tried to come to
+see you."
+
+The cook began a search through his pockets, extricating a bit of
+wrinkled paper, a white sheet snatched from an old letter.
+
+"She also gave me this paper, written right there in the street with a
+lead pencil. You will know what it says. I did not wish to look at it."
+
+Ferragut, on taking the paper, recognized immediately her handwriting,
+although uneven, nervous and scribbled with great precipitation. Six
+words, no more:--"Farewell, I am going to die."
+
+"Lies! Always lies!" said the voice of prudence in his brain.
+
+He tore up the paper and passed the rest of the morning very much
+preoccupied.... It was his duty to defend himself against this
+espionage that had even established its base in a port of war.... Every
+boat anchored near the _Mare Nostrum_ was menaced by Freya's power to
+give information. Who knew but what her mysterious communications would
+bring about their attack by a submarine on going out from the roadstead
+of Brest!...
+
+His first impulse was to denounce her. Then he repented because of his
+absurd scruples of chivalry.... Besides, he would have to explain his
+past to the head officers at Brest who knew him very slightly. He was
+far from that naval captain at Salonica who had so well understood his
+passional errors.
+
+He wished to watch her for himself, and in the evening he went ashore.
+He detested Brest as one of the dullest cities of the Atlantic. It was
+always raining there, and there was no diversion except the eternal
+promenade through the _rue de Siam_, or a bored stay in the cafés full
+of seamen and English and Portuguese land-officers.
+
+He went through the public establishments night and day; he made
+investigations in the hotels; he hired carriages in order to visit the
+more picturesque suburbs. For four days he persisted in his inquiries
+without any result.
+
+He began to doubt Uncle Caragol's veracity. Perhaps he had been drunk
+on returning to the ship, and had made up such an encounter. But the
+recollection of that paper written by her discounted such a
+supposition.... Freya was in Brest.
+
+The cook explained it all simply enough when the captain besieged him
+with fresh questions.
+
+"The lady-bird must just be passing through. Perhaps she flitted away
+that same evening.... That meeting was just a chance encounter."
+
+Ferragut had to give up his investigations. The defensive work on the
+ship was about terminated and the holds contained their cargo of
+projectiles for the army of the Orient and various unmounted guns. He
+received his sailing orders, and one gray and rainy morning they lifted
+anchor and steamed out of the bay of Brest. The fog made even more
+difficult the passage between the reefs that obstruct this port. They
+passed before the lugubrious Bay of the Dead, ancient cemetery of
+sailboats, and continued their navigation toward the south in search of
+the strait in order to enter the Mediterranean.
+
+Ferragut felt increased pride in examining the new aspect of the _Mare
+Nostrum_. The wireless telegraph was going to keep him in contact with
+the world. He was no longer a merchant captain, slave of destiny,
+trusting to good luck, and incapable of repelling an attack. The
+radiographic stations were watching for him the entire length of the
+coast, advising him of changes in his course that he might avoid the
+ambushed enemy. The apparatus was constantly hissing and sustaining
+invisible dialogues. Besides, mounted on the stern was a cannon covered
+with a canvas hood, ready to begin work.
+
+The dreams of his childhood when he used to devour stories of corsairs
+and novels of maritime adventures seemed about to be realized. He was
+now entitled to call himself "Captain of Sea and War" like the ancient
+navigators. If a submarine should pass before him, he would attack it
+from the prow; if it should try to pursue him, he would respond with
+the cannon.
+
+His adventurous humor actually made him anxious for one of these
+encounters. A maritime combat had not yet occurred in his life, and he
+wished to see how these modest and silent men who had made war on land
+and contemplated death at close range, would demean themselves.
+
+It was not long before his desire was realized. One morning on the high
+seas near Lisbon, when he had just fallen asleep after a night on the
+bridge, the shouts and runnings of the crew awakened him.
+
+A submarine had broken the surface about fifteen hundred yards astern
+and was coming toward the _Mare Nostrum_, evidently fearing that the
+merchant-boat would try to escape; but in order to oblige it to stop,
+its gun fired two shells which fell into the water.
+
+The steamer moderated its pace but only to place itself in a more
+favorable position and to maneuver with more sea room, with its arms at
+the stern. At the first shot the submarine began to recede, keeping a
+more prudent distance, surprised to receive an answer to its
+aggression.
+
+The combat lasted half an hour. The shots repeated themselves on both
+sides with the speed of rapid fire artillery. Ferragut was near the
+gun, admiring the calm coolness with which its servants manipulated it.
+One always had a projectile in his arms ready to give it to his
+companion who rapidly introduced it into the smoking chamber. The
+gunner was concentrating all his life in his eyes, and bending over the
+cannon, moved it carefully, seeking the sensitive part of that gray and
+prolonged body that was rising to the surface of the water as though it
+were a whale.
+
+Suddenly a cloud of kindling wood flew near the steamer's prow. An
+enemy's projectile had just hit the edge of the roofs that covered the
+galley and mess rooms. Caragol, who was standing in the door of his
+dominions, raised his hands to his hat. When the yellowish and
+evil-smelling cloud dissolved, they saw him still standing there,
+scratching the top of his head, bare and red.
+
+"It's nothing!" he cried. "Just a bit of wood that drew a little of my
+blood. Fire away!... Fire!"
+
+He was yelling directions, inflamed by the shooting. The drug-like
+smell of the smokeless powder, the dull thud of the detonations
+appeared to intoxicate him. He was leaping and wringing his hands with
+the ardor of a war-dancer.
+
+The gunners redoubled their activity; the shots became continuous.
+
+"There it is!" yelled Caragol. "They have hit it.... They have hit it!"
+
+Of all those aboard, he was the one who could least appreciate the
+effects of the shots for he could scarcely discern the silhouette of
+the submersible. But in spite of that he continued bellowing with all
+the force of his faith.
+
+"Now you've hit it!... Hurrah! Hurrah!"
+
+And the strange thing was that the enemy instantly disappeared from the
+blue surface. The gunners still sent some shots against their
+periscope. Then there was left in the place which they had occupied
+only a white and glistening expanse.
+
+The steamer went toward this enormous spot of oil whose undulations
+were twinkling with sunflower-like reflections.
+
+The marines uttered shouts of enthusiasm. They were sure of having sent
+the submersible to the bottom. The officers were less optimistic. They
+had never seen one raise itself up vertically, tilting its stern high
+in the air before sinking. Perhaps it simply had been damaged and
+obliged to hide.
+
+The loss of the submarine was a sure thing in Caragol's estimation, and
+he considered it entirely unnecessary to ask the name of the one who
+had blown it to smithereens.
+
+"It must have been that lad from Vannes.... He's the only one who could
+have done it."
+
+For him the other gunners simply did not exist. And, inflamed by his
+enthusiasm, he wriggled out of the hands of the two seamen who had
+begun to bandage his head with a deftness learned in land combats.
+
+Ferragut was entirely satisfied with this encounter. Although he could
+not be absolutely certain of the destruction of the enemy, the fact
+that his boat had saved itself would spread abroad the fact that the
+_Mare Nostrum_ was entirely capable of self-defense.
+
+His joy took him to Caragol's domains.
+
+"Well done, old man! We're going to write to the Ministry of Marine to
+give you the _Croix de Guerre_."
+
+The cook, taking his words in all seriousness, declined the honor. If
+such recompense were to be given to any one, let it be handed to "that
+lad from Vannes." Then he added as though reflecting the captain's
+thoughts:
+
+"I like to sail in this fashion.... Our steamer has gotten its teeth,
+and now it will not have to run like a frightened rabbit.... They'll
+have to let it go on its way in peace because now it can bite."
+
+The rest of the journey toward Salonica was without incident.
+Telegraphy kept it in contact with the instructions arriving from the
+shore. Gibraltar advised it to sail close to the African coast; Malta
+and Bizerta pointed out that it could continue forward since the
+passage between Tunis and Sicily was clear of enemies. From distant
+Egypt tranquillizing messages came to meet them while they were sailing
+among the Grecian Islands with the prow toward Salonica.
+
+On their return, they were to take freight to the harbor of Marseilles.
+
+Ferragut did not have to bother about the boat while it was at anchor.
+The French officials were the ones who made arrangements with the
+harbor authorities. He merely had to be the justification for the flag,
+a captain of a neutral country, whose presence certified to the
+nationality of the vessel. Only on the sea did he recover command,
+every one becoming obedient to those on the bridge.
+
+He wandered through Marseilles as at other times, passing the first
+hours of the evening on the terraces of the _Cannebière_.
+
+An old Marseillaise, captain of a merchant steamer, used to chat with
+him before returning to his office. One afternoon, while Ferragut was
+absent-mindedly glancing at a certain Paris daily that his friend was
+carrying, his attention was suddenly attracted by a name printed at the
+head of a short article. Surprise made him turn pale while at the same
+time something contracted within his breast. Again he spelled out the
+name, fearing that he had been under an hallucination. Doubt was
+impossible: it was very clear,--_Freya Talberg_. He took the paper from
+his comrade's hand, disguising his impatience by an assumption of
+curiosity.
+
+"What is the war news to-day?..."
+
+And while the old sailor was giving him the news, he read feverishly
+the few lines grouped beneath that name.
+
+He was bewildered. The heading told little to one ignorant of the
+preceding facts to which the periodical alluded. These lines were
+simply voicing a protest against the government for not having made the
+famous Freya Talberg pay the penalty to which she had been sentenced.
+The paragraph terminated with mention of the beauty and elegance of the
+delinquent as though to these qualities might be attributed the delay
+in punishment.
+
+Ferragut put forth all his efforts to give his voice a tone of
+indifference.
+
+"Who is this individual?" he said, pointing to the heading of the
+article.
+
+His companion had some difficulty in recalling her. So many things were
+happening because of the war....
+
+"She is a _boche_, a spy, sentenced to death.... It appears that she
+did a great deal of work here and in other ports, sending word to the
+German submarines about the departure of our transports.... They
+arrested her in Paris two months ago when she was returning from
+Brest."
+
+His friend said this with a certain indifference. These spies were so
+numerous!... The newspapers were constantly publishing notices of their
+shooting:--two lines, no more, as though treating of an ordinary
+casualty.
+
+"This Freya Talberg," he continued, "has had enough said about her
+personality. It seems that she is a _chic_ woman,--a species of lady
+from a novel. Many are protesting because she has not yet been
+executed. It is sad to have to kill one of her sex,--to kill a woman
+and especially a beautiful woman!... But nevertheless it is very
+necessary.... I believe that she is to be shot at any moment."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+AMPHITRITE!... AMPHITRITE!
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ made another trip from Marseilles to Salonica.
+
+Before sailing, Ferragut hunted vainly through the Paris periodicals
+for fresh news of Freya. For some days past, the attention of the
+public had been so distracted by various other events that for the time
+being the spy was forgotten.
+
+On arriving at Salonica, he made discreet inquiries among his military
+and marine friends in the harbor cafés. Hardly any one had ever heard
+the name of Freya Talberg. Those who had read it in the newspapers
+merely replied with indifference.
+
+"I know who she is: she is a spy who was an actress,--a woman with a
+certain _chic_. I think that they've shot her.... I don't know
+certainly, but they ought to have shot her."
+
+They had more important things to think about. A spy!... On all sides
+they were discovering the intrigues of German espionage. They had to
+shoot a great many.... And immediately they forgot this affair in order
+to speak of the difficulties of the war that were threatening them and
+their comrades-at-arms.
+
+When Ferragut returned to Marseilles two months afterwards, he was
+still ignorant as to whether his former mistress was yet among the
+living.
+
+The first evening that he met his old comrade, the captain, in the café
+of the _Cannebière_, he skillfully guided the conversation around until
+he could bring out naturally the question in the back of his mind:
+"What was the fate of that Freya Talberg that there was so much talk
+about in the newspapers before I went to Salonica?..."
+
+The Marseillaise had to make an effort to recall her.
+
+"Ah, yes!... The _boche_ spy," he said after a long pause. "They shot
+her some weeks ago. The papers said little of her death,--just a few
+lines. Such people don't deserve any more...."
+
+Ferragut's friend had two sons in the army; a nephew had died in the
+trenches, another, a mate aboard a transport, had just perished in a
+torpedo attack. The old man was passing many nights without sleeping
+thinking of his sons battling at the front. And this uneasiness gave a
+hard and ferocious tone to his patriotic enthusiasm.
+
+"It's a good thing she is dead.... She was a woman, and shooting a
+woman is a painful thing. It is always repugnant to be obliged to treat
+them like men.... But according to what they tell me, this individual
+with her spy-information brought about the torpedoing of sixteen
+vessels.... Ah, the wicked beast!..."
+
+And he said no more, changing the subject. Every one evinced the same
+revulsion on recalling the spy.
+
+Ferragut eventually shared the same sentiments, his brain having
+divested itself of the contradictory duality which had attended all the
+critical moments of his existence. Remembering only her crimes, he
+hated Freya. As a man of the sea, he recalled his nameless
+fellow-sailors killed by torpedoes. This woman had indirectly prepared
+the ground for many assassinations.... And at the same time he recalled
+another image of her as the mistress who knew so well how to keep him
+spellbound by her artifices in the old palace of Naples, making that
+voluptuous prison her best souvenir.
+
+"Let's think no more about her," he said to himself energetically. "She
+has died.... She does not exist."
+
+But not even after her death did she leave him in peace. Remembrance of
+her soon came surging back, binding her to him with a tragic interest.
+
+The very evening that he was talking with his friend in the café of the
+_Cannebière_, he went to the post office to get the mail which had been
+forwarded to him at Marseilles. They gave him a great package of
+letters and newspapers. By the handwriting on the envelopes, and the
+postmarks on the postals, he tried to make out who was writing to
+him:--one letter only from his wife, evidently but a single sheet,
+judging from its slender flexibility, three very bulky ones from
+Toni,--a species of diary in which he continued relating his purchases,
+his crops, his hope of seeing the captain,--all this mixed in with
+abundant news about the war, and the wretched condition of the people.
+There were, besides, various sheets from the banking establishments at
+Barcelona, rendering Ferragut an account of the investment of his
+capital.
+
+At the foot of the staircase he completed his examination of the
+outside of his correspondence. It was just what was always awaiting him
+on his return from his voyages.
+
+He was about to put the package in his pocket and continue on his way
+when his attention was attracted by a voluminous envelope in an unknown
+handwriting, registered in Paris....
+
+Curiosity made him open it immediately and he found in his hand a
+regular sheaf of loose leaves, a long account that far exceeded the
+limits of a letter. He looked at the engraved letter-head and then at
+the signature. The writer was a lawyer in Paris, and Ferragut suspected
+by the luxurious paper and address that he must be a celebrated
+_maître_. He even recalled having run across his name somewhere in the
+newspapers.
+
+Then and there he began reading the first page, anxious to know why
+this distinguished personage had written to him. But he had scarcely
+run his eyes over some of the sheets before he stopped his reading. He
+had come across the name of Freya Talberg. This lawyer had been her
+defender before the Council of War.
+
+Ferragut hastened to put the letter in a safe place, and curb his
+impatience. He felt that necessity for silent isolation and absolute
+solitude which a reader, anxious to delve into a new book, experiences.
+This bundle of papers doubtless contained for him the most interesting
+of stories.
+
+Returning to his ship, the road seemed to him far longer than at other
+times. He longed to lock himself in his stateroom, away from all
+curiosity as though he were about to perform some mysterious rite.
+
+Freya was not in existence. She had disappeared from the world in the
+infamous manner in which criminals disappear,--doubly condemned since
+even her memory was hateful to the people; and Ferragut within a few
+moments was going to resurrect her like a ghost, in the floating house
+that she had visited on two occasions. He now might know the last hours
+of her existence wrapped in disreputable mystery; he could violate the
+will of her judges who had condemned her to lose her life and after
+death to perish from every one's memory. With eager avidity he seated
+himself before his cabin table, arranging the contents of the envelope
+in order;--more than twelve sheets, written on both sides, and several
+newspaper clippings. In these clippings he saw portraits of Freya, a
+hard and blurred likeness which he could recognize only by her name
+underneath. He also beheld the portrait of her defender,--an old lawyer
+of fastidious aspect with white locks carefully combed, and sharp eyes.
+
+From the very first lines, Ferragut suspected that the _maître_ could
+neither write nor speak except in the most approved literary form. His
+letter was a moderated and correct account in which all emotion,
+however keen it might have been, was discreetly controlled so as not to
+disorganize the sweep of a majestic style.
+
+He began by explaining that his professional duty had made him decide
+to defend this spy. She was in need of a lawyer; she was a foreigner;
+public opinion, influenced by the exaggerated accounts given by the
+newspapers of her beauty and her jewels, was ferociously inimical,
+demanding her immediate punishment. Nobody had wished to take charge of
+her defense. And for this very reason he had accepted it without fear
+of unpopularity.
+
+Ferragut believed that this sacrifice might be attributed to the
+impulse of a gallant old beau, attracted to Freya because of her
+beauty. Besides, this criminal process represented a typical Parisian
+incident and might give a certain romantic notoriety to the one
+intervening in its developments.
+
+A few paragraphs further on the sailor became convinced that the
+_maître_ had fallen in love with his client. This woman even in her
+dying moments shed around her most amazing powers of seduction. The
+professional success anticipated by the lawyer disappeared on his first
+questioning. Defense of Freya would be impossible. When he questioned
+her regarding the events of her former life, she either wept for every
+answer, or else remained silent, immovable, with as unconcerned a
+glance as though the fate of some other woman were at stake.
+
+The military judges did not need her confessions: they knew, detail for
+detail, all her existence during the war and in the last years of
+peace. Never had the police agents abroad worked with such rapidity and
+success. Mysterious and omnipotent good fortune had crowned every
+investigation. They knew all of Freya's doings. They had even received
+from a secret agent exact data regarding her personality, the number by
+which she was represented in the director's office at Berlin, the
+salary that she was paid, as well as her reports during the past month.
+Documents written by her personally, of an irrefutable culpability, had
+poured in without any one's knowing from what point they were sent or
+by whom.
+
+Every time that the judge had placed before Freya's eyes one of these
+proofs, she looked at her lawyer in desperation.
+
+"It is _they_!" she moaned. "They who desire my death!"
+
+Her defender was of the same opinion. The police had learned of her
+presence in France by a letter that her superiors in Barcelona had
+sent, stupidly disguised, written with regard to a code whose mystery
+had been discovered some time before by the French counter-spies. To
+the _maître_ it was only too evident that some mysterious power had
+wished to rid itself of this woman, dispatching her to an enemy's
+country, intending to send her to death.
+
+Ulysses suspected in the defender a state of mind similar to his
+own,--the same duality that had tormented him in all his relations with
+Freya.
+
+"I, sir," wrote the lawyer, "have suffered much. One of my sons, an
+officer, died in the battle of the Aisne. Others very close to me,
+nephews and pupils, died in Verdun and with the expeditionary army of
+the Orient...."
+
+As a Frenchman, he had felt an irresistible aversion upon becoming
+convinced that Freya was a spy who had done great harm to his
+country.... Then as a man, he had commiserated her inconsequence, her
+contradictory and frivolous character, amounting almost to a crime, and
+her egoism as a beautiful woman and lover of luxury that had made her
+willing to suffer moral vileness in exchange for creature comfort.
+
+Her story had attracted the lawyer with the palpitating interest of a
+novel of adventure. Commiseration had finally developed the vehemence
+of a love affair. Besides, the knowledge that the exploiters of this
+woman were the ones that had denounced her, had aroused his knightly
+enthusiasm in the defense of her indefensible cause.
+
+Appearance before the Council of War had proved painful and dramatic.
+Freya, who until then, had seemed brutalized by the regime of the
+prison, roused herself upon being confronted by a dozen grave and
+uniformed men.
+
+Her first moves were those of every handsome and coquettish female. She
+knew perfectly well her physical influence. These soldiers transformed
+into judges were recalling those other flirts that she had seen at the
+teas and grand balls at the hotels.... What Frenchman can resist
+feminine attraction?...
+
+She had smiled, she had replied to the first questions with graceful
+modesty, fixing her wickedly guileless eyes upon the officials seated
+behind the presidential table, and on those other men in blue uniform,
+charged with accusing her or reading the documents of her prosecution.
+
+But something cold and hostile existed in the atmosphere and paralyzed
+her smiles, leaving her words without echo and making ineffectual the
+splendors of her eyes. All foreheads were bowed under the weight of
+severe thought: all the men in that instant appeared thirty years
+older. They simply would not see such a one as she was, however much
+effort she might make. They had left their admiration and their desires
+on the other side of the door.
+
+Freya perceived that she had ceased to be a woman and was no more than
+one accused. Another of her sex, an irresistible rival, was now
+engrossing everything, binding these men with a profound and austere
+love. Instinct made her regard fixedly the white matron of grave
+countenance whose vigorous bust appeared over the head of the
+president. She was Patriotism, Justice, the Republic, contemplating
+with her vague and hollow eyes this female of flesh and blood who was
+beginning to tremble upon realizing her situation.
+
+"I do not want to die!" cried Freya, suddenly abandoning her seductions
+and becoming a poor, wretched creature crazed by fear. "I am innocent."
+
+She lied with the absurd and barefaced illogicalness of one finding
+herself in danger of death. It was necessary to re-read her first
+declarations, which she was now denying, of presenting afresh the
+material proofs whose existence she did not wish to admit, of making
+her entire past file by supported by that irrefutable data of anonymous
+origin.
+
+"It is _they_ who have done it all!... They have mis-represented me!...
+Since they have brought about my ruin, I am going to tell what I know."
+
+In his account the lawyer passed lightly over what had occurred in the
+Council of War. Professional secrecy and patriotic interest prevented
+greater explicitness. The session had lasted from morning till night,
+Freya revealing to her judges all that she knew.... Then her defender
+had spoken for five hours, trying to establish a species of interchange
+in the application of the penalty. The guilt of this woman was
+undeniable and the wickedness that she had carried through was very
+great, but they should spare her life in exchange for her important
+confessions.... Besides, the inconsequence of her character should be
+taken into consideration ... also, that vengeance of which the enemy
+had made her the victim....
+
+With Freya he had waited, until well on into the night, the decision of
+the tribunal. The defendant appeared animated by hope. She had become a
+woman again: she was talking placidly with him and smiling at the
+gendarmes and eulogizing the army.... "Frenchmen, gentlemen, were
+incapable of killing a woman...."
+
+The _maître_ was not surprised at the sad and furrowed brows of the
+officers as they came out from their deliberations. They appeared
+discontented with their recent vote, and yet at the same time showed
+the serenity of a tranquil countenance. They were soldiers who had just
+fulfilled their full duty, suppressing every purely masculine instinct.
+The one deputed to read the sentence swelled his voice with a
+fictitious energy.... "_Death!_..." After a long enumeration of crimes
+Freya was condemned to be shot:--she had given information to the enemy
+that represented the loss of thousands of men and boats, torpedoed
+because of her reports, on which had perished defenseless families.
+
+The spy nodded her head upon listening to her own acts, for the first
+time appreciating their enormity and recognizing the justice of their
+tremendous punishment. But at the same time she was relying upon a
+good-natured reprieve in exchange for all which she had revealed, upon
+a gallant clemency ... because she was she.
+
+As the fatal word sounded, she uttered a cry, became ashy pale, and
+leaned upon the lawyer for support.
+
+"I do not want to die!... I ought not to die!... I am innocent."
+
+She continued shrieking her innocence, without giving any other proof
+of it than the desperate instinct of self-preservation. With the
+credulity of one who wishes to save herself, she accepted all the
+problematical consolations of her defender. There remained the last
+recourse of appealing to the mercy of the President of the Republic:
+perhaps he might pardon her.... And she signed this appeal with sudden
+hope.
+
+The lawyer managed to delay the fulfillment of the sentence for two
+months, visiting many of his colleagues who were political personages.
+The desire of saving the life of his client was tormenting him as an
+obsession. He had devoted all his activity and his personal influence
+to this affair.
+
+"In love!... In love, as you were!" said, with scornful accent, the
+voice of Ferragut's prudent counselor.
+
+The periodicals were protesting against this delay in the execution of
+the sentence. The name of Freya Talberg was beginning to be heard in
+conversation as an argument against the weakness of the government. The
+women were the most implacable.
+
+One day, in the Palace of Justice, the _maître_ Became convinced of
+this general animosity that was pushing the defendant toward the day of
+execution. The woman who had charge of the gowns, a verbose old wife,
+on a familiar footing with the illustrious lawyers, had rudely made
+known their opinions.
+
+"I wonder when they're going to execute that spy!... If she were a poor
+woman with children and needed to earn their bread, they would have
+shot her long ago.... But she is an elegant _cocotte_ and with jewels.
+Perhaps she has bewitched some of the cabinet ministers. We are going
+to see her on the street now almost any day.... And my son who died at
+Verdun!..."
+
+The prisoner, as though divining this public indignation, began to
+consider her death very near losing, little by little, that love of
+existence which had made her burst forth into lies and delirious
+protests. In vain the _maître_ held out hopes of pardon.
+
+"It is useless: I must die.... I ought to be shot.... I have done so
+much mischief.... It horrifies even me to remember all the crimes named
+in that sentence.... And there are still others that they don't
+know!... Solitude has made me see myself just as I am. What shame!... I
+ought to perish; I have ruined everything.... What is there left for me
+to do in the world?..."
+
+"And it was then, my dear sir," continued the attorney, in his letter,
+"that she spoke to me of you, of the way in which you had known each
+other, of the harm which she had done you unconsciously."
+
+Convinced of the uselessness of his efforts to save her life, the
+_maître_ had solicited one last favor of the tribunal. Freya was very
+desirous that he should accompany her at the moment of her execution,
+as this would maintain her serenity. Those in the government had
+promised their colleague in the forum, to send opportune notice that he
+might be present at the fulfillment of the sentence.
+
+It was at three o'clock in the morning and while he was in the deepest
+sleep that some messengers, sent by the prefecture of police, awakened
+him. The execution was to take place at daybreak: this was a decision
+reached at the last moment in order that the reporters might learn too
+late of the event.
+
+An automobile took him with the messengers to the prison of St. Lazare,
+across silent and shadowy Paris. Only a few hooded street lamps were
+cutting with their sickly light the darkness of the streets. In the
+prison they were joined by other functionaries and many chiefs and
+officers who represented military justice. The condemned woman was
+still sleeping in her cell, ignorant of what was about to occur.
+
+Those charged with awakening her, gloomy and timid, were marching in
+line through the corridors of the jail, bumping into one another in
+their nervous precipitation.
+
+The door was opened. Under the regulation light Freya was on her bed,
+with closed eyes. Upon opening them and finding herself surrounded by
+men, her face was convulsed with terror.
+
+"Courage, Freya!" said the prison warden. "The appeal for pardon has
+been denied."
+
+"Courage, my daughter," added the priest of the establishment, starting
+the beginning of a discourse.
+
+Her terror, due to the rude surprise of awakening with the brain still
+paralyzed, lasted but a few seconds. Upon collecting her thoughts,
+serenity returned to her face.
+
+"I must die?" she asked. "The hour has already come?... Very well,
+then: let them shoot me. Here I am."
+
+Some of the men turned their heads, and so averted their glance.... She
+had to get out of the bed in the presence of the two watchmen. This
+precaution was so that she might not attempt to take her life. She even
+asked the lawyer to remain in the cell as though in this way she wished
+to lessen the annoyance of dressing herself before strangers.
+
+Upon reaching this passage in his letter, Ferragut realized the pity
+and admiration of the _maître_ who had seen her preparing the last
+toilet of her life.
+
+"Adorable creature! So beautiful!... She was born for love and luxury,
+yet was going to die, torn by bullets like a rude soldier...."
+
+The precautions adopted by her coquetry appeared to him admirable. She
+wanted to die as she had lived, placing on her person the best that she
+possessed. Therefore, suspecting the nearness of her execution, she had
+a few days before reclaimed the jewels and the gown that she was
+wearing when arrest prevented her returning to Brest.
+
+Her defender described her "with a dress of pearl gray silk, bronze
+stockings and low shoes, a great-coat of furs, and a large hat with
+plumes. Besides, the necklace of pearls was on her bosom, emeralds in
+her ears and all her diamonds on her fingers."
+
+A sad smile curled her lips upon trying to look at herself in the
+window panes, still black with the darkness of night, which served her
+as a mirror.
+
+"I die in my uniform like a soldier," she said to her lawyer.
+
+Then in the ante-chamber of the prison, under the crude artificial
+light, this plumed woman, covered with jewels, her clothing exhaling a
+subtle perfume, memory of happier days, turned without any
+embarrassment toward the men clad in black and in blue uniforms.
+
+Two religious sisters who accompanied her appeared more moved than she.
+They were trying to exhort her and at the same time were struggling to
+keep back the tears.... The priest was no less touched. He had attended
+other criminals, but they were men.... To assist to a decent death a
+beautiful perfumed woman scintillating with precious stones, as though
+she were going to ride in an automobile to a fashionable tea!...
+
+The week before she had been in doubt as to whether to receive a
+Calvinist pastor or a Catholic priest. In her cosmopolitan life of
+uncertain nationality she had never taken the time to decide about any
+religion for herself. Finally she had selected the latter on account of
+its being more simple intellectually, more liberal and approachable....
+
+Several times when the priest was trying to console her, she
+interrupted him as though she were the one charged with inspiring
+courage.
+
+"To die is not so terrible as it appears when seen afar off!... I feel
+ashamed when I think of the fears that I have passed through, of the
+tears that I have shed.... It turns out to be much more simple than I
+had believed.... We all have to die!"
+
+They read to her the sentence refusing the appeal for pardon. Then they
+offered her a pen that she might sign it.
+
+A colonel told her that there were still a few moments at her
+disposition in which to write to her family, her friends, or to make
+her last will....
+
+"To whom shall I write?" said Freya. "I haven't a single friend in the
+world...."
+
+"Then it was," continued the lawyer, "that she took the pen as if a
+recollection had occurred to her, and traced some few lines.... Then
+she tore up the paper and came toward me. She was thinking of you,
+Captain: her last letter was for you and she left it unfinished,
+fearing that it might never reach your hands. Besides, she wasn't equal
+to writing; her pulse was nervous: she preferred to talk.... She asked
+me to send you a long, very long letter, telling about her last
+moments, and I had to swear to her that I would carry out her request."
+
+From that time on the _maître_ had seen things badly. Emotion was
+perturbing his sensibilities, but there yet lived in his mind Freya's
+last words on coming out of the jail.
+
+"I am not a German," she said repeatedly to the men in uniform. "I am
+not German!"
+
+For her the least important thing was to die. She was only worried for
+fear they might believe her of that odious nationality.
+
+The attorney found himself in an automobile with many men whom he
+scarcely knew. Other vehicles were before and behind theirs. In one of
+them was Freya with the nuns and the priest.
+
+A faint streak was whitening the sky, marking the points of the roofs.
+Below, in the deep blackness of the streets, the renewed life of
+daybreak was slowly beginning. The first laborers going to their work
+with their hands in their pockets, and the market women returning from
+market pushing their carts, turned their heads, following with interest
+this procession of swift vehicles almost all of them with men in the
+box seat beside the conductor. To the working-folk, this was perhaps a
+morning wedding.... Perhaps these were gay people coming from a
+nocturnal fiesta.... Several times the cortege slackened its speed,
+blocked by a row of heavy carts with mountains of garden-stuff.
+
+The _maître_, in spite of his emotions, recognized the road that the
+automobile was following. In the _place de la Nation_ he caught
+glimpses of the sculptured group, _le Triomphe de la Republique_,
+piercing the dripping mistiness of dawn; then the grating of the
+enclosure; then the long _cours de Vincennes_ and its historic
+fortress.
+
+They went still further on until they reached the field of execution.
+
+Upon getting down from the automobile, he saw an extensive plain
+covered with grass on which were drawn up two companies of soldiers.
+Other vehicles had arrived before them. Freya detached herself from the
+group of persons descending from the automobile, leaving behind the
+nuns and the officers who were escorting her.
+
+The light of daybreak, blue and cold as the reflection of steel, threw
+into relief the two masses of armed men who formed a narrow passageway.
+At the end of this impromptu lane there was a post planted in the
+ground and beyond that, a dark van drawn by two horses, and various men
+clad in black.
+
+The woman's approach was signalized by a voice of command, and
+immediately sounded the drums and trumpets at the head of the two
+formations. There was a rattle of guns; the soldiers were presenting
+arms. The martial instruments delivered the triumphal salute due to the
+presence of the head of a state, a general, a flag-raising.... It was
+an homage to Justice, majestic and severe,--a hymn to Patriotism,
+implacable in defense.
+
+Recalling the white woman with deep bosom and hollow eyes that she had
+seen over the head of the President of the Council, the spy for a
+moment recognized that all this was in her honor; but afterwards, she
+wished to believe that the triumphal reception was for herself.... She
+was marching between guns, accompanied by bugle-call and drum-beat,
+like a queen.
+
+To her defender, she appeared taller than ever. She seemed to have
+grown a palm higher because of her intense, emotional uplift. Her
+theatrical soul was moved just as when she used to present herself on
+the boards to receive applause. All these men had arisen in the middle
+of the night and were there on her account: the horns and the drums
+were sounding in order to greet her. Discipline was keeping their
+countenances grave and cold but she had the certain consciousness that
+they were finding her beautiful, and that back of many immovable eyes,
+desire was asserting itself.
+
+If there remained a shred of fear of losing her life, it disappeared
+under the caress of this false glory.... To die contemplated by so many
+valiant men who were rendering her the greatest of honors! She felt the
+necessity of being adorable, of falling into an artistic pose as though
+she were on a stage.
+
+She was passing between the two masses of men, head erect, stepping
+firmly with the high-spirited tread of a goddess-huntress, sometimes
+casting a glance on some of the hundreds of eyes fixed upon her. The
+illusion of her triumph made her advance as upright and serene as
+though passing the troops in review.
+
+"Good heavens!... What poise!" exclaimed a young officer behind the
+lawyer, admiring Freya's serenity.
+
+Upon approaching the post, some one read a brief document, a summary of
+the sentence,--three lines to apprise her that justice was about to be
+fulfilled.
+
+The only thing about this rapid notification that annoyed her was the
+fear that the trumpets and drums would cease. But they continued
+sounding and their martial music was as comforting to her ears as a
+very intoxicating wine slipping through her lips.
+
+A platoon of corporals and soldiers (twelve rifles) detached themselves
+from the double military mass. A sub-officer with a blond beard, small,
+delicate, was commanding it with an unsheathed sword. Freya
+contemplated him a moment, finding him interesting, while the young man
+avoided her glance.
+
+With the gesture of a tragedy queen, she repelled the white
+handkerchief that they were offering her to bandage her eyes. She did
+not need it. The nuns took leave of her forever. As soon as she was
+alone, two gendarmes commenced to tie her with the back supported
+against the post.
+
+"They say," her defender continued writing, "that one of her hands
+waved to me for the last time just before it was fastened down by the
+rope.... I saw nothing. I could not see!... It was too much for me!..."
+
+The rest of the execution he knew only by hearsay. The trumpets and
+drums continued sounding. Freya, bound and intensely pale, smiled as
+though she were drunk. The early morning breeze waved the plumes of her
+hat.
+
+When the twelve fusileers advanced placing themselves in a horizontal
+line eight yards distant, all of them aiming toward her heart, she
+appeared to wake up. She shrieked, her eyes abnormally dilated by the
+horror of the reality that so soon was to take place. Her cheeks were
+covered with tears. She tugged at the ligatures with the vigor of an
+epileptic.
+
+"Pardon!... Pardon! I do not want to die!"
+
+The sub-lieutenant raised his sword, and lowered it again rapidly.... A
+shot.
+
+Freya collapsed, her body slipping the entire length of the post until
+it fell forward on the ground. The bullets had cut the cords that bound
+her.
+
+As though it had acquired sudden life, her hat leaped from her head,
+flying off to fall about four yards further on. A corporal with a
+revolver in his right hand came forward from the shooting picket:--"the
+death-blow." He checked his step before the puddle of blood that was
+forming around the victim, pressing his lips together and averting his
+eyes. He then bent over her, raising with the end of the barrel the
+ringlets which had fallen over one of her ears. She was still
+breathing.... A shot in the temple. Her body contracted with a final
+shudder, then remained immovable with the rigidity of a corpse.
+
+Voices were heard. The firing-squad re-formed in line, and to the
+rhythm of their instruments went filing past the body of the dead. From
+the funeral wagon two black-robed men drew out a bier of white wood.
+
+Turning their backs upon their work, the double military mass marched
+toward the encampment. The ends of Justice had been served. Trumpets
+and drums were lost on the horizon but their sounds were still
+magnified by the fresh echoes of the coming morn. The corpse was
+despoiled of its jewels and then deposited in that poor coffin which
+looked so like a packing-box. The two nuns took with timidity the gems
+which the dead woman had given them for their works of charity. Then
+the lid was fastened down, shutting away forever the one who a few
+moments before was a woman of sumptuous charm upon whom men could not
+look unmoved. The four planks now guarded merely bloody rags, mutilated
+flesh, broken bones.
+
+The vehicle went to the cemetery of Vincennes, to the corner in which
+the executed were buried.... Not a flower, not an inscription, not a
+cross. The lawyer himself could not be sure of finding her burial place
+if at any time it was necessary to seek it.... Such was the last scene
+in the career of this luxurious and pleasure-loving creature!... Thus
+had that body gone to dissolution in an unknown hole in the ground like
+any abandoned beast of burden!...
+
+"She was good," said her defender, "and yet at the same time, she was a
+criminal. Her education was to blame. Poor woman!... They had brought
+her up to live in riches, and riches had always fled before her."
+
+Then in his last lines the old _maître_ said with melancholy, "She died
+thinking of you and a little of me.... We have been the last men of her
+existence."
+
+This reading left Ulysses in a mournful state of stupefaction. Freya
+was no longer living!... He was no longer running the danger of seeing
+her appear on his ship at whatever port he might touch!...
+
+The duality of his sentiments again surged up with violent
+contradiction.
+
+"It was a good thing!" said the sailor, "how many men have died through
+her fault!... Her execution was inevitable. The sea must be cleared of
+such bandits."
+
+And at the same time the remembrance of the delights of Naples, of that
+long imprisonment in a harem pervaded with unlimited sensuousness was
+reborn in his mind. He saw her in all the majesty of her marvelous
+body, just as when she was dancing or leaping from side to side of the
+old salon. And now this form, molded by nature in a moment of
+enthusiasm, was no longer in existence.... It was nothing but a mass of
+liquid flesh and pestilent pulp!...
+
+He recalled her kiss, that kiss that had so electrified him, making him
+sink down and down through an ocean of ecstasy, like a castaway,
+content with his fate.... And he would never know her more!... And her
+mouth, with its perfume of cinnamon and incense, of Asiatic forests
+haunted with sensuousness and intrigue, was now ...! Ah, misery!
+
+Suddenly he saw the profile of the dead woman with one eye turned
+toward him, graciously and malignly, just as the "eye of the morning"
+must have looked at its mistress while uncoiling her mysterious dances
+in her Asiatic dwelling.
+
+Ulysses concentrated his attention on the Phantasm's pallid brow
+touched by the silky caress of her curls. There he had placed his best
+kisses, kisses of tenderness and gratitude.... But the smooth skin that
+had appeared made of petals of the camellia was growing dark before his
+eyes. It became a dark green and was oozing with blood.... Thus he had
+seen her that other time.... And he recalled with remorse his blow in
+Barcelona.... Then it opened, forming a deep hole, angular in shape
+like a star. Now it was the mark of the gunshot wound, the _coup de
+grâce_ that brought the death-agony of the executed girl to its end.
+
+Poor Freya, implacable warrior, unnerved by the battle of the sexes!...
+She had passed her existence hating men yet needing them in order to
+live,--doing them all the harm possible and receiving it from them in
+sad reciprocity until finally she had perished at their hands.
+
+It could not end in any other way. A masculine hand had opened the
+orifice through which was escaping the last bubble of her existence....
+And the horrified captain, poring over her sad profile with its
+purpling temple, thought that he never would be able to blot that
+ghastly vision from his memory. The phantasm would diminish, becoming
+invisible in order to deceive him, but would surely come forth again in
+all his hours of pensive solitude; it was going to embitter his nights
+on watch, to follow him through the years like remorse.
+
+Fortunately the exactions of real life kept repelling these sad
+memories.
+
+"It was a good thing she was shot!" affirmed authoritatively within him
+the energetic official accustomed to command men. "What would you have
+done in forming a part of the tribunal that condemned her?... Just what
+the others did. Think of those who have died through her deviltry!...
+Remember what Toni said!"
+
+A letter from his former mate, received in the same mail with the one
+from Freya's defender, spoke of the abominations that submarine
+aggression was committing in the Mediterranean.
+
+News of some of the crimes was beginning to be received from
+shipwrecked sailors who had succeeded in reaching the coast after long
+hours of struggle, or when picked up by other boats. The most of the
+victims, however, would remain forever unknown in the mystery of the
+waves. Torpedoed boats had gone to the bottom with their crews and
+passengers, "without leaving any trace," and only months afterwards a
+part of the tragedy had become evident when the surge flung up on the
+coast numberless bodies impossible of identification, without even a
+recognizable human face.
+
+Almost every week Toni contemplated some of these funereal gifts of the
+sea. At daybreak the fishermen used to find corpses tossed on the beach
+where the water swept the sand, resting there a few moments on the
+moist ground, only to be snatched back again by another and stronger
+wave. Finally their backs had become imbedded on land, holding them
+motionless--while, from their clothing and their flesh, swarms of
+little fishes came forth fleeing back to the sea in search of new
+pastures. The revenue guards had discovered among the rocks mutilated
+bodies in tragic positions, with glassy eyes protruding from their
+sockets.
+
+Many of them were recognized as soldiers by the tatters that revealed
+an old uniform, or the metal identification tags on their wrists. The
+shore folks were always talking of a transport that had been torpedoed
+coming from Algiers.... And mixed with the men, they were constantly
+finding bodies of women so disfigured that it was almost impossible to
+judge of their age: mothers who had their arms arched as though putting
+forth their utmost efforts to guard the babe that had disappeared. Many
+whose virginal modesty had been violated by the sea, showed naked limbs
+swollen and greenish, with deep bites from flesh-eating fishes. The
+tide had even tossed ashore the headless body of a child a few years
+old.
+
+It was more horrible, according to Toni, to contemplate this spectacle
+from land than when in a boat. Those on ships are not able to see the
+ultimate consequences of the torpedoings as vividly as do those who
+live on the shore, receiving as a gift of the waves this continual
+consignment of victims.
+
+The pilot had ended his letter with his usual supplications:--"Why do
+you persist in following the sea?... You want a vengeance that is
+impossible. You are one man, and your enemies are millions.... You are
+going to die if you persist in disregarding them. You already know that
+they have been hunting you for a long time. And you will not always
+succeed in eluding their clutches. Remember what the people say, 'He
+who courts danger--!' Give up the sea; return to your wife or come to
+us. Such a rich life as you might lead ashore!..."
+
+For a few hours Ferragut was of Toni's opinion. His reckless
+undertaking was bound to come to a bad end. His enemies knew him, were
+lying in wait for him, and were many arrayed against one who was living
+alone on his ship with a crew of men of a different nationality. Aside
+from the few who had always loved him, nobody would lament his death.
+He did not belong to any of the nations at war; he was a species of
+privateer bound not to begin an attack. He was even less,--an officer
+carrying supplies under the protection of a neutral flag. This flag was
+not deceiving anybody. His enemies knew the ship, seeking for it with
+more determination than if he were with the Allied fleets. Even in his
+own country, there were many people in sympathy with the German Empire
+who would celebrate joyously the disappearance of the _Mare Nostrum_
+and its captain.
+
+Freya's death had depressed his spirits more than he had imagined
+possible. He had gloomy presentiments; perhaps his next journey might
+be his last.
+
+"You are going to die!" cried an anguished voice in his brain. "You'll
+die very soon if you do not retire from the sea."
+
+And to Ferragut the queerest thing about the warning was that this
+counselor had the voice of the one who had always egged him on to
+foolish adventures,--the one that had hurled him into danger for the
+mere pleasure of discounting it, the one that had made him follow Freya
+even after knowing her vile profession.
+
+On the other hand the voice of prudence, always cautious and temperate,
+was now showing an heroic tranquillity, speaking like a man of peace
+who considers his obligations superior to his life.
+
+"Be calm, Ferragut; you have sold your person with your boat, and they
+have given you millions for it. You must carry through what you have
+promised even though it may send you out of existence.... The _Mare
+Nostrum_ cannot sail without a Spanish captain. If you abandon it, you
+will have to find another captain. You will run away through fear and
+put in your place a man who has to face death in order to maintain his
+family. Glorious achievement, that! ... while you would be on land,
+rich and safe!... And what are you going to do on land, you coward?"
+
+His egoism hardly knew how to reply to such a question. He recalled
+with antipathy his bourgeois existence over there in Barcelona, before
+buying the steamer. He was a man of action and could live only when
+occupied in risky enterprises.
+
+He would be bored to death on land and at the same time would be
+considered belittled, degraded, like one who comes down to an inferior
+grade in a country of hierarchies. The captain of a romantic,
+adventurous life would be converted into a real estate proprietor,
+knowing no other struggles than those which he might sustain with his
+tenants. Perhaps, in order to avoid a commonplace existence, he might
+invest his capital in navigation, the only business that he knew well.
+He might become a ship-owner acquiring new vessels and, little by
+little, because of the necessity of keeping a sharp watch over them,
+would eventually renew his voyages.... Well, then, why should he
+abandon the _Mare Nostrum?_
+
+Upon asking himself anxiously what his life had so far amounted to, he
+underwent a profound moral revolution.
+
+All his former existence appeared to him like a desert. He had lived
+without knowing why nor wherefore, challenging countless dangers and
+adventures for the mere pleasure of coming out victorious. Neither did
+he know with certainty what he had wanted until then. If it was money,
+it had flowed into his hands in the last months with overwhelming
+abundance.... He had it to-spare and it had not made him happy. As to
+professional glory, he could not desire anything greater than he
+already had. His name was celebrated all over the Spanish
+Mediterranean. Even the rudest and most ungovernable of sailors would
+admit his exceptional ability.
+
+"Love remained!..." But Ferragut made a wry face when thinking of that.
+He had known it and did not wish to meet it again. The gentle love of a
+good companion, capable of surrounding the latter part of his existence
+with congenial comfort, he had just lost forever. The other,
+impassioned, fantastic, voluptuous, giving to life the crude interest
+of conflicts and contrasts, had left him with no desire of recommencing
+it.
+
+Paternity, stronger and more enduring than love, might have filled the
+rest of his days had his son not died.... There only remained
+vengeance, the savage task of returning evil to those who had done him
+so much evil. But he was so powerless to struggle against all of
+them!... This final act appeared to be turning out so small and selfish
+in comparison with that other patriotic enthusiasm which was now
+dragging to sacrifice such great masses of men!...
+
+While he was thinking it all over, a phrase which he had somewhere
+heard--formed perhaps from the residuum of old readings--began to chant
+in his brain: "A life without ideals is not worth the trouble of
+living."
+
+Ferragut mutely assented. It was true: in order to live, an ideal is
+necessary. But where could he find it?...
+
+Suddenly, in his mind's eye, he saw Toni,--just as when he used to try
+to express his confused thoughts. With all his credulity and
+simplicity, his captain now considered his humble mate his superior. In
+his own way Toni had his ideal: he was concerned with something besides
+his own selfishness. He wished for other men what he considered good
+for himself, and he defended his convictions with the mystical
+enthusiasm of all those historic personages who have tried to impose a
+belief;--with the faith of the warriors of the Cross and those of the
+Prophet, with the tenacity of the Inquisition and of the Jacobins.
+
+He, a man of reason, had only known how to ridicule the generous and
+disinterested enthusiasms of other men, detecting at once their weak
+points and lack of adaptation to the reality of the moment.... What
+right had he to laugh at his mate who was a believer, dreaming, with
+the pure-mindedness of a child, of a free and happy humanity?... Aside
+from his stupid jeers, what could he oppose to that faith?...
+
+Life began to appear to him under a new light, as something serious and
+mysterious that was exacting a bridge toll, a tribute of courage from
+all the beings who pass over it, leaving the cradle behind them and
+having the grave as a final resting-place.
+
+It did not matter at all that their ideals might appear false. Where is
+the truth, the only and genuine truth?... Who is there that can
+demonstrate that he exists, and is not an illusion?...
+
+The necessary thing was to believe in something, to have hope. The
+multitudes had never been touched by impulses of argument and
+criticism. They had only gone forward when some one had caused hopes
+and hallucinations to be born in their souls. Philosophers might vainly
+seek the truth by the light of logic, but the rest of mankind would
+always prefer the chimerical ideals that become transformed into
+powerful motives of action.
+
+All religions were becoming beautifully less upon being subjected to
+cold examination. Yet, nevertheless, they were producing saints and
+martyrs, true super-men of morality. All revolutions had proved
+imperfect and ineffectual when submitted to scientific revision. Yet,
+nothwithstanding, they had brought forth the greatest individual
+heroes, the most astonishing collective movements of history.
+
+"To believe!... To dream!" a mysterious voice kept chanting in his
+brain. "To have an ideal!..."
+
+He did not fancy living, like the mummies of the great Pharaohs, in a
+luxurious tomb, anointed with perfume and surrounded with everything
+necessary for nourishment and sleep. To be born, to grow up, to
+reproduce oneself was not enough to form a history:--all the animals do
+the same. Man ought to add something more which he alone
+possesses,--the faculty of framing a future.... To dream! To the
+heritage of idealism left by our forebears should be added a new ideal,
+or the power of bringing it about.
+
+Ferragut realized that in normal times, he would have gone to his death
+just as he had lived, continuing a monotonous and uniform existence.
+Now the violent changes around him were resuscitating the dormant
+personalities which we all carry within us as souvenirs of our
+ancestors, revolving around a central and keen personality the only one
+that has existed until then.
+
+The world was in a state of war. The men of Middle Europe were clashing
+with the other half on the battlefields. Both sides had a mystic ideal,
+affirming it with violence and slaughter just as the multitudes have
+always done when moved by religious or revolutionary certainty accepted
+as the only truth....
+
+But the sailor recognized a profound difference in the two masses
+struggling at the present day. One was placing its ideal in the past,
+wishing to rejuvenate the sovereignty of Force, the divinity of war,
+and adapt it to actual life. The other throng was preparing for the
+future, dreaming of a world of free democracy, of nations at peace,
+tolerant and without jealousy.
+
+Upon adjusting himself to this new atmosphere, Ferragut began to feel
+within him ideas and aspirations that were, perhaps, an ancestral
+legacy. He fancied he could hear his uncle, the _Triton_, describing
+the impact of the men of the North upon the men of the South when
+trying to make themselves masters of the blue mantle of Amphitrite. He
+was a Mediterranean, but just because the country in which he had been
+born happened to be uninterested in the fate of the world, he was not
+going to remain indifferent.
+
+He ought to continue just where he was. Whatever Toni had told him of
+Latinism and Mediterranean civilization, he now accepted as great
+truths. Perhaps they might not be exact when examined in the light of
+pure reason, but they were worth as much as the assurances of the
+others.
+
+He was going to continue his life of navigation with new enthusiasm. He
+had faith, the ideals, the illusions that heroes are made of. While the
+war lasted he would assist in his own way, acting as an auxiliary to
+those who were fighting, transporting all that was necessary to the
+struggle. He began to look with greater respect upon the sailors
+obedient to his orders, simple folk who had given their blood without
+fine phrases and without arguments.
+
+When peace should come he would not, therefore, retire from the sea.
+There would still be much to be done. Then would begin the commercial
+war, the sharp rivalry to conquer the markets of the younger nations of
+America. Audacious and enormous plans were outlining themselves in his
+brain. In this war he might perhaps become a leader. He dreamed of the
+creation of a fleet of steamers that might reach even to the coast of
+the Pacific; he wished to contribute his means to the victorious
+re-birth of the race which had discovered the greater part of the
+planet.
+
+His new faith made him more friendly with the ship's cook, feeling the
+attraction of his invincible illusions. From time to time he would
+amuse himself consulting the old fellow as to the future fate of the
+steamer; he wished to know if the submarines were causing him any fear.
+
+"There's nothing to worry about," affirmed Caragol. "We have good
+protectors. Whoever presents himself before us is lost."
+
+And he showed his captain the religious engravings and postal cards
+which he had tacked on the walls of the galley.
+
+One morning Ferragut received his sailing orders. For the moment they
+were going to Gibraltar, to pick up the cargo of a steamer that had not
+been able to continue its voyage. From the strait they might turn their
+course to Salonica once more.
+
+The captain of the _Mare Nostrum_ had never undertaken a journey with
+so much joy. He believed that he was going to leave on land forever the
+recollection of that executed woman whose corpse he was seeing so many
+nights in his dreams. From all the past, the only thing that he wished
+to transplant to his new existence was the image of his son. Henceforth
+he was going to live, concentrating all his enthusiasm and ideals on
+the mission which he had imposed on himself.
+
+He took the boat directly from Marseilles to the Cape of San Antonio
+far from the coast, keeping to the mid-Mediterranean, without passing
+the Gulf of Lyons. One twilight evening the crew saw some bluish
+mountains in the hazy distance,--the island of Mallorca. During the
+night the lighthouses of Ibiza and Formentera slipped past the dark
+horizon. When the sun arose a vertical spot of rose color like a tongue
+of flame, appeared above the sea line. It was the high mountain of
+Mongó, the Ferrarian promontory of the ancients. At the foot of its
+abrupt steeps was the village of Ulysses' grandparents, the house in
+which he had passed the best part of his childhood. Thus it must have
+looked in the distance to the Greeks of Massalia, exploring the desert
+Mediterranean in ships which were leaping the foam like wooden horses.
+
+All the rest of the day, the _Mare Nostrum_ sailed very close to the
+shore. The captain knew this sea as though it were a lake on his own
+property. He took the steamer through shallow depths, seeing the reefs
+so near to the surface that it appeared almost a miracle that the boat
+did not crash upon them. Sometimes the space between the keel and the
+sunken rocks was hardly two yards wide. Then the gilded water would
+take on a dark tone and the steamer would continue its advance over the
+greater depths.
+
+Along the shore, the autumn sun was reddening the yellowing mountains,
+now dry and fragrant, covered with pasturage of strong odor which could
+be smelt at great distances. In all the windings of the coast,--little
+coves, beds of dry torrents or gorges between two peaks--were visible
+white groups of hamlets.
+
+Ferragut contemplated carefully the native land of his grandparents.
+Toni must be there now: perhaps from the door of his dwelling he was
+seeing them pass by; perhaps he was recognizing the ship with surprise
+and emotion.
+
+A French official, motionless near Ulysses on the bridge, was admiring
+the beauty of the day and the sea. Not a single cloud was in the sky.
+All was blue above and below, with no variation except where the bands
+of foam were combing themselves on the jutting points of the coast, and
+the restless gold of the sunlight was forming a broad roadway over the
+waters. A flock of dolphins frisked around the boat like a cortege of
+oceanic divinities.
+
+"If the sea were always like this!" exclaimed the captain, "what
+delight to be a sailor!"
+
+The crew could see the people on land running together and forming
+groups, attracted by the novelty of a steamer that was passing within
+reach of their voice. On each of the jutting points of the shore was a
+low and ruddy tower,--last vestige of the thousand-year war of the
+Mediterranean. Accustomed to the rugged shores of the ocean and its
+eternal surf, the Breton sailors were marveling at this easy
+navigation, almost touching the coast whose inhabitants looked like a
+swarm of bees. Had the boat been directed by another captain, so close
+a journey would have resulted most disastrously: but Ferragut was
+laughing, throwing out gloomy hints to the officers who were on the
+bridge, merely to accentuate his professional confidence. He pointed
+out the rocks hidden in the deeps. Here an Italian liner that was going
+to Buenos Ayres had been lost.... A little further on, a swift
+four-masted sailboat had run aground, losing its cargo.... He could
+tell by the fraction of an inch the amount of water permissible between
+the treacherous rocks and the keel of his boat.
+
+He usually sought the roughest waters by preference, but they were in
+the danger-zone of the Mediterranean where the German submarines were
+lying in wait for the French and English convoys navigating in the
+shelter of the Spanish coast. The obstacles of the submerged coast were
+for him now the best defense against invisible attacks.
+
+Behind him, the Ferrarian promontory was growing more and more shadowy,
+becoming a mere blur on the horizon. By nightfall the _Mare Nostrum_
+was in front of Cape Palos and he had to sail in the outer waters in
+order to double it, leaving Cartagena in the distance. From there, he
+turned his course to the southwest, to the cape where the Mediterranean
+was beginning to grow narrow, forming the funnel of the strait. Soon
+they would pass before Almeria and Malaga, reaching Gibraltar the
+following day.
+
+"Here is where the enemy is oftentimes waiting," said Ferragut to one
+of the officers. "If we have no bad luck before night, we shall have
+safely concluded our voyage."
+
+The boat had withdrawn from the shore route, and it was no longer
+possible to distinguish the lower coast. Only from the prow could be
+seen the jutting hump of the cape, rising up like an island.
+
+Caragol appeared with a tray on which were smoking two cups of coffee.
+He would not yield to any cabinboy the honor of serving the captain
+when on the bridge.
+
+"Well, what do you think of the trip?" asked Ferragut gayly, before
+drinking. "Shall we arrive in good condition?..."
+
+The cook made as scornful a gesture as though the Germans could see
+him.
+
+"Nothing will befall us; I am sure of that.... We have One who is
+watching over us, and ..."
+
+He was suddenly interrupted in his affirmations. The tray leaped from
+his hands and he went staggering about like a drunken man, even banging
+his abdomen against the balustrade of the bridge. "_Cristo del
+Grao!_..."
+
+The cup that Ferragut was carrying to his mouth fell with a crash, and
+the French officer, seated on a bench, was almost thrown on his knees.
+The helmsman had to clutch the wheel with a jerk of surprise and
+terror.
+
+The entire ship trembled from keel to masthead, from quarter-deck to
+forecastle, with a deadly shuddering as though invisible claws had just
+checked it at full speed.
+
+The captain tried to account for this accident. "We must be aground,"
+he said to himself, "a reef that I did not know, a shoal not marked on
+the charts...."
+
+But a second had not passed before something else was added to the
+first shock, refuting Ferragut's suppositions. The blue and luminous
+air was rent with the thud of a thunderclap. Near the prow, appeared a
+column of smoke, of expanding gases of yellowish and fulminating steam
+and, coming up through its center in the form of a fan, a spout of
+black objects, broken wood, bits of metallic plates and flaming ropes
+turning to ashes.
+
+Ulysses was no longer in doubt. They must have just been struck by a
+torpedo. His anxious look scanned the waters.
+
+"There!... There!" he said, pointing with his hand.
+
+His keen seaman's eyes had just discovered the light outline of a
+periscope that nobody else was able to see.
+
+He ran down from the bridge or rather he slid down the midship ladder,
+running toward the stern.
+
+"There!... There!"
+
+The three gunners were near the cannon, calm and phlegmatic, putting a
+hand to their eyes, in order to see better the almost invisible speck
+which the captain was pointing out.
+
+None of them noticed the slant that the deck was slowly beginning to
+take. They thrust the first projectile into the breech of the cannon
+while the gunner made an effort to distinguish that small black cane
+hardly perceptible among the tossing waves.
+
+Another shock as rude as the first one! Everything groaned with a dying
+shudder. The plates were trembling and falling apart, losing the
+cohesion that had made of them one single piece. The screws and rivets
+sprang out, moved by the general shaking-up. A second crater had opened
+in the middle of the ship, this time bearing in its fan-shaped
+explosion the limbs of human beings.
+
+The captain saw that further resistance was useless. His feet warned
+him of the cataclysm that was developing beneath them--the liquid
+water-spout invading with a foamy bellowing the space between keel and
+deck, destroying the metal screens, knocking down the bulk-heads,
+upsetting every object, dragging them forth with all the violence of an
+inundation, with the ramming force of a breaking dyke. The hold was
+rapidly becoming converted into a watery and leaden coffin fast going
+to the bottom.
+
+The aft gun hurled its first shot. To Ferragut its report seemed mere
+irony. No one knew as he did the ship's desperate condition.
+
+"To the life boats!" he shouted. "Every one to the boats!"
+
+The steamer was tipping up in an alarming way as the men calmly obeyed
+his orders without losing their self-control.
+
+A desperate vibration was jarring the deck. It was the engines that
+were sending out death-rattles at the same time that a torrent of steam
+as thick as ink was pouring from the smokestack. The firemen were
+coming up to the light with eyes swollen with the terror stamping their
+blackened faces. The inundation had begun to invade their dominions,
+breaking their steel compartments.
+
+"To the boats!... Lower the life boats!"
+
+The captain repeated his shouts of command, anxious to see the crew
+embark, without thinking for one moment of his own safety.
+
+It never even occurred to him that his fate might be different from
+that of his ship. Besides, hidden in the sea, was the enemy who would
+soon break the surface to survey its handiwork.... Perhaps they might
+hunt for Captain Ferragut among the boatloads of survivors, wishing to
+bear him off as their triumphant booty.... No, he would far rather give
+up his life!...
+
+The seamen had unfastened the life boats and were beginning to lower
+them, when something brutal suddenly occurred with the annihilating
+rapidity of a cataclysm of Nature.
+
+There sounded a great explosion as though the world had gone to pieces,
+and Ferragut felt the floor vanishing from beneath his feet. He looked
+around him. The prow no longer existed; it had disappeared under the
+water, and a bellowing wave was rolling over the deck crushing
+everything beneath its roller of foam. On the other hand, the poop was
+climbing higher and higher, becoming almost vertical. It was soon a
+cliff, a mountain steep, on whose peak the white flagstaff was sticking
+up like a weather-vane.
+
+In order not to fall he had to grasp a rope, a bit of wood, any fixed
+object. But the effort was useless. He felt himself dragged down,
+overturned, lashed about in a moaning and whirling darkness. A deadly
+chill paralyzed his limbs. His closed eyes saw a red heaven, a sky of
+blood with black stars. His ear drums were buzzing with a roaring
+_glu-glu_, while his body was turning somersaults through the darkness.
+His confused brain imagined that an infinitely deep hole had opened in
+the depths of the sea, that all the waters of the ocean were passing
+through it, forming a gigantic vortex, and that he was swirling in the
+center of this revolving tempest.
+
+"I am going to die!... I am already dead!" said his thoughts.
+
+And in spite of the fact that he was resigned to death, he moved his
+legs desperately, wishing to bring himself up to the yielding,
+treacherous surface. Instead of continuing to descend, he noticed that
+he was going up, and in a little while he was able to open his eyes and
+to breathe, judging from the atmospheric contact that he had reached
+the top.
+
+He was not sure of the length of time he had passed in the
+abyss,--surely not more than a few minutes, since his breathing
+capacity as a swimmer could not exceed that limit.... He, therefore,
+experienced great astonishment upon discovering the tremendous changes
+which had taken place in so short a parenthesis.
+
+He thought it was already night. Perhaps in the upper strata of the
+atmosphere were still shining the last rays of the sun, but at the
+water's level, there was no more than a twilight gray, like the dim
+glimmer of a cellar.
+
+The almost even surface seen a few minutes before from the height of
+the bridge was now moved by broad swells that plunged him in momentary
+darkness. Each one of these appeared a hillock interposed before his
+eyes, leaving free only a few yards of space. When he was raised upon
+their crests he could take in with rapid vision the solitary sea that
+lacked the gallant mass of the ship, astir with dark objects. These
+objects were slipping inertly by or moving along, waving pairs of black
+antennae. Perhaps they were imploring help, but the wet desert was
+absorbing the most furious cries, converting them into distant
+bleating.
+
+Of the _Mare Nostrum_ there was no longer visible either the mouth of
+the smokestack nor the point of a mast; the abyss had swallowed it
+all.... Ferragut began to doubt if his ship had ever really existed.
+
+He swam toward a plank that came floating near, resting his arms upon
+it. He used to be able to remain entire hours in the sea, when naked
+and within sight of the coast, with the assurance of returning to
+_terra firma_ whenever he might wish.... But now he had to keep himself
+up, completely dressed; his shoes were tugging at him with a constantly
+increasing force as though made of iron ... and water on all sides! Not
+a boat on the horizon that could come to his aid!... The wireless
+operator, surprised by the swiftness of the catastrophe, had not been
+able to send out the S.O.S.
+
+He also had to defend himself from the débris of the shipwreck. After
+having grasped the raft as his last means of salvation, he had to avoid
+the floating casks, rolling toward him on the swelling billows, which
+might send him to the bottom with one of their blows.
+
+Suddenly there loomed up between two waves a species of blind monster
+that was agitating the waters furiously with the strokes of its
+swimming. Upon coming close to it, he saw that it was a man; as it
+drifted away, he recognized Uncle Caragol.
+
+He was swimming like a drunken man with a super-human force which made
+half of his body come out of the water at each stroke. He was looking
+before him as though he could see, as if he had a fixed destination,
+without hesitating a moment, yet going further out to sea when he
+imagined that he was heading toward the coast.
+
+"_Padre San Vicente!_" he moaned. "_Cristo del Grao!_..."
+
+In vain the captain shouted. The cook could not hear him, and continued
+swimming on with all the force of his faith, repeating his pious
+invocations between his noisy snortings.
+
+A cask climbed the crest of a wave, rolling down on the opposite side.
+The head of the blind swimmer came in its way.... A thudding crash.
+_Padre San Vicente!_... And Caragol disappeared with bleeding head and
+a mouth full of salt.
+
+Ferragut did not wish to imitate that kind of swimming. The land was
+very far off for a man's arms; it would be impossible to reach it. Not
+a single one of the ship's boats had remained afloat.... His only hope,
+a remote and whimsical one, was that some vessel might discover the
+shipwrecked men and save them.
+
+In a little while this hope was almost realized. From the crest of a
+wave he could see a black bark, long and low, without smokestack or
+mast, that was nosing slowly among the débris. He recognized a
+submarine. The dark silhouettes of several men were so plainly visible
+that he believed he heard them shouting.----
+
+"Ferragut!... Where is Captain Ferragut?..."
+
+"Ah, no!... Better to die!"
+
+And he clung to his raft, hanging his head as though drowning. Then as
+night closed down upon him he heard still other shouts, but these were
+cries of help, cries of anguish, cries of death. The rescuers were
+searching for him only, leaving the others to their fate.
+
+He lost all notion of time. An agonizing cold was paralyzing his entire
+frame. His stiffened and swollen hands were loosening from the raft and
+grasping it again only by a supreme effort of his will.
+
+The other shipwrecked men had taken the precaution to put on their life
+preservers when the ship began to sink. Thanks to this apparatus, their
+death agony was going to be prolonged a few hours more. Perhaps if they
+could hold out until daybreak, they might be discovered by some boat!
+But he!...
+
+Suddenly he remembered the _Triton_.... His uncle also had died in the
+sea; all the most vigorous members of the family had finally perished
+in its bosom. For centuries and centuries it had been the tomb of the
+Ferraguts; with good reason they had called it "_mare nostrum_."
+
+He fancied that the currents might possibly have dragged his uncle's
+dead body from the other promontory to the place over which he was
+floating. Perhaps he might be now beneath his feet.... An irresistible
+force was pulling at them; his paralyzed hands loosened their hold on
+the wood.
+
+"Uncle!... Uncle!"
+
+In his thoughts he was shrieking to his relative with the timorous
+plaint of the little fellow taking his first swimming lesson. But his
+agonized hands again encountered the cold and weak support of the raft
+instead of that island of hard muscles crowned with a hairy and smiling
+face.
+
+He continued his tenacious floating, struggling against the drowsiness
+that was urging him to relax from his drifting support and let himself
+go to the bottom, to sleep ... to sleep forever! His shoes and clothing
+were continuing to pull and tug with even greater force. They became an
+undulating shroud, growing heavier and heavier, surging and dragging
+down and down to the uttermost depths. His desperation made him raise
+his eyes and look at the stars.... So high!... Only to be able to grasp
+one of them, as his hands were now clutching the wood!...
+
+At the same time he made instinctively a movement of repulsion. His
+head had sunk in the water without his being conscious of it. A bitter
+liquid was beginning to filter through his mouth....
+
+He made a mighty effort to keep himself in a vertical position, looking
+again at the sky, still black as ink, and all the stars as red as drops
+of blood.
+
+Suddenly he felt a certain consciousness that he was not alone, and he
+closed his eyes.... Yes, somebody was near him. It was a woman!...
+
+It was a woman white as the clouds, white as the sail, white as the
+foam. Her sea-green tresses were adorned with pearls and phosphorescent
+corals; her proud smile was that of a goddess, in keeping with the
+majesty of her diadem.
+
+She stretched her pearly arms around him, pressing him close against
+her life-giving and eternally virginal bosom. A dense and greenish
+atmosphere was giving her whiteness a reflection like that of the light
+of the caves of the sea....
+
+Her pale mouth then pressed against the sailor's, making him feel as
+though all the light of this white apparition had liquefied and was
+passing into his body by means of her impelling kiss.
+
+He could no longer see, he could no longer speak.
+
+His eyes had closed, never to open again; a bitter river of salt was
+flowing down his throat.
+
+Nevertheless he continued looking at her,--more luminous, pressed
+closer and closer,--with a sad expression of love in his glassy
+eyes.... And thus he went down and down the infinite levels of the
+abyss, inert, and without volition, while a voice within him was
+crying, as though just recognizing her:
+
+"_Amphitrite!_... _Amphitrite!_"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), by Vicente Blasco Ibañez
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mare Nostrum (Our Sea)
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11697]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, GF Untermeyer and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Mare Nostrum
+
+(_OUR SEA_)
+
+
+
+A Novel
+
+By
+
+Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,"
+"The Shadow of the Cathedral,"
+"Blood and Sand,"
+"La Bodega," etc.
+
+
+
+Authorized translation from the Spanish by Charlotte Brewster Jordan
+
+Translator of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"
+
+
+
+1919
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER I  CAPTAIN ULYSSES FERRAGUT
+
+   CHAPTER II  MATER AMPHITRITE
+
+  CHAPTER III  PATER OCEANUS
+
+   CHAPTER IV  FREYA
+
+    CHAPTER V  THE AQUARIUM OF NAPLES
+
+   CHAPTER VI  THE WILES OF CIRCE
+
+  CHAPTER VII  THE SIN OF ULYSSES
+
+CHAPTER  VIII  THE YOUNG TELEMACHUS
+
+   CHAPTER IX  THE ENCOUNTER AT MARSEILLES
+
+    CHAPTER X  IN BARCELONA
+
+   CHAPTER XI  "FAREWELL, I AM GOING TO DIE"
+
+  CHAPTER XII  AHPHITRITE!... AMPHITRITE!
+
+
+
+
+Mare Nostrum
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+CAPTAIN ULYSSES FERRAGUT
+
+His first gallantries were with an empress. He was ten years old, and
+the empress six hundred.
+
+His father, Don Esteban Ferragut--third quota of the College of
+Notaries--had always had a great admiration for the things of the past.
+He lived near the cathedral, and on Sundays and holy days, instead of
+following the faithful to witness the pompous ceremonials presided over
+by the cardinal-archbishop, used to betake himself with his wife and
+son to hear mass in _San Juan del Hospital_,--a little church sparsely
+attended the rest of the week.
+
+The notary, who had read Walter Scott in his youth, used to gaze on the
+old and turreted walls surrounding the church, and feel something of
+the bard's thrills about his own, his native land. The Middle Ages was
+the period in which he would have liked to have lived. And as he trod
+the flagging of the _Hospitolarios_, good Don Esteban, little, chubby,
+and near-sighted, used to feel within him the soul of a hero born too
+late. The other churches, huge and rich, appeared to him with their
+blaze of gleaming gold, their alabaster convolutions and their jasper
+columns, mere monuments of insipid vulgarity. This one had been erected
+by the Knights of Saint John, who, united with the Templars, had aided
+King James in the conquest of Valencia.
+
+Upon crossing the covered passageway leading from the street to the
+inner court, he was accustomed to salute the Virgin of the Conquest, an
+image of rough stone in faded colors and dull gold, seated on a bench,
+brought thither by the knights of the military order. Some sour orange
+trees spread their branching verdure over the walls of the church,--a
+blackened, rough stone edifice perforated with long, narrow,
+window-like niches now closed with mud plaster. From the salient
+buttresses of its reinforcements jutted forth, in the highest parts,
+great fabled monsters of weather-beaten, crumbling stone.
+
+In its only nave was now left very little of this romantic exterior.
+The baroque taste of the seventeenth century had hidden the Gothic arch
+under another semi-circular one, besides covering the walls with a coat
+of whitewash. But the medieval reredos, the nobiliary coats of arms,
+and the tombs of the Knights of Saint John with their Gothic
+inscriptions still survived the profane restoration, and that in itself
+was enough to keep up the notary's enthusiasm.
+
+Moreover the quality of the faithful who attended its services had to
+be taken into consideration. They were few but select, always the same.
+Some of them would drop into their places, gouty and relaxed, supported
+by an old servant wearing a shabby lace mantilla as though she were the
+housekeeper. Others would remain standing during the service holding up
+proudly their emaciated heads that presented the profile of a fighting
+cock, and crossing upon the breast their gloved hands,--always in black
+wool in the winter and in thread in the summer time. Ferragut knew all
+their names, having read them in the _Trovas_ of Mosen Febrer, a
+metrical composition in Provencal, about the warriors that came to the
+neighborhood of Valencia from Aragon, Catalunia, the South of France,
+England and remote Germany.
+
+At the conclusion of the mass, the imposing personages would nod their
+heads, saluting the faithful nearest them. "Good day!" To these, it was
+as if the sun had just arisen: the hours before did not count. And the
+notary with meek voice would enlarge his response: "Good day, Senor
+Marquis!" "Good day, Senor Baron!" Although his relations never went
+beyond this salutation, Ferragut used to feel toward these noble
+personages the sympathy that the customers have for an establishment,
+looking upon them with affectionate eyes for many years without
+presuming to exchange more than a greeting with them.
+
+His son Ulysses was exceedingly bored as he followed the monotonous
+incidents of the chanted mass in the darkened, almost deserted, church.
+The rays of the sun, oblique beams of gold that filtered in from above,
+illuminating the spirals of dust, flies and moths, made him think in a
+homesick way of the lush green of the orchard, the white spots of the
+hamlets, the black smoke columns of the harbor filled with steamships,
+and the triple file of bluish convexities crowned with froth that were
+discharging their contents with a sonorous surge upon the
+bronze-colored beach.
+
+When the embroidered mantles of the three priests ceased to gleam
+before the high altar, and another priest in black and white appeared
+in the pulpit, Ulysses would turn his glance toward a side chapel. The
+sermon always represented for him a half hour of somnolence, peopled
+with his own lively imaginings. The first thing that his eyes used to
+see in the chapel of Santa Barbara was a chest nailed to the wall high
+above him, a sepulcher of painted wood with no other adornment than the
+inscription: "_Aqui yace Dona Constansa Augusta, Emperatriz de
+Grecia_,"--Here lies Constance Augusta, Empress of Greece.
+
+The name of Greece always had the power of exciting the little fellow's
+imagination. His godfather, the lawyer Labarta, poet-laureate, could
+not repeat this name without a lively thrill passing across his
+grizzled beard and a new light in his eyes. Sometimes the mysterious
+power of such a name evoked a new mystery and a more intense
+interest,--Byzantium. How could that august lady, sovereign of remote
+countries of magnificence and vision, have come to leave her remains in
+a murky chapel of Valencia within a great chest like those that
+treasured the remnants of old trumpery in the garrets of the notary?...
+
+One day after mass Don Esteban had rapidly recounted her history to his
+little son. She was the daughter of Frederick the Second of Suabia, a
+Hohenstaufen, an emperor of Germany who esteemed still more his crown
+of Sicily. In the palaces of Palermo,--veritable enchanted bowers of
+Oriental gardens,--he had led the life both of pagan and savant,
+surrounded by poets and men of science (Jews, Mahometans and
+Christians), by Oriental dancers, alchemists, and ferocious Saracen
+Guards. He legislated as did the jurisconsults of ancient Rome, at the
+same time writing the first verses in Italian. His life was one
+continual combat with the Popes who hurled upon him excommunication
+upon excommunication. For the sake of peace he had become a crusader
+and set forth upon the conquest of Jerusalem. But Saladin, another
+philosopher of the same class, had soon come to an agreement with his
+Christian colleague. The position of a little city surrounded with
+untilled land and an empty sepulcher was really not worth the trouble
+of decapitating mankind through the centuries. The Saracen monarch,
+therefore, graciously delivered Jerusalem over to him, and the Pope
+again excommunicated Frederick for having conquered the Holy Land
+without bloodshed.
+
+"He was a great man," Don Esteban used to murmur. "It must be admitted
+that he was a great man...."
+
+He would say this timidly, regretting that his enthusiasm for that
+remote epoch should oblige him to make this concession to an enemy of
+the Church. He shuddered to think of those sacrilegious books that
+nobody had seen, but whose paternity Rome was accustomed to attribute
+to this Sicilian Emperor--especially _Los Tres Impostores_ (The Three
+Imposters), in which Frederick measured Moses, Jesus and Mahomet, by
+the same standard. This royal author was, moreover, the most ancient
+journalist of history, the first that in the full thirteenth century
+had dared to appeal to the judgment of public opinion in his
+manifestoes against Rome.
+
+His daughter had married an Emperor of Byzantium, Juan Dukas Vatatzes,
+the famous "Vatacio," when he was fifty and she fourteen. She was a
+natural daughter soon legitimized like almost all his progeny,--a
+product of his free harem, in which were mingled Saracen beauties and
+Italian marchionesses. And the poor young girl married to "Vatacio the
+heretic," by a father in need of political alliances had lived long
+years in the Orient as a _basilisa_ or empress, arrayed in garments of
+stiff embroidery representing scenes from the holy books, shod with
+buskins laced with purple which bore on their soles eagles of
+gold,--the highest symbol of the majesty of Rome.
+
+At first she had reigned in Nicaea, refuge of the Greek Emperors while
+Constantinople was in the power of the Crusaders, founders of a Latin
+dynasty; then, when Vatacio died, the audacious Miguel Paleologo
+reconquered Constantinople, and the imperial widow found herself
+courted by this victorious adventurer. For many years she resisted his
+pretensions, finally maneuvering that her brother Manfred should return
+her to her own country, where she arrived just in time to receive news
+of her brother's death in battle, and to follow the flight of her
+sister-in-law and nephews. They all took refuge in a castle defended by
+Saracens in the service of Frederick, the only ones faithful to his
+memory.
+
+The castle fell into the power of the warriors of the Church, and
+Manfred's wife was conducted to a prison where her life was shortly
+after extinguished. Obscurity swallowed up the last remnants of the
+family accursed by Rome. Death was always hovering around the
+_basilisa_. They all perished--her brother Manfred, her half-brother,
+the poetic and lamented Encio, hero of so many songs, and her nephew,
+the knightly Coradino, who was to die later on under the axe of the
+executioner upon attempting the defense of his rights. As the Oriental
+empress did not represent any danger for the dynasty of Anjou, the
+conqueror let her follow out her destiny, as lonely and forsaken as a
+Shakespearian Princess.
+
+As the widow of the late Emperor she was supposed to have a rental of
+three thousand _besantes_ of fine gold. But this remote rental never
+arrived, and almost as a pauper she embarked with her niece, Constanza,
+in a ship going toward the perfumed shores of the Gulf of Valencia,
+where she entered the convent of Santa Barbara. In the poverty of this
+recently founded convent, the poor Empress lived until the following
+century, recalling the adventures of her melancholy destiny and seeing
+in imagination the palace of golden mosaics on Lake Nicaea, the gardens
+where "Vatacio" had wished to die under a purple tent, the gigantic
+walls of Constantinople, and the arches of Saint Sophia, with its
+hieratic galaxies of saints and crowned monarchs.
+
+From all her journeys and glittering fortunes she had preserved but one
+thing--a stone--the sole baggage that accompanied her upon disembarking
+on the shore of Valencia. It was a fragment from Nicodemia that had
+miraculously sent forth water for the baptism of Santa Barbara.
+
+The notary used to point out this rough, sacred stone inlaid in a
+baptismal font of Holy Water. Without ceasing to admire these historic
+bits of knowledge, Ulysses, nevertheless, used to receive them with a
+certain ingratitude.
+
+"My godfather could explain things to me in a better way.... My
+godfather knows more."
+
+When surveying the chapel of Santa Barbara during the Mass, he used
+always to turn his eyes away from the funeral chest. The thought of
+those bones turned to dust filled him with repugnance. That Dona
+Constanza did not exist for him. The one who was interesting to him was
+the other one, a little further on who was painted in a small picture.
+Dona Constanza had had leprosy--an infirmity that in those days was not
+permitted to Empresses--so Santa Barbara had miraculously cured her
+devotee. In order to perpetuate this event, Santa Barbara was depicted
+on the canvas as a lady dressed in a full skirt and slashed sleeves,
+and at her feet was the _basilisa_ in the dress of a Valencian peasant
+arrayed in great jewels. In vain Don Esteban affirmed that this picture
+had been painted centuries after the death of the Empress. The child's
+imagination vaulted disdainfully over such difficulties. Just as she
+appeared on the canvas, Dona Constanza must have been--flaxen-haired,
+with great black eyes, exceedingly handsome and a little inclined to
+stoutness, perhaps, as was becoming to a woman accustomed to trailing
+robes of state and who had consented to disguise herself as a
+country-woman, merely because of her piety.
+
+The image of the Empress obsessed his childish thoughts. At night when
+he felt afraid in bed, impressed by the enormousness of the room that
+served as his sleeping chamber, it was enough for him to recall the
+sovereign of Byzantium to make him forget immediately his disquietude
+and the thousand queer noises in the old building. "Dona Constanza!"...
+And he would go off to sleep cuddling the pillow, as though it were the
+head of the _basilisa_, his closed eyes continuing to see the black
+eyes of the regal Senora, maternal and affectionate.
+
+All womankind, on coming near him, took on something of that other one
+who had been sleeping for the past six centuries in the upper part of
+the chapel wall. When his mother, sweet and pallid Dona Cristina, would
+stop her fancy work for an instant to give him a kiss, he always saw in
+her smile something of the Empress. When Visenteta, a maid from the
+country--a brunette, with eyes like blackberries, rosy-cheeked and
+soft-skinned--would help him to undress, or awaken him to take him to
+school, Ulysses would always throw his arms around her as though
+enchanted by the perfume of her vigorous and chaste vitality.
+"Visenteta!... Oh, Visenteta!..." And he was thinking of Dona
+Constanza; Empresses must be just that fragrant.... Just like that must
+be the texture of their skin!... And mysterious and incomprehensible
+thrills would pass over his body like light exhalations, bubbling up
+from the slime that is sleeping in the depths of all infancy and coming
+to the surface during adolescence.
+
+His father guessed in part this imaginary life upon seeing his pet
+plays and readings.
+
+"Ah, comedian!... Ah, play-actor!... You are like your godfather."
+
+He used to say this with an ambiguous smile in which were equally
+mingled his contempt for useless idealism and his respect for the
+artist--a respect similar to the veneration that the Arabs feel for the
+demented, believing their insanity to be a gift from God.
+
+Dona Cristina was very anxious that this only son, as spoiled and
+coddled as though he were a Crown Prince, should become a priest. To
+see him intone his first Mass!... Then a canon; then a prelate! Who
+knew if perhaps when she was no longer living, other women might not
+admire him when preceded by a cross of gold, trailing the red state
+robe of a cardinal-archbishop, and surrounded by a robed staff--envying
+the mother who had given birth to this ecclesiastical magnate!...
+
+In order to guide the inclinations of her son she had installed a
+chapel in one of the empty rooms of the great old house. Ulysses'
+school companions on free afternoons would hasten thither, doubly
+attracted by the enchantment, of "playing priest" and by the generous
+refreshment that Dona Cristina used to prepare for all the parish
+clergy.
+
+This solemnity would begin with the furious pealing of some bells
+hanging over the parlor door, causing the notary's clients, seated in
+the vestibule waiting for the papers that the clerks were just
+scribbling off at full speed, to raise their heads in astonishment. The
+metallic uproar rocked the edifice whose corners had seemed so full of
+silence, and even disturbed the calm of the street through which a
+carriage only occasionally passed.
+
+While some of his chums were lighting the candles on the shrines and
+unfolding the sacred altar cloths of beautiful lace work made by Dona
+Cristina, the son and his more intimate friends were arraying
+themselves before the faithful, covering themselves with surplices and
+gold-worked vestments and putting wonderful caps on their heads. The
+mother, who was peeping from behind one of the doors, had to make a
+great effort not to rush in and devour Ulysses with kisses. With what
+grace he was imitating the mannerisms and genuflections of the chief
+priest!...
+
+Up to this point all went perfectly. The three officiating near the
+pyramid of lights were singing at the top of their lungs, and the
+chorus of the faithful were responding from the end of the room with
+tremors of impatience. Suddenly surged forth Protest, Schism and
+Heresy. Those at the altar had already done more than enough. They must
+now give up their chasubles to those who were looking on in order that
+they, in their turn, might exercise the sacred ministry. That was what
+they had agreed upon. But the clergy resisted with the haughtiness and
+majesty of acquired right, and impious hands began pulling off the garb
+of the saints, profaning them and even tearing them. Yells, kicks,
+images and wax candles on the floor!... Scandal and abominations as
+though the Anti-Christ were already born!... The prudence of Ulysses
+put an end to the struggle: "What if we should go up in the _porche_ to
+play?..."
+
+The _porche_ was the immense garret of the great old house, so all
+accepted the plan with enthusiasm. Church was over! And like a flock of
+birds they went flying up the stairs over the landings of multi-colored
+tiles with their chipped glaze, disclosing the red brick underneath.
+The Valencian potters of the eighteenth century had adorned these tiles
+with Berber and Christian galleys, birds from nearby Albufera,
+white-wigged hunters offering flowers to a peasant girl, fruits of all
+kinds, and spirited horsemen on steeds that were half the size of their
+bodies parading before houses and trees that scarcely reached to the
+knees of their prancing coursers.
+
+The noisy group spread themselves over the upper floor as in the most
+terrible invasions of history. Cats and mice fled together to the
+far-away corners. The terrified birds sped like arrows through the
+skylights of the roof.
+
+The poor notary!... He had never returned empty-handed when called
+outside of the city by the confidence of the rich farmers, incapable of
+believing in any other legal science than his. That was the time when
+the antique dealers had not yet discovered rich Valencia, where the
+common people dressed in silks for centuries, and furniture, clothing
+and pottery seemed always to be impregnated with the light of steady
+sunshine and with the blue of an always clear atmosphere.
+
+Don Esteban, who believed himself obliged to be an antiquarian by
+virtue of his membership in various local societies, was continually
+filling up his house with mementoes of the past picked up in the
+villages, or that his clients freely gave him. He was not able to find
+wall space enough for the pictures, nor room in his salons for the
+furniture. Therefore, the latest acquisitions were provisionally taking
+their way to the _porche_ to await definite installation. Years
+afterward, when he should retire from his profession, he might be able
+to construct a medieval castle--the most medieval possible on the
+coasts of the _Marina_; near to the village where he had been born, he
+would put each object in a place appropriate to its importance.
+
+Whatever the notary deposited in the rooms of the first floor would
+soon make its appearance in the garret as mysteriously as though it had
+acquired feet; for Dona Cristina and her servants, obliged to live in a
+continual struggle with the dust and cobwebs of an edifice that was
+slowly dropping to pieces, were beginning to feel a ferocious hatred of
+everything old.
+
+Up here on the top floor, discords and battles because of lack of
+things to dress up in, were not possible among the boys. They had only
+to sink their hands into any one of the great old chests, pulsing with
+the dull gnawing of the wood-borers, whose iron fretwork, pierced like
+lace, was dropping away from its supports. Some of the youngsters,
+brandishing short, small swords with hilts of mother-of-pearl, or long
+blades such as the Cid carried, would then wrap themselves in mantles
+of crimson silk darkened by ages. Others would throw over their
+shoulders damask counterpanes of priceless old brocade, peasant skirts
+with great flowers of gold, farthingales of richly woven texture that
+crackled like paper.
+
+When they grew tired of imitating comedians with noisy clashing of
+spades and death-blows, Ulysses and the other active lads would propose
+the game of "Bandits and Bailiffs." But thieves could not go clad in
+such rich cloths; their attire ought to be inconspicuous. And so they
+overturned some mountains of dull-colored stuffs that appeared like
+mere sacking in whose dull woven designs could be dimly discerned legs,
+arms, heads, and branching sprays of metallic green.
+
+Don Esteban had found these fragments already torn by the farmers into
+covers for their large earthen jars of oil or into blankets for the
+work-mules. They were bits of tapestry copied from cartoons of Titian
+and Rubens which the notary was keeping only out of historic respect.
+Tapestry then, like all things that are plentiful, had no special
+merit. The old-clothes dealers of Valencia had in their storehouses
+dozens of the same kind of remnants and when the festival of _Corpus
+Christi_ approached they used them to cover the natural barricades
+formed by the ground, instead of building new ones in the street
+followed by the processions.
+
+At other times, Ulysses repeated the same game under the name of
+"Indians and Conquerors." He had found in the mountains of books stored
+away by his father, a volume that related in double columns, with
+abundant wood cuts, the navigations of Columbus, the wars of Hernando
+Cortez, and the exploits of Pizarro.
+
+This book cast a glamor over the rest of his existence. Many times
+afterwards, when a man, he found this image latent in the background of
+his likes and desires. He really had read few of its paragraphs, but
+what interested him most were the engravings--in his estimation more
+worthy of admiration than all the pictures in the garret.
+
+With the point of his long sword he would trace on the ground, just as
+Pizarro had done before his discouraged companions, ready on the Island
+of Gallo to desist from the conquest: "Let every good Castilian pass
+this line...." And the good Castilians--a dozen little scamps with long
+capes and ancient swords whose hilts reached up to their mouths--would
+hasten to group themselves around their chief, who was imitating the
+heroic gestures of the conqueror. Then was heard the war-cry: "At them!
+Down with the Indians!"
+
+It was agreed that the Indians should flee and on that account they
+were modestly clad in scraps of tapestry and cock feathers on their
+head. But they fled treacherously, and upon finding themselves upon
+_varguenos_, tables and pyramids of chairs, they began to shy books at
+their persecutors. Venerable leather volumes decorated with dull gold,
+and folios of white parchment fell face downward on the floor, their
+fastenings breaking apart and spreading abroad a rain of printed or
+manuscript pages and yellowing engravings--as though tired of living,
+they were letting their life-blood flow from their bodies.
+
+The uproar of these wars of conquest brought Dona Cristina to the
+rescue. She no longer cared to harbor little imps who preferred the
+adventurous whoops of the garret to the mystic delights of the
+abandoned chapel. The Indians were most worthy of execration. In order
+to make splendor of attire counterbalance the humility of their role,
+they had slashed their sinful scissors into entire tapestries,
+mutilating vestments so as to arrange upon their breasts the head of a
+hero or goddess.
+
+Finding himself without playfellows, Ulysses discovered a new
+enchantment in the garret life. The silence haunted by the creaking of
+wood and the scampering of invisible animals, the inexplicable fall of
+a picture or of some piled-up books, used to make him thrill with a
+sensation of fear and nocturnal mystery, despite the rays of sunlight
+that came filtering in through the skylights; but he began to enjoy
+this solitude when he found that he could people it to his fancy. Real
+beings soon annoyed him like the inopportune sounds that sometimes
+awoke him from beautiful dreams. The garret was a world several
+centuries old that now belonged entirely to him and adjusted itself to
+all his fancies.
+
+Seated in a trunk without a lid, he made it balance itself, imitating
+with his mouth the roarings of the tempest. It was a caravel, a
+galleon, a ship such as he had seen in the old books, its sails painted
+with lions and crucifixes, a castle on the poop and a figure-head
+carved on the prow that dipped down into the waves, only to reappear
+dripping with foam.
+
+The trunk, by dint of vigorous pushing, could be made to reach the
+rugged coast at the corner of the old chest, the triangular gulf made
+of two chests of drawers, and the smooth beach formed by some bundles
+of clothes. And the navigator, followed by a crew as numerous as it was
+imaginary, would leap ashore, sword in hand, scaling some mountains of
+books that were the Andes, and piercing various volumes with the tip of
+an old lance in order to plant his standard there. Oh, why had he not
+been one of the conquerors?...
+
+Fragments of a conversation between his godfather and his father, who
+believed everything was already known regarding the surface of the
+earth, left him unconvinced. Something must still be left for him to
+discover! He was the meeting point of two families of sailors. His
+mother's brothers had ships on the coast of Catalunia. His father's
+ancestors had been valorous and obscure navigators, and there in the
+_Marina_ was his uncle, the doctor, a genuine man of the sea.
+
+When he grew tired of these imaginative orgies, he used to examine the
+portraits of different epochs stowed away in the garret. He preferred
+those of the women--noble dames with short-cropped, curled hair bound
+by a knot of ribbon on the temple, like those that Velazquez loved to
+paint, and long faces of the century following, with cherry-colored
+mouth, two patches on the cheeks, and a tower of white hair. The memory
+of the Grecian _basilisa_ appeared to emanate from these paintings. All
+the high-born dames seemed to have something in common with her.
+
+Among the portraits of the men there was one of a bishop that irritated
+him by its absurd childishness. He appeared almost his own age, an
+adolescent bishop, with imperious and aggressive eyes. These eyes used
+to inspire the sensitive lad with a certain terror, and he therefore
+decided to have done with them. "Take that!" and he ran his sword
+through the old chipped picture, making two gashes replace the
+challenging eyes. Then he added a few gashes more for good measure....
+That same evening, his godfather having been invited to supper, the
+notary spoke of a certain portrait acquired a few months before in the
+neighborhood of Jativa, a city that he had always regarded with
+interest on account of the Borgias having been born in one of its
+suburbs. The two men were of the same opinion. That almost infantile
+prelate could have been no other than Caesar Borgia, made Archbishop of
+Valencia when sixteen years old by his father, the Pope. On their first
+free day they would examine the portrait with particular attention....
+And Ulysses, hanging his head, felt every mouthful sticking in his
+throat.
+
+For the fanciful lad, a pleasure even more intense and substantial than
+his lonely games in the garret was a visit to his godfather's home; to
+his childish eyes, this godparent, the lawyer, Don Carmelo Labarta, was
+the personification of the ideal life, of glory, of poesy. The notary
+was wont to speak of him with enthusiasm, yet pitying him at the same
+time.
+
+"That poor Don Carmelo!... The leading authority of the age in civilian
+matters! By applying himself he might earn some money, but verses
+attracted him more than lawsuits."
+
+Ulysses used to enter his office with keen emotion. Above rows of
+multicolored and gilded books that covered the walls, he saw some great
+plaster heads with towering foreheads and vacant eyes that seemed
+always to be contemplating an immense nothingness.
+
+The child could repeat their names like a fragment from a choir book,
+from Homer to Victor Hugo. Then his glance would seek another head
+equally glorious although less white, with blonde and grizzled beard,
+rubicund nose and bilious cheeks that in certain moments scattered bits
+of scale. The sweet eyes of his godfather--yellowish eyes spotted with
+black dots--used to receive Ulysses with the doting affection of an
+aging, old bachelor who needs to invent a family. He it was who had
+given him at the baptismal font the name which had awakened so much
+admiration and ridicule among his school companions; with the patience
+of an old grand-sire narrating saintly stories to his descendants, he
+would tell Ulysses over and over the adventures of the navigating King
+of Ithaca for whom he had been named.
+
+With no less devotion did the lad regard all the souvenirs of glory
+that adorned his house--wreaths of golden leaves, silver cups, nude
+marble statuettes, placques of different metals upon plush backgrounds
+on which glistened imperishably the name of the poet Labarta. All this
+booty the tireless Knight of Letters had conquered by means of his
+verse.
+
+When the Floral Games were announced, the competitors used to tremble
+lest it might occur to the great Don Carmelo to hanker after some of
+the premiums. With astonishing facility he used to carry off the
+natural flower awarded for the heroic ode, the cup of gold for the
+amorous romance, the pair of statues dedicated to the most complete
+historical study, the marble bust for the best legend in prose, and
+even the "art bronze" reward of philological study. The other aspirants
+might try for the left-overs.
+
+Fortunately he had confined himself to local literature, and his
+inspiration would not admit any other drapery than that of Valencian
+verse. Next to Valencia and its past glories, Greece claimed his
+admiration. Once a year Ulysses beheld him arrayed in his frock coat,
+his chest starred with decorations and in his lapel the golden cicada,
+badge of the poets of Provence.
+
+He it was who was going to be celebrated in the fiesta of Provencal
+literature, in which he always played the principal role; he was the
+prize bard, lecturer, or simple idol to whom other poets were
+dedicating their eulogies--clerics given to rhyming, personifiers of
+religious images, silk-weavers who felt the vulgarity of their
+existence perturbed by the itchings of inspiration--all the brotherhood
+of popular bards of the ingenuous and domestic brand who recalled the
+_Meistersingers_ of the old German cities.
+
+His godson always imagined him with a crown of laurel on his brows just
+like those mysterious blind poets whose portraits and busts ornamented
+the library. In real life he saw perfectly well that his head had no
+such adornment, but reality lost its value before the firmness of his
+conceptions. His godfather certainly must wear a wreath when he was not
+present. Undoubtedly he was accustomed to wear it as a house cap when
+by himself.
+
+Another thing which he greatly admired about the grand man was his
+extensive travels. He had lived in distant Madrid--the scene of almost
+all the novels read by Ulysses--and once upon a time he had crossed the
+frontier, going courageously into a remote country called the south of
+France, in order to visit another poet whom he was accustomed to call
+"My friend, Mistral." And the lad's imagination, hasty and illogical in
+its decisions, used to envelop his godfather in a halo of historic
+interest, similar to that of the conquerors.
+
+At the stroke of the twelve o'clock chimes Labarta, who never permitted
+any informality in table matters, would become very impatient, cutting
+short the account of his journeys and triumphs.
+
+"Dona Pepa!... We have a guest here."
+
+Dona Pepa was the housekeeper, the great man's companion who for the
+past fifteen years had been chained to the chariot of his glory. The
+portieres would part and through them would advance a huge bosom
+protruding above an abdomen cruelly corseted. Afterwards, long
+afterwards, would appear a white and radiant countenance, a face like a
+full moon, and while her smile like a night star was greeting the
+little Ulysses, the dorsal complement of her body kept on coming
+in--forty carnal years, fresh, exuberant, tremendous.
+
+The notary and his wife always spoke of Dona Pepa as of a familiar
+person, but the child never had seen her in their home. Dona Cristina
+used to eulogize her care of the poet--but distantly and with no desire
+to make her acquaintance--while Don Esteban would make excuses for the
+great man.
+
+"What can you expect!... He is an artist, and artists are not able to
+live as God commands. All of them, however dignified they may appear,
+are rather carnal at heart. What a pity! such an eminent lawyer!... The
+money that he could make...!"
+
+His father's lamentations opened up new horizons to the little fellow's
+suspicions. Suddenly he grasped the prime motive force of our
+existence, hitherto only conjectured and enveloped in mystery. His
+godfather had relations with a woman; he was enamored like the heroes
+of the novels! And the boy recalled many of his Valencian poems, all
+rhapsodizing a lady--sometimes singing of her great beauty with the
+rapture and noble lassitude of a recent possession; at others
+complaining of her coldness, begging of her that disposition of her
+soul without which the gift of the body is as naught.
+
+Ulysses imagined to himself a grand senora as beautiful as Dona
+Constanza. At the very least, she must be a Marchioness. His godfather
+certainly deserved that much! And he also imagined to himself that
+their rendezvous must be in the morning, in one of the strawberry
+gardens near the city, where his parents were accustomed to take him
+for his breakfast chocolate after hearing the first dawn service on the
+Sundays of April and May.
+
+Much later, when seated at his godfather's table, he surprised the poet
+exchanging glances over his head with the housekeeper, and began to
+suspect that possibly Dona Pepa might be the inspiration of so much
+lachrymose and enthusiastic verse. But his great loyalty rebelled
+before such a supposition. No, no, it could not be possible; assuredly
+there must be another!
+
+The notary, who for long years had been friendly with Labarta, kept
+trying to direct him with his practical spirit, like the boy who guides
+a blind man. A modest income inherited from his parents was enough for
+the poet to live upon. In vain his friend brought him cases that
+represented enormous fees. The voluminous documents would become
+covered with dust on his table and Don Esteban would have to saddle
+himself with the dates in order that the end of the legal procedures
+should not slip by.
+
+His son, Ulysses would be a very different sort of man, thought the
+notary. In his mind's eye he could see the lad as a great civilian
+jurist like his godfather, but with a positive activity inherited from
+his father. Fortune would enter through his doors on waves of stamped
+paper.
+
+Furthermore, he would also possess the notarial studio--the dusty
+office with its ancient furniture and great wardrobes, with its screen
+doors and green curtains, behind which reposed the volumes of the
+protocol, covered with yellowing calfskin with initials and numbers on
+their backs. Don Esteban realized fully all that his study represented.
+
+"There is no orange grove," he would say in his expansive moments;
+"there are no rice plantations that can produce what this estate does.
+Here there are no frosts, nor strong sea winds, nor inundations."
+
+The clientele was certain--people from the church, who had the devotees
+back of them and considered Don Esteban as one of their class, and
+farmers, many rich farmers. The families of the country folk, whenever
+they heard any talk about smart men, always thought immediately of the
+notary from Valencia. With religious veneration they saw him adjust his
+spectacles in order to read as an expert the bill of sale or dowry
+contract that his amanuenses had just drawn up. It was written in
+Castilian and for the better understanding of his listeners he would
+read it, without the slightest hesitation, in Valencian. What a man!...
+
+Afterwards, while the contracting parties were signing it, the notary
+raising the little glass window at the front, would entertain the
+assembly with some local legends, always decent, without any illusions
+to the sins of the flesh, but always those in which the digestive
+organs figured with every degree of license. The clients would roar
+with laughter, captivated by this funny eschatalogy, and would haggle
+less in the matter of fees. Famous Don Esteban!... Just for the
+pleasure of hearing his yarns they would have liked a legal paper drawn
+up every month.
+
+The future destiny of the notarial crown prince was the object of many
+after-dinner conversations on the special days when the poet was an
+invited guest.
+
+"What do you want to be?" Labarta asked his godson.
+
+His mother's supplicating glance seemed desperately to implore the
+little fellow: "Say Archbishop, my king." For the good senora, her son
+could not make his debut in any other way than in a church career. The
+notary always used to speak very positively from his own viewpoint,
+without consulting the interested party. He would be an eminent
+jurisconsult; thousands of dollars were going to roll toward him as
+though they were pennies; he was going to figure in university
+solemnities in a cloak of crimson satin and an academic cap announcing
+from its multiple sides the tasseled glory of the doctorate. The
+students in his lecture-room would listen to him most respectfully. Who
+knew what the government of his country might not have in store for
+him!...
+
+Ulysses interrupted these images of future grandeur:
+
+"I want to be a captain."
+
+The poet approved. He felt the unreflective enthusiasm which all
+pacific and sedentary beings have for the plume and the sword. At the
+mere sight of a uniform his soul always thrilled with the amorous
+tenderness of a child's nurse when she finds herself courted by a
+soldier.
+
+"Fine!" said Labarta. "Captain of what?... Of artillery?... Of the
+staff?..."
+
+A pause.
+
+"No; captain of a ship."
+
+Don Esteban looked up at the roof, raising his hands in horror. He well
+knew who was guilty of this ridiculous idea, the one who had put such
+absurd longings in his son's head!
+
+And he was thinking of his brother, the retired doctor, who was living
+in the paternal home over there in the _Marina:_--an excellent man, but
+a little crazy, whom the people on the coast called the _Dotor_, and
+the poet Labarta had nicknamed the _Triton_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+MATER AMPHITRITE
+
+When the _Triton_ occasionally appeared in Valencia, thrifty Dona
+Cristina was obliged to modify the dietary of her family. This man ate
+nothing but fish, and her soul of an economical housewife worried
+greatly at the thought of the extraordinarily high price that fish
+brings in a port of exportation.
+
+Life in that house, where everything always jogged along so uniformly,
+was greatly upset by the presence of the doctor. A little after
+daybreak, just when its inhabitants were usually enjoying the dessert
+of their night's sleep, hearing drowsily the rumble of the early
+morning carts and the bell-ringing of the first Masses, the house would
+reecho to the rude banging of doors and heavy footsteps making the
+stairway creak. It was the _Triton_ rushing out on the street,
+incapable of remaining between four walls after the first streak of
+light. Following the currents of the early morning life, he would reach
+the market, stopping before the flower stands where were the most
+numerous gatherings of women.
+
+The eyes of the women turned toward him instinctively with an
+expression of interest and fear. Some blushed as he passed by,
+imagining against their will what an embrace from this hideous and
+restless Colossus must be.
+
+"He is capable of crushing a flea on his arm," the sailors of his
+village used to boast when trying to emphasize the hardness of his
+biceps. His body lacked fat, and under his swarthy skin bulged great,
+rigid and protruding muscles--an Herculean texture from which had been
+eliminated every element incapable of producing strength. Labarta found
+in him a great resemblance to the marine divinities. He was Neptune
+before his head had silvered, or Poseidon as the primitive Greek poets
+had seen him with hair black and curly, features tanned by the salt
+air, and with a ringleted beard whose two spiral ends seemed formed by
+the dripping of the water of the sea. The nose somewhat flattened by a
+blow received in his youth, and the little eyes, oblique and tenacious,
+gave to his countenance an expression of Asiatic ferocity, but this
+impression melted away when his mouth parted in a smile, showing his
+even, glistening teeth, the teeth of a man of the sea accustomed to
+live upon salt food.
+
+During the first few days of his visit he would wander through the
+streets wavering and bewildered. He was afraid of the carriages; the
+patter of the passers-by on the pavements annoyed him; he, who had seen
+the most important ports of both hemispheres, complained of the bustle
+in the capital of a province. Finally he would instinctively take the
+road from the harbor in search of the sea, his eternal friend, the
+first to salute him every morning upon opening the door of his own home
+down there on the _Marina_.
+
+On these excursions he would oftentimes be accompanied by his little
+nephew. The bustle on the docks,--(the creaking of the cranes, the dull
+rumble of the carts, the deafening cries of the freighters),--always
+had for him a certain music reminiscent of his youth when he was
+traveling as a doctor on a transatlantic steamer.
+
+His eyes also received a caress from the past upon taking in the
+panorama of the port--steamers smoking, sailboats with their canvas
+spread out in the sunlight, bulwarks of orange crates, pyramids of
+onions, walls of sacks of rice and compact rows of wine casks paunch to
+paunch. And coming to meet the outgoing cargo were long lines of
+unloaded goods being lined up as they arrived--hills of coal coming
+from England, sacks of cereal from the Black Sea, dried codfish from
+Newfoundland sounding like parchment skins as they thudded down on the
+dock, impregnating the atmosphere with their salty dust, and yellow
+lumber from Norway that still held a perfume of the pine woods.
+
+Oranges and onions fallen from the crates were rotting in the sun,
+scattering their sweet and acrid juices. The sparrows were hopping
+around the mountains of wheat, flitting timidly away when hearing
+approaching footsteps. Over the blue surface of the harbor waters the
+sea gulls of the Mediterranean, small, fine and white as doves, twined
+in and out in their interminable contra-dances.
+
+The _Triton_ went on enumerating to his nephew the class and specialty
+of every kind of vessel; and upon discovering that Ulysses was capable
+of confusing a brigantine with a frigate, he would roar in scandalized
+amazement.
+
+"Heavens! Then what in the devil do they teach your in school?..."
+
+Upon passing near the citizens of Valencia seated on the wharves,
+fishing rod in hand, he would shoot a glance of commiseration toward
+their empty baskets. Over there by his house on the coast, before the
+sun would be up, he would already have covered the bottom of his boat
+with enough to eat for a week. The misery of the cities!
+
+Standing on the last points of the rocky ledge, his glance would sweep
+the immense plain, describing to his nephew the mysteries hidden beyond
+the horizon. At their left, beyond the blue mountains of Oropesa, which
+bound the Valencian gulf, he could see in imagination Barcelona, where
+he had numerous friends, Marseilles, that prolongation of the Orient
+fastened on the European coast, and Genoa with its terraced palaces on
+hills covered with gardens. Then his vision would lose itself on the
+horizon stretching out in front of him. That was the road of his happy
+youth.
+
+Straight ahead in a direct line was Naples with its smoking mountain,
+its music and its swarthy dancing girls with hoop earrings; further on,
+the Isles of Greece; at the foot of an Aquatic Street, Constantinople;
+and still beyond, bordering the great liquid court of the Black Sea, a
+series of ports where the Argonauts--sunk in a seething mass of races,
+fondled by the felinism of slaves, the voluptuosity of the Orientals,
+and the avarice of the Jews--were fast forgetting their origin.
+
+At their right was Africa; the Egyptian ports with their traditional
+corruption that at sunset was beginning to tremble and steam like a
+fetid morass; Alexandria in whose low coffee houses were imitation
+Oriental dancers with no more clothes than a pocket handkerchief, every
+woman of a different nation and shrieking in chorus all the languages
+of the earth....
+
+The doctor withdrew his eyes from the sea in order to observe his
+flattened nose. He was recalling a night of Egyptian heat increased by
+the fumes of whiskey; the familiarity of the half-clad public women,
+the scuffle with some ruddy Northern sailors, the encounter in the dark
+which obliged him to flee with bleeding face to the ship that,
+fortunately, was weighing anchor at dawn. Like all Mediterranean men,
+he never went ashore without wearing a dagger hidden on his person, and
+he had to "sting" with it in order to make way for himself.
+
+"What times those were!" said the _Triton_ with more regret and
+homesickness than remorse; and then he would add by way of excuse, "Ay,
+but then I was only twenty-four years old!"
+
+These memories made him turn his eyes toward a huge bluish bulk
+extending out into the sea and looking to the casual spectator like a
+great barren island. It was the promontory crowned by the Mongo, the
+great Ferrarian promontory of the ancient geographers, the
+furthest-reaching point of the peninsula in the lower Mediterranean
+that closes the Gulf of Valencia on the south.
+
+It had the form of a hand whose digits were mountains, but lacked the
+thumb. The other four fingers extended out into the waves, forming the
+capes of San Antonio, San Martin, La Nao and Almoraira. In one of their
+coves was the _Triton's_ native village, and the home of the
+Ferraguts--hunters of black pirates in other days, contrabandists at
+times in modern days, sailors in all ages, appearing originally,
+perhaps, from those first wooden horses that came leaping over the foam
+seething around the promontory.
+
+In that home in the _Marina_ he wished to live and die, with no further
+desire of seeing more lands, with that sudden immovability that attacks
+the vagabonds of the waves and makes them fix themselves upon a ledge
+of the coast like a mollusk or bunch of seaweed.
+
+Soon the _Triton_ grew tired of these strolls to the harbor. The sea of
+Valencia was not a real sea for him. The waters of the river and of the
+irrigation canals disturbed him. When it rained in the mountains of
+Aragon, an earthy liquid always discharged itself into the Gulf,
+tinting the waves with flesh color and the foam with yellow. Besides,
+it was impossible to indulge in his daily sport of swimming. One winter
+morning, when he began to undress himself on the beach, the crowd
+gathered around him as though attracted by a phenomenon. Even the fish
+of the Gulf had to him an insufferable slimy taste.
+
+"I'm going back home," he would finally say to the notary and his wife.
+"I can't understand how in the world you are able to live here!"
+
+In one of these retreats to the _Marina_ he insisted upon taking
+Ulysses home with him. The summer season was beginning, the boy would
+be free from school for three months, and the notary, who was not able
+to go far away from the city, was going to pass the summer with his
+family on the beach at Cabanal checkered by bad-smelling irrigation
+canals near a forlorn sea. The little fellow was looking very pale and
+weak on account of his studies and hectoring. His uncle would make him
+as strong and agile as a dolphin. And in spite of some very lively
+disputes, he succeeded in snatching the child away from Dona Cristina.
+
+The first things that Ulysses admired upon entering the doctor's home
+were the three frigates adorning the ceiling of the dining-room--three
+marvelous vessels in which there was not lacking a single sail nor
+pulley rope, nor anchor, and which might be made to sail over the sea
+at a moment's notice.
+
+They were the work of his grandfather Ferragut. Wishing to release his
+two sons from the marine service which had weighed upon the family for
+many centuries, he had sent them to the University of Valencia in order
+that they might become inland gentlemen. The older, Esteban, had
+scarcely terminated his career before he obtained a notaryship in
+Catalunia. The younger one, Antonio, became a doctor so as not to
+thwart the old man's wishes, but as soon as he acquired his degree he
+offered his services to a transatlantic steamer. His father had closed
+the door of the sea against him and he had entered by the window.
+
+And so, as Ferragut Senior began to grow old, he lived completely
+alone. He used to look after his property--a few vineyards scattered
+along the coast in sight of his home--and was in frequent
+correspondence with his son, the notary. From time to time there came a
+letter from the younger one, his favorite, posted in remote countries
+that the old Mediterranean seaman knew only by hearsay. And during his
+long, dull hours in the shade of his arbor facing the blue and luminous
+sea, he used to entertain himself constructing these little models of
+boats. They were all frigates of great tonnage and fearless sail. Thus
+the old skipper would console himself for having commanded during his
+lifetime only heavy and clumsy merchant vessels like the ships of other
+centuries, in which he used to carry wine from Cette or cargo
+prohibited in Gibraltar and the coast of Africa.
+
+Ulysses was not long in recognizing the rare popularity enjoyed by his
+uncle, the doctor--a popularity composed of the most antagonistic
+elements. The people used to smile in speaking of him as though he were
+a little touched, yet they dared to indulge in these smiles only when
+at a safe distance, for he inspired a certain terror in all of them. At
+the same time they used to admire him as a local celebrity, for he had
+traversed all seas, and possessed, besides, a violent and tempestuous
+strength which was the terror and pride of his neighbors. The husky
+youths when testing the vigor of their fists, boxing with crews of the
+English vessels that came there for cargoes of raisins, used to evoke
+the doctor's name as a consolation in case of defeat. "If only the
+_Dotor_ could have been here!... Half a dozen Englishmen are nothing to
+him!"
+
+There was no vigorous undertaking, however absurd it might be, that
+they would not believe him capable of. He used to inspire the faith of
+the miracle-working saints and audacious highway captains. On calm,
+sunshiny winter mornings the people would often go running down to the
+beach, looking anxiously over the lonely sea. The veterans who were
+toasting themselves in the sun near the overturned boats, on scanning
+the broad horizon, would finally discern an almost imperceptible point,
+a grain of sand dancing capriciously on the waves.
+
+They would all break into shouts and conjectures. It was a buoy, a
+piece of masthead, the drift from a distant shipwreck. For the women it
+was somebody drowned, so bloated that it was floating like a leather
+bottle, after having been many days in the water.
+
+Suddenly the same supposition would arise in every perplexed mind. "I
+wonder if it could be the _Dotor!_" A long silence.... The bit of wood
+was taking the form of a head; the corpse was moving. Many could now
+perceive the bubble of foam around his chest that was advancing like
+the prow of a ship, and the vigorous strokes of his arms.... "Yes, it
+surely was the _Dotor!_"... The old sea dogs loaned their telescopes to
+one another in order to recognize his beard sunk in the water and his
+face, contracted by his efforts or expanded by his snortings.
+
+And the _Dotor_ was soon treading the dry beach, naked and as serenely
+unashamed as a god, giving his hand to the men, while the women
+shrieked, lifting their aprons in front of one eye--terrified, yet
+admiring the dripping vision.
+
+All the capes of the promontory challenged him to double them, swimming
+like a dolphin; he felt impelled to measure all the bays and coves with
+his arms, like a proprietor who distrusts another's measurements and
+rectifies them in order to affirm his right of possession. He was a
+human bark who, with the keel of his breast, cut the foam, whirling
+through the sunken rocks and the pacific waters in whose depths
+sparkled fishes among mother-of-pearl twigs and stars moving like
+flowers.
+
+He used to seat himself to rest on the black rocks with overskirts of
+seaweed that raised or lowered their fringe at the caprice of the wave,
+awaiting the night and the chance vessel that might come to dash
+against them like a piece of bark. Like a marine reptile he had even
+penetrated certain caves of the coast, drowsy and glacial lakes
+illuminated by mysterious openings where the atmosphere is black and
+the water transparent, where the swimmer has a bust of ebony and legs
+of crystal. In the course of these swimming expeditions he ate all the
+living beings he encountered fastened to the rocks by antennas and
+arms. The friction of the great, terrified fish that fled, bumping
+against him with the violence of a projectile, used to make him laugh.
+
+In the night hours passed before his grandfather's little ships,
+Ulysses used to hear the _Triton_ speak of the _Peje Nicolao_, a
+man-fish of the Straits of Messina mentioned by Cervantes and other
+authors, who lived in the water maintaining himself by the donations
+from the ships. His uncle must be some relative of this _Peje Nicolao_.
+At other times this uncle would mention a certain Greek who in order to
+see his lady-love swam the Hellespont every night. And he, who used to
+know the Dardanelles, was longing to return there as a simple passenger
+merely that a poet named Lord Byron might not be the only one to
+imitate the legendary crossing.
+
+The books that he kept in his home, the nautical charts fastened to the
+walls, the flasks and jars filled with the animal and vegetable life of
+the sea, and more than all this, his tastes which were so at variance
+with the customs of his neighbors, had given the _Triton_ the
+reputation of a mysterious sage, the fame of a wizard.
+
+All those who were well and strong considered him crazy, but the moment
+that there was the slightest break in their health they would share the
+same faith as the poor women who oftentimes passed long hours in the
+home of the _Dotor_, seeing his bark afar off and patiently awaiting
+his return from the sea, in order to show him the sick children they
+carried in their arms. He had an advantage over all other doctors, as
+he made no charge for his services; better still, many sick people came
+away from his house with money in their hands.
+
+The _Dotor_ was rich--the richest man in the countryside; a man who
+really did not know what to do with his money. His maid-servant--an old
+woman who had known his father and served his mother--used daily to
+receive from his hands the fish provided for the two with a regal
+generosity. The _Triton_, who had hoisted sail at daybreak, used to
+disembark before eleven, and soon the purpling lobster was crackling on
+the red coals, sending forth delicious odors; the stew pot was bubbling
+away, thickening its broth with the succulent fat of the sea-scorpion;
+the oil in the frying pan was singing, browning the flame-colored skin
+of the salmonettes; and the sea urchins and the mussels opened hissing
+under his knife, were emptying their still living pulp into the boiling
+stew pan. Furthermore, a cow with full udders was mooing in the yard,
+and dozens of chickens with innumerable broods were cackling
+incessantly.
+
+The flour kneaded and baked by his servant, and the coffee thick as
+mud, was all that the _Triton_ purchased with his money. If he hunted
+for a bottle of brandy on his return from a swim, it was only to use it
+in rubbing himself down.
+
+Money entered through his doors once a year, when the girls of the
+vintage lined up among the trellises of his vineyards, cutting the
+bunches of little, close fruit and spreading them out to dry in some
+small sheds called _riurraus_. Thus was produced the small raisin
+preferred by the English for the making of their puddings. The sale was
+a sure thing, the boats always coming from the north to get the fruit.
+And the _Triton_, upon finding five or six thousand pesetas in his
+hand, would be greatly perplexed, inwardly asking himself what a man
+was ever going to do with so much money.
+
+"All this is yours," he said, showing the house to his nephew.
+
+His also the boat, the books and the antique furniture in whose drawers
+the money was so openly hid that it invited attention.
+
+In spite of seeing himself lord of all that surrounded him, a rough and
+affectionate despotism, kept nevertheless, weighing the child down. He
+was very far from his mother, that good lady who was always closing the
+windows near him and never letting him go out without tying his
+neckscarf around him with an accompaniment of kisses.
+
+Just when he was sleeping soundest, believing that the night would
+still be many hours longer, he would feel himself awakened by a violent
+tugging at his leg. His uncle could not touch him in any other way.
+"Get up, cabin boy!" In vain he would protest with the profound
+sleepiness of youth.... Was he, or was he not the "ship's cat" of the
+bark of which his uncle was the captain and only crew?...
+
+His uncle's paws bared him to the blasts of salt air that were entering
+through the windows. The sea was dark and veiled by a light fog. The
+last stars were sparkling with twinkles of surprise, ready to flee. A
+crack began to appear on the leaden horizon, growing redder and redder
+every minute, like a wound through which the blood is flowing. The
+ship's cat was loaded up with various empty baskets, the skipper
+marching before him like a warrior of the waves, carrying the oars on
+his shoulders, his feet rapidly making hollows on the sand. Behind him
+the village was beginning to awaken and, over the dark waters, the
+sails of the fishermen, fleeing the inner sea, were slipping past like
+ghostly shrouds.
+
+Two vigorous strokes of the oar sent their boat out from the little
+wharf of stones, and soon he was untying the sails from the gunwales
+and preparing the ropes. The unfurled canvas whistled and swelled in
+bellying whiteness. "There we are! Now for a run!"
+
+The water was beginning to sing, slipping past both sides of the prow.
+Between it and the edge of the sail could be seen a bit of black sea,
+and coming little by little over its line, a great red streak. The
+streak soon became a helmet, then a hemisphere, then an Arabian arch
+confined at the bottom, until finally it shot up out of the liquid mass
+as though it were a bomb sending forth flashes of flame. The
+ash-colored clouds became stained with blood and the large rocks of the
+coast began to sparkle like copper mirrors. As the last stars were
+extinguished, a swarm of fire-colored fishes came trailing along before
+the prow, forming a triangle with its point in the horizon. The mist on
+the mountain tops was taking on a rose color as though its whiteness
+were reflecting a submarine eruption. "_Bon dia!_" called the doctor to
+Ulysses, who was occupied in warming his hands stiffened by the wind.
+
+And, moved with childlike joy by the dawn of a new day, the _Triton_
+sent his bass voice booming across the maritime silence, several times
+intoning sentimental melodies that in his youth he had heard sung by a
+vaudeville prima donna dressed as a ship's boy, at other times caroling
+in Valencian the chanteys of the coast--fishermen's songs invented as
+they drew in their nets, in which most shameless words were flung
+together on the chance of making them rhyme. In certain windings of the
+coast the sail would be lowered, leaving the boat with no other motion
+than a gentle rocking around its anchor rope.
+
+Upon seeing the space which had been obscured by the shadow of the
+boat's hulk, Ulysses found the bottom of the sea so near that he almost
+believed that he could touch it with the point of his oar. The rocks
+were like glass. In their interstices and hollows the plants were
+moving like living creatures, and the little animals had the
+immovability of vegetables and stones. The boat appeared to be floating
+in the air and athwart the liquid atmosphere that wraps this abysmal
+world, the fish hooks were dangling, and a swarm of fishes was swimming
+and wriggling toward its encounter with death.
+
+It was a sparkling effervescence of yellowing flames, of bluish backs
+and rosy fins. Some came out from the caves silvered and vibrant as
+lightning flashes of mercury; others swam slowly, big-bellied, almost
+circular, with a golden coat of mail. Along the slopes, the crustaceans
+came scrambling along on their double row of claws attracted by this
+novelty that was changing the mortal calm of the under-sea where all
+follow and devour, only to be devoured in turn. Near the surface
+floated the medusae, living parasols of an opaline whiteness with
+circular borders of lilac or red bronze. Under their gelatinous domes
+was the skein of filaments that served them for locomotion, nutrition
+and reproduction.
+
+The fishermen had only to pull in their lines and a new prisoner would
+fall into their boat. Their baskets were filling up so fast that the
+_Triton_ and his nephew grew tired of this easy fishing.... The sun was
+now near the height of its curve, and every wavelet was carrying away a
+bit of the golden band that divided the blue immensity. The wood of the
+boat appeared to be on fire.
+
+"We've earned our day's pay," said the _Triton_, looking at the sky and
+then at the baskets. "Now let's clean up a little bit."
+
+And stripping off his clothing, he threw himself into the sea. Ulysses
+saw him descend from the center of the ring of foam opened by his body,
+and could gauge by it the profundity of that fantastic world composed
+of glassy rocks, animal plants and stone animals. As it went down, the
+tawny body of the swimmer took on the transparency of porcelain. It
+appeared of bluish crystal--a statue made of a Venetian mirror
+composition that was going to break as soon as it touched the bottom.
+
+Like a god he was passing through the deeps, snatching plants out by
+the roots, pursuing with his hands the flashes of vermilion and gold
+hidden in the cracks of the rocks. Minutes would pass by; he was going
+to stay down forever; he would never come up again. And the boy was
+beginning to think uneasily of the possibility of having to guide the
+bark back to the coast all alone. Suddenly the body of white crystal
+began taking on a greenish hue, growing larger and larger, becoming
+dark and coppery, until above the surface appeared the head of the
+swimmer, who, spouting and snorting, was holding up all his submarine
+plunder to the little fellow.
+
+"Now then, your turn!" he ordered in an imperious tone.
+
+All attempts at resistance were useless. His uncle either insulted him
+with the harshest kind of words or coaxed him with promises of safety.
+He never knew certainly whether he threw himself into the water or
+whether a tug from the doctor jerked him from the boat. The first
+surprise having passed, he had the impression of remembering some long
+forgotten thing. He was swimming instinctively, divining what he ought
+to do before his master told him. Within him was awakening the
+ancestral experience of a race of sailors who had struggled with the
+sea and, sometimes, had remained forever in its bosom.
+
+Recollection of what was existing beyond his feet suddenly made him
+lose his serenity,--his lively imagination making him shriek,
+
+"Uncle!... Uncle!"
+
+And he clutched convulsively at the hard island of bearded and smiling
+muscles. His uncle came up immovable, as though his feet of stone were
+fastened to the bottom of the ocean. He was like the nearby promontory
+that was darkening and chilling the water with its ebony shadow.
+
+Thus would slip by the mornings devoted to fishing and swimming; then
+in the afternoons there were tramps over the steep shores of the coast.
+
+The _Dotor_ knew the heights of the promontory as well as its depths.
+Up the pathways of the wild goat they clambered to its peaks in order
+to get a view of the Island of Ibiza. At sunset the distant Balearic
+Islands appeared like a rose-colored flame rising out of the waves. At
+other times the cronies made trips along the water's edge, and the
+_Triton_ would show his nephew hidden caves into which the
+Mediterranean was working its way with slow undulations. These were
+like maritime roadsteads where boats might anchor completely concealed
+from view. There the galleys of the Berbers had often hidden, in order
+to fall unexpectedly upon a nearby village.
+
+In one of these caves, on a rocky pedestal, Ulysses often saw a heap of
+bundles.
+
+"Well, now, what of it!" expostulated the doctor. "Every man must gain
+his living as best he can."
+
+When they stumbled upon a solitary custom house officer resting upon
+his gun and looking out toward the sea, the doctor would offer him a
+cigar and give him medical advice if he were sick. "Poor men! so badly
+paid!"... But his sympathies were always going out to the others--to
+the enemies of the law. He was the son of his sea, and in the make-up
+of all Mediterranean heroes and sailors there had always been something
+of the pirate or smuggler. The Phoenicians, who by their navigation
+spread abroad the first works of civilization, instituted this service,
+reaping their reward by filling their barks with stolen women, rich
+merchandise of easy transportation.
+
+Piracy and smuggling had formed the historic past of all the villages
+that Ulysses was visiting, some huddled in the shelter of the
+promontory crowned with a lighthouse, others opening on the concavity
+of a bay dotted with barren islands girdled with foam. The old churches
+had turrets on their walls and loopholes in their doors for shooting
+with culverins and blunderbusses. The entire neighborhood used to take
+refuge in them when the smoke columns from their watchmen would warn
+them of the landing of pirates from Algiers. Following the curvings of
+the promontory there was a dotted line of reddish towers, each one
+accompanied by a smaller pair for lookouts. This line extended along
+the south toward the Straits of Gibraltar, and on its northern side
+reached to France.
+
+The doctor had seen their counterpart in all the islands of the western
+Mediterranean, on the coasts of Naples and in Sicily. They were the
+fortifications of a thousand-year war, of a struggle ten centuries long
+between Moors and Christians for the domination of the blue sea, a
+struggle of piracy in which the Mediterranean men--differentiated by
+religion, but identical at heart--had prolonged the adventures of the
+Odyssey down to the beginnings of the nineteenth century.
+
+Ferragut gradually became acquainted with many old men of the village
+who in their youth had been slaves in Algiers. On winter evenings the
+oldest of them were still singing romances of captivity and speaking
+with terror of the Berber brigantines. These thieves of the sea must
+have had a pact with the devil, who notified them of opportune
+occasions. If in a convent some beautiful novices had just made their
+profession, the doors would give away at midnight under the
+hatchet-blows of the bearded demons who were advancing inland from the
+galleys prepared to receive their cargo of feminine freight. If a girl
+of the coast, celebrated for her beauty, was going to be married, the
+infidels, lying in wait, would surround the door of the church,
+shooting their blunderbusses and knifing the unarmed men as they came
+out, in order to carry away the women in their festal robes.
+
+On all the coast, the pirates stood in awe only of the navigators from
+the _Marina_, so fearless and warlike were they. If their villages were
+ever attacked, it was because their seafaring defenders were on the
+Mediterranean and, in their turn, had gone to sack and burn some
+village on the coast of Africa.
+
+The _Triton_ and his nephew used to eat their supper under the arbor in
+the long summer twilights. After the cloth was removed Ulysses would
+manipulate his grandfather's little frigates, learning the technical
+parts and names of the different apparatus, and the management of the
+sets of sails. Sometimes the two would stay out on the rustic porch
+until a late hour gazing out over the luminous sea sparkling under the
+splendor of the moon, or streaked with a slender wake of starry light
+in the murky nights.
+
+All that mankind had ever written or dreamed about the Mediterranean,
+the doctor had in his library and could repeat to his eager little
+listener. In Ferragut's estimation the _mare nostrum_ ["Mare Nostrum"
+(Our Sea), the classic name for the Mediterranean.] was a species of
+blue beast, powerful and of great intelligence--a sacred animal like
+the dragons and serpents that certain religions adored, believing them
+to be the source of life. The rivers that threw themselves impetuously
+into its bosom in order to renew it were few and scanty. The Rhone and
+the Nile appeared to be pitiful little rivulets compared with the river
+courses of other continents that empty into the oceans.
+
+Losing by evaporation three times more liquid than the rivers bring to
+it, this sunburnt sea would soon have been converted into a great salt
+desert were not the Atlantic sending it a rapid current of renewal that
+was precipitated through the Straits of Gibraltar. Under this
+superficial current existed still another, flowing in an opposite
+direction, that returned a part of the Mediterranean to the ocean,
+because the Mediterranean waters were more salt and dense than those of
+the Atlantic. The tide scarcely made itself felt on its strands. Its
+basin was mined by subterranean fires that were always seeking
+extraordinary outlets through Vesuvius and Aetna and breathed
+continually through the mouth of Stromboli. Sometimes these Plutonic
+ebullitions would come to the surface, making new islands rise up upon
+the waters like tumors of lava.
+
+In its bosom exist still double the quantity of animal species that
+abound in other seas, although less numerous. The tunny fish, playful
+lambs of the blue pasture lands, were gamboling over its surface or
+passing in schools under the furrows of the waves. Men were setting
+netted traps for them along the coasts of Spain and France, in
+Sardinia, the Straits of Messina and the waters of the Adriatic. But
+this wholesale slaughter scarcely lessened the compact, fishy
+squadrons. After wandering through the windings of the Grecian
+Archipelago, they passed the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, stirring
+the two narrow passageways with the violence of their invisible
+gallopade and making a turn at the bowl of the Black Sea, swimming
+back, decimated but impetuous, to the depths of the Mediterranean.
+
+Red coral was forming immovable groves on the substrata of the Balearic
+Islands, and on the coasts of Naples and Africa. Ambergris was
+constantly being found on the steep shores of Sicily. Sponges were
+growing in the tranquil waters in the shadow of the great rocks of
+Mallorca and the Isles of Greece. Naked men without any equipment
+whatever, holding their breath, were still descending to the bottom as
+in primitive times, in order to snatch these treasures away.
+
+The doctor gave up his geographic descriptions to discourse on the
+history of his sea, which had indeed been the history of civilization,
+and was more fascinating to him. At first miserable and scanty tribes
+had wandered along its coasts seeking their food from the crustaceans
+drawn from the waves--a life similar to that of the rudimentary people
+that Ferragut had seen in the islands of the Pacific. When stone saws
+had hollowed out the trunks of trees and human arms had ventured to
+spread the first rawhides to the forces of the atmosphere, the coasts
+became rapidly populated.
+
+Temples were constructed on the promontories, and maritime cities--the
+first nuclei of modern civilization--came into existence. On this
+landlocked sea mankind had learned the art of navigation. Every one
+looked at the waves before looking at the sky. Over this blue highway
+had arrived the miracles of life, and out of its depths the gods were
+born. The Phoenicians--Jews, become navigators--abandoned their cities
+in the depths of the Mediterranean sack, in order to spread the
+mysterious knowledge of Egypt and the Asiatic monarchies all along the
+shores of the interior sea. Afterwards the Greeks of the maritime
+republics took their places.
+
+In Ferragut's estimation the greatest honor to which Athens could lay
+claim was that she had been a democracy of sailors, her freemen serving
+their country as rowers and all her famous men as great marine
+officials.
+
+"Themistocles and Pericles," he added, "were admirals of fleets, and
+after commanding ships, governed their country."
+
+On that account Grecian civilization had spread itself everywhere and
+had become immortal instead of lessening and disappearing without fruit
+as in the interior lands. Then Rome, terrestrial Rome, in order to hold
+its own against the superiority of the Semitic navigators of Carthage,
+had to teach the management of the oar and marine combat to the
+inhabitants of Latium, to their legionaries with faces hardened by the
+chin straps of their helmets, who did not know how to adjust their
+world-dominating iron-shod feet to the slippery planks of a vessel.
+
+The divinities of _mare nostrum_ always inspired a most loving devotion
+in the doctor. He knew that they had not existed, but he, nevertheless,
+believed in them as poetic phantasms of natural forces.
+
+The ancient world only knew the immense ocean in hypothesis, giving it
+the form of an aquatic girdle around the earth. Oceanus was an old god
+with a long beard and horned head who lived in a maritime cavern with
+his wife, Tethys, and his three hundred daughters, the Oceanides. No
+Argonaut had ever dared to come in contact with these mysterious
+divinities. Only the grave Aeschylus had dared to portray the
+Oceanides--virgins fresh and demure, weeping around the rock to which
+Prometheus was bound.
+
+Other more approachable deities were those of the eternal sea on whose
+borders were founded the opulent cities of the Syrian coast; the
+Egyptian cities that sent sparks of their ritual civilization to
+Greece; the Hellenic cities, hearths of clear fire that had fused all
+knowledge, giving it eternal form; Rome, mistress of the world;
+Carthage, famed for her audacious geographical discoveries, and
+Marseilles, which had made western Europe share in the civilization of
+the Greeks, scattering it along the lower coast from settlement to
+settlement, even to the Straits of Cadiz.
+
+A brother of the Oceanides, the prudent Nereus, used to reign in the
+depths of the Mediterranean. This son of Oceanus had a blue beard,
+green eyes, and bunches of sea rushes on his eyebrows and breast. His
+fifty daughters, the Nereids, bore his orders across the waves or
+frolicked around the ships, splashing in the faces of the rowers the
+foam tossed up by their arms. But the sons of Father Time, on
+conquering the giant, had reapportioned the world, determining its
+rulers by lot. Zeus remained lord of the land, the obscure Hades, lord
+of the underworld, reigned in the Plutonic abysses, and Poseidon became
+master of the blue surfaces.
+
+Nereus, the dispossessed monarch, fled to a cavern of the Hellenic sea
+in order to live the calm existence of the philosopher-counselor of
+mankind, and Poseidon installed himself in the mother-of-pearl palaces
+with his white steeds tossing helmets of bronze and manes of gold.
+
+His amorous eyes were fixed on the fifty Mediterranean princesses, the
+Nereids, who took their names from the aspect of the waves--the Blue,
+the Green, the Swift, the Gentle.... "Nymphs of the green abysses with
+faces fresh as a rosebud, fragrant virgins that took the forms of all
+the monsters of the deep," sang the Orphic hymn on the Grecian shore.
+And Poseidon singled out among them all the Nereid of the Foam, the
+white Amphitrite who refused to accept his love.
+
+She knew about this new god. The coasts were peopled with cyclops like
+Polyphemus, with frightful monsters born of the union of Olympian
+goddesses and simple mortals; but an obliging dolphin came and went,
+carrying messages between Poseidon and the Nereid, until, overwhelmed
+by the eloquence of this restless rover of the wave, Amphitrite agreed
+to become the wife of the god, and the Mediterranean appeared to take
+on still greater beauty.
+
+She was the aurora that shows her rosy finger-tips through the immense
+cleft between sky and sea, the warm hour of midday that makes the
+waters drowsy under its robe of restless gold, the bifurcated tongue of
+foam that laps the two faces of the hissing prow, the aroma-laden
+breeze that like a virgin's breath swells the sail, the compassionate
+kiss that lulls the drowned to rest, without wrath and without
+resistance, before sinking forever into the fathomless abyss.
+
+Her husband--Poseidon on the Greek coast and Neptune on the Latin--on
+mounting his chariot, used to awaken the tempest. The brazen-hoofed
+horses with their stamping would paw up the huge waves and swallow up
+the ships. The tritons of his cortege would send forth from their white
+shells the bellowing blasts that snap off the masts like reeds.
+
+_O, mater Amphitrite_!... and Ferragut would describe her as though she
+were just passing before his eyes. Sometimes when swimming around the
+promontories, feeling himself enveloped like primitive man in the blind
+forces of Nature, he used to believe that he saw the white goddess
+issuing forth from the rocks with all her smiling train after a rest in
+some marine cave.
+
+A shell of pearl was her chariot and six dolphins harnessed with
+purpling coral used to draw it along. The tritons, her sons, handled
+the reins. The Naiads, their sisters, lashed the sea with their scaly
+tails, lifting their mermaid bodies wrapped in the magnificence of
+their sea-green tresses between whose ringlets might be seen their
+heaving bosoms. White seagulls, cooing like the doves of Aphrodite,
+fluttered around their nude sea-queen, serenely contemplating them from
+her movable throne, crowned with pearls and phosphorescent stars drawn
+from the depths of her dominion. White as the cloud, white as the sail,
+white as the foam, entirely, dazzlingly white was her fair majesty
+except where a rosy blush tinted the petal-like skin of her heels or
+her bosom.
+
+The entire history of European man--forty centuries of wars,
+emigrations, and racial impact--was due, according to the doctor, to
+the desire of possessing this harmoniously framed sea, of enjoying the
+transparency of its atmosphere and the vivacity of its light.
+
+The men from the North who needed the burning log and alcoholic drink
+in order to defend their life from the clutches of the cold, were
+always thinking of these Mediterranean shores. All their warlike or
+pacific movements were with intent to descend from the coasts of the
+glacial seas to the beaches of the warm _mare nostrum_. They were eager
+to gain possession of the country where the sacred olive alternates its
+stiff old age with the joyous vineyard; where the pine rears its cupola
+and the cypress erects its minaret. They longed to dream under the
+perfumed snow of the interminable orange groves; to be masters of the
+sheltered valleys where the myrtle and the jasmine spice the salty air;
+where the aloe and the cactus grow between the stones of extinct
+volcanoes; where the mountains of marble extend their white veins down
+even into the depths of the sea and refract the African heat emitted by
+the opposite coast.
+
+The South had replied to the invasion from the North with defensive
+wars that had extended even into the center of Europe. And thus history
+had gone on repeating itself with the same flux and reflux of human
+waves--mankind struggling for thousands of years to gain or hold the
+blue vault of Amphitrite.
+
+The Mediterranean peoples were to Ferragut the aristocracy of humanity.
+Its potent climate had tempered mankind as in no other part of the
+planet, giving him a dry and resilient power. Tanned and bronzed by the
+profound absorption of the sun and the energy of the atmosphere, its
+navigators were transmuted into pure metal. The men from the North were
+stronger, but less robust, less acclimitable than the Catalan sailor,
+the Provencal, the Genoese or the Greek. The sailors of the
+Mediterranean made themselves at home in all parts of the world. Upon
+their sea man had developed his highest energies. Ancient Greece had
+converted human flesh into spiritual steel.
+
+Exactly the same landscapes and races bordered the two shores. The
+mountains and the flowers on both shores were identical. The Catalan,
+the Provencal and the South Italian were more like the inhabitants of
+the African coast than their kindred who lived inland back of them.
+This fraternity had shown itself instinctively in the thousand-year
+war. The Berber pirates, the Genoese sailors, the Spaniards, and the
+Knights of Malta used implacably to behead each other on the decks of
+their galleys and, upon becoming conquerors, would respect the life of
+their prisoners, treating them like gentlemen. The Admiral Barbarossa,
+eighty-four years of age, used to call Doria, his eternal rival nearly
+ninety years old, "my brother." The Grand Master of Malta clasped the
+hand of the terrible Dragut upon finding him his captive.
+
+The Mediterranean man, fixed on the shores that gave him birth, was
+accustomed to accept all the changes of history, as the mollusks
+fastened to the rocks endure the tempests. For him the only important
+thing was not to lose sight of his blue sea. The Spaniard used to pull
+an oar on the Liburnian felucca, the Christian would join the crews of
+the Saracen ships of the Middle Ages; the subjects of Charles V would
+pass through the fortunes of war from the galleys of the Cross to those
+of the Crescent, and would end by becoming rulers of Algiers, rich
+captains of the sea, or by making their names famous as renegades.
+
+In the eighth century the inhabitants of the Valencian coast united
+with the Andalusian Moors to carry the war to the ends of the
+Mediterranean and to the island of Crete, taking possession of it and
+giving it the name of Candia. This nest of pirates was the terror of
+Byzantium, taking Salonica by assault and selling as slaves the
+patricians and most important ladies of the realm. Years afterwards,
+when dislodged from Candia, the Valencian adventurers returned to their
+native shores and there established a town in a fertile valley, giving
+it the name of the distant island which was changed to Gandia.
+
+Every type of human vigor had sprung from the Mediterranean
+race,--fine, sharp and dry as flint, doing good and evil on a large
+scale with the exaggeration of an ardent character that discounts
+halfway measures and leaps from duplicity to the greatest extremes of
+generosity. Ulysses was the father of them all, a discreet and prudent
+hero, yet at the same time complex and malicious. So was old Cadmus
+with his Phoenician miter and curled beard, a great old sea-wolf,
+scattering by means of his various adventures the art of writing and
+the first notions of commerce.
+
+In one of the Mediterranean islands Hannibal was born, and twenty
+centuries after, in another of them, the son of a lawyer without briefs
+embarked for France, with no other outfit than his cadet's uniform, in
+order to make famous his name of Napoleon.
+
+Over the Mediterranean waves had sailed Roger de Lauria, knight-errant
+of vast tracts of sea, who wished to clothe even the fishes with the
+colors of Aragon. A visionary of obscure origin named Columbus had
+recognized as his country the republic of Genoa. A smuggler from the
+coasts of Laguria came to be Messina, the marshal beloved by Victory,
+and the last personage of this stock of Mediterranean heroes associated
+with the heroes of fabulous times was a sailor from Nice, simple and
+romantic, a warrior called Garibaldi, an heroic tenor of all seas and
+lands who cast over his century the reflection of his red shirt,
+repeating on the coast of Marseilles the remote epic of the Argonauts.
+
+Then Ferragut summed up the various defects of his race. Some had been
+bandits and others saints, but none mediocre. Their most audacious
+undertakings had much about them that was prudent and practical. When
+they devoted themselves to business they were at the same time serving
+civilization. In them the hero and the trader were so intermingled that
+it was impossible to discern where one ended and the other began. They
+had been pirates and cruel men, but the navigators from the foggy seas
+when imitating the Mediterranean discoveries in other continents had
+not shown themselves any more gentle or loyal.
+
+After these conversations, Ulysses felt greater esteem for the old
+pottery and the shabby little figures that adorned his uncle's bedroom.
+
+They were objects vomited up by the sea, Grecian amphoras wrested from
+the shells of mollusks after a submarine interment centuries long. The
+deep waters had embossed these petrified ornaments with strange
+arabesques that made one think of the art of another planet, and,
+twined in with the pottery that had held the wine and water of a
+shipwrecked Liburnian felucca, were bits of rope hardened by limey
+deposit and flukes of anchors whose metal was disintegrating into
+reddish scales. Various little statues corroded by the salt sea
+inspired in the boy as much admiration as his grandfather's frigates.
+He laughed and trembled before these _Cabiri_ coming from the
+Phoenician or Carthaginian biremes,--grotesque and terrible gods that
+contracted their faces with grimaces of lust and ferocity.
+
+Some of these muscular and bearded marine divinities bore a remote
+resemblance to his uncle. Ulysses had overheard certain strange
+conversations among the fishermen and had noticed, besides, the
+precipitation of the women and their uneasy glances when they found the
+doctor near them in a solitary part of the coast. Only the presence of
+his nephew had made them recover tranquility and check their step.
+
+At times the sea seemed to craze him with gusts of amorous fury. He was
+Poseidon rising up unexpectedly on the banks in order to surprise
+goddesses and mortals. The women of the _Marina_ ran away as terrified
+as those Greek princesses on the painted vases when surprised, washing
+their robes, by the apparition of a passionate triton.
+
+Some nights at the hour when the lighthouses were beginning to pierce
+the coming dusk with their fresh shafts of light, he would become
+melancholy and, forgetting the difference in their age, would talk with
+his nephew as though he were a sailor companion.
+
+He regretted never having married.... He might have had a son by this
+time. He had known many women of all colors--white, red, yellow, and
+bronze--but only once had he really been in love, very far away on the
+other side of the planet, in the port of Valparaiso.
+
+He could still see in imagination a certain graceful Chilean maiden,
+wrapped in her great black veil like the ladies of the Calderonian
+theater, showing only one of her dark and liquid eyes, pale and
+slender, speaking in a plaintive voice.
+
+She enjoyed love-songs, always provided that they were sung "with great
+sadness"; and Ferragut would devour her with his eyes while she plucked
+the guitar, chanting the song of Malek-Adhel and other romances about
+"Roses, sighs and Moors of Granada," that from childhood the doctor had
+heard sung by the Berbers of his country. The simple attempt at taking
+one of her hands always provoked her modest resistance.... "That,
+then...." She was ready to marry him; she wished to see Spain.... And
+the doctor might have fulfilled her wishes had not a good soul informed
+him that in later hours of the night, others were accustomed to come in
+turns to hear her romantic solos.... Ah, these women! and then, on
+recalling the finale of his trans-oceanic idyl, Ferragut would become
+reconciled to his celibacy.
+
+Late in the Fall the notary had to go in person to the _Marina_ to make
+his brother give Ulysses up. The boy held the same opinion as did his
+uncle. The very idea of losing the winter fishing, the cold sunny
+morning, the spectacle of the great tempests, just for the silly reason
+that the Institute had commenced, and he must study for his bachelor's
+degree!...
+
+The following year Dona Cristina tried to prevent the _Triton's_
+carrying off her son, since he could learn nothing but bad words and
+boastful bullying in the old home of the Ferraguts. And trumping up the
+necessity of seeing her own family, she left the notary alone in
+Valencia, going with her boy to spend the summer on the coast of
+Catalunia near the French frontier.
+
+This was Ulysses' first important journey. In Barcelona he became
+acquainted with his uncle, the rich and talented financier of the
+Blanes family,--one of his mother's brothers, proprietor of a great
+hardware shop situated in one of the damp, narrow and crowded streets
+that ran into the Rambla. He soon came to know other maternal uncles in
+a village near the Cape of Creus. This promontory with its wild coasts
+reminded him of that other one where the _Triton_ lived. The first
+Hellenic sailors had also founded a city here, and the sea had also
+cast up amphoras, little statues and petrified bits of iron.
+
+The Blanes family had gone much to sea. They loved it as intensely as
+did the doctor, but with a cold and silent love, appreciating it less
+for its beauty than for the profits which it offered to the fortunate.
+Their trips had been to America, in their own sailing vessels,
+importing sugar from Havana and corn from Buenos Ayres. The
+Mediterranean was for them only a port that they crossed carelessly on
+departure and arrival. None of them knew the white Amphitrite even by
+name.
+
+Moreover, they did not have the devil-may-care and romantic appearance
+of the bachelor of the _Marina_, ready to live in the water like an
+amphibian. They were gentlemen of the coast who, having retired from
+the sea, were entrusting their barks to captains who had been their
+pilots,--middle class citizens who never laid aside the cravat and silk
+cap that were the symbols of their high position in their natal town.
+
+The gathering-place of the rich was the Athenaeum,--a society that in
+spite of its title offered no other reading matter than two Catalunian
+periodicals. A large telescope mounted on a tripod before the door used
+to fill the club members with pride. For the uncles of Ulysses, it was
+enough merely to put one eyebrow to the glass to be able to state
+immediately the class and nationality of the ship that was slipping
+along over the distant horizon line. These veterans of the sea were
+accustomed to speak only of the freight cargoes, of the thousands and
+thousands of dollars gained in other times with only one round trip,
+and of the terrible rivalry of the steamship.
+
+Ulysses kept hoping in vain that sometimes they would allude to the
+Nereids and other poetic beings that the _Triton_ had conjured around
+his promontory. The Blanes had never seen these extraordinary
+creatures. Their seas contained fish only. They were cold, economical
+men of few words, friends of order and social preferment. Their nephew
+suspected that they had the courage of men of the sea but without
+boasting or aggressiveness; their heroism was that of traders capable
+of suffering all kinds of adventures provided their stock ran no risks,
+but becoming wild beasts if any one attacked their riches.
+
+The members of the Athenaeum were all old, the only masculine beings in
+the village. Besides them there were only the carbineers installed in
+the barracks and various calkers making their mallets resound on the
+hull of a schooner ordered by the Blanes brothers.
+
+All the active men were on the sea. Some were sailing to America as
+crew of the brigs and barks of the Catalunian coast. The more timid and
+unfortunate ones were always fishing. Others, more valiant and anxious
+for ready money, had become smugglers on the French coast whose shores
+began on the other side of the promontory.
+
+In the village there were only women, women of all kinds:--women seated
+before their doors, making lace on great cylindrical pillows on their
+knees, along whose length their bobbins wove strips of beautiful
+openwork, or grouped on the street corners in front of the lonely sea
+where their men were, or speaking with an electric nervousness that
+oftentimes would break out suddenly in noisy tempests.
+
+Only the parish priest, whose fishing recreations and official
+existence were embittered by their constant quarrels, understood the
+feminine irritability which embroiled the village. Alone and having to
+live incessantly in such close contact, the women had come to hate each
+other as do passengers isolated on a boat for many months. Besides,
+their husbands had accustomed them to the use of coffee, the seaman's
+drink, and they tried to beguile their tedium with strong cups of the
+thick liquid.
+
+A common interest, nevertheless, united these women miraculously when
+living alone. When the carbineers inspected the houses in search of
+contraband goods smuggled in by the men, the Amazons worked off their
+nervous energy in hiding the illegal merchandise, making it pass from
+one place of concealment to another with the cunning of savages.
+
+Whenever the government officers began to suspect that certain packages
+had gone to hide themselves in the cemetery, they would find there only
+some empty graves, and in the bottom of them a few cigars between
+skulls that were mockingly stuck up in the ground. The chief of the
+barracks did not dare to inspect the church, but he looked
+contemptuously upon Mosen Jordi, the priest, as a simpleton quite
+capable of permitting tobacco to be hidden behind the altars in
+exchange for the privilege of fishing in peace.
+
+The rich people lived with their backs turned on the village,
+contemplating the blue expanse upon which were erected the wooden
+houses that represented all their fortune. In the summer-time the sight
+of the smooth and brilliant Mediterranean made them recall the dangers
+of the winter. They spoke with religious terror of the land breeze, the
+wind from the Pyrenees, the _Tramontana_ that oftentimes snatched
+edifices from their bases and had overturned entire trains in the
+nearby station. Furthermore, on the other side of the promontory began
+the terrible Gulf of Lyons. Upon its surface, not more than ninety
+yards in extent, the waters driven by the strong sea winds often became
+so rough, and raised up waves so high and so solid that upon clashing
+together and finding no intermediate space upon which to fall, they
+piled one upon another, forming regular towers.
+
+This gulf was the most terrible of the Mediterranean. The transatlantic
+liners returning from a good voyage to the other hemisphere used here
+to tremble with a pre-monition of danger and sometimes even turned
+back. The captains who had just crossed the great Atlantic would here
+furrow their brows with uneasiness.
+
+From the door of the Athenaeum the experts used to point out the Latin
+sailboats that were about to double the promontory. They were merchant
+vessels such as that elder Ferragut had commanded, embarkations from
+Valencia that were bringing wine to Cette and fruits to Marseilles.
+Upon seeing the blue surface of the Gulf on the other side of the Cape
+with no other roughness than that of a long and infinitely heavy swell,
+the Valencians would exclaim happily:
+
+"Let us cross quickly, while the lion sleeps."
+
+Ulysses had one friend, the secretary of the city-hall, and the only
+inhabitant that had any books in his house. Treated by the rich with a
+certain contempt, the official used to seek the boy's company because
+he was the only creature who would listen to him attentively.
+
+He adored the _mare nostrum_ as much as Doctor Ferragut, but his
+enthusiasm was not concerned with the Phoenician and Egyptian ships
+whose keels had first plowed these waves. He was equally indifferent to
+Grecian and Carthaginian Triremes, Roman warships, and the monstrous
+galleys of the Sicilian tyrants,--palaces moved by oars, with statues,
+fountains and gardens. That which most interested him was the
+Mediterranean of the Middle Ages, that of the kings of Aragon, the
+Catalunian Sea. And the poor secretary would give long daily
+dissertations about them in order to pique the local pride of his
+juvenile listener.
+
+One day after dilating at length on Roger de Lauria and the Catalan
+navy, he wound up his tedious history by telling the little fellow how
+Alfonso V, his brother the King of Navarre, and all his cortege of
+magnates, had remained prisoners of the Republic of Genoa, which,
+terrified by the importance of its royal prey, had entrusted the
+captives to the guard of the Duke of Milan.... But the monarchs easily
+came to an understanding in order to deceive the democratic
+governments, and the Milanese sovereign released the King of Aragon
+with all his suite. Thereupon he immediately blockaded Genoa with an
+enormous fleet. The Provencal navy came promptly to the relief of its
+neighbors, and the Aragonese King forced the port of Marseilles,
+bearing away as trophy the chains that closed its entrance.
+
+Ulysses nodded affirmatively. The sailor king had deposited these
+chains in the cathedral of Valencia. His godfather, the poet, had
+pointed them out to him in a Gothic chapel, forming a garland of iron
+over the black hewn stones.
+
+The Catalan navy still continued to dominate the Mediterranean
+commercially, adding to its ancient vessels great galleons, lighter
+galleys, caravels, cattle boats, and other ships of the period.
+
+"But Christopher Columbus," concluded the Catalan sadly, "discovered
+the Indies, thereby giving a death blow to the maritime riches of the
+Mediterranean. Besides, Aragon and Castile became united and their life
+and power were then concentrated in the center of the Peninsula, far
+from the sea."
+
+Had Barcelona been the capital of Spain, Catalunia would have preserved
+the Mediterranean domination. Had Lisbon been the capital, the Spanish
+colonial realm would have developed into something organic and solid
+with a robust life. But what could you expect of a nation which had
+stuck its head into a pillow of yellow interior steppes, the furthest
+possible from the world's highways, showing only its feet to the
+waves!...
+
+The Catalan would always end by speaking sadly of the decadence of the
+Mediterranean marine. Everything that was pleasing to his tastes made
+him hark back to the good old time of the domination of the
+Mediterranean by the Catalan marine. One day he offered Ulysses a sweet
+and perfumed wine.
+
+"It is Malvasian, the first stock the Almogavars brought here from
+Greece."
+
+Then he said in order to flatter the boy:
+
+"It was a citizen of Valencia, Ramon Muntaner, who wrote of the
+expeditions of the Catalans and Aragonese against Constantinople."
+
+The mere recollection of this novel-like adventure, the most unheard-of
+in history, used to fill him with enthusiasm, and, in passing, he paid
+highest tribute to the Almogavar chronicler, a rude Homer in song,
+Ulysses and Nestor in council, and Achilles in hard action.
+
+Dona Cristina's impatience to rejoin her husband and to return to the
+comforts of her well-regulated household finally carried Ulysses away
+from this life by the coast.
+
+For many years thereafter he saw no other sea than the Gulf of
+Valencia. The notary, under various pretexts, contrived to prevent the
+doctor's again carrying off his nephew; and the _Triton_ made his trips
+to Valencia less frequently, rebelling against all the inconveniences
+and dangers of these terrestrial adventures.
+
+And Labarta, when occupied with the future of Ulysses, used to take on
+a certain air of a good-natured regent charged with the guardianship of
+a little prince. The boy appeared to belong to them more than to his
+own father; his studies and his future destiny filled completely their
+after-dinner conversations when the doctor was in town.
+
+Don Esteban felt a certain satisfaction in annoying his brother by
+eulogizing the sedentary and prosperous life.
+
+Over there on the coasts of Catalunia lived his brothers-in-law, the
+Blanes, genuine wolves of the sea. The doctor would not be able to
+contradict that. Very well, then,--their sons were in Barcelona, some
+as business clerks, others making a name for themselves in the office
+of their rich uncle. They were all sailors' sons and yet they had
+completely freed themselves from the sea. Their business was entirely
+on _terra firma_. Only crazyheads could think of ships and adventures.
+
+The _Triton_ used to smile humbly before such pointed allusions, and
+exchange glances with his nephew.
+
+A secret existed between the two. Ulysses, who was finishing his
+studies for a bachelor's degree, was at the same time taking the
+courses of pilotage at the institute. Two years would be sufficient for
+the completion of these latter studies. The uncle had provided the
+matriculation fees and the books, besides recommending the boy to a
+former sailor comrade.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+PATER OCEANUS
+
+When Don Esteban died very suddenly, his eighteen-year-old son was
+still studying in the university.
+
+In his latter days the notary had begun to suspect that Ulysses was not
+going to be the celebrated jurist that he had dreamed. He had a way of
+cutting classes in order to pass the morning in the harbor, exercising
+with the oars. If he entered the university, the beadles were on their
+guard fearing his long-reaching hands: for he already fancied himself a
+sailor and liked to imitate the men of the sea who, accustomed to
+contend with the elements, considered a quarrel with a man as a very
+slight affair. Alternating violently between study and laziness, he was
+laboriously approaching the end of his course when neuralgia of the
+heart carried off the notary.
+
+Upon coming out from the stupefaction of her grief, Dona Cristina
+looked around her with aversion. Why should she linger on in Valencia?
+Since she could no longer be with the man who had brought her to this
+country, she wanted to return to her own people. The poet Labarta would
+look after her properties that were not so valuable nor numerous as the
+income of the notary had led them to suppose. Don Esteban had suffered
+great losses in extravagant business speculations good-naturedly
+accepted, but there was still left a fortune sufficient to enable his
+wife to live as an independent widow among her relatives in Barcelona.
+
+In arranging her new existence, the poor lady encountered no opposition
+except the rebelliousness of Ulysses. He refused to continue his
+college course and he wished to go to sea, saying that for that reason
+he had studied to become a pilot. In vain Dona Cristina entreated the
+aid of relatives and friends, excluding the _Triton_, whose response
+she could easily guess. The rich brother from Barcelona was brief and
+affirmative, "But wouldn't that bring him in the money?"... The Blanes
+of the coast showed a gloomy fatalism. It would be useless to oppose
+the lad if he felt that to be his vocation. The sea had a tight clutch
+upon those who followed it, and there was no power on earth that could
+dissuade him. On that account they who were already old were not
+listening to their sons who were trying to tempt them with the
+convenience of life in the capital. They needed to live near the coast
+in agreeable contact with the dark and ponderous monster which had
+rocked them so maternally when it might just as easily have dashed them
+to pieces.
+
+The only one who protested was Labarta. A sailor?... that might be a
+very good thing, but a warlike sailor, an official of the Royal Armada.
+And in his mind's eye the poet could see his godson clad in all the
+splendors of naval elegance,--a blue jacket with gold buttons for every
+day, and for holiday attire a coat trimmed with galloon and red
+trappings, a pointed hat, a sword....
+
+Ulysses shrugged his shoulders before such grandeur. He was too old now
+to enter the naval school. Besides he wanted to sail over all oceans,
+and the officers of the navy only had occasion to cruise from one port
+to another like the people of the coast trade, or even passed years
+seated in the cabinet of the naval executive. If he had to grow old in
+an office, he would rather take up his father's profession of notary.
+
+After seeing Dona Cristina well established in Barcelona, surrounded
+with a cortege of nephews fawning upon the rich aunt from Valencia, her
+son embarked as apprentice on a transatlantic boat which was making
+regular trips to Cuba and the United States. Thus began the seafaring
+life of Ulysses Ferragut, which terminated only with his death.
+
+The pride of the family placed him on a luxurious steamer, a
+mail-packet full of passengers, a floating hotel on which the officials
+were something like the managers of the Palace Hotel, while the real
+responsibility devolved upon the engineers, who were always going
+below, and upon returning to the light, invariably remained modestly in
+a second place, according to a hieratical law anterior to the progress
+of mechanics.
+
+He crossed the ocean several times, as do those making a land journey
+at the full speed of an express train. The august calm of the sea was
+lost in the throb of the screws and in the deafening roar of the
+machinery. However blue the sky might be, it was always darkened by the
+floating crepe band from the smokestacks. He envied the leisurely
+sailboats that the liner was always leaving behind. They were like
+reflective wayfarers who saturate themselves with the country
+atmosphere and commune deeply with its soul. The people of the steamer
+lived like terrestrial travelers who sleepily survey from the
+car-windows a succession of indefinite and dizzying views streaked by
+telegraph wires.
+
+When his novitiate was ended he became second mate on a sailing vessel
+bound for Argentina for a cargo of wheat. The slow day's run with
+little wind and the long equatorial calms permitted him to penetrate a
+little into the mysteries of the oceanic immensity, severe and dark,
+that for ancient peoples had been "the night of the abyss," "the sea of
+utter darkness," "the blue dragon that daily swallows the sun."
+
+He no longer regarded Father Ocean as the capricious and tyrannical god
+of the poets. Everything in his depths was working with a vital
+regularity, subject to the general laws of existence. Even the tempests
+roared within prescribed and charted quadrangles.
+
+The fresh trade-winds pushed the bark toward the Southeast, maintaining
+a heavenly serenity in sky and sea. Before the prow hissed the silken
+wings of flying fish, spreading out in swarms, like little squadrons of
+diminutive aeroplanes.
+
+Over the masts and yards covered with canvas, the albatross, eagles of
+the Atlantic desert, traced their long, sweeping circles, flashing
+across the purest blue their great, sail-like wings. From time to time
+the boat would meet floating prairies, great fields of seaweed
+dislodged from the Sargasso Sea. Enormous tortoises drowsed in the
+midst of these clumps of gulf-weed, serving as islands of repose to the
+seagulls perched on their shells. Some of the seaweeds were green,
+nourished by the luminous water of the surface; others had the reddish
+color of the deep where enters only the deadly chill of the last rays
+of the sun. Like fruits of the oceanic prairies, there floated past
+close bunches of dark grapes, leathery capsules filled with brackish
+water.
+
+As they approached the equator, the breeze kept falling and falling,
+and the atmosphere became suffocating in the extreme. It was the zone
+of calms, the ocean of dark, oily waters, in which boats remained for
+entire weeks with sails limp, without the slightest breath rippling the
+atmosphere.
+
+Clouds the color of pit coal reflected the ship's slow progress over
+the sea; showers of rain like whipcord occasionally lashed the deck,
+followed by a flaming sun that was soon blotted out by a new downpour.
+These clouds, pregnant with cataracts, this night descending upon the
+full daylight of the Atlantic, had been the terror of the ancients, and
+yet, thanks to just such phenomena, the sailors could pass from one
+hemisphere to another without the light wounding them to death, or the
+sea scorching them like a burning glass. The heat of the equator,
+raising up the water in steam, had formed a band of shade around the
+earth. From other worlds it must appear like a girdle of clouds almost
+similar to the sidereal rings.
+
+In this gloomy, hot sea was the heart of the ocean, the center of the
+circulatory life of the planet. The sky was a regulator that, absorbing
+and returning, restored the evaporation to equilibrium. From this place
+were sent forth the rains and dews to all the rest of the earth,
+modifying its temperatures favorably for the development of animal and
+vegetable life. There were exchanged the exhalations of the two worlds;
+and, converted into clouds, the water of the southern hemisphere--the
+hemisphere of the great seas with no other points of relief than the
+triangular extremities of Africa and America, and the humps of the
+oceanic archipelagoes--was always reinforcing the rills and rivers of
+the northern hemisphere with its inhabited lands.
+
+From this equatorial zone, the heart of the globe, come forth two
+rivers of tepid water that heat the coasts of the north. They are the
+two currents that issue from the Gulf of Mexico and the Java Sea. Their
+enormous liquid masses, fleeing ceaselessly from the equator, govern a
+vast assemblage of water from the poles that comes to occupy their
+space, and these chilled and fresher currents are constantly
+precipitating themselves on the electric hearth of the equator that
+warms and salts them anew, renewing with its systole and diastole the
+life of the world. The ocean struggles vainly to condense these two
+warm currents without ever succeeding in mingling itself with them.
+They are torrents of a deep blue, almost black, that flow across the
+cold and green waters.
+
+The Atlantic current, upon reaching Newfoundland, divides its arms,
+sending one of them to the North Pole. With the other, weak and
+exhausted by its long journey, it modifies the temperature of the
+British Isles, tempering refreshingly the coasts of Norway. The Indian
+current that the Japanese call, because of its color, "the black
+river," circulates between the islands, maintaining for a longer time
+than the other its prodigious powers of creation and agitation which
+enable it to trail over the planet an enormous tail of life.
+
+Its center is the apogee of terrestrial energy in the vegetable and
+animal creations, in monsters and in fish. One of its arms, escaping
+toward the south, goes on forming the mysterious world of the coral
+sea. In a space as large as four continents, the polyps, strengthened
+by the lukewarm water, are building up thousands of atolls, ring-shaped
+islands, reefs and submarine pillars that, when united together by the
+work of a thousand years, are going to create a new land, an exchange
+continent in case the human species should lose its present base in
+some cataclysm of Nature.
+
+The pulse of the blue god is the tides. The earth turns towards the
+moon and the stars with a sympathetic rotation like that of the flowers
+that turn towards the sun. Its most movable part--the fluid mass of the
+atmosphere--dilates twice daily, swelling its cavities; and this
+atmospheric suction, the work of universal attraction, is reflected in
+the tidal waters. Closed seas, like the Mediterranean, scarcely feel
+its effects, the tides stopping at their door. But on the oceanic coast
+the marine pulsation vexes the army of the waves, hurrying them daily
+to their assault of the steep cliffs, making them roar with fury among
+the islands, promontories and straits, and impelling them to swallow up
+extensive lands which they return hours afterward.
+
+This salty sea, like our body, that has a heart, a pulse and a
+circulation of two different bloods incessantly renewed and
+transformed, becomes as furious as an organic creature when the
+horizontal currents of its interior come to unite themselves with the
+vertical currents descending from the atmosphere. The violent passage
+of the winds, the crises of evaporation, and the obscure electrical
+forces produce the tempests.
+
+These are no more than cutaneous shudderings. The storms, so deadly for
+mankind, merely contract the marine epidermis while the profound mass
+of its waters remains in murky calm, fulfilling its great function of
+nourishing and renewing life. Father Ocean completely ignores the
+existence of the human insects that dare to slip across his surface in
+microscopic cockle-shells. He does not inform himself as to the
+incidents that may be taking place upon the roof of his dwelling. His
+life continues on,--balanced, calm, infinite, engendering millions upon
+millions of beings in the thousandth part of a second.
+
+The majesty of the Atlantic on tropical nights made Ulysses forget the
+wrathful storms of its black days. In the moonlight it was an immense
+plane of vivid silver streaked with serpentine shadows. Its soft
+doughlike undulations, replete with microscopic life, illuminated the
+nights. The infusoria, a-tremble with love, glowed with a bluish
+phosphorescence. The sea was like luminous milk. The foam breaking
+against the prow sparkled like broken fragments of electric globes.
+
+When it was absolutely tranquil and the ship remained immovable with
+drooping sail, the stars passing slowly from one side of the mast to
+the other, the delicate medusae, that the slightest wave was able to
+crush, would come to the surface floating on the waters, around the
+island of wood. There were thousands of these umbrellas filing slowly
+by, green, blue, rose, with a vague coloring similar to oil-lights,--a
+Japanese procession seen from above, that on one side was lost in the
+mystery of the black waters and incessantly reappeared on the other
+side.
+
+The young pilot loved navigation in a sailing ship,--the struggle with
+the wind, the solitude of its calms. He was far nearer the ocean here
+than on the bridge of a transatlantic liner. The bark did not beat the
+sea into such rabid foam. It slipped discreetly along as in the
+maritime silence of the first millennium of the new-born earth. The
+oceanic inhabitants approached it confidently upon seeing it rolling
+like a mute and inoffensive whale.
+
+In six years Ulysses changed his boat many times. He had learned
+English, the universal language of the blue dominions, and was
+refreshing himself with a study of Maury's charts--the sailors'
+Bible--the patient work of an obscure genius who first snatched from
+ocean and atmosphere the secret of their laws.
+
+Desirous of exploring new seas and new lands, he did not stop in the
+usual travel zones or ports, and the British, Norwegian, and North
+American captains received cordially this good-mannered official so
+little exacting as to salary. So Ulysses wandered over the oceans as
+had the king of Ithaca over the Mediterranean, guided by a fatality
+which impelled him with a rude push far from his country every time
+that he proposed to return to it. The sight of a boat anchored near by
+and ready to set sail for some distant port was a temptation that
+invariably made him forget to return to Spain.
+
+He traveled in filthy, old, happy-go-lucky sea-tramps, in which the
+crews used to spread all the sails to the tempest, get drunk and fall
+asleep, confident that the devil, friend of the brave, would awaken
+them on the following morning. He lived in white boats as silent and
+scrupulously clean as a Dutch home, whose captains were taking wife and
+children with them, and where white-aproned stewardesses took care of
+the galley and the cleaning of the floating hearthside, sharing the
+dangers of the ruddy and tranquil sailors exempt from the temptation
+that contact with women provokes. On Sundays, under the tropic sun or
+in the ash-colored light of the northern heavens, the boatswain would
+read the Bible. The men would listen thoughtfully with uncovered heads.
+The women had dressed themselves in black with lace headdress and
+mittened hands.
+
+He went to Newfoundland to load codfish. There is where the warm
+current from the Gulf of Mexico meets that from the Poles. In the
+meeting of these two marine rivers the infinitesimal little beings that
+the gulf stream drags thither die, suddenly frozen to death, and a rain
+of minute corpses descends across the waters. The cod gather there to
+gorge themselves on this manna which is so abundant that a great part
+of it, freed from their greedy jaws, drops to the bottom like a
+snowstorm of lime.
+
+In Iceland (the _Ultima Thule_ of the ancients), they showed Ulysses
+bits of wood that the equatorial current had brought thither from the
+Antilles. On the coasts of Norway, as he watched the herring during the
+spawning season, he marveled at the formidable fertility of the sea.
+
+From their refuge in the shadowy depths, these fish mount to the
+surface moved by the message of the spring, desirous of taking their
+part in the joy of the world. They swim one against another, close,
+compact, forming strata that subdivide and float out to sea. They look
+like an island just coming to the surface, or a continent beginning to
+sink. In the narrow passages the shoals are so numerous that the waters
+become solidified, making almost impossible the advance of a row boat.
+Their number is beyond the possibilities of calculation, like the sands
+and the stars.
+
+Men and carnivorous fish fall upon them, opening great furrows of
+destruction in their midst: but the breaches are closed instantly and
+the living bank continues on its way, growing denser every moment, as
+though defying death. The more their enemies destroy them, the more
+numerous they become. The thick and close columns ceaselessly reproduce
+themselves _en route_. At sunrise the waves are greasy and
+viscous,--replete with life that is fermenting rapidly. For a space of
+hundreds of leagues the salt ocean around them is like milk.
+
+The fecundity of these fishy masses was placing the world in danger.
+Each individual could produce up to seventy thousand eggs. In a few
+generations there would be enough to fill the ocean, to make it solid,
+to make it rot, extinguishing other beings, depopulating the globe....
+But death was charged with saving universal life. The cetaceans bore
+down upon this living density and with their insatiable mouths devoured
+the nourishment by ton loads. Infinitely little fish seconded the
+efforts of the marine giants, stuffing themselves with the eggs of the
+herring. The most gluttonous fish, the cod and the hake, pursued these
+prairies of meat, pushing them, toward the coasts and finally
+dispersing them.
+
+The cod increases its species most prodigiously, surfeiting itself upon
+hake, until the world is again menaced. The ocean might be converted
+into a mass of cod, for each one can produce as many as nine million
+eggs.... Mankind might be overwhelmed under the onslaught of the more
+fertile fishes, and the cod might maintain immense fleets, creating,
+besides, colonies and cities. Human generations might become exhausted
+without succeeding in conquering this monstrous reproduction. The great
+marine devourers, therefore, are those that reestablish equilibrium and
+order. The sturgeon, insatiable stomach, intervenes in the oceanic
+banquet, relishing in the cod the concentrated substance of armies of
+herring. But this oviparous devourer of such great reproductive power
+would, in turn, continue the world danger were it not that another
+monster as avid in appetite as it is weak in procreation, intervenes
+and cuts down with one blow the ever-increasing fecundity of the ocean.
+
+The superior glutton is the shark,--that mouth with fins, that natatory
+intestine which swallows with equal indifference the dead and the
+living, flesh and wood, cleanses the waters of life and leaves a desert
+behind its wriggling tail; but this destroyer brings forth only one
+shark that is born armed and ferocious ready from the very first moment
+to continue the paternal exploits, like a feudal heir.
+
+Ferragut's wandering life as a pilot abounded in dramatic
+adventures,--a few always standing out clearly from his many confused
+recollections of exotic lands and interminable seas.
+
+In Glasgow he embarked as second mate on an old sailing tramp that was
+bound for Chile, to unload coal in Valparaiso and take on saltpeter in
+Iquique. The crossing of the Atlantic was good, but upon leaving the
+Malvina Islands the boat had to go out in the teeth of a torrid,
+furious blast that closed the passage to the Pacific. The Straits of
+Magellan are for ships that are able to avail themselves at will of a
+propelling force. The sailboat needs a wide sea and a favorable wind in
+order to double Cape Horn,--the utmost point of the earth, the place of
+interminable and gigantic tempests.
+
+While summer was burning in the other hemisphere, the terrible southern
+winter came to meet the navigators. The boat had to turn its course to
+the west, just as the winds were blowing from the west, barring its
+route.
+
+Eight weeks passed and it was still contending with sea and tempest.
+The wind carried off a complete set of sails. The wooden ship, somewhat
+strained by this interminable struggle, commenced to leak, and the crew
+had to work the hand-pumps night and day. Nobody was able to sleep for
+many hours running. All were sick from exhaustion. The rough voice and
+the oaths of the captain could hardly maintain discipline. Some of the
+seamen lay down wishing to die, and had to be roused by blows.
+
+Ulysses knew for the first time what waves really were. He saw
+mountains of water, literally mountains, pouring over the hull of the
+boat, their very immensity making them form great slopes on both sides
+of it. When the crest of one broke upon the vessel Ferragut was able to
+realize the monstrous weight of salt water. Neither stone nor iron had
+the brutal blow of this liquid force that, upon breaking, fled in
+torrents or dashed up in spray. They had to make openings in the
+bulwarks in order to provide a vent for the crushing mass.
+
+The southern day was a livid and foggy eclipse, repeating itself for
+weeks and weeks without the slightest streak of clearing, as though the
+sun had departed from the earth forever. Not a glimmer of white existed
+in this tempestuous outline; always gray,--the sky, the foam, the
+seagulls, the snows.... From time to time the leaden veils of the
+tempest were torn asunder, leaving visible a terrifying apparition.
+Once it was black mountains with glacial winding sheets from the
+Straits of Beagle. And the boat tacked, fleeing away from this narrow
+aquatic passageway full of perilous ledges. Another time the peaks of
+Diego Ramirez, the most extreme point of the cape, loomed up before the
+prow, and the bark again tacked, fleeing from this cemetery of ships.
+The wind shifting, then brought their first icebergs into view and at
+the same time forced them to turn back on their course in order not to
+be lost in the deserts of the South Pole.
+
+Ferragut came to believe that they would never double the Cape,
+remaining forever in full tempest, like the accursed ship of the legend
+of the Flying Dutchman. The captain, a regular savage of the sea,
+taciturn and superstitious, shook his fist at the promontory, cursing
+it as an infernal divinity. He was convinced that they would never
+succeed in doubling it until it should be propitiated with a human
+offering. This Englishman appeared to Ulysses like one of those
+Argonauts who used to placate the wrath of the marine deities with
+sacrifices.
+
+One night one of the crew was washed overboard and lost; the following
+day a man fell from the topmast, that no one might think salvation
+impossible. And as though the Southern Demon had only been awaiting
+this tribute, the gale from the west ceased, the bark no longer had the
+impassable barrier of a hostile sea before its prow, and was able to
+enter the Pacific, anchoring twelve days later in Valparaiso.
+
+Ulysses appreciated now the agreeable memory that this port always
+leaves in the memory of sailors. It was a resting-place after the
+struggle of doubling the cape; it was the joy of existence, after
+having felt the blast of death; it was life again in the cafes and in
+the pleasure houses, eating and drinking until surfeited, with the
+stomach still suffering from the salty food and the skin still smarting
+from boils due to the sea-life.
+
+His admiring gaze followed the graceful step of the women veiled in
+black who reminded him of his uncle, the doctor. In the nights of the
+_remolienda_, [a popular gathering or festival in Chile] his glance
+was many times distracted from the dark-hued and youthful beauties
+dancing the _Zamacueca_ [the national dance of Chile.] in the middle of
+the room, to the matrons swathed in black veils, who were playing the
+harp and piano, accompanying the dance with languishing songs which
+interested him greatly. Perhaps one of these sentimental, bearded
+ladies might have been his aunt.
+
+While his ship finished loading its cargo in Iquique, he
+came in contact with the crowd of workers from the saltpeter
+works,--"broken-down" [originally a term of contempt is now a
+complimentary by-name] Chileans, laboring men from all countries, who
+did not know how to spend their day's wages in the monotony of these
+new settlements. Their intoxication diverted itself with most mistaken
+magnificence. Some would let the wine run from an entire cask just to
+fill a single glass. Others used the bottles of champagne lined up on
+the shelves of the cafes as a target for their revolvers, paying cash
+for all that they broke.
+
+From this trip Ferragut gained a feeling of pride and confidence that
+made him scornful of every danger. Afterwards he encountered the
+tornadoes of the Asiatic seas, those horrible circular tempests that in
+the northern hemisphere revolve from right to left, and in the south
+from left to right--rapid incidents of a few hours or days at the most.
+He had doubled Cape Horn in mid-winter after a struggle against the
+elements that had lasted two months. He had been able to run all risks;
+the ocean had exhausted for him all its surprises.... And yet,
+nevertheless, the worst of his adventures occurred in a calm sea.
+
+He had been at sea seven years and was thinking of returning once more
+to Spain when, in Hamburg, he accepted the post of first mate of a
+swift-sailing ship that was setting out for Cameroon and German East
+Africa. A Norwegian sailor tried to dissuade him from this trip. It was
+an old ship, and they had insured it for four times its value. The
+captain was in league with the proprietor, who had been bankrupt many
+times.... And just because this voyage was so irrational, Ulysses
+hastened to embark. For him, prudence was merely a vulgarity, and
+obstacles and dangers but tempted more irresistibly his reckless
+daring.
+
+One evening in the latitude of Portugal, when they were far from the
+regular route of navigation, a column of smoke and flames suddenly
+swept the deck, breaking through the hatchways and devouring the sails.
+While Ferragut at the head of a band of negroes was trying to get
+control of the fire, the captain and the German crew were escaping from
+the ship in two prepared lifeboats. Ferragut felt sure that the
+fugitives were laughing at seeing him run about the deck that was
+beginning to warp and send up fire through all its cracks.
+
+Without ever knowing exactly how, he found himself in a boat with some
+negroes and different objects piled together with the precipitation of
+flight,--a half-empty barrel of biscuits and another that contained
+only water.
+
+They rowed all one night, having behind them as their unlucky star the
+burning boat that was sending its blood-red gleams across the water. At
+daybreak they noted on the sun's disk some light, black, wavy lines. It
+was land ... but so far away!
+
+For two days they wandered over the moving crests and gloomy valleys of
+the blue desert. Several times Ferragut collapsed in mortal lethargy,
+with his feet in the water filling the bottom of the boat. The birds of
+the sea were tracing spirals around this floating hearse, following it
+with vigorous strokes of the wing, and uttering croakings of death. The
+waves raised themselves slowly and sluggishly over the boat's edge as
+though wishing to contemplate with their sea-green eyes this medley of
+white and dark bodies. The ship-wrecked men rowed with nervous
+desperation; then they lay down inert, recognizing the uselessness of
+their efforts, lost in the great immensity.
+
+The mate, drowsing on the hard stern, finally smiled with closed eyes.
+It was all a bad dream. He was sure of awaking in his bed surrounded
+with the familiar comforts of his stateroom. And when he opened his
+eyes, the harsh reality made him break forth into desperate orders,
+which the Africans obeyed as mechanically as though they were still
+sleeping.
+
+"I do not want to die!... I ought not to die!" asserted his inner
+monitor in a brazen tone.
+
+They shouted and made unavailing signals to distant boats that
+disappeared from the great watery expanse without ever seeing them. Two
+negroes died of the cold. Their corpses floated many hours near the
+boat as if unable to separate themselves from it. Then they were drawn
+under by an invisible tugging, and some triangular fins passed over the
+water's surface, cutting it like knives at the same time that its
+depths were darkened by swift, ebony shadows.
+
+When at last they approached land, Ferragut realized that death was
+nearer here than on the high sea. The coast rose up before them like an
+immense wall. Seen from the boat it appeared to cover half the sky. The
+long oceanic undulation became a ravenous wave upon encountering the
+outer bulwarks of these barren islands, breaking in the depths of their
+caves, and forming cascades of foam that rolled around them from top to
+bottom, raising up furious columns of spray with the report of a
+cannonade.
+
+An irresistible hand grasped the keel, making the landing a vertical
+one. Ferragut shot out like a projectile, falling in the foaming
+whirlpools and having the impression, as he sank, that men and casks
+together were rolling and raining into the sea.
+
+He saw bubbling streaks of white and black hulks. He felt himself
+impelled by contradictory forces. Some dragged at his head and others
+at his feet in different directions, making him revolve like the hands
+of a clock. Even his thoughts were working double. "It is useless to
+resist," Discouragement was murmuring in his brain, while his other
+half was affirming desperately, "I do not want to die!... I must not
+die!"
+
+Thus he lived through a few seconds that seemed to him like hours. He
+felt the brute force of hidden friction, then a blow in the abdomen
+that arrested his course between the two waters, and grasping at the
+irregularities of a projecting rock, he raised his head and was able to
+breathe. The wave was retreating, but another again overwhelmed him,
+detaching him from the point with its foamy churning, making him leave
+in the stony crevices bits of the skin of his hands, his breast, and
+his knees.
+
+The oceanic suction seemed dragging him down in spite of his desperate
+strokes. "It's no use! I'm going to die," half of his mind was saying
+and at the same time his other mental hemisphere was reviewing with
+lightning synthesis his entire life. He saw the bearded face of the
+_Triton_ in this supreme instant. He saw the poet Labarta just as when
+he was recounting to his godson the adventures of the old Ulysses, and
+his shipwrecked struggle with the rocky peaks and waves.
+
+Again the marine dilatation tossed him against a rock, and again he
+anchored himself to it with an instinctive clutch of his hands. But
+before this wave retired it hurled him desperately upon another ledge,
+the refluent water passing back below him. Thus he struggled a long
+time, clinging to the rocks when the sea overwhelmed him, and crawling
+along upon the jutting points whenever the retiring water permitted.
+
+Finding himself upon a projecting point of the coast, free at last from
+the suction of the waves, his energy suddenly disappeared. The water
+that dripped from his body was red, each time more red, spreading
+itself in rivulets over the greenish irregularities of the rock. He
+felt intense pain as though all his organism had lost the protection of
+its covering,--his raw flesh remaining exposed to the air.
+
+He wished to get somewhere, but over his head the coast was rearing its
+stark bulk,--a concave and inaccessible wall. It would be impossible to
+get away from this spot. He had saved himself from the sea only to die
+stationed in front of it. His corpse would never float to an inhabited
+shore. The only ones that were going to know of his death were the
+enormous crabs scrambling over the rocky points, seeking their
+nourishment in the surge; the sea gulls were letting themselves drop
+vertically with extended wings from the heights of the steep-sloped
+shore. Even the smallest crustaceans had the advantage of him.
+
+Suddenly he felt all his weakness, all his misery, while his blood
+continued crimsoning the little lakes among the rocks. Closing his eyes
+to die, he saw in the darkness a pale face, hands that were deftly
+weaving delicate laces, and before night should descend forever upon
+his eyelids, he moaned a childish cry:
+
+"_Mama_!... _Mama_!..."
+
+Three months afterward upon arriving at Barcelona, he found his mother
+just as he had seen her during his death-agony on the Portuguese
+coast.... Some fishermen had picked him up just as his life was ebbing
+away. During his stay in the hospital he wrote many times in a light
+and confident tone to Dona Cristina, pretending that he was detained by
+important business in Lisbon.
+
+Upon seeing him enter his home, the good lady dropped her eternal
+lace-work, turned pale and greeted him with tremulous hands and
+troubled eyes. She must have known the truth; and if she did not know
+it, her motherly instinct told her when she saw Ulysses convalescent,
+emaciated, hovering between courageous effort and physical breakdown,
+just like the brave who come out of the torture chamber.
+
+"Oh, my son!... How much longer!..."
+
+It was time that he should bring to an end his madness for adventure,
+his crazy desire for attempting the impossible, and encountering the
+most absurd dangers. If he wished to follow the sea, very well. But let
+it be in respectable vessels in the service of a great company,
+following a career of regular promotion, and not wandering capriciously
+over all seas, associated with the international lawlessness that the
+ports offer for the reinforcement of crews. Remaining quietly at home
+would be best of all. Oh, what happiness if he would but stay with his
+mother!...
+
+And Ulysses, to the astonishment of Dona Cristina, decided to do so.
+The good senora was not alone. A niece was living with her as though
+she were her daughter. The sailor had only to go down in the depths of
+his memory to recall a little tot of a girl four years old, creeping
+and frolicking on the shore while he, with the gravity of a man, had
+been listening to the old secretary of the town, as he related the past
+grandeurs of the Catalunian navy.
+
+She was the daughter of a Blanes (the only poor one in the family) who
+had commanded his relatives' ships, and had died of yellow fever in a
+Central American port. Ferragut had difficulty in reconciling the
+little creature crawling over the sand with this same slender,
+olive-colored girl wearing her mass of hair like a helmet of ebony,
+with two little spirals escaping over the ears. Her eyes appeared to
+have the changing tints of the sea, sometimes black and others blue, or
+green and deep where the light of the sun was reflected like a point of
+gold.
+
+He was attracted by her simplicity and by the timid grace of her words
+and smile. She was an irresistible novelty for this world-rover who had
+only known coppery maidens with bestial roars of laughter, yellowish
+Asiatics with feline gestures, or Europeans from the great ports who,
+at the first words, beg for drink, and sing upon the knees of the one
+who is treating, wearing his cap as a testimony of love.
+
+Cinta, that was her name, appeared to have known him all his life. He
+had been the object of her conversations with Dona Cristina when they
+spent monotonous hours together weaving lace, as was the village
+custom. Passing her room, Ulysses noticed there some of his own
+portraits at the time when he was a simple apprentice aboard a
+transatlantic liner. Cinta had doubtless taken them from her aunt's
+room, for she had been admiring this adventurous cousin long before
+knowing him. One evening the sailor told the two women how he had been
+rescued on the coast of Portugal. The mother listened with averted
+glance, and with trembling hands moving the bobbins of her lace.
+Suddenly there was an outcry. It was Cinta who could not listen any
+longer, and Ulysses felt flattered by her tears, her convulsive
+laments, her eyes widened with an expression of terror.
+
+Ferragut's mother had been greatly concerned regarding the future of
+this poor niece. Her only salvation was matrimony, and the good senora
+had focused her glances upon a certain relative a little over forty who
+needed this young girl to enliven his life of mature bachelorhood. He
+was the wise one of the family. Dona Cristina used to admire him
+because he was not able to read without the aid of glasses, and because
+he interlarded his conversation with Latin, just like the clergy. He
+was teaching Latin and rhetoric in the Institute of Manresa and spoke
+of being transferred some day to Barcelona,--glorious end of an
+illustrious career. Every week he escaped to the capital in order to
+make long visits to the notary's widow.
+
+"He doesn't come on my account," said the good senora, "who would
+bother about an old woman like me?... I tell you that he is in love
+with Cinta, and it will be good luck for the child to marry a man so
+wise, so serious...."
+
+As he listened to his mother's matrimonial schemes, Ulysses began to
+wonder which of a professor of rhetoric's bones a sailor might break
+without incurring too much responsibility.
+
+One day Cinta was looking all over the house for a dark, worn-out
+thimble that she had been using for many years. Suddenly she ceased her
+search, blushed and dropped her eyes. Her glance had met an evasive
+look on her cousin's face. He had it. In Ulysses' room might be seen
+ribbons, skeins of silk, an old fan--all deposited in books and papers
+by the same mysterious reflex that had drawn his portraits from his
+mother's to his cousin's room.
+
+The sailor now liked to remain at home passing long hours meditating
+with his elbows on the table, but at the same time attentive to the
+rustling of light steps that could be heard from time to time in the
+near-by hallway. He knew about everything,--spherical and rectangular
+trigonometry, cosmography, the laws of the winds and the tempest, the
+latest oceanographic discoveries--but who could teach him the approved
+form of addressing a maiden without frightening her?... Where the deuce
+could a body learn the art of proposing to a shy girl?...
+
+For him, doubts were never very long nor painful affairs. Forward
+march! Let every one get out of such matters as best he could. And one
+evening when Cinta was going from the parlor to her aunt's bedroom in
+order to bring her a devotional book, she collided with Ulysses in the
+passageway.
+
+If she had not known him, she might have trembled for her existence.
+She felt herself grasped by a pair of powerful hands that lifted her up
+from the floor. Then an avid mouth stamped upon hers two aggressive
+kisses. "Take that and that!"... Ferragut repented on seeing his cousin
+trembling against the wall, as pale as death, her eyes filled with
+tears.
+
+"I have hurt you. I am a brute ... a brute!"
+
+He almost fell on his knees, imploring her pardon; he clenched his
+fists as if he were going to strike himself, punishing himself for his
+audacity. But she would not let him continue.... "No, No!..." And while
+she was moaning this protest, her arms were forming a ring around
+Ulysses' neck. Her head drooped toward his, seeking the shelter of his
+shoulder. A little mouth united itself modestly to that of the sailor,
+and at the same time his beard was moistened with a shower of tears.
+
+And they said no more about it.
+
+When, weeks afterward, Dona Cristina heard her son's petition, her
+first movement was one of protest. A mother listens with benevolent
+appreciation to any request for the hand of her daughter, but she is
+ambitious and exacting where her son is concerned. She had dreamed of
+something so much more brilliant; but her indecision was short. That
+timid girl was perhaps the best companion for Ulysses, after all.
+Furthermore the child was well suited to be the wife of a man of the
+sea, having seen its life from her infancy.... Good-by Professor!
+
+They were married. Soon afterwards Ferragut, who was not able to lead
+an inactive life, returned to the sea, but as first officer of a
+transatlantic steamer that made regular trips to South America. To him
+this seemed like being employed in a floating office, visiting the same
+ports and invariably repeating the same duties. His mother was
+extremely proud to see him in uniform. Cinta fixed her gaze on the
+almanac as the wife of a clerk fixes it on the clock. She had the
+certainty that when three months should have passed by she would see
+him reappear, coming from the other side of the world laden down with
+exotic gifts, just as a husband who returns from the office with a
+bouquet bought in the street.
+
+Upon his return from his first two voyages, she went to meet him on the
+wharf, her eager glance searching for his blue coat and his cap with
+its band of gold among the transatlantic passengers fluttering about
+the decks, rejoicing at their arrival in Europe.
+
+On the following trip, Dona Cristina obliged her to remain at home,
+fearing that the excitement and the crowds at the harbor might affect
+her approaching maternity. After that on each of his return trips
+Ferragut saw a new son, although always the same one; first it was a
+bundle of batiste and lace carried by a showily-uniformed nurse; then
+by the time he was captain of the transatlantic liner, a little cherub
+in short skirts, chubby-cheeked, with a round head covered with a silky
+down, holding out its little arms to him; finally a boy who was
+beginning to go to school and at sight of his father would grasp his
+hard right hand, admiring him with his great eyes, as though he saw in
+his person the concentrated perfection of all the forces of the
+universe.
+
+Don Pedro, the professor, continued visiting the house of Dona
+Cristina, although with less assiduity. He had the resigned and coldly
+wrathful attitude of the man who believes that he has arrived too late
+and is convinced that his bad luck was merely the result of his
+carelessness.... If he had only spoken before! His masculine
+self-importance never permitted him to doubt that the young girl would
+have accepted him jubilantly.
+
+In spite of this conviction, he was not able to refrain at times from a
+certain ironical aggressiveness which expressed itself by inventing
+classic nicknames. The young wife of Ulysses, bending over her
+lace-making, was Penelope awaiting the return of her wandering husband.
+
+Dona Cristina accepted this nickname because she knew vaguely that
+Penelope was a queen of good habits. But the day that the professor, by
+logical deduction, called Cinta's son Telemachus, the grandmother
+protested.
+
+"He is named Esteban after his grandfather.... Telemachus is nothing
+but a theatrical name."
+
+On one of his voyages Ulysses took advantage of a four-hour stop in the
+port of Valencia to see his godfather. From time to time he had been
+receiving letters from the poet,--each one shorter and sadder,--written
+in a trembling script that announced his age and increasing infirmity.
+
+Upon entering the office Ferragut felt just like the legendary sleepers
+who believe themselves awaking after a few hours of sleep when they
+have really been dozing for dozens of years. Everything there was still
+just as it was in his infancy:--the busts of the great poets on the top
+of the book-cases, the wreaths in their glass cases, the jewels and
+statuettes, prizes for successful poems--were still in their crystal
+cabinets or resting on the same pedestals; the books in their
+resplendent bindings formed their customary close battalions the length
+of the bookcases. But the whiteness of the busts had taken on the color
+of chocolate, the bronzes were reddened by oxidation, the gold had
+turned greenish, and the wreaths were losing their leaves. It seemed as
+though ashes might have rained down upon perpetuity.
+
+The occupants of this spell-bound dwelling presented the same aspect of
+neglect and deterioration. Ulysses found the poet thin and yellow, with
+a long white beard, with one eye almost closed and the other very
+widely opened. Upon seeing the young officer, broad-chested, vigorous
+and bronzed, Labarta, who was huddled in a great arm chair, began to
+cry with a childish hiccough as though he were weeping over the misery
+of human illusions, over the brevity of a deceptive life that
+necessitates continual renovation.
+
+Ferragut found even greater difficulty in recognizing the little and
+shrunken senora who was near the poet. Her flabby flesh was hanging
+from her skeleton like the ragged fringe of past splendor; her head was
+small; her face had the wrinkled surface of a winter apple or plum, or
+of all the fruits that shrink and wither when they lose their juices.
+"Dona Pepa!..." The two old people were thee-ing and thou-ing each
+other with the tranquil non-morality of those that realize that they
+are very near to death, and forget the tremors and scruples of a life
+crumbling behind them.
+
+The sailor shrewdly suspected that all this physical misery was the sad
+finale of an absurd, happy-go-lucky and childish dietary,--sweets
+serving as the basis of nutrition, great heavy rice dishes as a daily
+course, watermelons and cantaloupes filling in the space between meals,
+topped with ices served in enormous glasses and sending out a perfume
+of honeyed snow.
+
+The two told him, sighing, of their infirmities, which they thought
+incomprehensible, attributing them to the ignorance of the doctors. It
+was really the morbid wasting away that suddenly attacks people of the
+abundant, food-yielding countries. Their life was one continual stream
+of liquid sugar.... And yet Ferragut could easily guess the
+disobedience of the two old folks to the discipline of diet, their
+childish deceptions, their cunning in order to enjoy alone the fruits
+and syrups which were the enchantment of their existence.
+
+The interview was a short one. The captain had to return to the port of
+Grao where his steamer was awaiting him, ready to weigh anchor for
+South America.
+
+The poet wept again, kissing his god-son. He never would see again this
+Colossus who seemed to repel his weak embraces with the bellows of his
+respiration.
+
+"Ulysses, my son!... Always think of Valencia.... Do for her all that
+you can.... Keep her ever in mind, always Valencia!"
+
+He promised all that the poet wished without understanding exactly what
+it was that Valencia might expect from him, a simple sailor, wandering
+over all the seas. Labarta wished to accompany him to the door but he
+sank down in his seat, obedient to the affectionate despotism of his
+companion who was always fearing the greatest catastrophes for him.
+
+Poor Dona Pepa!... Ferragut felt inclined to laugh and to weep at the
+same time upon receiving a kiss from, her withered mouth whose down had
+turned into pin points. It was the kiss of an old beauty who remembers
+the gallantry of a youthful lover, the kiss of a childless woman
+caressing the son she might have had.
+
+"Poor unhappy Carmelo!... He no longer writes, he no longer reads....
+Ay! what will ever become of me?..."
+
+She always spoke of the poet's failing powers with the commiseration of
+a strong and healthy person, and she became terrified when thinking of
+the years in which she might survive her lord. Taken up with caring for
+him, she never even glanced at herself.
+
+A year afterward, on returning from the Philippines, the captain found
+a letter from his god-father awaiting him at Port Said. Dona Pepa had
+died, and Labarta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low
+spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle. Ulysses ran his eyes
+over the enclosed newspaper clipping containing the last verses of the
+poet. The stanzas were in Castilian. A bad sign!... After that there
+could be no doubt that his end must be very near.
+
+Ferragut never again had an opportunity to see his god-father, who died
+while he was on one of his trips. Upon disembarking at Barcelona, Dona
+Cristina handed him a letter written by the poet almost in his
+death-agony. "Valencia, my son! Always Valencia!" And after repeating
+this recommendation many times, he announced that he had made his
+god-son his heir.
+
+The books, the statues, all the glorious souvenirs of the
+poet-laureate, came to Barcelona to adorn the sailor's home. The little
+Telemachus amused himself pulling apart the old wreaths of the
+troubador, and tearing out the old prints from his volumes with the
+inconsequence of a lively child whose father is very far away and who
+knows that he is idolized by two indulgent ladies. Besides his
+trophies, the poet left Ulysses an old house in Valencia, some real
+estate and a certain amount in negotiable securities,--total, thirty
+thousand dollars.
+
+The other guardian of his infancy, the vigorous _Triton_, seemed to be
+unaffected by the passing of the years. Upon his return to Barcelona,
+Ferragut frequently found him installed in his home, in mute hostility
+to Dona Cristina, devoting to Cinta and her son a part of the affection
+that he had formerly lavished upon Ulysses alone.
+
+He was very desirous that the little Esteban should know the home of
+his great grandparents.
+
+"You will let me have him?... You know well enough," he coaxed, "that
+down in the _Marina_ men become as strong as though made of bronze.
+Surely you will let me have him?..."
+
+But he quailed before the indignant gesture of the suave Dona Cristina.
+Entrust her grandson to the _Triton_, and let him awaken in him the
+love of maritime adventure, as he had done with Ulysses?... Behind me,
+thou blue devil!
+
+The doctor used to wander around bewildered by the port of
+Barcelona.... Too much noisy bustle, too much movement! Walking proudly
+along by the side of Ulysses, he loved to recount to him the adventures
+of his life as a sailor and cosmopolitan vagabond. He considered his
+nephew the greatest of the Ferraguts, a true man of the sea like his
+ancestors but with the title of captain;--an adventurous rover over all
+oceans, as he had been, but with a place on the bridge, invested with
+the absolute command that responsibility and danger confer. When
+Ulysses reembarked, the _Triton_ would take himself off to his own
+dominions.
+
+"It will be next time, sure!" he would say in order to console himself
+for having to part with his nephew's son; and after a few months had
+passed by, he would reappear, each time larger, uglier, more tanned,
+with a silent smile which broke into words before Ulysses just as
+tempestuous clouds break forth in thunder claps.
+
+Upon his return from a trip to the Black Sea, Dona Cristina announced
+to her son: "Your uncle has died."
+
+The pious senora lamented as a Christian the departure of her
+brother-in-law, dedicating a part of her prayers to him; but she
+insisted with a certain cruelty in giving an account of his sad end,
+for she had never been able to pardon his fatal intervention in the
+destiny of Ulysses. He had died as he had lived,--in the sea, a victim,
+of his own rashness, without confession, just like any pagan.
+
+Another legacy thus fell to Ferragut.... His uncle had gone out
+swimming one sunny, winter morning and had never come back. The old
+folks on the shore had their way of explaining how the accident had
+happened,--a fainting spell probably, a clash against the rocks. The
+_Dotor_ was still vigorous, but the years do not pass without leaving
+their footprints. Some believed that he must have had a struggle with a
+shark or some other of the carnivorous fish that abound in the
+Mediterranean waters. In vain the fishermen guided their skiffs through
+all the twisting entrances and exits of the waters around the
+promontory, exploring the gloomy caves and the lower depths of
+crystalline transparency. No one was ever able to find the _Triton's_
+body.
+
+Ferragut recalled the cortege of Aphrodite which the doctor had so
+often described to him on summer evenings, by the light of the far-away
+gleam of the lighthouse. Perhaps he had come upon that gay retinue of
+nereids, joining it forever!
+
+This absurd supposition that Ulysses mentally formulated with a sad and
+incredulous smile, frequently recurred in the simple thoughts of many
+of the people of the _Marina_.
+
+They refused to believe in his death. A wizard is never drowned. He
+must have found down below something very interesting and when he got
+tired of living in the green depths, he would probably some day come
+swimming back home.
+
+No: the _Dotor_ had not died.
+
+And for many years afterwards the women who were going along the coast
+at nightfall would quicken their steps, crossing themselves upon
+distinguishing on the dark waters a bit of wood or a bunch of sea weed.
+They feared that suddenly would spring forth the _Triton_, bearded,
+dripping, spouting, returning from his excursion into the mysterious
+depths of the sea.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+FREYA
+
+The name of Ulysses Ferragut began to be famous among the captains of
+the Spanish ports, although the nautical adventures of his early days
+contributed very little to this popularity. The most of them had
+encountered greater dangers, but they appreciated him because of the
+instinctive respect that energetic and simple men have for an
+intelligence which they consider superior to their own. Reading nothing
+except what pertained to their career, they used to speak with
+consternation of the numerous books that filled Ferragut's stateroom,
+many of them upon matters which appeared to them most mysterious. Some
+even made inexact statements in order to enlarge the prestige of their
+comrade.
+
+"He knows much.... He is a lawyer as well as a sailor."
+
+Consideration of his fortune also contributed to the general
+appreciation. He was an important share-holder of the company by which
+he was employed. His companions loved to calculate with proud
+exaggeration the riches of his mother, piling it up into millions.
+
+He met friends on every ship carrying the Spanish flag, whatever might
+be its home port or the nationality of its crews.
+
+They all liked him:--the Basque captains, economical in words, rude and
+sparing in affectionate discourse; the Asturian and Galician captains,
+self-confident and spendthrift in strange contrast to their sobriety
+and avaricious character when ashore; the Andalusian captains,
+reflecting in their witty talk white Cadiz and its luminous wines; the
+Valencian captains who talk of politics on the bridge, imagining that
+they are going to become the navy of a future republic; and the
+captains from Catalunia and Mallorca as thoroughly acquainted with
+business affairs as are their ship-owners. Whenever necessity obliged
+them to defend their rights, they immediately thought of Ulysses.
+Nobody could write as he could.
+
+The old mates who had worked their way up from the lower ranks, men of
+the sea who had begun their career on coasting vessels and could only
+with great difficulty adjust their practical knowledge to the handling
+of books, used to speak of Ferragut with pride.
+
+"They say that men of the sea are an uncultivated people.... Here they
+have _Don Luis_ who is one of us. They may ask him whatever they
+wish.... A real sage!"
+
+The name of Ulysses always made them stammer. They believed it a
+nickname, and not wishing to show any lack of respect, they had finally
+transformed it into "Don Luis." For some of them, Ferragut's only
+defect was his good luck. So far not a single boat of which he had had
+command had been lost. And every sailor constantly on the sea ought to
+have at least one of these misfortunes in his history in order to be a
+real captain. Only landlubbers never lose their boats.
+
+When his mother died, Ulysses was very undecided about the future, not
+knowing whether to continue his sea life, or undertake something
+entirely different. His relatives at Barcelona, merchants quick to
+understand and appraise a fortune, added up what the notary and his
+wife had left him and put with that what Labarta and the doctor had
+contributed, until it amounted to a million pesetas.... And was a man
+with as much money as that to go on living like a poor captain
+dependent upon wages to maintain his family!...
+
+His cousin, Joaquin Blanes, proprietor of a factory for knit goods,
+urged him repeatedly to follow his example. He ought to remain on shore
+and invest his capital in Catalan industry. Ulysses belonged to this
+country both on his mother's side and because he was born in the
+neighboring land of Valencia. There was great need of men of fortune
+and energy to take part in the government. Blanes was entering local
+politics with the enthusiasm of a middle-class man for novel adventure.
+
+Cinta never said a word to influence her husband. She was the daughter
+of a sailor and had accepted the life of a sailor's wife. Furthermore,
+she looked upon matrimony in the light of the old familiar
+traditions:--the woman absolute mistress of the interior of the home,
+but trusting outside affairs to the will of the lord, the warrior, the
+head of the hearth, without permitting herself opinions or objections
+to their acts.
+
+It was Ulysses, therefore, who decided to abandon the seafaring life.
+Worked upon by the suggestions of his cousins, it needed only a little
+dispute with one of the directors of the shipping firm to make him hand
+in his resignation, and refuse to reconsider it, although urged by the
+protests and entreaties of the other stockholders.
+
+In the first months of his existence ashore, he was amazed at the
+desperate immovability of everything. The world was made up of
+revolting rigidity and solidity. He felt almost nauseated at seeing all
+his possessions remain just where he left them, without the slightest
+fluctuation, or the least bit of casual caprice.
+
+In the mornings upon opening his eyes, he at first experienced the
+sweet sensation of irresponsible liberty. Nothing affected the fate of
+that house. The lives of those that were sleeping on the other floors
+above and below him had not been entrusted to his vigilance.... But in
+a few days he began to feel that there was something lacking, something
+which had been one of the greatest satisfactions of his existence,--the
+sensation of power, the enjoyment of command.
+
+Two maids were now always hastening to him with a frightened air at the
+sound of his voice, or the ringing of his bell. That was all that was
+left to him who had commanded dozens of men of such ugliness of temper
+that they struck terror to all beholders when they went ashore in the
+ports. Nobody consulted him now, while on the sea everybody was seeking
+his counsel and many times had to interrupt his sleep. The house could
+go on without his making the rounds daily from the cellars to the roof,
+overseeing even the slightest spigot. The women who cleaned it in the
+mornings with their brooms were always obliging him to flee from his
+office. He was not permitted to make any comment nor could he extend a
+gold-striped arm as when he used to scold the barefooted, bare-breasted
+deck-swabbers, insisting that the deck should be as clean as the
+saloon. He felt himself belittled, laid to one side. He thought of
+Hercules dressed as a woman and spinning wool. His love of family life
+had made him renounce that of a powerful man.
+
+Only the considerate treatment of his wife, who surrounded him with
+assiduous care as though wishing to compensate for their long
+separations, made the situation bearable. Furthermore, his conscience
+was enjoying a certain satisfaction in being a land-father, taking much
+interest in the life of his son who was beginning to prepare to enter
+the institute, looking over his books, and aiding him in understanding
+the notes.
+
+But even these pleasures were not of long duration. The family
+gatherings in his home or at his relatives' bored him unspeakably; so
+did the conversations with his cousins and nephews about profits and
+business deals, or about the defects of centralized tyranny. According
+to them, all the calamities of heaven and earth were coming from
+Madrid. The governor of the province was the "Consul of Spain."
+
+These merchants interrupted their criticisms only to listen in
+religious silence to Wagner's music banged out on the piano by the
+girls of the family. A friend with a tenor voice used to sing
+_Lohengrin_ in Catalan. Enthusiasm made the most excitable roar, "the
+hymn ... the hymn!" It was not possible to misunderstand. For them
+there was only one hymn in existence, and in a trilling undertone they
+would accompany the liturgic music of _Los Segadores_ (The Reapers).
+[The revolutionary song of Catalunia, originated by a band of reapers
+in the seventeenth century.]
+
+Ulysses used to recall with homesickness his life as commander of a
+transatlantic liner,--a wide, universal life of incessant and varied
+horizons, and cosmopolitan crowds. He could see himself detained on
+deck by groups of elegant maidens who would beg him for new dances in
+the coming week. His footsteps were surrounded with white fluttering
+skirts, veils that waved like colored clouds, laughter and trills,
+Spanish chatter that appeared set to music:--all the frolicsome jargon
+of a cage of tropical birds.
+
+Ex-presidents of the South American republics,--generals or doctors who
+were going to Europe to rest,--used to relate to him on the bridge,
+with Napoleonic gravity, the principal events in their history. The
+business men starting out for America confided to him their stupendous
+plans:--rivers turned from their courses, railroads built across the
+virgin forests, monstrous electric forces extracted from huge
+waterfalls varying in breadth, cities vomited from the desert in a few
+weeks, all the marvels of an adolescent world that desires to realize
+whatever its youthful imagination may conceive. He was the demi-urge of
+this little floating world: he disposed of joy and love as the spirit
+moved him.
+
+In the scorching evenings around the equator, it was enough for him to
+give an order to rouse things and beings from their brutish drowsiness.
+"Let the music begin, and refreshments be served." And in a few moments
+dancers would be revolving the whole length of the deck, and smiling
+lips and eyes would become brilliantly alight with illusion and desire.
+Behind him, his praises were always being sounded. The matrons found
+him very distinguished. "It is plain to be seen that he is an
+exceptional person." Stewards and crew circulated exaggerated accounts
+of his riches and his studies. Some young girls sailing for Europe with
+imaginations seething with romance were very much aghast to learn that
+the hero was married and had a son. The solitary ladies stretched out
+on a _chaise-longue,_ book in hand, upon seeing him would arrange the
+corolla of their petticoats, hiding their legs with so much
+precipitation that it always left them more uncovered; then fixing upon
+him a languishing glance, they would begin a dialogue always in the
+same way.
+
+"How is it that any one so young as you has already become a
+captain?..."
+
+Ah, the misery of it!... He who had gallantly passed many years
+cruising from one extreme of the Atlantic to the other with a rich,
+gay, perfumed world, at times resisting feminine caprice through mere
+prudence, yielding at others with the secrecy of a discreet sailor, now
+found himself with no other admirers than the mediocre tribe of the
+Blanes, with no other hallucinations than those which his cousin the
+manufacturer might suggest, when waxing enthusiastic because the great
+apostles of politics were taking a certain interest in the captain.
+
+Every morning, on awaking, his taste now received a rude shock. The
+first thing that he contemplated was a room "without personality," a
+dwelling that was not characteristic of him in any way, arranged by the
+maids with excessive cleanliness and a lack of logic that was
+constantly changing the situation of his things.
+
+He recalled with longing his compact and well-ordered stateroom where
+there was not a piece of furniture that could escape his glance nor a
+drawer whose contents he did not know down to the slightest detail. His
+body was accustomed to slip without embarrassment through the spaces of
+his cabin furnishings. He had adapted himself to all incoming and
+outgoing angles just as the body of the mollusk adapts itself to the
+winding curves of its shells. The cabin seemed formed by the secretions
+of his being. It was a covering, a sheath, that went with him from one
+extreme of the ocean to the other, heating itself with the high
+temperature of the tropics, or becoming as cosy as an Esquimo hut on
+approaching the polar seas.
+
+His love for it was somewhat like that which the friar has for his
+cell; but this cell was a secular one, and entering it after a
+tempestuous night on the bridge, or a trip ashore in most curious and
+foreign ports, he found it always the same, with his papers and books
+untouched on the table, his clothes hanging from their hooks, his
+photographs fixed on the walls. The daily spectacle of seas and lands
+was always changing--the temperature, the course of the stars, and the
+people that one week were bundled up in winter greatcoats, and were
+clad in white the week after, hunting the heavens for the new stars of
+another hemisphere.... Yet his cozy little stateroom was always the
+same, as though it were the corner of a planet apart, unaffected by the
+variations of this world.
+
+Upon awaking in it, he found himself every morning enwrapped in a
+greenish and bland atmosphere as though he might have been sleeping in
+the bottom of an enchanted lake. The sun traced over the whiteness of
+his ceiling and sheets a restless network of gold whose meshes
+constantly succeeded each other. This was the reflection of the
+invisible water. When his ship was immovable in the ports, there always
+came in through his window the whirling noise of the cranes, the cries
+of the stevedores and the voices of those who were in the neighboring
+vessels. On the high sea the cool and murmuring silence of immensity
+used to fill his sleeping room. A wind of infinite purity that came
+perhaps from the other side of the planet--slipping past thousands of
+leagues, over the salty deserts without touching a single bit of
+corruption--would come stealing into Ferragut's throat like an
+effervescent wine. His chest always expanded to the impulses of this
+life-giving draught as his eyes roved over the sparkling, luminous blue
+of the horizon.
+
+Here in his home, the first thing that he saw through the window upon
+awaking was a Catalunian edifice, rich and monstrous, like the palaces
+that the hypnotist evolves in his dreams,--an amalgamation of Persian
+flowers, Gothic columns, trunks of trees, with quadrupeds, reptiles and
+snails among the cement foliage. The paving wafted up to him through
+its drains the fetidity of sewers dry for lack of water; the balconies
+shed the dust of shaken rugs; the absurd palace appropriated, with the
+insolence of the new-rich, all the heaven and sun that used to belong
+to Ferragut.
+
+One night he surprised his relatives by informing them that he was
+about to return to the sea. Cinta assented to this resolution in
+painful silence, as though she had foreseen it long before. It was
+something inevitable and fatal that she must accept. The manufacturer,
+Blanes, stammered with astonishment. Return to his life of adventures,
+when the great gentlemen of the district were becoming interested in
+his personality!... Perhaps in the next elections they might have made
+him a member of the municipal council!
+
+Ferragut laughed at his cousin's simplicity. He wanted to command a
+vessel again, but one of his own, without being obliged to consider the
+restrictions of the ship owners. He could permit himself this luxury.
+It would be like an enormous yacht, ready to set forth according to his
+tastes and convenience, yet at the same time bringing him in untold
+profits. Perhaps his son might in time become director of a maritime
+company, this first ship laying the foundation of an enormous fleet in
+the years to come.
+
+He knew every port in the world, every highway of traffic, and he would
+be able to find the places where, lacking transportation facilities,
+they paid the highest freight rates. Until now he had been a salaried
+man, brave and care-free. He was going to begin an absolutely
+independent life as a speculator of the sea.
+
+Two months afterwards he wrote from England saying that he had bought
+the _Fingal_, a mail packet of three thousand tons that had made trips
+twice a week between London and a port of Scotland.
+
+Ulysses appeared highly delighted with the cheapness of his
+acquisition. The _Fingal_ had been the property of a Scotch captain
+who, in spite of his long illness, had never wished to give up command,
+dying aboard his vessel. His heirs, inland men tired by their long
+wait, were anxious to get rid of it at any price.
+
+When the new proprietor entered the aft saloon surrounded with
+staterooms,--the only habitable place in the ship,--memories of the
+dead came forth to meet him. On the wall-panels were painted the heroes
+of the Scotch Iliad,--the bard Ossian with his harp, Malvina with the
+round arms and waving golden tresses, the undaunted warriors with their
+winged helmets and protruding biceps, exchanging gashes on their
+shields while awaking the echoes of the green lochs.
+
+A deep and spongy arm chair opened its arms before a stove. There the
+owner of the ship had passed his last years, sick at heart and with
+swollen legs, directing from his seat a course that was repeated every
+week across the foggy winter waves tossing bits of ice snatched from
+the icebergs. Near the stove was a piano and upon its top an orderly
+collection of musical scores yellowed by time,--_La Sonnambula, Lucia_,
+Romances of Tosti, Neapolitan songs, breezy and graceful melodies that
+the old chords of the instrument sent forth with the fragile and
+crystalline tinkling of an old music box. The poor old captain with
+sick heart and legs of stone had always turned to the sea of light for
+distraction. It was music that made appear in the foggy heavens the
+peaks of Sorrento covered with orange and lemon trees, and the coast of
+Sicily, perfumed by its flaming flora.
+
+Ferragut manned his boat with friendly people. His first mate was a
+pilot who had begun his career in a fishing smack. He came from the
+same village as Ulysses' ancestors, and he remembered the _Dotor_ with
+respect and admiration. He had known this new captain when he was a
+little fellow and used to go fishing with his uncle. In those days Toni
+was already a sailor on a coast-trading vessel, and his superiority in
+years had then justified his using the familiar thee and thou when
+talking with the lad Ulysses.
+
+Finding himself now under his orders, he wished to change his mode of
+address, but the captain would not permit it. Perhaps he and Toni were
+distant relatives,--all those living in that village of the _Marina_
+had become related through long centuries of isolated existence and
+common danger. The entire crew, from the first engineer to the lowest
+seaman, showed an equal familiarity in this respect. Some were from the
+same land as the captain, others had been sailing a long time under his
+orders.
+
+As shipowner, Ulysses now underwent numberless experiences whose
+existence he had never before suspected. He went through the anguishing
+transformation of the actor who becomes a theatrical manager, of the
+author who branches out into publishing, of the engineer with a hobby
+for odd inventions who becomes the proprietor of a factory. His
+romantic love for the sea and its adventures was now overshadowed by
+the price and consumption of coal, by the maddening competition that
+lowered freight rates, and by the search for new ports with fast and
+remunerative freight.
+
+The _Fingal_ which had been rebaptized by its new proprietor with the
+name of _Mare Nostrum_, in memory of his uncle, turned out to be a
+dubious purchase in spite of its low price. As a navigator Ulysses had
+been most enthusiastic upon beholding its high and sharp prow disposed
+to confront the worst seas, the slenderness of the swift craft, its
+machinery, excessively powerful for a freight steamer,--all the
+conditions that had made it a mail packet for so many years. It
+consumed too much fuel to be a profitable investment as a transport of
+merchandise. The captain during his navigation could now think only of
+the ravenous appetite of the boilers. It always seemed to him that the
+_Mare Nostrum_ was speeding along with excess steam.
+
+"Half speed!" he would shout down the tube to his first engineer.
+
+But in spite of this and many other precautions, the expense for fuel
+was enormously disproportioned to the tonnage of the vessel. The boat
+was eating up all the profits. Its speed was insignificant compared
+with that of a transatlantic steamer, though absurd compared with that
+of the merchant vessels of great hulls and little machinery that were
+going around soliciting cargo at any price, from all points.
+
+A slave of the superiority of his vessel and in continual struggle with
+it, Ferragut had to make great efforts in order to continue sailing
+without actual heavy loss. All the waters of the planet now saw the
+_Mare Nostrum_ specializing in the rarest kind of transportation.
+Thanks to this expedient, the Spanish flag waved in ports that had
+never seen it before.
+
+Under this banner, he made trips through the solitary seas of Syria and
+Asia Minor, skirting coasts where the novelty of a ship with a smoke
+stack made the people of the Arabian villages run together in crowds.
+He disembarked in Phoenician and Greek ports choked up with sand that
+had left only a few huts at the foot of mountains of ruins, and where
+columns of marble were still sticking up like trunks of lopped-off palm
+trees. He anchored near to the terrible breakers of the western coast
+of Africa under a sun which scorched the deck, in order to take on
+board india-rubber, ostrich feathers, and elephants' tusks, brought out
+in long pirogues by negro oarsmen, from a river filled with crocodiles
+and hippopotamuses, and bordered by groups of huts with straw cones for
+roofs.
+
+When there were no more of these extraordinary voyages, the _Mare
+Nostrum_ turned its course towards South America, resigning itself to
+competition in rates with the English and Scandinavians who are the
+muleteers of the ocean. His tonnage and draught permitted him to sail
+up the great rivers of North America, even reaching the cities of the
+remote interior where rows of factory chimneys smoked on the border of
+a fresh-water lake converted into a port.
+
+He sailed up the ruddy Parana to Rosario and Colastine, in order to
+load Argentine wheat; he anchored in the amber waters of Uruguay
+opposite Paysandu and Fray Ventos, taking on board hides destined to
+Europe and salt for the Antilles. From the Pacific he sailed up the
+Guayas bordered with an equatorial vegetation, in search of cocoa from
+Guayaquil. His prow cut the infinite sheet of the Amazon,--dislodging
+gigantic tree-trunks dragged down by the inundations of the virgin
+forest--in order to anchor opposite Para or Manaos, taking on cargoes
+of tobacco and coffee. He even carried from Germany implements of war
+for the revolutionists of a little republic.
+
+These trips that in other times would have awakened Ferragut's
+enthusiasm now resulted disastrously. After having paid all expenses
+and lived with maddening economy, there was scarcely anything left for
+the owner. Each time the freight boats were more numerous and the
+transportation rates cheaper. Ulysses with his elegant _Mare Nostrum_
+could not compete with the southern captains, drunken and taciturn,
+eager to accept freight at any price in order to fill their miserable
+transports crawling across the ocean at the speed of a tortoise.
+
+"I can do no more," he said sadly to his mate. "I shall simply ruin my
+son. If anybody will buy the _Mare Nostrum,_ I'm going to sell it."
+
+On one of his fruitless expeditions, just when he was most discouraged,
+some unexpected news changed the situation for him. They had just
+arrived at Teneriffe with maize and bales of dry alfalfa from
+Argentina.
+
+When Toni returned aboard after having cleared the vessel, he shouted
+in Valencian, the language of intimacy, "War, _Che_!"
+
+Ulysses, who was pacing the bridge, received the news with
+indifference. "War?... What war is that?..." But upon learning that
+Germany and Austria had begun hostilities with France and Russia, and
+that England was just intervening in behalf of Belgium, the captain
+began quickly to calculate the political consequences of this
+conflagration. He could see nothing else.
+
+Toni, less disinterested, spoke of the future of the vessel.... Their
+misery was at last at an end! Freightage at thirteen shillings a ton
+was going to be henceforth but a disgraceful memory. They would no
+longer have to plead for freight from port to port as though begging
+alms. Now they were on the point of achieving importance, and were
+going to find themselves solicited by consignors and disdainful
+merchants. The _Mare Nostrum_ was going to be worth its weight in gold.
+
+Such predictions, though Ferragut refused to accept them, began to be
+fulfilled in a very short time. Ships on the ocean routes suddenly
+became very scarce. Some of them were taking refuge in the nearest
+neutral ports, fearing the enemy's cruisers. The greater part were
+mobilized by their governments for the enormous transportation of
+material that modern war exacts. The German corsairs, craftily taking
+advantage of the situation, were increasing with their captures the
+panic of the merchant marine.
+
+The price of freight leaped from thirteen shillings a ton to fifty,
+then to seventy, and a few days later to a hundred. It couldn't climb
+any further, according to Captain Ferragut.
+
+"It will climb higher yet," affirmed the first officer with cruel joy.
+"We shall see tonnage at a hundred and fifty, at two hundred.... We are
+going to become rich!..."
+
+And Toni always used the plural in speaking of the future riches
+without its ever occurring to him to ask his captain a penny more than
+the forty-five dollars that he was receiving each month. Ferragut's
+fortune and that of the ship, he invariably looked upon as his own,
+considering himself lucky if he was not out of tobacco, and could send
+his entire wages home to his wife and children living down there in the
+_Marina_.
+
+His ambition was that of all modest sailors--to buy a plot of land and
+become an agriculturist in his old age. The Basque pilots used to dream
+of prairies and apple orchards, a little cottage on a peak and many
+cows. He pictured to himself a vineyard on the coast, a little white
+dwelling with an arbor under whose shade he could smoke his pipe while
+all his family, children and grandchildren, were spreading out the
+harvest of raisins on the frame-hurdles.
+
+A familiar admiration like that of an ancient squire for his paladin,
+or of an old subaltern for a superior officer, bound him to Ferragut.
+The books that filled the captain's stateroom recalled his agonies upon
+being examined in Cartagena for his license as a pilot. The grave
+gentlemen of the tribunal had made him turn pale and stutter like a
+child before the logarithms and formulas of trigonometry. But just let
+them consult _him_ on practical matters and his skill as master of a
+bark habituated to all the dangers of the sea, and he would reply with
+the self-possession of a sage!
+
+In the most difficult perils,--days of storm and sinister shoals in the
+neighborhood of the treacherous coasts, Ferragut could decide to rest
+only when Toni replaced him on the bridge. With him, he had no fear
+that, through carelessness, a wave would sweep across the deck and stop
+the machinery, or that an invisible ledge would drive its stony point
+into the vitals of the vessel. He held the helm to the course
+indicated. Silent and immovable he stood, as though sleeping on his
+feet; but at the right moment he always uttered the brief word of
+command.
+
+He was very skinny, with the dried up leanness of the bronzed
+Mediterranean. The salt wind more than his years had tanned his face,
+wrinkling it with deep crevices. A capricious coloring had darkened the
+depths of these cracks while the part exposed to the sun appeared
+washed several shades lighter. His short stiff beard extended over all
+the furrows and crests of his skin. Furthermore, he had hair in his
+ears, hair in the nasal passages, coarse and vibrating growths, ready
+to tremble in moments of wrath or admiration.... But this ugliness
+disappeared under the light of his little eyes with pupils between
+green and olive color,--mild eyes with a canine expression of
+resignation, when the captain made fun of his beliefs.
+
+Toni was a "man of ideas." Ferragut only knew of his having four or
+five, but they were hard, crystallized, tenacious, like the mollusks
+that stick to the rocks and eventually become a part of the stony
+excrescence. He had acquired them in twenty-five years of Mediterranean
+coast service by reading all the periodicals of lyric radicalism that
+were thrust upon him on entering the harbors. Furthermore, at the end
+of every journey was Marseilles; and in one of its little side alleys
+was a red room adorned with symbolic columns where sailors of all races
+and tongues met together, fraternally understanding each other by means
+of mysterious signs and ritual words.
+
+Whenever Toni entered a South American port after a long absence, he
+particularly admired the rapid progress of the new villages,--enormous
+wharves constructed within the year, interminable streets that were not
+in existence on his former voyage, shady and elegant parks, replacing
+old, dried-up lakes.
+
+"That's only natural," he would affirm roundly. "With good reason they
+are republics!"
+
+Upon entering the Spanish ports, the slightest deviation in the
+docking, a discussion with the official employees, the lack of space
+for a good anchorage would make him smile with bitterness. "Unfortunate
+country!... Everything here is the work of the altar and the throne!"
+
+In the Thames, and before the docks of Hamburg, Captain Ferragut would
+chaff his subordinate.
+
+"There's no republic here, Toni!... But, nevertheless this is rather
+worth while."
+
+But Toni never gave in. He would contract his hairy visage, making a
+mental effort to formulate his vague ideas, clothing them with words.
+In the very background of these grandeurs existed the confirmation of
+the idea he was so vainly trying to express. Finally he admitted
+himself checkmated, but not convinced.
+
+"I don't know how to explain it; I haven't the words for it ... but ...
+it's the _people_ who are doing all this."
+
+Upon receiving in Teneriffe the news of war, he summed up all his
+doctrines with the terseness of a victor.
+
+"In Europe there are too many kings.... If all the nations could be
+republics!... This calamity just had to come!"
+
+And this time Ferragut did not venture to ridicule the
+single-mindedness of his second.
+
+All the people of the _Mare Nostrum_ showed great enthusiasm over the
+new business aspect of things. The seamen who in former voyages were
+taciturn, as though foreseeing the ruin or exhaustion of their captain,
+were now working as eagerly as though they were going to participate in
+the profits.
+
+In the forward mess room many of them set themselves to work on
+commercial calculations. The first trip of the war would be equal to
+ten of their former ones; the second, perhaps, might bring in the
+profit of twenty. And recalling their former bad business ventures,
+they rejoiced for Ferragut, with the same disinterestedness as the
+first officer. The engineers were no longer called to the captain's
+cabin in order to contrive new economies in fuel. They had to take
+advantage of the time and opportunity; and the _Mare Nostrum_ was now
+going at full steam, making fourteen knots an hour, like a passenger
+vessel, stopping only when its course was blocked at the entrance of
+the Mediterranean by an English destroyer, sending out an officer to
+make sure that they were not carrying on board enemy passengers.
+
+Abundance reigned equally between bridge and forecastle where were the
+sailors' quarters and the galley,--the space respected by every one on
+the boat as the incontestable realm of Uncle Caragol.
+
+This old man, nicknamed "Caracol" (snail), another old friend of
+Ferragut's, was the ship's cook, and, although he did not dare to talk
+as familiarly to the captain as in former times, the tone of his voice
+made it understood that mentally he was continuing to use the old,
+affectionate form. He had known Ulysses when he used to run away from
+the classrooms to row in the harbor and, on account of the bad state of
+his eyes, he had finally retired from the navigation of coast vessels,
+descending to be a simple bargeman. His gravity and corpulence had
+something almost priestly in character. He was the obese type of
+Mediterranean with a little head, voluminous neck and triple chin,
+seated on the stern of his fishing skiff like a Roman patrician on the
+throne of his trireme.
+
+His culinary talent suffered eclipse whenever rice did not figure as
+the fundamental basis of his compositions. All that this food could
+give of itself, he knew perfectly. In the tropical ports, the crews
+surfeited with bananas, pineapples, and alligator-pears, would greet
+with enthusiasm the apparition of a great frying pan of rice with cod
+and potatoes, or a casserole of rice from the oven with its golden
+crust perforated by the ruddy faces of garbanzos and points of black
+sausage. At other times, under the leaden-colored sky of the northern
+seas, the cook made them recall their distant native land by giving
+them the monastic rice dish with beet roots, or buttery rice with
+turnips and beans.
+
+On Sundays and the fiestas of the Valencian saints who for Uncle
+Caragol were the first in heaven,--_San Vicente Martir, San Vicente
+Ferrer, La Virgin de los Desamparados_ and the _Cristo del Grao_--would
+appear the smoking _paella_, a vast, circular dish of rice upon whose
+surface of white, swollen grains were lying bits of various fowls. The
+cook loved to surprise his following by distributing rotund, raw
+onions, with the whiteness of marble and an acrid surprise that brought
+tears to the eyes. They were a princely gift maintained in secret. One
+had only to break them with one blow and their sticky juices would gush
+forth and lose themselves in the palate like crisp mouthfuls of a sweet
+and spicy bread, alternating with knifefuls of rice. The boat was at
+times near Brazil in sight of Fernando de Norona,--yet even while
+viewing the conical huts of the negroes installed on an island under an
+equatorial sun, the crews could almost believe--thanks to Uncle
+Caragol's magic--that they were eating in a cabin of the farmland of
+Valencia, as they passed from hand to hand the long-spouted jug filled
+with strong wine from Liria.
+
+When they anchored in ports where fish was abundant, he achieved the
+great work of cooking a rice _abanda_. The cabin boys would bring to
+the captain's table the pot in which was boiled the rich sea food mixed
+with lobsters, mussels, and every kind of shell-fish available, but the
+_chef_ invariably reserved for himself the honor of offering the
+accompanying great platter with its pyramid, of rice, every grain
+golden and distinct.
+
+Boiled apart (_abanda_) each grain was full of the succulent broth of
+the stew-pot. It was a rice dish that contained within it the
+concentration of all the sustenance of the sea. As though he were
+performing a liturgical ceremony, the _chef_ would go around delivering
+half a lemon to each one of those seated at the table. The rice should
+only be eaten after moistening it with this perfumed dew which called
+to mind the image of an oriental garden. Only the unfortunate beings
+who lived inland were ignorant of this exquisite confection, calling
+any mess of rice a Valencian rice dish.
+
+Ulysses would humor the cook's notions, carrying the first spoonful to
+his mouth with a questioning glance.... Then he would smile, giving
+himself up to gastric intoxication. "Magnificent, Uncle Caragol!" His
+good humor made him affirm that only the gods should be nourished with
+rice _abanda_ in their abodes on Mount Olympus. He had read that in
+books. And Caragol, divining great praise in all this, would gravely
+reply, "That is so, my captain." Toni and the other officers by this
+time would be chewing away with heads down, only interrupting their
+feast to regret that the old Ganymede should have skimped them when
+measuring the ambrosia.
+
+In his estimation, oil was as precious as rice. In the time of their
+money-losing navigation, when the captain was making special efforts at
+economy, Caragol used to keep an especially sharp eye on the great oil
+bottles in his galley, for he suspected that the cabin boys and the
+young seamen appropriated it to dress their hair when they wanted to
+play the dandy, using the oil as a pomade. Every head that put itself
+within reach of his disturbed glance he grasped between his arms,
+raising it to his nose. The slightest perfume of olive oil would arouse
+his wrath. "Ah, you thief!"... And down would fall his enormous hand,
+soft and heavy as a fencing gauntlet.
+
+Ulysses believed him quite capable of climbing the bridge, and
+declaring that navigation could not go on because of his having
+exhausted the leathern bottles of amethyst-colored liquid proceeding
+from the Sierra de Espadan.
+
+In the ports, his short-sighted eyes recognized immediately the
+nationality of the boats anchored on both sides of the _Mare Nostrum_.
+His nose would sniff the air sadly. "Nothing!..." They were unsavory
+barks, barks from the North that prepared their dinner with lard or
+butter,--Protestant barks, perhaps.
+
+Sometimes he would sneak along the gunwale, following an intoxicating
+trail until he planted himself in front of the galley of the
+neighboring boat, breathing in its rich perfume. "Hello, brothers!"
+Impossible to fool him, they were probably Spaniards and, if not, they
+were from Genoa or Naples,--in short, were compatriots accustomed to
+live and eat in all latitudes just as though they were in their own
+little inland sea. Soon they would begin a speech in the Mediterranean
+idiom, a mixture of Spanish, Provencal and Italian, invented by the
+hybrid peoples of the African coast from Egypt to Morocco. Sometimes
+they would send each other presents, like those that are exchanged
+between tribes,--fruits from distant countries. At other times,
+suddenly inimical, without knowing why, they would shake their fists
+over the railing, yelling insults at each other in which, between every
+two or three words, would appear the names of the Virgin and her holy
+Son.
+
+This was the signal for Uncle Caragol, religious soul, to return in
+haughty silence to his galley. Toni, the mate, used to make fun of his
+devout enthusiasm. On the other hand, the foremast hands, materialistic
+and gluttonous, used to listen to him with deference, because he was
+the one who doled out the wine and the choicest tid-bits. The old man
+used to speak to them of the _Cristo del Grao_, whose pictures occupied
+the most prominent site in the kitchen, and they would all listen as to
+a new tale, to the story of the arrival by sea of the sacred image,
+mounted upon a ladder in a boat that had dissolved in smoke after
+discharging its miraculous cargo.
+
+This had been when the _Grao_ was no more than a group of huts far from
+the walls of Valencia and threatened by the raids of the Moorish
+pirates. For many years Caragol, barefooted, had carried this sacred
+ladder on his shoulder on the day of the fiesta. Now other men of the
+sea were enjoying such honor and he, old and half-blind, would be
+waiting among the public for the procession to pass in order that he
+might throw himself upon the enormous relic, touching his clothes to
+the wood.
+
+All his outer garments were sanctified by this contact. In reality they
+weren't very many, since he usually strolled about the boat very
+lightly clad, with the immodesty of a man who sees poorly and considers
+himself above human preoccupations.
+
+A shirt with the tail always floating, and a pair of pantaloons of
+dirty cotton or yellow flannel, according to the season, constituted
+his entire outfit. The bosom of the shirt was open on all occasions,
+leaving visible a thatch of white hair. The pantaloons were fastened
+together with a single button. A palm leaf hat always covered his head
+even when he was working among his cooking pots.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ could not be shipwrecked nor suffer any harm while
+it carried him aboard. In the days of tempest, when waves were sweeping
+the deck from prow to poop, and the sailors were treading warily,
+fearing that a heavy sea might carry them overboard, Caragol would
+stick his head out through the door of the galley, scorning a danger
+which he could not see.
+
+The great water-spouts would pass over him, even putting out his fires,
+but only increasing his faith. "Courage, boys! Courage, lads!" The
+_Cristo del Grao_ had special charge of them and nothing bad could
+happen to the ship... Some of the seamen were silent, while others said
+this and that about the image without arousing the indignation of the
+old devotee. God, who sends dangers to the men of the sea, knows that
+their bad words lack malice.
+
+His religiosity extended to the very deeps. He did not wish to say
+anything about the ocean fish, for they inspired him with the same
+indifference as those cold and unperfumed boats that were ignorant of
+olive oil, and all that was cooked with "pomade." They must be
+heretics.
+
+He was better acquainted with the fish of the Mediterranean and even
+came to believe that they must be good Catholics, since in their own
+way they proclaimed the glory of God. Standing near the taffrail on
+torrid evenings in the tropics, he would recount, in honor of the
+inhabitants of his distant sea, the portentous miracle which had taken
+place in the glen of Alboraya.
+
+A priest was one day fording on horseback the mouth of a river in order
+to carry the eucharist to a dying person, when his beast stumbled and
+the ciborium, falling open, the Hosts fell out and were carried off by
+the current. From that time on, mysterious lights glowed every night on
+the water, and at sunrise a swarm of little fishes would come to range
+themselves opposite the glen, their heads emerging from the water, in
+order to show the Host which each one of them was carrying in his
+mouth. In vain the fishermen wished to take them away from them. They
+fled to the inland sea with their treasures. Only when the clergy, with
+cross erect and with the same priest, fell on their knees in the glen
+did they decide to approach; and one after the other deposited his Host
+in the ciborium, retiring then from wave to wave, gracefully waggling
+their little tails.
+
+In spite of the vague hope for a jug of choice wine that was animating
+most of his hearers, a murmur of incredulity always arose at the end of
+this tale. The devout Caragol then became as wrathful and foul-mouthed
+as a prophet of old when he considered his faith in danger. "Who was
+that son of a flea?... Who _was_ that son of a flea daring to doubt
+what I myself have seen?..." And what he had seen was the fiesta of the
+_Peixet_ that was celebrated every year, simply listening to most
+learned men discoursing about the miracle in a commemorative chapel
+built on the banks of the glen.
+
+This prodigy of the little fishes was almost always followed with what
+he called the miracle of the _Peixot_, endeavoring with the weight of
+such a marvelous fish tale to crush the doubts of the impious.
+
+The galley of Alphonso V of Aragon (the only sailor king of Spain),
+upon coming out of the Gulf of Naples, once struck a hidden rock near
+the island of Capri which took away a side of the ship without making
+it leak; and the vessel continued on with all sails spread, carrying
+the king, the ladies of his court, and the retinue of mail-clad barons.
+Twenty days afterward they arrived at Valencia safe and sound like all
+sailors who in moments of danger ask aid of the _Virgen del Puig_. Upon
+inspecting the hull of the galley, the master calkers beheld a
+monstrous fish detach itself from its bottom with the tranquility of an
+upright person who has fulfilled his duty. It was a dolphin sent by the
+most holy Senora in order that his side might stop up the open breach.
+And thus, like a plug, it had sailed from Naples to Valencia without
+allowing a drop of water to pass in.
+
+The _chef_ would not admit any criticisms nor protests. This miracle
+was undeniable. He had seen it with his own eyes, and they were good.
+He had seen it in an ancient picture in the monastery of Puig,
+everything appearing on the tablet with the realism of truth,--the
+galley, the king, the _peixot_ and the Virgin above giving the order.
+
+At this juncture the breeze would flap the narrator's shirt tail,
+disclosing his abdomen divided into hemispheres by the tyranny of its
+only pantaloon button.
+
+"Uncle Caragol, look out!" warned a teasing voice.
+
+The holy man would smile with the seraphic calm of one who sees beyond
+the pomps and vanities of existence, and would begin the relation of a
+new miracle.
+
+Ferragut used to attribute his cook's periods of exaltation to the
+lightness of his clothing in all weathers. Within him was burning a
+fire incessantly renewed. On foggy days he would climb to the bridge
+with some glasses of a smoking drink that he used to call _calentets_.
+Nothing better for men that had to pass long hours in the inclement
+weather in motionless vigilance! It was coffee mixed with rum, but in
+unequal proportions, having more alcohol than black liquid. Toni would
+drink rapidly all the glasses offered. The captain would refuse them,
+asking for clear coffee.
+
+His sobriety was that of the ancient sailor,--the sobriety of Father
+Ulysses who used to mix wine with water in all his libations. The
+divinities of the old sea did not love alcoholic drinks. The white
+_Amphitrite_ and the Nereids only accepted on their altars the fruits
+of the earth, sacrifices of doves, libations of milk. Perhaps because
+of this the seafaring men of the Mediterranean, following an hereditary
+tendency, looked upon intoxication as the vilest of degradations. Even
+those who were not temperate avoided getting frankly drunk like the
+sailors of other seas, dissimulating the strength of their alcoholic
+beverage with coffee and sugar.
+
+Caragol was the understudy charged with drinking all which the captain
+refused, together with certain others which he dedicated to himself in
+the mystery of the galley. On warm days he manufactured _refresquets_,
+and these refreshments were enormous glasses, half of water and half of
+rum upon a great bed of sugar,--a mixture that made one pass like a
+lightning flash, without any gradations, from vulgar serenity to most
+angelic intoxication.
+
+The captain would scold him upon seeing his inflamed and reddened eyes.
+He was going to make himself blind.... But the guilty one was not moved
+by this threat. He had to celebrate the prosperity of the vessel in his
+own way. And of this prosperity the most interesting thing for him was
+his ability to use oil and brandy lavishly without any fear of
+recriminations when the accounts were settled. _Cristo del Grao_!...
+would that the war would last forever!...
+
+The _Mare Nostrum's_ third voyage from South America to Europe came
+suddenly to an end in Naples, where they were unloading wheat and
+hides. A collision at the entrance of the port, with an English
+hospital ship that was going to the Dardanelles, injured her stern,
+carrying away a part of the screw.
+
+Toni roared with impatience upon learning that they would have to
+remain nearly a month in enforced idleness. Italy had not yet
+intervened in the war, but her defensive precautions were monopolizing
+all naval industries. It was not possible to make the repairs sooner,
+although Ferragut well knew what this loss of time would represent in
+his business. Valuable freight was waiting for him in Marseilles and
+Barcelona, but, wishing to tranquillize himself and to pacify his mate,
+he would say repeatedly:
+
+"England will indemnify us.... The English are just."
+
+And in order to soothe his impatience he went ashore.
+
+Compared with other celebrated Italian cities, Naples did not appear to
+him of much importance. Its true beauty was its immense gulf between
+hills of orange trees and pines, with a second frame of mountains one
+of which outlined upon the azure heavens its eternal crest of volcanic
+vapors.
+
+The town did not abound in famous edifices. The monarchs of Naples had
+generally been foreigners who had resided far away and had governed
+through their delegates. The best streets, the palaces, the monumental
+fountain, had come from the Spanish viceroys. A sovereign of mixed
+origin, Charles the III, Castilian by birth and Neapolitan at heart,
+had done the most for the city. His building enthusiasm had embellished
+the ancient districts with works similar to those that he erected years
+afterward, upon occupying the throne of Spain.
+
+After admiring the Grecian statuary in the museum, and the excavated
+objects that revealed the intimate life of the ancients, Ulysses
+threaded the tortuous and often gloomy arteries of the popular
+districts.
+
+There were streets clinging to the slopes forming landings flanked with
+narrow and very high houses. Every vacant space had its balconies, and
+from every railing to its opposite were extended lines spread with
+clothes of different colors, hung out to dry. Neapolitan fertility made
+these little alleys seethe with people. Around the open-air kitchens
+there crowded patrons, eating, while standing, their boiled macaroni or
+bits of meat.
+
+The hucksters were hawking their goods with melodious, song-like cries,
+and cords to which little baskets were fastened were lowered down to
+them from balconies. The bargaining and purchases reached from the
+depth of the street gutters to the top of the seventh floor, but the
+flocks of goats climbed the winding steps with their customary agility
+in order to be milked at the various stair landings.
+
+The wharves of the Marinela attracted the captain because of the local
+color of this Mediterranean port. Italian unity had torn down and
+reconstructed much of it, but there still remained standing various
+rows of little low-roofed houses with white or pink facades, green
+doors, and lower floors further forward than the upper ones, serving as
+props for galleries with wooden balustrades. Everything there that was
+not of brick was of clumsy carpentry resembling the work of ship
+calkers. Iron did not exist in these terrestrial constructions
+suggestive of the sailboat whose rooms were as dark as staterooms.
+Through the windows could be seen great conch-shells upon the chests of
+drawers, harsh and childish oil paintings representing frigates, and
+multi-colored shells from distant seas.
+
+These dwellings repeated themselves in all the ports of the
+Mediterranean just as though they were the work of the same hand. As a
+child, Ferragut had seen them in the _Grao_ of Valencia and continually
+ran across them in Barcelona, in the suburbs of Marseilles, in old
+Nice, in the ports of the western islands, and in the sections of the
+African coast occupied by Maltese and Sicilians.
+
+Over the town, lined up along the Marinela, the churches of Naples
+reared their domes and towers with glazed roofs, green and yellow,
+which appeared more like pinnacles of Oriental baths than the roofs of
+Christian temples.
+
+The barefooted _lazzarone_ with his red cap no longer existed, but the
+crowd,--clad like the workmen of all ports--still gathered around the
+daubed poster that represented a crime, a miracle or a prodigious
+specific, listening in silence to the harangue of the narrator or
+charlatan. The old popular comedians were declaiming with heroic
+gesticulations the epic octavos of Tasso, and harps and violins were
+sounding accompaniments to the latest melody that Naples had made
+fashionable throughout the entire world. The stands of the oyster-men
+constantly sent forth an organic perfume from the spent wave, and all
+around them empty shells scattered their disks of pearly lime over the
+mud.
+
+Near to the ancient Captaincy of the port, the palace of Charles
+III,--blue and white, with an image of the immaculate conception,--were
+assembled the unloading trucks, whose teams still preserved their
+ancient hybrid originality. In some instances the shafts were occupied
+by a white ox, sleek with enormous and widely branching horns, an
+animal similar to those that used to figure in the religious ceremonies
+of the ancients. At his right would be hooked a horse, at his left, a
+great raw-boned mule, and this triple and discordant team appeared in
+all the carts, standing immovable before the ships the length of the
+docks, or dragging their heavy wheels up the slopes leading to the
+upper city.
+
+In a few days the captain grew tired of Naples and its bustle. In the
+cafes of the Street of Toledo and the Gallery of Humbert I, he had to
+defend himself from some noisy youths with low-cut vests, butterfly
+neckties and little felt hats perched upon their manes, who, in low
+voices, proposed to him unheard-of spectacles organized for the
+diversion of foreigners.
+
+He had also seen enough of the paintings and domestic objects excavated
+from the ancient cities. The lewdness of the secret cabinets finally
+irritated him. It appeared to him the reverse of recreation to
+contemplate so many childish fantasies of sculpture and painting having
+the antique symbol of masculinity as its principal motif.
+
+One morning he boarded a train and, after skirting the smoking mountain
+of Vesuvius, passing between rose-colored villages surrounded with
+vineyards, he stopped at the station of Pompeii.
+
+From the funereal solitudes of hotels and restaurants, the guides came
+forth like a suddenly awakened swarm of wasps, lamenting that the war
+had cut off the tourist trade. Perhaps he would be the only one who
+would come that day. "_Signor_, at your service, at any price
+whatever!..." But the sailor continued on alone. Always, in recalling
+Pompeii, he had wished to see it again alone, absolutely alone, so as
+to get a more direct impression of the ancient life.
+
+His first view of it had been seventeen years ago when, as a mate of a
+Catalan sailing vessel anchored in the port of Naples, he had taken
+advantage of the cheapness of Sunday rates and had seen everything as
+one of a crowd that was pushing and treading on everybody's feet so as
+to listen to the nearest guide.
+
+At the head of the expedition had been a priest, young and elegant, a
+Roman _Monsignor_, clad in silk, and with him two showy foreign women,
+who were always climbing up in the highest places, raising their skirts
+rather high for fear of the star lizards that were writhing in and out
+of the ruins. Ferragut, in humble admiration, always remained below,
+glimpsing the country from behind their legs. "Ay! Twenty-two
+years!..." Afterwards when he heard Pompeii spoken of, it always evoked
+in his memory several strata of images. "Very beautiful! Very
+interesting!" And in his mind's eye he saw again the palaces and
+temples, but as a secondary consideration, like a shrouded background,
+while in the forefront were four magnificent legs standing forth,--a
+human colonnade of slender shafts swathed in transparent black silk.
+
+The solitude so long desired for his second visit was now aggressively
+in evidence. In this deserted, dead city there were to-day no other
+sounds than the whirring of insect wings over the plants beginning to
+clothe themselves with springtime verdure, and the invisible scampering
+of reptiles under the layers of ivy.
+
+At the gate of Herculaneum, the guardian of the little museum left
+Ferragut to examine in peace the excavations of the various corpses,
+petrified Pompeiians of plaster still in the attitudes of terror in
+which death had surprised them. He did not abandon his post in order to
+trouble the captain with his explanations; he scarcely raised his eyes
+from the newspaper that he had before him. The news from Rome,--the
+intrigues of the German diplomats, the possibility that Italy might
+enter the war,--were absorbing his entire attention.
+
+Afterwards on the solitary streets the sailor found everywhere the same
+preoccupation. His footsteps resounded in the sunlight as though
+treading the depths of the hollow tombs. The moment he stopped, silence
+again enveloped him,--"A silence of two thousand years," thought
+Ferragut to himself, and in the midst of this primeval silence sounded
+far-away voices in the violence of a sharp discussion. They were the
+guardians and the employees of the excavations who, lacking work, were
+gesticulating and insulting each other in these strongholds twenty
+centuries old so profoundly isolated from patriotic enthusiasm or fear
+of the horrors of war.
+
+Ferragut, map in hand, passed among these groups without annoyance from
+insistent guides. For two hours he fancied himself an inhabitant of
+ancient Pompeii who had remained alone in the city on a holiday devoted
+to the rural divinities. His glance could reach to the very end of the
+straight streets without encountering persons or things recalling
+modern times.
+
+Pompeii appeared to him smaller than ever in this solitude,--an
+intersection of narrow roads with high sidewalks paved with polygonal
+blocks of blue lava. In its interstices Spring was forming green grass
+plots dotted with flowers. Carriages,--of whose owners not even the
+dust was left,--had with their deep wheels opened up ridges in the
+pavement more than a thousand years ago. In every crossway was a public
+fountain with a grotesque mask which had spouted water through its
+mouth.
+
+Certain red letters on the walls were announcements of elections to be
+held in the beginning of that era,--candidates for aedile or duumvir
+who were recommended to the Pompeiian voters. Some doors showed above,
+the _phallus_ for conjuring the evil eyes; others, a pair of serpents
+intertwined, emblem of family life. In the corners of the alleyways, a
+Latin verse engraved on the walls asked the passerby to observe the
+laws of sanitation, and there still could be seen on the stuccoed walls
+caricatures and scribbling, handiwork of the little street gamins of
+Caesar's day.
+
+The houses were lightly constructed upon floors cracked by minor
+earthquakes before the arrival of the final catastrophe. The lower
+floors were of bricks or concrete and the others, of wood, had been
+devoured by the volcanic fire, only the stairways remaining.
+
+In this gracious city of amiable and easy-going life, more Greek than
+Roman, all the lower floors of the plebeian houses had been occupied by
+petty traders. They were shops with doors the same size as the
+establishment, four-sided caves like the Arabian _zocos_ whose
+furthermost corners were visible to the buyer stopping in the street.
+Many still had their stone counters and their large earthen jars for
+the sale of wine and oil. The private dwellings had no facades, and
+their outer walls were smooth and unapproachable, but with an interior
+court providing the surrounding chambers with light as in the palaces
+of the Orient. The doors were merely half-doors of escape, parts of
+larger ones. All life was concentrated around the interior, the central
+patio, rich and magnificent, adorned with fish ponds, statues and
+flower-bordered beds.
+
+Marble was rare. The columns constructed of bricks were covered with a
+stucco that offered a fine surface for painting. Pompeii had been a
+polychrome city. All the columns, red or yellow, had capitals of divers
+colors. The center of the walls was generally occupied with a little
+picture, usually erotic, painted on black varnished walls varied with
+red and amber hues. On the friezes were processions of cupids and
+tritons, between rustic and maritime emblems.
+
+Tired of his excursion through the dead city, Ferragut seated himself
+on a stone bench among the ruins of the temple, and looked over the map
+spread out on his knees, enjoying the titles with which the most
+interesting constructions had been designated because of a mosaic or a
+painting,--Villa of Diomedes, the House of Meleager, of the wounded
+Adonis, of the Labryinth, of the Faun, of the Black Wall. The names of
+the streets were not less interesting: The Road of the Hot Baths, the
+Road of the Tombs, the Road of Abundance, the Road of the Theaters.
+
+The sound of footsteps made the sailor raise his head. Two ladies were
+passing, preceded by a guide. One was tall, with a firm tread. They
+were wearing face-veils and still another larger veil crossing behind
+and coming over the arms like a shawl. Ferragut surmised a great
+difference in the ages of the two. The stout one was moving along with
+an assumed gravity. Her step was quick, but with a certain authority
+she planted on the ground her large feet, loosely shod and with low
+heels. The younger one, taller and more slender, tripping onwards with
+little steps like a bird that only knows how to fly, was teetering
+along on high heels.
+
+The two looked uneasily at this man appearing so unexpectedly among the
+ruins. They had the preoccupied and timorous air of those going to a
+forbidden place or meditating a bad action. Their first movement was an
+impulse to go back, but the guide continued on his way so imperturbably
+that they followed on.
+
+Ferragut smiled. He knew where they were going. The little cross street
+of the _Lupanares_ was near. The guard would open a door, remaining on
+watch with dramatic anxiety as though he were endangering his job by
+this favor in exchange for a tip. And the two ladies were about to see
+some tarnished, clumsy paintings showing nothing new or original in the
+world,--nude, yellowish figures, just alike at first glance with no
+other novelty than an exaggerated emphasis on sex distinction.
+
+Half an hour afterwards Ulysses abandoned his bench, for his eyes had
+tired of the severe monotony of the ruins. In the street of the Hot
+Baths (_Thermae_), he again visited the house of the tragic poet. Then
+he admired that of Pansa, the largest and most luxurious in the city.
+This Pansa had undoubtedly been the most pretentious citizen of
+Pompeii. His dwelling occupied an entire block. The _xystus_, or
+garden, adjoining the house had been laid out like a Grecian landscape
+with cypresses and laurels between squares of roses and violets.
+
+Following along the exterior wall of the garden, Ferragut again met the
+two ladies. They were looking at the flowers across the bars of the
+door. The younger one was expressing in English her admiration for some
+roses that were flinging their royal color around the pedestal of an
+old faun.
+
+Ulysses felt an irresistible desire to show off in a gallant and
+intrepid fashion. He wished to pay the two foreign ladies some
+theatrical homage. He felt that necessity of attracting attention in
+some gay and dashing way that characterizes Spaniards far from home.
+
+With the agility of a mast-climber, he leaped the garden wall in one
+bound. The two ladies gave a cry of surprise, as though they had
+witnessed some impossible maneuver. This audacity appeared to upset the
+ideas of the older one, accustomed to life in disciplined towns that
+rigidly respect every established prohibition. Her first movement was
+of flight, so as not to be mixed up in the escapade of this stranger.
+But after a few steps she paused. The younger one was smiling, looking
+at the wall, and as the captain reappeared upon it she almost clapped
+with enthusiasm as though applauding a dangerous acrobatic feat.
+
+Believing them to be English, the sailor spoke in that language when
+presenting to them the two roses that he carried in his hand. They were
+merely flowers, like all others, grown in a land like other lands, but
+the frame of the thousand-year-old wall, the propinquity of the alcoves
+and drinking shops of a house built by Pansa in the time of the first
+Caesars, gave them the interest of roses two thousand years old,
+miraculously preserved.
+
+The largest and most luxuriant he gave to the young woman, and she
+accepted it smilingly as her natural right. Her companion as soon as
+she acknowledged the gift, appeared impatient to get away from the
+stranger. "Thanks!... Thanks!" And she pushed along the other one, who
+had not yet finished smiling,--the two going hurriedly away. A corner
+adorned with a fountain soon hid their steps.
+
+When Ulysses, after a light lunch in the restaurant of Diomedes, came
+running to the station, the train was just about to start. He was
+planning to see Salerno, celebrated in the Middle Ages for its
+physicians and navigators, and then the ruined temples of Paestum. As
+he climbed into the nearest coach, he fancied that he spied the veils
+of the two ladies vanishing behind a little door that was just closing.
+
+In the station of Salerno he again caught sight of them in a distant
+hack disappearing in a neighboring street, and during the afternoon he
+frequently ran across them as travelers will in a small city. They met
+one another in the harbor, so fatally threatened with bars of moving
+sand; they saw each other in the gardens bordering the sea, near the
+monument of Carlo Pisacana, the romantic duke of San Juan, a precursor
+of Garibaldi, who died in extreme youth for the liberty of Italy.
+
+The young woman smiled whenever she met him. Her companion passed on
+with a casual glance, trying to ignore his presence.
+
+At night they saw more of each other, as they were stopping at the same
+hotel, a lodging house like all those in the small ports with excellent
+meals and dirty rooms. They had adjoining tables, and after a coldly
+acknowledged greeting, Ferragut had a good look at the two ladies who
+were speaking very little and in a low tone, fearing to be overheard by
+their neighbor.
+
+Upon looking at the older one without her veils, he found his original
+impression confirmed. In other times, perhaps, she might have destroyed
+the peace of male admirers, but she could now continue her hostile and
+distant attitude with impunity. The captain was not at all affected by
+it.
+
+She must have been over forty. Her excessive flesh still had a certain
+freshness, the result of hygienic care and gymnastic exercise. On the
+other hand, her white complexion showed underneath it a yellowish
+subcutaneous, granular condition that looked as though made up of
+particles of bran. Upon her ancient switch, reddish in tone, were piled
+artificial curls hiding bald spots and gray hairs. Her green pupils,
+when freed from their near-sighted glasses, had the tranquil opacity of
+ox-eyes; but the minute these gold-mounted crystals were placed between
+her and the outer world, the two glaucous drops took on a sharpness
+which fairly perforated persons and objects. At other times they
+appeared a glacial and haughty void, like the circle that a sword
+traces.
+
+The young woman was less intractable. She appeared to be smiling out of
+the corners of her eyes, while her back was half turned to Ferragut,
+acknowledging his mute and scrutinizing admiration. She had her hair
+loosely arranged like a woman who is not afraid of naturalness in her
+coiffure, and lets her waving locks peep out under her hat in all their
+original willfulness.
+
+She was a dainty ash-blonde with a high color in striking contrast to
+her general delicacy of tone. Her great, almond-shaped, black eyes
+appeared like those of an Oriental dancer, and were yet further
+prolonged by skillful retouching of shadows that augmented the
+seductive contrast with her dull gold hair.
+
+The whiteness of her skin became very evident when her arm showed
+outside her sleeve and at the opening of her low-necked dress. But this
+whiteness was now temporarily effaced by a ruddy mask. Her vigorous
+beauty had been fearlessly exposed to the sun and the breath of the
+sea, and a scarlet triangle emphasized the sweet curve of her bosom,
+accentuating the low cut of her gown. Upon her sunburned throat a
+necklace of pearls hung in moonlight drops. Further up, in a face
+tanned by the inclemency of the weather, the mouth parted its two
+scarlet, bow-shaped lips with an audacious and serene smile, showing
+the reflection of her strong and handsome teeth.
+
+Ferragut reviewed his past without finding a single woman that could be
+exactly compared with her. The distant perfume of her person and her
+genteel elegance reminded him of certain dubious ladies who were always
+traveling alone when he was captain of the transatlantic liners. But
+these acquaintances had been so rapid and were so far away!... Never in
+his history as a world-rover had he had the good luck to chance upon a
+woman just like this one.
+
+Again exchanging glances with her, he felt that throb in the heart and
+flash in the brain which accompany a lightning-like and unexpected
+discovery... He had known that woman: he could not recall where he had
+seen her, but he was sure that he must have known her.
+
+Her face told his memory nothing, but those eyes had exchanged glances
+with his on other occasions. In vain he reflected, concentrating his
+thoughts.... And the queer thing about it all was that, by some
+mysterious perception, he became absolutely certain that she was doing
+the same thing at the very same moment. She also had recognized him,
+and was evidently making great effort to give him a name and place in
+her memory. He had only to notice the frequency with which she turned
+her eyes toward him and her new smile, more confident and spontaneous,
+such as she would give to an old friend.
+
+Had her dragon not been present, they would have talked together
+enthusiastically, instinctively, like two restless, curious beings
+wishing to clear up the mystery; but the gold-rimmed glasses were
+always gleaming authoritatively and inimically, coming between the two.
+Several times the fat lady spoke in a language that reached Ferragut
+confusedly and which was not English, and their dinner was hardly
+finished before they disappeared just as they had done in the streets
+of Pompeii,--the older one evidently influencing the other with her
+iron will.
+
+The following morning they all met again in a first-class coach in the
+station of Salerno. Undoubtedly they had the same destination. As
+Ferragut began to greet them, the hostile dame deigned to return his
+salutation, looking then at her companion with a questioning
+expression. The sailor guessed that during the night they had been
+discussing him while he, under the same roof, had been struggling
+uselessly, before falling asleep, to concentrate his recollections.
+
+He never knew with certainty just how the conversation began. He found
+himself suddenly talking in English with the younger one, just as on
+the preceding morning. She, with the audacity that quickly makes the
+best of a dubious situation, asked him if he was a sailor. And upon
+receiving an affirmative response, she then asked if he was Spanish.
+
+"Yes, Spanish."
+
+Ferragut's answer was followed by a triumphant glance toward the
+chaperone, who seemed to relax a little and lose her hostile attitude.
+And for the first time she smiled upon the captain with her mouth of
+bluish-rose color, her white skin sprinkled with yellow, and her
+glasses of phosphorescent splendor.
+
+Meanwhile, the young woman was talking on and on, verifying her
+extraordinary powers of memory.
+
+She had traveled all over the world without forgetting a single one of
+the places which she had seen. She was able to repeat the titles of the
+eighty great hotels in which those who make the world's circuit may
+stay. Upon meeting with an old traveling companion, she always
+recognized his face immediately, no matter how short a time she had
+seen him, and oftentimes she could even recall his name. This last was
+what she had been puzzling over, wrinkling her brows with the mental
+effort.
+
+"You are a captain?... Your name is?..."
+
+And she smiled suddenly as her doubts came to an end.
+
+"Your name is," she said positively, "Captain Ulysses Ferragut."
+
+In long and agreeable silence she relished the sailor's astonishment.
+Then, as though she pitied his stupefaction, she made further
+explanations. She had made a trip from Buenos Ayres to Barcelona in a
+steamship which he had commanded.
+
+"That was six years ago," she added. "No; seven years ago."
+
+Ferragut, who had been the first to suspect a former acquaintance,
+could not recall this woman's name and place among the innumerable
+passengers that filled his memory. He thought, nevertheless, that he
+must lie for gallantry's sake, insisting that he remembered her well.
+
+"No, Captain; you do not remember me. I was accompanied by my husband
+and you never looked at me.... All your attentions on that trip were
+devoted to a very handsome widow from Brazil."
+
+She said this in Spanish, a smooth, sing-song Spanish learned in South
+America, to which her foreign accent contributed a certain childish
+charm. Then she added coquettishly:
+
+"I know you, Captain. Always the same!... That affair of the rose at
+Pompeii was very well done.... It was just like you."
+
+The grave lady of the glasses, finding herself forgotten, and unable to
+understand a word of the new language employed in the conversation, now
+spoke aloud, rolling her eyes in her enthusiasm.
+
+"Oh, Spain!..." she said in English. "The land of knightly
+gentlemen.... Cervantes ... Lope!... The Cid!..."
+
+She stopped hunting for more celebrities. Suddenly she seized the
+sailor's arm, exclaiming as energetically as though she had just made a
+discovery through the little door of the coach. "Calderon de la Barca!"
+Ferragut saluted her. "Yes, Senora." After that the younger woman
+thought that it was necessary to present her companion.
+
+"Doctor Fedelmann.... A very wise woman distinguished in philology and
+literature."
+
+After clasping the doctor's hand, Ferragut indiscreetly set himself to
+work to gather information.
+
+"The Senora is German?" he said in Spanish to the younger one.
+
+The gold-rimmed spectacles appeared to guess the question and shot a
+restless gleam at her companion.
+
+"No," she replied. "My friend is a Russian, or rather a Pole."
+
+"And you, are you Polish, too?" continued the sailor.
+
+"No, I am Italian."
+
+In spite of the assurance with which she said this, Ferragut felt
+tempted to exclaim, "You little liar!" Then, as he gazed upon the full,
+black, audacious eyes fixed upon him, he began to doubt.... Perhaps she
+was telling the truth.
+
+Again he found himself interrupted by the wordiness of the doctor. She
+was now speaking in French, repeating her eulogies on Ferragut's
+country. She could read Castilian in the classic works, but she would
+not venture to speak it. "Ah, Spain! Country of noble traditions...."
+And then, seeking to relieve these eulogies by some strong contrast,
+she twisted her face into a wrathful expression.
+
+The train was running along the coast, having on one side the blue
+desert of the Gulf of Salerno, and on the other the red and green
+mountains dotted with white villages and hamlets. The doctor took it
+all in with her gleaming glasses.
+
+"A country of bandits," she said, clenching her fists. "Country of
+mandolin-twangers, without honor and without gratitude!..."
+
+The girl laughed at this outburst with that hilarity of
+light-heartedness in which no impressions are durable, considering as
+of no importance anything which does not bear directly upon its own
+egoism.
+
+From a few words that the two ladies let fall, Ulysses inferred that
+they had been living in Rome and had only been in Naples a short time,
+perhaps against their will. The younger one was well acquainted with
+the country, and her companion was taking advantage of this enforced
+journey in order to see what she had so many times admired in books.
+
+The three alighted in the station of Battipaglia in order to take the
+train for Paestum. It was a rather long wait, and the sailor invited
+them to go into the restaurant, a little wooden shanty impregnated with
+the double odor of resin and wine.
+
+This shack reminded both Ferragut and the young woman of the houses
+improvised on the South American deserts; and again they began to speak
+of their oceanic voyage. She finally consented to satisfy the captain's
+curiosity.
+
+"My husband was a professor, a scholar like the doctor.... We were a
+year in Patagonia, making scientific explorations."
+
+She had made the dangerous journey through an ocean of desert plains
+that had spread themselves out before them as the expedition advanced;
+she had slept in ranch houses whose roofs shed bloodthirsty insects;
+she had traveled on horseback through whirlwinds of sand that had
+shaken her from the saddle; she had suffered the tortures of hunger and
+thirst when losing the way, and she had passed nights in intemperate
+weather with no other bed than her poncho and the trappings of the
+horses. Thus they had explored those lakes of the Andes between
+Argentina and Chile that guard in their pure and untouched desert
+solitude the mystery of the earliest days of creation.
+
+Rovers over these virgin lands, shepherds and bandits, used to talk of
+glimpses of gigantic animals at nightfall on the shores of the lakes
+devouring entire meadows with one gulp; and the doctor, like many other
+sages, had believed in the possibility of finding a surviving
+prehistoric animal, a beast of the monstrous herds anterior to the
+coming of man, still dwelling in this unexplored section of the planet.
+
+They saw skeletons dozens of yards long in the foot-hills of the
+Cordilleras so frequently agitated by volcanic cataclysms. In the
+neighborhood of the lakes the guides pointed out to them the hides of
+devoured herds, and enormous mountains of dried material that appeared
+to have been deposited by some monster. But no matter how far they
+penetrated into the solitude, they were always unable to find any
+living descendant of prehistoric fauna.
+
+The sailor listened absent-mindedly, thinking of something else that
+was quickening his curiosity.
+
+"And you, what is your name?" he said suddenly.
+
+The two women laughed at this question, amusing because so unexpected.
+
+"Call me Freya. It is a Wagnerian name. It means the earth, and at the
+same time liberty.... Do you like Wagner?"
+
+And before he could reply she added in Spanish, with a Creole accent
+and flashing eyes:
+
+"Call me, if you wish, 'the merry widow.' The poor doctor died as soon
+as we returned to Europe."
+
+The three had to run to catch the train ready to start for Paestum. The
+landscape was changing on both sides of the way, as now they were
+crossing over marshy portions of land. On the soft meadows flocks of
+buffaloes, rude animals that appeared carved out in hatchet strokes,
+were wading and grazing.
+
+The doctor spoke of Paestum, the ancient Poseidonia, the city of
+Neptune, founded by the Greeks of Sybaris six centuries before Christ.
+
+Commercial prosperity once dominated the entire coast. The gulf of
+Salerno was called by the Romans the Gulf of Paestum. And this city
+with mountains like those of Athens had suddenly become extinguished
+without being swallowed up by the sea, and with no volcano to cover it
+with ashes.
+
+Fever, the miasma of the fens, had been the deadly lava for this
+Pompeii. The poisonous air had caused the inhabitants to flee, and the
+few who insisted upon living within the shadow of the ancient temples
+had had to escape from the Saracen invasions, founding in the
+neighboring mountains a new country--the humble town of Capaccio
+Vecchio. Then the Norman kings, forerunners of Frederick II (the father
+of Dona Constanza, the empress beloved by Ferragut), had plundered the
+entire deserted city, carrying off with them its columns and sculpture.
+
+All the medieval constructions of the kingdom of Naples were the spoils
+of Paestum. The doctor recalled the cathedral of Salerno, seen the
+afternoon before, where Hildebrand, the most tenacious and ambitious of
+the popes, was buried. Its columns, its sarcophagi, its bas-reliefs had
+come from this Grecian city, forgotten for centuries and centuries
+and only in modern times--thanks to the antiquarians and
+artists--recovering its fame.
+
+In the station of Paestum, the wife of the only employee looked
+curiously at this group arriving after the war had blocked off the
+trail of tourists.
+
+Freya spoke to her, interested in her malarial and resigned aspect.
+They were yet in good time. The spring sun was warming up these
+lowlands just as in midsummer, but she was still able to resist it.
+Later, during the summer, the guards of the ruins and the workmen in
+the excavations would have to flee to their homes in the mountains,
+handing the country over to the reptiles and insects of the marshy
+fields.
+
+The lodging keeper and his wife in the little station were the only
+evidences of humankind still able to exist in this solitude, trembling
+with fever, trying to endure the corrupt air, the poisonous sting of
+the mosquito, and the solar fire that was sucking from the mud the
+vapors of death. Every two years this humble stopping place through
+which passed the lucky ones of the earth,--the millionaires of two
+hemispheres, beautiful and curious dames, rulers of nations, and great
+artists,--was obliged to change its station-master.
+
+The three tourists passed near the remains of an aqueduct and an
+antique pavement. Then they went through the _Porta della Sirena_, an
+entrance arch into a forgotten quarter of the city, and continued along
+a road bordered on one side by marshy lands of exuberant vegetation and
+on the other by the long mud wall of a grange, through whose mortar
+were sticking out fragments of stones or columns. On turning the last
+corner, the imposing spectacle of the dead city, still surviving in the
+magnificent proportions of its temples, presented itself to view.
+
+There were three of these temples, and their colonnades stood forth
+like mast heads of ships becalmed in a sea of verdure. The doctor,
+guide-book in hand, was pointing them out with masterly authority--that
+was Neptune's, that Ceres', and that was called the Basilica without
+any special reason.
+
+Their grandeur, their solidity, their elegance made the edifices of
+Rome sink into insignificance. Athens alone could compare the monuments
+of her Acropolis with these temples of the most severe Doric style.
+That of Neptune had well preserved its lofty and massive columns,--as
+close together as the trees of a nursery,--enormous trunks of stone
+that still sustained the high entablature, the jutting cornice and the
+two triangular walls of its facades. The stone had taken on the mellow
+color of the cloudless countries where the sun toasts readily and the
+rain does not deposit a grimy coating.
+
+The doctor recalled the departed beauties and the old covering of these
+colossal skeletons,--the fine and compact coating of stucco which had
+closed the pores of the stone, giving it a superficial smoothness like
+marble,--the vivid colors of its flutings and walls making the antique
+city a mass of polychrome monuments. This gay decoration had become
+volatilized through the centuries and its colors, borne away by the
+wind, had fallen like a rain of dust upon a land in ruins.
+
+Following an old guard, they climbed the blue, tiled steps of the
+temple of Neptune. Above, within four rows of columns, was the real
+sanctuary, the _cella_. Their footsteps on the tiled flags, separated
+by deep cracks filled with grass, awoke all the animal world that was
+drowsing there in the sun.
+
+These actual inhabitants of the city,--enormous lizards with green
+backs covered with black warts,--ran in all directions. In their flight
+they scurried blindly over the feet of the visitors. The doctor raised
+her skirts in order to avoid them, at the same time breaking into
+nervous laughter to hide her terror.
+
+Suddenly Freya gave a cry, pointing to the base of the ancient altar.
+An ebony-hued snake, his sides dotted with red spots, was slowly and
+solemnly uncoiling his circles upon the stones. The sailor raised his
+cane, but before he could strike he felt his arm grasped by two nervous
+hands. Freya was throwing herself upon him with a pallid face and eyes
+dilated with fear and entreaty.
+
+"No, Captain!... Leave it alone!"
+
+Ulysses thrilled upon feeling the contact of her firm, curving bosom
+and noting her respiration, her warm breath charged with distant
+perfume. It would have suited him if she had remained in this position
+a long time, but Freya freed herself in order to advance toward the
+reptile, coaxing it and holding out her hands to it as though she were
+trying to caress a domestic animal. The black tail of the serpent was
+just slipping away and disappearing between two square tiles. The
+doctor who had fled down the steps at this apparition, by her repeated
+calls, obliged Freya also to descend.
+
+The captain's aggressive attitude awoke in his companion a nervous
+animosity. She believed she knew this reptile. It was undoubtedly the
+divinity of the dead temple that had changed its form in order to live
+among the ruins. This serpent must be twenty centuries old. If it had
+not been for Ferragut she would have been able to have taken it up in
+her hands.... She would have spoken to it.... She was accustomed to
+converse with others....
+
+Ulysses was about to express his doubts rudely as to the mental
+equilibrium of the exasperated widow when the doctor interrupted them.
+She was contemplating the swampy plains of acanthus and ferns trembling
+under the shrill chirping of the cicadas, and this spectacle of green
+desolation made her recall the roses of Paestum of which the poets of
+ancient Rome had sung. She even recited some Latin verses, translating
+them to her hearers so as to make them understand that the rose bushes
+of this land used to bloom twice a year. Freya smoothed out her brow
+and began to smile again. She forgot her recent ill humor and expressed
+a great longing for one of the marvelous rose bushes: and at this
+caprice of childish vehemence, Ferragut spoke to the custodian with
+authority. He had to have at once a rose bush from Paestum, cost what
+it might.
+
+The old fellow made a bored gesture. Everybody asked the same thing,
+and he who belonged to that country had never seen a rose of
+Paestum.... Sometimes, just in order to satisfy the whim of tourists,
+he would bring rose bushes from Capaccio Vecchio and other mountain
+villages,--rose bushes just like others with no difference except in
+price.... But he didn't wish to take advantage of anybody. He was sad
+and greatly troubled over the possibility of war.
+
+"I have eight sons," he said to the doctor, because she seemed to be
+the most suitable one to receive his confidences. "If they mobilize the
+army, six of them will leave me."
+
+And he added with resignation:
+
+"That's the way it ought to be if we would end forever, in one blow,
+our eternal enmity with the Goth. My sons will battle against them,
+just as my father fought."
+
+The doctor stalked haughtily away, and then said in a low voice to her
+companions that the old guard was an imbecile.
+
+They wandered for two hours through the ancient district of the
+city,--exploring the network of its streets, the ruins of the
+amphitheater and the _Porta Aurea_ which opened upon a road flanked
+with tombs. By the _Porta di Mare_ they climbed to the walls, ramparts
+of great limestone blocks, extending a distance of five kilometers. The
+sea, which from the lowlands had looked like a narrow blue band, now
+appeared immense and luminous,--a solitary sea with a feather-like
+crest of smoke, without a sail, given completely over to the sea-gulls.
+
+The doctor walked stiffly ahead of them, still ill-humored about the
+guide's remark and consulting the pages of her guide book. Behind her
+Ulysses came close up to Freya, recalling their former contact.
+
+He thought that it would be an easy matter now to get possession of
+this capricious and free-mannered woman. "Sure thing, Captain!" The
+rapid triumphs that he had always had in his journeys assured him that
+there was not the slightest doubt of success. It was enough for him to
+see the widow's smile, her passionate eyes, and the little tricks of
+malicious coquetry with which she responded to his gallant advances.
+"Forward, sea-wolf!"... He took her hand while she was speaking of the
+beauty of the solitary sea, and the hand yielded without protest to his
+caressing fingers. The doctor was far away and, sighing hypocritically,
+he encircled Freya's waist with his other arm while he inclined his
+head upon her open throat as though he were going to kiss her pearls.
+
+In spite of his strength, he found himself energetically repulsed and
+saw Freya freed from his arms, two steps away, looking upon him with
+hostile eyes that he had not noticed before.
+
+"None of your child's play, Captain!... It is useless with me.... You
+are just wasting time."
+
+And she said no more. Her stiffness and her silence during the rest of
+the walk made the sailor understand the enormity of his mistake. In
+vain he tried to keep beside the widow. She always maneuvered that the
+doctor should come between the two.
+
+Upon returning to the station they took refuge from the heat in a
+little waiting room with dusty velvet divans. In order to beguile the
+time while waiting for the train, Freya took from her handbag a gold
+cigarette-case and the light smoke of Egyptian tobacco charged with
+opium whirled among the shafts of sunlight from the partly-opened
+windows.
+
+Ferragut, who had gone out in order to ascertain the exact hour of the
+arrival of the train, on returning stopped near the door, amazed at the
+animation with which the two ladies were speaking in a new language.
+Recollections of Hamburg and Bremen came surging up in his memory. His
+companions were talking German with the ease of a familiar idiom. At
+sight of the sailor, they instantly continued their conversation in
+English.
+
+Wishing to take part in the dialogue, he asked Freya how many languages
+she spoke.
+
+"Very few,--no more than eight. The doctor, perhaps, knows twenty. She
+knows the languages of people who passed away many centuries ago."
+
+And the young woman said this with gravity, without looking at him, as
+though she had lost forever that smile of a light woman which had so
+deceived Ferragut.
+
+In the train she became more like a human being, even losing her
+offended manner. They were soon going to separate. The doctor grew less
+and less approachable as the cars rolled towards Salerno. It was the
+chilliness that appears among companions of a day, when the hour of
+separation approaches and each one draws into himself, not to be seen
+any more.
+
+Words fell flat, like bits of ice, without finding any echo in their
+fall. At each turn of the wheel, the imposing lady became more reserved
+and silent. Everything had been said. They, too, were going to remain
+in Salerno in order to take a carriage-trip along the gulf. They were
+going to Amalfi and would pass the night on the Alpine peak of Ravello,
+a medieval city where Wagner had passed the last months of his life,
+before dying in Venice. Then, passing over to the Gulf of Naples, they
+would rest in Sorrento and perhaps might go to the island of Capri.
+
+Ulysses wished to say that his line of march was exactly the same, but
+he was afraid of the doctor. Furthermore, their trip was to be in a
+vehicle which they had already rented and they would not offer him a
+seat.
+
+Freya appeared to surmise his sadness and wished to console him.
+
+"It is a short trip. No more than three days.... Soon we shall be in
+Naples."
+
+The farewell in Salerno was brief. The doctor was careful not to
+mention their stopping-place. For her, the friendship was ending then
+and there.
+
+"It is probable that we shall run across each other again," she said
+laconically. "It is only the mountains that never meet."
+
+Her young companion was more explicit, mentioning the hotel on the
+shores of S. Lucia in which she lodged.
+
+Standing by the step of the carriage, he saw them take their departure,
+just as he had seen them appear in a street of Pompeii. The doctor was
+lost behind a screen of glass, talking with the coachman who had come
+to meet them. Freya, before disappearing, turned to give him a faint
+smile and then raised her gloved hand with a stiff forefinger,
+threatening him just as though he were a mischievous and bold child.
+
+Finding himself alone in the compartment that was carrying toward
+Naples the traces and perfumes of the absent one, Ulysses felt as
+downcast as though he were returning from a burial, as if he had just
+lost one of the props of his life.
+
+His appearance on board the _Mare Nostrum_ was regarded as a calamity.
+He was capricious and intractable, complaining of Toni and the other
+two officials because they were not hastening repairs on the vessel. In
+the same breath he said it would be better not to hurry things too
+much, so that the job would be better done. Even Caragol was the victim
+of his bad humor which flamed forth in the form of cruel sermons
+against those addicted to the poison of alcohol.
+
+"When men need to be cheered up, they have to have something better
+than wine. That which brings greater ecstasy than drink ... is woman,
+Uncle Caragol. Don't forget this counsel!"
+
+Through mere force of habit the cook replied, "That is so, my
+captain...." But down in his heart he was pitying the ignorance of
+those men who concentrate all their happiness on the whims and grimaces
+of this most frivolous of toys.
+
+Two days afterwards those on board drew a long breath when they saw the
+captain taken ashore. The ship was moored in a very uncomfortable
+place,--near some that were discharging coal,--with the stern shored up
+so that the screw of the steamer might be repaired. The workmen were
+replacing the damaged and broken plates with ceaseless hammering. Since
+they would undoubtedly have to wait nearly a month, it would be much
+more convenient for the owner to go to a hotel; so he sent his baggage
+to the _Albergo Partenope_, on the ancient shore of S. Lucia,--the very
+one that Freya had mentioned.
+
+Upon installing himself in an upper room, with a view of the blue
+circle of the gulf framed by the outlines of the balcony, Ferragut's
+first move was to change a bill for five liras into coppers,
+preparatory to asking various questions. The jaundiced and mustached
+steward listened to him attentively with the complacency of a
+go-between, and at last was able to formulate a complete personality
+with all its data. The lady for whom he was inquiring was the _Signora_
+Talberg. She was at present away on an excursion, but she might return
+at any moment.
+
+Ulysses passed an entire day with the tranquillity of one who awaits at
+a sure place, gazing at the gulf from the balcony. Below him was the
+_Castello dell' Ovo_ connected with the land by a bridge.
+
+The _bersaglieri_ were occupying their ancient castle, work of the
+viceroy, Pedro of Toledo. Many turrets of dark rose color were crowded
+together upon this narrow, egg-shaped island, where, in other days, the
+pusillanimous Spanish garrison was locked in the fortress for the
+purpose of aiming bombards and culverins at the Neapolitans when they
+no longer wished to pay taxes and imposts. Its walls had been raised
+upon the ruins of another castle in which Frederick II had guarded his
+treasures, and whose chapel Giotto had painted. And the medieval castle
+of which only the memory now remained had, in its turn, been erected
+upon the remnants of the Palace of Lucullus, who had located the center
+of his celebrated gardens in this little island, then called _Megaris_.
+
+The cornets of the _bersaglieri_ rejoiced the captain like the
+announcement of a triumphal entry. "She's going to come! She's going to
+come at any moment!..." And he would look across the double mountain of
+the island of Capri, black in the distance, closing the gulf like a
+promontory, and the coast of Sorrento as rectilinear as a wall. "There
+she is...." Then he would lovingly follow the course of the little
+steamboats plowing across the immense blue surface, opening a triangle
+of foam. In some of these Freya must be coming.
+
+The first day was golden and full of hope. The sun was sparkling in a
+cloudless sky, and the gulf was foaming with bubbles of light under an
+atmosphere so calm that not the slightest zephyr was rippling its
+surface. The smoke plume of Vesuvius was upright and slender, expanding
+upon the horizon like a pine tree of white vapor. At the foot of the
+balcony the strolling musicians kept succeeding each other from time to
+time, singing voluptuous barcarolles and love serenades.... And--she
+did not come!
+
+The second day was silvery and desperate. There was fog on the gulf;
+the sun was no more than a reddish disk such as one sees in the
+northern countries; the mountains were clothed with lead; the clouds
+were hiding the cone of the volcano; the sea appeared to be made of
+tin, and a chilly wind was distending sails, skirts, and overcoats,
+making the people scurry along the promenade and the shore. The
+musicians continued their singing but with melancholy sighs in the
+shelter of a corner, to keep out of the furious blasts from the sea.
+"To die.... To die for thee!" a baritone voice groaned between the
+harps and violins. And--she came!
+
+Upon learning from the waiter that the _signora_ Talberg was in her
+room on the floor below, Ulysses thrilled with restlessness. What would
+she say upon finding him installed in her hotel?...
+
+The luncheon hour was at hand, and he impatiently awaited the usual
+signals before going down to the dining room. First an explosion would
+be heard behind the _albergo_ making the walls and roofs tremble,
+swelling out into the immensity of the gulf. That was the midday
+cannonade from the high castle of S. Elmo. Then cornets from the
+_Castello dell' Ovo_ would respond with their joyous call to the
+smoking _olio_, and up the stairway of the hotel would come the beating
+of the Chinese gong, announcing that luncheon was served.
+
+Ulysses went down to take his place at table, looking in vain at the
+other guests who had preceded him. Freya perhaps was going to come in
+with the delay of a traveler who has just arrived and has been occupied
+in freshening her toilet.
+
+He lunched badly, looking continually at a great glass doorway
+decorated with pictures of boats, fishes, and sea gulls, and every time
+its polychromatic leaves parted, his food seemed to stick in his
+throat. Finally came the end of the lunch, and he slowly sipped his
+coffee. She did not appear.
+
+On returning to his room, he sent the whiskered steward in search of
+news.... The _signora_ had not lunched in the hotel; the _signora_ had
+gone out while he was in the dining-room. Surely she would show herself
+in the evening.
+
+At dinner time he had the same unpleasant experience, believing that
+Freya was going to appear every time that an unknown hand or a vague
+silhouette of a woman pushed the door open from the other side of the
+opaque glass.
+
+He strolled up and down the vestibule a long time, chewing rabidly on a
+cigar, and finally decided to accost the porter, an astute brunette
+whose blue lapels embroidered with keys of gold were peeping over the
+edge of his writing desk, taking in everything, informing himself of
+everything, while he appeared to be asleep.
+
+The approach of Ulysses made him spring up as though he heard the
+rustling of paper money. His information was very precise. The
+_signora_ Talberg very seldom ate at the hotel. She had some friends
+who were occupying a furnished flat in the district of Chiaja, with
+whom she usually passed almost the entire day. Sometimes she did not
+even return to sleep.... And he again sat down, his hand closing
+tightly upon the bill which his imagination had foreseen.
+
+After a bad night Ulysses arose, resolved to await the widow at the
+entrance to the hotel. He took his breakfast at a little table in the
+vestibule, read the newspaper, had to go to the door in order to avoid
+the morning cleaning, pursued by the dust of brooms and shaken rugs.
+And once there, he pretended to take great interest in the wandering
+musicians, who dedicated their love songs and serenades to him, rolling
+up the whites of their eyes upon presenting their hats for coins.
+
+Some one came to keep him company. It was the porter who now appeared
+very familiar and confidential, as though since the preceding night a
+firm friendship, based upon their secret, had sprung up between the
+two.
+
+He spoke of the beauties of the country, counseling the Spaniard to
+take divers excursions.... A smile, an encouraging word from Ferragut,
+and he would have immediately proposed other recreations whose
+announcement appeared to be fluttering around his lips. But the sailor
+repelled all such amiability, glowering with displeasure. This vulgar
+fellow was going to spoil with his presence the longed-for meeting.
+Perhaps he was hanging around just to see and to know.... And taking
+advantage of one of his brief absences, Ulysses went off down the long
+_Via Partenope_, following the parapet that extends along the coast,
+pretending to be interested in everything that he met, but without
+losing sight of the door of the hotel.
+
+He stopped before the oystermen's stands, examining the valves of
+pearly shells piled up on the shelves, the baskets of oysters from
+Fusaro and the enormous conch-shells in whose hollow throats, according
+to the peddlers, the distant roll of the sea was echoing like a
+haunting memory. One by one he looked at all the motor launches, the
+little regatta skiffs, the fishing barks, and the coast schooners
+anchored in the quiet harbor of the island _dell' Ova_. He stood a long
+time quietly watching the gentle waves that were combing their foam on
+the rocks of the dikes under the horizontal fishing rods of various
+fishermen.
+
+Suddenly he saw Freya following the avenue beside the houses. She
+recognized him at once and this discovery made her stop near a
+street-opening, hesitating whether to continue on or to flee toward the
+interior of Naples. Then she came over to the seaside pavement,
+approaching Ferragut with a placid smile, greeting him afar off, like a
+friend whose presence is only to be expected.
+
+Such assurance rather disconcerted the captain. They shook hands and
+she asked him calmly what he was doing there looking at the waves, and
+if the repairs of his boat were progressing satisfactorily.
+
+"But admit that my presence has surprised you!" said Ulysses, rather
+irritated by this tranquillity. "Confess that you were not expecting to
+find me here."
+
+Freya repeated her smiles with an expression of sweet compassion.
+
+"It is natural that I should find you here. You are in your district,
+within sight of a hotel.... We are neighbors."
+
+In order more thoroughly to amuse herself with the captain's
+astonishment, she made a long pause. Then she added:
+
+"I saw your name on the list of arrivals yesterday, on my return to the
+hotel. I always look them over. It pleases me to know who my neighbors
+are."
+
+"And for that reason you did not come down to the dining-room?..."
+
+Ulysses asked this question hoping that she would respond negatively.
+She could not answer it in any other way, if only for good manners'
+sake.
+
+"Yes, for that reason," Freya replied simply. "I guessed that you were
+waiting to meet me and I did not wish to go into the dining-room.... I
+give you fair warning that I shall always do the same."
+
+Ulysses uttered an "Ah!" of amazement.... No woman had ever spoken to
+him with such frankness.
+
+"Neither has your presence here surprised me," she continued. "I was
+expecting it. I know the innocent wiles of you men. 'Since he did not
+find me in the hotel, he will wait for me to-day in the street,' I said
+to myself, upon arising this morning.... Before coming out, I was
+following your footsteps from the window of my room...."
+
+Ferragut looked at her in surprise and dismay. What a woman!...
+
+"I might have escaped through any cross street while your back was
+turned. I saw you before you saw me.... But these false situations
+stretching along indefinitely are distasteful to me. It is better to
+speak the entire truth face to face.... And therefore I have come to
+meet you...."
+
+Instinct made him turn his head toward the hotel. The porter was
+standing at the entrance looking out over the sea, but with his eyes
+undoubtedly turned toward them.
+
+"Let us go on," said Freya. "Accompany me a little ways. We shall talk
+together and then you can leave me.... Perhaps we shall separate
+greater friends than ever."
+
+They strolled in silence all the length of the _Via Partenope_ until
+they reached the gardens along the beach of Chiaja, losing sight of the
+hotel. Ferragut wished to renew the conversation, but could not begin
+it. He feared to appear ridiculous. This woman was making him timid.
+
+Looking at her with admiring eyes, he noted the great changes that had
+been made in the adornment of her person. She was no longer clad in the
+dark tailor-made in which he had first seen her. She was wearing a blue
+and white silk gown with a handsome fur over her shoulders and a
+cluster of purple heron feathers on top of her wide hat.
+
+The black hand-bag that had always accompanied her on her journeys had
+been replaced by a gold-meshed one of showy richness,--Australian gold
+of a greenish tone like an overlay of Florentine bronze. In her ears
+were two great, thick emeralds, and on her fingers a half dozen
+diamonds whose facets twinkled in the sunlight. The pearl necklace was
+still on her neck peeping out through the V-shaped opening of her gown.
+It was the magnificent toilet of a rich actress who puts everything on
+herself,--of one so enamored with jewels that she is not able to live
+without their contact, adorning herself with them the minute she is out
+of bed, regardless of the hour and the rules of good taste.
+
+But Ferragut did not take into consideration the unsuitableness of all
+this luxury. Everything about her appeared to him admirable.
+
+Without knowing just how, he began to talk. He was astonished at
+hearing his own voice, saying always the same thing in different words.
+His thoughts were incoherent, but they were all clustered around an
+incessantly repeated statement,--his love, his immense love for Freya.
+
+And Freya continued marching on in silence with a compassionate
+expression in her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. It pleased her
+pride as a woman to contemplate this strong man stuttering in childish
+confusion. At the same time she grew impatient at the monotony of his
+words.
+
+"Don't say any more, Captain," she finally interrupted. "I can guess
+all that you are going to say, and I've heard many times what you have
+said,--You do not sleep--you do not eat--you do not live because of me.
+Your existence is impossible if I do not love you. A little more
+conversation and you will threaten me with shooting yourself, if I am
+not yours.... Same old song! They all say the same thing. There are no
+creatures with less originality than you men when you wish
+something...."
+
+They were in one of the avenues of the promenade. Through the palm
+trees and glossy magnolias the luminous gulf could be seen on one side,
+and on the other the handsome edifices of the beach of Chiaja. Some
+ragged urchins kept running around them and following them, until they
+took refuge in an ornamental little white temple at the end of the
+avenue.
+
+"Very well, then, enamored sea-wolf," continued Freya; "you need not
+sleep, you need not eat, you may kill yourself if the fancy strikes
+you; but I am not able to love you; I shall never love you. You may
+give up all hope; life is not mere diversion and I have other more
+serious occupations that absorb all my time."
+
+In spite of the playful smile with which she accompanied these words,
+Ferragut surmised a very firm will.
+
+"Then," he said in despair, "it will all be useless?... Even though I
+make the greatest sacrifices?... Even though I give proofs of love
+greater than you have ever known?..."
+
+"All useless," she replied roundly, without a sign of a smile.
+
+They paused before the ornamental little temple-shaped building, with
+its dome supported by white columns and a railing around it. The bust
+of Virgil adorned the center,--an enormous head of somewhat feminine
+beauty.
+
+The poet had died in Naples in "Sweet Parthenope," on his return from
+Greece and his body, turned to dust, was perhaps mingled with the soil
+of this garden. The Neapolitan people of the Middle Ages had attributed
+to him all kinds of wonderful things, even transforming the poet into a
+powerful magician. The wizard Virgil in one night had constructed the
+_Castello dell' Ovo_, placing it with his own hands upon a great egg
+(_Ovo_) that was floating in the sea. He also had opened with his magic
+blasts the tunnel of Posilipo near which are a vineyard and a tomb
+visited for centuries as the last resting place of the poet. Little
+scamps, playing around the railing, used to hurl papers and stones
+inside the temple. The white head of the powerful sorcerer attracted
+them and at the same time filled them with admiration and fear.
+
+"Thus far and no further," ordered Freya. "You will continue on your
+way. I am going to the high part of Chiaja.... But before separating as
+good friends, you are going to give me your word not to follow me, not
+to importune me with your amorous attentions, not to mix yourself in my
+life."
+
+Ulysses did not reply, hanging his head in genuine dismay. To his
+disillusion was added the sting of wounded pride. He who had imagined
+such very different things when they should see each other again
+together, alone!...
+
+Freya pitied his sadness.
+
+"Don't be a Baby!... This will soon pass. Think of your business
+affairs, and of your family waiting for you over there in Spain....
+Besides, the world is full of women; I'm not the only one."
+
+But Ferragut interrupted her. "Yes, she was the only one!... The only
+one!..." And he said it with a conviction that awakened another one of
+her compassionate smiles.
+
+This man's tenacity was beginning to irritate her.
+
+"Captain, I know your type very well. You are an egoist, like all other
+men. Your boat is tied up in the harbor because of an accident; you've
+got to remain ashore a month; you meet on one of your trips a woman who
+is idiot enough to admit that she remembers meeting you at other times,
+and you say to yourself, Magnificent occasion to while away agreeably a
+tedious period of waiting!...' If I should yield to your desire, within
+a few weeks, as soon as your boat was ready, the hero of my love, the
+knight of my dreams, would betake himself to the sea, saying as a
+parting salute: 'Adieu, simpleton!'"
+
+Ulysses protested with energy. No: he wished that his boat might never
+be repaired. He was computing with agony the days that remained. If it
+were necessary, he would abandon it, remaining forever in Naples.
+
+"And what have I to do in Naples?" interrupted Freya. "I am a mere bird
+of passage here, just as you are. We knew each other on the seas of
+another hemisphere, and we have just happened to run across each other
+here in Italy. Next time, if we ever meet again, it will be in Japan or
+Canada or the Cape.... Go on your way, you enamored old shark, and let
+me go mine. Imagine to yourself that we are two boats that have met
+when becalmed, have signaled each other, have exchanged greetings, have
+wished each other good luck, and afterwards have continued on our way,
+perhaps never to see each other again."
+
+Ferragut shook his head negatively. Such a thing could not be, he could
+not resign himself to losing sight of her forever.
+
+"These men!" she continued, each time a little more irritated. "You all
+imagine that things must be arranged entirely according to your
+caprices. 'Because I desire thee, thou must be mine....' And what if I
+don't want to?... And if I don't feel any necessity of being loved?...
+If I wish only to live in liberty, with no other love than that which I
+feel for myself?..."
+
+She considered it a great misfortune to be a woman. She always envied
+men for their independence. They could hold themselves aloof,
+abstaining from the passions that waste life, without anybody's coming
+to importune them in their retreat. They were at liberty to go wherever
+they wanted to, to travel the wide world over, without leaving behind
+their footsteps a wake of solicitors.
+
+"You appear to me, Captain, a very charming man. The other day I was
+delighted to meet you; it was an apparition from the past; I saw in you
+the joy of my youth that is beginning to fade away, and the melancholy
+of certain recollections.... And nevertheless, I am going to end by
+hating you. Do you hear me, you tedious old Argonaut?... I shall loathe
+you because you will not be a mere friend; because you know only how to
+talk everlastingly about the same thing; because you are a person out
+of a novel, a Latin, very interesting, perhaps, to other women,--but
+insufferable to me."
+
+Her face contracted with a gesture of scorn and pity. "Ah, those
+Latins!..."
+
+"They're all the same,--Spaniards, Italians, Frenchmen.... They were
+born for the same thing. They hardly meet an attractive woman but they
+believe that they are evading their obligations if they do not beg for
+her love and what comes afterward.... Cannot a man and woman simply be
+friends? Couldn't you be just a good comrade and treat me as a
+companion?"
+
+Ferragut protested energetically. No; no, he couldn't. He loved her
+and, after being repelled with such cruelty, his love would simply go
+on increasing. He was sure of that.
+
+A nervous tremor made Freya's voice sharp and cutting, and her eyes
+took on a dangerous gleam. She looked at her companion as though he
+were an enemy whose death she longed for.
+
+"Very well, then, if you must know it. I abominate all men; I abominate
+them, because I know them so well. I would like the death of all of
+them, of every one!... The evil that they have wrought in my life!... I
+would like to be immensely beautiful, the handsomest woman on earth,
+and to possess the intellect of all the sages concentrated in my brain,
+to be rich and to be a queen, in order that all the men of the world,
+crazy with desire, would come to prostrate themselves before me.... And
+I would lift up my feet with their iron heels, and I would go trampling
+over them, crushing their heads ... so ... and so ... and so!..."
+
+She struck the sands of the garden with the soles of her little shoes.
+An hysterical sneer distorted her mouth.
+
+"Perhaps I might make an exception of you.... You who, with all your
+braggart arrogance, are, after all, outright and simple-hearted. I
+believe you capable of assuring a woman of all kinds of love-lies ...
+believing them yourself most of all. But the others!... _Ay, the
+others!_... How I hate them!..."
+
+She looked over toward the palace of the Aquarium, glistening white
+between the colonnade of trees.
+
+"I would like to be," she continued pensively, "one of those animals of
+the sea that can cut with their claws, that have arms like scissors,
+saws, pincers ... that devour their own kind, and absorb everything
+around them."
+
+Then she looked at the branch of a tree from which were hanging several
+silver threads, sustaining insects with active tentacles.
+
+"I would like to be a spider, an enormous spider, that all men might be
+drawn to my web as irresistibly as flies. With what satisfaction would
+I crunch them between my claws! How I would fasten my mouth against
+their hearts!... And I would suck them.... I would suck them until
+there wasn't a drop of blood left, tossing away then their empty
+carcasses!..."
+
+Ulysses began to wonder if he had fallen in love with a crazy woman.
+His disquietude, his surprise and questioning eyes gradually restored
+Freya's serenity.
+
+She passed one hand across her forehead, as though awakening from a
+nightmare and wishing to banish remembrance with this gesture. Her
+glance became calmer.
+
+"Good-by, Ferragut; do not make me talk any more. You will soon doubt
+my reason.... You are doing so already. We shall be friends, just
+friends and nothing more. It is useless to think of anything else....
+Do not follow me.... We shall see each other.... I shall hunt you
+up.... Good-by!... Good-by!"
+
+And although Ferragut felt tempted to follow her, he remained
+motionless, seeing her hurry rapidly away, as though fleeing from the
+words that she had just let fall before the little temple of the poet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE AQUARIUM OF NAPLES
+
+In spite of her promise, Freya made no effort to meet the sailor. "We
+shall see each other.... I shall hunt you up." But it was Ferragut who
+did the hunting, stationing himself around the hotel.
+
+"How crazy I was the other morning!... I wonder what you could have
+thought of me!" she said the first time that she spoke to him again.
+
+Not every day did Ulysses have the pleasure of a conversation which
+invariably developed from the _Via Partenope_ to Virgil's monument. The
+most of the mornings he used to wait in vain opposite the oyster
+stands, listening to the musicians who were bombarding the closed
+windows of the hotel with their sentimental romances and mandolins.
+Freya would not appear.
+
+His impatience usually dragged Ulysses back to the hotel in order to
+beg information of the porter. Animated by the hope of a new bill, the
+flunkey would go to the telephone and inquire of the servants on the
+upper floor. And then with a sad and obsequious smile, as though
+lamenting his own words: "The _signora_ is not in. The _signora_ has
+passed the night outside of the _albergo_." And Ferragut would go away
+furious.
+
+Sometimes he would go to see how the repairs were getting on in his
+boat,--an excellent pretext for venting his wrath on somebody. On other
+mornings he would go to the garden of the beach of Chiaja,--to the very
+same places through which he had strolled with Freya. He was always
+looking for her to appear from one moment to another. Everything 'round
+about suggested some reminder of her. Trees and benches, pavements and
+electric lights knew her perfectly because of having formed a part of
+her regular walk.
+
+Becoming convinced that he was waiting in vain, a last hope made him
+glance toward the white building of the Aquarium. Freya had frequently
+mentioned it. She was accustomed to amuse herself, oftentimes passing
+entire hours there, contemplating the life of the inhabitants of the
+sea. And Ferragut blinked involuntarily as he passed rapidly from the
+garden boiling under the sun into the shadow of the damp galleries with
+no other illumination than that of the daylight which penetrated to the
+interior of the Aquarium,--a light that, seen through the water and the
+glass, took on a mysterious tone, the green and diffused tint of the
+subsea depths.
+
+This visit enabled him to kill time more placidly. There came to his
+mind old readings confirmed now by direct vision. He was not the kind
+of sailor that sails along regardless of what exists under his keel. He
+wanted to know the mysteries of the immense blue palace over whose roof
+he was usually navigating, devoting himself to the study of
+oceanography, the most recent of sciences.
+
+Upon taking his first steps in the Aquarium, he immediately pictured
+the marine depths which exploration had divided and charted so
+unequally. Near the shores, in the zone called "the littoral" where the
+rivers empty, the materials of nourishment were accumulated by the
+impulse of the tides and currents, and there flourished sub-aquatic
+vegetation. This was the zone of the great fish and reached down to
+within two hundred fathoms of the bottom,--a depth to which the sun's
+rays never penetrate. Beyond that there was no light; plant life
+disappeared and with it the herbivorous animals.
+
+The submarine grade, a gentle one down to this point, now becomes very
+steep, descending rapidly to the oceanic abysses,--that immense mass of
+water (almost the entire ocean), without light, without waves, without
+tides, without currents, without oscillations of temperature, which is
+called the "abyssal" zone.
+
+In the littoral, the waters, healthfully agitated, vary in saltiness
+according to the proximity of the rivers. The rocks and deeps are
+covered with a vegetation which is green near the surface, becoming
+darker and darker, even turning to a dark red and brassy yellow as it
+gets further from the light. In this oceanic paradise of nutritive and
+luminous waters charged with bacteria and microscopic nourishment, life
+is developed in exuberance. In spite of the continual traps of the
+fishermen, the marine herds keep themselves intact because of their
+infinite powers of reproduction.
+
+The fauna of the abyssal depths where the lack of light makes all
+vegetation impossible, is largely carnivorous, the weak inhabitants
+usually devouring the residuum and dead animals that come down from the
+surface. The strong ones, in their turn, nourish themselves on the
+concentrated sustenance of the little cannibals.
+
+The bottom of the ocean, a monotonous desert of mud and sand, the
+accumulated sediment of hundreds of centuries, has occasional oases of
+strange vegetation. These grove-like growths spring up like spots of
+light just where the meeting of the surface currents rain down a manna
+of diminutive dead bodies. The twisted limestone plants, hard as stone,
+are really not plants at all, but animals. Their leaves are simply
+inert and treacherous tentacles which contract very suddenly, and their
+flowers, avid mouths, which bend over their prey, and suck it in
+through their gluttonous openings.
+
+A fantastic light streaks this world of darkness with multicolored
+shafts, animal light produced by living organisms. In the lowest
+abysses sightless creatures are very scarce, contrary to the common
+opinion, which imagines that almost all of them lack eyes because of
+their distance from the sun. The filaments of the carnivorous trees are
+garlands of lamps; the eyes of the hunting animals, electric globes;
+the insignificant bacteria, light-producing little glands all of which
+open or close with phosphorescent switches according to the necessity
+of the moment,--sometimes in order to persecute and devour, and at
+others in order to keep themselves hidden in the shadows.
+
+The animal-plants, motionless as stars, surround their ferocious mouths
+with a circle of flashing lights, and immediately their diminutive prey
+feel themselves as irresistibly drawn toward them as do the moths that
+fly toward the lamp, and the birds of the sea that beat against the
+lighthouse.
+
+None of the lights of the earth can compare with those of this abyssal
+world. All artificial fires pale before the varieties of its organic
+brilliance.
+
+The living branches of polyps, the eyes of the animals, even the mud
+sown with brilliant points, emit phosphoric shafts like sparks whose
+splendors incessantly vanish and reappear. And these lights pass
+through many gradations of colors:--violet, purple, orange, blue, and
+especially green. On perceiving a victim nearby, the gigantic
+cuttle-fishes become illuminated like livid suns, moving their arms
+with death-dealing strokes.
+
+All the abyssal beings have their organs of sight enormously developed
+in order to catch even the weakest rays of light. Many have enormous,
+protruding eyes. Others have them detached from the body at the end of
+two cylindrical tentacles like telescopes.
+
+Those that are blind and do not throw out any radiance are compensated
+for this inferiority by the development of the tactile organs. Their
+antennae and swimming organs are immeasurably prolonged in the
+darkness. The filaments of their body, long hairs rich in nerve
+terminals, can distinguish instantaneously the appetizing prey, or the
+enemy lying in wait.
+
+The abyssal deeps have two floors or roofs. In the highest, is the
+so-called neritic zone,--the oceanic surface, diaphanous and luminous,
+far from any coast. Next is seen the pelagic zone, much deeper, in
+which reside the fishes of incessant motion, capable of living without
+reposing on the bottom.
+
+The corpses of the neritic animals and of those that swim between the
+two waters are the direct or indirect sustenance of the abyssal fauna.
+These beings with weak dental equipment and sluggish speed, badly armed
+for the conquest of living prey, nourish themselves with the dropping
+of this rain of alimentary material. The great swimmers, supplied with
+formidable mandibles and immense and elastic stomachs, prefer the
+fortunes of war, the pursuit of living prey, and devour,--as the
+carnivorous devour the herbivorous on land,--all the little feeders on
+debris and _plancton_. This word of recent scientific invention
+presented to Captain Ferragut's mind the most humble and interesting of
+the oceanic inhabitants. The _plancton_ is the life that floats in
+loose clusters or forming cloud-like groups across the neritic surface,
+even descending to the abyssal depths.
+
+Wherever the _plancton_ goes, there is living animation, grouping
+itself in closely packed colonies. The purest and most translucent salt
+water shows under certain luminous rays a multitude of little bodies as
+restless as the dust motes that dance in shafts of sunlight. These
+transparent beings mingled with microscopic algae and embryonic
+mucosities are the _plancton_. In its dense mass, scarcely visible to
+the human eye, float the _siphonoforas_, garlands of entities united by
+a transparent thread as fragile, delicate and luminous as Bohemian
+crystal. Other equally subtle organisms have the form of little glass
+torpedoes. The sum of all the albuminous materials floating on the sea
+are condensed in these nutrient clouds to which are added the
+secretions of living animals, the remnants of cadavers, the bodies
+brought down by the rivers, and the nourishing fragments from the
+meadows of algae.
+
+When the _plancton_, either by chance or following some mysterious
+attraction, accumulates on some determined point of the shore, the
+waters boil with fishes of an astonishing fertility. The seaside towns
+increase in number, the sea is filled with sails, the tables are more
+opulent, industries are established, factories are opened and money
+circulates along the coast, attracted thither from the interior by the
+commerce in fresh and dried fish.
+
+If the _plancton_ capriciously withdraws itself, floating toward
+another shore, the marine herds emigrate behind these living meadows,
+and the blue plain remains as empty as a desert accursed. The fleets of
+fishing boats are placed high and dry on the beach, the shops are
+closed, the stewpot is no longer steaming, the horses of the
+gendarmerie charge against protesting and famine stricken crowds, the
+Opposition howls in the Chambers, and the newspapers make the
+Government responsible for everything.
+
+This animal and vegetable dust nourishes the most numerous species
+which, in their turn, serve as pasture for the great swimmers armed
+with teeth.
+
+The whales, most bulky of all the oceanic inhabitants, close this
+destructive cycle, since they devour each other in order to live. The
+Pacific giant, without teeth, supplies his organism with _plancton_
+alone, absorbing it by the ton; that imperceptible and crystalline
+manna nourishes his body (looking like an overturned belfry), and makes
+purple, fatty rivers of warm blood circulate under its oily skin.
+
+The transparency of the beings in the _plancton_ recalled to Ferragut's
+memory the marvelous colorings of the inhabitants of the sea, adjusted
+exactly to their needs of preservation. The species that live on the
+surface have, as a general rule, a blue back and silver belly. In this
+way it is possible for them to escape the sight of their enemies; seen
+from the shadows of the depths, they are confounded with the white and
+luminous color of the surface. The sardines that swim in shoals are
+able to pass unnoticed, thanks to their backs blue as the water, thus
+escaping the fish and the birds which are hunting them.
+
+Living in the abysses where the light never penetrates, the pelagic
+animals are not obliged to be transparent or blue like the neritic
+beings on the surface. Some are opaque and colorless, others, bronzed
+and black; most of them are clad in somber hues, whose splendor is the
+despair of the artist's brush, incapable of imitating them. A
+magnificent red seems to be the base of this color scheme, fading
+gradually to pale pink, violet, amber, even losing itself in the milky
+iris of the pearls and in the opalescence of the mother-of-pearl of the
+mollusks. The eyes of certain fish placed at the end of jaw bones
+separated from the body, sparkle like diamonds in the ends of a double
+pin. The protruding glands, the warts, the curving backs, take on the
+colorings of jewelry.
+
+But the precious stones of earth are dead minerals that need rays of
+light in order to emit the slightest flash. The animated gems of the
+ocean--fishes and corals--sparkle with their own colors that are a
+reflex of their vitality. Their green, their rose color, their intense
+yellow, their metallic iridescence, all their liquid tints are
+eternally glazed by a moist varnish which cannot exist in the
+atmospheric world.
+
+Some of these beings are capable of a marvelous power of mimicry that
+makes them identify themselves with inanimate objects, or in a few
+moments run through every gamut of color. Some of great nervous
+activity, make themselves absolutely immovable and contract, filling
+themselves with wrinkles, taking on the dark tone of the rocks. Others
+in moments of irritation or amorous fever, cover themselves with
+streaks of light and tremulous spots, different colored clouds passing
+over their epidermis with every thrill. The cuttlefish and ink fish,
+upon perceiving that they are pursued, enwrap themselves in a cloud of
+invisibility, just as did the enchanters of old in the books of
+chivalry, darkening the water with the ink stored in their glands.
+
+Ferragut continued to pass slowly along the Aquarium between the two
+rows of vertical tanks,--stone cases with thick glass that permitted
+full view of the interior. The clear and shining walls that received
+the fire of the sun through their upper part, spread a green reflection
+over the shadows of the corridors. As they made the rounds, the
+visitors took on a livid paleness, as though they were marching through
+a submarine defile.
+
+The tranquil water within the tanks was scarcely visible. Behind the
+thick glass there appeared to exist only a marvelous atmosphere, an air
+of dreamland in which drifted up and down various floating beings of
+many colors. The bubbles of their respiration was the only thing that
+announced the presence of the liquid. In the upper part of these
+aquatic cages, the luminous atmosphere vibrated under a continual spray
+of transparent dust,--the sea water with air injected into it that was
+renewing the conditions of existence for these guests of the Aquarium.
+
+Seeing these revivifying streams, the captain admired the nourishing
+force of the blue water upon which he had passed almost all his life.
+
+Earth lost its pride when compared with the aquatic immensity. In the
+ocean had appeared the first manifestations of life, continuing then
+its evolutionary cycle over the mountains which had also come up from
+its depths. If the earth was the mother of man, the sea was his
+grandmother.
+
+The number of terrestrial animals is most insignificant compared with
+the maritime ones. Upon the earth's surface (much smaller than the
+ocean) the beings occupy only the surface of the soil, and an
+atmospheric canopy of a certain number of meters. The birds and insects
+seldom go beyond this in their flights. In the sea, the animals are
+dispersed over all its levels, through many miles of depth multiplied
+by thousands and thousands of longitudinal leagues. Infinite quantities
+of creatures, whose number it is impossible to calculate, swim
+incessantly in all the strata of its waters. Land is a surface, a
+plane; the sea is a volume.
+
+The immense aquatic mass, three times more salty than at the beginning
+of the planet, because of a millennarian evaporation that has
+diminished the liquid without absorbing its components, retains mixed
+with its chlorides, copper, nickel, iron, zinc, lead, and even gold,
+from the metallic veins that planetary upheaval deposits upon the
+oceanic bottom; compared with this mass, the veins of mountains with
+their golden sands deposited by the rivers are but insignificant
+tentacles.
+
+Silver also is dissolved in its waters. Ferragut knew by certain
+calculations that with the silver floating in the ocean could be
+erected pyramids more enormous than those in Egypt.
+
+The men who once had thought of exploiting these mineral riches had
+given up the visionary idea because the minerals were too diluted and
+it would be impossible to make use of them. The oceanic beings know
+better how to recognize their presence, letting them filter through
+their bodies for the renovation and coloration of their organs. The
+copper accumulates in their blood; the gold and silver are discovered
+in the texture of the animal-plants; the phosphorus is absorbed by the
+sponges; the lead and the zinc by species of algae.
+
+Every oceanic creature is able to extract from the water the residuum
+from certain metals dissolved into particles so incalculably tiny that
+no chemical process could ever capture them. The carbonates of lime
+deposited by the rivers or dragged from the coast serve innumerable
+species for the construction of their coverings, skeletons, and spiral
+shells. The corals, filtering the water across their flabby and mucous
+bodies, solidify their hard skeletons so that they may finally be
+converted into habitable islands.
+
+The beings of disconcerting diversity that were floating, diving, or
+wiggling around Ferragut were no more than oceanic water. The fish were
+water made into flesh; the slimy, mucilaginous animals were water in a
+gelatinous state; the crustaceans and the polypi were water turned to
+stone.
+
+In one of the tanks he saw a landscape which appeared like that of
+another planet, grandiose yet at the same time reduced, like a woods
+seen in a diorama. It was a palm grove, surging up between the rocks,
+but the rocks were only pebbles, and the palm trees,--annelides of the
+sea,--were simply worms holding themselves in upright immovability.
+
+They kept their ringed bodies within a leathern tube that formed their
+protective case, and from this rectilinear, marble-colored trunk sent
+forth, like a spout of branches, the constantly moving tentacles which
+served them as organs for breathing and eating.
+
+Endowed with rare sensitiveness, it was enough for a cloud to pass
+before the sun to make them shrink quickly within these tubes, deprived
+of their showy capitals, like beheaded palm trees. Then, slowly and
+prudently the animated pincers would come protruding again through the
+opening of their cylindrical scabbards, floating in the water with
+anxious hope. All these trees and flower-animals developed a mechanical
+voracity whenever a microscopic victim fell under the power of their
+tentacles; then the soft clusters of branches would contract, close,
+drawing in their prey, and the worm, withdrawing into the lowest part
+of the slender tower secreted by himself, would digest his conquest.
+
+The other tanks then attracted the attention of the sailor.
+
+Slipping over the stones, introducing themselves into their caverns,
+drowsing, half buried in the sand,--all the varied and tumultuous
+species of crustaceans were moving their cutting and tentacular
+grinders and making their Japanese armor gleam: some of their frames
+were red--almost black--as though guarding the dry blood of a remote
+combat; others were of a scarlet freshness as though reflecting the
+first fires of the flaming dawn.
+
+The largest of the lobsters (the _homard_, the sovereign of the tables
+of the rich) was resting upon the scissors of its front claws, as
+powerful as an arm, or a double battle-axe. The spiny lobster was
+leaping with agility over the peaks, by means of the hooks on its
+claws, its weapons of war and nutrition. Its nearest relative, the
+cricket of the sea, a dull and heavy animal, was sulking in the corners
+covered with mire and with sea weed, in an immovability that made it
+easily confounded with the stones. Around these giants, like a
+democracy accustomed to endure from time to time the attack of the
+strong, crayfish and shrimps were swimming in shoals. Their movements
+were free and graceful, and their sensitiveness so acute that the
+slightest agitation made them start, taking tremendous springs.
+
+Ulysses kept thinking of the slavery that Nature had imposed upon these
+animals, giving them their beautiful, defensive envelopment.
+
+They were born armored and their development obliged them repeatedly to
+change their form of arms. They sloughed their skins like reptiles, but
+on account of their cylindrical shape were able to perform this
+operation with the facility of a leg that abandons its stocking. When
+it begins to crack, the crustaceans have to withdraw from out their
+cuirass the multiple mechanism of their members and appendages,--claws,
+antennae and the great pincers,--a slow and dangerous operation in
+which many perish, lacerated by their own efforts. Then, naked and
+disarmed, they have to wait until a new skin forms that in time is also
+converted into a coat of mail,--all this in the midst of a hostile
+environment, surrounded with greedy beasts, large and small, attracted
+by their rich flesh,--and with no other defense than that of keeping
+themselves in hiding.
+
+Among the swarm of small crustaceans moving around on the sandy bottom,
+hunting, eating, or fighting with a ferocious entanglement of claws,
+the onlookers always search for a bizarre and extravagant little
+creature, the _paguro_, nicknamed "Bernard, the Hermit." It is a snail
+that advances upright as a tower, upon crab claws, yet having as a
+crown the long hair of a sea-anemone.
+
+This comical apparition is composed of three distinct animals one upon
+the other--or, rather, of two living beings carrying a bier between
+them. The _paguro_ crab is born with the lower part of his case
+unprotected,--a most excellent tid-bit, tender and savory for hungry
+fishes. The necessity for defending himself makes him seek a snail
+shell in order to protect the weak part of his organism. If he
+encounters an empty dwelling of this class, he appropriates it. If not,
+he eats the inhabitant, introducing his posterior armed with two hooked
+claws into its mother-of-pearl refuge.
+
+But these defensive precautions are not sufficient for the weak
+_paguro_. In order to live he needs rather to put himself on the
+offensive, to inspire respect in devouring monsters, especially in the
+octopi that are seeking as prey his trunk and hairy claws, exposed to
+locomotion outside his tower.
+
+In course of time a sea-anemone comes along and attaches itself to the
+calcareous peak, the number often amounting to five or six, although
+there is no bodily relation between the _paguro_ and the organisms on
+top. They are simply partners with a reciprocal interest. The
+animal-plants sting like nettles; all the monsters without a shell flee
+from the poison of their tingling organs, and the fragments of their
+hair burn like pins of fire. In this manner the humble _paguro_,
+carrying upon his back his tower crowned with formidable batteries,
+inspires terror in the gigantic beasts of the deep. The anemones on
+their part are grateful to him for being thus able to pass incessantly
+from one side to the other, coming in contact with every class of
+animals. In this way, they can eat with greater facility than their
+sisters fixed on the rocks; for they do not have to wait, as the others
+must, until food drifts casually to their tentacles. Besides this,
+there is always floating on top some of the remains of the booty that
+the crafty crab in his wandering impunity has gathered below.
+
+Ferragut, on passing from one tank to the other, mentally established
+the gradation of the fauna from the primitive protoplast to the perfect
+organism.
+
+The sponges of the Mediterranean swam as soon as they were born, when
+they were like pin-heads, with vibratory movements. Then they remained
+immovable, the water filtering through the cracks and crannies of their
+texture, protecting their delicate flesh with a bristling of
+spikes,--sharp limestone needles with which they pierced the passing
+fishes and rendered them immovable, availing themselves of the
+nourishment of their putrefying remains.
+
+The nettles of the sea spread out their stinging threads by the
+thousands, discharging a venom that stupefies the victim and makes him
+fall into their corolla. With unlimited voracity, and fastened to the
+rocks, they overpower fish much larger than they, and at the first hint
+of danger shrink together in such a way that it is very difficult to
+see them. The sea-plumes lie flabby and dark as dead animals, until
+absorbing water, they suddenly rear themselves up, transparent and full
+of leaves. Thus they go from one side to the other, with the lightness
+of a feather, or, burrowing in the sand, send forth a phosphoric glow.
+The belles of the sea, the elegant Medusae, open out the floating
+circle of their fragile beauty. They are transparent fungi, open
+umbrellas of glass that advance by means of their contractions. From
+the inner center of their dome hangs a tube equally transparent and
+gelatinous,--the mouth of the animal. Long filaments depend from the
+edges of their circular forms, sensitive tentacles that at the same
+time maintain their floating equilibrium.
+
+These fragile beings, that appear to belong to an enchanted fauna,
+white as rock crystal with soft borders of rose color or violet, sting
+like nettles and defend themselves by their fiery touch. Some subtle
+and colorless parasols were living here in the tank under the
+protection of a second enclosure of crystal, and their mucous mistiness
+scarcely showed itself within this bell-shaped glass except as a pale
+line of blue vapor.
+
+Below these transparent and ethereal forms that burn whatever they
+touch, venturing to capture prey much larger than themselves, were
+grouped as in gardens the so-called "flower of blood," the red coral,
+and especially the star-fish, forming with their corolla an
+orange-colored ring.
+
+The captain had seen these stony vegetations, like submerged groves, in
+the depths of the Dead Sea and also in the southern seas. He had sailed
+over them under the illusion that through the bluish depths of the
+ocean were circulating broad rivers of blood.
+
+The _oseznos_ (bear-cubs) and the star-fish were slowly waving the
+forms that had given rise to their names, secreting poisons in order to
+paralyze their victims, contracting themselves until they formed a ball
+of lances that grasped their prey in a deadly embrace or cut it with
+the bony knives of their radiating body. The iris of the sea balanced
+themselves on end, moving their members as though they were petals.
+
+Upon the fine sandy depths or attached to the rocks, the mollusks lived
+in the protection of their shells.
+
+The necessity of giving themselves up to sleep with relative security,
+without fear of the general rapacity which is the oceanic law, is a
+matter of concern to all of these marine beings, making them
+constructive and inventive. The crustaceans live within their shells or
+take advantage of ready-made refuges of limestone, expelling their
+former owners; the animal-plants exhale toxins; the _planctonic_
+beings, transparent and gelatinous, burn like a crystal exposed to
+fire; some organisms apparently weak and flabby, have in their tails
+the force of a carpenter's bit, perforating the rock sufficiently to
+create a cavern of refuge in its hard interior.... And the timid
+mollusks, trembling and succulent pulp, have fabricated for their
+protection the strong shields of their valves,--two concave walls that
+on opening form their door, and on closing, their house.
+
+A bit of flesh protrudes outside these shells, like a white tongue. In
+some it takes the form of a sole, and serves as a foot, the mollusk
+marching with his dwelling upon the back of this unique support. In
+others it is a swimmer, and the shell, opening and shutting its valves
+like a propelling mouth, ascends in a straight line to the surface,
+falling afterwards with the two shields closed.
+
+These herbivorous fresh-water animals live by drinking in the
+light,--feeling the necessity of the surface waters or the shallow
+depths with their limpid glades--and this light, spreading over the
+white interior of their dwelling, decorates it with all the fleeting
+colors of the iris, giving to the limestone the mysterious shimmer of
+mother-of-pearl.
+
+Ulysses admired the odd forms of their winding passageways. They were
+like the palaces of the Orient, dark and forbidding on the outside,
+glistening within like a lake of pearl. Some received their terrestrial
+names because of the special form of their shell--the rabbit, the
+helmet, triton's horn, the cask, the Mediterranean parasol.
+
+They were grazing with bucolic tranquillity on the maritime pasture
+lands, contemplated from afar by the mussels, the oysters, and other
+bi-valves, attached to the rocks by a hard and horny hank of silk that
+enwrapped their enclosures. Some of these shells, called hams,--clams
+of great size, with valves in the form of a club,--had fixed themselves
+upright in the mire, giving the appearance of a submerged Celtic camp,
+with a succession of obelisks swallowed up by the depths of the sea.
+
+The one called the date-shell can, assisted by its liquid acid, pierce
+the hardest stone with its cylindrical gimlet. The columns of Hellenic
+temples, submerged in the Gulf of Naples and brought to light by an
+earthquake, are bored from one end to the other by this diminutive
+perforator.
+
+Cries of surprise and nervous laughter suddenly reached Ferragut. They
+came from that part of the Aquarium where the fish tanks were. In the
+corridor was a little trough of water and at the bottom a kind of rag,
+flabby and gray, with black rings on the back. This animal always
+attracted the immediate curiosity of the visitors. Everybody would ask
+for it.
+
+Groups of countrymen, city families preceded by their offspring, pairs
+of soldiers, all might be seen consulting before it and experimenting,
+advancing their hands over the trough with a certain hesitation.
+Finally they would touch the living rag at the bottom,--the gelatinous
+flesh of the fish-torpedo,--receiving a series of electric shocks which
+quickly made them loosen their prey, laughing and raising the other
+hand to their jerking arms.
+
+Ulysses on reaching the fish tanks had the sensation of a traveler who,
+after having lived among inferior humanity, encounters beings that are
+almost of his own race.
+
+There was the oceanic aristocracy, the fish free as the sea, swift,
+undulating and slippery, like the waves. They all had accompanied him
+for many years, appearing in the transparencies opened by the prow of
+his vessel.
+
+They were vigorous and therefore had no neck,--the most fragile and
+delicate portion of terrestrial organism,--making them more like the
+bull, the elephant and all the battering animals. They needed to be
+light, and in order to be so had dispensed with the rigid and hard
+shell of the crustacean that prevents motion, preferring the coat of
+mail covered with scales, which expands and contracts, yields to the
+blow but is not injured. They wished to be free, and their body, like
+that of the ancient wrestlers, was covered with a slippery oil, the
+oceanic mucus that becomes volatilized at the slightest pressure.
+
+The freest animals on earth cannot be compared with them. The birds
+need to perch and to rest during their sleep, but the fish continue
+floating around and moving from place to place while asleep. The entire
+world belongs to them. Wherever there is a mass of water,--ocean, river
+or lake, in whatever altitude or latitude, a mountain peak lost in the
+clouds, a valley boiling like a whirlpool, a sparkling and tropical sea
+with a forest of colors in its bosoms, or a polar sea encrusted with
+ice and people, with sea-lions and white bears,--there the fish always
+appears.
+
+The public of the Aquarium, seeing the flat heads of the swimming
+animals near the glass, would scream and wave their arms as though they
+could be seen by the fishy eyes of stupid fixity. Then they would
+experience a certain dismay upon perceiving that the fish continued
+their course with indifference.
+
+Ferragut smiled before this deception. The crystal that separated the
+water from the atmosphere had the density of millions of leagues,--an
+insuperable obstacle interposed between two worlds that do not know
+each other.
+
+The sailor recalled the imperfect vision of the ocean inhabitants. In
+spite of their bulging and movable eyes that enable them to see before
+and behind them, their visual power extends but a short distance. The
+splendors with which Nature clothes the butterfly cannot be appreciated
+by them. Absolutely color-blind, they can appreciate only the
+difference between light and darkness.
+
+Complete silence accompanies their incomplete vision. All the aquatic
+animals are deaf, or rather they completely lack the organs of hearing,
+because they are unnecessary to them. Atmospheric agitations,
+thunder-bolts and hurricanes do not penetrate the water. Only the
+cracking shell of certain crabs and the dolorous moaning near the
+surface of certain fishes, called snorers, alter this silence.
+
+Since the ocean lacks acoustic waves, their inhabitants have never
+needed to form the organs that transform them into sound. They feel
+impetuously the primal necessities of animal life,--hunger and love.
+They suffer madly the cruelty of sickness and pain; among themselves
+they fight to the death for a meal or a mate. But all in absolute
+silence, without the howl of triumph or agony with which terrestrial
+animals accompany the same manifestations of their existence.
+
+Their principal sense is that of smell, as is that of sight in the
+bird. In the twilight world of the ocean, streaked with phosphorescent
+and deceptive splendors, the big fish trust only to their sense of
+smell and at times to that of touch.
+
+Sometimes buried in the mud, they will ascend hundreds of yards,
+attracted by the odor of the fish that are swimming on the surface.
+This prodigious faculty renders useless, in part, the colors in which
+the timid species clothe themselves in order to confound themselves
+with lights or shadows. The greatest flesh-eaters see badly, but they
+scrape the bottom with a divining touch and scent their prey at
+astonishing distances.
+
+Only the Mediterranean fishes, especially those of the Gulf of Naples,
+were living in the tanks of this Aquarium. Some were lacking,--the
+dolphin, of nervous movement, and the tunny, so impetuous in its
+career. The captain smiled upon thinking of the mischievous pranks of
+these ungovernable guests whose presence had been declined.
+
+The voracious shark (_cabeza de olla_), the persecuting wolf of the
+Mediterranean herds, was not here either. In his place were swimming
+other animals of the same species, whitish and long, with great fins,
+with eyes always open for lack of movable eyelids, and a mouth split
+like a half-moon, under the head at the beginning of the stomach.
+
+Ferragut sought on the bottom of the tanks the fishes of the
+deep,--flattened animals that pass the greater part of their time sunk
+in the sand under a coverlet of algae. The dark _uranoscopo_, with its
+eyes almost united on the peak of its enormous head and its body in the
+form of a club, leaves visible only a long thread coming from its lower
+jaw, waving it in all directions in order to attract its prey.
+Believing it a worm, the victims usually chase the moving bait until
+pounced upon by the teeth of the hunter who then springs from his bed,
+floats around for a few moments, and falls heavily to the bottom,
+opening a new pit with his pectoral, shovel-shaped swimming bladders.
+
+The toad fish, the most hideous animal of the Mediterranean, goes
+hunting in the same way. Three-fourths of his flattened body is made up
+of head, mostly mouth, armed with hooks and curved knives. Guided by
+his yellowish eyes fixed on top, he waves his pointed little beard, cut
+like leaves, and a pair of dorsal appendages like feathers. This false
+bait attracts the unwary ones and soon the cavernous mandibles close
+upon them.
+
+The plane fishes swim quickly over these monsters of the mire, that are
+always horizontally flat resting upon their bellies, whilst the
+flatness of the soles and others of the same species is vertical. The
+two sides of the bodies of the soles, compressed laterally, have
+different colorings. In this way, when lying down, they are able to
+merge themselves at the same time with the light of the surface and the
+shadow of the bottom, thus getting rid of their persecutors.
+
+All the infinite varieties of the Mediterranean fauna were moving in
+the other tanks.
+
+There passed by the greenish plates of glass the giltheads, the
+cackerels, and the sea roaches, clad in vivid silver with bands of gold
+on their sides. There also flashed past the purple of the salmonoids,
+the brilliant majesty of the gold fish, the bluish belly of the sea
+bream, the striped back of the sheep's head, the trumpet-mouthed marine
+sun-fish, the immovable sneer of the so-called "joker," the dorsal
+pinnacle of the peacock-fish which appears made of feathers, the
+restless and deeply bifurcated tail of the horse mackerel, the
+fluttering of the mullet with its triple wings, the grotesque rotundity
+of the boar-fish and the pig-fish, the dark smoothness of the
+sting-ray, floating like a fringe, the long snout of the woodcock-fish,
+the slenderness of the haddock, agile and swift as a torpedo, the red
+gurnard all thorns, the angel of the sea with its fleshy wings, the
+gudgeon, bristling with swimming angularities, the notary, red and
+white, with black bands similar to the flourishes on signatures, the
+modest _esmarrido_, the little sand fish, the superb turbot almost
+round with fan tail and a swimming fringe spotted with circles, and the
+gloomy conger-eel whose skin is as bluish black as that of the ravens.
+
+Hidden between two rocks like the hunting crustaceans was the
+_rascaza_,--the scorpion of the Valencian sea that Ferragut had known
+in his childhood, the animal beloved by his uncle, the _Triton_,
+because of its substantial flesh which thickened the seamen's soup, the
+precious component sought by Uncle Caragol for the broth of his
+succulent rice dishes. The enormous head had a pair of eyes entirely
+red. Its great swimming bladders stung venomously. The heavy body with
+its dark bands and stripes was covered with singular appendages in the
+form of leaves and could easily take the color of the deep where, in
+the semi-obscurity, it looked like a stone covered with plants. With
+this mimicry it was accustomed to escape its enemies and could better
+detect its prey.
+
+A gloomy creature, in Ferragut's opinion like a beadle of the Holy
+Office, was parading through the upper part of the tanks, passing from
+glass to glass, reflected like a double animal when it approached the
+surface. It was the ray-fish with a flat head, ferocious eyes, and
+thong-like tail, moving the black mantle of its fleshy wings with a
+deliberation that rippled the edges.
+
+From the sandy bottom was struggling forth a convex shield that, when
+floating, showed its lower face smooth and yellow. The four wrinkled
+paws and the serpent-like head of the turtle were emerging from its
+cuirass of tortoise-shell. The little sea horses, slender and graceful
+as chess-pieces, were rising and descending in the bluish environment,
+wiggling their tails and twisting themselves in the form of
+interrogation points.
+
+When the captain approached the end of the four galleries of the
+Aquarium without having seen more than the maritime animals behind the
+glistening glasses and a few uninteresting people in the greenish
+semi-light, he felt all the discouragement of a day lost.
+
+"She won't come now!..."
+
+In passing from this damp, cellar-like atmosphere to the sunlit garden,
+the report of the midday gun struck him like an atmospheric blow. Lunch
+hour!... And surely Freya was not going to lunch in the hotel!
+
+During the afternoon his footsteps strayed instinctively toward the
+hill streets of the district of Chiaja. All old buildings of manorial
+aspect invariably attracted his attention. These were great, reddish
+houses of the time of the Spanish viceroys, or palaces of the reign of
+Charles III. Their broad staircases were adorned with polychrome busts
+brought from the first excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii.
+
+Ulysses had faint hopes of running across the widow while passing in
+front of one of these mansions, now rented in floors and displaying
+little metal door-plates indicative of office and warehouse. In one of
+these undoubtedly must be living the family that was so friendly to
+Freya.
+
+Then, noticing the whiteness of the showy constructions rising up
+around the old districts, he became dubious. The doctor would dwell
+only in a modern and hygienic edifice. But not daring to ask questions,
+he passed on, fearing to be seen from a window.
+
+Finally he gave it up. Chiaja had many streets and he was wandering
+aimlessly, since the concierge of the hotel had not been able to give
+him any precise directions. The _signora_ Talberg was evidently bent on
+outwitting all his finesse, trying to keep from him the address of her
+friends.
+
+The following morning the captain took up his usual watch in the
+promenade near the white Virgil. It was all in vain. After ten o'clock
+he again wandered into the Aquarium, animated by a vague hope.
+
+"Perhaps she may come to-day...."
+
+With the superstition of the enamored and all those who wait, he kept
+hunting certain places preferred by the widow, believing that in this
+way he would attract her from her distant preoccupation, obliging her
+to come to him.
+
+The tanks of the molluscas had always been especially interesting to
+her. He recalled that Freya had several times spoken to him of this
+section.
+
+Among its aquatic cases she always preferred the one marked number
+fifteen, the exclusive dominion of the polypi (cuttlefish). A vague
+presentiment warned him that something very important in his life was
+going to be unrolled in that particular spot. Whenever Freya visited
+the Aquarium, it was to see these repulsive and gluttonous animals eat.
+There was nothing to do but to await her before this cavern of horrors.
+
+And while she was making her way thither, the captain had to amuse
+himself like any landlubber, contemplating the ferocious chase and
+laborious digestion of these monsters.
+
+He had seen them much larger in the deep-sea fishing grounds; but by
+curtailing his imaginative powers he could pretend that the blue sheet
+of the tank was the entire mass of the ocean--the rough bits of stone
+on the bottom its submarine mountains, and by contracting his own
+personality, he could reduce himself to the same scale as the little
+victims that were falling under the devouring tentacles. In this manner
+he could fancy of gigantic dimensions these cuttlefish of the Aquarium,
+just as the monstrous oceanic octopi must be that, thousands of yards
+down, were illuminating the gloom of the waters with the greenish star
+of their phosphorescent nuclei.
+
+From prehistoric times the men of the sea had known this great, ropy
+beast of the abysses. The geographers of antiquity used to speak of it,
+giving the measurement of its terrible arms.
+
+Pliny used to recount the destruction accomplished by a gigantic
+octopus in the vivarium of the Mediterranean. When some sailors
+succeeded in killing it they carried it to the epicure, Lucullus,--the
+head as big as a barrel, and some of its tentacles so huge that one
+person could hardly reach around them. The chroniclers of the Middle
+Ages had also spoken of the gigantic cuttlefish that on more than one
+occasion had, with its serpentine arms, snatched men from the decks of
+the ships.
+
+The Scandinavian navigators, who had never encountered it in their
+fjords, nicknamed it the _kraken_, exaggerating its proportions and
+even converting it into a fabulous being. If it came to the surface,
+they confounded it with an island; if it remained between the two
+waters, the captains, on making their soundings, became confused in
+their calculations, finding the depth less than that marked on their
+charts. In such cases they had to escape before the _kraken_ should
+awake and sink the vessel as though it were a fragile skiff among its
+whirlpools of foam.
+
+During many long years Science had laughed at the gigantic polypus and
+at the sea serpent, another prehistoric animal many times encountered,
+supposing them to be merely the inventions of an imaginative sailor,
+stories of the forecastle made up to pass the night-watch. Wise men can
+only believe what they can study directly and then catalogue in their
+museums....
+
+And Ferragut laughed in his turn at poor Science, ignorant and
+defenseless before the mysterious immensity of the ocean, and having
+scarcely achieved the measurement of its great depth. The apparatus of
+the diver could go down but a few meters; their only instrument of
+exploration was the metal diving-bell, less important than a spider-web
+thread that might try to explore the earth by floating across its
+atmosphere.
+
+The great cuttlefish living in the tremendous depths do not deign to
+come to the surface in order to become acquainted with mankind.
+Sickness and oceanic war are the only agents that from time to time
+announce their existence in a casual way, as they float over the waves
+with members relaxed, snatched at by the iron jaws of the flesh-eating
+fish. The great danger for them is that a chance current might place
+this plunder of the immense marine desert before the prow of a
+slow-going sailboat.
+
+A corvette of the French navy once encountered near the Canary Isles a
+complete specimen of one of these monsters floating upon the sea, sick
+or wounded. The officials sketched its form and noted its
+phosphorescence and changes of color, but after a two-hour struggle
+with its indomitable force and its slippery mucosity constantly
+escaping the pressure of blows and harpoons, they had to let it slip
+back into the ocean.
+
+It was the Prince of Monaco, supreme pontiff of oceanographic science,
+who established forever the existence of the fabulous _kraken_. In one
+of his intelligent excursions across oceanic solitudes he fished up an
+arm of a cuttlefish eight yards long. Furthermore the stomachs of
+sharks, upon being opened, had revealed to him the gigantic fragments
+of the adversary.
+
+Short and terrible battles used to agitate the black and phosphorescent
+water, thousands of fathoms from the surface, with whirlwinds of death.
+
+The shark would descend, attracted by the appetizing prospect of a
+boneless animal,--all flesh and weighing several tons. He would make
+his hostile invasion in all haste so as not to be obliged to endure for
+a long time the formidable pressure of the abyss. The struggle between
+the two ferocious warriors disputing oceanic dominion was usually brief
+and deadly,--the mandible battling with the sucker; the solid and
+cutting equipment of teeth with the phosphorescent mucosity incessantly
+slipping by and opposing the blow of the demolishing head like a
+battering ram, with the lashing blow of tentacles thicker and heavier
+than an elephant's trunk. Sometimes the shark would remain down
+forever, enmeshed in a skein of soft snakes absorbing it with
+gluttonous deliberation; at other times it would come to the surface
+with its skin bristling with black tumors,--open mouths and slashes big
+as plates,--but with its stomach full of gelatinous meat.
+
+These cuttlefish in the Aquarium were nothing more than the seaside
+inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast,--poor relations of the gigantic
+octopus that lighten the black gloom of the oceanic night with their
+bluish gleam of burned-out planets. But in spite of their relative
+smallness, they are animated by the same destructive iniquity as the
+others. They are rabid stomachs that cleanse the waters of all animal
+life, digesting it in a vacuum of death. Even the bacteria and
+infusoria appear to flee from the liquid that envelops these ferocious
+solitudes.
+
+Ferragut passed many mornings contemplating their treacherous
+immovability, followed by deadly unfoldings the moment that their prey
+came down into the tank. He began to hate these monsters for no other
+reason than because they were so interesting to Freya. Their stupid
+cruelty appeared to him but a reflex of that incomprehensible woman's
+character that was repulsing him by fleeing from him and yet, at the
+same time, by her smiles and her signals, was sending out a wireless in
+order to keep him prisoner.
+
+Masculine wrath convulsed the sailor after each futile daily trip in
+pursuit of her invisible personality.
+
+"She's just doing it to lead me on!..." he exclaimed. "It's got to come
+to an end! I won't stand any more bull-baiting.... I'll just show her
+that I'm able to live without her!"
+
+He swore not to seek her any more. It was an agreeable diversion for
+the weeks that he had to spend in Naples, but why keep it up when she
+was fatiguing him in such an insufferable way?...
+
+"All is ended," he said again, clenching his hands.
+
+And the following day he was waiting outside of the hotel just as on
+other days. Then he would go for his customary stroll, afterwards
+entering the Aquarium in the same, old hope of seeing her before the
+tanks of the cuttlefish.
+
+He finally met her there one morning, about midday. He had been over to
+his boat and on returning entered, through force of habit, sure that at
+this hour he would find nobody but the employees feeding the fishes.
+
+His dazzled eyes were affected with almost instantaneous blindness
+before becoming accustomed to the shadows of the greenish galleries....
+And when the first images began to be vaguely outlined on his retina,
+he stepped hastily backward, so great was his surprise.
+
+He couldn't believe it and raised his hand to his eyes as though
+wishing to clarify his vision with an energetic rubbing. Was that
+really Freya?... Yes, it was she, dressed in white, leaning on the bar
+of iron that separated the tanks from the public, looking fixedly at
+the glass which covered the rocky cavern like a transparent door. She
+had just opened her hand-bag, giving some coins to the guardian who was
+disappearing at the end of the gallery.
+
+"Oh, is that you?" she said, on seeing Ferragut, without any surprise,
+as if she had left him but a short time before.
+
+Then she explained her presence at this late hour. She had not visited
+the Aquarium for a long time. The tank of cuttlefish was to her like a
+cage of tropical birds, full of colors and cries that enlivened the
+solitude of a melancholy matron.
+
+She always adored the monsters living on the other side of these
+crystals, and before going to lunch she had felt an irresistible desire
+to see them. She feared that the guard had not been taking good care of
+them during her absence.
+
+"Just see how beautiful they are!..."
+
+And she pointed to a tank that appeared empty. Neither in its quiet
+still waters nor on the floor of the oily sand could be seen the
+slightest animal motion. Ferragut followed the direction of her eyes
+and after long contemplation discovered there three occupants. With the
+amazing mimicry of their species, they had changed themselves to appear
+like minerals. Only a pair of expert eyes would have been able to
+discover them, heaped together, each one huddled in a crack of the
+rocks, voluntarily raising his smooth skin into stone-like
+protuberances and ridges. Their faculty of changing color permitted
+them to take on that of their hard base and, disguised in this way like
+three rocky excrescences, they were treacherously awaiting the passing
+of their victim, just as though they were in the open sea.
+
+"Soon we shall see them in all their majesty," continued Freya as
+though she were speaking of something belonging to her. "The guardian
+is going to feed them.... Poor things! Nobody pays any attention to
+them; everybody detests them. To me they owe whatever they get between
+meals."
+
+As if scenting the proximity of food, one of the three stones suddenly
+shuddered with a polychromatic chill. Its elastic covering began
+swelling. There passed over its surface stripes of color, reddish
+clouds changing from crimson to green, circular spots that became
+inflated in the swelling, forming tremulous excrescences. Between two
+cracks there appeared a yellowish eye of ferocious and stupid fixity; a
+darkened and malignant globe like that of serpents, was now looking
+toward the crystal as though seeing far beyond that diamond wall.
+
+"They know me!" exclaimed Freya joyously. "I'm sure that they know
+me!..."
+
+And she enumerated the clever traits of these monsters to whom she
+attributed great intelligence. They were the ones that, like astute
+builders, had dappled the stones piled up on the bottom, forming
+bulwarks in whose shelter they had disguised themselves in order to
+pounce upon their victims. In the sea, when wishing to surprise a
+meaty, toothsome oyster, they waited in hiding until the two valves
+should open to feed upon the water and the light, and had often
+introduced a pebble between the shells and then inserted their
+tentacles in the crevice.
+
+Their love of liberty was another thing which aroused Freya's
+enthusiasm. If they should have to endure more than a year of enclosure
+in the Aquarium, they would become sick with sadness and would gnaw
+their claws until they killed themselves.
+
+"Ah, the charming and vigorous bandits!" she continued in hysterical
+enthusiasm. "I adore them. I should like to have them in my home, as
+they have gold-fishes in a globe, to feed them every hour, to see how
+they would devour...."
+
+Ferragut felt a recurrence of the same uneasiness that he had
+experienced one morning in the temple of Virgil.
+
+"She's crazy!" he said to himself.
+
+But in spite of her craziness, he greatly enjoyed the faint perfume
+that exhaled through the opening at her throat.
+
+He no longer saw the silent world that, sparkling with color, was
+swimming or paddling behind the crystal. She was now the only creature
+who existed for him. And he listened to her voice as though it were
+distant music as it continued explaining briefly all the particulars
+about those stones that were really animals, about those globes that,
+on distending themselves, showed their organs and again hid themselves
+under a gelatinous succession of waves.
+
+They were a sac, a pocket, an elastic mask, in whose interior existed
+only water or air. Between their armpits was their mouth, armed with
+long jaw bones, like a parrot's beak. When breathing, a crack of their
+skin would open and close alternately. From one of their sides came
+forth a tube in the form of a tunnel that swallowed equally the
+respirable water and drew it through both entrances into its branching
+cavity. Their multiple arms, fitted out with cupping glasses,
+functioned like high-pressure apparatus for grasping and holding prey,
+for paddling and for running.
+
+The glassy eye of one of the monsters appearing and disappearing among
+its soft folds, stirred Freya's memories. She began speaking in a low
+tone as if to herself, without paying any attention to Ferragut who was
+perplexed at the incoherence of her words. The appearance of this
+octopus brought to her mind "the eye of the morning."
+
+The sailor asked: "What is the 'eye of the morning'?"... And he again
+told himself that Freya was crazy when he learned that this was the
+name of a tame serpent, a reptile of checkered sides that she wore as
+necklace or bracelet over there in her home in the island of Java,--an
+island where groves exhaled an irresistible perfume, covered in the
+sunlight with trembling and monstrous flowers like animals, peopled at
+night with phosphorescent stars that leaped from tree to tree.
+
+"I used to dance naked, with a transparent veil tied around my hips and
+another floating from my head ... I would dance for hours and hours,
+just like a Brahman priestess before the image of the terrible Siva,
+and the 'eye of the morning' would follow my dances with elegant
+undulations ... I believe in the divine Siva. Don't you know who Siva
+is?..."
+
+Ferragut uttered an impatient aside to the gloomy god. What he wanted
+to know was the reason that had taken her to Java, the paradisiacal and
+mysterious island.
+
+"My husband was a Dutch commandant," she said. "We were married in
+Amsterdam and I followed him to Asia."
+
+Ulysses protested at this piece of news. Had not her husband been a
+great student?... Had he not taken her to the Andes in search of
+prehistoric beasts?...
+
+Freya hesitated a moment in order to be sure, but her doubts were
+short.
+
+"So he was," she said as a matter of course. "That professor was my
+second husband. I have been married twice."
+
+The captain had not time to express his surprise. Over the top of the
+tank, on the crystalline surface silvered by the sun, passed a human
+shadow. It was the silhouette of the keeper. Down below, the three
+shapeless bags began to move. Freya was trembling with emotion like an
+enthusiastic and impatient spectator.
+
+Something fell into the water, descending little by little, a bit of
+dead sardine that was scattering filaments of meat and yellow scales.
+An odd community interest appeared to exist among these monsters: only
+the one nearest the prey bestirred himself to eat. Perhaps they
+voluntarily took turns; perhaps their glance only reached a little
+beyond their tentacles.
+
+The one nearest to the glass suddenly unfolded itself with the violence
+of a spring escaping from an explosive projectile. He gave a bound,
+remaining fastened to the ground by one of his radiants, and raised the
+others like a bundle of reptiles. Suddenly he converted himself into a
+monstrous star, filling almost the entire glassy tank, swollen with
+rage, and coloring his outer covering with green, blue, and red.
+
+His tentacles clutched the miserable prey, doubling it inward in order
+to bear it to his mouth. The beast then contracted, and flattened
+himself out so as to rest on the ground. His armed feet disappeared and
+there only remained visible a trembling bag through which was passing
+like a succession of waves, from one extreme to the other, the
+digestive swollen mass which became a bubbling, mucous pulpiness in a
+dye-pot that colored and discolored itself with contortions of
+assimilative fury; from time to time the agglomeration showed its
+stupid and ferocious eyes.
+
+New victims continued falling down through the waters and other
+monsters leaped in their turn, spreading out their stars, then
+shrinking together in order to grind their prey in their entrails with
+the assimilation of a tiger.
+
+Freya gazed upon this horrifying digestive process with thrills of
+rapture. Ulysses felt her resting instinctively upon him with a contact
+growing more intimate every moment. From shoulder to ankle the captain
+could see the sweet reliefs of her soft flesh whose warmth made itself
+perceptible through her clothing and filled him with nervous tremors.
+
+Frequently she turned her eyes away from the cruel spectacle, glancing
+at him quickly with an odd expression. Her pupils appeared enlarged,
+and the whites of her eyes had a wateriness of morbid reflection.
+Ferragut felt that thus the insane must look in their great crises.
+
+She was speaking between her teeth, with emotional pauses, admiring the
+ferocity of the cuttlefish, grieving that she did not possess their
+vigor and their cruelty.
+
+"If I could only be like them!... To be able to go through the streets
+ ... through the world, stretching out my talons!... To devour!... to
+devour! They would struggle uselessly to free themselves from the
+winding of my tentacles.... To absorb them!... To eat them!... To cause
+them to disappear!..."
+
+Ulysses beheld her as on that first day near the temple of the poet,
+possessed with a fierce wrath against men, longing extravagantly for
+their extermination.
+
+Their digestion finished, the polypi had begun to swim around, and were
+now horizontal skeins, fluting the tank with elegance. They appeared
+like torpedo boats with a conical prow, dragging along the heavy, thick
+and long hair of their tentacles. Their excited appetite made them
+glide through the water in all directions, seeking new victims.
+
+Freya protested. The guard had only brought them dead bodies. What she
+wanted was the struggle, the sacrifice, the death. The bits of sardine
+were a meal without substance for these bandits that had zest only for
+food seasoned with assassination.
+
+As though the pulps had understood her complaints, they had fallen on
+the sandy bottom, flaccid, inert, breathing through their funnels.
+
+A little crab began to descend at the end of a thread desperately
+moving its claws.
+
+Freya pressed still closer to Ulysses, excited at the thought of the
+approaching spectacle. One of the bags, transformed into a star,
+suddenly leaped forward. Its arms writhed like serpents seeking the
+recent arrival. In vain the guard pulled the thread up, wishing to
+prolong the chase. The tentacles clamped their irresistible openings
+upon the body of the victim, pulling upon the line with such force that
+it broke, the octopus falling on the bottom with his prey.
+
+Freya clapped her hands in applause.
+
+"Bravo!..." She was exceedingly pale, though a feverish heat was
+coursing through her body.
+
+She leaned toward the crystal in order to see better the devouring
+activity of that pyramidal stomach which had on its sharp point a
+diminutive parrot head with two ferocious eyes and around its base the
+twisted skeins of its arms full of projecting disks. With these it
+pressed the crab against its mouth, injecting under its shell the
+venomous output of its salivary glands, paralyzing thus every movement
+of existence. Then it swallowed its prey slowly with the deglutition of
+a boa constrictor.
+
+"How beautiful it is!" she said.
+
+The other beasts also seized their live victims, paralyzed and devoured
+them, moving their flabby bodies in order to permit the passage of
+their swelling nutritive waves and clouds of various colors.
+
+Then the guard tossed in a crab, but one without any string whatever.
+Freya screamed with enthusiasm.
+
+This was the kind of hunt that takes place in the ferocious mystery of
+the sea, a race with death, a destruction preceded with emotional agony
+and hazards. The poor crustacean, divining its danger, was swimming
+towards the rocks hoping to take refuge in the nearest crevice. A
+polypus came up behind it, whilst the others continued their digestion.
+
+"It's escaping!... It's escaping!" cried Freya, palpitating with
+interest.
+
+The crab scrambled through the stones, sheltering itself in their
+windings. The polypus was no longer swimming; it was running like a
+terrestrial animal, climbing over the rocks by its armed extremities,
+which were now serving as apparatus of locomotion. It was the struggle
+of a tiger with a mouse. When the crab had half of its body already
+hidden within the green lichens of a hole, one of the heavy serpents
+fell upon its back clutching it with the irresistible suction of his
+air-holes, and causing it to disappear within his skein of tentacles.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Freya, throwing herself back as though she were going to
+faint on Ulysses' breast.
+
+He shuddered, feeling that a serpentine band of tremulous pressure had
+encircled his body. The acts of that unbalanced creature were fraying
+his nerves.
+
+He felt as though a monster of the same class as those in the tank but
+much larger--a gigantic octopus from the oceanic depths--must have
+slipped treacherously behind him and was clutching him in one of its
+tentacles. He could feel the pressure of its feelers around his waist,
+growing closer and more ferocious.
+
+Freya was holding him captive with one of her arms. She had wound
+herself tightly around him and was clasping his waist with all her
+force, as though trying to break his vigorous body in two.
+
+Then he saw the head of this woman approaching him with an aggressive
+swiftness as if she were going to bite him.... Her enlarged eyes,
+tearful and misty, appeared to be far off, very far off. Perhaps she
+was not even looking at him.... Her trembling mouth, bluish with
+emotion, a round and protruding mouth like an absorbing duct, was
+seeking the sailor's mouth, taking possession of it and devouring it
+with her lips.
+
+It was the kiss of a cupping-glass, long, dominating, painful. Ulysses
+realized that he had never before been kissed in this way. The water
+from that mouth surging across her row of teeth, discharged itself in
+his like swift poison. A shudder unfamiliar until then ran the entire
+length of his back, making him close his eyes.
+
+He felt as if all his interior had turned to liquid. He had a
+presentiment that his life was going to date from this kiss, that with
+it was going to begin a new existence, that he never would be able to
+free himself from these deadly and caressing lips with their faint
+savor of cinnamon, of incense, of Asiatic forests haunted with
+sensuousness and intrigue.
+
+And he let himself be dragged down by the caress of this wild beast,
+with thought lost and body inert and resigned, like a castaway who
+descends and descends the infinite strata of the abyss without ever
+reaching bottom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE WILES OF CIRCE
+
+After that kiss, the lover believed that all his desires were about to
+be immediately realized. The most difficult part of the road was
+already passed. But with Freya one always had to expect something
+absurd and inconceivable.
+
+The midday gun aroused them from a rapture that had lasted but a few
+seconds as long as years. The steps of the guard, growing nearer all
+the time, finally separated the two and unlocked their arms.
+
+Freya was the first to calm herself. Only a slight haze flitted across
+her pupils now, like the vapor from a recently extinguished fire.
+
+"Good-by.... They are waiting for me."
+
+And she went out from the Aquarium followed by Ferragut, still
+stammering and tremulous. The questions and petitions with which he
+pursued her while crossing the promenade were of no avail.
+
+"So far and no further," she said at one of the cross streets of
+Chiaja. "We shall see one another.... I formally promise you that....
+Now leave me."
+
+And she disappeared with the firm step of a handsome huntress, as
+serene of countenance as though not recalling the slightest
+recollection of her primitive, passional paroxysm.
+
+This time she fulfilled her promise. Ferragut saw her every day.
+
+They met in the mornings near the hotel, and sometimes she came down
+into the dining-room, exchanging smiles and glances with the sailor,
+who fortunately was sitting at a distant table. Then they took strolls
+and chatted together, Freya laughing good-naturedly at the amorous vows
+of the captain.... And that was all.
+
+With a woman's skillfulness in sounding a man's depth and penetrating
+into his secrets,--keeping fast-locked and unapproachable her own,--she
+gradually informed herself of the incidents and adventures in the life
+of Ulysses. Vainly he spoke, in a natural reciprocity, of the island of
+Java, of the mysterious dances before Siva, of the journeys through the
+lakes of the Andes. Freya had to make an effort to recall them. "Ah!...
+Yes!" And after giving this distracted exclamation for every answer,
+she would continue the process of delving eagerly into the former life
+of her lover. Ulysses sometimes began to wonder if that embrace in the
+Aquarium could have occurred in his dreams.
+
+One morning the captain managed to bring about the realization of one
+of his ambitions. He was jealous of the unknown friends that were
+lunching with Freya. In vain she affirmed that the doctor was the only
+companion of the hours that she passed outside of the hotel. In order
+to tranquillize himself, the sailor insisted that the widow should
+accept his invitations. They ought to extend their strolls; they ought
+to visit the beautiful outskirts of Naples, lunching in their gay
+little _trattorias_ or eating-houses.
+
+They ascended together the funicular road of Monte Vomero to the
+heights crowned by the castle of S. Elmo and the monastery of S.
+Martino. After admiring in the museum of the abbey the artistic
+souvenirs of the Bourbon domination and that of Murat, they entered
+into a nearby _trattoria_ with tables placed on an esplanade from whose
+balconies they could take in the unforgetable spectacle of the gulf,
+seeing Vesuvius in the distance and the chain of mountains smoking on
+the horizon like an immovable succession of dark rose-colored waves.
+
+Naples was extended in horseshoe form on the bow-shaped border of the
+sea tossing up from its enormous white mass, as though they were bits
+of foam, the clusters of houses in the suburbs.
+
+A swarthy oysterman, slender, with eyes like live coals, and enormous
+mustaches, had his stand at the door of the restaurant, offering
+cockles and shell fish of strong odor that had been half a week perhaps
+in ascending from the city to the heights of Vomero. Freya jested about
+the oysterman's typical good looks and the languishing glances that he
+was forever casting toward all the ladies that entered the
+establishment ... a prime discovery for a tourist anxious for
+adventures in local color.
+
+In the background a small orchestra was accompanying a tenor voice or
+was playing alone, enlarging upon the melodies and amplifying the
+measures with Neapolitan exaggeration.
+
+Freya felt a childish hilarity upon seating herself at the table,
+seeing over the cloth the luminous summit. Bisected in the foreground
+by a crystal vase full of flowers, the distant panorama of the city,
+the gulf, and its capes spread itself before her eager eyes. The air on
+this peak enchanted her after two weeks passed without stirring outside
+of Naples. The harps and violins gave the situation a pathetic thrill
+and served as a background for conversation, just as the vague murmurs
+of a hidden orchestra give the effect in the theater of psalmody or of
+melancholy verses moving the listener to tears.
+
+They ate with the nervousness which joy supplies. At some tables
+further on a young man and woman were forgetting the courses in order
+to clasp hands underneath the cloth and place knee against knee with
+frenzied pressure. The two were smiling, looking at the landscape and
+then at each other. Perhaps they were foreigners recently married,
+perhaps fugitive lovers, realizing in this picturesque spot the billing
+and cooing so many times anticipated in their distant courtship.
+
+Two English doctors from a hospital ship, white haired and uniformed,
+were disregarding their repast in order to paint directly in their
+albums, with a childish painstaking crudeness, the same panorama that
+was portrayed on the postal cards offered for sale at the door of the
+restaurant.
+
+A fat-bellied bottle with a petticoat of straw and a long neck
+attracted Freya's hands to the table. She ridiculed the sobriety of
+Ferragut, who was diluting with water the reddish blackness of the
+Italian wine.
+
+"Thus your ancestors, the Argonauts, must have drunk," she said gayly.
+"Thus your grandfather, Ulysses, undoubtedly drank."
+
+And herself filling the captain's glass with an exaggeratedly careful
+division of the parts of water and wine, she added gayly:
+
+"We are going to make a libation to the gods."
+
+These libations were very frequent. Freya's peals of laughter made the
+Englishmen, interrupted in their conscientious work, turn their glances
+toward her. The sailor felt himself overcome by a warm feeling of
+well-being, by a sensation of repose and confidence, as though this
+woman were unquestionably his already.
+
+Seeing that the two lovers, terminating their luncheon hastily, were
+arising with blushing precipitation as though overpowered by some
+sudden desire, his glance became tender and fraternal.... Adieu, adieu,
+companions!
+
+The voice of the widow recalled him to reality.
+
+"Ulysses, make love to me.... You haven't yet told me this whole day
+long that you love me."
+
+In spite of the smiling and mocking tone of this order, he obeyed her,
+repeating once more his promises and his desires. Wine was giving to
+his words a thrill of emotion; the musical moaning of the orchestra was
+exciting his sensibilities and he was so touched with his own eloquence
+that his eyes slightly filled with tears.
+
+The high voice of the tenor, as though it were an echo of Ferragut's
+thought, was singing a romance of the fiesta of Piedigrotta, a
+lamentation of melancholy love, a canticle of death, the final mother
+of hopeless lovers.
+
+"All a lie!" said Freya, laughing. "These Mediterraneans.... What
+comedians they are for love!..."
+
+Ulysses was uncertain as to whether she was referring to him or to the
+singer. She continued talking, placid and disdainful at the same time,
+because of their surroundings.
+
+"Love,... love! In these countries they can't talk of anything else. It
+is almost an industry, somewhat scrupulously prepared for the credulous
+and simple people from the North. They all harp on love: this howling
+singer, you ... even the oysterman...."
+
+Then she added maliciously:
+
+"I ought to warn you that you have a rival. Be very careful, Ferragut!"
+
+She turned her head in order to look at the oysterman. He was occupied
+in the contemplation of a fat lady with grisled hair and abundant
+jewels, a lady escorted by her husband, who was looking with
+astonishment at the vendor's killing glances without being able to
+understand them.
+
+The lady-killer was stroking his mustache affectedly, looking from time
+to time at his cloth suit in order to smooth out the wrinkles and brush
+off the specks of dust. He was a handsome pirate disguised as a
+gentleman. Upon noticing Freya's interest, he changed the course of his
+glances, poised his fine figure and replied to her questioning eyes
+with the smile of a bad angel, making her understand his discretion and
+skillfulness in ingratiating himself behind husbands and escorts.
+
+"There he is!" cried Freya with peals of laughter. "I already have a
+new admirer!..."
+
+The swarthy charmer was restrained by the scandalous publicity with
+which this lady was receiving his mysterious insinuations. Ferragut
+spoke of knocking the scamp down on his oyster shells with a good pair
+of blows.
+
+"Now don't be ridiculous," she protested. "Poor man! Perhaps he has a
+wife and many children.... He is the father of a family and wants to
+take money home."
+
+There was a long silence between the two. Ulysses appeared offended by
+the lightness and cruelty of his companion.
+
+"Now don't you be cross," she said. "See here, my shark! Smile a bit.
+Show me your teeth.... The libations to the gods are to blame. Are you
+offended because I wished to compare you with that clown?... What if
+you are the only man that I appreciate at all!... Ulysses, I am
+speaking to you seriously,--with all the frankness that wine gives. I
+ought not to tell you so, but I admit it.... If I should ever love a
+man, that man would be you."
+
+Ferragut instantly forgot all his irritation in order to listen to her
+and envelop her in the adoring light of his eyes. Freya averted her
+glance while speaking, not wishing to meet his eye, as though she were
+weighing what she was saying while her glance wandered over the
+widespread landscape.
+
+Ulysses' origin was what interested her most. She who had traveled over
+almost the entire world, had trodden the soil of Spain only a few
+hours, when disembarking in Barcelona from the transatlantic liner
+which he had commanded. The Spaniards inspired her both with fear and
+attraction. A noble gravity reposed in the depths of their ardent
+hyperbole.
+
+"You are an exaggerated being, a meridional who enlarges everything and
+lies about everything, believing all his own lies. But I am sure that
+if you should ever be really in love with me, without fine phrases or
+passionate fictions, your affection would be more sane and deep than
+that of other men.... My friend, the doctor, says that you are a crude
+people and that you have only simulated the nervousness, unbalanced
+behavior, and intrigues that accompany love in other civilized
+countries even to refinement."
+
+Freya looked at the sailor, making a long pause.
+
+"Therefore you strike," she continued, "therefore you kill when you
+feel love and jealousy. You are brutes but not mediocre. You do not
+abandon a woman intentionally; you do not exploit her.... You are a new
+species of man for me, who has known so many. If I were able to believe
+in love, I would have you at my side all my life.... All my life long!"
+
+A light, gentle music, like the vibration of fragile and delicate
+crystal, spread itself over the terrace. Freya followed its rhythm with
+a light motion of the head. She was accustomed to this cloying music,
+this _Serenata_ of Toselli,--a passionate lament that always touches
+the soul of the tourist in the halls of the grand hotels. She, who at
+other times had ridiculed this artificial and refined little music, now
+felt tears welling up in her eyes.
+
+"Not to be able to love anybody!" she murmured. "To wander alone
+through the world!... And love is such a beautiful thing!"
+
+She guessed what Ferragut was going to say,--his protest of eternal
+passion, his offer to unite his life to hers forever, and she cut his
+words short with an energetic gesture.
+
+"No, Ulysses, you do not know me; you do not know who I am.... Go far
+from me. Some days ago it was a matter of indifference to me. I hate
+men and do not mind injuring them, but now you inspire me with a
+certain interest because I believe you are good and frank in spite of
+your haughty exterior.... Go! Do not seek me. This is the best proof of
+affection that I can give you."
+
+She said this vehemently, as if she saw Ferragut running toward danger
+and was crying out in order to ward him from it.
+
+"On the stage," she continued, "there is a role that they call 'The
+Fatal Woman,' and certain artists are not able to play any other part.
+They were born to represent this personage.... I am a 'Fatal Woman,'
+but really and truly.... If you could know my life!... It is better
+that you do not know it; even I wish to ignore it. I am happy only when
+I forget it.... Ferragut, my friend, bid me farewell, and do not cross
+my path again."
+
+But Ferragut protested as though she were proposing a cowardly thing to
+him. Flee? Loving her so much? If she had enemies, she could rely upon
+him for her defense; if she wanted wealth, he wasn't a millionaire,
+but....
+
+"Captain," interrupted Freya, "go back to your own people. I was not
+meant for you. Think of your wife and son; follow your own life. I am
+not the conquest that is cherished for a few weeks, no more. Nobody can
+trust me with impunity. I have suckers just like the animals that we
+saw the other day; I burn and sting just like those transparent
+parasols in the Aquarium. Flee, Ferragut!.... Leave me alone....
+Alone!"
+
+And the image of the immense barrenness of her lonely future made the
+tears gush from her eyes.
+
+The music had ceased. A motionless waiter was pretending to look far
+away, while really listening to their conversation. The two Englishmen
+had interrupted their painting in order to glare at this _gentleman_
+who was making a lady weep. The sailor began to feel the nervous
+disquietude which a difficult situation creates.
+
+"Ferragut, pay and let us go," she said, divining his state of mind.
+
+While Ulysses was giving money to the waiters and musicians, she dried
+her eyes and repaired the ravages to her complexion, drawing from her
+gold-mesh bag a powder puff and little mirror in whose oval she
+contemplated herself for a long time.
+
+As they passed out, the oysterman turned his back, pretending to be
+very much occupied in the arrangement of the lemons that were adorning
+his stand. She could not see his face, but she guessed, nevertheless,
+that he was muttering a bad word,--the most terrible that can be said
+of a woman.
+
+They went slowly toward the station of the funicular road, through
+solitary streets and between garden walls one side of which was yellow
+in the golden sunlight and the other blue in the shade. She it was who
+sought Ulysses' arm, supporting herself on it with a childish abandon
+as if fatigue had overcome her after the first few steps.
+
+Ferragut pressed this arm close against his body, feeling at once the
+stimulus of contact. Nobody could see them; their footsteps resounded
+on the pavements with the echo of an abandoned place. The fermented
+ardor of those libations to the gods was giving the captain a new
+audacity.
+
+"My poor little darling!... Dear little crazy-head!..." he murmured,
+drawing closer to him Freya's head which was resting on one of his
+shoulders.
+
+He kissed her without her making any resistance. And she in turn kissed
+him, but with a sad, light, faint-hearted kiss that in no way recalled
+the hysterical caress of the Aquarium. Her voice, which appeared to be
+coming from afar off, was repeating what she had counseled him in the
+_trattoria_.
+
+"Begone, Ulysses! Do not see me any more. I tell you this for your own
+good.... I bring trouble. I should be sorry to have you curse the
+moment in which you met me."
+
+The sailor took advantage of all the windings of the streets in order
+to cut these recommendations short with his kisses. She advanced limply
+as though towed by him with no will power of her own, as though she
+were walking in her sleep. A voice was singing with diabolic
+satisfaction in the captain's brain:
+
+"Now it is ripe!... Now it is ripe!..."
+
+And he continued pulling her along always in a direct line, not knowing
+whither he was going, but sure of his triumph.
+
+Near the station an old man approached the pair,--a white-haired,
+respectable gentleman with an old jacket and spectacles. He gave them
+the card of a hotel which he owned in the neighborhood, boasting of the
+good qualities of its rooms. "Every modern comfort.... Hot water."
+Ferragut spoke to her familiarly:
+
+"Would you like?... Would you like?..."
+
+She appeared to wake up, dropping his arm brusquely.
+
+"Don't be crazy, Ulysses.... That will never be.... Never!"
+
+And drawing herself up magnificently, she entered the station with a
+haughty step, without looking around, without noticing whether Ferragut
+was following her or abandoning her.
+
+During the long wait and the descent to the city Freya appeared as
+ironical and frivolous as though she had no recollection of her recent
+indignation. The sailor, under the weight of his failure and the
+unusual libations, relapsed into sulky silence.
+
+In the district of Chiaja they separated. Ferragut, finding himself
+alone, felt more strongly than ever the effects of the intoxication
+that was dominating him, the intoxication of a temperate man overcome
+by the intense surprise of novelty.
+
+For a moment he had a forlorn idea of going to his boat. He needed to
+give orders, to contend with somebody; but the weakness of his knees
+pushed him toward his hotel and he flung himself face downward on the
+bed,--whilst his hat rolled on the floor,--content with the sobriety
+with which he had reached his room without attracting the attention of
+the servants.
+
+He fell asleep immediately, but scarcely had night fallen before his
+eyes opened again, or at least he believed that they opened, seeing
+everything under a light which was not that of the sun.
+
+Some one had entered the room, and was coming on tiptoe towards his
+bed. Ulysses, who was not able to move, saw out of the tail of one eye
+that what was approaching was a woman and that this woman appeared to
+be Freya. Was it really she?...
+
+She had the same countenance, the blonde hair, the black and oriental
+eyes, the same oval face. It was Freya and it was not, just as twins
+exactly alike physically, nevertheless have an indefinable something
+which differentiates them.
+
+The vague thoughts which for some time past had been slowly undermining
+his subconsciousness with dull, subterranean labor, now cleared the air
+with explosive force. Whenever he had seen the widow this
+subconsciousness had asserted itself, forewarning him that he had known
+her long before that transatlantic voyage. Now, under a light of
+fantastic splendor, these vague thoughts assumed definite shape.
+
+The sleeper thought he was looking at Freya clad in a bodice with
+flowing sleeves adjusted to the arms with filagree buttons of gold;
+some rather barbarous gems were adorning her bosom and ears, and a
+flowered skirt was covering the rest of her person. It was the classic
+costume of a farmer's wife or daughter of other centuries that he had
+seen somewhere in a painting. Where?... Where?...
+
+"Dona Constanza!..."
+
+Freya was the counterpart of that august Byzantian queen. Perhaps she
+was the very same, perpetuated across the centuries, through
+extraordinary incarnations. In that moment Ulysses would have believed
+anything possible.
+
+Besides he was very little concerned with the reasonableness of things
+just now; the important thing to him was that they should exist; and
+Freya was at his side; Freya and that other one, welded into one and
+the same woman, clad like the Grecian sovereign.
+
+Again he repeated the sweet name that had illuminated his infancy with
+romantic splendor. "Dona Constanza! Oh, Dona Constanza!..." And night
+overwhelmed him, cuddling his pillow as when he was a child, and
+falling asleep enraptured with thoughts of the young widow of "Vatacio
+the Heretic."
+
+When he met Freya again the next day, he felt attracted by a new
+force,--the redoubled interest that people in dreams inspire. She might
+really be the empress resuscitated in a new form as in the books of
+chivalry, or she might simply be the wandering widow of a learned
+sage,--for the sailor it was all the same thing. He desired her, and to
+his carnal desire was added others less material,--the necessity of
+seeing her for the mere pleasure of seeing her, of hearing her, of
+suffering her negatives, of being repelled in all his advances.
+
+She had pleasant memories of the expedition to the heights of S.
+Martino.
+
+"You must have thought me ridiculous because of my sensitiveness and my
+tears. You, on the other hand, were as you always are, impetuous and
+daring.... The next time we shall drink less."
+
+The "next time" was an invitation that Ferragut repeated daily. He
+wanted to take her to dine at one of the _trattorias_ on the road to
+Posilipo where they could see spread at their feet the entire gulf,
+colored with rose by the setting sun.
+
+Freya had accepted his invitation with the enthusiasm of a school girl.
+These strolls represented for her hours of joy and liberty, as though
+her long sojourns with the doctor were filled with monotonous service.
+
+One evening Ulysses was waiting for her far from the hotel so as to
+avoid the porter's curious stares. As soon as they met and glanced
+toward the neighboring cab-stand, four vehicles advanced at the same
+time--like a row of Roman chariots anxious to win the prize in the
+circus--with a noisy clattering of hoofs, cracking of whips, wrathful
+gesticulations and threatening appeals to the Madonna. Listening to
+their Neapolitan curses, Ferragut believed for an instant that they
+were going to kill one another.... The two climbed into the nearest
+vehicle, and immediately the tumult ceased. The empty coaches returned
+to occupy their former place in the line, and the deadly rivals renewed
+their placid and laughing conversation.
+
+An enormous upright plume was waving on their horses' heads. The
+cabman, in order not to be discourteous to his two clients, would
+occasionally turn half-way around, giving them explanations.
+
+"Over there," and he pointed with his whip, "is the road of
+Piedigrotta. The gentleman ought to see it on a day of fiesta in
+September. Few return from it with a firm step. _S. Maria di
+Piedigrotta_ enabled Charles III to put the Austrians to flight in
+Velletri.... _Aooo!_"
+
+He moved his whip like a fishing rod over the upright plume, increasing
+the steed's pace with a professional howl.... And as though his cry
+were among the sweetest of melodies, he continued talking, by
+association of ideas:
+
+"At the fiesta of _Piedigrotta_, when I was a boy, were given out the
+best songs of the year. There was proclaimed the latest fashionable
+love song, and long after we had forgotten it foreigners would come
+here repeating it as though it was a novelty."
+
+He made a short pause.
+
+"If the lady and gentleman wish," he continued, "I will take them, on
+returning, to _Piedigrotta_. Then we'll see the little church of _S.
+Vitale_. Many foreign ladies hunt for it in order to put flowers on the
+sepulcher of a hunch-back who made verses,--Giacomo Leopardi."
+
+The silence with which his two clients received these explanations made
+him abandon his mechanical oratory in order to take a good look at
+them. The gentleman was taking the lady's hand and was pressing it,
+speaking in a very low tone. The lady was pretending not to listen to
+him, looking at the villas and the gardens at the left of the road
+sloping down toward the sea.
+
+With noble magnanimity, however, the driver still wished to instruct
+his indifferent clients, showing them with the point of his whip the
+beauty and wonders of his repertoire.
+
+"That church is _S. Maria del Parto_, sometimes called by others the
+_Sannazaro._ _Sannazaro_ was also a noted poet who described the loves
+of shepherdesses, and Frederick II of Aragon made him the gift of a
+villa with gardens in order that he might write with greater comfort...
+Those were other days, sir! His heirs converted it into a church
+and----"
+
+The voice of the coachman stopped short. Behind him the pair were
+talking in an incomprehensible language, without paying the slightest
+attention to him, without acknowledging his erudite explanations.
+Ignorant foreigners!... And he said no more, wrapping himself in
+offended silence, relieving his Neapolitan verbosity with a series of
+shouts and grunts to his horse.
+
+The new road from Posilipo, the work of Murat, skirted the gulf, rising
+along the mountain edge and constantly emphasizing the declivity
+between the covering of its feet and the border of the sea. On this
+hanging slope may be seen villas with white or rosy facades midst the
+splendor of a vegetation that is always green and glossy. Beyond the
+colonnades of palm trees and parasol pines, appeared the gulf like a
+blue curtain, its upper edge showing above the murmuring tops of the
+trees.
+
+An enormous edifice appeared facing the water. It was a palace in
+ruins, or rather a roofless palace never finished, with thick walls and
+huge windows. On the lower floor the waves entered gently through doors
+and windows which served as rooms of refuge for the fishermen's skiffs.
+
+The two travelers were undoubtedly talking about this ruin, and the
+forgiving coachman forgot his snub in order to come to their aid.
+
+"That is what many people call the Palace of Queen Joanna.... A
+mistake, sir. Ignorance of the uneducated people! That is the _Palazzo
+di Donn' Anna_, and _Donna Anna Carafa_ was a great Neapolitan
+_signora_, wife of the Duke of Medina, the Spanish viceroy who
+constructed the palace for her and was not able to finish it."...
+
+He was about to say more but stopped himself. Ah, no! By the
+Madonna!... Again they had begun to talk, without listening to him....
+And he finally took refuge in offended silence, while they chattered
+continually behind his back.
+
+Ferragut felt an interest in the remote love-affairs of the Neapolitan
+great lady with the prudent and aristocratic Spanish magnate. His
+passion had made the grave viceroy commit the folly of constructing a
+palace in the sea. The sailor was also in love with a woman of another
+race and felt equal desires to do whimsical things for her.
+
+"I have read the mandates of Nietzsche," he said to her, by way of
+explaining his enthusiasm,--"'seek thy wife outside thy country.' That
+is the best thing."
+
+Freya smiled sadly.
+
+"Who knows?... That would complicate love with the prejudices of
+national antagonism. That would create children with a double country
+who would end by belonging to none, who would wander through the world
+like mendicants with no place of refuge.... I know something about
+that."
+
+And again she smiled with sadness and skepticism.
+
+Ferragut was reading the signs of the _trattorias_ on both sides of the
+highway: "The Ledge of the Siren," "The Joy of Parthenope," "The
+Cluster of Flowers."... And meanwhile he was squeezing Freya's hand,
+putting his fingers upon the inner side of her wrist and caressing her
+skin that trembled at every touch.
+
+The coachman let the horse slowly ascend the continuous ascent of
+Posilipo. He was now concerned in not turning around and not being
+troublesome. He knew well what they were talking about behind him.
+"Lovers,--people who do not wish to arrive too soon!" And he forgot to
+be offended, gloating over the probable generosity of a gentleman in
+such good company.
+
+Ulysses made him stop on the heights of Posilipo. It was there where he
+had eaten a famous "sailor's soup," and where they sold the best
+oysters from Fusaro. At the right of the road, there arose a
+pretentious and modern edifice with the name of a restaurant in letters
+of gold. On the opposite side was the annex, a terraced garden that
+slipped away down to the sea, and on these terraces were tables in the
+open air or little low roofed cottages whose walls were covered with
+climbing vines. These latter constructions had discreet windows opening
+upon the gulf at a great height thus forestalling any outside
+curiosity.
+
+Upon receiving Ferragut's generous tip, the coachman greeted him with a
+sly smile, that confidential gesture of comradeship which passes down
+through all the social strata, uniting them as simple men. He had
+brought many folk to this discreet garden with its locked dining-rooms
+overlooking the gulf. "A good appetite to you, _Signore_!"
+
+The old waiter who came to meet them on the little sloping footpath
+made the identical grimace as soon as he spied Ferragut. "I have
+whatever the gentleman may need." And crossing a low, embowered terrace
+with various unoccupied tables, he opened a door and bade them enter a
+room having only one window.
+
+Freya went instinctively toward it like an insect toward the light,
+leaving behind her the damp and gloomy room whose paper was hanging
+loose at intervals. "How beautiful!" The gulf pictured through the
+window appeared like an unframed canvas,--the original, alive and
+palpitating,--of the infinite copies throughout the world.
+
+Meanwhile the captain, while informing himself of the available dishes,
+was secretly following the discreet sign language of the waiter. With
+one hand he was holding the door half open, his fingers fumbling with
+an enormous archaic bolt on the under side which had belonged to a much
+larger door and looked as though it were going to fall from the wood
+because of its excessive size.... Ferragut surmised that this bolt was
+going to count heavily, with all its weight, in the bill for dinner.
+
+Freya interrupted her contemplation of the panorama on feeling
+Ferragut's lips trying to caress her neck.
+
+"None of that, Captain!... You know well enough what we have agreed.
+Remember that I have accepted your invitation on the condition that you
+leave me in peace."
+
+She permitted his kiss to pass across her cheek, even reaching her
+mouth. This caress was already an accepted thing. As it had the force
+of custom, she did not resist it, remembering the preceding ones, but
+fear of his abusing it made her withdraw from the window.
+
+"Let us examine the enchanted palace which my true love has promised
+me," she said gayly in order to distract Ulysses from his insistence.
+
+In the center there was a table made of planks badly planed and with
+rough legs. The covers and the dishes would hide this horror. Passing
+her eyes scrutinizingly over the old seats, the walls with their loose
+papering and the chromos in greenish frames, she spied something dark,
+rectangular and deep occupying one corner of the room. She did not know
+whether it was a divan, a bed or a funeral catafalque. The shabby
+covers that were spread over it reminded one of the beds of the
+barracks or of the prison.
+
+"Ah, no!..." Freya made one bound toward the door. She would never be
+able to eat beside that filthy piece of furniture which had come from
+the scum of Naples. "Ah, no! How loathesome!"
+
+Ulysses was standing near the door, fearing that Freya's discoveries
+might go further, and hiding with his back that bolt which was the
+waiter's pride. He stammered excuses but she mistook his insistence,
+thinking that he was trying to lock her in.
+
+"Captain, let me pass!" she said in an angry voice. "You do not know
+me. That kind of thing is for others.... Back, if you do not wish me to
+consider you the lowest kind of fellow...."
+
+And she pushed him as she went out, in spite of the fact that Ulysses
+was letting her pass freely, reiterating his excuses and laying all the
+responsibility on the stupidity of the servant.
+
+She stopped under the arbor, suddenly tranquillized upon finding
+herself with her back to the room.
+
+"What a den!"... she said. "Come over here, Ferragut. We shall be much
+more comfortable in the open air looking at the gulf. Come, now, and
+don't be babyish!... All is forgotten. You were not to blame."
+
+The old waiter, who was returning with table-covers and dishes, did not
+betray the slightest astonishment at seeing the pair installed on the
+terrace. He was accustomed to these surprises and evaded the lady's eye
+like a convicted criminal, looking at the gentleman with the forlorn
+air which he always employed when announcing that there was no more of
+some dish on the bill of fare. His gestures of quiet protection were
+trying to console Ferragut for his failure. "Patience and tenacity!"...
+He had seen much greater difficulties overcome by his clientele.
+
+Before serving dinner he placed upon the table, in the guise of an
+aperitive, a fat-bellied bottle of native wine, a nectar from the
+slopes of Vesuvius with a slight taste of sulphur. Freya was thirsty
+and was suspicious of the water of the _trattoria_. Ulysses must forget
+his recent mortification.... And the two made their libations to the
+gods, with an unmixed drink in which not a drop of water cut the
+jeweled transparency of the precious wine.
+
+A group of singers and dancers now invaded the terrace. A coppery-hued
+girl, handsome and dirty, with wavy hair, great gold hoops in her ears
+and an apron of many colored stripes, was dancing under the arbor,
+waving on high a tambourine that was almost the size of a parasol. Two
+bow-legged youngsters, dressed like ancient lazzarones in red caps,
+were accompanying with shouts the agitated dance of the _tarantella_.
+
+The gulf was taking on a pinkish light under the oblique rays of the
+sun, as though there were growing within it immense groves of coral.
+The blue of the sky had also turned rosy and the mountain seemed aflame
+in the afterglow. The plume of Vesuvius was less white than in the
+morning; its nebulous column, streaked with reddish flutings by the
+dying light, appeared to be reflecting its interior fire.
+
+Ulysses felt the friendly placidity that a landscape contemplated in
+childhood always inspires. Many a time he had seen this same panorama
+with its dancing girls and its volcano there in his old home at
+Valencia; he had seen it on the fans called "Roman Style" that his
+father used to collect.
+
+Freya felt as moved as her companion. The blue of the gulf was of an
+extreme intensity in the parts not reflected by the sun; the coast
+appeared of ochre; although the houses had tawdry facades, all these
+discordant elements were now blended and interfused in subdued and
+exquisite harmony. The shrubbery was trembling rhythmically under the
+breeze. The very air was musical, as though in its waves were vibrating
+the strings of invisible harps.
+
+This was for Freya the true Greece imagined by the poets, not the
+island of burned-out rocks denuded of vegetation that she had seen and
+heard spoken of in her excursions through the Hellenic archipelago.
+
+"To live here the rest of my life!" she murmured with misty eyes. "To
+die here, forgotten, alone, happy!..."
+
+Ferragut also would like to die in Naples ... but with her!... And his
+quick and exuberant imagination described the delights of life for the
+two,--a life of love and mystery in some one of the little villas, with
+a garden peeping out over the sea on the slopes of Posilipo.
+
+The dancers had passed down to the lower terrace where the crowd was
+greater. New customers were entering, almost all in pairs, as the day
+was fading. The waiter had ushered some highly-painted women with
+enormous hats, followed by some young men, into the locked dining-room.
+Through the half-open door came the noise of pursuit, collision and
+rebound with brutal roars of laughter.
+
+Freya turned her back, as if the memory of her passage through that den
+offended her.
+
+The old waiter now devoted himself to them, beginning to serve dinner.
+To the bottle of Vesuvian wine had succeeded another kind, gradually
+losing its contents.
+
+The two ate little but felt a nervous thirst which made them frequently
+reach out their hands toward the glass. The wine was depressing to
+Freya. The sweetness of the twilight seemed to make it ferment, giving
+it the acrid perfume of sad memories.
+
+The sailor felt arising within him the aggressive fever of temperate
+men when becoming intoxicated. Had he been with a man he would have
+started a violent discussion on any pretext whatever. He did not relish
+the oysters, the sailor's soup, the lobster, everything that another
+time, eaten alone or with a passing friend in the same site, would have
+appeared to him as delicacies.
+
+He was looking at Freya with enigmatical eyes while, in his thought,
+wrath was beginning to bubble. He almost hated her on recalling the
+arrogance with which she had treated him, fleeing from that room.
+"Hypocrite!..." She was just amusing herself with him. She was a
+playful and ferocious cat prolonging the death-agony of the mouse
+caught in her claws. In his brain a brutal voice was saying, as though
+counseling a murder: "This will be her last day!... I'll finish her
+to-day!... No more after to-day!..." After several repetitions, he was
+disposed to the greatest violence in order to extricate himself from a
+situation which he thought ridiculous.
+
+And she, ignorant of her companion's thought, deceived by the
+impassiveness of his countenance, continued chatting with her glance
+fixed on the horizon, talking in an undertone as though she were
+recounting to herself her illusions.
+
+The momentary suggestion of living in a cottage of Posilipo, completely
+alone, an existence of monastic isolation with all the conveniences of
+modern life, was dominating her like an obsession.
+
+"And yet, after all," she continued, "this atmosphere is not favorable
+to solitude; this landscape is for love. To grow old slowly, two who
+love each other, before the eternal beauty of the gulf!... What a pity
+that I have never been really loved!..."
+
+This was an offense against Ulysses who expressed his annoyance with
+all the aggressiveness that was seething beneath his bad humor. How
+about him?... Was he not loving her and disposed to prove it to her by
+all manner of sacrifices?...
+
+Sacrifices as proof of love always left this woman cold, accepting them
+with a skeptical gesture.
+
+"All men have told me the same thing," she added; "they all promise to
+kill themselves if I do not love them.... And with the most of them it
+is nothing more than a phrase of passionate rhetoric. And what if they
+did kill themselves really? What does that prove?... To leave life on
+the spur of a moment that gives no opportunity for repentance;--a
+simple nervous flash, a posture many times assumed simply for what
+people will say, with the frivolous pride of an actor who likes to pose
+in graceful attitudes. I know what all that means. A man once killed
+himself for me...."
+
+On hearing these last words Ferragut jerked himself out of his sullen
+silence. A malicious voice was chanting in his brain, "Now there are
+three!..."
+
+"I saw him dying," she continued, "on a bed of the hotel. He had a red
+spot like a star on the bandage of his forehead,--the hole of the
+pistol shot. He died clutching my hands, swearing that he loved me and
+that he had killed himself for me ... a tiresome, horrible scene....
+And nevertheless I am sure that he was deceiving himself, that he did
+not love me. He killed himself through wounded vanity on seeing that I
+would have nothing to do with him,--just for stubbornness, for
+theatrical effect, influenced by his readings.... He was a Roumanian
+tenor. That was in Russia.... I have been an actress a part of my
+life...."
+
+The sailor wished to express the astonishment that the different
+changes of this mysterious wandering existence, always showing a new
+facet, were producing in him; but he contained himself in order to
+listen better to the cruel counsels of the malignant voice speaking
+within his thoughts.... He was not trying to kill himself for her.
+Quite the contrary! His moody aggressiveness was considering her as the
+next victim. There was in his eyes something of the dead _Triton_ when
+in pursuit of a distant woman's skirt on the coast.
+
+Freya continued speaking.
+
+"To kill one's self is not a proof of love. They all promise me the
+sacrifice of their existence from the very first words. Men don't know
+any other song. Don't imitate them, Captain."
+
+She remained pensive a long time. Twilight was rapidly falling; half
+the sky was of amber and the other half of a midnight blue in which the
+first stars were beginning to twinkle. The gulf was drowsing under the
+leaden coverlet of its water, exhaling a mysterious freshness that was
+spreading to the mountains and trees. All the landscape appeared to be
+acquiring the fragility of crystal. The silent air was trembling with
+exaggerated resonance, repeating the fall of an oar in the boats that,
+small as flies, were slipping along under the sky arching above the
+gulf, and prolonging the feminine and invisible voices passing through
+the groves on the heights.
+
+The waiter went from table to table, distributing candles enclosed in
+paper shades. The mosquitoes and moths, revived by the twilight, were
+buzzing around these red and yellow flowers of light.
+
+Her voice was again sounding in the twilight air with the vagueness of
+one speaking in a dream.
+
+"There is a sacrifice greater than that of life,--the only one that can
+convince a woman that she is beloved. What does life signify to a man
+like you?... Your profession puts it in danger every day and I believe
+you capable of risking your life, when tired of land, for the slightest
+motive...."
+
+She paused again and then continued.
+
+"Honor is worth more than life for certain men,--respectability, the
+preservation of the place that they occupy. Only the man that would
+risk his honor and position for me, who would descend to the lowest
+depths without losing his will to live, would ever be able to convince
+me.... That indeed would be a sacrifice!"
+
+Ferragut felt alarmed at such words. What kind of sacrifice was this
+woman about to propose to him?... But he grew calmer as he listened to
+her. It was all a fancy of her disordered imagination. "She is crazy,"
+again affirmed the hidden counselor in his brain.
+
+"I have dreamed many times," she continued, "of a man who would rob for
+me, who would kill if it was necessary and might have to pass the rest
+of his years in prison.... My poor thief!... I would live only for him,
+spending night and day near the walls of his prison, looking through
+the bars, working like a woman of the village in order to send a good
+dinner to my outlaw.... That is genuine love and not the cold lies, the
+theatrical vows of our world."
+
+Ulysses repeated his mental comment, "She certainly is crazy"--and his
+thought was so clearly reflected in his eyes that she guessed it.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Ferragut," she said, smiling. "I have no thought of
+exacting such a sacrifice of you. All this that I am talking about is
+merely fancy, a whimsy invented to fill the vacancy of my soul. 'Tis
+the fault of the wine, of our exaggerated libations,--that to-day have
+been without water,--to the gods.... Just look!"
+
+And she pointed with comical gravity to the two empty bottles that were
+occupying the center of the table.
+
+Night had fallen. In the dark sky twinkled infinite eyes of starry
+light. The immense bowl of the gulf was reflecting their sparkles like
+thousands of will o' the wisps. The candle shades in the restaurant
+were throwing purplish spots upon the table covers, casting upon the
+faces of those who were eating around them violent contrasts of light
+and shade. From the locked rooms were escaping sounds of kisses,
+pursuit and falling furniture.
+
+"Let us go!" ordered Freya.
+
+The noise of this vulgar orgy was annoying her as though it were
+dishonoring the majesty of the night. She needed to move about, to walk
+in the darkness, to breathe in the freshness of the mysterious shade.
+
+At the garden gate they hesitated before the appeals of various
+coachmen. Freya was the one who refused their offers. She wished to
+return to Naples on foot, following the easy descent of the road of
+Posilipo after their long inaction in the restaurant. Her face was warm
+and flushed because of the excess of wine.
+
+Ulysses gave her his arm and they began to move through the shadows,
+insensibly impelled in their march by the ease of the downward slope.
+Freya knew just what this trip would mean. At the very first step the
+sailor advised her with a kiss on the neck. He was going to take
+advantage of all the windings of the road, of the hills and terraces
+cut through in certain places to show the phosphorescent gulf across
+the foliage, and of the long shadowy stretch broken only now and then
+by the public echoes or the lanterns of carriages and tramways....
+
+But these liberties were already an accepted thing. She had taken the
+first step in the Aquarium: besides, she was sure of her ability to
+keep her lover at whatever distance she might choose to fix.... And
+convinced of her power of checking herself in time, she gave herself up
+like a lost woman.
+
+Never had Ferragut had such a propitious occasion. It was a
+trysting-place in the mystery of the night with plenty of time ahead of
+them. The only trouble was the necessity of walking on, of accompanying
+his embraces and protests of love with the incessant activity of
+walking. She protested, coming out from her rapture every time that the
+enamored man would propose that they sit down on the side of the road.
+
+Hope made Ulysses very obedient to Freya, desirous of reaching Naples
+as soon as possible. Down there in the curve of the light near the gulf
+was the hotel, and the sailor looked upon it as a place of happiness.
+
+"Say yes," he murmured in her ear, punctuating his words with kisses,
+"say that it will be to-night!..."
+
+She did not reply, leaning on the arm that the captain had passed
+around her waist, letting herself be dragged along as if she were
+half-fainting, rolling her eyes and offering her lips.
+
+While Ulysses was repeating his pleadings and caresses the voice in his
+brain was chanting victoriously, "Here it is!... It's settled now....
+The thing now is to get her to the hotel."
+
+They roamed on for nearly an hour, fancying that only a few minutes had
+passed by.
+
+Approaching the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_, near the Aquarium,
+they stopped an instant. There were fewer people and more life here
+than in the road to Posilipo. They avoided the electric lights of the
+_Via Caracciolo_ reflected in the sea,--the two instinctively
+approaching a bench, and seeking the ebony shade of the trees.
+
+Freya had suddenly become very composed. She appeared annoyed at
+herself for her languor during the walk. Finding herself near the
+hotel, she recovered her energy as though in the presence of danger.
+
+"Good-by, Ulysses! We shall see each other again to-morrow.... I am
+going to pass the night in the doctor's home."
+
+The sailor withdrew a little in the shock of surprise. "Was it a
+jest?..." But no, he could not think that. The very tone of her words
+displayed firm resolution.
+
+He entreated her humbly with a thick and threatening voice not to go
+away. At the same time his mental counselor was rancorously chanting,
+"She's making a fool of you!... It's time to put an end to all this....
+Make her feel your masculine authority." And this voice had the same
+ring as that of the dead _Triton_.
+
+Suddenly occurred a violent, brutal, dishonorable thing. Ulysses threw
+himself upon her as though he Were going to kill her, holding her
+tightly in his arms, and the two fell upon the bench, panting and
+struggling. But this only lasted an instant.
+
+The vigorous Ferragut, trembling with emotion, was only using half of
+his powers. He suddenly sprang back, raising his two hands to his
+shoulders. He felt a sharp pain, as though one of his bones had just
+broken. She had repelled him with a certain Japanese fencing trick that
+employs the hands as irresistible weapons.
+
+"Ah!... _Tal!_..." he roared, hurling upon her the worst of feminine
+insults.
+
+And he fell upon her again as though he were a man, uniting to his
+original purpose the desire of maltreating her, of degrading her, of
+making her his.
+
+Freya awaited him firmly... Seeing the icy glitter of her eyes, Ulysses
+without knowing why recalled the "eye of the morning," the
+companionable reptile of her dances.
+
+In this furious onslaught he was stopped by the simple contact on his
+forehead of a diminutive metal circle, a kind of frozen thimble that
+was resting on his skin.
+
+He looked... It was a little revolver, a deadly toy of shining nickel.
+It had appeared in Freya's hand, drawn secretly from her clothes, or
+perhaps from that gold-mesh bag whose contents seemed inexhaustible.
+
+She was looking at him fixedly with her finger on the trigger. He
+surmised her familiarity with the weapon that she had in her hand. It
+could not be the first time that she had had recourse to it.
+
+The sailor's indecision was brief. With a man, he would have taken
+possession of the threatening hand, twisting it until he broke it,
+without the slightest fear of the revolver. But he had opposite him a
+woman ... and this woman was entirely capable of wounding him, and at
+the same time placing him in a ridiculous situation.
+
+"Retire, sir!" ordered Freya with a ceremonious and threatening tone as
+though she were speaking to an utter stranger.
+
+But it was she who retired finally, seeing that Ulysses stepped back,
+thoughtful and confused. She turned her back on him at the same time
+that the revolver disappeared from her hand.
+
+Before departing, she murmured some words that Ferragut was not able to
+understand, looking at him for the last time with contemptuous eyes.
+They must be terrible insults, and just because she was uttering them
+in a mysterious language, he felt her scorn more deeply.
+
+"It cannot be.... It is all ended. It is ended forever!..."
+
+She said this repeatedly before returning to her hotel. And he thought
+of it during all the wakeful night between agonizing attacks of
+nightmare. When the morning was well advanced the bugles of the
+_bersaglieri_ awakened him from a heavy sleep.
+
+He paid his bill in the manager's office and gave a last tip to the
+porter, telling him that a few hours later a man from the ship would
+come for his baggage.
+
+He was happy, with the forced happiness of one obliged to accommodate
+himself to circumstances. He congratulated himself upon his liberty as
+though he had gained this liberty of his own free will and it had not
+been imposed upon him by her scorn. Since the memory of the preceding
+day pained him, putting him in a ridiculous and gross light, it was
+better not to recall the past.
+
+He stopped in the street to take a last look at the hotel. "Adieu,
+accursed _albergo_!... Never will I see you again. Would that you might
+burn down with all your occupants!"
+
+Upon treading the deck of the _Mare Nostrum_, his enforced satisfaction
+became immeasurably increased. Here only could he live far from the
+complications and illusions of terrestrial life.
+
+All those aboard who in previous weeks had feared the arrival of the
+ill-humored captain, now smiled as though they saw the sun coming out
+after a tempest. He distributed kindly words and affectionate grasps of
+the hand. The repairs were going to be finished the following day....
+Very good! He was entirely content. Soon they would be on the sea
+again.
+
+In the galley he greeted Uncle Caragol.... That man _was_ a
+philosopher. All the women in the world were not in his estimation
+worth a good dish of rice. Ah, the great man!... He surely was going to
+live to be a hundred! And the cook flattered by such praises, whose
+origin he did not happen to comprehend, responded as always,--"That is
+so, my captain."
+
+Toni, silent, disciplined and familiar, inspired him with no less
+admiration. His life was an upright life, firm and plain, as the road
+of duty. When the young officials used to talk in his presence of
+boisterous suppers on shore with women from distant countries, the
+pilot had always shrugged his shoulders. "Money and pleasure ought to
+be kept for the home," he would say sententiously.
+
+Ferragut had laughed many times at the virtue of his mate who, timid
+and torpid, used to pass over a great part of the planet without
+permitting himself any distraction whatever, but would awake with an
+overpowering tension whenever the chances of their voyage brought him
+the opportunity of a few days' stay in his home in the _Marina_.
+
+And with the tranquil grossness of the virtuous stay-at-home, he was
+accustomed to calculate the dates of his voyages by the age of his
+eight children. "This one was on returning from the Philippines....
+This other one after I was in the coast trade in the Gulf of
+California...."
+
+His methodical serenity, incapable of being perturbed by frivolous
+adventures, made him guess from the very first the secret of the
+captain's enthusiasm and wrath. "It must be a woman," he said to
+himself, upon seeing him installed in a hotel in Naples, and after
+feeling the effects of his bad humor in the fleeting appearances that
+he made on board.
+
+Now, listening to Ferragut's jovial comments on his mate's tranquil
+life and philosophic sagacity, Toni again ejaculated mentally, without
+the captain's suspecting anything from his impassive countenance: "Now
+he has quarreled with the woman. He has tired of her. But better so!"
+
+He was more than ever confirmed in this belief on hearing Ferragut's
+plans. As soon as the boat could be made ready, they were going to
+anchor in the commercial port. He had been told of a certain cargo for
+Barcelona,--some cheap freight,--but that was better than going
+empty.... If the cargo should be delayed, they would set sail merely
+with ballast. More than anything else, he wished to renew his trips.
+Boats were scarcer and more in demand all the time. It was high time to
+stop this enforced inertia.
+
+"Yes, it's high time," responded Toni who, during the entire month, had
+only gone ashore twice.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ left the repair dock coming to anchor opposite the
+commercial wharf, shining and rejuvenated, with no imperfections
+recalling her recent injuries.
+
+One morning when the captain and his second were in the saloon under
+the poop undecided whether to start that night--or wait four days
+longer, as the owners of the cargo were requesting,--the third officer,
+a young Andalusian, presented himself greatly excited by the piece of
+news of which he was the bearer. A most beautiful and elegant lady (the
+young man emphasized his admiration with these details) had just
+arrived in a launch and, without asking permission, had climbed the
+ladder, entering the vessel as though it were her own dwelling.
+
+Toni felt his heart thump. His swarthy countenance became ashy pale.
+"_Cristo!_... The woman from Naples!" He did not really know whether
+she was from Naples; he had never seen her, but he was certain that she
+was coming as a fatal impediment, as an unexpected calamity.... Just
+when things were going so well, too!...
+
+The captain whirled around in his arm chair, jumped up from the table,
+and in two bounds was out on deck.
+
+Something extraordinary was perturbing the crew. They, too, were all on
+deck as though some powerful attraction had drawn them from the orlop,
+from the depths of the hold, from the metallic corridors of the engine
+rooms. Even Uncle Caragol was sticking his episcopal face out through
+the door of the kitchen, holding a hand closed in the form of a
+telescope to one of his eyes, without being able to distinguish clearly
+the announced marvel.
+
+Freya was a few steps away in a blue suit somewhat like a sailor's, as
+though this visit to the ship necessitated the imitative elegance and
+bearing of the multi-millionaires who live on their yachts. The seamen,
+cleaning brass or polishing wood, were pretending extraordinary
+occupations in order to get near her. They felt the necessity of being
+in her atmosphere, of living in the perfumed air that enveloped her,
+following her steps.
+
+Upon seeing the captain, she simply extended her hand, as though she
+might have seen him the day before.
+
+"Do not object, Ferragut!... As I did not find you in the hotel, I felt
+obliged to visit you on your ship. I have always wanted to see your
+floating home. Everything about you interests me."
+
+She appeared an entirely different woman. Ulysses noted the great
+change that had taken place in her person during the last days. Her
+eyes were bold, challenging, of a calm seductiveness. She appeared to
+be surrendering herself entirely. Her smiles, her words, her manner of
+crossing the deck toward the staterooms of the vessel proclaimed her
+determination to end her long resistance as quickly as possible,
+yielding to the sailor's desires.
+
+In spite of former failures, he felt anew the joy of triumph. "Now it
+is going to be! My absence has conquered her...." And at the same time
+that he was foretasting the sweet satisfaction of love and triumphant
+pride, there arose in him a vague instinct of suspicion of this woman
+so suddenly transformed, perhaps loving her less than in former days
+when she resisted and advised him to be gone.
+
+In the forward cabin he presented her to his mate. The crude Toni
+experienced the same hallucination that had perturbed all the others on
+the boat. What a woman!... At the very first glance he understood and
+excused the captain's conduct. Then he fixed his eyes upon her with an
+expression of alarm, as though her presence made him tremble for the
+fate of the steamer: but finally he succumbed, dominated by this lady
+who was examining the saloon as though she had come to remain in it
+forever.
+
+For a few moments Freya was interested in the hairy ugliness of Toni.
+He was a true Mediterranean, just the kind she had imagined to
+herself,--a faun pursuing nymphs. Ulysses laughed at the eulogies which
+she passed on his mate.
+
+"In his shoes," she continued, "he ought to have pretty little hoofs
+like a goat's. He must know how to play the flute. Don't you think so,
+Captain?..."
+
+The faun, wrinkled and wrathful, took himself off, saluting her
+stolidly as he went away. Ferragut felt greatly relieved at his
+absence, since he was fearful of some rude speech from Toni.
+
+Finding herself alone with Ulysses, she ran through the great room from
+one side to the other.
+
+"Is here where you live, my dear shark?... Let me see everything. Let
+me poke around everywhere. Everything of yours interests me. You will
+not say now that I do not love you. What a boast for Captain Ferragut!
+The ladies come to seek him on his ship...."
+
+She interrupted her ironic and affectionate chatter in order to defend
+herself gently from the sailor. He, forgetting the past, and wishing to
+take advantage of the happiness so suddenly presented to him, was
+kissing the nape of her neck.
+
+"There,... there!" she sighed. "Now let me look around. I feel the
+curiosity of a child."
+
+She opened the piano,--the poor piano of the Scotch captain--and some
+thin and plaintive chords, showing many years' lack of tuning, filled
+the saloon with the melancholy of resuscitated memories.
+
+The melody was like that of the musical boxes that we find forgotten in
+the depths of a wardrobe among the clothes of some deceased old lady.
+Freya declared that it smelled of withered roses.
+
+Then, leaving the piano, she opened one after the other, all the doors
+of the staterooms surrounding the saloon. She stopped at the captain's
+sleeping room without wishing to pass the threshold, without loosening
+her hold on the brass doorknob in her right hand. Ferragut behind her,
+was pushing her with treacherous gentleness, at the same time repeating
+his caresses on her neck.
+
+"No; here, no," she said. "Not for anything in the world!... I will be
+yours, I promise you; I give you my word of honor. But where I will and
+when it seems best to me.... Very soon, Ulysses!"
+
+He felt complete gratification in all these affirmations made in a
+caressing and submissive voice, all possible pride in such spontaneous,
+affectionate address, equivalent to the first surrender.
+
+The arrival of one of Uncle Caragol's acolytes made them recover their
+composure. He was bringing two enormous glasses filled with a ruddy and
+foamy cocktail,--an intoxicating and sweet mixture, a composite of all
+the knowledge acquired by the _chef_ in his intercourse with the
+drunkards of the principal ports of the world.
+
+She tested the liquid, rolling up her eyes like a greedy tabby. Then
+she broke forth into praises, lifting up the glass in a solemn manner.
+She was offering her libation to Eros, the god of Love, the most
+beautiful of the gods, and Ferragut who always had a certain terror of
+the infernal and agreeable concoctions of his cook, gulped the glass in
+one swallow, in order to join in the invocation.
+
+All was arranged between the two. She was giving the orders. Ferragut
+would return ashore, lodging in the same _albergo_. They would continue
+their life as before, as though nothing had occurred.
+
+"This evening you will await me in the gardens of the _Villa
+Nazionale_.... Yes, there where you wished to kill me, you
+highwayman!..."
+
+Before he should clearly recall that night of violence, Freya continued
+her recollections with feminine astuteness.... It was Ulysses who had
+wanted to kill her; she reiterated it without admitting any reply.
+
+"We shall visit the doctor," she continued. "The poor woman wants to
+see you and has asked me to bring you. She is very much interested in
+you because she knows that I love you, my pirate!"
+
+After having arranged the hour of meeting, Freya wished to depart. But
+before returning to her launch, she felt curious to inspect the boat,
+just as she Had examined the saloon and the staterooms.
+
+With the air of a reigning princess, preceded by the captain and
+followed by the officials, she went over the two decks, entered the
+galleries of the engine room and the four-sided abyss of the hatchways,
+sniffing the musty odor of the hold. On the bridge she touched with
+childish enthusiasm the large brass hood of the binnacle and other
+steering instruments glistening as though made of gold.
+
+She wished to see the galley and invaded Uncle Caragol's dominions,
+putting his formal lines of casseroles into lamentable disorder, and
+poking the tip of her rosy little nose into the steam arising from the
+great stew in which was boiling the crew's mess.
+
+The old man was able to see her close with his half-blind eyes. "Yes,
+indeed, she was pretty!" The frou-frou of her skirts and the frequent
+little clashes that he had with her in her comings and goings,
+perturbed the apostle. His _chef_-like, sense of smell made him feel
+annoyed by the perfume of this lady. "Pretty, but with the smell of
+ ..." he repeated mentally. For him all feminine perfume merited this
+scandalous title. Good women smelled of fish and kitchen pots; he was
+sure of that.... In his faraway youth, the knowledge of poor Caragol
+had never gone beyond that.
+
+As soon as he was alone, he snatched up a rag, waving it violently
+around, as though he were driving away flies. He wished to clear the
+atmosphere of bad odors. He felt as scandalized as though she had let a
+cake of soap fall into one of his delicious rice compounds.
+
+The men of the crew crowded to the railings in order to follow the
+course of the little launch that was making toward shore.
+
+Toni, standing on the bridge, also contemplated her with enigmatic
+eyes.
+
+"You are handsome, but may the sea swallow you up before you come
+back!"
+
+A handkerchief was waving from the stern of the little boat. "Good-by,
+Captain!" And the captain nodded his head, smiling and gratified by the
+feminine greeting while the sailors were envying him his good luck.
+
+Again one of the men of the crew carried Ferragut's baggage to the
+_albergo_ on the shore of _S. Lucia_. The porter, as though foreseeing
+the chance of getting an easy fee from his client, took it upon himself
+to select a room for him, an apartment on a floor lower than on his
+former stay, near that which the _signora_ Talberg was occupying.
+
+They met in mid-afternoon in the _Villa Nazionale_, and began their
+walk together through the streets of Chiaja. At last Ulysses was going
+to know where the doctor was hiding her majestic personality. He
+anticipated something extraordinary in this dwelling-place, but was
+disposed to hide his impressions for fear of losing the affection and
+support of the wise lady who seemed to be exercising so great a power
+over Freya.
+
+They entered into the vestibule of an ancient palace. Many times the
+sailor had stopped before this door, but had gone on, misled by the
+little metal door plates announcing the offices and counting-houses
+installed on the different floors.
+
+He beheld an arcaded court paved with great tiled slabs upon which
+opened the curving balconies of the four interior sides of the palace.
+They climbed up a stairway of resounding echoes, as large as one of the
+hill-side streets, with broad turnings which in former time permitted
+the passage of the litters and chairmen. As souvenirs of the
+white-wigged personages and ladies of voluminous farthingales who had
+passed through this palace, there were still some classic busts on the
+landing places, a hand-wrought iron railing, and various huge lanterns
+of dull gold and blurred glass.
+
+They stopped on the first floor before a row of doors rather
+weather-beaten by the years.
+
+"Here it is," said Freya.
+
+And thereupon she pointed to the only door that was covered with a
+screen of green leather displaying a commercial sign,--enormous, gilded
+and pretentious. The doctor was lodging in an office.... How could he
+ever have found it!
+
+The first room really was an office, a merchant's room with files for
+papers, maps, a safe for stocks, and various tables. One employee only
+was working here,--a man of uncertain age with a childish face and a
+clipped beard. His obsequious and smiling attitude was in striking
+contrast to his evasive glance,--a glance of alarm and distrust.
+
+Upon seeing Freya he arose from his seat. She greeted him, calling him
+Karl, and passed on as though he were a mere porter. Ulysses upon
+following her, surmised that the suspicious glance of the writer was
+fixed upon his back.
+
+"Is he a Pole, too?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, a Pole.... He is a protege of the doctor's."
+
+They entered a salon evidently furnished in great haste, with the
+happy-go-lucky and individual knack of those accustomed to traveling
+and improvising a dwelling place;--divans with cheap and showy
+chintzes, skins of the American llama, glaring imitation-Oriental rugs,
+and on the walls, prints from the periodicals between gilt moldings. On
+a table were displayed their marble ornaments and silver things, a
+great dressing-case with a cover of cut leather, and a few little
+Neapolitan statuettes which had been bought at the last moment in order
+to give a certain air of sedentary respectability to this room which
+could be dismantled suddenly and whose most valuable adornments were
+acquired _en route_.
+
+Through a half-drawn portiere they descried the doctor writing in the
+nearby room. She was bending over an American desk, but she saw them
+immediately in a mirror which she kept always in front of her in order
+to spy on all that was passing behind her.
+
+Ulysses surmised that the imposing dame had made certain additions to
+her toilette in order to receive him. A gown as close as a sheath
+molded the exuberance of her figure. The narrow skirt drawn tightly
+over the edge of her knees appeared like the handle of an enormous
+club. Over the green sea of her dress she was wearing a spangled white
+tulle draped like a shawl. The captain, in spite of his respect for
+this wise lady, could not help comparing her to a well-nourished
+mother-mermaid in the oceanic pasture lands.
+
+With outstretched hands and a joyous expression on her countenance
+irradiating even her glasses, she advanced toward Ferragut. Her meeting
+was almost an embrace.... "My dear Captain! Such a long time since I
+have seen you!..." She had heard of him frequently through her young
+friend, but even so, she could not but consider it a misfortune that
+the sailor had never come to see her.
+
+She appeared to have forgotten her coldness when bidding him farewell
+in Salerno and the care which she had taken to hide from him her home
+address.
+
+Neither did Ferragut recall this fact now that he was so agreeably
+touched by the doctor's amiability. She had seated herself between the
+two as though wishing to protect them with all the majesty of her
+person and the affection of her eyes. She was a real mother for her
+young friend. While speaking, she was patting Freya's great locks of
+hair, which had just escaped from underneath her hat, and Freya,
+adapting herself to the tenderness of the situation, cuddled down
+against the doctor, assuming the air of a timid and devoted child while
+she fixed on Ulysses her eyes of sweet promise.
+
+"You must love her very much, Captain," continued the matron. "Freya
+speaks only of you. She has been so unfortunate!... Life has been so
+cruel to her!..."
+
+The sailor felt as though he were in the placid bosom of a family. That
+lady was discreetly taking everything for granted, speaking to him as
+to a son-in-law. Her kindly glance was somewhat melancholy. It was the
+sweet sadness of mature people who find the present monotonous, the
+future circumscribed, and taking refuge in memories of the past, envy
+the young who enjoy the reality of what they can taste only in memory.
+
+"Happy you!... You love each other so much!... Life is worth living
+only because of love."
+
+And Freya, as though irresistibly affected by these counsels, threw
+one arm around the doctor's globular, corseted figure, while
+convulsively clasping Ulysses' right hand.
+
+The gold-rimmed spectacles, with their protecting gleam, appeared to
+incite them to even greater intimacy. "You may kiss each other...." And
+the imposing dame, trumping up an insignificant pretext, so as to
+facilitate their love-making was about to go out when the drapery of
+the door between the salon and office was raised.
+
+There entered a man of Ferragut's age, but shorter, with a
+weather-beaten face. He was dressed in the English style with
+scrupulous correctness. It was plain to be seen that he was accustomed
+to take the most excessive and childish interest in everything
+referring to the adornment of his person. The suit of gray wool
+appeared to have achieved its finishing touch in the harmony of cravat,
+socks, and handkerchief sticking out of his pocket,--all in the same
+tone. The three pieces were blue, without the slightest variation in
+shade, chosen with the exactitude of a man who would undoubtedly suffer
+cruel discomfort if obliged to go out into the street with his cravat
+of one color and his socks of another. His gloves had the same dark tan
+tone as his shoes.
+
+Ferragut thought that this dandy, in order to be absolutely perfect,
+ought to be clean shaved. And yet, he was wearing a beard, close
+clipped on the cheeks and forming over the chin a short, sharp point.
+The captain suspected that he was a sailor. In the German fleet, in the
+Russian, in all the navies of the North where they are not shaved in
+the English style, they use this traditional little beard.
+
+The newcomer bowed, or, more properly speaking, doubled himself over at
+right angles, with a brusque stiffness, upon kissing the hands of the
+two ladies. Then he raised his impertinent monocle and fixed it in one
+of his eyes while the doctor made the introduction.
+
+"Count Kaledine ... Captain Ferragut."
+
+The count gave the sailor his hand, a hard hand, well-cared for and
+vigorous, which for a long time enclosed that of Ulysses, wishing to
+dominate it with an ineffectual pressure.
+
+The conversation continued in English which was the language employed
+by the doctor in her relations with Ulysses.
+
+"The gentleman is a sailor?" asked Ferragut in order to clarify his
+doubts.
+
+The monocle did not move from its orbit, but a light ripple of surprise
+appeared to cross its luminous convexity. The doctor hastened to reply.
+
+"The count is an illustrious diplomat who is now on leave, regaining
+his health. He has traveled a great deal, but he is not a sailor."
+
+And she continued her explanations.
+
+The Kaledines were of a Russian family ennobled in the days of
+Catherine the Great. The doctor, being a Polish woman, had been
+connected with them for many years.... And she ceased speaking, giving
+Kaledine his cue in the conversation.
+
+At the beginning the count appeared cold and rather disdainful in his
+words, as though he could not possibly lay aside his diplomatic
+haughtiness. But this hauteur gradually melted away.
+
+Through his "distinguished friend,--Madame Talberg," he had heard of
+many of Ferragut's nautical adventures. Men of action, the heroes of
+the ocean, were always exceedingly interesting to him.
+
+Ulysses suddenly noticed in his noble interlocutor a warm affection, a
+desire to make himself agreeable, just like the doctor's. What a lovely
+home this was in which everybody was making an effort to be gracious to
+Captain Ferragut!
+
+The count, smiling amiably, ceased to avail himself of his English, and
+soon began talking to him in Spanish, as though he had reserved this
+final touch in order to captivate Ulysses' affection with this most
+irresistible of flatteries.
+
+"I have lived in Mexico," he said, in order to explain his knowledge of
+the language. "I made a long trip through the Philippines when I was
+living in Japan."
+
+The seas of the extreme Far East were those least frequented by
+Ulysses. Only twice had he entered the Chinese and Nipponese harbors,
+but he knew them sufficiently to keep up his end of the conversation
+with this traveler who was displaying in his tastes a certain artistic
+refinement. For half an hour, there filed through the vulgar atmosphere
+of this salon, images of enormous pagodas with superimposed roofs whose
+strings of bells vibrated in the breeze like an Aeolian harp, monstrous
+idols--carved in gold, in bronze, or in marble-houses made of paper,
+thrones of bamboo, furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay, screens with
+flocks of flying storks.
+
+The doctor disappeared, bored by a dialogue of which she could only
+understand a few words. Freya, motionless, with drowsy eyes, and a knee
+between her crossed hands, held herself aloof, understanding the
+conversation, but without taking any part in it, as though she were
+offended at the forgetfulness in which the two men were leaving her.
+Finally she slipped discreetly away, responding to the call of a hand
+peeping through the portieres. The doctor was preparing tea and needed
+help.
+
+The conversation continued on in no way affected by their absence.
+Kaledine had abandoned the Asiatic waters in order to pass to the
+Mediterranean, and there he anchored himself with admirable insistence.
+Another sign of affection for Ferragut who was finding him more and
+more charming in spite of his slightly glacial attitude.
+
+He suddenly noticed that it was not as a Russian count that he was
+speaking since, with brief and exact questions, he was making Ferragut
+reply just as though he were undergoing an examination.
+
+These signs of interest shown by the great traveler in the little _mare
+nostrum_, and especially in the details of its western bowl which he
+wished to know most minutely, pleased Ferragut greatly.
+
+He might ask him whatever he wished. Ferragut knew mile for mile all
+its shores,--Spanish, French, and Italian, the surface and also its
+depths.
+
+Perhaps because he was staying in Naples, Kaledine insisted upon
+learning especially about that part of the Mediterranean enclosed
+between Sardinia, southern Italy, and Sicily,--the part which the
+ancients had called the Tyrrhenian Sea.... Did the captain happen to
+know those little frequented and almost forgotten islands opposite
+Sicily?
+
+"I know all about all of them," replied the sailor boastfully. And
+without realizing exactly whether it was curiosity on the part of the
+listener, or whether he was being submitted to an interesting
+examination, he talked on and on.
+
+He was well acquainted with the archipelago of the Lipari Islands with
+their mines of sulphur and pumice-stone,--a group of volcanic peaks
+which rise up from the depths of the Mediterranean. In these the
+ancients had placed Aeolus, lord of the winds; in these was Stromboli,
+vomiting forth enormous balls of lava which exploded with the roar of
+thunder. Its volcanic slag fell again into the chimneys of the crater
+or rolled down the mountain slopes, falling into the waves.
+
+More to the west, isolated and solitary in a sea free from shoals, was
+Ustica,--an abrupt and volcanic island that the Phoenicians had
+colonized and which had served as a refuge for Saracen pilots. Its
+population was scant and poor. There was nothing to see on it, apart
+from certain fossil shells interesting to men of science.
+
+But the count showed himself wonderfully interested in this extinct and
+lonely crater in the midst of a sea frequented only by fishing smacks.
+
+Ferragut had also seen, although far off, at the entrance of the harbor
+of Trapani, the archipelago of the Aegadian Islands where are the great
+fishing grounds of the tunny. Once he had disembarked in the island of
+Pantellaria, situated halfway between Sicily and Africa. It was a very
+high, volcanic cone that came up in the midst of the strait and had at
+its base alkaline lakes, sulphurous fumes, thermal waters, and
+prehistoric constructions of great stone blocks similar to those in
+Sardinia and the Balearic Islands. Boats bound for Tunis and Tripoli
+used to carry cargoes of raisins, the only export from this ancient
+Phoenician colony.
+
+Between Pantellaria and Sicily the ocean floor was considerably
+elevated, having on its back an aquatic layer that in some points was
+only twelve yards thick. It was the great shoal called the Aventura, a
+volcanic swelling, a double submerged island, the submarine pedestal of
+Sicily.
+
+The ledge of Aventura also appeared to interest the count greatly.
+
+"You certainly know the sea well," he said in an approving tone.
+
+Ferragut was about to go on talking when the two ladies entered with a
+tray which contained the tea service and various plates of cakes. The
+captain saw nothing strange in their lack of servants. The doctor and
+her friend were to him a pair of women of extraordinary customs, and so
+he thought all their acts were logical and natural. Freya served the
+tea with modest grace as though she were the daughter of the house.
+
+They passed the rest of the afternoon conversing on distant voyages.
+Nobody alluded to the war, nor to Italy's problem at that moment as to
+whether she should maintain or break her neutrality. They appeared to
+be living in an inaccessible place thousands of leagues from all human
+bustle.
+
+The two women were treating the count with the well-bred familiarity of
+persons in the same rank of life, but at times the sailor fancied that
+he noted that they were afraid of him.
+
+At the end of the afternoon this personage arose and Ferragut did the
+same, understanding that he was expected to bring his visit to an end.
+The count offered to accompany him. While he was bidding the doctor
+good-by, thanking her with extreme courtesy for having introduced him
+to the captain, Ferragut felt that Freya was clasping his hand in a
+meaning way.
+
+"Until to-night," she murmured lightly, hardly moving her lips. "I
+shall see you later.... Expect me."
+
+Oh, what happiness!... The eyes, the smile, the pressure of her hand
+were telling him much more than that.
+
+Never did he take such an agreeable stroll as when walking beside
+Kaledine through the streets of Chiaja toward the shore. What was that
+man saying?... Insignificant things in order to avoid silence, but to
+him they appeared to be observations of most profound wisdom. His voice
+sounded musical and affectionate. Everything about them seemed equally
+agreeable,--the people who were passing through the streets, the
+Neapolitan sounds at nightfall, the dark seas, the entire life.
+
+They bade each other good-by before the door of the hotel. The count,
+in spite of his offers of friendship, went away without mentioning his
+address.
+
+"It doesn't matter," thought Ferragut. "We shall meet again in the
+doctor's house."
+
+He passed the rest of his watch agitated alternately by hope and
+impatience. He did not wish to eat; emotion had paralyzed his
+appetite.... And yet, once seated at the table, he ate more than ever
+with a mechanical and distraught avidity.
+
+He needed to stroll around, to talk with somebody, in order that time
+might fly by with greater rapidity, beguiling his uneasy wait. She
+would not return to the hotel until very late.... And he therefore
+retired to his room earlier than usual, believing with illogical
+superstition that by so doing Freya might arrive earlier.
+
+His first movement upon finding himself alone in his room, was one of
+pride. He looked up at the ceiling, pitying the enamored sailor that a
+week before had been dwelling on the floor above. Poor man! How they
+must have made fun of him!... Ulysses admired himself as though he were
+an entirely new personality, happy and triumphant, completely separated
+from that other creature by dolorous periods of humiliations and
+failures that he did not wish to recall.
+
+The long, long hours in which he waited with such anxiety!... He
+strolled about smoking, lighting one cigar with the remnant of the
+preceding one. Then he opened the window, wishing to get rid of the
+perfume of strong tobacco. She only liked Oriental cigarettes.... And
+as the acrid odor of the strong, succulent Havana cigar persisted in
+the room, he searched in his dressing-case and sprinkled around the
+contents of various perfumed essences which he had long ago forgotten.
+
+A sudden uneasiness disturbed his waiting. Perhaps she who was going to
+come did not know which was his room. He was not sure that he had given
+her the directions with sufficient clearness. It was possible that she
+might make a mistake.... He began to believe that really she had made a
+mistake.
+
+Fear and impatience made him open his door, taking his stand in the
+corridor in order to look down toward Freya's closed room. Every time
+that footsteps sounded on the stairway or the grating of the elevator
+creaked, the bearded sailor trembled with a childish uneasiness. He
+wanted to hide himself and yet at the same time he wanted to look to
+see if she was the one who was coming.
+
+The guests occupying the same floor kept seeing him withdraw into his
+room in the most inexplicable attitudes. Sometimes he would remain
+firmly in the corridor as though, worn out with useless calling, he
+were looking for the domestics; and at other times they surprised him
+with his head poking out of the half-open door or hastily withdrawing
+it. An old Italian count, passing by, gave him a smile of intelligence
+and comradeship.... He was in the secret! The man was undoubtedly
+waiting for one of the maids of the hotel.
+
+He ended by settling himself in his room, but leaving his door ajar.
+The rectangle of bright light that it marked on the floor and wall
+opposite would guide Freya, showing her the way....
+
+But he was not able to keep up this signal very long. Scantily clad
+dames in kimonos and gentlemen in pyjamas were slipping discreetly down
+the passage way in soft, slipper-clad silence, all going in the same
+direction, and casting wrathful glances toward the lighted doorway.
+
+Finally he had to close the door. He opened a book, but it was
+impossible to read two paragraphs consecutively. His watch said twelve
+o'clock.
+
+"She will not come!... She will not come!" he cried in desperation.
+
+A new idea revived his drooping spirits. It was ridiculous that so
+discreet a person as Freya should venture to come to his room while
+there was a light under the door. Love needed obscurity and mystery.
+And besides, this visible hope might attract the notice of some curious
+person.
+
+He snapped off the electric light and in the darkness found his bed,
+throwing himself down with an exaggerated noise, in order that nobody
+might doubt that he had retired for the night. The darkness reanimated
+his hope.
+
+"She's going to come.... She will come at any moment."
+
+Again he arose cautiously, noiselessly, going on tiptoe. He must
+overcome any possible difficulty at the entrance. He put the door
+slightly ajar so as to avoid the swinging noise of the door-fastening.
+A chair in the frame of the doorway easily held it unlatched.
+
+He got up several times more, arranging things to his satisfaction and
+then threw himself upon the bed, disposed to keep his watch all night,
+if it was necessary. He did not wish to sleep. No, he ought not to
+drowse.... And half an hour later he was slumbering profoundly without
+knowing at what moment he had slid down the soft slopes of sleep.
+
+Suddenly he awoke as if some one had hit his head with a club. His ears
+were buzzing.... It was the rude impression of one who sleeps without
+wishing to and feels himself shaken by reviving restlessness. Some
+moments passed without his taking in the situation. Then he suddenly
+recalled it all.... Alone! She had not come!... He did not know whether
+minutes or hours had passed by.
+
+Something besides his uneasiness had brought him back to life. He
+suspected that in the dark silence some real thing was approaching. A
+little mouse appeared to be moving down the corridor. The shoes placed
+outside one of the doors were moved with a slight creaking. Ferragut
+had the vague impression of air that is displaced by the slow advance
+of a body.
+
+The door trembled. The chair was pushed back, little by little, very
+gently pushed. In the darkness he descried a moving shadow, dark and
+dense. He made a movement.
+
+"Shhhh-h!" sighed a ghostly voice, a voice from the other world. "It is
+I."
+
+Instinctively he raised his right hand to the wall and turned on the
+light.
+
+Under the electric light it was she,--a different Freya from any that
+he had ever seen, with her wealth of hair falling in golden serpents
+over her shoulders covered with an Asiatic tunic that enveloped her
+like a cloud.
+
+It was not the Japanese kimono, vulgarized by commerce. It was made in
+one piece of Hindustanic cloth, embroidered with fantastic flowers and
+capriciously draped. Through its fine texture could be perceived the
+flesh as though it were a wrapping of multicolored air.
+
+She uttered a protest. Then, imitating Ulysses' gesture, she reached
+her hand toward the wall ... and all was darkness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon awakening, he felt the sunlight on his face. The window, whose
+curtains he had forgotten to draw, was blue,--blue sky above and the
+blue of the sea in its lower panes.
+
+He looked around him.... Nobody! For a moment he believed he must have
+been dreaming, but the sweet perfume of her hair still scented the
+pillow. The reality of awakening was as joyous for Ulysses, as sweet as
+had been the night hours in the mystery of the darkness. He had never
+felt so strong and so happy.
+
+In the window sounded a baritone voice singing one of the songs of
+Naples,--"Oh, sweet land, sweet gulf!..." That certainly was the most
+beautiful spot in the world. Proud and satisfied with his fate, he
+would have liked to embrace the waves, the islands, the city, Vesuvius.
+
+A bell jangled impatiently in the corridor. Captain Ferragut was
+hungry. He surveyed with the glance of an ogre the _cafe au lait_, the
+abundant bread, and the small pat of butter that the waiter brought
+him. A very small portion for him!... And while he was attacking all
+this with avidity, the door opened and Freya, rosy and fresh from a
+recent bath and clad like a man, entered the room.
+
+The Hindu tunic had been replaced with masculine pyjamas of violet
+silk. The pantaloons had the edges turned up over a pair of white
+Turkish slippers into which were tucked her bare feet. Over her heart
+there was embroidered a design whose letters Ulysses was not able to
+decipher. Above this device the point of her handkerchief was sticking
+out of the pocket. Her opulent hair, twisted on top of her head and the
+voluptuous curves that the silk was taking in certain parts of her
+masculine attire were the only things that announced the woman.
+
+The captain forgot his breakfast, enthusiastic over this novelty. She
+was a second Freya,--a page, an adorable, freakish novelty.... But she
+repelled his caresses, obliging him to seat himself.
+
+She had entered with a questioning expression in her eyes. She was
+feeling the disquietude of every woman on her second amorous interview.
+She was trying to guess his impressions, to convince herself of his
+gratitude, to be certain that the fascinations of the first hours had
+not been dissipated during her absence.
+
+While the sailor was again attacking his breakfast with the familiarity
+of a lover who has achieved his ends and no longer needs to hide and
+poetize his grosser necessities, she seated herself on an old _chaise
+longue_, lighting a cigarette.
+
+She cuddled into this seat, her crossed legs forming an angle within
+the circle of one of her arms. Then she leaned her head on her knees,
+and in this position smoked a long time, with her glance fixed on the
+sea. He guessed that she was about to say something interesting,
+something that was puckering her mental interior, struggling to come
+out.
+
+Finally she spoke with deliberation, without taking her eyes off the
+gulf. From time to time she would stop this contemplation in order to
+fasten her eyes on Ulysses, measuring the effect of her words. He
+stopped occupying himself definitely with the breakfast tray,
+foreseeing that something very important was coming.
+
+"You have sworn that you will do for me whatever I ask you to do....
+You do not wish to lose me forever."
+
+Ulysses protested. Lose her?... He could not live without her.
+
+"I know your former life; you have told me all about it.... You know
+nothing about me and you ought to know about me--now that I am really
+yours."
+
+The sailor nodded his head; nothing could be more just.
+
+"I have deceived you, Ulysses. I am not Italian."
+
+Ferragut smiled. If that was all the deception consisted of!... From
+the day in which they had spoken together for the first time going to
+Paestum, he had guessed that what she had told him about her
+nationality was false.
+
+"My mother was an Italian. I swear it.... But my father was not...."
+
+She stopped a moment. The sailor listened to her with interest, with
+his back turned to the table.
+
+"I am a German woman and ..."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE SIN OF ULYSSES
+
+Every morning on awaking at the first streak of dawn, Toni felt a
+sensation of surprise and discouragement.
+
+"Still in Naples!" he would say, looking through the port-hole of his
+cabin.
+
+Then he would count over the days. Ten had passed by since the _Mare
+Nostrum_, entirely repaired, had anchored in the commercial harbor.
+
+"Twenty-four hours more," the mate would add mentally.
+
+And he would again take up his monotonous life, strolling over the
+empty and silent deck of the vessel, without knowing what to do,
+looking despondently at the other steamers which were moving their
+freighting antennae, swallowing up boxes and bundles and beginning to
+send out through their chimneys the smoke announcing departure.
+
+He suffered great remorse in calculating what the boat might have
+gained were it now under way. The advantage was all for the captain,
+but he could not avoid despairing over the money lost.
+
+The necessity of communicating his impressions to somebody, of
+protesting in chorus against this lamentable inertia, used to impel him
+toward Caragol's dominions. In spite of their difference in rank, the
+first officer always treated the cook with affectionate familiarity.
+
+"An abyss is separating us!" Toni would say gravely.
+
+This "abyss" was a metaphor extracted from his reading of radical
+papers and alluded to the old man's fervid and simple beliefs. But
+their common affection for the captain, all being from the same land,
+and the employment of the Valencian dialect as the language of
+intimacy, made the two seek each other's company instinctively. For
+Toni, Caragol was the most congenial spirit aboard ... after himself.
+
+As soon as he stopped at the door of the galley, supporting his elbow
+in the doorway and obstructing the sunlight with his body, the old cook
+would reach out for his bottle of brandy, preparing a "refresco" or a
+"caliente" in honor of his visitor.
+
+They would drink slowly, interrupting their relish of the liquor to
+lament together the immovability of the _Mare Nostrum_. They would
+count up the cost as though the boat were theirs. While it was being
+repaired, they had been able to tolerate the captain's conduct.
+
+"The English always pay," Toni would say. "But now nobody is paying and
+the ship isn't earning anything, and we are spending every day....
+About how much are we spending?"
+
+And he and the cook would again calculate in detail the cost of keeping
+up the steamer, becoming terrified on reaching the total. One day
+without moving was costing more than the two men could earn in a month.
+
+"This can't go on!" Toni would protest.
+
+His indignation took him ashore several times in search of the captain.
+He was afraid to speak to him, considering it a lack of discipline to
+meddle in the management of the boat, so he invented the most absurd
+pretext in order to run afoul of Ferragut.
+
+He looked with antipathy at the porter of the _albergo_ because he
+always told him that the captain had just gone out. This individual
+with the air of a procurer must be greatly to blame for the
+immovability of the steamer; his heart told him so.
+
+Because he couldn't come to blows with the man, and because he could
+not stand seeing him laugh deceitfully while watching him wait hour
+after hour in the vestibule, he took up his station in the street,
+spying on Ferragut's entrances and exits.
+
+The three times that he did succeed in speaking with the captain, the
+result was always the same. The captain was as greatly delighted to see
+him as if he were an apparition from the past with whom he could
+communicate the joy of his overflowing happiness.
+
+He would listen to his mate, congratulating himself that all was going
+so well on the ship, and when Toni, in stuttering tones, would venture
+to ask the date of departure, Ulysses would hide his uncertainty under
+a tone of prudence. He was awaiting a most valuable cargo; the longer
+they waited for it, the more money they were going to gain.... But his
+words were not convincing to Toni. He remembered the captain's protests
+fifteen days before over the lack of good cargo in Naples, and his
+desire to leave without loss of time.
+
+Upon returning aboard, the mate would at once hunt Caragol, and both
+would comment on the changes in their chief. Toni had found him an
+entirely different man, with beard shaved, wearing his best clothes,
+and displaying in the arrangement of his person a most minute nicety, a
+decided wish to please. The rude pilot had even come to believe that he
+had detected, while talking to him, a certain feminine perfume like
+that of their blonde visitor.
+
+This news was the most unbelievable of all for Caragol.
+
+"Captain Ferragut perfumed!... The captain scented!... The wretch!" And
+he threw up his arms, his blind eyes seeking the brandy bottles and the
+oil flasks, in order to make them witnesses of his indignation.
+
+The two men were entirely agreed as to the cause of their despair. She
+was to blame for it all; she who was going to hold the boat spellbound
+in this port until she knew when, with the irresistible power of a
+witch.
+
+"Ah, these females!... The devil always follows after petticoats like a
+lap-dog.... They are the ruination of our life."
+
+And the wrathful chastity of the cook continued hurling against
+womankind insults and curses equal to those of the first fathers of the
+church.
+
+One morning the men washing down the deck sent a cry passing from stem
+to stern,--"The captain!" They saw him approaching in a launch, and the
+word was passed along through staterooms and corridors, giving new
+force to their arms, and lighting up their sluggish countenances. The
+mate came up on deck and Caragol stuck his head out through the door of
+his kitchen.
+
+At the very first glance, Toni foresaw that something important was
+about to happen. The captain had a lively, happy air. At the same time,
+he saw in the exaggerated amiability of his smile a desire to
+conciliate them, to bring sweetly before them something which he
+considered of doubtful acceptation.
+
+"Now you'll be satisfied," said Ferragut, giving his hand, "we are
+going to weigh anchor soon."
+
+They entered the saloon. Ulysses looked around his boat with a certain
+strangeness as though returning to it after a long voyage. It looked
+different to him; certain details rose up before his eyes that had
+never attracted his attention before.
+
+He recapitulated in a lightning cerebral flash all that had occurred in
+less than two weeks. For the first time he realized the great change in
+his life since Freya had come to the steamer in search of him.
+
+He saw himself in his room in the hotel opposite her, dressed like a
+man, and looking out over the gulf while smoking.
+
+"I am a German woman, and ..."
+
+Her mysterious life, even its most incomprehensible details, was soon
+to be explained.
+
+She was a German woman in the service of her country. Modern war had
+aroused the nations _en masse_; it was not as in other centuries, a
+clash of diminutive, professional minorities that have to fight as a
+business. All vigorous men were now going to the battlefield, and the
+others were working in industrial centers which had been converted into
+workshops of war. And this general activity was also taking in the
+women who were devoting their labor to factories and hospitals, or
+their intelligence on the other side of the frontiers, to the service
+of their country.
+
+Ferragut, surprised by this outright revelation, remained silent, but
+finally ventured to formulate his thought.
+
+"According to that, you are a spy?"...
+
+She heard the word with contempt. That was an antiquated term which had
+lost its primitive significance. Spies were those who in other
+times,--when only the professional soldiers took part in war,--had
+mixed themselves in the operations voluntarily or for money, surprising
+the preparations of the enemy. Nowadays, with the mobilization of the
+nations _en masse_, the old official spy--a contemptible and villainous
+creature, daring death for money--had practically disappeared. Nowadays
+there only existed patriots--anxious to work for their country, some
+with weapons in their hands, others availing themselves of their
+astuteness, or exploiting the qualities of their sex.
+
+Ulysses was greatly disconcerted by this theory.
+
+"Then the doctor?..." he again questioned, guessing; what the imposing
+dame must be.
+
+Freya responded with an expression of enthusiasm and respect. Her
+friend was an illustrious patriot, a very learned woman, who was
+placing all her faculties at the service of her country. She adored
+her. She was her protector; she had rescued her in the most difficult
+moment of her existence.
+
+"And the count?" Ferragut continued asking.
+
+Here the woman made a gesture of reserve.
+
+"He also is a great patriot, but do not let us talk about him."
+
+In her words there were both respect and fear. He suspected that she
+did not wish to have anything to do with this haughty personage.
+
+A long silence. Freya, as if fearing the effects of the captain's
+meditations, suddenly cut them short with her headlong chatter.
+
+The doctor and she had come from Rome to take refuge in Naples, fleeing
+from the intrigues and mutterings of the capital. The Italians were
+squabbling among themselves; some were partisans of the war, others of
+neutrality; none of them wished to aid Germany, their former ally.
+
+"We, who have protected them so much!" she exclaimed. "False and
+ungrateful race!..."
+
+Her gestures and her words recalled to Ulysses' mind the image of the
+doctor, execrating the Italian country from a little window of the
+coach, the first day that they had talked together.
+
+The two women were in Naples, whiling away their tedious waiting with
+trips to neighboring places of interest, when they met the sailor.
+
+"I have a very pleasant recollection of you," continued Freya. "I
+guessed from the very first instant that our friendship was going to
+terminate as it has terminated."
+
+She read a question in his glance.
+
+"I know what you are going to say to me. You wonder that I have made
+you wait so long, that I should have made you suffer so with my
+caprices.... It was because while I was loving you, at the same time I
+wished to separate myself from you. You represented an attraction and a
+hindrance. I feared to mix you up in my affairs.... Besides, I need to
+be free in order to dedicate myself wholly to the fulfillment of my
+mission."
+
+There was another long pause. Freya's eyes were fixed on those of her
+lover with scrutinizing tenacity. She wished to sound the depths of his
+thoughts, to study the ripeness of her preparation--before risking the
+decisive blow. Her examination was satisfactory.
+
+"And now that you know me," she said with painful slowness, "begone!...
+You cannot love me. I am a spy, just as you say,--a contemptible
+being.... I know that you will not be able to continue loving me after
+what I have revealed to you. Take yourself away in your boat, like the
+heroes of the legends; we shall not see each other more. All our
+intercourse will have been a beautiful dream.... Leave me alone. I am
+ignorant of what my own fate may be, but what is more important to me
+is your tranquillity."
+
+Her eyes filled with tears. She threw herself face downward on the
+divan, hiding her face in her arms, while a sobbing outburst set all
+the adorable curves of her back a-tremble.
+
+Touched by her grief, Ulysses at the same time admired Freya's
+shrewdness in divining all his thoughts. The voice of good
+counsel,--that prudent voice that always spoke in one-half of his brain
+whenever the captain found himself in difficult situations,--had begun
+to cry out, scandalized at the first revelations made by this woman:
+
+"Flee, Ferragut!... Flee! You are in a bad fix. Do not agree to any
+relations with such people. What have you to do with the country of
+this adventuress? Why should you encounter dangers for a cause that is
+of no importance to you? What you wanted of her, you already have
+gotten. Be an egoist, my son!"
+
+But the voice in his other mental hemisphere, that boasting and idiotic
+voice which always impelled him to embark on vessels bound to be
+shipwrecked, to be reckless of danger for the mere pleasure of putting
+his vigor to the proof, also gave him counsel. It was a villainous
+thing to abandon a woman. Only a coward would do such a thing.... And
+this German woman appeared to love him so much!...
+
+And with his ardent, meridional exuberance, he embraced her and lifted
+her up, patting the loosened ringlets on her forehead, petting her like
+a sick child, and drinking in her tears with interminable kisses.
+
+No; he would not abandon her.... He was more disposed to defend her
+from all her enemies. He did not know who her enemies were, but if she
+needed a man,--there he was....
+
+In vain his inner monitor reviled him while he was making such offers;
+he was compromising himself blindly; perhaps this adventure was going
+to be the most terrible in his history.... But in order to quiet his
+scruples, the other voice kept crying, "You are a gentleman; and a
+gentleman does not desert a lady, through fear, a few hours after
+having won her affection. Forward, Captain!"
+
+An excuse of cowardly selfishness arose in his thoughts, fabricated
+from one single piece. He was a Spaniard, a neutral, in no way involved
+in the conflict of the Central Powers. His second had often spoken to
+him of solidarity of race, of Latin nations, of the necessity of
+putting an end to militarism, of going to war in order that there might
+be no more wars.... Mere vaporings of a credulous reader! He was
+neither English nor French. Neither was he German; but the woman he
+loved was, and he was not going to give her up for any antagonisms in
+which he was not concerned.
+
+Freya must not weep. Her lover affirmed repeatedly that he wished to
+live forever at her side, that he was not thinking of abandoning her
+because of what she had said: and he even pledged his word of honor
+that he would aid her in everything that she might consider possible
+and worthy of him.
+
+Thus Captain Ulysses Ferragut impetuously decided his destiny.
+
+When his beloved again took him to the doctor's home, he was received
+by her just as though he really belonged to the family. She no longer
+had to hide her nationality. Freya simply called her _Frau Doktor_ and
+she, with the glib enthusiasm of the professor, finally succeeded in
+converting the sailor, explaining to him the right and reason of her
+country's entrance into war with half of Europe.
+
+Poor Germany had to defend herself. The Kaiser was a man of peace in
+spite of the fact that for many years he had been methodically
+preparing a military force capable of crushing all humanity. All the
+other nations had driven him to it; they had all been the first in
+aggression. The insolent French, long before the war, had been sending
+clouds of aeroplanes over German cities, bombarding them.
+
+Ferragut blinked with surprise. This was news to him. It must have
+occurred while he was on the high seas. The verbose positiveness of the
+doctor did not permit any doubt whatever.... Besides, that lady ought
+to know better than those who lived on the ocean.
+
+Then had arisen the English provocation.... Like a traitor of
+melodrama, the British government had been preparing the war for a long
+time, not wishing to show its hand until the last moment; and Germany,
+lover of peace, had had to defend herself from this enemy, the worst
+one of all.
+
+"God will punish England!" affirmed the doctor, looking at Ulysses.
+
+And he not wishing to defraud her of her expectations, gallantly nodded
+his head.... For all he cared, God might punish England.
+
+But in expressing himself in such a way, he felt himself agitated by a
+new duality. The English had been good comrades; he remembered
+agreeably his voyages as an official aboard the British boats. At the
+same time, their increasing power, invisible to the men on shore,
+monstrous for those who were living on the sea, had been producing in
+him a certain irritation. He was accustomed to find them either as
+dominators of all the seas, or else solidly installed on all the
+strategic and commercial coasts.
+
+The Doctor, as though guessing the necessity of arousing his hatred of
+the great enemy, appealed to his historical memories: Gibraltar, stolen
+by the English; the piracies of Drake; the galleons of America seized
+with methodical regularity by the British fleets; the landings on the
+coast of Spain that in other centuries had perturbed the life of the
+peninsula. England at the beginning of her greatness in the reign of
+Elizabeth, was the size of Belgium; if she had made herself one of the
+great powers, it was at the cost of the Spaniards and then of Holland,
+even dominating the entire world. And the doctor spoke in English and
+with so much vehemence about England's evil deeds against Spain that
+the impressionable sailor ended by saying spontaneously:
+
+"May God punish her!"
+
+But just here reappeared the Mediterranean navigator, the complicated
+and contradictory Ulysses. He suddenly remembered the repairs on his
+vessel that must be paid for by England.
+
+"May God punish them ... but may He wait a little bit!" he murmured in
+his thoughts.
+
+The imposing professor became greatly exasperated when speaking of the
+land in which she was living.
+
+"Mandolin players! Bandits!" she always cried when referring to the
+Italians.
+
+How much they owed to Germany! The Emperor Wilhelm had been a father to
+them. All the world knew that!... And yet when the war was breaking
+out, they were going to refuse to follow their old friends. Now German
+diplomacy must busy itself, not to keep them at her side, but to
+prevent their going with the adversary. Every day she was receiving
+news from Rome. She had hoped that Italy might keep herself neutral,
+but who could trust the word of such people?... And she repeated her
+wrathful insults.
+
+The sailor immediately adapted himself to this home, as though it were
+his own. On the few occasions that Freya separated herself from him, he
+used to go in search of her in the salon of the imposing dame who was
+now assuming toward Ulysses the air of a good-natured mother-in-law.
+
+In various visits he met the count. This taciturn personage would offer
+his hand instinctively though keeping a certain distance between them.
+Ulysses now knew his real nationality, and he knew that he knew it. But
+the two kept up the fiction of Count Kaledine, Russian diplomat, and
+this man exacted respect from every one in the doctor's dwelling.
+Ferragut, devoted to his amorous selfishness, was not permitting
+himself any investigation, adjusting himself to the hints dropped by
+the two women.
+
+He had never known such happiness. He was experiencing the great
+sensuousness of one who finds himself seated at table in a well-warmed
+dining-room and sees through the window the tempestuous sea tossing a
+bark that is struggling against the waves.
+
+The newsboys were crying through the streets terrible battles in the
+center of Europe; cities were burning under bombardment; every
+twenty-four hours thousands upon thousands of human beings were
+dying.... And he was not reading anything, not wishing to know
+anything. He was continuing his existence as though he were living in a
+paradisiacal felicity. Sometimes, while waiting for Freya, his memory
+would gloat over her wonderful physical charm, the refinements and
+fresh sensations which his passion was enjoying; at other times, the
+actual embrace with its ecstasy blotted out and suppressed all
+unpleasant possibilities.
+
+Something, nevertheless, suddenly jerked him from his amorous egoism,
+something that was overshadowing his visage, furrowing his forehead
+with wrinkles of preoccupation, and making him go aboard his vessel.
+
+When seated in the large cabin of his ship opposite his mate, he leaned
+his elbows on the table and commenced to chew on a great cigar that had
+just gone out.
+
+"We're going to start very soon," he repeated with visible abstraction.
+"You will be glad, Toni; I believe that you will be delighted."
+
+Toni remained impassive. He was waiting for something more. The captain
+in starting on a voyage had always told him the port of destiny and the
+special nature of the cargo. Therefore, noting that Ferragut did not
+want to add anything more, he ventured to ask:
+
+"Is it to Barcelona that we are going?"
+
+Ulysses hesitated, looking toward the door, as though fearing to be
+overheard. Then he leaned over toward Toni.
+
+The voyage was going to be one without any danger, but one which must
+be shrouded in mystery.
+
+"I am counting on you, because you know all my affairs, because I
+consider you as one of my family."
+
+The pilot did not appear to be touched with this sample of confidence.
+He still remained impassive, though within him all the uneasiness that
+had been agitating him in former days was reawakening.
+
+The captain continued talking. These were war times and it was
+necessary to take advantage of them. For those two it would not be any
+novelty to transport cargoes of military material. Once he had carried
+from Europe arms and munitions for a revolution in South America. Toni
+had recounted to him his adventures in the Gulf of California, in
+command of a little schooner which had served as a transport to the
+insurrectionists of the southern provinces in the revolt against the
+Mexican government.
+
+But the mate, while nodding his head affirmatively, was at the same
+time looking at him with questioning eyes. What were they going to
+transport on this trip?...
+
+"Toni, it is not a matter of artillery nor of guns. Neither is it an
+affair of munitions.... It is a short and well-paid job that will make
+us go very little out of our way on our return to Barcelona."
+
+He stopped himself in his confidences, feeling a curious hesitation and
+finally he added, lowering his voice:
+
+"The Germans are paying for it!... We are going to supply their
+Mediterranean submarines with petrol."
+
+Contrary to all Ferragut's expectations, his second did not make any
+gesture of surprise. He remained as impassive as if this news were
+actually incomprehensible to him. Then he smiled lightly, shrugging his
+shoulders as though he had heard something absurd.... The Germans,
+perhaps, had submarines in the Mediterranean? It was likely, was it,
+that one of these navigating machines would be able to make the long
+crossing from the North Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar?...
+
+He knew all about the great atrocities that the submarines were causing
+in the vicinity of England, but in a greatly reduced zone in the
+limited radius of action of which they were capable. The Mediterranean,
+fortunately for the merchant vessels, was quite beyond the range of
+their treacherous lying-in-wait.
+
+Ferragut interrupted with his meridional vehemence. Beside himself with
+passion, he was already beginning to express himself as though the
+doctor were speaking through his mouth.
+
+"You are referring to the submarines, Toni, to the little submarines
+that were in existence at the beginning of the war--little grasshoppers
+of fragile steel that moved with great difficulty when on a level with
+the water and might be overwhelmed at the slightest shock.... But
+to-day there is something more: there is a submersible that is like a
+submarine protected by a ship's hull which is able to go hidden between
+the two waters and, at the same time, can navigate over the surface
+better than a torpedo-boat.... You have no idea what these Germans are
+capable of! They are a great nation, the finest in the world!..."
+
+And with impulsive exaggeration, he insisted in proclaiming German
+greatness and its inventive spirit as though he had some share in this
+mechanical and destructive glory.
+
+Then he added confidentially, placing his hand on Toni's arm:
+
+"I'm going to tell it only to you: you are the only person who knows
+the secret, aside from those who have told it to me.... The German
+submersibles are going to enter the Mediterranean. We are going to meet
+them in order to renew their supplies of oil and combustibles."
+
+He became silent, looking fixedly at his subordinate, and smiling in
+order to conquer his scruples.
+
+For two seconds he did not know what to expect. Toni was remaining
+pensive with downcast eyes. Then, little by little, he drew himself
+erect, abandoned his seat, and said simply:
+
+"No!"
+
+Ulysses also left his revolving chair with the impulsiveness of
+surprise. "No?... And why not?"
+
+He was the captain and they all ought to obey him. For that reason he
+was responsible for the boat, for the life of its crew, for the fate of
+the cargo. Besides, he was the proprietor; no one exceeded him in
+command; his power was unlimited. Through friendly affection and
+custom, he had consulted his mate, making him share in his secrets and
+here Toni, with an ingratitude never seen before, was daring to
+rebel.... What did this mean?...
+
+But the mate, instead of giving any explanation, merely confined
+himself to answering, each time more obstinately and wrathfully:
+
+"No!... No!"
+
+"But why not?" insisted Ferragut, waxing impatient and in a voice
+trembling with anger.
+
+Toni, without losing energy in his negatives, was
+hesitating,--confused, bewildered, scratching his beard, and lowering
+his eyes in order to reflect better.
+
+He did not know just how to explain himself. He envied his captain's
+facility in finding just the right word. The simplest of his ideas
+suffered terribly before coming anxiously from his mouth.... But,
+finally, little by little, between his stutterings, he managed to
+express his hatred of those monsters of modern industry which were
+dishonoring the sea with their crimes.
+
+Each time that he had read in the newspapers of their exploits in the
+North Sea a wave had passed over the conscience of this simple, frank
+and upright man. They were accustomed to attack treacherously hidden in
+the water, disguising their long and murderous eyes like the visual
+antennae of the monsters of the deep. This aggression without danger
+appeared to revive in his soul the outraged souls of a hundred
+Mediterranean ancestors, cruel and piratical perhaps, but who,
+nevertheless, had sought the enemy face to face with naked breast,
+battle-axe in hand, and the barbed harpoon for boarding ship as their
+only means of struggle.
+
+"If they would torpedo only the armed vessels!" he added. "War is a
+form of savagery, and it is necessary to shut the eyes to its
+treacherous blows, accepting them as glorious achievements.... But
+there is something more than that: you know it well. They sink merchant
+vessels, and passenger ships carrying women, carrying little
+children...."
+
+His weather-beaten cheeks assumed the color of a baked brick. His eyes
+flashed with a bluish splendor. He was feeling the same wrath that he
+had experienced when reading the accounts of the first torpedoing of
+the great transatlantic steamer on the coast of England.
+
+He was seeing the defenseless and peaceable throng crowding to the
+boats that were capsizing; the women throwing themselves into the sea
+with children in their arms; all the deadly confusion of a
+catastrophe.... Then the submarine arising to contemplate its work; the
+Germans grouped on the decks of dripping steel, laughing and joking,
+satisfied with the rapid result of their labors; and for a distance of
+many miles the sea was filled with black bulks dragged slowly along by
+the waves--men floating on their backs, immovable, with their glassy
+eyes fixed on the sky; children with their fair hair clinging like
+masks to their livid face; corpses of mothers pressing to their bosom
+with cold rigidity little corpses of babies, assassinated before they
+could even know what life might mean.
+
+When reading the account of these crimes, Toni had naturally thought of
+his own wife and children, imagining what their condition might have
+been on that steamer, experiencing the same fate as its innocent
+passengers. This imagination had made him feel so intense a wrath that
+he even mistrusted his own self-control on the day that he should again
+encounter German sailors in any port.... And Ferragut, an honorable
+man, a good captain whose praises every one was sounding, could he
+possibly aid in transplanting such horrors as these to the
+Mediterranean?...
+
+Poor Toni!... He did not know how to express himself properly, but the
+very possibility that his beloved sea might witness such crimes gave
+new vehemence to his indignation. The soul of Doctor Ferragut appeared
+to be reviving in this rude Mediterranean sailor. He had never seen the
+white Amphitrite, but he trembled for her with a religious fervor,
+without even knowing her. Was the luminous blue from which had arisen
+the early gods to be dishonored by the oily spot that would disclose
+assassination _en masse_!... Were the rosy strands from whose foam
+Venus had sprung to receive clusters of corpses, impelled by the
+waves!... Were the sea-gull wings of the fishing-boats to flee
+panic-stricken before those gray sharks of steel!... Were his family
+and neighbors to be terrified, on awakening, by this floating cemetery
+washed to their doors during the night!...
+
+He was thinking all this, he was seeing it; but not succeeding in
+expressing it, so he limited himself to insisting upon his protest:
+
+"No!... I won't tolerate it in our sea!"
+
+Ferragut, in spite of his impetuous character, now adopted a
+conciliatory tone like that of a father who wishes to convince his
+scowling and stubborn son.
+
+The German submersibles would confine themselves, in the Mediterranean,
+to military actions only. There was no danger of their attacking
+defenseless barks as in the northern seas. Their drastic exploits there
+had been imposed by circumstances, by the sincere desire of terminating
+the war as quickly as possible, by giving terrifying and unheard-of
+blows.
+
+"I assure you that in our sea there will be nothing of that sort.
+People who ought to know have told me so.... If that had not been the
+case, I should not have promised to give them aid."
+
+He affirmed this several times in good faith, with absolute confidence
+in the people who had given him their promise.
+
+"They will sink, if they can, the ships of the Allies that are in the
+Dardanelles. But what does that matter to us?... That is war! When we
+were carrying cannons and guns to the revolutionists in South America
+we did not trouble ourselves about the use which they might make of
+them, did we?"
+
+Toni persisted in his negative.
+
+"It is not the same thing.... I don't know how to express myself, but
+it is not the same. There, cannon can be answered by cannon. He who
+strikes also receives blows.... But to aid the submarines is a very
+different thing. They attack, hidden, without danger.... And I, for my
+part, do not like treachery."
+
+Finally his mate's insistence exasperated Ferragut, exhausting his
+enforced good nature.
+
+"We will say no more about it," he said haughtily. "I am the captain
+and I command as I see fit.... I have given my promise, and I am not
+going to break it just to please you.... We have finished."
+
+Toni staggered as though he had just received a blow on the breast. His
+eyes shone again, becoming moist. After a long period of reflection, he
+held out his shaggy right hand to the captain.
+
+"Good-by, Ulysses!..."
+
+He could not obey, and a sailor who takes disrespectful exception to
+the orders of his chief must leave the ship. In no other boat could he
+ever live as in the _Mare Nostrum_. Perhaps he might not get another
+job, perhaps the other captains might not like him, considering him to
+have grown too habituated to excessive familiarity. But, if it should
+be necessary, he would again become the skipper of a little
+coast-trader.... Good-by! He would not sleep on board that night.
+
+Ferragut was very indignant, even yelling angrily:
+
+"But, don't be such a barbarian!... What a stubborn fool you are!...
+What do these exaggerated scruples amount to?..."
+
+Then he smiled malignly and said in a low tone, "You know already what
+we know, and I know very well that in your youth you carried
+contraband."
+
+Toni drew himself up haughtily. Now it was he who was indignant.
+
+"I have carried contraband, yes. And what is there astonishing about
+that?... Your grandparents did the same thing. There is not a single
+honorable sailor on our sea who has not committed this little
+offense.... Who is the worse for that?..."
+
+The only one who could complain was the State, a vague personality
+whose whereabouts and place nobody knew and who daily experienced a
+million of similar violations. In the custom-houses Toni had seen the
+richest tourists eluding the vigilance of the employees in order to
+evade an insignificant payment. Every one down in his heart was a
+smuggler.... Besides, thanks to these fraudulent navigators, the poor
+were able to smoke better and more cheaply. Whom were they
+assassinating with their business?... How did Ferragut dare to compare
+these evasions of the law which never did anybody any harm with the job
+of aiding submarine pirates in continuing their crimes?...
+
+The captain, disarmed by this simple logic, now appealed to his powers
+of persuasion.
+
+"Toni, at least you will do it for me. Do it for my sake. We shall
+continue friends as we have always been. On some other occasion I'll
+sacrifice myself. Think.... I have given my word of honor."
+
+And the mate, although much touched by his pleadings, replied
+dolefully:
+
+"I cannot.... I cannot!"
+
+He was anxious to say something more to round out his thought, and
+added:
+
+"I'm a _Republican_...."
+
+This profession of faith he brought forward as an insurmountable
+barrier, striking himself at the same time on the breast, in order to
+prove the hardness of the obstacle.
+
+Ulysses felt tempted to laugh, as he had always done, at Toni's
+political affirmations. But the situation was not one for joking, and
+he continued talking in the hope of convincing him.
+
+He had always loved liberty and been on the side opposed to
+despotism!... England was the great tyrant of the sea; she had provoked
+the war in order to strengthen her jurisdiction and if she should
+achieve the victory, her haughtiness would have no limit. Poor Germany
+had done nothing more than defend herself.... Ferragut repeated all
+that he had heard in the doctor's home, winding up in a tone of
+reproach:
+
+"And are you on the side of the English, Toni? You, a man of advanced
+ideas?..."
+
+The pilot scratched his beard with an expression of perplexity,
+searching for the elusive words. He knew what he ought to say. He had
+read it in the writings of gentlemen who knew quite as much as his
+captain; besides, he had thought a great deal about this matter in his
+solitary pacing on the bridge.
+
+"I am where I ought to be. I am with France...."
+
+He expressed this thought sluggishly, with stutterings and half-formed
+words. France was the country of the great Revolution, and for that
+reason he considered it as something to which he belonged, uniting its
+faith with that of his own person.
+
+"And I do not need to say more. As to England...."
+
+Here he made a pause like one who rests and gathers all his forces
+together for a difficult leap.
+
+"There always has to be one nation on top," he continued. "We hardly
+amount to anything at present and, according to what I have read, Spain
+was once mistress of the entire world for a century and a half. Once we
+were everywhere; now we are in the soup. Then came France's turn. Now
+it is England's.... It doesn't bother me that one nation places itself
+above the rest. The thing that interests me is what that nation
+represents,--the fashion it, will set."
+
+Ferragut was concentrating his attention in order to comprehend what
+Toni wished to say.
+
+"If England triumphs," the pilot continued, "_Liberty_ will be the
+fashion. What does their haughtiness amount to with me, if there always
+has to be one dominating Nation?... The nations will surely copy the
+victor.... England, so they say, is really a republic that prefers to
+pay for the luxury of a king for its grand ceremonials. With her, peace
+would be inevitable, the government managed by the people, the
+disappearance of the great armies, the true civilization. If Germany
+triumphs, we shall live as though we were in barracks. Militarism will
+govern everything. We shall bring up our children, not that they may
+enjoy life, but that they may become soldiers and go forth to kill from
+their very youth. Might as the only Right, that is the German
+method,--a return to barbarous times under the mask of civilization."
+
+He was silent an instant, as though mentally recapitulating all that he
+had said in order to convince himself that he had not left any
+forgotten idea in the corners of his cranium. Again he struck himself
+on the breast. Yes, he was where he ought to be, and it was impossible
+for him to obey his captain.
+
+"I am a Republican!... I am a _Republican_!" he repeated energetically,
+as though having said that, there was nothing more to add.
+
+Ferragut, not knowing how to answer this simple and solid enthusiasm,
+gave way to his temper.
+
+"Get out, you brute!... I don't want to see you again, ungrateful
+wretch! I shall do the thing alone; I don't need you. It is enough for
+me to take my boat where it pleases me and to follow out my own
+pleasure. Be off with all the old lies with which you have crammed your
+cranium.... You blockhead!"
+
+His wrath made him fall into his armchair, swinging his back toward the
+mate, hiding his head in his hands, in order to make him understand
+that with this scornful silence everything between them had come to an
+end.
+
+Toni's eyes, growing constantly more distended and glassy, finally
+released a tear.... To separate thus, after a fraternal life in which
+the months were like years!...
+
+He advanced timidly in order to take possession of one of Ferragut's
+soft, inert, inexpressive hands. Its cold contact made him hesitate. He
+felt inclined to yield.... But immediately he blotted out this weakness
+with a firm, crisp tone:
+
+"Good-by, Ulysses!..."
+
+The captain did not answer, letting him go away without the slightest
+word of farewell. The mate was already near the door when he stopped to
+say to him with a sad and affectionate expression:
+
+"Do not fear that I shall say anything about this to anybody....
+Everything remains between us two. I will make up some excuse in order
+that those aboard will not be surprised at my going."
+
+He hesitated as though he were afraid to appear importunate, but he
+added:
+
+"I advise you not to undertake that trip. I know how our men feel about
+these matters; you can't rely upon them. Even Uncle Caragol, who only
+concerns himself with his galley, will criticize you.... Perhaps they
+will obey you because you are the captain, but when they go ashore, you
+will not be the master of their silence.... Believe me; do not attempt
+it. You are going to disgrace yourself. You well know for what
+cause.... Good-by, Ulysses!"
+
+When the captain raised his head the pilot had already disappeared and
+solitude, with its deadly burden, soon weighed upon his thoughts. He
+felt afraid to carry out his plans without Toni's aid. It appeared to
+him that the chain of authority which united him to his men had been
+broken. The mate was carrying away a part of the prestige that Ferragut
+exercised over the crew. How could he explain his disappearance on the
+eve of an illegal voyage which exacted such great secrecy? How could he
+rely upon the silence of everybody?... He remained pensive a long time,
+then suddenly leaping up from his armchair, he went out on deck,
+shouting to the seamen:
+
+"Where is Don Antonio? Go find him. Call him for me."
+
+"_Don Antoni!... Don Antoni!_..." replied a string of voices from poop
+to prow, while Uncle Caragol's head poked itself out of the door of his
+dominions.
+
+"_Don Antoni_" appeared through the hatchway. He had been going all
+over the boat, after taking leave of his captain. Ferragut received him
+with averted face, avoiding his glance, and with a complex and
+contradictory gesture. He felt angry at being vanquished and the shame
+of weakness yet, allied to these sensations, was the instinctive
+gratitude which one experiences upon being freed from an unwise step by
+a violent hand which mistreats and saves.
+
+"You are to remain, Toni!" he said in a dull voice. "There is nothing
+to say. I will redeem my word as best I can.... To-morrow you shall
+know certainly what we are going to do."
+
+The solar face of Caragol was beaming beatifically without seeing
+anything, without hearing anything. He had suspected something serious
+in the captain's arrival, his long interview alone with the mate, and
+the departure of the latter passing silent and scowling before the door
+of his galley. Now the same presentiment advised him that a
+reconciliation between the two men whose figures he could only
+distinguish confusedly, must have taken place. Blessed be the Christ of
+the Grao!... And upon learning that the captain would remain aboard
+until afternoon, he set himself to the confection of one of his
+masterly rice-dishes in order to solemnize the return of peace.
+
+A little before sunset Ulysses again found himself with his mistress in
+the hotel. He had returned to land, nervous and uneasy. His uneasiness
+made him fear this interview while at the same time he wished it.
+
+"Out with it! I am not a child to feel such fears," he said to himself
+upon entering his room and finding Freya awaiting him.
+
+He spoke to her with the brusqueness of one who wishes to conclude
+everything quickly.... "I could not undertake the service that the
+doctor asked. I take back my word. The mate on board would not consent
+to it."
+
+Her wrath burst forth without any finesse, with the frankness of
+intimacy. She always hated Toni. "Hideous old faun!..." From the very
+first moment she had suspected that he would prove an enemy.
+
+"But you are master of your own boat," she continued. "You can do what
+you want to, and you don't need his permission to sail."
+
+When Ulysses furthermore said that he was not sure of his crew either,
+and that the voyage was impossible, the woman again became furious at
+him. She appeared to have grown suddenly ten years older. To the sailor
+she seemed to have another face, of an ashy pallor, with furrowed
+brows, eyes filled with angry tears, and a light foam in the corners of
+her mouth.
+
+"Braggart.... Fraud.... Southerner! Meridional!"
+
+Ulysses tried to calm her. It might be possible to find another boat.
+He would try to help them find another. He was going to send the _Mare
+Nostrum_ to await him in Barcelona, and he himself would stay in
+Naples, just as long as she wished him to.
+
+"Buffoon!... And I believed in you! And I yielded myself to you,
+believing you to be a hero, believing your offer of sacrifice to be the
+truth!..."
+
+She marched off, furious, giving the door a spiteful slam.
+
+"She is going to see the doctor," thought Ferragut. "It is all over."
+
+He regretted the loss of this woman, even after having seen her in her
+tragic and fleeting ugliness. At the same time, the injurious word, the
+cutting insults with which she had accompanied her departure caused
+sharp pain. He already was tired and sick of hearing himself called
+"meridional," as though it were a stigma.
+
+Yet he rather relished his enforced happiness, the sensation of false
+liberty which every enamored person feels after a quarrelsome break.
+"Now to live again!..." He wished to return at once to the ship, but
+feared a revival of the memories evoked by silence. It would be better
+to remain in Naples, to go to the theater, to trust to the luck of some
+chance encounter just as when he used to come ashore for a few hours.
+The next morning he would leave the hotel, with all his baggage, and
+before sunset he would be sailing the open sea.
+
+He ate outside of the _albergo_, and he passed the night elbowing women
+in cabarets where an insipid variety show served as a pretext to
+disguise the baser object. The recollection of Freya, fresh-looking and
+gay, kept rising between him and those painted mouths every time that
+they smiled upon him, trying to attract his attention.
+
+At one o'clock in the morning he went up the hotel stairway, surprised
+at seeing a ray of light underneath the door of his room. He
+entered.... She was awaiting him--reading, tranquil and smiling. Her
+face, refreshed and retouched with juvenile color, did not show the
+slightest trace of the morning's spasmodic outbreak. She was clad in
+pyjamas.
+
+Seeing Ulysses enter, she arose with outstretched arms.
+
+"Tell me that you are not still angry with me!... Tell me that you will
+forgive me!... I was very naughty toward you this afternoon, I admit
+it."
+
+She was embracing him, rubbing her mouth against his neck with a feline
+purr. Before the captain could respond she continued with a childish
+voice:
+
+"My shark! My sea-wolf!--who has made me wait all these hours!... Swear
+to me that you have not been unfaithful!... I can perceive at once the
+trace of another woman."
+
+Sniffing his beard and face, her mouth approached the sailor's.
+
+"No, you have not been unfaithful.... I still find my own perfume....
+Oh, Ulysses! My hero!..."
+
+She kissed him with that absorbing kiss, which appeared to take all the
+life from him, obscuring his thoughts and annulling his will-power,
+making him tremble from head to foot. All was forgotten,--offenses,
+slights, plans of departure.... And, as usual, he fell, conquered by
+that vampire caress.
+
+In the darkness he heard Freya's gentle voice. She was recapitulating
+what they had not said, but what the two were thinking of at the same
+time.
+
+"The doctor believes that you ought to remain. Let your boat go with
+its hideous old faun, who is nothing but a drawback. You are to remain
+here, on land.... You will be able to do us a great favor.... You know
+you will; you will remain?... What happiness!"
+
+Ferragut's destiny was to obey this idolized and dominating voice....
+And the following morning Toni saw him approaching the vessel with an
+air of command which admitted no opposition. The _Mare Nostrum_ must
+set forth at once for Barcelona. He would entrust the command to his
+mate. He would join it just as soon as he could finish certain affairs
+that were detaining him in Naples.
+
+Toni opened his eyes with a gesture of surprise. He wished to respond,
+but stood with his mouth open, not venturing to speak a single word....
+This was his captain, and he was not going to permit any objections to
+his orders.
+
+"Very well," he said finally. "I only ask you that you return as soon
+as possible to take up your command.... Do not forget what we are
+losing while the boat is tied up."
+
+A few days after the departure of the steamer Ulysses radically changed
+his method of living.
+
+Freya no longer wished to continue lodging in the hotel. Attacked by a
+sudden modesty, the curiosity and smiles of the tourists and servants
+were annoying her. Besides, she wished to enjoy complete liberty in her
+love affairs. Her friend, who was like a mother to her, would
+facilitate her desire. The two would live in her house.
+
+Ferragut was greatly surprised to discover the extreme size of the
+apartment occupied by the doctor. Beyond her salon there was an endless
+number of rooms, somewhat dismantled and without furniture, a labyrinth
+of partitioned walls and passageways, in which the captain was always
+getting lost, and having to appeal to Freya for aid; all the doors of
+the stair-landings that appeared unrelated to the green screen of the
+office were so many other exits from the same dwelling.
+
+The lovers were lodged in the extreme end, as though living in a
+separate house. One of the doors was for them only. They occupied a
+grand salon, rich in moldings and gildings and poor in furniture. Three
+armchairs, an old divan, a table littered with papers, toilet articles
+and eatables, and a rather narrow couch in one of the corners, were all
+the conveniences of this new establishment.
+
+In the street it was hot, and yet they were shivering with cold in this
+magnificent room into which the sun's rays had never penetrated.
+Ulysses attempted to make a fire on a hearth of colored marble, big as
+a monument, but he had to desist half-suffocated by the smoke. In order
+to reach the doctor's apartment they had to pass through a row of
+numberless connecting rooms, long since abandoned.
+
+They lived as newly-wed people, in an amorous solitude, commenting with
+childish hilarity on the defects of their quarters and the thousand
+little inconveniences of material existence. Freya would prepare
+breakfast on a small alcohol stove, defending herself from her lover,
+who believed himself more skilled than she in culinary affairs. A
+sailor knows something of everything.
+
+The mere suggestion of hunting a servant for their most common needs
+irritated the German maiden.
+
+"Never!... Perhaps she might be a spy!"
+
+And the word "spy" on her lips took on an expression of immense scorn.
+
+The doctor was absent on frequent trips and Karl the employee in the
+study, was the one who received visitors. Sometimes he would pass
+through the row of deserted rooms in order to ask some information of
+Freya, and she would follow him out, deserting her lover for a few
+moments.
+
+Left to himself, Ulysses would suddenly realize the dual nature of his
+personality. Then the man he was before that meeting in Pompeii would
+assert himself, and he would see his vessel and his home in Barcelona.
+
+"What have you got yourself into?" he would ask himself remorsefully.
+"How is all this affair ever going to turn out?..."
+
+But at the sound of her footsteps in the next room, on perceiving the
+atmospheric wave produced by the displacement of her adorable body,
+this second person would fold itself back and a dark curtain would fall
+over his memory, leaving visible only the actual reality.
+
+With the beatific smile of an opium-smoker, he would accept the
+impetuous caress of her lips, the entwining of her arms, strangling him
+like marble boas.
+
+"Ulysses, my master!... The moments that separate me from you weigh
+upon me like centuries!"
+
+He, on the other hand, had lost all notion of time. The days were all
+confused in his mind, and he had to keep asking in order to realize
+their passing. After a week passed in the doctor's home, he would
+sometimes suppose that the sweet sequestration had been but forty-eight
+hours long, at others that nearly a month had flitted by.
+
+They went out very little. The mornings slipped away insensibly between
+the late awakening and preparations for a breakfast made by themselves.
+If it was necessary to go after some eatable forgotten the day before,
+it was she who took charge of the expedition, wishing to keep him from
+all contact with outside life.
+
+The afternoons were afternoons of the harem, passed upon the divan or
+stretched on the floor. In a low voice she would croon Oriental songs,
+incomprehensible and mysterious. Suddenly she would spring up
+impetuously like a spring that is unwound, like a serpent that uncoils
+itself, and would begin to dance, almost without moving her feet,
+waving her lithe limbs.... And he would smile with stupefied
+infatuation, extending a right hand toward an Arabian tabaret, covered
+with bottles.
+
+Freya took even greater care of the supply of liquor than of things to
+eat. The sailor was half-drunk, but with a drunkenness wisely tempered
+that never went beyond the rose-colored period. But he was so happy!...
+
+They dined outside the house. Sometimes their excursions were at midday
+and they would go to the restaurants of Posilipo or Vomero, the very
+places that he had known when he was a hopeless suppliant, and which
+saw him now with her hanging on his arm, with a proud air of
+possession. If nightfall surprised them, they would hastily betake
+themselves to a cafe in the interior of the city, a beer-garden whose
+proprietor always spoke to Freya in German in a low voice.
+
+Whenever the doctor was in Naples she would seat herself at their
+table, with the air of a good mother who is receiving her daughter and
+son-in-law. Her scrutinizing glasses appeared to be searching
+Ferragut's very soul, as though doubtful of his fidelity. Then she
+would become more affectionate in the course of these banquets,
+composed of cold meats with a great abundance of drinks, in the German
+style. For her, love was the most beautiful thing in existence, and she
+could not look upon these two enamored ones without a mist of emotion
+blurring the crystals of her second eyes.
+
+"Ah, Captain!... How much she loves you!... Do not disappoint her; obey
+her in every respect.... She adores you."
+
+Frequently she returned from her trips in evident bad humor. Ulysses
+surmised that she had been in Rome. At other times she would appear
+very gay, with an ironic and tedious gayety. "The mandolin-strummers
+appear to be coming to their senses. Germany is constantly receiving
+more support from their ranks. In Rome the 'German propaganda' is
+distributed among millions."
+
+One night emotion overcame her rugged sensibilities. She had brought
+back from her trip a portrait which she pressed lovingly against her
+vast bosom before showing it.
+
+"Look at it," she said to the two. "It is the hero whose name brings
+tears of enthusiasm to all Germans.... What an honor for our family!"
+
+Pride made her hasty, snatching the photograph from Freya's hand in
+order to pass it on to Ulysses. He saw a naval official rather mature,
+surrounded by a numerous family. Two children with long blonde hair
+were seated on his knees. Five youngsters, chubby and tow-headed,
+appeared at his feet with crossed legs, lined up in the order of their
+ages. Near his shoulder extended a double line of brawny young girls
+with coronal braids imitating the coiffures of empresses and grand
+duchesses.... Behind these, proudly erect, was his virtuous and
+prolific companion, aged by too continuous maternity.
+
+Ferragut contemplated this patriotic warrior very deliberately. He had
+the face of a kindly person with clear eyes and grayish, pointed beard.
+He almost inspired a tender compassion by his overwhelming duties as a
+father.
+
+Meanwhile the doctor's voice was chanting the glories of her relative.
+
+"A hero!... Our gracious Kaiser has decorated him with the Iron Cross.
+They have given him honorary citizenship in various capitals.... May
+God punish England!"
+
+And she extolled this patriarch's unheard-of exploit. He was the
+commandant of the submarine that had torpedoed one of the greatest
+English transatlantic steamers. Out of the twelve hundred passengers
+from New York more than eight hundred were drowned.... Women and
+children had gone down in the general destruction.
+
+Freya, more quick-witted than the doctor, read Ulysses' thoughts in his
+eyes.... He was now surveying with astonishment the photograph of this
+official surrounded with his biblical progeny, like a good-natured
+burgher. And a man who appeared so complacent had committed such
+butchery without encountering any danger whatever!--hidden in the water
+with his eye glued to the periscope, he had coldly ordered the sending
+of a torpedo against this floating and defenseless city?...
+
+"Such is war," said Freya.
+
+"Of course it is war!" retorted the doctor as if offended at the
+propitiatory tone of her friend. "And it is our right also. They
+blockade us, and they wish our women and children to die of hunger, and
+so we kill theirs."
+
+The captain felt obliged to protest, in spite of the hidden nudges and
+gestures of his mistress. The doctor had many times told him that,
+thanks to her organization, Germany could never know hunger, and that
+she could exist years and years on the consumption of her own product.
+
+"That is so," replied the dame, "but war has to make itself ferocious,
+implacable, in order that it may not last so long. It is our human duty
+to terrify the enemy with a cruelty beyond what they are able to
+imagine."
+
+The sailor slept badly that night, evidently greatly troubled. Freya
+guessed the presence of something beyond the influence of her caresses.
+The following day his pensive reserve continued and she, well knowing
+the cause, tried to dissipate it with her words....
+
+The torpedoing of defenseless steamers was only made on the coast of
+England. They had to cut short, cost what it might, the source of
+supplies for that hated island.
+
+"In the Mediterranean nothing of that kind will ever occur. I can
+assure you of that.... The submarines will attack battleships only."
+
+And, as if fearing a reappearance of Ulysses' scruples, she redoubled
+her seductions on their afternoons of voluptuous imprisonment. She was
+constantly devising new fascinations, that her lover might never be
+surfeited. He, on his part, came to believe that he was living with
+several women at the same time, like an Oriental personage. Freya upon
+multiplying her charms, had to do no more than to swing around on
+herself, showing a new facet of her past existence.
+
+The sentiment of jealousy, the bitterness of not having been the first
+and only one, rejuvenated the sailor's passion, alleviating the tedium
+of satiety, yet at the same time giving to her caresses an acrid,
+desperate and attractive relish due to his enforced fraternity with
+unknown predecessors.
+
+Desisting from her enchantments, she came and went through the salon,
+sure of her beauty, proud of her firm and superb physique, which had
+not yielded in the slightest degree to the passing of the years. A
+couple of colored shawls served as her transparent clothing. Waving
+them as rainbow shafts around her marble-white body, she used to
+interpret the priestess dances to the terrible Siva that she had
+learned in Java.
+
+Suddenly the chill of the room would begin biting in awaking her from
+her tropical dream. With a final bound, she sought refuge in his arms.
+
+"Oh, my beloved Argonaut!... My shark!"
+
+She threw herself on the sailor's breast, stroking his beard, and
+pushing him so as to edge in on the divan which was too narrow for the
+two.
+
+She guessed at once the cause of his furrowed brow, the listlessness
+with which he responded to her caresses, the gloomy fire that was
+smouldering in his eyes. The exotic dance had made him recall her past
+and in order to regain her sway over him, subjecting him in sweet
+passivity, she sprang up from the divan, running about the room.
+
+"What shall I give to my bad little man, in order to make him smile a
+bit?... What shall I do in order to make him forget his wrong
+ideas?..."
+
+Perfumes were her pet fad. As she herself used to say, it was possible
+for her to do without eating but never without the richest and most
+expensive essences. In that scantily furnished room, like the interior
+of an army and navy supply store, the cut glass flasks with gold and
+nickel stoppers, protruded among the clothing and papers, and stood up
+in the corners denouncing the forgetfulness of their enchanting breath.
+
+"Take it! Take it!"
+
+And she sprinkled the precious perfumes as though they were water on
+Ferragut's hair, over his curled beard, advising the sailor to close
+his eyes in order not to be blinded by this crazy baptism.
+
+Anointed and fragrant as an Asiatic despot, the strong Ulysses would
+sometimes revolt against this effeminateness. At others, he would
+accept it with the delight of a new pleasure.
+
+Suddenly a window-shutter would seem to swing open in his imagination,
+and, passing by this luminous square, he would see the melancholy
+Cinta, his son Esteban, the bridge of his vessel and Toni at the helm.
+
+"Forget!" cried the voice of his evil counselor, blotting out the
+vision. "Enjoy the present!... There is plenty of time to go in search
+of them."
+
+And again he would sink himself in his refined and artificial luxurious
+state with the selfishness of the satrap who, after ordering various
+cruelties, locks himself in his harem.
+
+The very finest linens, scattered by chance, enveloped his body or
+served as cushions. They were her lingerie, stray petals of her beauty,
+that still kept the warmth and perfume of her body. If Ferragut needed
+any object belonging to him, he had to hunt for it through sheaves of
+skirts, silk petticoats, white negligees, perfumes and portraits, all
+scattered over the furniture or tossed in the corners. When Freya,
+tired of dancing in the center of the salon, was not curling herself up
+in his arms she took delight in opening a box of sandalwood. In this
+she used to keep all her jewels, taking them out again and again with a
+nervous restlessness, as though she feared they might have evaporated
+in their enclosure. Her lover had to listen to the gravest explanations
+accompanying the display of her treasures.
+
+"Kiss it," she said, offering him the string of pearls almost always on
+her neck.
+
+These grains of moonlight splendor were to her little living beings,
+little creatures that she needed in contact with her skin. She was
+impregnated with the essence of all that she wore; she drank their
+life.
+
+"They have slept upon me so many nights," she would murmur,
+contemplating them amorously. "This light amber tone I have given them
+with the warmth of my body."
+
+They were no longer a piece of jewelry, they formed a part of her
+organism. They might grow pale and die if they were to pass many days
+forgotten in the depths of her casket.
+
+After that she kept on ransacking the perfumed jewel-box for all the
+gems that were her great pride,--earrings and finger-rings of great
+price, mixed with other exotic jewels of bizarre form and slight value,
+picked up on her voyages.
+
+"Look carefully at this," she said gravely to Ferragut, while she
+rubbed against her bare arm an enormous diamond in one of her rings.
+
+Warmed by the friction, the precious stone became converted into a
+magnet. A bit of paper placed a few inches away was attracted to it
+with an irresistible fluttering.
+
+She then rubbed one of the barbaric imitation-jewels of thick cut
+glass, and the scrap of paper remained motionless without the slightest
+evidence of attraction.
+
+Satisfied with these experiments, she replaced her treasures in the
+casket and set herself to beguiling the passing monotony, again
+devoting herself to Ulysses.
+
+These long imprisonments in an atmosphere charged with perfumes,
+Oriental tobaccos, and feminine seduction were gradually disordering
+Ferragut's mind. Besides this, he was drinking heavily in order to give
+new vigor to his organism which was beginning to break down under the
+excesses of his voluptuous seclusion. At the slightest sign of
+weariness, Freya would fall upon him with her dominating lips. If she
+freed herself from his embraces, it was to offer him a glass full of
+the strongest liquor.
+
+When the spell of intoxication overcame him, weighing down his eyes, he
+always recalled the same dream. In his maudlin siestas, satiated and
+happy, there would always reappear another Freya who was not Freya, but
+Dona Constanza, the Empress of Byzantium. He could see her dressed as a
+peasant girl, just as she was portrayed in the picture in the church of
+Valencia, and at the same time completely undressed, like the other
+houri, who was dancing in the salon.
+
+This double image, which disappeared and reappeared capriciously with
+the arbitrariness of dreams, was always telling him the same thing.
+Freya was Dona Constanza perpetuated across the centuries, taking on a
+new form. She was born of the union of a German and an Italian, just
+like this other one.... But the chaste empress was now smiling in her
+nudeness, satisfied with being simply Freya. Marital infidelity,
+persecution and poverty had been the result of her first existence when
+she was tranquil and virtuous.
+
+"Now I know the truth," Dona Constanza would say with a sweetly
+immodest smile. "Only love exists; all the rest is illusion. Kiss me,
+Ferragut!... I have returned to life in order to recompense you. You
+gave me the first of your childish affection; you longed for me before
+you became a man."
+
+And her kiss was like that of the spy--an absorbing kiss throughout his
+entire person, making him awake.... Upon opening his eyes he saw Freya
+with her mouth close to his.
+
+"Arise, my sea-wolf!... It is already night. We are going to dine."
+
+Outside the house, Ulysses would breathe in the twilight breeze and
+look at the first stars that were beginning to sparkle above the roofs.
+He felt the fresh delight and trembling limbs of the odalisque coming
+out of retreat.
+
+The dinner finished, they would stroll through the darkest street or
+the promenades along the shore, avoiding the people. One night they
+stopped in the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_, near the bench that
+had witnessed their struggle when returning from Posilipo.
+
+"You wished to kill me, you little rascal!... You threatened me with
+your revolver, my bandit!..."
+
+Ulysses protested. What a way to remember things! But she refuted his
+correction with a bold and lying authority.
+
+"It was you!... It way you! I say so, and that is enough. You must
+become accustomed to accepting whatever I may affirm."
+
+In the beer garden, where they used to dine almost every night--an
+imitation medieval saloon, with paneled beams made by machinery,
+plaster walls imitating oak, and neo-Gothic crystals--the proprietor
+used to exhibit as a great curiosity a jar of grotesque little figures
+among the porcelain steins that adorned the brackets of the pedestals.
+
+Ferragut recognized it immediately; it was an ancient Peruvian jar.
+
+"Yes, it is a _huaca_," she said. "I have been in that, too.... We were
+engaged in manufacturing antiques."
+
+Freya misunderstood the gesture that her lover made. She thought that
+he was astonished at the audacity of this manufacture of souvenirs.
+"Germany is great; nothing can resist the adaptive powers of her
+industries...."
+
+And her eyes burned with a proud light as she enumerated these exploits
+of false historical resurrection. They had filled museums and private
+collections with Egyptian and Phoenician statuettes recently
+reproduced. Then, on German soil, they had manufactured Peruvian
+antiquities in order to sell them to the tourists who visit the ancient
+realm of the Incas. Some of the inhabitants received wages for
+disinterring these things opportunely with a great deal of publicity.
+Now the fad of the moment was the black art, and collectors were
+hunting horrible wooden idols carved by tribes in the interior of
+Africa.
+
+But what had really impressed Ferragut was the plural which she had
+employed in speaking of such industries. Who had fabricated these
+Peruvian antiquities?... Was it her husband, the sage?...
+
+"No," replied Freya tranquilly. "It was another one--an artist from
+Munich. He had hardly any talent for painting, but great intelligence
+in business matters. We returned from Peru with the mummy of an Inca
+which we exhibited in almost all the museums of Europe without finding
+a purchaser. Bad business! We had to keep the Inca in our room in the
+hotel, and ..."
+
+Ferragut was not interested in the wanderings of the poor Indian
+monarch, snatched from the repose of his tomb.... One more! Each of
+Freya's confidences evoked a new predecessor from the haze of her past.
+
+Coming out of the beer-garden, the captain stalked along with a gloomy
+aspect. She, on the other hand, was laughing at her memories surveying
+across the years, with a flattering optimism, this far-away adventure
+of her Bohemian days, and growing very merry on recalling the remains
+of the Inca on his passage from hotel to hotel.
+
+Suddenly Ulysses' wrath blazed forth.... The Dutch, officer, the
+natural history sage, the singer who killed himself in one shot and now
+the fabricator of antiquities.... How many more men had there been in
+her existence? How many were there still to be told of? Why had she not
+brought them all out at once?...
+
+Freya was astounded at his abrupt violence. The sailor's wrath was
+terrifying. Then she laughed, leaning heavily on his arm, and putting
+her face close to his.
+
+"You are jealous!... My shark is jealous! Go on talking. You don't know
+how much I like to hear you. Complain away!... Beat me!... It's the
+first time that I've seen a jealous man. Ah, you Southerners!...
+Meridionals!... With good reason the women adore you."
+
+And she was telling the truth. She was experiencing a new sensation
+before this manly wrath, provoked by amorous indignation. Ulysses
+appeared to her a very different man from all the others she had known
+in her former life,--cold, compliant and selfish.
+
+"My Ferragut!... My Mediterranean hero! How I love you! Come ...
+come.... I must reward you!"
+
+They were in a central street, near the corner of a sloping little
+alley with stairs. She pushed him toward it, and at the first step in
+the narrow and dark passageway embraced him, turning her back on the
+movement and light in the great street, in order to kiss him with that
+kiss which always made the captain's knees tremble.
+
+Although his temper was soothed, he continued complaining during the
+rest of the stroll. How many had preceded him?... He must know. He
+wished to know, no matter how horrible the knowledge might be. It was
+the delight of the jealous who persist in scratching open the wound.
+
+"I want to know you," he repeated. "I ought to know you, since you
+belong to me. I have the right!..."
+
+This right recalled with childish obstinacy made Freya smile
+dolorously. Long centuries of experience appeared to peep out from the
+melancholy curl of her lips. In her gleamed the wisdom of the woman,
+more cautious and foresighted than that of the man, since love was her
+only preoccupation.
+
+"Why do you wish to know?" she asked discouragingly. "How much further
+could you go on that?... Would you perchance be any happier when you
+did know?..."
+
+She was silent for some steps and then said as though disclosing a
+secret:
+
+"In order to love, it is not necessary for us to know one another.
+Quite the contrary. A little bit of mystery keeps up the illusion and
+dispells monotony.... He who wishes to know is never happy."
+
+She continued talking. Truth perhaps was a good thing in other phases
+of existence, but it was fatal to love. It was too strong, too crude.
+Love was like certain women, beautiful as goddesses under a discreet
+and artificial light, but horrible as monsters under the burning
+splendors of the sun.
+
+"Believe me; put away these bugbears of the past. Is not the present
+enough for you?... Are you not happy?"
+
+And, trying to convince him that he was, she redoubled her exertions,
+chaining Ulysses in bonds which were sweet yet weighed heavily upon
+him. Strongly convinced of his vileness, he nevertheless adored and
+detested this woman, with her tireless sensuality.... And it was
+impossible to separate himself from her!...
+
+Anxious to find some excuse, he recalled the image of his cook
+philosophizing in his culinary dominion. Whenever he had wished to call
+down the greatest of evils upon an enemy, the astute fellow had always
+uttered this anathema:
+
+"May God send you a female to your taste!..."
+
+Ferragut had found the "female to his taste" and was forever slave of
+his destiny. It would follow him through every form of debasement which
+she might desire, and each time would leave him with less energy to
+protest, accepting the most disgraceful situations in exchange for
+love.... And it would always be so! And he who but a few months before
+used to consider himself a hard and overbearing man, would end by
+pleading and weeping if she should go away!... Ah, misery!...
+
+In hours of tranquillity, when satiety made them converse placidly like
+two friends of the same sex, Ulysses would avoid allusions to the past,
+questioning her only about her actual life. These questions were
+chiefly concerned with the doctor's mysterious work; he wished to know
+with the interest that the slightest actions of a beloved person always
+inspire, the part that Freya was playing in them. Did he not belong now
+to the same association since he was obeying its orders?...
+
+The responses were very incomplete. She had limited herself to obeying
+the doctor, who knew everything.... Then she hesitated and corrected
+herself. No, her friend could not know everything, because above her
+were the count and other personages who used to come from time to time
+to visit her like passing tourists. And the chain of agents, from the
+lowest to the highest, were lost in mysterious heights that made Freya
+turn pale, imposing on her eyes and voice an expression of
+superstitious respect.
+
+She was free to speak only of her work, and she did this very
+cautiously, relating the measures she had employed, but without
+mentioning her co-workers nor stating what her final aim was to be. The
+most of the time she had been moved about without knowing toward what
+her efforts were converging, like a whirling wheel which knows only its
+immediate environments and is ignorant of the machinery as a whole and
+the class of production to which it contributes.
+
+Ulysses marveled at the grotesque and dubious proceedings employed by
+the agents of the spy system.
+
+"But that is like the paper novels! They are ridiculous and worn-out
+measures that any one can learn from books and melodramas."
+
+Freya assented. For that very reason they were employing them. The
+surest way of bewildering the enemy was to avail themselves of obvious
+methods; thus the modern world, so intelligent and subtle, would refuse
+to believe in them. By simply telling the truth, Bismarck had deceived
+all European diplomacy, for the very reason that nobody was expecting
+the truth from his lips.
+
+German espionage was comporting itself like the personages in a
+political novel, and people consequently could not seem to believe in
+it,--although it was taking place right under their eyes,--just because
+its methods appeared too exaggerated and antiquated.
+
+"Therefore," she continued, "every time that France uncovers a part of
+our maneuvers, the opinion of the world which believes only in
+ingenious and difficult things ridicules it, considering it attacked
+with a delirium of persecution."
+
+Women for some time past had been deeply involved in the service of
+espionage. There were many as wise as the doctor, as elegant as Freya,
+and many venerable ones with famous names, winning the confidence that
+illustrious dowagers inspire. They were very numerous, but they did not
+know each other. Sometimes they met out in the world and were
+suspicious of each other, but each continued on her special mission,
+pushed in different directions by an omnipotent and hidden force.
+
+She showed him some portraits that were taken a few years before.
+Ulysses was slow to recognize her as a slim Japanese young girl, clad
+in a dark kimono.
+
+"It is I when I was over there. It was to our interest to know the real
+force of that nation of little men with rat-like eyes."
+
+In another portrait she appeared in short skirt, riding boots, a man's
+shirt, and a felt cowboy hat.
+
+"That was from the Transvaal."
+
+She had gone to South Africa in company with other German women of the
+"service" in order to sound the state of mind of the Boers under
+English domination.
+
+"I've been everywhere," she affirmed proudly.
+
+"In Paris, too?" questioned the sailor.
+
+She hesitated before answering, but finally nodded her head.... She had
+been in Paris many times. The outbreak of the war had found her living
+in the Grand Hotel. Fortunately, two days before the rupture of
+hostilities, she had received news enabling her to avoid being made
+prisoner in a concentration camp.... And she did not wish to say more.
+She was verbose and frank in the relation of her far-distant
+experiences, but the memory of the more recent ones enshrouded her in a
+restless and frightened reserve.
+
+To change the course of conversation, she spoke of the dangers that had
+threatened her on her journeys.
+
+"We have to be very courageous.... The doctor, just as you see her, is
+a heroine.... You laugh, but if you should know her arsenal, perhaps it
+might strike fear to your heart. She is a scientist."
+
+The grave lady had an invincible repugnance for vulgar weapons, and
+Freya referred freely to a portable medicine case full of anesthetics
+and poisons.
+
+"Besides this she carries on her person a little bag full of certain
+powders of her own invention,--tobacco, red pepper.... Perfect little
+devils! Whoever gets them in the eyes is blinded for life. It is as
+though she were throwing flames."
+
+She herself was less complicated in her measures of defense. She had
+her revolver, a species of firearms which she managed to keep hidden
+just as certain insects hide their sting, without knowing certainly
+when it might be necessary to draw it forth. And if she could not avail
+herself of that, she always relied on her hatpin.
+
+"Just look at it!... With what gusto I could pierce the heart of many a
+person!..."
+
+And she showed him a kind of hidden poniard, a keen, triangular
+stiletto of genuine steel, capped by a large glass pearl that served as
+its hilt.
+
+"Among what kind of people are you living!" murmured the practical
+voice in Ferragut's interior. "What have you mixed yourself up with, my
+son!" But his tendency to discount danger, not to live like other
+people, made him find a deep enchantment in this novel-like existence.
+
+The doctor no longer went on excursions, but her visitors were
+increasing in number. Sometimes, when Ulysses was starting toward her
+room, Freya would stop him.
+
+"Don't go.... They're having a consultation."
+
+Upon opening the door of the landing that corresponded to his quarters
+he saw, on various occasions, the green screened door of the office
+closing behind many men, all of them of Teutonic aspect, travelers who
+had just disembarked in Naples with a certain precipitation, neighbors
+from the city who used to receive orders from the doctor.
+
+She appeared much more preoccupied than usual. Her eyes would pass over
+Freya and the sailor as though she did not see them.
+
+"Bad news from Rome," Ferragut's companion told him. "Those accursed
+mandolin-strummers are getting away from us."
+
+Ulysses began to feel a certain boredom in these monotonously
+voluptuous days. His senses were becoming blunted with so many
+indulgences mechanically repeated. Besides, a monstrous debilitation
+was making him think in self-defense of the tranquil life of the
+hearth. He timidly began calculating the time of his seclusion. How
+long had he been living with her?... His confused and crowded memory
+besought her aid.
+
+"Fifteen days," replied Freya.
+
+Again he persisted in his calculations, and she affirmed that only
+three weeks had passed by since his steamer had left Naples.
+
+"I shall have to go," said Ulysses hesitatingly. "They will be
+expecting me in Barcelona; I have no news.... What will become of my
+vessel?..."
+
+She who generally listened to these inquiries with a distraught air,
+not wishing to understand his timid insinuations, responded one
+afternoon unequivocally:
+
+"The time is approaching when you are going to fulfill your word of
+honor in regard to sacrificing yourself for me. Soon you will be able
+to go to Barcelona, and I--I shall join you there. If I am not able to
+go, we shall meet again.... The world is very small."
+
+Her thought did not go beyond this sacrifice exacted of Ferragut. After
+that, who could tell where she would stop?...
+
+Two afternoons later, the doctor and the count summoned the sailor. The
+lady's voice, always so good-natured and protecting, now assumed a
+slight accent of command.
+
+"Everything is all ready, Captain." As she had not been able to avail
+herself of his steamer, she had prepared another boat for him. He was
+merely to follow the instructions of the count who would show him the
+bark of which he was going to take command.
+
+The two men went away together. It was the first time that Ulysses had
+gone out in the street without Freya, and in spite of his enamored
+enthusiasm, he felt an agreeable sensation of freedom.
+
+They went down to the shore and in the little harbor of the _Castello
+dell' Ovo_ passed over the plank that served as a bridge between the
+dock and a little schooner with a greenish hull. Ferragut, who had
+taken in its exterior with a single glance, ran his eye over its
+deck.... "Eighty tons." Then he examined the apparatus and the
+auxiliary machinery,--a petroleum motor which permitted it to make
+seven miles an hour whenever the sails did not find a breeze.
+
+He had seen on the poop the name of the boat and its destination,
+guessing at once the class of navigation to which it was dedicated. It
+was a Sicilian schooner from Trapani, built for fishing. An artistic
+calker had sculptured a wooden cray-fish climbing over the rudder. From
+the two sides of the prow dangled a double row of cray-fish carved with
+the innocent prolixity of medieval imagination.
+
+Coming out of the hatchway, Ferragut saw half of the hold full of
+boxes. He recognized this cargo; each one of these boxes contained two
+cans of gasoline.
+
+"Very well," he said to the count, who had remained silent behind him,
+following him in all his evolutions. "Where is the crew?..."
+
+Kaledine pointed out to him three old sailors huddled on the prow and a
+ragged boy. They were veterans of the Mediterranean, silent and
+self-centered, accustomed to obey orders mechanically, without
+troubling themselves as to where they were going, nor who was
+commanding them.
+
+"Are there no more?" Ferragut asked.
+
+The count assured him that other men would come to reenforce the crew
+at the moment of its departure. This would be just as soon as the
+loading was finished. They had to take certain precautions in order not
+to attract attention.
+
+"In any case, you will be ready to embark quickly, Captain. Perhaps you
+may be advised with only a couple of hours' notice."
+
+Talking it over with Freya at night, Ulysses was astonished at the
+promptness with which the doctor had found a boat, the discretion with
+which she had had it loaded,--with all the details of this business
+that had been developing so easily and mysteriously right in the very
+mouth of a great harbor without any one's taking any notice of it.
+
+His companion affirmed proudly that Germany well understood how to
+conduct such affairs. It was not the doctor only who was working such
+miracles. All the German merchants of Naples and Sicily had been giving
+aid.... And convinced that the captain might be sent for at any moment,
+she arranged his baggage, packing the little suit-case that always
+accompanied him on short trips.
+
+The next day at twilight the count came in search of him. All was
+ready; the boat was awaiting its captain.
+
+The doctor bade Ulysses farewell with a certain solemnity. They were in
+the salon, and in a low voice she gave an order to Freya, who went out,
+returning immediately with a tall, thin bottle. It was mellow Rhine
+wine, the gift of a merchant of Naples, that the doctor was saving for
+an extraordinary occasion. She filled four glasses, and, raising hers,
+looked around her uncertainly.
+
+"Where is the North?..."
+
+The count pointed it out silently. Then the lady continued raising her
+glass, with solemn slowness, as though offering a religious libation to
+the mysterious power hidden in the North, far, far away. Kaledine
+imitated her with the same fervid manner.
+
+Ulysses was going to raise the glass to his lips, wishing to hide a
+ripple of laughter provoked by the imposing lady's gravity.
+
+"Do like the others," murmured Freya in his ear.
+
+And the two quietly drank to his health with their eyes turned toward
+the North.
+
+"Good luck to you, Captain!" said the doctor. "You will return promptly
+and with all happiness, since you are working for such a just cause. We
+shall never forget your services."
+
+Freya wished to accompany him, even to the boat. The count began a
+protest, but stopped on seeing the good-natured gesture of the
+sentimental lady.
+
+"They love each other so much!... Something must be conceded to
+love...."
+
+The three went down the sloping streets of Chiaja to the shore of S.
+Lucia. In spite of his preoccupation, Ferragut could not but look
+attentively at the count's appearance. He was now dressed in blue, with
+a yachts-man's black cap, as though prepared to take part in a regatta.
+He had undoubtedly adopted this attire in order to make the farewell
+more solemn.
+
+In the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_ Kaledine stopped, giving an
+order to Freya. He could not permit her to go any further. She would
+attract attention in the little harbor _dell' Ovo_ frequented only by
+fishermen. As the tone of his order was sharp and imperious, she obeyed
+without protest, as though accustomed to such superiority.
+
+"Good-bye!... Good-bye."
+
+Forgetting the presence of the haughty witness, she embraced Ulysses
+ardently; then she burst out weeping with a nervous sobbing. It seemed
+to him that she had never been so sincere as in that moment. And he had
+to make a great effort to disentangle himself from her embrace.
+
+"Good-bye!... Good-bye!..."
+
+Then he followed the count without daring to turn his head, suspecting
+that her eyes were still upon him.
+
+On the shores of S. Lucia, he saw in the distance his old hotel with
+its illuminated windows. The porter was preceding a young man who was
+just descending from a carriage, carrying a suit-case. Ferragut was
+instantly reminded of his son Esteban. The young tourist bore a certain
+resemblance to him.... And Ferragut continued on, smiling rather
+bitterly at this inopportune recollection.
+
+On entering the schooner he encountered Karl, the doctor's factotum,
+who had brought his little baggage and had just installed it in his
+cabin. "He could retire."... Then he looked over the crew. In addition
+to the three old Sicilians he now saw seven husky young fellows, blonde
+and stout, with rolled-up sleeves. They were talking Italian, but the
+captain had no doubt as, to their real nationality.
+
+As some of them were already beginning to weigh anchor, Ferragut looked
+at the count as though inviting him to depart. The boat was gradually
+detaching itself from the dock. They were going to draw in the
+gangplank which had served as a bridge.
+
+"I'm going, too," said Kaledine. This trip interests Ulysses, who was
+disposed not to be surprised at anything in this extraordinary voyage,
+merely exclaimed courteously, "So much the better!" He was no longer
+concerned with him, and devoted all his efforts to conducting the boat
+out of the little harbor, directing its course through the gulf. The
+glass windows on the shore of S. Lucia trembled with the vibration of
+the motor of the decrepit steamer--an old and scandalous piece of
+machinery imitating the paddling of a tired dog. Meanwhile the sails
+were unfurled and swelling under the first gusts of the wind.
+
+The trip lasted three days. The first night, the captain enjoyed the
+selfish delights of resting alone. He was living among men.... And he
+appreciated the satisfaction chastity offered with all the enchantments
+of novelty.
+
+The second night, in the narrow and noisome cabin of the skipper, he
+felt wakeful because of the memories that were again springing up. Oh,
+Freya!... When would he ever see her again?
+
+The count and he conversed little, but passed long hours together,
+seated at the side of the wheel looking out on the sea. They were more
+friendly than on land, although they exchanged very few words. The
+common life lessened the haughtiness of the pretended diplomat and
+enabled the captain to discover new merits in his personality. The
+freedom with which he was going through the boat, and certain technical
+words employed against his will, left no doubt in Ferragut's mind
+regarding his true profession.
+
+"You are in the navy," he said suddenly.
+
+And the count assented, judging dissimulation useless.
+
+Yes, he was a naval officer.
+
+"Then what am I doing here? Why have you given the command to me?..."
+So Ferragut was thinking without discovering why this man should seek
+his assistance when he could direct a boat himself, without any outside
+aid.
+
+Undoubtedly he was a naval officer, and all the blonde sailors that
+were working like automatons must also have come from some fleet.
+Discipline was making them respect Ferragut's orders, but the captain
+suspected that for them he was merely a proxy, the true chief on board
+being the count.
+
+The schooner passed within sight of the Liparian archipelago; then,
+twisting its course toward the west, followed the coast of Sicily, from
+Cape Gallo to the Cape of Vito. From there it turned its prow to the
+southeast, heading toward the Aegadian Islands.
+
+It had to wait in the waters where the Mediterranean was beginning to
+narrow between Tunis and Sicily, where the volcanic peak of the
+Pantellarian Island rises up in the middle of the immense strait.
+
+Brief indications from the count were sufficient to make the course
+followed by Ferragut in accordance with his desire. He finally could
+not hide his admiration for the Spaniard's mastery of navigation.
+
+"You know your sea well," said the count.
+
+The captain shrugged his shoulders, smiling. It truly was his. He could
+call it "_mare nostrum_" just as the Romans and their former rulers had
+done.
+
+As though divining the subsea depths by a simple glance, he kept his
+boat within the limits of the extensive ledge of the Aventura. He was
+navigating slowly with only a few sails, crossing and recrossing the
+same water.
+
+Kaledine, after two days had passed by, began to grow uneasy. Several
+times it sounded to Ferragut as though he were muttering the name of
+Gibraltar. The passage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean was the
+greatest danger for those that he was expecting.
+
+From the deck of the schooner he was able to see only a short distance,
+and the count clambered up the rigging in order that his eyes might
+take in a more extensive sweep.
+
+One morning up aloft he called something to the captain, pointing out a
+speck on the horizon. He must steer in that very direction. What he was
+seeking was over there.
+
+Ferragut obeyed him, and half an hour later there appeared, one after
+the other, two long, low boats, moving with great velocity. They were
+like destroyers, but without mastheads, without smokestacks, skimming
+along almost on a level with the water, painted in a gray that made
+them seem a short distance away of the same color as the sea. They came
+around on both sides of the sailboat as though they were going to crush
+it with the meeting of their hulls. Various metallic cables came up
+from their decks and were thrown over the bitts of the schooner,
+fastening it to them, and forming the three vessels into a solid mass
+that, united, followed the slow undulation of the sea.
+
+Ulysses examined curiously his two companions in this improvised float.
+Were these the famous submarines?... He saw on their steel decks round
+and protruding hatchways like chimneys through which groups of heads
+were sticking out. The officers and crews were dressed like fishermen
+from the northern coast with waterproof suits of one piece and oilskin
+hats. Many of them were swinging their tarpaulins over their heads, and
+the count replied to them by waving his cap. The blonde sailors of the
+schooner shouted in reply to the acclamations of their comrades on the
+submersibles, "_Deutchsland ueber alles_!..."
+
+But this enthusiasm, equivalent to a song of triumph in the midst of
+the solitude of the sea, lasted but a very short time. Whistles
+sounded, men ran over the steel decks and Ferragut saw his vessel
+invaded by two files of seamen. In a moment the hatchways were opened;
+there sounded the crash of breaking pieces of wood, and the cases of
+petrol began to be carried off on both sides. The water all around the
+sailboat was filled with broken cases that were gently floating away.
+
+The count on the poop deck was listening to an officer dressed in
+waterproof garments.
+
+He was recounting their passage through the Strait of Gibraltar,
+completely submerged, seeing through the periscope the English
+torpedo-chasers on patrol.
+
+"Nothing, Commandant," continued the officer. "Not even the slightest
+incident.... A magnificent voyage!"
+
+"May God punish England!" said the count now called Commandant.
+
+"May God punish her!" replied the official as though he were saying
+"Amen."
+
+Ferragut saw himself forgotten, ignored, by all the men aboard the
+schooner. Some of the sailors even pushed him to one side in the haste
+of their work. He was the mere master of a sailing vessel who counted
+for nothing in this hierarchy of warlike men.
+
+He now began to understand why they had given him the command of the
+little vessel. The count was in possession of the situation. Ferragut
+saw him approaching as though he had suddenly recollected him,
+stretching out his right hand with the affability of a comrade.
+
+"Many thanks, Captain. This service is of the kind that is not easily
+forgotten. Perhaps we shall never see each other again.... But if at
+any time you need me, you may know who I am."
+
+And, as though presenting him to another person, he gave his name and
+titles ceremoniously:--Archibald von Kramer, Naval Lieutenant of the
+Imperial Navy.... His diplomatic role had not been entirely false....
+He had served as Naval Attache in various embassies.
+
+He then gave instructions for the return trip. Ferragut was to wait
+opposite Palermo where a boat would come out after him and take him
+ashore. Everything had been foreseen.... He must deliver the command to
+the true owner of the schooner, a timorous man who had made them pay
+very high for the hire of the boat without venturing to jeopardize his
+own person. In the cabin were the customary papers for clearing the
+vessel.
+
+"Salute the ladies in my name. Tell them that they will soon have news
+of us. We are going to make ourselves lords of the Mediterranean."
+
+The unloading of combustibles still continued. Ferragut saw von Kramer
+slipping through the openings of one of the submarines. Then he thought
+he recognized on the submersible two of the sailors of the crew of the
+schooner who, after being received with shouts and embraces by their
+comrades, disappeared through a tubular hatchway.
+
+The unloading lasted until mid-afternoon. Ulysses had not imagined that
+the little boat could carry so many cases. When the hold was empty, the
+last German sailors disappeared and with them the cables that had
+lashed them to the sailboat. An officer shouted to him that he could
+get under way.
+
+The two submersibles with their cargo of oil and gasoline were nearer
+the level of the sea than on their arrival and now began to disappear
+in the distance.
+
+Finding himself alone in the stern of the schooner, the Spaniard felt a
+sudden disquietude.
+
+"What have you done!... What have you done!" clamored a voice in his
+brain.
+
+But contemplating the three old men and the boy who had remained as the
+only crew, he forgot his remorse. He would have to bestir himself
+greatly in order to supply the lack of men. For two nights and a day he
+scarcely rested, managing almost at the same time both helm and motor,
+since he did not dare to let out all his sails with this scarcity of
+sailors.
+
+When he found himself opposite the port of Palermo, just as it was
+beginning to extinguish its night lights, Ferragut was able to sleep
+for the first time, leaving the watch of the boat in charge of one of
+the seamen, who maintained it with sails furled. In the middle of the
+morning he was awakened by some voices shouting from the sea:
+
+"Where is the captain?"
+
+He saw a skiff and various men leaping aboard the schooner. It was the
+owner who had come to claim, his boat in order to bring it into port in
+the customary legal form. The skiff was commissioned to take Ulysses
+ashore with his little suitcase. He was accompanied by a red-faced, fat
+gentleman who appeared to have great authority over the skipper.
+
+"I suppose you are already informed of what is happening," he said to
+Ferragut while the two oarsmen made the skiff glide over the waves.
+"Those bandits!... Those mandolin-players!..."
+
+Ulysses, without knowing why, made an affirmative gesture. This
+indignant burgher was a German, one of those that were useful to the
+doctor.... It was enough just to listen to him.
+
+A half hour later Ferragut leaped on the dock without any one's
+opposing his disembarking, as though the protection of his obese
+companion had made all the guards drowsy. The good gentleman showed,
+notwithstanding, a fervent desire to separate himself from his
+charge--to hurry away, attending to his own affairs.
+
+He smiled upon learning that Ulysses wished to go immediately to
+Naples. "You do well.... The train leaves in two hours." And putting
+him in a vacant hack, he disappeared with precipitation.
+
+Finding himself alone, the captain almost believed that he had dreamed
+of those two preceding days.
+
+He was again seeing Palermo after an absence of long years: and he
+experienced the joy of an exiled Sicilian on meeting the various carts
+of the countryside, drawn by broken-down horses with plumes, whose
+badly-painted wagon bodies represented scenes from "Jerusalem
+Delivered." He recalled the names of the principal roads,--the roads of
+the old Spanish viceroys. In one square he saw the statue of four kings
+of Spain.... But all these souvenirs only inspired in him a fleeting
+interest. What he particularly noticed was the extraordinary movement
+in the streets, the people grouping themselves together in order to
+listen to the reading of the daily papers. Many windows displayed the
+national flag, interlaced with those of France, England, and Belgium.
+
+Upon arriving at the station he learned the truth,--was informed of the
+event to which the merchant had alluded while they were in the skiff.
+It was war!... Italy had broken her relations the day before with the
+Central Powers.
+
+Ulysses felt very uneasy on remembering what he had done out on the
+Mediterranean. He feared that the popular groups, thronging past him
+and giving cheers behind their flags, were going to guess his exploit
+and fall upon him. It was necessary to get away from this patriotic
+enthusiasm, and he breathed more freely when he found himself in one of
+the coaches of a train.... Besides, he was going to see Freya. And it
+was enough for him merely to evoke her image to make all his remorse
+vanish.
+
+The short journey proved long and difficult. The necessities of war had
+made themselves felt from the very first moment, absorbing all means of
+communication. The train would remain immovable for hours together in
+order to give the right of way to other trains loaded with men and
+military materials.... In all the stations were soldiers in campaign
+uniform, banners and cheering crowds.
+
+When Ferragut arrived at Naples, fatigued by a journey of forty-eight
+hours, it seemed to him that the coachman was going too slowly toward
+the old palace of Chiaja.
+
+Upon crossing the vestibule with his little suit-case, the portress,--a
+fat old crone with dusty, frizzled hair whom he had sometimes caught a
+glimpse of in the depths of her hall cavern,--stopped his passage.
+
+"The ladies are no longer living in the house.... The ladies have
+suddenly left with Karl, their employee." And she explained the rest of
+their flight with a hostile and malignant smile.
+
+Ferragut saw that he must not insist. The slovenly old wife was furious
+over the flight of the German ladies, and was examining the sailor as a
+probable spy fit for patriotic denunciation. Nevertheless, through
+professional honor, she told him that the blonde _signora_, the younger
+and more attractive one, had thought of him on going away, leaving his
+baggage in the porter's room.
+
+Ulysses hastened to disappear. He would soon send some one to collect
+those valises. And taking another carriage, he betook himself to the
+_albergo_ of S. Lucia.... What an unexpected blow!
+
+The porter made a gesture of surprise and astonishment upon seeing him
+enter. Before Ferragut could inquire for Freya, with the vague hope
+that she might have taken refuge in the hotel, this man gave him some
+news.
+
+"Captain, your son has been here waiting for you."
+
+The captain stuttered in dismay, "What son?..."
+
+The man with the embroidered keys brought the register, showing him one
+line, "Esteban Ferragut, Barcelona." Ulysses recognized his son's
+handwriting, and at the same time his heart was oppressed with
+indefinable anguish.
+
+Surprise made him speechless, and the porter took advantage of his
+silence to continue speaking. He was such a charming and intelligent
+lad!... Some mornings he had accompanied him in order to point out to
+him the best things in the city. He had inquired among the consignees
+of the _Mare Nostrum_, hunting everywhere for news of his father.
+Finally convinced that the captain must already be returning to
+Barcelona, he also had gone the day before.
+
+"If you had only come twelve hours sooner, you would have found him
+still here."
+
+The porter knew nothing more. Occupied in doing errands for some South
+American ladies, he had been unable to say good-bye to the young man
+when he left the hotel, undecided whether to make the trip in an
+English steamer to Marseilles or to go by railroad to Genoa, where he
+would find boats direct to Barcelona.
+
+Ferragut wished to know when he had arrived. And the porter, rolling
+his eyes, gave himself up to long mental calculation.... Finally he
+reached a date and the sailor, in his turn, concentrated his powers of
+recollection.
+
+He struck himself on the forehead with his clenched hand. It must have
+been his son then, that youth whom he had seen entering the _albergo_
+the very day that he was going to take charge of the schooner, to carry
+combustibles to the German submarines!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE YOUNG TELEMACHUS
+
+Whenever the _Mare Nostrum_ returned to Barcelona, Esteban Ferragut had
+always felt as dazzled as though a gorgeous stained glass window had
+opened upon his obscure and monotonous life as the son of the family.
+
+He now no longer wandered along the harbor admiring from afar the great
+transatlantic liners in front of the monument of Christopher Columbus,
+nor the cargo steamers that were lined up along the commercial docks.
+An important boat was going to be his absolute property for some weeks,
+while its captain and officers were passing the time on land with their
+families. Toni, the mate, was the only one who slept aboard. Many of
+the seamen had begged permission to live in the city, and so the
+steamer had been entrusted to the guardianship of Uncle Caragol with
+half a dozen men for the daily cleaning. The little Ferragut used to
+play that he was the captain of the _Mare Nostrum_ and would pace the
+bridge, pretending that a great tempest was coming up, and examine the
+nautical instrument with the gravity of an expert. Sometimes he used to
+race through all the habitable parts of the boat, climbing down to the
+holds that, wide open, were being ventilated, waiting for their cargo;
+and finally he would clamber into the ship's gig, untying it from the
+landing in order to row in it for a few hours, with even more
+satisfaction than in the light skiffs of the Regatta Club.
+
+His visits always ended in the kitchen, invited there by Uncle Caragol,
+who was accustomed to treat him with fraternal familiarity. If the
+youthful oarsman was perspiring greatly.... "A refresquet?" And the
+_chef_ would prepare his sweet mixture that made men, after one gulp,
+fall into the haziness of intoxication.
+
+Esteban esteemed highly the "refrescos" of the cook. His imagination,
+excited by the frequent reading of novels of travel, had made him
+conceive a type of heroic, gallant, dashing sailor--a regular
+swash-buckler capable of swallowing by the pitcherful the most rousing
+drinks without moving an eyelid. He wanted to be that kind; every good
+sailor ought to drink.
+
+Although on land he was not acquainted with other liquors than those
+innocent and over-sweet ones kept by his mother for family fiestas,
+once he trod the deck of a vessel he felt the necessity for alcoholic
+liquids so as to make it evident that he was entirely a man. "There
+wasn't in the whole world a drink that could do _him_ any harm...." And
+after a second "refresco" from Uncle Caragol, he became submersed in a
+placid nirvana, seeing everything rose-colored and considerably
+enlarged,--the sea, the nearby boats, the docks, and Montjuich in the
+background.
+
+The cook, looking at him affectionately with his bleared eyes, believed
+that he must have bounded back a dozen years and be still in Valencia,
+talking with that other Ferragut boy who was running away from the
+university in order to row in the harbor. He almost came to believe
+that he had lived twice.
+
+He always listened patiently to the lad's complaints, interrupting him
+with solemn counsels. This fifteen-year-old Ferragut appeared
+discontented with life. He was a man and he had to live with women--his
+mother and two nieces, who were always making laces,--just as in other
+times his mother had been the lace-making companion of her
+mother-in-law, Dona Cristina. He wanted to be a seaman and they were
+obliging him to study the uninteresting courses leading to a bachelor's
+degree. It was scarcely likely, was it, that a captain would have to
+know Latin?... He wanted to bring his student life to an end so as to
+become a pilot and continue practicing on the bridge, beside his
+father. Perhaps at thirty years of age, he might achieve the command of
+the _Mare Nostrum_ or some similar boat.
+
+Meanwhile the lure of the sea dragged him far from the classroom,
+prompting him to visit Uncle Caragol at the very hour that his
+professors were calling the roll and noting the students' absence.
+
+The old man and his protege used to betake themselves in the galley
+with the uneasy conscience of the guilty. Steps and voices on deck
+always changed their topic of conversation. "Hide yourself!" and
+Esteban would dodge under the table or hide in the provision-closet
+while the cook sallied forth with a seraphic countenance to meet the
+recent arrival.
+
+Sometimes it was Toni, and the boy would then dare to come out, relying
+on his silence; for Toni liked him, too, and approved of his aversion
+to books.
+
+If it was the captain who was coming to the boat for a few moments,
+Caragol would talk with him, obstructing the door with his bulk at the
+same time that he was smiling maliciously.
+
+For Esteban the two most wonderful things in all the world were the sea
+and his father. All those romantic heroes that had come from the pages
+of novels to take their place in his imagination had the face and ways
+of Captain Ferragut.
+
+From babyhood he had seen his mother weeping occasionally in resigned
+sadness. Years later, recognizing with the precocity of a
+little-watched boy the relations that exist between men and women, he
+suspected that all these tears must be caused by the flirtations and
+infidelities of the distant sailor.
+
+He adored his mother with the passion of an only and spoiled child, but
+he admired the captain no less, excusing every fault that he might
+commit. His father was the bravest and handsomest man in all the world.
+
+And when rummaging one day through the drawers in his father's
+stateroom, he chanced upon various photographs having the names of
+women from foreign countries, the lad's admiration was greater still.
+Everybody must have been madly in love with the captain of the _Mare
+Nostrum. Ay_! No matter what he might do when he became a man, he could
+never hope to equal this triumphant creature who had given him
+existence....
+
+When the boat, on its return from Naples, arrived at Barcelona without
+its owner, Ferragut's son did not feel any surprise.
+
+Toni, who was always a man of few words, was very lavish with them on
+the present occasion. Captain Ferragut had remained behind because of
+important business, but he would not be long in returning. His second
+was looking for him at any moment. Perhaps he would make the trip by
+land, in order to arrive sooner.
+
+Esteban was astounded to see that his mother did not accept this
+absence as an insignificant event. The good lady appeared greatly
+troubled and her eyes filled with tears. Her feminine instinct made her
+suspect something ominous in her husband's delay.
+
+In the afternoon, when her old lover, the professor, visited her as
+usual, the two talked slowly with guarded words but with eyes of
+understanding and long intervals of silence.
+
+When Don Pedro reached the height of his glorious career, the
+possession of a professorship in the institute of Barcelona, he used to
+visit Cinta every afternoon, passing an hour and a half in her parlor
+with chronometric exactitude. Never did the slightest impure thought
+agitate the professor. The past had fallen into oblivion.... But he
+needed to see daily the captain's wife weaving laces with her two
+little nieces, as he had seen Ferragut's widow years before.
+
+He informed them of the most important events in Barcelona and in the
+entire world; they would comment together on the future of Esteban, and
+the former suitor used to listen rapturously to her sweet voice,
+conceding great importance to the details of domestic economy or
+descriptions of religious fiestas, solely because it was she who was
+recounting them.
+
+Many times they would remain in a long silence. Don Pedro represented
+patience, even temper, and silent respect, in that tranquil and
+immaculate house which lost its monastic calm only when its head
+presented himself there for a few days between voyages.
+
+Cinta had accustomed herself to the professor's visits. At half-past
+three by the clock his footsteps could always be heard in the
+passageway.
+
+If any afternoon he did not come, the sweet Penelope was greatly
+disappointed.
+
+"I wonder what can be the matter with Don Pedro?" she would ask her
+nieces uneasily.
+
+She oftentimes asked this question of her son; but Esteban, without
+exactly hating the visitor, appreciated him very slightly.
+
+Don Pedro belonged to that group of gentlemen at the Institute whom the
+government paid to annoy youth with their explanations and their
+examinations. He still remembered the two years that he had passed in
+his course, as in the torture chamber, enduring the torments of Latin.
+Besides that, the professor was a timid man who was always afraid of
+catching cold, and who never dared to venture into the street on cloudy
+days without an umbrella. Let people talk to him about courageous men!
+
+"I don't know," he would reply to his mother. "Perhaps he's gone to bed
+with seven kerchiefs on his head."
+
+When Don Pedro returned, the house recovered its normality of a quiet
+and well-regulated clock. Dona Cinta, after many consultations, had
+come to believe his collaboration indispensable. The professor mildly
+supplemented the authority of the traveling husband, and took it upon
+himself to represent the head of the family in all outside matters....
+Many times Ferragut's wife would be awaiting him with impatience in
+order to ask his mature counsel, and he would emit his opinion in a
+slow voice after long reflection.
+
+Esteban found it intolerable that this gentleman, who was no more than
+a distant relative of his grandmother, should meddle in the affairs of
+the house, pretending to oversee him as though he were his father. But
+it irritated him still more to see him in a good humor and trying to be
+funny. It made him furious to hear his mother called "Penelope" and
+himself "the young Telemachus."... "Stupid, tedious old bore!"
+
+The young Telemachus was not slow to wrath nor vengeance. From babyhood
+he had interrupted his play in order to "work" in the reception room
+near to the hatrack by the door. And the poor professor on his
+departure would find his hat crown dented in or its nap roughened up,
+or he would sally home innocently carrying spitballs on the skirts of
+his overcoat.
+
+Now the boy contented himself with simply ignoring the existence of the
+family friend, passing in front of him without recognizing him and only
+greeting him when his mother ordered him to do so.
+
+The day in which he brought the news of the return of the ship without
+its captain, Don Pedro made a longer visit than usual. Cinto shed two
+tears upon the lace, but had to stop weeping, vanquished by the good
+sense of her counselor.
+
+"Why weep and get your mind overwrought with so many suppositions
+without foundation?... What you ought to do, my daughter, is to call in
+this Toni who is mate of the vessel; he must know all about it....
+Perhaps he may tell you the truth."
+
+Esteban was told to hunt him up the following day, and he quickly
+noticed Toni's extreme disquietude upon learning that Dona Cinta wished
+to talk with him. The mate left the boat in lugubrious silence as
+though he were being taken away to mortal torment: then he began to hum
+loudly, an indication that he was in deep thought.
+
+The young Telemachus was not able to be present at the interview but he
+hung around the closed door and succeeded in hearing a few loud words
+which slipped through the cracks. His mother was speaking with greater
+frequency. Toni was reiterating in a dull voice the same excuse:--"I
+don't know. The captain will come at any moment...." But when the mate
+found himself outside the house, his wrath broke out against himself,
+against his cursed character that did not know how to lie, against all
+women bad and good. He believed he had said too much. That lady had the
+skill of a judge in getting words out of him.
+
+That night, at the supper hour, the mother scarcely opened her mouth.
+Her fingers communicated a nervous trembling to the plates and forks,
+and she looked at her son with tragic commiseration as though she
+foresaw terrible troubles about to burst upon his head. She opposed a
+desperate silence to Esteban's questions and finally exclaimed:
+
+"Your father is deserting us!... Your father has forgotten us!..."
+
+And she left the dining-room to hide her overflowing tears.
+
+The boy slept rather restlessly, but he slept. The admiration which he
+always felt for his father and a certain solidarity with the strong
+examples of his sex made him take little account of these complaints.
+Matters for women! His mother just didn't know how to be the wife of an
+extraordinary man like Captain Ferragut. He who was really a man, in
+spite of his few years, was going to intervene in this affair in order
+to show up the truth.
+
+When Toni, from the deck of the vessel, saw the lad coming along the
+wharf the following morning, he was greatly tempted to hide himself....
+"If Dona Cinta should call me again in order to question me!..." But he
+calmed himself with the thought that the boy was probably coming of his
+own free will to pass a few hours on the _Mare Nostrum_. Even so, he
+wished to avoid his presence as though he feared some slip in talking
+with him, and so pretended that he had work in the hold. Then he left
+the boat going to visit a friend on a steamer some distance off.
+
+Esteban entered the galley, calling gayly to Uncle Caragol. He wasn't
+the same, either. His humid and reddish eyes were looking at the child
+with an extraordinary tenderness. Suddenly he stopped his talk with an
+expression of uneasiness on his face. He looked uncertainly around him,
+as though fearing that a precipice might open at his feet.
+
+Never forgetful of the respect due to every visitor in his dominion, he
+prepared two "refrescos." He was going to treat Esteban for the first
+time on this return trip. On former days, incredible as it may seem, he
+had not thought of making even one of his delicious beverages. The
+return from Naples to Barcelona had been a sad one: the vessel had a
+funereal air without its master.
+
+For all these reasons, Caragol's hand lavishly measured out the rum
+until the liquid took on a tobacco tone.
+
+They drank.... The young Telemachus began to talk about his father when
+the glasses were only half empty, and the cook waved both hands in the
+air, giving a grunt which signified that he had no wish to bother about
+the captain's absence.
+
+"Your father will return, Esteban," he added. "He will return but I
+don't know when. Certainly later than Toni says."
+
+And not wishing to say more, he gulped down the rest of the glass,
+devoting himself hastily to the confection of the second "refresco" in
+order to make up for lost time.
+
+Little by little he slipped away from the prudent barrier that was
+hedging in his verbosity and spoke with his old time abandon; but his
+flow of words did not exactly convey news.
+
+Caragol preached morality to Ferragut's son,--morality from his
+standpoint, interrupted by frequent caresses of the glass.
+
+"Esteban, my son, respect your father greatly. Imitate him as a seaman.
+Be good and just toward the men that you command.... But avoid the
+females!"
+
+The women!... There was no better theme for his piously drunken
+eloquence. The world inspired his pity. It was all governed by the
+infernal attraction exercised by the female of the species. The men
+were working, struggling, and trying to grow rich and celebrated, all
+in order to possess one of these creatures.
+
+"Believe me, my son, and do not imitate your father in this respect."
+
+The old man had said too much to back out now and he had to go on,
+letting out the rest of it, bit by bit. Thus Esteban learned that the
+captain was enamored with a lady in Naples and that he had remained
+there pretending business matters, but in reality dominated by this
+woman's influence.
+
+"Is she pretty?" asked the boy eagerly.
+
+"Very pretty," replied Caragol. "And such odors!... And such a swishing
+of fine clothes!..."
+
+Telemachus thrilled with contradictory sensations of pride and envy. He
+admired his father once more, but this admiration only lasted a few
+seconds. A new idea was taking possession of him while the cook
+continued:
+
+"He will not come now. I know what these elegant females are, reeking
+with perfume. They are true demons that dig their nails in when they
+clutch, and it is necessary to cut off their hands in order to loosen
+them.... And the boat as useless now as though it were aground, while
+the others are filling themselves with gold!... Believe me, my son,
+this is the only truth in the world."
+
+And he concluded by gulping in one draft all that was left in the
+second glass.
+
+Meanwhile the boy was forming in his mind an idea prompted by his
+pleasant intoxication. What if he should go to Naples in order to bring
+his father back!...
+
+At this moment everything seemed possible to him. The world was
+rose-colored as it always was when he looked at it, glass in hand, near
+to Uncle Caragol. All obstacles would turn out to be trifling:
+everything would arrange itself with wonderful facility. Men were able
+to progress by bounds.
+
+But hours afterward when his thoughts were cleared of their beatific
+visions, he felt a little fearful when recollecting his absent parent.
+How would he receive him upon his arrival?... What excuses could he
+give his father for his presence in Naples?... He trembled, recalling
+the image of his scowling brow and angry eyes.
+
+On the following day a sudden self-confidence replaced this uneasiness.
+He recalled the captain as he had seen him many times on the deck of
+his vessel, telling of his escapades when rowing in the harbor of
+Barcelona, or commenting to friends on his son's strength and
+intelligence. The image of the paternal hero now came to his mind with
+good-humored eyes and a smile passing like a fresh breeze over his
+face.
+
+He would tell him the whole truth. He would make him understand that he
+had come to Naples just to take him away with him, like a good comrade
+who comes to another's rescue in time of danger. Perhaps he might be
+irritated and give him a blow, but he would eventually accede to his
+proposition.
+
+Ferragut's character was reborn in him with all the force of decisive
+argument. And if the voyage should prove absurd and dangerous?... All
+the better! So much the better! That was enough to make him undertake
+it. He was a man and should know no fear.
+
+During the next two weeks he prepared his flight. He had never taken a
+long journey. Only once he had accompanied his father on a flying
+business trip to Marseilles. It was high time that he should go out in
+the world like the man that he was, acquainted with almost all the
+cities of the earth,--through his readings.
+
+The money question did not worry him any. Dona Cinta had it in
+abundance and it was easy to find her bunch of keys. An old and
+slow-going steamer, commanded by one of his father's friends, had just
+entered port and the following day would weigh anchor for Italy.
+
+This sailor accepted the son of his old comrade without any traveling
+papers. He would arrange all irregularities with his friends in Genoa.
+Between captains they ought to exchange such services, and Ulysses
+Ferragut, who was awaiting his son in Naples (so Esteban told him),
+would not wish to waste time just because of some ridiculous, red tape
+formality.
+
+Telemachus with a thousand pesetas in his pocket, extracted from a work
+box which his mother used as a cash box, embarked the following day. A
+little suit-case, taken from his home with deliberate and skillful
+precaution, formed his entire baggage.
+
+From Genoa he went to Rome, and from there to Naples, with the
+foolhardiness of the innocent, employing Spanish and Catalan words to
+reinforce his scanty Italian vocabulary acquired at the opera. The only
+positive information that guided him on his quest of adventure was the
+name of the _albergo_ on the shore of S. Lucia which Caragol had given
+him as his father's residence.
+
+He sought him vainly for many days and visited in Naples the consignees
+who thought that the captain had returned to his country some time ago.
+
+Not finding him, he began to be afraid. He ought to be back in
+Barcelona by this time and what he had begun as an heroic voyage was
+going to turn into a runaway, a boyish escapade. He thought of his
+mother who was perhaps weeping hours at a time, reading and rereading
+the letter that he had left for her explaining the object of his
+flight. Besides, Italy's intervention in the war,--an event which every
+one had been expecting but had supposed to be still a long way
+off,--had suddenly become an actual fact. What was there left for him
+to do in this country?... And one morning he had disappeared.
+
+Since the hotel porter could not tell him anything more, the father,
+after his first impression of surprise had passed, thought it would be
+a good plan to visit the firm of consignees. Perhaps there they might
+give him some news.
+
+The war was the only thing of interest in that office. But Ferragut,
+owner of a ship and a former client, was guided by the director to the
+employees who had received Esteban.
+
+They did not know much about it. They recalled vaguely a young Spaniard
+who said that he was the captain's son and was making inquiries about
+him. His last visit had been two days before. He was then hesitating
+between returning to his country by rail or embarking in one of the
+three steamers that were in port ready to sail for Marseilles.
+
+"I believe that he has gone by railroad," said one of the clerks.
+
+Another of the office force supported his companion's supposition with
+a positive affirmation in order to attract the attention of his chief.
+He was sure of his departure by land. He himself had helped him to
+calculate what the trip to Barcelona would cost him.
+
+Ferragut did not wish to know more. He must get away as soon as
+possible. This inexplicable voyage of his son filled him with remorse
+and immeasurable alarm. He wondered what could have occurred in his
+home....
+
+The director of the offices pointed out to him a French steamer from
+Suez that was sailing that very afternoon to Marseilles, and took upon
+himself all the arrangements concerning his passage and recommendation
+to the captain. There only remained four hours before the boat's
+departure, and Ulysses, after collecting his valises and sending them
+aboard, took a last stroll through all the places where he had lived
+with Freya. Adieu, gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_ and white
+Aquarium!... Farewell, _albergo_!...
+
+His son's mysterious presence in Naples had intensified his disgust at
+the German girl's flight. He thought sadly of lost love, but at the
+same time he thought with dolorous suspense of what might greet him
+when reentering his home.
+
+A little before sunset the French steamer weighed anchor. It had been
+many years since Ulysses had sailed as a simple passenger. Entirely out
+of his element, he wandered over the decks and among the crowds of
+tourists. Force of habit drew him to the bridge, talking with the
+captain and the officers, who from his very first words recognized his
+professional genius.
+
+Realizing that he was no more than an intruder in this place, and
+annoyed at finding himself on a bridge from which he could not give a
+single order, he descended to the lower decks, examining the groups of
+passengers. They were mostly French, coming from Indo-China. On prow
+and poop there were quartered four companies of Asiatic
+sharpshooters,--little, yellowish, with oblique eyes and voices like
+the miauling of cats. They were going to the war. Their officers lived
+in the staterooms in the center of the ship, taking with them their
+families who had acquired a foreign aspect during their long residence
+in the colonies.
+
+Ulysses saw ladies clad in white stretched out on their steamer chairs,
+having themselves fanned by their little Chinese pages; he saw bronzed
+and weather-beaten soldiers who appeared disgusted yet galvanized by
+the war that was snatching them from their Asiatic siesta, and
+children,--many children--delighted to go to France, the country of
+their dreams, forgetting in their happiness that their fathers were
+probably going to their death.
+
+The passage could not have been smoother. The Mediterranean was like a
+silver plain in the moonlight. From the invisible coast came warm puffs
+of garden perfumes. The groups on deck reminded one another, with
+selfish satisfaction, of the great dangers that threatened the people
+embarking in the North Sea, harassed by German submarines. Fortunately
+the Mediterranean was free from such calamity. The English had so well
+guarded the port of Gibraltar that it was all a tranquil lake dominated
+by the Allies.
+
+Before going to bed, the captain entered a room on the upper deck where
+was installed the wireless telegraph outfit. The hissing as of frying
+oil that the apparatus was sending out attracted him. The operator, a
+young Englishman, took off his nickel band with two earphones. Greatly
+bored by his isolation, he was trying to distract himself by conversing
+with the operators on the other vessels that came within the radius of
+his apparatus. They kept in constant communication like a group of
+comrades making the same trip and conversing placidly together.
+
+From time to time the operator, advised by the sparking of his
+induction coils, would put on the diadem with ear pieces in order to
+listen to his far-away comrades.
+
+"It is the man on the _Californian_ bidding me goodnight," he said
+after one of these calls. "He is going to bed. There's no news."
+
+And the young man eulogized Mediterranean navigation. At the outbreak
+of the war, he had been on another vessel going from London to New York
+and he recalled the unquiet nights, the days of anxious vigilance,
+searching the sea and the atmosphere, fearing from one moment to
+another the appearance of a periscope upon the waters, or the electric
+warning of a steamer torpedoed by the submarine. On this sea, one could
+live as tranquilly as in times of peace.
+
+Ferragut suspected that the poor operator was very anxious to enjoy the
+delights of such tranquillity. His companion in service was snoring in
+a nearby cabin and he was anxious to imitate him, putting his head down
+on the table of the apparatus.... "Until to-morrow!"
+
+The captain also fell asleep as soon as he had stretched himself out on
+the narrow ledge in his stateroom. His sleep was all in one piece,
+gloomy and complete, without sudden surprises or visions. Just as he
+was feeling that only a few moments had passed by, he was violently
+awakened as though some one had given him a shove. In the dim light he
+could make out only the round glass of the port hole, tenuously blue
+and veiled by the humidity of the maritime dew, like a tearful eye.
+
+Day was breaking and something extraordinary had just occurred on the
+boat. Ferragut was accustomed to sleep with the lightness of a captain
+who needs to awaken opportunely. A mysterious perception of danger had
+cut short his repose. He distinguished over his head the patter of
+quick runnings the whole length of the deck; he heard voices. While
+dressing as quickly as possible he realized that the rudder was working
+violently, and that the vessel was changing its course.
+
+Coming up on deck, one glance was sufficient to convince him that the
+ship was not running any danger. Everything about it presented a normal
+aspect. The sea, still dark, was gently lapping the sides of the vessel
+which continued going forward with regular motion. The decks were
+cleared of passengers. They were all sleeping in their staterooms. Only
+on the bridge he saw a group of persons:--the captain and all the
+officers, some of them dressed very lightly as though they had been
+roused from slumber.
+
+Passing by the wireless office, he obtained an explanation of the
+matter. The youth of the night before was near the door and his
+companion was now wearing the head phone and tapping the keys of the
+apparatus, listening and replying to invisible boats.
+
+An half hour before, just as the English operator was going off guard
+and giving place to his just awakened companion, a signal had kept him
+in his seat. The _Californian_ was sending out by wireless the danger
+call, the S.O.S., that is only employed when a ship needs help. Then in
+the space of a few seconds a mysterious voice had spread its tragic
+story over hundreds of miles. A submersible had just appeared a short
+distance from the _Californian_ and had fired several shells at it. The
+English boat was trying to escape, relying on its superior speed. Then
+the submarine had fired a torpedo....
+
+All this had occurred in twenty minutes. Suddenly the echoes of the
+distant tragedy were extinguished as the communication was cut off. A
+prolonged, intense, sibilant buzzing in the apparatus, and--nothing!...
+Absolute silence.
+
+The operator now on duty responded with negative movements to his
+companion's inquiring glances. He could hear nothing but the dialogue
+between the boats that had received the same warning. They too were
+alarmed by the sudden silence, and were changing their course going,
+like the French steamer, toward the place where the _Californian_ had
+met the submersible.
+
+"Can it be that they are already in the Mediterranean!" the operator
+exclaimed with astonishment on finishing his report. "How could the
+submarines possibly get 'way down here?..."
+
+Ferragut did not dare to go up on the bridge. He was afraid that the
+glances of those men of the sea might fasten themselves accusingly upon
+him. He believed that they could read his thoughts.
+
+A passenger ship had just been sunk at a relatively short distance from
+the boat on which he was traveling. Perhaps von Kramer was the author
+of the crime. With good reason he had charged Ulysses to tell his
+compatriots that they would soon hear of his exploits. And Ferragut had
+aided in the preparation of this maritime barbarity!...
+
+"What have you done? What have you done?" wrathfully demanded his
+mental voice of good counsel.
+
+An hour afterward he felt ashamed to remain on deck. In spite of the
+captain's orders, the news had got out and was circulating among the
+staterooms. Entire families were rushing up on deck, frightened out of
+the calmness usually reigning on the boat, arranging their clothes with
+precipitation, and struggling to adjust to their bodies the
+life-preservers which they were trying on for the first time. The
+children were howling, terrified by the alarm of their parents. Some
+nervous women were shedding tears without any apparent cause. The boat
+was going toward the place where the other one had been torpedoed, and
+that was enough to make the alarmists imagine that the enemy would
+remain absolutely motionless in the same place, awaiting their arrival
+in order to repeat their attack.
+
+Hundreds of eyes were fixed on the sea, scrutinizing the surface of the
+waves, believing every object which they saw,--bits of wood, seaweed or
+crates floating on the surface of the water,--to be the top of a
+periscope.
+
+The officials of the battalion of snipers had gone to prow and poop in
+order to maintain discipline among their men. But the Asiatics,
+scornful of death, had not abandoned their serene apathy. Some merely
+looked out over the sea with a childish curiosity, anxious to become
+acquainted with this new diabolical toy, invented by the superior
+races. On the decks reserved for first class passengers astonishment
+was as great as the uneasiness.
+
+"Submarines in the Mediterranean!... But is it possible?..."
+
+Those last to awake appeared very incredulous and could only be
+convinced of what had occurred when they heard the news from the boat's
+crew.
+
+Ferragut wandered around like a soul in torment. Remorse made him hide
+himself in his stateroom. These people with their complaints and their
+comments were causing him great annoyance. Soon he found that he could
+not remain in this isolation. He needed to see and to know,--like a
+criminal who returns to the place where he has committed his crime.
+
+At midday they began to see on the horizon various little clouds. They
+were the ships hastening from all sides, attracted by this unexpected
+attack.
+
+The French boat that was sailing ahead of them suddenly moderated its
+speed. They had come into the zone of the shipwreck. In the lookouts
+were sailors exploring the sea and shouting the orders that guided the
+steamer's course. During these evolutions, there began to slip past the
+vessel's sides the remains of the tragic event.
+
+The two rows of heads lined up on the different decks saw life
+preservers floating by empty, a boat with its keel in the air, and bits
+of wood belonging to a raft evidently constructed in great haste and
+never finished.
+
+Suddenly a howl from a thousand voices, followed by a funereal
+silence.... The body of a woman lying on some planks passed by. One of
+her legs was thrust into a gray silk stocking, her head was hanging on
+the opposite side, spreading its blonde locks over the water like a
+bunch of gilded seaweed.
+
+Her firm and juvenile bust was visible through the opening of a
+drenched nightgown which was outlining her body with unavoidable
+immodesty. She had been surprised by the shipwreck at the very moment
+that she had been trying to dress; perhaps terror had made her throw
+herself into the sea. Death had twisted her face with a horrible
+contraction, exposing the teeth. One side of her face was swollen from
+some blow.
+
+Looking over the shoulders of two ladies who were trembling and leaning
+against the deck-railing, Ferragut caught a glimpse of this corpse. In
+his turn the vigorous sailor trembled like a woman, and his eyes filmed
+with mistiness. He simply could not look at it!... And again he went
+down into his stateroom to hide himself.
+
+An Italian torpedo-destroyer was maneuvering among the remains of the
+shipwreck, as though seeking the footprints of the author of the crime.
+The steamers stopped their circular course of exploration to lower the
+lifeboats into the water and collect the corpses and bodies of the
+living near to death.
+
+The captain in his desperate imprisonment heard new shrieks announcing
+an extraordinary event. Again the cruel necessity of knowing what it
+could be dragged him from his stateroom!
+
+A boat full of people had been found by the steamer. The other ships
+were also meeting little by little the rest of the life boats occupied
+by the survivors of the catastrophe. The general rescue was going to be
+a very short piece of work.
+
+The most agile of the shipwrecked people, on reaching the deck, found
+themselves surrounded by sympathetic groups lamenting their misfortune
+and at the same time offering them hot drinks. Others, after staggering
+a few steps as though intoxicated, collapsed on the benches. Some had
+to be hoisted from the bottom of the boat and carried in a chair to the
+ship's hospital.
+
+Various British soldiers, serene and phlegmatic, upon climbing on deck
+asked for a pipe and began to smoke vigorously. Other shipwrecked
+people, lightly clad, simply rolled themselves up in shawls, beginning
+the account of the catastrophe as minutely and serenely as though they
+were in a parlor. A period of ten hours in the crowded narrowness of
+the boat, drifting at random in the hope of aid, had not broken down
+their energy.
+
+The women showed greater desperation. Ferragut saw in the center of a
+group of ladies a young English girl, blond, slender, elegant, who was
+sobbing and stammering explanations. She had found herself in a launch,
+separated from her parents, without knowing how. Perhaps they were dead
+by this time. Her slight hope was that they might have sought refuge in
+some other boat and been picked up by any one of the steamers that had
+happened to see them.
+
+A desperate grief, noisy, meridional, silenced with its meanings the
+noise of conversation. There had just climbed aboard a poor Italian
+woman carrying a baby in her arms.
+
+"_Figlia mia_!... _Mia figlia_!..." she was wailing with disheveled
+hair and eyes swollen by weeping.
+
+In the moment of the shipwreck she had lost a little girl, eight years
+old, and upon finding herself in the French steamer, she went
+instinctively toward the prow in search of the same spot which she had
+occupied on the other ship, as though expecting to find her daughter
+there. Her agonized voice penetrated down the stairway: "_Figlia
+mia_!... _Mia figlia!_"
+
+Ulysses could not stand it. That voice hurt him, as though its piercing
+cry were clawing at his brain.
+
+He approached a group in the center of which was a young barefooted lad
+in trousers and shirt open at the breast who was talking and talking,
+wrapping himself from time to time in a shawl that some one had placed
+upon his shoulders.
+
+He was describing in a mixture of French and Italian the loss of the
+_Californian_.
+
+He had been awakened by hearing the first shot fired by the submersible
+against his steamer. The chase had lasted half an hour.
+
+The most audacious and curious were on the decks and believed their
+salvation already sure as they saw their ship leaving its enemy behind.
+Suddenly a black line had cut the sea, something like a long thorn with
+splinters of foam which was advancing at a dizzying speed, in bold
+relief against the water.... Then came a blow on the hull of the vessel
+which had made it shudder from stem to stern, not a single plate nor
+screw escaping tremendous dislocation.... Then a volcanic explosion, a
+gigantic hatchet of smoke and flames, a yellowish cloud in which were
+flying dark objects:--fragments of metal and of wood, human bodies
+blown to bits.... The eyes of the narrator gleamed with an insane light
+as he recalled the tragic sight.
+
+"A friend of mine, a boy from my own country," he continued, sighing,
+"had just left me in order to see the submersible better and he put
+himself exactly in the path of the explosion.... He disappeared as
+suddenly as if he had been blotted out. I saw him and I did not see
+him.... He exploded in a thousand bits, as though he had had a bomb
+within his body."
+
+And the shipwrecked man, obsessed by this recollection, could hardly
+attach any importance to the scenes following,--the struggle of the
+crowds to gain the boats, the efforts of the officers to maintain
+order, the death of many that, crazy with desperation, had thrown
+themselves into the sea, the tragic waiting huddled in barks that were
+with great difficulty lowered to the water, fearing a second shipwreck
+as soon as they touched the waves.
+
+The steamer had disappeared in a few moments,--its prow sinking in the
+waters and then its smokestacks taking on a vertical position almost
+like the leaning tower of Pisa, and its rudders turning crazily as the
+shuddering ship went down.
+
+The narrator began to be left alone. Other shipwrecked folk, telling
+their doleful tales at the same time, were now attracting the curious.
+
+Ferragut looked at this young man. His physical type and his accent
+made him surmise that he was a compatriot.
+
+"You are Spanish?"
+
+The shipwrecked man replied affirmatively.
+
+"A Catalan?" continued Ulysses in the Catalan idiom.
+
+A fresh oratorical vehemence galvanized the shipwrecked boy. "The
+gentleman is a Catalan also?"... And smiling upon Ferragut as though he
+were a celestial apparition, he again began the story of his
+misfortunes.
+
+He was a commercial traveler from Barcelona, and in Naples he had taken
+the sea route because it had seemed to him the more rapid one, avoiding
+the railroads congested by Italian mobilization.
+
+"Were there other Spaniards traveling on your boat?" Ulysses continued
+inquiring.
+
+"Only one: my friend, that boy of whom I was just speaking. The
+explosion of the torpedo blew him into bits. I saw him...."
+
+The captain felt his remorse constantly increasing. A compatriot, a
+poor young fellow, had perished through his fault!...
+
+The salesman also seemed to be suffering a twinge of conscience. He was
+holding himself responsible for his companion's death. He had only met
+him in Naples a few days before, but they were united by the close
+brotherhood of young compatriots who had run across each other far from
+their country.
+
+They had both been born in Barcelona. The poor lad, almost a child, had
+wanted to return by land and he had carried him off with him at the
+last hour, urging upon him the advantages of a trip by sea. Whoever
+would have imagined that the German submarines were in the
+Mediterranean! The traveling man persisted in his remorse. He could not
+forget that half-grown lad who, in order to make the voyage in his
+company, had gone to meet his death.
+
+"I met him in Naples, hunting everywhere for his father."
+
+"Ah!..."
+
+Ulysses uttered this exclamation with his neck violently outstretched,
+as though he were trying to loosen his skull from the rest of his body.
+His eyes were protruding from their sockets.
+
+"The father," continued the youth, "commands a ship.... He is Captain
+Ulysses Ferragut."
+
+An outcry.... The people ran.... A man had just fallen heavily, his
+body rebounding on the deck.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE ENCOUNTER AT MARSEILLES
+
+Toni, who abominated railway journeys on account of his torpid
+immovability, now had to abandon the _Mare Nostrum_ and suffer the
+torture of remaining twelve hours crowded in with strange persons.
+
+Ferragut was sick in a hotel in the harbor of Marseilles. They had
+taken him off of a French boat coming from Naples, crushed with silent
+melancholia. He wished to die. During the trip they had to keep sharp
+watch so that he could not repeat his attempts at suicide. Several
+times he had tried to throw himself into the water.
+
+Toni learned of it from the captain of a Spanish vessel that had just
+arrived from Marseilles exactly one day after the newspapers of
+Barcelona had announced the death of Esteban Ferragut in the torpedoing
+of the _Californian_. The commercial traveler was still relating
+everywhere his version of the event, concluding it now with his
+melodramatic meeting with the father, the latter's fatal fall on
+receiving the news, and desperation upon recovering consciousness.
+
+The first mate had hastened to present himself at his captain's home.
+All the Blanes were there, surrounding Cinta and trying to console her.
+
+"My son!... My son!..." the mother was groaning, writhing on the sofa.
+
+And the family chorus drowned her laments, overwhelming her with a
+flood of fantastic consolations and recommendations of resignation. She
+ought to think of the father: she was not alone in the world as she was
+affirming: besides her own family, she had her husband.
+
+Toni entered just at that moment.
+
+"His father!" she cried in desperation. "His father!..."
+
+And she fastened her eyes on the mate as though trying to speak to him
+with them. Toni knew better than anyone what that father was, and for
+what reason he had remained in Naples. It was his fault that the boy
+had undertaken the crazy journey at whose end death was awaiting
+him..... The devout Cinta looked upon this misfortune as a chastisement
+from God, always complicated and mysterious in His designs. Divinity,
+in order to make the father expiate his crimes, had killed the son
+without thinking of the mother upon whom the blow rebounded.
+
+Toni went away. He could not endure the glances and the allusions made
+by Dona Cinta. And as though this emotion were not enough, he received
+the news a few hours later of his captain's wretched condition,--news
+which obliged him to make the trip to Marseilles immediately.
+
+On entering the quarters of the hotel frequented by the officials of
+merchant vessels, he found Ferragut seated near a balcony from which
+could be seen the entire harbor.
+
+He was limp and flabby, with eyes sunken and faded, beard unkempt, and
+a manifest disregard of his personal appearance.
+
+"Toni!... Toni!"
+
+He embraced his mate, moistening his neck with tears. For the first
+time he began to weep and this appeared to give him a certain relief.
+The presence of his faithful officer brought him back to life.
+Forgotten memories of business journeys crowded in his mind. Toni
+resuscitated all his past energies. It was as though the _Mare Nostrum_
+had come in search of him.
+
+He felt shame and remorse. This man knew his secret: he was the only
+one to whom he had spoken of supplying the German submarines.
+
+"My poor Esteban!... My son!"
+
+He did not hesitate to admit the fatal relationship between the death
+of his son and that illegal trip whose memory was weighing him down
+like a monstrous crime. But Toni was discreet. He lamented the death of
+Esteban like a misfortune in which the father had not had any part.
+
+"I also have lost sons.... And I know that nothing is gained by giving
+up to despair.... Cheer up!"
+
+He never said a word of all that had happened before the tragic event.
+Had not Ferragut known his mate so well, he might have believed that he
+had entirely forgotten it. Not the slightest gesture, not a gleam in
+his eyes, revealed the awakening of that malign recollection. His only
+anxiety was that the captain should soon regain his health....
+
+Reanimated by the presence and words of this prudent companion, Ulysses
+recovered his strength and a few days after, abandoned the room in
+which he had believed he was going to die, turning his steps toward
+Barcelona.
+
+He entered his home with a foreboding that almost made him tremble. The
+sweet Cinta, considered until then with the protecting superiority of
+the Orientals who do not recognize a soul in woman, now inspired him
+with a certain fear. What would she say on seeing him?...
+
+She said nothing of what he had feared. She permitted herself to be
+embraced, and drooping her head, burst into desperate weeping, as
+though the presence of her husband brought into higher relief the image
+of her son whom she would never see again. Then she dried her tears,
+and paler and sadder than ever, continued her habitual life.
+
+Ferragut saw her as serene as a school-mistress, with her two little
+nieces seated at her feet, keeping on with her eternal lace-work. She
+forgot it only in order to attend to the care of her husband, occupying
+herself with the very slightest details of his existence. That was her
+duty. From childhood, she had known what are the obligations of the
+wife of the captain of a ship when he stops at home for a few days,
+like a bird of passage. But back of such attentions, Ulysses divined
+the presence of an immovable obstacle. It was something enormous and
+transparent that had interposed itself between the two. They saw each
+other but without being able to touch each other. They were separated
+by a distance, as hard and luminous as a diamond, that made every
+attempt at drawing nearer together useless.
+
+Cinta never smiled. Her eyes were dry, trying not to weep while her
+husband was near her, but giving herself up freely to grief when she
+was alone. Her duty was to make his existence bearable, hiding her
+thoughts.
+
+But this prudence of a good house-mistress was trampling under foot
+their conjugal life of former times. One day Ferragut, with a return of
+his old affection, and desiring to illuminate Cinta's twilight
+existence with a pale ray of sunlight, ventured to caress her as in the
+early days of their marriage. She drew herself up, modest and offended,
+as though she had just received an insult. She escaped from his arms
+with the energy of one who is repelling an outrage.
+
+Ulysses looked upon a new woman, intensely pale, of an almost olive
+countenance, the nose curved with wrath and a flash of madness in her
+eyes. All that she was guarding in the depths of her thoughts came
+forth, boiling over, expelled in a hoarse voice charged with tears.
+
+"No, no!... We shall live together, because you are my husband and God
+commands that it shall be so; but I no longer love you: I cannot love
+you.... The wrong that you have done me!... I who loved you so much!...
+However much you may hunt in your voyages and in your wicked
+adventures, you will never find a woman that loves you as your wife has
+loved you."
+
+Her past of modest and submissive affection, of supine and tolerant
+fidelity, now issued from her mouth in one interminable complaint.
+
+"From our home my thoughts have followed you in all your voyages,
+although I knew your forgetfulness and your infidelity. All the papers
+found in your pockets, and photographs lost among your books, the
+allusions of your comrades, your smiles of pride, the satisfied air
+with which you many times returned, the series of new manners and
+additional care of your person that you did not have when you left,
+told me all.... I also suspected in your bold caresses the hidden
+presence of other women who lived far away on the other side of the
+world."
+
+She stopped her turbulent language for a few moments, letting the blush
+which her memories evoked fade away.
+
+"I loathed it all," she continued. "I know the men of the sea; I am a
+sailor's daughter. Many times I saw my mother weeping and pitied her
+simplicity. There is no use weeping for what men do in distant lands.
+It is always bitter enough for a woman who loves her husband, but it
+has no bad consequences and must be pardoned.... But now.... _Now_!..."
+
+The wife became irritated on recalling his recent infidelities.... Her
+rivals were not the public women of the great ports, nor the tourists
+who could give only a few days of love, like an alms which they tossed
+without stopping their progress. Now he had become enamored with the
+enthusiasm of a husky boy with an elegant and handsome dame, with a
+foreign woman who had made him forget his business, abandon his ship,
+and remain away, as though renouncing his family forever.... And poor
+Esteban, orphaned by his father's forgetfulness, had gone in search of
+him, with the adventurous impetuosity inherited from his ancestors: and
+death, a horrible death, had come to meet him on the road.
+
+Something more than the grief of the outraged wife vibrated in Cinta's
+laments. It was the rivalry with that woman of Naples, whom she
+believed a great lady with all the attractions of wealth and high
+birth. She envied her superior weapons of seduction; she raged at her
+own modesty and humility as a home-keeping woman.
+
+"I was resolved to ignore it all," she continued. "I had one
+consolation,--my son. What did it matter to me what you did?... You
+were far off, and my son was living at my side.... And now I shall
+never see him again!... My fate is to live eternally alone. You know
+very well that I shall not be a mother again,--that I cannot give you
+another son.... And it was you, you! who have robbed me of the only
+thing that I had!..."
+
+Her imagination invented the most improbable reasons for explaining to
+herself this unjust loss.
+
+"God wished to punish you for your bad life and has therefore killed
+Esteban, and is slowly killing me.... When I learned of his death I
+wished to throw myself off the balcony. I am still living because I am
+a Christian, but what an existence awaits me! What a life for you if
+you are really a father!... Think that your son might still be existing
+if you had not remained in Naples."
+
+Ferragut was a pitiful object. He hung his head without strength to
+repeat the confused and lying protests with which he had received his
+wife's first words.
+
+"If she knew all the truth!" the voice of remorse kept saying in his
+brain.
+
+He was thinking with horror of what Cinta could say if she knew the
+magnitude of his sin. Fortunately she was ignorant of the fact that he
+had been of assistance to the assassins of their son.... And the
+conviction that she never would know it made him admit her words with
+silent humility,--the humility of the criminal who hears himself
+accused of an offense by a judge ignorant of a still greater offense.
+
+Cinta finished speaking in a discouraged and gloomy tone. She was
+exhausted. Her wrath faded out, consumed by its own violence. Her sobs
+cut short her words. Her husband would never again be the same man to
+her; the body of their son was always interposing between the two.
+
+"I shall never be able to love you.... What have you done, Ulysses?
+What have you done that I should have such a horror of you?... When I
+am alone I weep: my sadness is great, but I admit my sorrow with
+resignation, as a thing inevitable.... As soon as I hear your
+footsteps, the truth springs forth. I realize that my son has died
+because of you, that he would still be living had he not gone in search
+of you, trying to make you realize that you were a father and what you
+owe to us.... And when I think of that I hate you, I _hate you_!... You
+have murdered my son! My only consolation is in the belief that if you
+have any conscience you will suffer even more than I."
+
+Ferragut came out from this horrible scene with the conviction that he
+would have to go away. That home was no longer his, neither was his
+wife his. The reminder of death filled everything, intervening between
+him and Cinta, pushing him away, forcing him again on the sea. His
+vessel was the only refuge for the rest of his life, and he must resort
+to it like the great criminals of other centuries who had taken refuge
+in the isolation of monasteries.
+
+He needed to vent his wrath on somebody, to find some responsible
+person whom he might blame for his misfortunes. Cinta had revealed
+herself to him as an entirely new being. He would never have suspected
+such energy of character, such passionate vehemence, in his sweet,
+obedient, little wife. She must have some counselor who was encouraging
+her complaints and making her speak badly of her husband.
+
+And he fixed upon Don Pedro, the professor, because there was still
+deep within him a certain dislike of the man since the days of his
+courtship. Besides, it offended him to see him in his home with a
+certain air of a noble personage whose virtue served as foil for the
+sins and shortcomings of the master of the house.
+
+The professor evidently considered Ferragut on a level with all the
+famous Don Juans,--liberal and care-free when in far-away homes,
+punctilious and suspiciously correct in his own.
+
+"That old blatherskite!" said Ulysses to himself, "is in love with
+Cinta. It is a platonic passion: with him, it couldn't be anything
+else. But it annoys me greatly.... I'm going to say a few things to
+him."
+
+Don Pedro, who was continuing his daily visits in order to console the
+mother, speaking of poor Esteban as though he were his own son, and
+casting servile smiles upon the captain, found himself intercepted by
+him one afternoon, on the landing of the stairway.
+
+The sailor aged suddenly while talking, and his features were accented
+with a vigorous ugliness. At that moment he looked exactly like his
+uncle, the _Triton_.
+
+With a threatening voice, he recalled a classic passage well known to
+the professor. His namesake, old Ulysses, upon returning to his palace,
+had found Penelope surrounded with suitors and had ended by hanging
+them on tenterhooks.
+
+"Wasn't that the way of it, Professor?... I do not find here more than
+one suitor, but this Ulysses swears to you that he will hang him in the
+same way if he finds him again in his home."
+
+Don Pedro fled. He had always found the rude heroes of the Odyssey very
+interesting, but in verse and on paper. In reality they now seemed to
+him most dangerous brutes, and he wrote a letter to Cinta telling her
+that he would suspend his visits until her husband should have returned
+to sea.
+
+This insult increased the wife's distant bearing. She resented it as an
+offense against herself. After having made her lose her son, Ulysses
+was terrifying her only friend.
+
+The captain felt obliged to go. By staying in that hostile atmosphere,
+which was only sharpening his remorse, he would pile one error upon
+another. Nothing but action could make him forget.
+
+One day he announced to Toni that in a few hours he was going to weigh
+anchor. He had offered his services to the allied navies in order to
+carry food to the fleet in the Dardanelles. The _Mare Nostrum_ would
+transport eatables, arms, munitions, aeroplanes.
+
+Toni attempted objection. It would be easy to find trips equally
+productive and much less dangerous; they might go to America....
+
+"And my revenge?" interrupted Ferragut. "I am going to dedicate the
+rest of my life to doing all the evil that I can to the assassins of my
+son. The Allies need boats, I'm going to give them mine and my person."
+
+Knowing what was troubling his mate, he added, "Besides, they pay well.
+These trips are very remunerative.... They will give me whatever I
+ask."
+
+For the first time in his existence on board the _Mare Nostrum_, the
+mate made a scornful gesture regarding the value of the cargo.
+
+"I almost forgot," continued Ulysses, smiling in spite of his sadness.
+"This trip flatters your ideals.... We are going to work for the
+Republic."
+
+They went to England and, taking on their cargo, set forth for the
+Dardanelles. Ferragut wished to sail alone without the protection of
+the destroyers that were escorting the convoys.
+
+He knew the Mediterranean well. Besides, he was from a neutral country
+and the Spanish flag was flying from the poop of his vessel. This abuse
+of his flag did not produce the slightest remorse, nor did it appear as
+disloyal to him. The German corsairs were coming closer to their prey,
+displaying neutral flags, in order to deceive. The submarines were
+remaining hidden behind pacific sailing ships in order to rise up
+suddenly near defenseless vessels. The most felonious proceedings of
+the ancient pirates had been resuscitated by the German fleet.
+
+He was not afraid of the submarines. He trusted in the speed of the
+_Mare Nostrum_ and in his lucky star.
+
+"And if any of them should cross our path," he said to his second,
+"just let them go before the prow!"
+
+He wished this so that he could send his vessel upon the submersible at
+full speed, daring it to come on.
+
+The Mediterranean was no longer the same sea that it had been months
+before when the captains knew all its secrets; he could no longer live
+on it as confidently as in the house of a friend.
+
+He stayed in his stateroom only to sleep. He and Toni spent long hours
+on the bridge talking without seeing each other, with their eyes turned
+on the sea, scanning the heaving blue surface. All the crew, excepting
+those that were resting, felt the necessity of keeping the same watch.
+
+In the daytime the slightest discovery would send the alarm from prow
+to poop. All the refuse of the sea, that weeks before had splashed
+unnoticed near the sides of the vessel, now provoked cries of
+attention, and many arms were outstretched, pointing it out. Bits of
+sticks, empty preserve cans sparkling in the sunlight, bunches of
+seaweed, a sea gull with outspread wings letting itself rock on the
+waves; everything made them think of the periscopes of the submarine
+coming up to the water's level.
+
+At night time the vigilance was even greater. To the danger of
+submersibles must also be added that of collision. The warships and the
+allied transports were traveling with few lights or completely dark.
+The sentinels on the bridge were no longer scanning the surface of the
+sea with its pale phosphorescence. Their gaze explored the horizon,
+fearing that before the prow there might suddenly surge up an enormous,
+swift, black form, vomited forth by the darkness.
+
+If at any time the captain tarried in his stateroom, instantly that
+fatal memory came to his mind.
+
+"Esteban!... My son!..."
+
+And his eyes were full of tears.
+
+Remorse and wrath made him plan tremendous vengeance. He was convinced
+that it would be impossible to carry it through, but it was a momentary
+consolation to his meridional character predisposed to the most bloody
+revenge.
+
+One day, running over some forgotten papers in a suit-case, he came
+across Freya's portrait. Upon seeing her audacious smile and her calm
+eyes fixed upon him, he felt within him a shameful reversion. He
+admired the beauty of this apparition, a thrill passing over his body
+as their past intercourse recurred to him.... And at the same time that
+other Ferragut existing within him thrilled with the murderous violence
+of the Oriental who considers death as the only means of vengeance. She
+was to blame for it all. "Ah!... _Tal_"
+
+He tore up the photograph, but then he put the fragments together again
+and finally placed them among his papers.
+
+His wrath was changing its objective. Freya really was not the
+principal person guilty of Esteban's death. He was thinking of that
+other one, of the pretended diplomat, of that von Kramer who perhaps
+had directed the torpedo which had blown his son to atoms.... Would he
+not raise the devil if he could meet him sometime?... What happiness if
+these two should find themselves face to face!
+
+Finally he avoided the solitude of a stateroom that tormented him with
+desires of impotent revenge. Near Toni on deck or on the bridge he felt
+better.... And with a humble condescension, such as his mate had never
+known before, he would talk and talk, enjoying the attention of his
+simple-hearted listener, just as though he were telling marvelous
+stories to a circle of children.
+
+In the Strait of Gibraltar he explained to him the great currents sent
+by the ocean into the Mediterranean, at certain times aiding the
+screw-propeller in the propulsion of the vessel.
+
+Without this Atlantic current the _mare nostrum_, which lost through
+atmospheric evaporation much more water than the rains and rivers could
+bring to it, would become dry in a few centuries. It had been
+calculated that it might disappear in about four hundred and seventy
+years, leaving as evidence of its former existence a stratum, of salt
+fifty-two meters thick.
+
+In its deep bosom were born great and numerous springs of fresh water,
+on the coast of Asia Minor, in Morea, Dalmatia and southern Italy; it
+received besides a considerable contribution from the Black Sea, which
+on returning to the Mediterranean accumulated from the rains and the
+discharge of its rivers, more water than it lost by evaporation,
+sending it across the Bosporous and the Dardenelles in the form of a
+superficial current. But all these tributaries, enormous as they were,
+sank into insignificance when compared with the renovation of the
+oceanic currents.
+
+The waters of the Atlantic poured into the Mediterranean so riotously
+that neither contrary winds nor reflex motion could stop them.
+Sailboats sometimes had to wait entire months for a strong breeze that
+would enable them to conquer the impetuous mouth of the strait.
+
+"I know that very well," said Toni. "Once going to Cuba we were in
+sight of Gibraltar more than fifty days, going backwards and forwards
+until a favorable wind enabled us to overcome the current and go out
+into the great sea."
+
+"Just such a current," added Ferragut, "was one of the causes that
+hastened the decadence of the Mediterranean navies in the sixteenth
+century. They had to go to the recently discovered Indies, and the
+Catalan or the Genoese ships would remain here in the strait weeks and
+weeks, struggling with the wind and the contrary current while the
+Galicians, the Basques, the French and the English who had left their
+ports at the same time were already nearing America.... Fortunately,
+navigation by steam has now equalized all that."
+
+Toni was silently admiring his captain. What he must have learned in
+those books that filled the stateroom!...
+
+It was in the Mediterranean that men had first entrusted themselves to
+the waves. Civilization emanated from India, but the Asiatic peoples
+were not able to master the art of navigation in their few seas whose
+coasts were very far apart and where the monsoons of the Indian Ocean
+blew six months together in one direction and six months in another.
+
+Not until he reached the Mediterranean by overland emigration did the
+white man wish to become a sailor. This sea that, compared with others,
+is a simple lake sown with archipelagoes, offered a good school. To
+whatever wind he might set his sails, he would be sure to reach some
+hospitable shore. The fresh and irregular breezes revolved with the sun
+at certain times of the year. The hurricane whirled across its bowl,
+but never stopped. There were no tides. Its harbors and water-ways were
+never dry. Its coasts and islands were often so close together that you
+could see from one to the other; its lands, beloved of heaven, were
+recipients of the sun's sweetest smiles.
+
+Ferragut recalled the men who had plowed this sea in centuries so
+remote that history makes no mention of them. The only traces of their
+existence now extant were the _nuraghs_ of Sardinia and the _talayots_
+of the Balearic Islands,--gigantic tables formed with blocks, barbaric
+altars of enormous rocks which recalled the Celtic obelisks and
+sepulchral monuments of the Breton coast. These obscure people had
+passed from isle to isle, from the extreme of the Mediterranean to the
+strait which is its door.
+
+The captain could imagine their rude craft made from trunks of trees
+roughly planed, propelled by one oar, or rather by the stroke of a
+stick, with no other aid than a single rudimentary sail spread to the
+fresh breeze. The navy of the first Europeans had been like that of the
+savages of the oceanic islands whose flotillas of tree trunks are still
+actually going from archipelago to archipelago.
+
+Thus they had dared to sally forth from the coast, to lose sight of
+land, to venture forth into the blue desert, advised of the existence
+of islands by the vaporous knobs of the mountains which were outlined
+on the horizon at sunset. Every advance of this hesitating marine over
+the Mediterranean had represented greater expenditure of audacity and
+energy than the discovery of America or the first voyage around the
+world.... These primitive sailors did not go forth alone to their
+adventures on the sea; they were nations _en masse_, they carried with
+them families and animals. Once installed on an island, the tribes sent
+forth fragments of their own life, going to colonize other nearby lands
+across the waves.
+
+Ulysses and his mate thought much about the great catastrophes ignored
+by history--the tempest surprising the sailing exodus, entire fleets of
+rough rafts swallowed up by the abyss in a few moments, families dying
+clinging to their domestic animals,--whenever they attempted a new
+advance of their rudimentary civilization.
+
+In order to form some idea of what these little embarkations were,
+Ferragut would recall the fleets of Homeric form, created many
+centuries afterwards. The winds used to impose a religious terror on
+those warriors of the sea, reunited in order to fall upon Troy. Their
+ships remained chained an entire year in the harbor of Aulis and,
+through fear of the hostility of the wind and in order to placate the
+divinity of the Mediterranean, they sacrificed the life of a virgin.
+
+All was danger and mystery in the kingdom of the waves. The abysses
+roared, the rocks moaned; on the ledges were singing sirens who, with
+their music, attracted ships in order to dash them to pieces. There was
+not an island without its particular god, without its monster and
+cyclops, or its magician contriving artifices.
+
+Before domesticating the elements, mankind had attributed to them their
+most superstitious fears.
+
+A material factor had powerfully influenced the dangers of
+Mediterranean life. The sand, moved by the caprice of the current, was
+constantly ruining the villages or raising them to peaks of unexpected
+prosperity. Cities celebrated in history were to-day no more than
+streets of ruins at the foot of a hillock crowned with the remains of a
+Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine or Saracen castle, or with a fortress
+contemporary with the Crusades. In other centuries these had been
+famous ports; before their walls had taken place naval battles; now
+from their ruined acropolis one could scarcely see the Mediterranean
+except as a light blue belt at the end of a low and marshy plain. The
+accumulating sand had driven the sea back miles.... On the other hand,
+inland cities had come to be places of embarkation because of the
+continual perforation of the waves that were forcing their way in.
+
+The wickedness of mankind had imitated the destructive work of nature.
+When a maritime republic conquered a rival republic, the first thing
+that it thought of was to obstruct its harbor with sand and stones in
+order to divert the course of its waters so as to convert it into an
+inland city, thereby ruining its fleets and its traffic. The Genoese,
+triumphant over Pisa, stopped up its harbor with the sands of the Arno;
+and the city of the first conquerors of Mallorca, of the navigators to
+the Holy Land, of the Knights of St. Stephen, guardians of the
+Mediterranean, came to be Pisa the Dead,--a settlement that knew the
+sea only by hearsay.
+
+"Sand," continued Ferragut, "has changed the commercial routes and
+historic destinies of the Mediterranean."
+
+Of the many deeds which had stretched along the scenes of the _mare
+nostrum_, the most famous in the captain's opinion was the unheard-of
+epic of Roger de Flor which he had known from childhood through the
+stories told him by the poet Labarta, by the _Triton_, and by that poor
+secretary who was always dreaming of the great past of the Catalan
+marine.
+
+All the world was now talking about the blockade of the Dardanelles.
+The boats that furrowed the Mediterranean, merchant vessels as well as
+battleships, were furthering the great military operation that was
+developing opposite Gallipoli. The name of the long, narrow maritime
+pass which separates Europe and Asia was in every mouth. To-day the
+eyes of mankind were converged on this point just as, in remote
+centuries, they had been fixed on the war of Troy.
+
+"We also have been there," said Ferragut with pride. "The Dardanelles
+have been frequented for many years by the Catalans and the Aragonese.
+Gallipoli was one of our cities governed by the Valencian, Ramon
+Muntaner."
+
+And he began the story of the Almogavars in the Orient, that romantic
+Odyssey across the ancient Asiatic provinces of the Roman Empire that
+ended only with the founding of the Spanish duchy of Athens and
+Neopatria in the city of Pericles and Minerva. The chronicles of the
+Oriental Middle Ages, the books of Byzantine chivalry, the fantastic
+tales of the Arab do not contain more improbable and dramatic
+adventures than the warlike enterprises of these Argonauts coming from
+the valleys of the Pyrenees, from the banks of the Ebro, and from the
+Moorish gardens of Valencia.
+
+"Eighty years," said Ferragut, terminating his account of the glorious
+adventures of Roger de Flor around Gallipoli, "the Spanish duchy of
+Athens and Neopatria flourished. Eighty years the Catalans governed
+these lands."
+
+And he pointed out on the horizon the place where the red haze of
+distant promontories and mountains outlined the Grecian land.
+
+Such a duchy was in reality a republic. Athens and Thebes were
+administered in accordance with the laws of Aragon and its code was
+"The book of Usages and Customs of the City of Barcelona." The Catalan
+tongue ruled as the official language in the country of Demosthenes,
+and the rude Almogavars married with the highest ladies of the country.
+
+The Parthenon was still intact as in the glorious times of ancient
+Athens. The august monument of Minerva converted into a Christian
+church, had not undergone any other modification than that of seeing a
+new goddess on its altars, _La Virgen Santisima_.
+
+And in this thousand-year-old temple of sovereign beauty the _Te Deum_
+was sung for eighty years in honor of the Aragonese dukes, and the
+clergy preached in the Catalan tongue.
+
+The republic of adventurers did not bother with constructing nor
+creating. There does not remain on the Grecian land any trace of their
+dominion,--edifices, seals, nor coins. Only a few noble families,
+especially in the islands, took the Catalan patronym.
+
+"Although they yet remember us confusedly, they do remember us," said
+Ferragut. "'May the vengeance of the Catalans overtake you' was for
+many centuries the worst of curses in Greece."
+
+Thus terminated the most glorious and bloody of the Mediterranean
+adventures of the Middle Ages,--the clash of western crudeness, almost
+savage but frank and noble, against the refined malice and decadent
+civilization of the Greeks,--childish and old at the same time,--which
+survived in Byzantium.
+
+Ferragut felt a pleasure in these relations of imperial splendor,
+palaces of gold, epic encounters and furious frays, while his ship was
+navigating through the black night and bounding over the dark sea
+accompanied by the throbbing of machinery and the noisy thrum of the
+screw, at times out of the water during the furious rocking from prow
+to poop.
+
+They were in the worst place in the Mediterranean where the winds
+coming from the narrow passage of the Adriatic, from the steppes of
+Asia Minor, from the African deserts and from the gap of Gibraltar
+tempestuously mingled their atmospheric currents. The waters boxed in
+among the numerous islands of the Grecian archipelago were writhing in
+opposite directions, enraged and clashing against the ledges on the
+coast with a retrograding violence that converted them into a furious
+surge.
+
+The captain, hooded like a friar and bowed before the wind that was
+striving to snatch him from the bridge, kept talking and talking to his
+mate, standing immovable near him and also covered with a waterproof
+coat that was spouting moisture from every fold. The rain was streaking
+with light, cobwebby lines the slaty darkness, of the night. The two
+sailors felt as though icy nettles were falling upon face and hands
+across the darkness.
+
+Twice they anchored near the island of Tenedos, seeing the movable
+archipelago of ironclads enveloped in floating veils of smoke. There
+came to their ears, like incessant thunderings, the echo of the cannons
+that were roaring at the entrance of the Dardanelles.
+
+From afar off they perceived the sensation caused by the loss of some
+English and French ships. The current of the Black Sea was the best
+armor for the defenders of this aquatic defile against the attacks of
+the fleets. They had only to throw into the strait a quantity of
+floating mines and the blue river which slipped by the Dardanelles
+would drag these toward the boats, destroying them with an infernal
+explosion. On the coast of Tenedos the Hellenic women with their
+floating hair were tossing flowers into the sea in memory of the
+victims, with a theatrical grief similar to that of the heroines of
+ancient Troy whose ramparts were buried in the hills opposite.
+
+The third trip in mid-winter was a very hard one, and at the end of a
+rainy night, when the faint streaks of dawn were beginning to dissipate
+the sluggish shadows, the _Mare Nostrum_ arrived at the roadstead of
+Salonica.
+
+Only once had Ferragut been in this port, many years before, when it
+still belonged to the Turks. At first he saw only some lowlands on
+which twinkled the last gleams from the lighthouses. Then he recognized
+the roadstead, a vast aquatic extension with a frame of sandy bars and
+pools reflecting the uncertain life of daybreak. The recently awakened
+sea-gulls were flying in groups over the immense marine bowl. At the
+mouth of the Vardar the fresh-water fowls were starting up with noisy
+cries, or standing on the edge of the bank immovable upon their long
+legs.
+
+Opposite the prow, a city was rising up out of the albuminous waves of
+fog. In a bit of the clear, blue sky appeared various minarets, their
+peaks sparkling with the fires of Aurora. As the vessel advanced, the
+morning clouds vanished, and Salonica became entirely visible from the
+cluster of huts at her wharves to the ancient castle topping the
+heights, a fortress of ruddy towers, low and strong.
+
+Near the water's edge, the entire length of the harbor, were the
+European constructions, commercial houses with gold-lettered signs,
+hotels, banks, moving-picture shows, concert halls, and a massive tower
+with another smaller one upon it,--the so-called White Tower, a remnant
+of the Byzantine fortifications.
+
+In this European conglomerate were dark gaps, open passageways, the
+mouths of sloping streets climbing to the hillock above, crossing the
+Grecian, Mohammedan and Jewish quarters until they reached a table-land
+covered with lofty edifices between dark points of cypress.
+
+The religious diversity of the Oriental Mediterranean made Salonica
+bristle with cupolas and towers. The Greek temple threw into prominence
+the gilded bulbs of its roof; the Catholic church made the cross
+glisten from the peak of its bell-tower; the synagogue of geometrical
+forms overflowed in a succession of terraces; the Mohammedan minaret
+formed a colonnade, white, sharp and slender. Modern life had added
+factory chimneys and the arms of steam-cranes which gave an
+anachronistic effect to this decoration of an Oriental harbor. Around
+the city and its acropolis was the plain which lost itself in the
+horizon,--a plain that Ferragut, on a former voyage, had seen desolate
+and monotonous, with few houses and sparsely cultivated, with no other
+Vegetation except that in the little oases of the Mohammedan cemetery.
+This desert extended to Greece and Servia or to the borders of Bulgaria
+and Turkey.
+
+Now the brownish-gray steppes coming out from the fleecy fog of
+daybreak were palpitating with new life. Thousands and thousands of men
+were encamped around the city, occupying new villages made of canvas,
+rectangular streets of tents, cities of wooden cabins, and
+constructions as big as churches whose canvas walls were trembling
+under the violent squalls of wind.
+
+Through his glasses, Ulysses could see warlike hosts occupied with the
+business of caring for strings of riderless horses that were going to
+watering places, parks of artillery with their cannon upraised like the
+tubes of a telescope, enormous birds with yellow wings that were trying
+to skip along the earth's surface with a noisy bumping, gradually
+reappearing in space with their waxy wings glistening in the first
+shafts of sunlight.
+
+All the allied army of the Orient returning from the bloody and
+mistaken adventure of the Dardanelles or proceeding from Marseilles and
+Gibraltar were massing themselves around Salonica.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ anchored at the wharves filled with boxes and bales.
+War had given a much greater activity to this port than in times of
+peace. Steamers of all the allied and neutral flags were unloading
+eatables and military materials.
+
+They were coming from every continent, from every ocean, drawn thither
+by the tremendous necessities of a modern army. They were unloading
+harvests from entire provinces, unending herds of oxen and horses, tons
+upon tons of steel, prepared for deadly work, and human crowds lacking
+only a tail of women and children to be like the great martial exoduses
+of history. Then taking on board the residuum of war, arms needing
+repair, wounded men, they would begin their return trip.
+
+These cargoes quietly transported through the darkness in spite of bad
+times and the submarine threats, were preparing the ultimate victory.
+Many of these steamers were formerly luxurious vessels, but now
+commandeered by military necessity, were dirty and greasy and used as
+cargo boats. Lined up, drowsing along the docks, ready to begin their
+work, were new hospital ships, the more fortunate transatlantic liners
+that still retained a certain trace of their former condition, quite
+clean with a red cross painted on their sides and another on their
+smokestacks.
+
+Some of the transports had reached Salonica most miraculously. Their
+crews would relate with the fatalistic serenity of men of the sea how
+the torpedo had passed at a short distance from their hulls. A damaged
+steamer lay on its side, with only the keel submerged, all its red
+exterior exposed to the air; on its water-line there had opened a
+breach, angular in outline. Upon looking from the deck into the depths
+of its hold filled with water, there might be seen a great gash in its
+side like the mouth of a luminous cavern.
+
+Ferragut, while his boat was discharging its cargo under Toni's
+supervision, passed his days ashore, visiting the city.
+
+From the very first moment he was attracted by the narrow lanes of the
+Turkish quarters--their white houses with protruding balconies covered
+with latticed blinds like cages painted red; the little mosques with
+their patios of cypresses and fountains of melancholy tinkling; the
+tombs of Mohammedan dervishes in kiosks which block the streets under
+the pale reflection of a lamp; the women veiled with their black
+_firadjes_; and the old men who, silent and thoughtful under their
+scarlet caps, pass along swaying to the staggering of the ass on which
+they are mounted.
+
+The great Roman way between Rome and Byzantium, the ancient road of the
+blue flagstones, passed through a street of modern Salonica. Still a
+part of its pavement remained and appeared gloriously obstructed by an
+arch of triumph near whose weatherbeaten stone base were working
+barefooted bootblacks wearing the scarlet fez.
+
+An endless variety of uniforms filed through the streets, and this
+diversity in attire as well as the ethnical difference in the men who
+wore it was very noticeable. The soldiers of France and the British
+Isles touched elbows with the foreign troops. The allied governments
+had sent out a call to the professional combatants and volunteers of
+their colonies. The black sharpshooters from the center of Africa
+showed their smiling teeth of marble to the bronze giants with huge
+white turbans who had come from India. The hunters from the glacial
+plains of Canada were fraternizing with the volunteers from Australia
+and New Zealand.
+
+The cataclysm of the world war had dragged mankind from the antipodes
+to this drowsy little corner of Greece where were again repeated the
+invasions of remote centuries which had made ancient Thessalonica bow
+to the conquest of Bulgarians, Byzantians, Saracens, and Turks.
+
+The crews of the battleships in the roadstead had just added to this
+medley of uniforms the monotonous note of their midnight blue, almost
+like that of all the navies of the world.... And to the military
+amalgamation was also added the picturesque variety of civil
+dress,--the hybrid character of the neighborhood of Salonica, composed
+of various races and religions that were mingled together without
+confusing their individuality. Files of black tunics and hats with
+brimless crowns passed through the streets, near the Catholic priests
+or the rabbis with their long, loose gowns. In the outskirts might be
+seen men almost naked, with no other clothing than a sheep-skin tunic,
+guiding flocks of pigs, just like the shepherds in the Odyssey.
+Dervishes, with their aspect of dementia, chanted motionless in a
+crossway, enveloped in clouds of flies, awaiting the aid of the good
+believers.
+
+A great part of the population was composed of Israelitish descendants
+of the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal. The oldest and most
+conservative were clad just like their remote ancestors with large
+kaftans striped with striking colors. The women, when not imitating the
+European fashions, usually wore a picturesque garment that recalled the
+Spanish apparel of the Middle Ages. Here they were not mere brokers or
+traders as in the rest of the world. The necessities of the city
+dominated by them had made them pick up all the professions, becoming
+artisans, fishermen, boatmen, porters and stevedores of the harbor.
+They still kept the Castilian tongue as the language of the hearth like
+an original flag whose waving reunited their scattered souls,--a
+Castilian in the making, soft and without consistency like one
+newly-born.
+
+"Are you a Spaniard?" they said brokenly to Captain Ferragut. "My
+ancestors were born there. It is a beautiful land."
+
+But they did not wish to return to it. The country of their grandsires
+inspired a certain amount of terror in them, and they feared that upon
+seeing them return, the present-day Spaniards would banish the
+bullfights and reestablish the Inquisition, organizing an _auto de fe_
+every Sunday.
+
+Hearing them speak his language, the captain recalled a certain
+date--1492. In the very year that Christopher Columbus had made his
+first voyage, discovering the Indies, the Jews were expelled from the
+Spanish peninsula, and Nebrija brought out the first Castilian grammar.
+These Spaniards had left their native land months before their idiom
+had been codified for the first time.
+
+A sailor of Genoa, an old friend of Ulysses, took him to one of the
+harbor cafes, where the merchant captains used to gather together.
+These were the only ones wearing civilian clothes among the crowds of
+land and sea officers who crowded the divans, obstructed the tables,
+and grouped themselves before the doorway.
+
+These Mediterranean vagabonds who oftentimes could not converse
+together because of the diversity of their native idiom, instinctively
+sought each other out, keeping near together in a fraternal silence.
+Their passive heroism was in many instances more admirable than that of
+the men of war, who were able to return blow for blow. All the officers
+of the different fleets, seated near them, had at their disposition
+cannon, ram, torpedo, great speed and aerial telegraphy. These valorous
+muleteers of the sea defied the enemy in defenseless boats without
+wireless and without cannons. Sometimes when searching all the men of
+the crew, not a single revolver would be found among them, and yet
+these brave fellows were daring the greatest adventures with
+professional fatalism, and trusting to luck.
+
+In the social groups of the cafe the captains would sometimes relate
+their encounters on the sea, the unexpected appearance of a submarine,
+the torpedo missing aim a few yards away, the flight at full speed
+while being shelled by their pursuers. They would flame up for an
+instant upon recalling their danger, and then relapse into indifference
+and fatalism.
+
+"If I've got to die by drowning," they would always conclude, "it would
+be useless for me to try to avoid it."
+
+And they would hasten their departure in order to return a month later
+transporting a regular fortune in their vessel, completely alone,
+preferring free and wary navigation to the journey in convoy, slipping
+along from island to island and from coast to coast in order to outwit
+the submersibles.
+
+They were far more concerned about the state of their ships, that for
+more than a year had not been cleaned, than about the dangers of
+navigation. The captains of the great liners lamented their luxurious
+staterooms converted into dormitories for the troops, their polished
+decks that had been turned into stables, their dining-room where they
+used to sit among people in dress suits and low-neck gowns, which had
+now to be sprayed with every class of disinfectant in order to repel
+the invasion of vermin, and the animal odors of so many men and beasts
+crowded together.
+
+The decline of the ships appeared to be reflected in the bearing of
+their captains, more careless than before, worse dressed, with the
+military slovenliness of the trench-fighter, and with calloused hands
+as badly cared for as those of a stevedore.
+
+Among the naval men also there were some who had completely neglected
+their appearance. These were the commanders of "chaluteros," little
+ocean fishing steamers armed with a quickfirer, which had come into the
+Mediterranean to pursue the submersible. They wore oilskins and
+tarpaulins, just like the North Sea fishermen, smacking of fuel and
+tempestuous water. They would pass weeks and weeks on the sea whatever
+the weather, sleeping in the bottom of the hold that smelled
+offensively of rancid fish, keeping on patrol no matter how the tempest
+might roar, bounding from wave to wave like a cork from a bottle, in
+order to repeat the exploits of the ancient corsairs.
+
+Ferragut had a relative in the army which was assembling at Salonica
+making ready for the inland march. As he did not wish to go away
+without seeing the lad he passed several mornings making investigations
+in the offices of the general staff.
+
+This relative was his nephew, a son of Blanes, the manufacturer of knit
+goods, who had fled from Barcelona at the outbreak of the war with
+other boys devoted to singing _Los Segadores_ and perturbing the
+tranquillity of the "Consul of Spain" sent by Madrid. The son of the
+pacific Catalan citizen had enlisted in the battalion of the Foreign
+Legion made up to a great extent of Spaniards and Spanish-Americans.
+
+Blanes had asked the captain to see his son. He was sad yet at the same
+time proud of this romantic adventure blossoming out so unexpectedly in
+the utilitarian and monotonous existence of the family. A boy that had
+such a great future in his father's factory!... And then he had related
+to Ulysses with shaking voice and moist eyes the achievements of his
+son,--wounded in Champagne, two citations and the _Croix de Guerre_.
+Who would ever have imagined that he could be such a hero!... Now his
+battalion was in Salonica after having fought in the Dardanelles.
+
+"See if you can't bring him back with you," repeated Blanes. "Tell him
+that his mother is going to die of grief.... You can do so much!"
+
+But all that Captain Ferragut could do was to obtain a permit and an
+old automobile with which to visit the encampment of the legionaries.
+
+The arid plain around Salonica was crossed by numerous roads. The
+trains of artillery, the rosaries of automobiles, were rolling over
+recently opened roads that the rain had converted into mire. The mud
+was the worst calamity that could befall this plain, so extremely dusty
+in dry weather.
+
+Ferragut passed two long hours, going from encampment to encampment,
+before reaching his destination. His vehicle frequently had to stop in
+order to make way for interminable files of trucks. At other times
+machine-guns, big guns dragged by tractors, and provision cars with
+pyramids of sacks and boxes, blocked their road.
+
+On all sides were thousands and thousands of soldiers of different
+colors and races. The captain recalled the great invasions of
+history--Xerxes, Alexander, Genghis-Khan, all the leaders of men who
+had made their advance carrying villages _en masse_ behind their
+horses, transforming the servants of the earth into fighters. There
+lacked only the soldierly women, the swarms of children, to complete
+exactly the resemblance to the martial exoduses of the past.
+
+In half an hour more he was able to embrace his nephew, who was with
+two other volunteers, an Andulasian and a South American,--the three
+united by brotherhood of birth and by their continual familiarity with
+death.
+
+Ferragut took them to the canteen of a trader established near the
+cantonment. The customers were seated under a sail-cloth awning before
+boxes that had contained munitions and were converted into office
+tables. This discomfort was surpassed by the prices. In no Palace Hotel
+would drink have cost such an extraordinary sum.
+
+In a few moments the sailor felt a fraternal affection for these three
+youths to whom he gave the nickname of the "Three Musketeers," He
+wished to treat them to the very best which the canteen afforded, so
+the proprietor produced a bottle of champagne or rather ptisan from
+Rheims, presenting it as though it were an elixir fabricated of gold.
+
+The amber liquid, bubbling in the glasses, seemed to bring the three
+youths back to their former existence. Boiled by the sun and the
+inclemency of the weather, habituated to the hard life of war, they had
+almost forgotten the softness and luxuriant conveniences of former
+years.
+
+Ulysses examined them attentively. In the course of the campaign they
+had grown with youth's last rapid growth. Their arms were sticking out
+to an ungainly degree from the sleeves of their coats, already too
+short for them. The rude gymnastic exercise of the marches, with the
+management of the shovel, had broadened their wrists and calloused
+their hands.
+
+The memory of his own son surged up in his memory. If only he could see
+him thus, made into a soldier like his cousin! See him enduring all the
+hardships of military existence ... but living!
+
+In order not to be too greatly moved, he drank and paid close attention
+to what the three youths were saying. Blanes, the legionary, as
+romantic as the son of a merchant bent upon adventure should be, was
+talking of the daring deeds of the troops of the Orient with all the
+enthusiasm of his twenty-two years. There wasn't time to throw
+themselves upon the Bulgarians with bayonets and arrive at
+Adrianopolis. As a Catalan, this war in Macedonia was touching him very
+close.
+
+"We are going to avenge Roger de Flor," he said gravely.
+
+And his uncle wanted to weep and to laugh before this simple faith
+comparable only to the retrospective memory of the poet Labarta and
+that village secretary who was always lamenting the remote defeat of
+Ponza.
+
+Blanes explained like a knight-errant the impulse that had called him
+to the war. He wanted to fight for the liberty of all oppressed
+nations, for the resurrection of all forgotten nationalities,--Poles,
+Czechs, Jugo-Slavs.... And very simply, as though he were saying
+something indisputable, he included Catalunia among the people who were
+weeping tears of blood under the lashes of the tyrant. Thereupon his
+companion, the Andalusian, burst forth indignantly. They passed their
+time arguing furiously, exchanging insults and continually seeking each
+other's company as though they couldn't live apart.
+
+The Andalusian was not battling for the liberty of this or that people.
+He had a longer range of vision. He was not near-sighted and egoistic
+like his friend, "the Catalan." He was giving his blood in order that
+the whole world might be free and that all monarchies should disappear.
+
+"I am battling for France because it is the country of the great
+Revolution. Its former history makes no difference to me, for we still
+have kings of our own, but dating from the 14th of July, whatever
+France is, I consider mine and the property of all mankind."
+
+He stopped a few seconds, searching for a more concrete affirmation.
+
+"I am fighting, Captain, because of Danton and Hoche."
+
+Ferragut in his imagination saw the white, disheveled hair of Michelet
+and the romantic foretop of Lamartine upon a double pedestal of volumes
+which used to contain the story-poem of the Revolution.
+
+"And I am also fighting for France," concluded the lad triumphantly,
+"because it is the country of Victor Hugo."
+
+Ulysses suspected that this twenty-year-old Republican was probably
+hiding in his knapsack a blank book full of original verses written in
+lead pencil.
+
+The South American, accustomed to the disputes of his two companions,
+looked at his black fingernails with the melancholy desperation of a
+prophet contemplating his country in ruins. Blanes, the son of a
+middle-class citizen, used to admire him for his more distinguished
+family. The day of the mobilization he had gone to Paris in an
+automobile of fifty horse-power to enroll as a volunteer; he and his
+chauffeur had enlisted together. Then he had donated his luxurious
+vehicle to the cause.
+
+He had wished to be a soldier because all the young fellows in his club
+were leaving for the war. Furthermore, he felt greatly flattered that
+his latest sweetheart, seeing him in uniform, should devote a few tears
+of admiration and astonishment to him. He had felt the necessity of
+producing a touching effect upon all the ladies that had danced the
+tango with him up to the week before. Besides that, the millions of his
+grandfather, "the Galician," held rather tight by his father, the
+Creole, were slipping through his hands.
+
+"This experience is lasting too long, Captain."
+
+In the beginning he had believed in a six months' war. The shells
+didn't trouble him much; for him the terrible things were the vermin,
+the impossibility of changing his clothing, and being deprived of his
+daily bath. If he could ever have supposed!...
+
+And he summed up his enthusiasm with this affirmation:
+
+"I am fighting for France because it is a _chic_ country. Only in Paris
+do the women know how to dress. Those Germans, no matter how much they
+try, will always be very ordinary."
+
+It was not necessary to add anything to this. All had been said.
+
+The three recalled the hellish months suffered recently in the
+Dardanelles, in a space of three miles conquered by the bayonet. A rain
+of projectiles had fallen incessantly upon them. They had had to live
+underground like moles and, even so, the explosion of the great shells
+sometimes reached them.
+
+In this tongue of land opposite Troy through which had slipped the
+remote history of humanity, their shovels, on opening the trenches, had
+stumbled upon the rarest finds. One day Blanes and his companions had
+excavated pitchers, statuettes, and plates centuries old. At other
+times, when opening trenches that had served as cemeteries for Turks,
+they had hacked into repulsive bits of pulp exhaling an insufferable
+odor. Self-defense had obliged the legionaries to live with their faces
+on a level with the corpses that were piled up in the vertical yard of
+removed earth.
+
+"The dead are like the truffles in a pie," said the South American. "An
+entire day I had to remain with my nose touching the intestines of a
+Turk who had died two weeks before.... No, war is not _chic_, Captain,
+no matter how much they talk of heroism and sublime things in the
+newspapers and books."
+
+Ulysses wished to see the three musketeers again before leaving
+Salonica, but the battalion had broken camp and was now situated
+several kilometers further inland, opposite the first Bulgarian lines.
+The enthusiastic Blanes had already fired his gun against the assassins
+of Roger de Flor.
+
+In the middle of November the _Mare Nostrum_ arrived at Marseilles. Its
+captain always felt a certain admiration upon doubling Cape Croisette,
+and noting the vast maritime curves opening out before the prow. In the
+center of it was an abrupt and bare hill, jutting into the sea,
+sustaining on its peak the basilica and square-sided tower of
+_Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde._
+
+Marseilles was the metropolis of the Mediterranean, the terminal for
+all the navigators of the _mare nostrum_. In its bay with choppy waves
+were various yellowish islands fringed with foam and upon one of these
+the strong towers of the romantic _Chateau d'If_.
+
+All the crew, from Ferragut down to the lowest seaman, used to look
+upon this city somewhat as their own when they saw, appearing in the
+background of the bay, its forests of masts and its conglomeration of
+gray edifices upon which sparkled the Byzantian domes of the new
+cathedral. Around Marseilles there opened out a semi-circle of dry and
+barren heights brightly colored by the sun of Provence and spotted by
+white cottages and hamlets, and the pleasure villas of the merchants of
+the city. On beyond this semi-circle the horizon was bounded by an
+amphitheater of rugged and gloomy mountains.
+
+On former trips the sight of the gigantic gilded Virgin which glistened
+like a shaft of fire on the top of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ shed an
+atmosphere of joy over the bridge of the vessel.
+
+"Marseilles, Toni," the captain used to say gayly. "I invite you to a
+_bouillabaisse_ at Pascal's."
+
+And Toni's hairy countenance would break into a greedy smile, seeing in
+anticipation the famous restaurant of the port, its twilight shadows
+smelling of shell-fish and spicy sauces, and upon the table the deep
+dish of fish with its succulent broth tinged with saffron.
+
+But now Ulysses had lost his vigorous joy in living. He looked at the
+city with kindly but sad eyes. He could see himself disembarking there
+that last time, sick, without will-power, overwhelmed by the tragic
+disappearance of his son.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ approached the mouth of the old harbor having at its
+right the batteries of the _Phare_. This old port was the most
+interesting souvenir of ancient Marseilles, penetrating like an aquatic
+knife into the heart of its clustered homes. The city extended along
+the wharves. It was an enormous stretch of water into which all the
+streets flowed; but its area was now so insufficient for the maritime
+traffic that eight new harbors were gradually covering the north shore
+of the bay.
+
+An interminable jetty, a breakwater longer than the city itself, was
+parallel to the coast, and in the space between the shore and this
+obstacle which made the waves foam and roar were eight roomy
+communicating harbors stretching from Joliette at the entrance to the
+one which, farthest away, is connected inland by the great subterranean
+canal, putting the city in communication with the Rhone.
+
+Ferragut had seen anchored in this succession of harbors the navies of
+every land and even of every epoch. Near to the enormous transatlantic
+liners were some very ancient tartans and some Greek boats, heavy and
+of archaic form, which recalled the fleets described in the Iliad.
+
+On the wharves swarmed all kinds of Mediterranean men,--Greeks from the
+continent and from the islands, Levantines from the coast of Asia,
+Spaniards, Italians, Algerians, Moroccans, Egyptians. Many had kept
+their original costume and to this varied picturesque garb was united a
+diversity of tongues, some of them mysterious and well-nigh extinct. As
+though infected by the oral confusion, the French themselves began to
+forget their native language, speaking the dialect of Marseilles, which
+preserves indelible traces of its Greek origin.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ crossed the outer port, the inner harbor of
+Joliette, and slipped slowly along past groups of pedestrians and carts
+that were waiting the closing of the steel drawbridge now opening
+before their prow. Then they cast anchor in the basin of Arenc near the
+docks.
+
+When Ferragut could go ashore he noticed the great transformation which
+this port had undergone in war times.
+
+The traffic of the times of peace with its infinite variety of wares no
+longer existed. On the wharves there were piled up only the monotonous
+and uniform loads of provisions and war material.
+
+The legions of longshoremen had also disappeared. They were all in the
+trenches. The sidewalks were now swept by women, and squads of
+Senegalese sharpshooters were unloading the cargoes,--shivering with
+cold in the sunny winter days, and bent double as though dying under
+the rain or the breeze of the Mistral. They were working with red caps
+pulled down over their ears, and at the slightest suspension of their
+labor would hasten to put their hands in the pockets of their coats.
+Sometimes when formed in vociferating groups around a case that four
+men could have moved in ordinary times, the passing of a woman or a
+vehicle would make them neglect their work, their diabolical faces
+filled with childish curiosity.
+
+The unloaded cargoes piled up the same articles on the principal
+docks,--wheat, much wheat, sulphur and saltpeter for the composition of
+explosive material. On other piers were lined up, by the thousands,
+pairs of gray wheels, the support of cannons and trucks; boxes as big
+as dwellings that contained aeroplanes; huge pieces of steel that
+served as scaffolding for heavy artillery; great boxes of guns and
+cartridges; huge cases of preserved food and sanitary supplies,--all
+the provisioning of the army struggling in the extreme end of the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Various squads of men, preceded and followed by bayonets, were marching
+with rhythmic tread from one port to another. They were German
+prisoners,--rosy and happy, in spite of their captivity, still wearing
+their uniforms of green cabbage color, with round caps on their shaved
+heads. They were going to work on the vessels, loading and unloading
+the material that was to serve for the extermination of their
+compatriots and friends.
+
+The ships at the docks seemed to be increasing in size, for on arrival
+they had extended only a few yards above the wharf; but now that their
+cargo was piled up on land, they appeared like towering fortresses.
+Two-thirds of the hull, usually hidden in the water, were now in
+evidence, showing the bright red of their curved shell. Only the keel
+kept itself in the water. The upper third, that which remained visible
+above the line of flotation in ordinary times, was now a simple black
+cornice that capped the long purple walls. The masts and smokestacks
+diminished by this transformation appeared to belong to other smaller
+boats.
+
+Each of these merchant and peaceful steamers carried a quickfirer at
+the stern in order to protect itself from the submarine corsairs.
+England and France had mobilized their tramp ships and were beginning
+to supply them with means of defense. Some of them had not been able to
+mount their cannon upon a fixed gun carriage, and so carried a field
+gun with its mouth sticking out between the wheels bolted to the deck.
+
+The captain in all his strolls invariably felt attracted by the famous
+Cannebiere, that engulfing roadway which sucks in the entire activity
+of Marseilles.
+
+Some days a fresh and violent wind would eddy through, littering it
+with dust and papers, and the waiters of the cafes would have to furl
+the great awnings as though they were the sails of a vessel. The
+Mistral was approaching and every owner of an establishment was
+ordering this maneuver in order to withstand the icy hurricane that
+overturns tables, snatches away chairs, and carries off everything
+which is not secured with marine cables.
+
+To Ferragut this famous avenue of Marseilles was a reminder of the
+antechamber of Salonica. The same types from the army of the East
+crowded its sidewalks,--English dressed in khaki, Canadians and
+Australians in hats with up-turned brims, tall, slender Hindoos with
+coppery complexion and thick fan-shaped beards, Senegalese
+sharpshooters of a glistening black, and Anammite marksmen with round
+yellow countenance and eyes forming a triangle. There was a continual
+procession of dark trucks driven by soldiers, automobiles full of
+officers, droves of mules coming from Spain that were going to be
+shipped to the Orient, leaving behind their quick-trotting hoofs a
+pungent and penetrating smell of the stable.
+
+The old harbor attracted Ferragut because of its antiquity which was
+almost as remote as that of the first Mediterranean navigations. On
+passing before the Palace of the Bourse he shot a glance at the statue
+of the two great Marseillaise navigators,--Eutymenes and Pytas,--the
+most remote ancestors of Mediterranean navigators. One had explored the
+coast of Senegambia, the other had gone further up to Ireland and the
+Orkney Islands.
+
+The ancient Greek colony had been, during long centuries, supplanted by
+others,--Venice, Genoa and Barcelona having held it in humble
+subjection. But when those had fallen and its hour of prosperity
+returned, that prosperity was accompanied by all the advantages of the
+present day. Steam machinery had been invented and boats were easily
+able to overcome the obstacles of the Strait of Cadiz without being
+obliged to wait weeks until the violence of the current sent by the
+Atlantic should abate. Industrialism was born and inland factories sent
+forward, over the recently-installed railroads, a downpour of products
+that the fleets were transporting to all the Mediterranean towns.
+Finally, upon the opening of the Isthmus of Suez, the city unfolded in
+a prodigious way, becoming a world port, putting itself in touch with
+the entire earth, multiplying its harbors, which became gigantic marine
+sheepfolds where vessels of every flag were gathered together in herds.
+
+The old port, boxed in the city, changed its aspect according to the
+time and state of the atmosphere. On calm mornings it was a yellowish
+green and smelled slightly of stale water,--organic water, animal
+water. The oyster stands established on its wharfs appeared sprinkled
+with this water impregnated by shell fish.
+
+On the days of a strong wind the waters turned a terrible dark green,
+forming choppy and continuous waves with a light yellowish foam. The
+boats would begin to dance, creaking and tugging at their hawsers.
+Between their hulls and the vertical surface of the wharfs would be
+formed mountains of restless rubbish eaten underneath by the fish and
+pecked above by the sea-gulls.
+
+Ferragut saw the swift torpedo destroyers dancing at the slightest
+undulation upon their cables of twisted steel, and examined the
+improvised submarine-chasers, robust and short little steamers,
+constructed for fishing, that carried quickfirers on their prows. All
+these vessels were painted a metallic gray to make them
+indistinguishable from the color of the water, and were going in and
+out of the harbor like sentinels changing watch.
+
+They mounted guard out on the high sea beyond the rocky and desert
+islands that closed the bay of Marseilles, accosting the incoming ships
+in order to recognize their nationality or running at full speed, with
+their wisps of horizontal smoke toward the point where they expected to
+surprise the periscope of the enemy hidden between two waters. There
+was no weather bad enough to terrify them or make them drowsy. In the
+wildest storms they kept the coast in view, leaping from wave to wave,
+and only when others came to relieve them would they return to the old
+port to rest a few hours at the entrance of the Cannebiere.
+
+The narrow passageways of the right bank attracted Ferragut. This was
+ancient Marseilles in which may still be seen some ruined palaces of
+the merchants and privateers of other centuries. On these narrow and
+filthy slopes lived the bedizened and dismal prostitutes of the entire
+maritime city.
+
+In this district were huddled together the warriors of the
+French-African colonies, impelled by their ardor of race and by their
+desire to free themselves gluttonously from the restrictions of their
+Mahommedan country where the women live in jealous seclusion. On every
+corner were groups of Moroccan infantry, recently disembarked or
+convalescing from wounds, young soldiers with red caps and long cloaks
+of mustard yellow. The Zouaves of Algiers conversed with them in a
+Spanish spattered with Arabian and French. Negro youths who worked as
+stokers in the vessels, came up the steep, narrow streets with eyes
+sparkling restlessly as though contemplating wholesale rapine. Under
+the doorways disappeared grave Moorish horsemen, trailing long garments
+fastened at the head in a ball of whiteness, or garbed in purplish
+mantles, with sharp pointed hoods that gave them the aspect of bearded,
+crimson-clad monks.
+
+The captain went through the upper end of these streets, stopping
+appreciatively to note the rude contrast which they made with their
+terminal vista. Almost all descended to the old harbor with a ditch of
+dirty water in the middle of the gutter that dribbled from stone to
+stone. They were dark as the tubes of a telescope, and at the end of
+these evil smelling ditches occupied by abandoned womanhood, there
+opened out a great space of light and blue color where could be seen
+little white sailboats, anchored at the foot of the hill, a sheet of
+sparkling water and the houses of the opposite wharf diminished
+by the distance. Through other gaps appeared the mountain of
+_Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ with its sharp pointed Basilica topped by its
+gleaming statue, like an immovable, twisted tongue of flame. Sometimes
+a torpedo destroyer entering the old harbor could be seen slipping by
+the mouth of one of these passageways as shadowy as though passing
+before the glass of a telescope.
+
+Feeling fatigued by the bad smells and vicious misery of the old
+district, the sailor returned to the center of the city, strolling
+among the trees and flower stands of the avenues....
+
+One evening while awaiting with others a street car in the Cannebiere,
+he turned his head with a presentiment that some one was looking at his
+back.
+
+Sure enough! He saw behind him on the edge of the sidewalk an
+elegantly-dressed, clean-shaven gentleman whose aspect was that of an
+Englishman careful of his personal appearance. The dapper man had
+stopped in surprise as though he might have just recognized Ferragut.
+
+The two exchanged glances without awakening the slightest echo in the
+captain's memory.... He could not recall this man. He was almost sure
+of never having seen him before. His shaven face, his eyes of a
+metallic gray, his elegant pomposity did not enlighten the Spaniard's
+memory. Perhaps the unknown had made a mistake.
+
+This must have been the case, judging by the rapidity with which he
+withdrew his glance from Ferragut and went hastily away.
+
+The captain attached no importance to this encounter. He had already
+forgotten it when, taking the car but a few minutes later, it recurred
+to him in a new light. The face of the Englishman presented itself to
+his imagination with the distinct relief of reality. He could see it
+more clearly than in the dying splendor of the Cannebiere.... He passed
+with indifference over his features; in reality he had seen them for
+the first time. But the eyes!... He knew those eyes perfectly. They had
+often exchanged glances with him. Where?... When?...
+
+The memory of this man accompanied him as an obsession even to his ship
+without giving the slightest answer to his questioning. Then, finding
+himself on board with Toni and the third officer, he again forgot it.
+
+Upon going ashore on the following days, his memory invariably
+experienced the same phenomena. The captain would be going through the
+city without any thought of that individual, but on entering the
+Cannebiere the same remembrance, followed by an inexplicable anxiety,
+would again surge up in his mind.
+
+"I wonder where my Englishman is now," he would think. "Where have I
+seen him before?... Because there is no doubt that we are acquainted
+with each other."
+
+From that time on, he would look curiously at all the passersby and
+sometimes would hasten his step in order to examine more closely some
+one whose back resembled the haunting unknown. One afternoon he felt
+sure that he recognized him in a hired carriage whose horse was going
+at a lively trot through one of the avenues, but when he tried to
+follow it the vehicle had disappeared into a nearby street.
+
+Some days passed by and the captain completely forgot the meeting.
+Other affairs more real and immediate were demanding his attention. His
+boat was ready; they were going to send it to England in order to load
+it with munitions destined for the army of the Orient.
+
+The morning of its departure he went ashore without any thought of
+going to the center of the city.
+
+In one of the wharf streets there was a barber shop frequented by
+Spanish captains. The picturesque chatter of the barber, born in
+Cartagena, the gay, brilliant chromos on the walls representing
+bullfights, the newspapers from Madrid, forgotten on the divans, and a
+guitar in one corner made this shop a little bit of Spain for the
+rovers of the Mediterranean.
+
+Before sailing, Ferragut wished to have his beard clipped by this
+verbose master. When, an hour later, he left the barber-shop, tearing
+himself away from the interminable farewells of the proprietor, he
+passed down a broad street, lonely and silent, between two rows of
+docks.
+
+The steel-barred gates were closed and locked. The warehouses, empty
+and resounding as the naves of a cathedral, still exhaled the strong
+odors of the wares which they had kept in times of peace,--vanilla,
+cinnamon, rolls of leather, nitrates and phosphates for chemical
+fertilizers.
+
+In all the long street he saw only one man, coming toward him with his
+back to the inner harbor. Between the two long walls of brick appeared
+in the background the wharf with its mountains of merchandise, its
+squadrons of black stevedores, wagons and carts. On beyond were the
+hulls of the ships sustaining their grove of masts and smokestacks and,
+at the extreme end, the yellow breakwater and the sky recently washed
+by the rain, with flocks of little clouds as white and placid as silky
+sheep.
+
+The man who was returning from the dock and walking along with his eyes
+fixed on Ferragut suddenly stopped and, turning upon his tracks,
+returned again to the quay.... This movement awakened the captain's
+curiosity, sharpening his senses. Suddenly he had a presentiment that
+this pedestrian was his Englishman, though dressed differently and with
+less elegance. He could only see his rapidly disappearing back, but his
+instinct in this moment was superior to his eyes.... He did not need to
+look further.... It was the Englishman.
+
+And without knowing why, he hastened his steps in order to catch up
+with him. Then he broke into a run, finding that he was alone in the
+street, and that the other one had disappeared around the corner.
+
+When Ferragut reached the harbor he could see him hastening away with
+an elastic step which amounted almost to flight. Before him was a ridge
+of bundles piled up in uneven rows. He was going to lose sight of him;
+a minute later it would be impossible to find him.
+
+The captain hesitated. "What motive have I for pursuing this unknown
+person?..." And just as he was formulating this question, the other one
+slowed down a little in order to turn his head and see if he were still
+being followed.
+
+Suddenly a rapid phenomenal transformation took place in Ferragut. He
+had not recognized this man's glance when he had almost run into him on
+the sidewalk of the Cannebiere, and now that there was between the two
+a distance of some fifty yards, now that the other was fleeing and
+showing only a fugitive profile, the captain identified him despite the
+fact that he could not distinguish him clearly at such a distance.
+
+With a sharp click a curtain of his memory seemed to be dashed aside,
+letting in torrents of light.... It was the counterfeit Russian count,
+he was sure of that,--shaven and disguised, who undoubtedly was
+"operating" in Marseilles, directing new services, months after having
+prepared the entrance of the submersibles into the Mediterranean.
+
+Surprise held Ferragut spellbound. With the same imaginative rapidity
+with which a drowning person giddily recalls all the scenes of his
+former life, the captain now beheld his infamous existence in Naples,
+his expedition in the schooner carrying supplies to the submarines and
+then the torpedo which had opened a breach in the _Californian_.... And
+this man, perhaps, was the one who had made his poor son fly through
+the air in countless pieces!...
+
+He also saw his uncle, the _Triton_, just as when a little chap he used
+to listen to him in the harbor of Valencia. He recalled his story of a
+certain night of Egyptian orgy in a low cafe in Alexandria where he had
+had to "sting" a man with his dagger in order to force his way.
+
+Instinct made him carry his hand to his belt. Nothing!... He cursed
+modern life and its uncertain securities, which permit men to go from
+one side of the world to the other confident, disarmed, without means
+of attack. In other ports he would have come ashore with a revolver in
+the pocket of his trousers.... But in Marseilles! He was not even
+carrying a penknife; he had only his fists.... At that moment he would
+have given his entire vessel, his life even, for an instrument that
+would enable him to kill ... kill with one blow!...
+
+The bloodthirsty vehemence of the Mediterranean was overwhelming him.
+To kill!... He did not know how he was going to do it, but he must
+kill.
+
+The first thing was to prevent the escape of his enemy. He was going to
+fall upon him with his fists, with his teeth, staging a prehistoric
+struggle,--the animal fight before mankind had invented the club.
+Perhaps that other man was hiding firearms and might kill him; but he,
+in his superb vengeance, could see only the death of the enemy,
+repelling all fear.
+
+In order that his victim might not get out of his sight, he ran toward
+him without any dissimulation whatever, as though he might have been in
+the desert, at full speed. The instinct of attack made him stoop, grasp
+a piece of wood lying on the ground,--a kind of rustic handspike,--and
+armed in this primitive fashion he continued his race.
+
+All this had lasted but a few seconds. The other one, perceiving the
+hostile pursuit, was also running frankly, disappearing among the hills
+of packages.
+
+The captain saw confusedly that some shadows were leaping around him,
+preventing his progress. His eyes that were seeing everything red
+finally managed to distinguish a few black faces and some white
+ones.... They were the soldiers and civilian stevedores, alarmed by the
+aspect of this man who was running like a lunatic.
+
+He uttered a curse upon finding himself stopped. With the instinct of
+the multitude, these people were only concerned with the aggressor,
+letting the one who was fleeing go free. Ferragut could not keep his
+wrath bottled up on that account. He had to reveal his secret.
+
+"He is a spy!... A _Boche_ spy!..."
+
+He said this in a dull, disjointed voice and never did his word of
+command obtain such a noisy echo.
+
+"A spy!..."
+
+The cry made men rise up as though vomited forth by the earth; from
+mouth to mouth it leaped, repeating itself incessantly, penetrating
+through the docks and the boats, vibrating even beyond the reach of the
+eye, permeating everywhere with the confusion and rapidity of sound
+waves. "A spy!..." Men came running with redoubled agility; the
+stevedores were abandoning their loads in order to join the pursuit;
+people were leaping from the steamers in order to unite in the human
+hunt.
+
+The author of the noisy alarm, he who had given the cry, saw himself
+outdistanced and ignored by the pursuing streams of people which he had
+just called forth. Ferragut, always running, remained behind the negro
+sharpshooters, the stevedores, the harbor guard, the seamen that were
+hastening from all sides crowding in the alleyways between the boxes
+and bundles.... They were like the greyhounds that follow the windings
+of the forest, making the stag come out in the open field, like the
+ferrets that slip along through the subterranean valleys, obliging the
+hare to return to the light of day. The fugitive, surrounded in a
+labyrinth of passageways, colliding with enemies at every turn, came
+running out through the opposite end and continued his race the whole
+length of the wharf. The chase lasted but a few instants after coming
+out on ground free of obstacles. "A spy!..." The voice, more rapid than
+the legs, out distanced him. The cries of the pursuers warned the
+people who were working afar off, without understanding the alarm.
+
+Suddenly the fugitive was within a concave semi-circle of men who were
+awaiting him firmly, and a convex semi-circle following his footsteps
+in irregular pursuit. The two multitudes, closing their extremes,
+united and the spy was a prisoner.
+
+Ferragut saw that he was intensely pale, panting, casting his eyes
+around him with the expression of an animal at bay, but still thinking
+of the possibility of defending himself.
+
+His right hand was feeling around one of his pockets. Perhaps he was
+going to draw out a revolver in order to die, defending himself. A
+negro nearby raised a beam of wood which he was grasping as a club. The
+spy's hand, displaying a bit of paper between the fingers, was hastily
+raised toward his mouth; but the negro's blow, suspended in the air,
+fell upon his arm, making it hang inert. The spy bit his lips in order
+to keep back a roar of pain.
+
+The paper had rolled upon the ground and several hands at once tried to
+pick it up. A petty officer smoothed it out before examining it. It was
+a piece of thin paper sketched with the outline of the Mediterranean.
+The entire sea was laid out in squares like a chess board and in the
+center of each of these squares there was a number. These squares were
+charted sections whose numbers made the submarines know, by wireless,
+where they were to lie in wait for the allied vessels and torpedo them.
+
+Another officer explained rapidly to the people crowding close, the
+importance of the discovery. "Indeed he was a spy!" This affirmation
+awakened the joy of capture and that impulsive desire for vengeance
+that at certain times crazes a crowd.
+
+The men from the boats were the most furious, for the very reason that
+they were constantly encountering the treacherous submarine traps. "Ah,
+the bandit!..." Many cudgelings fell upon him, making him stagger under
+their blows.
+
+When the prisoner was protected by the breasts of various sub-officers,
+Ferragut could see him close by, with one temple spotted with blood and
+a cold and haughty expression in his eye. Then he realized that the
+prisoner had dyed his hair.
+
+He had fled in order to save himself; he had shown himself humble and
+timorous upon being approached, believing that it would still be
+possible to lie out of it. But the paper that he had tried to hide in
+his mouth was now in the hands of the enemy.... It was useless to
+pretend longer!...
+
+And he drew himself up proudly like every army man who considers his
+death certain. The officer of the military caste reappeared, looking
+haughtily at his unknown pursuers, imploring protection only from the
+kepis with its band of gold.
+
+Upon discovering Ferragut, he surveyed him fixedly with a glacial and
+disdainful insolence. His lips also curled with an expression of
+contempt.
+
+They said nothing, but the captain surmised his soundless words. They
+were insults. It was the insult of the man of the superior hierarchy to
+his faithless servant; the pride of the noble official who accuses
+himself for having trusted in the loyalty of a simple merchant marine.
+
+"Traitor!... Traitor!" his insolent eyes and murmuring, voiceless lips
+seemed to be saying.
+
+Ulysses became furious before this haughtiness, but his wrath was cold
+and self-contained on seeing the enemy deprived of defense.
+
+He advanced toward the prisoner, like one of the many who were
+insulting him, shaking his fist at him. His glance sustained that of
+the German and he spoke to him in Spanish with a dull voice.
+
+"My son.... My only son was blown to a thousand atoms by the torpedoing
+of the _Californian_!"
+
+These words made the spy change expression. His lips separated,
+emitting a slight exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Ah!..."
+
+The arrogant light in his pupils faded away. Then he lowered his eyes
+and soon after hung his head. The vociferating crowd was shoving and
+carrying him along without taking into consideration the man who had
+given the alarm and begun the chase.
+
+That very afternoon the _Mare Nostrum_ sailed from Marseilles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+IN BARCELONA
+
+Four months later Captain Ferragut was in Barcelona.
+
+During the interval he had made three trips to Salonica, and on the
+second had to appear before a naval captain of the army of the Orient.
+The French officer was informed of his former expeditions for the
+victualing of the allied troops. He knew his name and looked upon him
+as does a judge interested in the accused. He had received from
+Marseilles a long telegram with reference to Ferragut. A spy submitted
+to military justice was accusing him of having carried supplies to the
+German submarines.
+
+"How about that, Captain?..."
+
+Ulysses hesitated, looking at the official's grave face, framed by a
+grey beard. This man inspired his confidence. He could respond
+negatively to such questions; it would be difficult for the German to
+prove his affirmation; but he preferred to tell the truth, with the
+simplicity of one who does not try to hide his faults, describing
+himself just as he had been,--blind with lust, dragged down by the
+amorous artifices of an adventuress.
+
+"The women!... Ah, the women!" murmured the French chief with the
+melancholy smile of a magistrate who does not lose sight of human
+weaknesses and has participated in them.
+
+Nevertheless Ferragut's transgression was of gravest importance. He had
+aided in staging the submarine attack in the Mediterranean.... But when
+the Spanish captain related how he had been one of the first victims,
+how his son had died in the torpedoing of the _Californian_, the judge
+appeared touched, looking at him less severely.
+
+Then Ferragut related his encounter with the spy in the harbor of
+Marseilles.
+
+"I have sworn," he said finally, "to devote my ship and my life to
+causing all the harm possible to the murderers of my son.... That man
+is denouncing me in order to avenge himself. I realize that my headlong
+blindness dragged me to a crime that I shall never forget. I am
+sufficiently punished in the death of my son.... But that does not
+matter; let them sentence me, too."
+
+The chief remained sunk in deep reflection, forehead in hand and elbow
+on the table. Ferragut recognized here military justice, expeditious,
+intuitive, passional, attentive to the sentiments that have scarcely
+any weight in other tribunals, judging by the action of conscience more
+than by the letter of the law, and capable of shooting a man with the
+same dispatch that he would employ in setting him at liberty.
+
+When the eyes of the judge again fixed themselves upon him, they had an
+indulgent light. He had been guilty, not on account of money nor
+treason, but crazed by a woman. Who has not something like this in his
+own history?... "Ah, the women!" repeated the Frenchman, as though
+lamenting the most terrible form of enslavement.... But the victim had
+already suffered enough in the loss of his son. Besides, they owed to
+him the discovery and arrest of an important spy.
+
+"Your hand, Captain," he concluded, holding out his own. "All that we
+have said will be just between ourselves. It is a sacred, confessional
+secret. I will arrange it with the Council of War.... You may continue
+lending your services to our cause."
+
+And Ferragut was not annoyed further about the affair of Marseilles.
+Perhaps they were watching him discreetly and keeping sight of him in
+order to convince themselves of his entire innocence; but this
+suspected vigilance never made itself felt nor occasioned him any
+trouble.
+
+On the third trip to Salonica the French captain saw him once at a
+distance, greeting him with a grave smile which showed that he no
+longer was thinking of him as a possible spy.
+
+Upon its return, the _Mare Nostrum_ anchored at Barcelona to take on
+cloth for the army service, and other industrial articles of which the
+troops of the Orient stood in need. Ferragut did not make this trip for
+mercantile reasons. An affectionate interest was drawing him there....
+He needed to see Cinta, feeling that in his soul the past was again
+coming to life.
+
+The image of his wife, vivacious and attractive, as in the early years
+of their marriage, kept rising before him. It was not a resurrection of
+the old love; that would have been impossible.... But his remorse made
+him see her, idealized by distance, with all her qualities of a sweet
+and modest woman.
+
+He wished to reestablish the cordial relations of other times, to have
+all the past pardoned, so that she would no longer look at him with
+hatred, believing him responsible for the death of her son.
+
+In reality she was the only woman who had loved him sincerely, as she
+was able to love, without violence or passional exaggeration, and with
+the tranquillity of a comrade. The other women no longer existed. They
+were a troop of shadows that passed through his memory like specters of
+visible shape but without color. As for that last one, that Freya whom
+bad luck had put in his way--... How the captain hated her! How he
+wished to meet her and return a part of the harm she had done him!...
+
+Upon seeing his wife, Ulysses imagined that no time had passed by. He
+found her just as at parting, with her two nieces seated at her feet,
+making interminable, complicated blonde lace upon the cylindrical
+pillows supported on their knees.
+
+The only novelty of the captain's stay in this dwelling of monastic
+calm was that Don Pedro abstained from his visits. Cinta received her
+husband with a pallid smile. In that smile he suspected the work of
+time. She had continued thinking of her son every hour, but with a
+resignation that was drying her tears and permitting her to continue
+the deliberate mechanicalness of existence. Furthermore, she wished to
+remove the impression of the angry words, inspired by grief,--the
+remembrance of that scene of rebellion in which she had arisen like a
+wrathful accuser against the father. And Ferragut for some days
+believed that he was living just as in past years when he had not yet
+bought the _Mare Nostrum_ and was planning to remain always ashore.
+Cinta was attentive to his wishes and obedient as a Christian wife
+ought to be. Her words and acts revealed a desire to forget, to make
+herself agreeable.
+
+But something was lacking that had made the past so sweet. The
+cordiality of youth could not be resuscitated. The remembrance of the
+son was always intervening between the two, hardly ever leaving their
+thoughts. And so it would always be!
+
+Since that house could no longer be a real home to him, he again began
+to await impatiently the hour of sailing. His destiny was to live
+henceforth on the ship, to pass the rest of his days upon the waves
+like the accursed captain of the Dutch legend, until the pallid virgin
+wrapped in black veils--Death--should come to rescue him.
+
+While the steamer finished loading he strolled through the city
+visiting his cousins, the manufacturers, or remaining idly in the
+cafes. He looked with interest on the human current passing through the
+Ramblas in which were mingled the natives of the country and the
+picturesque and absurd medley brought in by the war.
+
+The first thing that Ferragut noticed was the visible diminution of
+German refugees.
+
+Months before he had met them everywhere, filling the hotels and
+monopolizing the cafes,--their green hats and open-neck shirts making
+them recognized immediately. The German women in showy and extravagant
+gowns, were everywhere kissing each other when meeting, and talking in
+shrieks. The German tongue, confounded with the Catalan and the
+Castilian, seemed to have become naturalized. On the roads and
+mountains could be seen rows of bare-throated boys with heads
+uncovered, staff in hand, and Alpine knapsack on the back, occupying
+their leisure with pleasure excursions that were at the same time,
+perhaps, a foresighted study.
+
+These Germans had all come from South America,--especially from Brazil,
+Argentina, and Chile. From Barcelona they had, at the beginning of the
+war, tried to return to their own country but were now interned, unable
+to continue their voyage for fear of the French and English cruisers
+patrolling the Mediterranean.
+
+At first no one had wished to take the trouble to settle down in this
+land, and they had all clustered together in sight of the sea with the
+hope of being the first to embark at the very moment that the road of
+navigation might open for them.
+
+The war was going to be very short.... Exceedingly short! The Kaiser
+and his irresistible army would require but six months to impose their
+rule upon all Europe. The Germans enriched by commerce were lodged in
+the hotels. The poor who had been working in the new world as farmers
+or shop clerks were quartered in a slaughter house on the outskirts.
+Some, who were musicians, had acquired old instruments and, forming
+strolling street bands, were imploring alms for their roarings from
+village to village.
+
+But the months were passing by, the war was being prolonged, and nobody
+could now discern the end. The number of those taking arms against the
+medieval imperialism of Berlin was constantly growing greater, and the
+German refugees, finally convinced that their wait was going to be a
+very long one, were scattering themselves through the interior of the
+state, hunting a more satisfying and less expensive existence. Those
+who had been living in luxurious hotels were establishing themselves in
+villas and chalets of the suburbs; the poor, tired of the rations of
+the slaughter-house, were exerting themselves to find jobs in the
+public works of the interior.
+
+Many were still remaining in Barcelona, meeting together in certain
+beer gardens to read the home periodicals and talk mysteriously of the
+works of war.
+
+Ferragut recognized them at once upon passing them in the Rambla. Some
+were dealers, traders established for a long time in the country,
+bragging of their Catalan connections with that lying facility of
+adaptability peculiar to their race. Others came from South America and
+were associated with those in Barcelona by the free-masonry of
+comradeship and patriotic interest. But they were all Germans, and that
+was enough to make the captain immediately recall his son, planning
+bloody vengeance. He sometimes wished to have in his arm all the blind
+forces of Nature in order to blot out his enemies with one blow. It
+annoyed him to see them established in his country, to have to pass
+them daily without protest and without aggression, respecting them
+because the laws demanded it.
+
+He used to like to stroll among the flower stands of the Rambla,
+between the two walls of recently-cut flowers that were still guarding
+in their corollas the dews of daybreak. Each iron table was a pyramid
+formed of all the hues of the rainbow and all the fragrance that the
+earth can bring forth.
+
+The fine weather was beginning. The trees of the Ramblas were covering
+themselves with leaves and in their shady branches were twittering
+thousands of birds with the deafening tenacity of the crickets.
+
+The captain found special enjoyment in surveying the ladies in lace
+mantillas who were selecting bouquets in the refreshing atmosphere. No
+situation, however anguished it might be, ever left him insensible to
+feminine attractions.
+
+One morning, passing slowly through the crowds, he noticed that a woman
+was following him. Several times she crossed his path, smiling at him,
+hunting a pretext for beginning conversation. Such insistence was not
+particularly gratifying to his pride; for she was a female of
+protruding bust and swaying hips, a cook with a basket on her arm, like
+many others who were passing through the Rambla in order to add a bunch
+of flowers to the daily purchase of eatables.
+
+Finding that the sailor was not moved by her smiles nor the glances
+from her sharp eyes, she planted herself before him, speaking to him in
+Catalan.
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but are you not a ship captain named Don Ulysses?..."
+
+This started the conversation. The cook, convinced that it was he,
+continued talking with a mysterious smile. A most beautiful lady was
+desirous of seeing him.... And she gave him the address of a towered
+villa situated at the foot of Tibidabo in a recently constructed
+district. He could make his visit at three in the afternoon.
+
+"Come, sir," she added with a look of sweet promise. "You will never
+regret the trip."
+
+All questions were useless. The woman would say no more. The only thing
+that could be gathered from her evasive answers was that the person
+sending her had left her upon seeing the captain.
+
+When the messenger had gone away he wished to follow her. But the fat
+old wife shook her head repeatedly. Her astuteness was quite accustomed
+to eluding pursuit, and without Ferragut's knowing exactly how, she
+slipped away, mingling with the groups near the Plaza of Catalunia.
+
+"I shall not go," was the first thing that Ferragut said on finding
+himself alone.
+
+He knew just what that invitation signified. He recalled an infinite
+number of former unconfessable friendships that he had had in
+Barcelona,--women that he had met in other times, between voyages,
+without any passion whatever, but through his vagabond curiosity,
+anxious for novelty. Perhaps some one of these had seen him in the
+Rambla, sending this intermediary in order to renew the old relations.
+The captain probably enjoyed the fame of a rich man now that everybody
+was commenting upon the amazingly good business transacted by the
+proprietors of ships.
+
+"I shall not go," he again told himself energetically. He considered it
+useless to bother about this interview, to encounter the mercenary
+smile of a familiar but forgotten acquaintance.
+
+But the insistence of the recollection and the very tenacity with which
+he kept repeating to himself his promise not to keep the tryst, made
+Ferragut begin to suspect that it might be just as well to go after
+all.
+
+After luncheon his will-power weakened. He didn't know what to do with
+himself during the afternoon. His only distraction was to visit his
+cousins in their counting-houses, or to meander through the Rambla. Why
+not go?... Perhaps he might be mistaken, and the interview might prove
+an interesting one. At all events, he would have the chance of retiring
+after a brief conversation about the past.... His curiosity was
+becoming excited by the mystery.
+
+And at three in the afternoon he took a street car that conducted him
+to the new districts springing up around the base of Tibidabo.
+
+The commercial bourgeoisie had covered these lands with an
+architectural efflorescence, legitimate daughter of their dreams.
+Shopkeepers and manufacturers had wished to have here a pleasure house,
+traditionally called a _torre_, in order to rest on Sundays and at the
+same time make a show of their wealth with these Gothic, Arabic, Greek,
+and Persian creations. The most patriotic were relying on the
+inspiration of native architects who had invented a Catalan art with
+pointed arches, battlements, and ducal coronets. These medieval
+coronets, which were repeated even on the peaks of the chimney pots,
+were the everlasting decorative motif of an industrial city little
+given to dreams and lusting for lucre.
+
+Ferragut advanced through the solitary street between two rows of
+freshly transplanted trees that were just sending forth their first
+growth. He looked at the facades of the _torres_ made of blocks of
+cement imitating the stone of the old fortresses, or with tiles which
+represented fantastic landscapes, absurd flowers, bluish, glazed
+nymphs.
+
+Upon getting out of the street car he made a resolution. He would look
+at the outside only of the house. Perhaps that would aid him in
+discovering the woman! Then he would just continue on his way.
+
+But on reaching the _torre_, whose number he still kept in mind, and
+pausing a few seconds before its architecture of a feudal castle whose
+interior was probably like that of the beer gardens, he saw the door
+opening, and appearing in it the same woman that had talked with him in
+the flower Rambla.
+
+"Come in, Captain."
+
+And the captain was not able to resist the suggestive smile of the
+cook.
+
+He found himself in a kind of hall similar to the facade with a Gothic
+fireplace of alabaster imitating oak, great jars of porcelain, pipes
+the size of walking-sticks, and old armor adorning the walls. Various
+wood-cuts reproducing modern pictures of Munich alternated with these
+decorations. Opposite the fireplace William II was displaying one of
+his innumerable uniforms, resplendent in gold and a gaudy frame.
+
+The house appeared uninhabited. Heavy soft curtains deadened every
+sound. The corpulent go-between had disappeared with the lightness of
+an immaterial being, as though swallowed up by the wall. While scowling
+at the portrait of the Kaiser, the sailor began to feel disquieted in
+this silence which appeared to him almost hostile.... And he was not
+carrying arms.
+
+The smiling woman again presented herself with the same slippery
+smoothness.
+
+"Come in, Don Ulysses."
+
+She had opened a door, and Ferragut on advancing felt that this door
+was locked behind him.
+
+The first thing that he could see was a window, broader than it was
+high, of colored glass. A Valkyrie was galloping across it, with lance
+in rest and floating locks, upon a black steed that was expelling fire
+through its nostrils. In the diffused light of the stained glass he
+could distinguish tapestries on the walls and a deep divan with
+flowered cushions.
+
+A woman arose from the soft depths of this couch, rushing towards
+Ferragut with outstretched arms. Her impulse was so violent that it
+made her collide with the captain. Before the feminine embrace could
+close around him he saw a panting mouth, with avid teeth, eyes tearful
+with emotion, a smile that was a mixture of love and painful
+disquietude.
+
+"You!... You!" he stuttered, springing back.
+
+His legs trembled with a shudder of surprise. A cold wave ran down his
+back.
+
+"Ulysses!" sighed the woman, trying again to fold him in her arms.
+
+"You!... _You_!" again repeated the sailor in a dull voice.
+
+It was Freya.
+
+He did not know positively what mysterious force dictated his action.
+It was perhaps the voice of his good counselor, accustomed to speak in
+his brain in critical instants, which now asserted itself.... He saw
+instantaneously a ship that was exploding and his son blown to pieces.
+
+"Ah ... _tal_"
+
+He raised his robust arm with his fist clenched like a mace. The voice
+of prudence kept on giving him orders. "Hard!... No consideration!...
+This female is shifty." And he struck as though his enemy were a man,
+without hesitation, without pity, concentrating all his soul in his
+fist.
+
+The hatred that he was feeling and the recollection of the aggressive
+resources of the German woman made him begin a second blow, fearing an
+attack from her and wishing to repel it before it could be made.... But
+he stopped with his arm raised.
+
+"_Ay de mi_!..."
+
+The woman had uttered a child-like wail, staggering, swaying upon her
+feet, with arms drooping, without any attempt at defense whatever....
+She reeled from side to side as though she were drunk. Her knees
+doubled under her, and she fell with the limpness of a bundle of
+clothes, her head first striking against the cushions of the divan. The
+rest of her body remained like a rag on the rug.
+
+There was a long silence, interrupted from time to time by groans of
+pain. Freya was moaning with closed eyes, without coming out of her
+inertia.
+
+The sailor, scowling with a tragic ugliness, and transported with rage,
+remained immovable, looking grimly at the fallen creature. He was
+satisfied with his brutality; it had been an opportune relief; he could
+breathe better. At the same time he was beginning to feel ashamed of
+himself. "What have you done, you coward?..." For the first time in his
+existence he had struck a woman.
+
+He raised his aching right hand to his eyes. One of his fingers was
+bleeding. Perhaps it had become hooked in her earrings, perhaps a pin
+at her breast had scratched it. He sucked the blood from the deep
+scratch, and then forgot the wound in order to gaze again at the body
+outstretched at his feet.
+
+Little by little he was becoming accustomed to the diffused light of
+the room. He was already beginning to see objects clearly. His glance
+rested upon Freya with a look of mingled hatred and remorse.
+
+Her head, sunk in the cushions, presented a pitiful profile. She
+appeared much older, as though her age had been doubled by her tears.
+The brutal blow had made her freshness and her marvelous youth flit
+away with doleful suddenness. Her half-opened eyes were encircled with
+temporary wrinkles. Her nose had taken on the livid sharpness of the
+dead; her great mass of hair, reddening under the blow, was disheveled
+in golden, undulating tangles. Something black was winding through it
+making streaks upon the silk of the cushion. It was the blood that was
+dribbling between the heraldic flowers of the embroidery,--blood
+flowing from the hidden forehead, being absorbed by the dryness of the
+soft material.
+
+Upon making this discovery, Ferragut felt his shame increasing. He took
+one step over the extended body, seeking the door. Why was he staying
+there?... All that he had to do was already done; all that he could say
+was already said.
+
+"Do not go, Ulysses," sighed a plaintive voice. "Listen to me!... It
+concerns your life."
+
+The fear that he might get away made her pull herself together with
+dolorous groans and this movement accelerated the flow of blood.... The
+pillow continued drinking it in like a thirsty meadow.
+
+An irresistible compassion like that which he might feel for any
+stranger abandoned in the midst of the street, made the sailor draw
+back, his eyes fixed on a tall crystal vase which stood upon the floor
+filled with flowers. With a bang he scattered over the carpet all the
+springtime bouquet, arranged a little while before by feminine hands
+with the feverishness of one who counts the minutes and lives on hope.
+
+He moistened his handkerchief in the water of the vase and knelt down
+beside Freya, raising her head upon the cushion. She let the wound be
+washed with the abandon of a sick creature, fixing upon her aggressor a
+pair of imploring eyes, opening now for the first time.
+
+When the blood ceased to flow, forming on the temple a red, coagulated
+spot, Ferragut tried to raise her up.
+
+"No; leave me so," she murmured. "I prefer to be at your feet. I am
+your bondslave ... your plaything. Beat me more if it will appease your
+wrath."
+
+She wished to insist upon her humility, offering her lips with the
+timid kiss of a grateful slave.
+
+"Ah, no!... No!"
+
+To avoid this caress Ulysses stood up suddenly. He again felt intense
+hatred toward this woman, who little by little was appealing to his
+senses. Upon stopping the flow of blood his compassion had become
+extinguished.
+
+She, guessing his thoughts, felt obliged to speak.
+
+"Do with me what you will.... I shall not complain. You are the first
+man who has ever struck me.... And I have not defended myself! I shall
+not defend myself though you strike me again.... Had it been any one
+else, I would have replied blow for blow; but you!... I have done you
+so much wrong!..."
+
+She was silent for a few moments, kneeling before him in a supplicating
+attitude with her body resting upon her heels. She reached out her arms
+while speaking with a monotonous and sorrowful voice, like the specters
+in the apparitions of the theater.
+
+"I have hesitated a long time before seeing you," she continued. "I
+feared your wrath; I was sure that in the first moment you would let
+yourself be overpowered by your anger and I was terrified at the
+thought of the interview.... I have spied upon you ever since I knew
+that you were in Barcelona; I have waited near your home; many times I
+have seen you through the doorway of a cafe, and I have taken my pen to
+write to you. But I feared that you would not come, upon recognizing my
+handwriting, or that you would pay no attention to a letter in another
+hand.... This morning in the Rambla I could no longer contain myself.
+And so I sent that woman to you and I have passed some cruel hours
+fearing that you would not come.... At last I see you and your violence
+makes no difference to me. Thank you, thank you many times for having
+come!"
+
+Ferragut remained motionless with distracted glance, as though he did
+not hear her voice.
+
+"It was necessary to see you," she continued. "It concerns your very
+existence. You have set yourself in opposition to a tremendous power
+that can crush you. Your ruin is decided upon. You are one lone man and
+you have awakened the suspicion, without knowing it, of a world-wide
+organization.... The blow has not yet fallen upon you, but it is going
+to fall at any moment, perhaps this very day; I cannot find out all
+about it.... For this reason it was necessary to see you in order that
+you should put yourself on the defensive, in order that you should
+flee, if necessary."
+
+The captain, smiling scornfully, shrugged his shoulders as he always
+did when people spoke to him of danger, and counseled prudence.
+Besides, he couldn't believe a single thing that woman said.
+
+"It's a lie!" he said dully. "It's all a lie!...
+
+"No, Ulysses: listen to me. You do not know the interest that you
+inspire in me. You are the only man that I have ever loved... Do not
+smile at me in that way: your incredulity terrifies me.... Remorse is
+now united to my poor love. I have done you so much wrong!... I hate
+all men. I long to cause them all the harm that I can; but there exists
+one exception: you!... All my desires of happiness are for you. My
+dreams of the future always have you as the central personage.... Do
+you want me to remain indifferent upon seeing you in danger?... No, I
+am not lying.... Everything that I tell you this afternoon is the
+truth: I shall never be able to lie to you. It distresses me so that my
+artifices and my falsity should have brought trouble upon you....
+Strike me again, treat me as the worst of women, but believe what I
+tell you; follow my counsel."
+
+The sailor persisted disdainfully in his indifferent attitude. His
+hands were trembling impatiently. He was going away. He did not wish to
+hear any more.... Had she hunted him out just to frighten him with
+imaginary dangers?...
+
+"What have you done, Ulysses?... What have you done?" Freya kept saying
+desperately.
+
+She knew all that had occurred in the port of Marseilles, and she also
+knew well the infinite number of agents that were working for the
+greater glory of Germany. Von Kramer, from his prison, had made known
+the name of his informant. She lamented the captain's vehement
+frankness.
+
+"I understand your hatred; you cannot forget the torpedoing of the
+_Californian_.... But you should have denounced von Kramer without
+letting him suspect from whom the accusation came.... You have acted
+like a madman; yours is an impulsive character that does not fear the
+morrow."
+
+Ulysses made a scornful gesture. He did not like subterfuges and
+treachery. His way of doing was the better one. The only thing that he
+lamented was that that assassin of the sea might still be living, not
+having been able to kill him with his own hands.
+
+"Perhaps he may not be living still," she continued. "The French
+Council of War has condemned him to death. We do not know whether the
+sentence has been carried out; but they are going to shoot him any
+moment, and every one in our circle knows that you are the true author
+of his misfortune."
+
+She became terrified upon thinking of the accumulated hatred brought
+about by this deed, and upon the approaching vengeance. In Berlin the
+name of Ferragut was the object of special attention; in every nation
+of the earth, the civilian battalions of men and women engaged in
+working for Germany's triumph were repeating his name at this moment.
+The commanders of the submarines were passing along information
+regarding his ship and his person. He had dared to attack the greatest
+empire in the world. He, one lone man, a simple merchant captain,
+depriving the kaiser of one of his most valiant, valuable servants!
+
+"What have you done, Ulysses?... What have you done?" she wailed again.
+
+And Ferragut began to recognize in her voice a genuine interest in his
+person, a terrible fear of the dangers which she believed were
+threatening him.
+
+"Here, in your very own country, their vengeance will overtake you.
+Flee! I don't know where you can go to get rid of them, but believe
+me.... Flee!"
+
+The sailor came out of his scornful indifference. Anger was lending a
+hostile gleam to his glance. He was furious to think that those
+foreigners could pursue him in his own country; it was as though they
+were attacking him beside his own hearth. National pride augmented his
+wrath.
+
+"Let them come," he said. "I'd like to see them this very day."
+
+And he looked around, clenching his fists as though these innumerable
+and unknown enemies were about to come out from the walls.
+
+"They are also beginning to consider me as an enemy," continued the
+woman. "They do not say so, because it is a common thing with us to
+hide our thoughts; but I suspect the coldness that is surrounding
+me.... The doctor knows that I love you the same as before, in spite of
+the wrath that she feels against you. The others are talking of your
+'treason' and I protest because I cannot stand such a lie.... Why are
+you a traitor?... You are not one of our clan. You are a father who
+longs to avenge himself. We are the real traitors:--I, who entangled
+you in the fatal adventure,--they, who pushed me toward you, in order
+to take advantage of your services."
+
+Their life in Naples surged up in her memory and she felt it necessary
+to explain her acts.
+
+"You have not been able to understand me. You are ignorant of the
+truth.... When I met you on the road to Paestum, you were a souvenir of
+my past, a fragment of my youth, of the time in which I knew the doctor
+only vaguely, and was not yet compromised in the service of
+'information.'... From the very beginning your love and enthusiasm made
+an impression upon me. You represented an interesting diversion with
+your Spanish gallantry, waiting for me outside the hotel in order to
+besiege me with your promises and vows. I was greatly bored during the
+enforced waiting at Naples. You also found yourself obliged to wait,
+and sought in me an agreeable recreation.... One day I came to
+understand that you truly were interesting me greatly, as no other man
+had ever interested me.... I suspected that I was going to fall in love
+with you."
+
+"It's a lie!... It's a lie," murmured Ferragut spitefully.
+
+"Say what you will, but that was the way of it. We love according to
+the place and the moment. If we had met on some other occasion, we
+might have seen each other for a few hours, no more, each following his
+own road without further consideration. We belong to different
+worlds.... But we were mobilized in the same country, oppressed by the
+tedium of waiting, and what had to be ... was. I am telling you the
+entire truth: if you could know what it has cost me to avoid you!...
+
+"In the mornings, on arising in the room in my hotel, my first motion
+was to look through the curtains in order to convince myself that you
+were waiting for me in the street. 'There is my devoted: there is my
+sweetheart!' Perhaps you had slept badly thinking about me, while I was
+feeling my soul reborn within me, the soul of a girl of twenty,
+enthusiastic and artless.... My first impulse was to come down and join
+you, going with you along the gulf shores like two lovers out of a
+novel. Then reflection would come to my rescue. My past would come
+tumbling into my mind like an old bell fallen from its tower. I had
+forgotten that past, and its recurrence deafened me with its
+overwhelming jangle vibrating with memories. 'Poor man!... Into what a
+world of compromises and entanglements I am going to involve him!...
+No! No!' And I fled from you with the cunning of a mischievous
+schoolgirl, coming out from the hotel when you had gone off for a few
+moments, at other times doubling a corner at the very instant that you
+turned your eyes away.... I only permitted myself to approach coldly
+and ironically when it was impossible to avoid meeting you.... And
+afterwards, in the doctor's house, I used to talk about you, every
+instant, laughing with her over these romantic gallantries."
+
+Ferragut was listening gloomily, but with growing concentration. He
+foresaw the explanation of many hitherto incomprehensible acts. A
+curtain was going to be withdrawn from the past showing everything
+behind it in a new light.
+
+"The doctor would laugh, but in spite of my jesting she would assure me
+just the same: 'You are in love with this man; this Don Jose interests
+you. Be careful, Carmen!' And the queer thing was that she did not take
+amiss my infatuation, especially when you consider that she was the
+enemy of every passion that could not be made directly subservient to
+our work.... She told the truth; I was in love. I recognized it the
+morning the overwhelming desire to go to the Aquarium took possession
+of me. I had passed many days without seeing you: I was living outside
+of the hotel in the doctor's house in order not to encounter my
+inamorato. And that morning I got up very sad, with one fixed thought:
+'Poor captain!... Let us give him a little happiness.' I was sick that
+day.... Sick because of you! Now I understood it all. We saw each other
+in the Aquarium and it was I who kissed you at the same time that I was
+longing for the extermination of all men.... Of all men except you!"
+
+She made a brief pause, raising her eyes toward him, in order to take
+in the effect of her words.
+
+"You remember our luncheon in the restaurant of Vomero; you remember
+how I begged you to go away, leaving me to my fate. I had a foreboding
+of the future. I foresaw that it was going to be fatal for you. How
+could I join a direct and frank life like yours to my existence as an
+adventuress, mixed up in so many unconfessable compromises?... But I
+was in love with you. I wished to save you by leaving you, and at the
+same time I was afraid of not seeing you again. The night that you
+irritated me with the fury of your desires and I stupidly defended
+myself, as though it were an outrage, concentrating on your person the
+hatred which all men inspire in me,--that night, alone in my bed, I
+wept. I wept at the thought that I had lost you forever and at the same
+time I felt satisfied with myself because thus I was freeing you from
+my baleful influence.... Then von Kramer came. We were in need of a
+boat and a man. The doctor spoke, proud of her penetration which had
+made her suspect in you an available asset. They gave me orders to go
+in search of you, to regain the mastery over your self-control. My
+first impulse was to refuse, thinking of your future. But the sacrifice
+was sweet; selfishness directs our actions ... and I sought you! You
+know the rest."
+
+She became silent, remaining in a pensive attitude, as though relishing
+this period of her recollection, the most pleasing of her existence.
+
+"Upon going over to the steamer for you," she continued a few moments
+afterward, "I understood just what you represented in my life. What
+need I had of you!... The doctor was preoccupied with the Italian
+events. I was only counting the days, finding that they were passing by
+with more slowness than the others. One ... two ... three ... 'My
+adored sailor, my amorous shark, is going to come.... He is going to
+come!' And what came suddenly, while we were still believing it far
+away, was the blow of the war, rudely separating us. The doctor was
+cursing the Italians, thinking of Germany; I was cursing them, thinking
+of you, finding myself obliged to follow my friend, preparing for
+flight in two hours, through fear of the mob.... My only satisfaction
+was in learning that we were coming to Spain. The doctor was promising
+herself to do great things here.... I was thinking that in no place
+would it be easier for me to find you again."
+
+She had gained a little more bodily strength. Her hands were touching
+Ferragut's knees, longing to embrace them, yet not daring to do so,
+fearing that he might repel her and overcome that tragic inertia which
+permitted him to listen to her.
+
+"When in Bilboa I learned of the torpedoing of the _Californian_ and of
+the death of your son.... I shall not talk about that; I wept, I wept
+bitterly, hiding myself from the doctor. From that time on I hated her.
+She rejoiced in the event, passing indifferently over your name. You no
+longer existed for her, because she was no longer able to make use of
+you.... I wept for you, for your son whom I did not know, and also for
+myself, remembering my blame in the matter. Since that day I have been
+another woman.... Then we came to Barcelona and I have passed months
+and months awaiting this moment."
+
+Her former passion was reflected in her eyes. A flicker of humble love
+lit up her bruised countenance.
+
+"We established ourselves in this house which belongs to a German
+electrician, a friend of the doctor's. Whenever she went away on a trip
+leaving me free, my steps would invariably turn to the harbor. I was
+waiting to see your ship. My eyes followed the seamen sympathetically,
+thinking that I could see in all of them something of your person....
+'Some day he will come,' I would say to myself. You know how selfish
+love is! I gradually forgot the death of your son.... Besides, I am not
+the one who is really guilty: there are others. I have been deceived
+just as you have been. 'He is going to come, and we shall be happy
+again!'... _Ay_! If this room could speak ... if this divan on which I
+have dreamed so many times could talk!... I was always arranging some
+flowers in a vase, making believe that you were going to come. I was
+always fixing myself up a little bit, imagining it was for you.... I
+was living in your country, and it was natural that you should come.
+Suddenly the paradise that I was imagining vanished into smoke. We
+received the news, I don't know how, of the imprisonment of von Kramer,
+and that you had been his accuser. The doctor anathematized me, making
+me responsible for everything. Through me she had known you, and that
+was enough to make her include me in her indignation. All our band
+began to plan for your death, longing to have it accompanied with the
+most atrocious tortures...."
+
+Ferragut interrupted her. His brow was furrowed as though dominated by
+a tenacious idea.... Perhaps he was not listening to her.
+
+"Where is the doctor?"...
+
+The tone of the question was disquieting. He clenched his fists,
+looking around him as though awaiting the appearance of the imposing
+dame. His attitude was just like that which had accompanied his attack
+on Freya.
+
+"I don't know where she's traveling," said his companion. "She is
+probably in Madrid, in San Sebastian, or in Cadiz. She goes off very
+frequently. She has friends everywhere.... And I have ventured to ask
+you here simply because I am alone."
+
+And she described the life that she was leading in this retreat. For
+the time being her former protector was letting her remain in inaction,
+abstaining from giving her any work whatever. She was doing everything
+herself, avoiding all intermediaries. What had happened to von Kramer
+had made her so jealous and suspicious that when she needed aids, she
+admitted only her compatriots living in Barcelona.
+
+A ferocious and determined band, made up of refugees from the South
+American republics, parasites from the coast cities or vagabonds from
+the inland forests, had grouped itself around her. At their head, as
+message-bearer for the doctor, was Karl, the secretary that Ferragut
+had seen in the great old house of the district of Chiaja.
+
+This man, in spite of his oily aspect, had several bloody crimes in his
+life history. He was a worthy superintendent of the group of
+adventurers inflamed by patriotic enthusiasm who were forwarding
+supplies to the submarines in the Spanish Mediterranean. They all knew
+Captain Ferragut, because of the affair at Marseilles, and they were
+talking about his person with gloomy reticence.
+
+"Through them I learned of your arrival," she continued. "They are
+spying upon you, waiting for a favorable moment. Who knows if they have
+not already followed you here?... Ulysses, flee; your life is seriously
+threatened."
+
+The captain again shrugged his shoulders with an expression of disgust.
+
+"Flee, I repeat it!... And if you can, if I arouse in you a little
+compassion, if you are not completely indifferent to me ... take me
+with you!..."
+
+Ferragut began to wonder if all this preamble was merely a prelude to
+this final request. The unexpected demand produced an impression of
+scandalized amazement. Was he to flee with her, with the one who had
+done him so much harm?... Again unite his life to hers, knowing her as
+he now knew her!...
+
+The proposition was so absurd that the captain smiled sardonically.
+
+"I am just as much in danger as you are," continued Freya with a
+despairing accent. "I do not know exactly what the danger is that
+threatens me, nor whence it may come. But I suspect it, I foresee it
+hanging over my head.... I am of absolutely no use to them now; I no
+longer have their confidence, and I know too many things. Since I
+possess too many secrets for them to give me up, leaving me in peace,
+they have agreed to suppress me; I am sure of that. I can read it in
+the eyes of the one who was my friend and protector.... You cannot
+abandon me, Ulysses. You will not desire my death."
+
+Ferragut waxed indignant before these supplications, finally breaking
+his disdainful silence.
+
+"Comedienne!... All a lie!... Inventions to entangle yourself with me,
+making me intervene again in the network of your life, compromising me
+again in your work of detestable surveillance!..."
+
+He was now taking the right path. His desire for vengeance had placed
+him among Germany's adversaries. He was lamenting his former blindness
+and was satisfied with his new interests. He was making no secret of
+his conduct. He was serving the Allies.
+
+"And that is the reason you are hunting me up; that is the reason that
+you have arranged this interview, probably at the instigation of your
+friend, the doctor. You wish to employ me for a second time as the
+secret instrument of your espionage. 'Captain Ferragut is such an
+enamored simpleton,' you have said to one another. 'We have nothing to
+do but to make an appeal to his chivalry....' And you wish to live with
+me, perhaps to accompany me on my voyages, to follow my existence in
+order to reveal my secrets to your compatriots that I may again appear
+as a traitor. Ah, you hussy!..."
+
+This supposed treason again aroused his homicidal wrath. He raised his
+arm and foot, and was about to strike and crush the kneeling woman. But
+her passive humiliation, her complete lack of resistance, stopped him.
+
+"No, Ulysses ... listen to me!"
+
+She tried her utmost to prove her sincerity. She was afraid of her own
+people; she could see them now in a new light, and they filled her with
+horror. Her manner of looking at things had changed radically. Her
+remorse, on thinking of what she had done, was making her a martyr. Her
+conscience was beginning to feel the wholesome transformation of
+repentant women who were formerly great sinners. How could she wash her
+soul of her past crimes?... She had not even the consolation of that
+patriotic faith, bloody and ferocious though it was, which inflamed the
+doctor and her assistants.
+
+She had been reflecting a great deal. For her there were no longer
+Germans, English, nor French; there only existed men; men with mothers,
+with wives, with daughters. And her woman's soul was horrified at the
+thought of the combats and the killings. She hated war. She had
+experienced her first remorse upon learning of the death of Ferragut's
+son.
+
+"Take me with you," she urged. "If you do not take me out of my world I
+shall not know how to get away from it.... I am poor. In these last
+years, the doctor has supported me; I do not know any way of earning my
+living and I am accustomed to living well. Poverty inspires me with
+greater fear than death. You will be able to maintain me; I will accept
+of you whatever you wish to give me; I will be your handmaiden. On a
+boat they must need the care and well-ordered supervision of a
+woman.... Life locks its doors against me; I am alone."
+
+The captain smiled with cruel irony.
+
+"I divine what your smile means. I know what you wish to say to me....
+I can see myself; you believe without doubt that such has been my
+former life. No,... _no_! You are mistaken. I have not been _that_.
+There has to be a special predisposition, a certain talent for feigning
+what I do not feel.... I have tried to sell myself, and I cannot, I
+cannot avail myself of that. I embitter the life of men when they do
+not interest me; I am their adversary. I hate them and they flee from
+me."
+
+But the sailor prolonged his atrociously sinister smile.
+
+"It's a lie," he said again, "all a lie. Make no further effort.... You
+will not convince me."
+
+As though suddenly reanimated with new force, she rose to her
+feet:--her face on a level with Ferragut's eyes. He saw her left temple
+with the torn skin; the spot caused by the blow extended around one
+eye, reddened and swollen. On contemplating his barbarous handiwork,
+remorse again tormented him.
+
+"Listen, Ulysses; you do not know my true existence. I have always lied
+to you; I have eluded all your investigations in our happy days. I
+wished to keep my former life a secret ... to forget it. Now I must
+tell you the truth, the actual truth, just as though I were going to
+die. When you know it, you will be less cruel."
+
+But her listener did not wish to hear it. He protested in advance with
+a ferocious incredulity.
+
+"Lies!... new lies! I wonder when you will ever stop your inventions!"
+
+"I am not a German woman," she continued without listening to him.
+"Neither is my name Freya Talberg.... It is my _nombre de guerre_, my
+name as an adventuress. Talberg was the professor who accompanied me to
+the Andes, and who was not my husband, either.... My true name is
+Beatrice.... My mother was an Italian, a Florentine; my father was from
+Trieste."
+
+This revelation did not interest Ferragut.
+
+"One fraud more!" he said. "Another novel!... Keep on making them up."
+
+The woman was in despair. She raised her hands above her head, twisting
+the interlaced fingers. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.
+
+"_Ay!_ How can I succeed in making you believe me?... What oath can I
+take to convince you that I am telling you the truth?..."
+
+The captain's impassive air gave her to understand that all such
+extremes would be unavailing. There was no oath that could possibly
+convince him. Even though she should tell the truth, he would not
+believe her.
+
+She went on with her story, not wishing to protest against this
+impassable wall.
+
+"My father also was of Italian origin but was Austrian because of the
+place of his birth.... Furthermore, the Germanic empires always
+inspired him with a blind enthusiasm. He was among those who detest
+their native land, and see all the virtues in the northern people.
+
+"Inventor of marvelous business schemes, financial promoter of colossal
+enterprises, he had passed his existence besieging the directors of the
+great banking establishments and having interviews in the lobbies of
+the government departments. Eternally on the eve of surprising
+combinations that were bound to bring him dozens of millions, he had
+always lived in luxurious poverty, going from hotel to hotel--always
+the best--with his wife and his only daughter.
+
+"You know nothing about such a life, Ulysses; you come from a tranquil
+and well-to-do family. Your people have never known existence in the
+Palace Hotels, nor have you known difficulties in meeting the monthly
+account, managing to have it included with those of the former months
+with an unlimited credit."
+
+As a child she had seen her mother weeping in their extravagant hotel
+apartment while the father was talking with the aspect of an inspired
+person, announcing that the next week he was going to clear a million
+dollars. The wife, convinced by the eloquence of her remarkable
+husband, would finally dry her tears, powder her face, and adorn
+herself with her pearls and her blonde laces of problematic value. Then
+she would descend to the magnificent hall, filled with perfumes, with
+the hum of conversation and the discreet wailings of the violins, in
+order to take tea with her friends in the hotel,--formidable
+millionaires from the two hemispheres who vaguely suspected the
+existence of an infirmity known as poverty, but incapable of imagining
+that it might attack persons of their own world.
+
+Meanwhile the little girl used to play in the hotel garden of the
+Palace Hotel with other children dressed up and adorned like luxurious
+and fragile dolls, each one worth many millions.
+
+"From my childhood," continued Freya, "I had been a companion of women
+who are now celebrated for their riches in New York, Paris, and in
+London. I have been on familiar terms with great heiresses that are
+to-day, through their marriages, duchesses and even princesses of the
+blood royal. Many of them have since passed by me, without recognizing
+me, and I have said nothing, knowing that the equality of childhood is
+no more than a vague recollection...."
+
+Thus she had grown into womanhood. A few of her father's casual
+bargains had permitted them to continue this existence of brilliant and
+expensive poverty. The promoter had considered such environment
+indispensable for his future negotiations. Life in the most expensive
+hotels, an automobile by the month, gowns designed by the greatest
+modistes for his wife and daughter, summers at the most fashionable
+resorts, winter-skating in Switzerland,--all these luxuries were for
+him but a kind of uniform of respectability that kept him in the world
+of the powerful, permitting him to enter everywhere.
+
+"This existence molded me forever, and has influenced the rest of my
+life. Dishonor, death, anything is to me preferable to poverty.... I,
+who have no fear of danger, become a coward at the mere thought of
+that!"
+
+The mother died, credulous and sensuous, worn out with expecting a
+solid fortune that never arrived. The daughter continued with her
+father, becoming the type of young woman who lives among men from hotel
+to hotel, always somewhat masculine in her attitude;--a half-way virgin
+who knows everything, is not frightened at anything, guards ferociously
+the integrity of her sex, calculating just what it may be worth, and
+adoring wealth as the most powerful divinity on earth.
+
+Finding herself upon her father's death with no other fortune than her
+gowns and a few artistic gems of scant value, she had coldly decided
+upon her destiny.
+
+"In our world there is no other virtue than that of money. The girls of
+the people surrender themselves less easily than a young woman
+accustomed to luxury having as her only fortune some knowledge of the
+piano, of dancing, and a few languages.... We yield our body as though
+fulfilling a material function, without shame and without regret. It is
+a simple matter of business. The only thing that matters is to preserve
+the former life with all its conveniences ... not to come down."
+
+She passed hastily over her recollection of this period of her
+existence. An old acquaintance of her father, an old trader of Vienna,
+had been the first. Then she felt romantic flutterings which even the
+coldest and most positive women do not escape. She believed that she
+had fallen in love with a Dutch officer, a blonde Apollo who used to
+skate with her in Saint Moritz. This had been her only husband. Finally
+she had become bored with the colonial drowsiness of Batavia and had
+returned to Europe, breaking off her marriage in order to renew her
+life in the great hotels, passing the winter season at the most
+luxurious resorts.
+
+"_Ay_, money!... In no social plane was its power so evident as that in
+which she was accustomed to dwell. In the Palace Hotels she had met
+women of soldierly aspect and common hands, smoking at all hours, with
+their feet up and the white triangle of their petticoats stretched over
+the seat. They were like the prostitutes waiting at the doors of their
+huts. How were they ever permitted to live there!... Nevertheless, the
+men bowed before them like slaves, or followed as suppliants these
+creatures who talked with unction of the millions inherited from their
+fathers, of their formidable wealth of industrial origin which had
+enabled them to buy noble husbands and then give themselves up to their
+natural tastes as fast, coarse women.
+
+"I never had any luck.... I am too haughty for that kind of thing. Men
+find me ill-humored, argumentative, and nervous. Perhaps I was born to
+be the mother of a family.... Who knows but what I might have been
+otherwise if I had lived in your country?"
+
+Her announcement of her religious veneration for money took on an
+accent of hate. Poor and well-educated girls, if afraid of the misery
+of poverty, had no other recourse than prostitution. They lacked a
+dowry,--that indispensable requisite in many civilized families for
+honorable marriage and home-making.
+
+Accursed poverty!... It had weighed upon her life like a fatality. The
+men who had appeared good at first afterwards became poisoned, turning
+into egoists and wretches. Doctor Talberg, on returning from America,
+had abandoned her in order to marry a young and rich woman, the
+daughter of a trader, a senator from Hamburg. Others had equally
+exploited her youth, taking their share of her gayety and beauty only
+to marry, later, women who had merely the attractiveness of a great
+fortune.
+
+She had finally come to hate them all, desiring their extermination,
+exasperated at the very thought that she needed them to live and could
+never free herself from this slavery. Trying to be independent, she had
+taken up the stage.
+
+"I have danced. I have sung; but my successes were always because I was
+a woman. Men followed after me, desiring the female, and ridiculing the
+actress. Besides--the life behind the scenes!... A white-slave market
+with a name on the play-bills.... What exploitation!..."
+
+The desire of freeing herself from all this had led her to make friends
+with the doctor, accepting her propositions. It seemed to her more
+honorable to serve a great nation, to be a secret functionary, laboring
+in the shadow for its grandeur. Besides, at the beginning she was
+fascinated by the novelty of the work, the adventures on risky
+missions, the proud consideration that with her espionage she was
+weaving the web of the future, preparing the history of time to come.
+
+Here also she had, from the very first, stumbled upon sexual slavery.
+Her beauty was an instrument for sounding the depths of consciences, a
+key for opening secrets; and this servitude had turned out worse than
+the former ones, on account of its being irremediable,--she had tried
+to divorce herself from her life of tantalizing tourist and theatrical
+woman; but whoever enters into the secret service can nevermore go from
+it. She learns too many things; slowly she gains a comprehension of
+important mysteries. The agent becomes a slave of her functions; she is
+confined within them as a prisoner, and with every new act adds a new
+stone to the wall that is separating her from liberty.
+
+"You know the rest of my life," she continued. "The obligation of
+obeying the doctor, of seducing men in order to snatch their secrets
+from them, made me hate them with a deadly aggressiveness.... But you
+came. You, who are so good and generous! You who sought me with the
+enthusiastic simplicity of a growing boy, making me turn back a page in
+my life, as though I were still only in my teens and being courted for
+the first time!... Besides, you are not a selfish person. You gave with
+noble enthusiasm. I believe that if we had known each other in our
+early youth you would never have deserted me in order to make yourself
+rich by marrying some one else. I resisted you at first, because I
+loved you and did not wish to do you harm.... Afterwards, the mandates
+of my superiors and my passion made me forget these scruples.... I gave
+myself up. I was the 'fatal woman,' as always; I brought you
+misfortune.... Ulysses! My love!... Let us forget; there is no use in
+remembering the past. I know your heart so well, and finding myself in
+danger, I appeal to it. Save me! Take me with you!..."
+
+As she was standing opposite him, she had only to raise her hands in
+order to put them on his shoulders, starting the beginning of an
+embrace.
+
+Ferragut remained insensible to the caress. His immobility repelled
+these pleadings. Freya had traveled much through the world, had gone
+through shameful adventures, and would know how to free herself by her
+own efforts without the necessity of complicating him again in her net.
+The story that she had just told was nothing to him but a web of
+misrepresentations.
+
+"It is all false," he said in a heavy voice. "I do not believe you. I
+never shall believe you.... Each time that we meet you tell me a new
+tale.... Who are you?... When do you tell the truth,--all the truth at
+once?... You fraud!"
+
+Insensible to his insults, she continued speaking anxiously of her
+future, as though perceiving the mysterious dangers which were
+surrounding her.
+
+"Where shall I go if you abandon me?... If I remain in Spain, I
+continue under the doctor's domination. I cannot return to the empires
+where my life has been passed; all the roads are closed and in those
+lands my slavery would be reborn.... Neither can I go to France or to
+England; I am afraid of my past. Any one of my former achievements
+would be enough to make them shoot me: I deserve nothing less. Besides,
+the vengeance of my own people fills me with terror. I know the methods
+of the 'service,' when they find it necessary to rid themselves of an
+inconvenient agent who is in the enemy's territory. The 'service'
+itself denounces him, voluntarily making a stupid move in order that
+some documents may go astray, sending a compromising card with a false
+address in order that it may fall into the hands of the authorities of
+the country. What shall I do if you do not aid me?... Where can I
+flee?..."
+
+Ulysses decided to reply, moved to pity by her desperation. The world
+was large. She could go and live in the republics of America.
+
+She did not accept the advice. She had had the same thought, but the
+uncertain future made her afraid.
+
+"I am poor: I have scarcely enough to pay my traveling expenses.... The
+'service' recompenses well at the start. Afterwards when it has us
+surely in its clutches because of our past, it gives us only what is
+necessary in order to live with a certain freedom. What can I ever do
+in those lands?... Must I pass the rest of my existence selling myself
+for bread?... I will not do it. I would rather die first!"
+
+This desperate affirmation of her poverty made Ferragut smile
+sarcastically. He looked at the necklace of pearls everlastingly
+reposing on the admirable cushion of her bosom, the great emeralds in
+her ears, the diamonds that were sparkling coldly on her hands. She
+guessed his thoughts and the idea of selling these jewels gave her even
+greater apprehension than the terrors that the future involved.
+
+"You do not know what all this represents to me," she added. "It is my
+uniform, my coat-of-arms, the safe-conduct that enables me to sustain
+myself in the world of my youth. The women who pass alone through this
+world need jewels in order to free their pathway of obstructions. The
+managers of a hotel become human and smile before their brilliancy. She
+who possesses them does not arouse suspicion however late she may be in
+paying the weekly account.... The employees at the frontier become
+exceedingly gallant: there is no passport more powerful. The haughty
+ladies become more cordial before their sparkle, at the tea hour in the
+halls where one knows nobody.... What I have suffered in order to
+acquire them!... I would be reduced to hunger before I would sell them.
+With them, I am somebody. A person may not have a coin in her pocket
+and yet, with these glittering vouchers, may enter where the richest
+assemble, living as one of them."
+
+She would take no advice. She was like a hungry warrior in an enemy's
+country asked to surrender arms in exchange for gold. Once the
+necessity was satisfied, he would become a prisoner,--would be vilified
+and on a par with the miserable creatures who a few hours before were
+receiving his blows. She would meet courageously all dangers and
+sufferings rather than lay aside her helmet and shield, the symbols of
+her superior caste. The gown more than a year old, shabby, patched
+shoes, negligee with badly mended rents, did not distress her in the
+most trying moments. The important thing was to possess a stylish hat
+and to preserve a fur coat, a necklace of pearls, emeralds,
+diamonds,--all the honorable and glorious coat-of-mail in which she
+wished to die.
+
+Her glance appeared to pity the ignorance of the sailor in venturing to
+propose such absurdities to her.
+
+"It is impossible, Ulysses.... Take me with you! On the sea is where I
+shall be safest. I am not afraid of the submarines. People imagine them
+as numerous and close together as the flagstones of a pavement, but
+only one vessel in a thousand is the victim of their attacks....
+Besides, with you I fear nothing; if it is our destiny to perish on the
+sea, we shall die together."
+
+She became insinuating and enticing, passing her hands over his
+shoulders, pulling down his neck with a passion that was equal to an
+embrace. While speaking, her mouth came near to that of the sailor, the
+lips arched, beginning the rounding of a caressing kiss.
+
+"Would you live so badly with Freya?... Do you no longer remember our
+past?... Am I now another being?"
+
+Ulysses was remembering only too well that past, and began to recognize
+that this memory was becoming too vivid. She, who was following with
+astute eyes the seductive memories whirling through his brain, guessed
+what they were by the contraction of his face. And smiling
+triumphantly, she placed her mouth against his. She was sure of her
+power.... And she reproduced the kiss of the Aquarium, that kiss which
+had so thrilled the sailor, making his whole body tremble.
+
+But when she gave herself up with more abandon to this dominating
+ascendancy, she felt herself repelled, shot back by a brutal
+hand-thrust similar to the blow that had hurled her upon the cushions
+at the beginning of the interview.
+
+Some one had interposed between the two, in spite of their close
+embrace.
+
+The captain, who was beginning to lose consciousness of his acts, like
+a castaway, descending and descending through the enchanting domains of
+limitless pleasure, suddenly beheld the face of the dead Esteban with
+his glassy eyes fixed upon him. Further on he saw another image, sad
+and shadowy,--Cinta, who was weeping as though her tears were the only
+ones that should fall upon the mutilated body of their son.
+
+"Ah, no!... _No!_"
+
+He himself was surprised at his voice. It was the roar of a wounded
+beast, the dry howling of a desperate creature, writhing in torment.
+
+Freya, staggering under the rude push, again tried to draw near to him,
+enlacing him again in her arms, in order to repeat her imperious kiss.
+
+"My love!... My love!..."
+
+She could not go on. That tremendous hand again repelled her, but so
+violently that her head struck against the cushions of the divan.
+
+The door trembled with a rude shove that made its two leaves open at
+the same time, dragging out the bolt of the lock.
+
+The woman, tenacious in her desires, rose up quickly without noticing
+the pain of her fall. Nimbleness only could serve her now that Ferragut
+was escaping after mechanically picking up his hat.
+
+"Ulysses!... Ulysses!..."
+
+Ulysses was already in the street,--and in the little hallway various
+objects of bric-a-brac that had obtruded themselves and confused the
+fugitive in his blind flight were still trembling and then falling and
+breaking on the floor with a crash.
+
+Feeling on his forehead the sensation of the free air, the dangers to
+which Freya had referred now surged up in his mind. He surveyed the
+street with a hostile glance.... Nobody! He longed to meet the enemy of
+whom that woman had been speaking, to find vent for that wrath which he
+was feeling even against himself. He was ashamed and furious at his
+passing weakness which had almost made him renew their former
+existence.
+
+In the days following, he repeatedly recalled the band of refugees
+under the doctor's control. When meeting German-looking people on the
+street, he would glare at them menacingly. Was he perhaps one of those
+charged with killing him?... Then he would pass on, regretting his
+irritation, sure that they were tradesmen from South America,
+apothecaries or bank employees undecided whether to return to their
+home on the other side of the ocean, or to await in Barcelona the
+always-near triumph of their Emperor.
+
+Finally the captain began to ridicule Freya's recommendations.
+
+"Just her lies!... Inventions in order to engage my interest again and
+make me take her with me! Ah, the old fraud!"
+
+One morning, as he was stepping out on the deck of his steamer, Toni
+approached him with a mysterious air, his face assuming an ashy pallor.
+
+When they reached the saloon at the stern, the mate spoke in a low
+voice, looking around him.
+
+The night before he had gone ashore in order to visit the theater. All
+of Toni's literary tastes and his emotions were concentrated in
+vaudeville. Men of talent had never invented anything better. From it
+he used to bring back the humming songs with which he beguiled his long
+watches on the bridge. Besides, it had a feminine chorus brilliantly
+clad and bare-legged, a prima donna rich in flesh and poor in clothes,
+a row of rosy and voluptuous ninepins that delighted the seamen's
+imagination without making him forget the obligations of fidelity.
+
+At one o'clock in the morning, when returning to the boat along the
+solitary entrance pier, some one had tried to assassinate him. Hearing
+footsteps, he fancied that he had seen forms hiding behind a mountain
+of merchandise. Then there had sounded three reports, three revolver
+shots. A ball had whistled by one of his ears.
+
+"And as I was not carrying any arms, I ran. Fortunately, I was near the
+ship, almost to the prow. I had only to take a few leaps to put myself
+aboard the vessel.... And they did not shoot any more."
+
+Ferragut remained silent. He, too, had grown pale, but with surprise
+and anger. Then they were true, those reports of Freya's!... He could
+not pretend incredulity, nor show himself bold and indifferent to
+danger while Toni continued talking.
+
+"Take care, Ulysses!... I have been thinking a great deal about this
+thing. Those shots were not meant for me. What enemies have I? Who
+would want to harm a poor mate who never sees anybody?... Look out for
+yourself! You know perhaps where they came from; you have dealings with
+many people."
+
+The captain suspected that he was recalling the adventure of Naples and
+that disgraceful proposition guarded as a secret, relating it to this
+nocturnal attack. But neither his voice nor his eyes justified such
+suspicions. And Ferragut preferred not to seem to suspect what he was
+thinking about.
+
+"Does any one else know what occurred?..."
+
+Toni shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody...." He had leaped on the steamer,
+pacifying the dog on board, that was howling furiously. The man on
+guard had heard the shots, imagining that it was some sailors' fight.
+
+"You have not reported this to the authorities?"
+
+The mate became indignant on hearing this question, with the
+independence of the Mediterranean who never remembers authority in
+moments of danger and whose only defense is his manual dexterity.--"You
+take me, perhaps, for a police-informer?..."
+
+He had wanted to do the manly thing, but henceforth he would always go
+armed while he happened to be in Barcelona. _Ay_, with this he might
+shoot if he were not wounded!... And winking an eye, he showed his
+captain what he called his "instrument."
+
+The mate disliked firearms, crazy and noisy toys of doubtful result.
+With an ancestral affection which appeared to evoke the flashing
+battle-axes used by his ancestors, he loved the blow in silence, the
+gleaming weapon which was a prolongation of the hand.
+
+With gentle stealthiness he drew from his belt an English knife,
+acquired at the time that he was skipper of a small boat,--a shining
+blade which reproduced the faces of those looking at it, with the sharp
+point of a stiletto and the edge of a _razor_.
+
+Perhaps he would not be long in making use of his "instrument." He
+recalled various individuals who a few days ago were strolling slowly
+along the wharf examining the vessel, and spying upon those going on
+and off. If he could manage to see them again he would go off the
+steamer just to say a couple of words to them.
+
+"You are to do nothing at all," ordered Ferragut. "I'll take charge of
+this little matter."
+
+All day long he was troubled over this news. Strolling about Barcelona,
+he looked with challenging eyes at all passersby who appeared to be
+Germans. To the aggressiveness of his character was now added the
+indignation of a proprietor who finds himself assaulted within his
+home. Those three shots were for him; and he was a Spaniard: and the
+_boches_ were daring to attack him on his own ground! What audacity!...
+
+Several times he put his hand in the back part of his trousers,
+touching a long, metallic bulk. He was only awaiting the nightfall to
+carry out a certain idea that had clamped itself between his two
+eyebrows like a painful nail. Whilst he was not carrying it forward he
+could not be tranquil.
+
+The voice of his good counselor protested: "Don't do anything idiotic,
+Ferragut; don't hunt the enemy, don't provoke him. Simply defend
+yourself, nothing more."
+
+But that reckless courage which in times gone by had made him embark on
+vessels destined to shipwreck, and had pushed him toward danger for the
+mere pleasure of conquering it, was now crying louder than prudence.
+
+"In my own country!" he kept saying continually. "To try to assassinate
+me when I am on my own land!... I'll just show them that I am a
+Spaniard...."
+
+He knew well that waterfront saloon mentioned by Freya. Two men in his
+crew had given him some fresh information. The customers of the bar
+were poor Germans accustomed to endless drinking. Some one was paying
+for them, and on certain days even permitted them to invite the
+skippers of the fishing boats and tramp vessels. A gramophone was
+continually playing there, grinding out shrill songs to which the
+guests responded in roaring chorus. When war news favorable to the
+German Empire was received, the songs and drinking would redouble until
+midnight and the shrill music-box would never stop for an instant. On
+the walls were portraits of William II and various chromos of his
+generals. The proprietor of the bar, a fat-legged German with square
+head, stiff hair and drooping mustache, used to answer to the nickname
+of _Hindenburg_.
+
+The sailor grinned at the mere thought of putting that _Hindenburg_
+underneath his own counter.... He'd just like to see this establishment
+where his name had been uttered so many times!
+
+At nightfall, his feet took him toward the bar with an irresistible
+impulse which disdained all counsels of prudence.
+
+The glass door resisted his nervous hands, perhaps because he handled
+the latch with too much force. And the captain finally opened it by
+giving a kick to its lower part, made of wood.
+
+The panes almost flew out from the shock of this brutal blow. A
+magnificent entrance!... He saw much smoke, perforated by the red stars
+of three electric bulbs which had just been lit, and men around the
+various tables, facing him or with their backs turned. The gramophone
+was shrilling in a nasal tone like an old woman without teeth. Back of
+the counter appeared _Hindenburg_, his throat open, sleeves rolled up
+over arms as fat as legs.
+
+"I am Captain Ulysses Ferragut."
+
+The voice that said this had a power similar to that of the magic words
+of Oriental tales which held the life of an entire city in suspense,
+leaving persons and objects immovable in the very attitude in which the
+powerful conjurer surprised them.
+
+There was the silence of astonishment. Those were beginning to turn
+their heads, attracted by the noise of the door, did not go on with the
+movement. Those in front remained with their eyes fixed on the one who
+was entering, eyes widened with surprise as if they could not believe
+what they saw. The gramophone was suddenly hushed. _Hindenburg_, who
+was washing out a glass, remained with motionless hands, without even
+taking the napkin from its crystal cavity.
+
+Ferragut seated himself near an empty table with his back against the
+wall. A waiter, the only one in the establishment, hastened to find out
+what the gentleman wished. He was an Andalusian, small and sprightly,
+whose escapades had brought him to Barcelona. He usually served his
+customers with indifference, without taking any interest in their words
+and their hymns. He "didn't mix himself up in politics." Accustomed to
+the ways of gay and hot-blooded people, he suspected that this man had
+come to pick a quarrel, and hoped to soften him with his smiling and
+obsequious manner.
+
+The sailor spoke to him aloud. He knew that in that low cafe his name
+was frequently used and that there were many there who desired to see
+him. He could give them the message that Captain Ferragut was there at
+their disposition.
+
+"I shall do so," said the Andalusian.
+
+And he went away to the counter, bringing him, in a little while, a
+bottle and a glass.
+
+In vain Ulysses fixed his glance on those who were occupying the nearby
+tables. Some, turning their backs upon him, were absolutely rigid;
+others had their eyes cast down and were talking quietly with
+mysterious whispering.
+
+Finally two or three exchanged glances with the captain. In their
+pupils was the snap of budding wrath. The first surprise having
+vanished, they seemed disposed to rise up and fall upon the recent
+arrival. But some one behind him appeared to be controlling them with
+murmured orders, and they finally obeyed him, lowering their eyes in
+submissive restraint.
+
+Ulysses soon tired of this silence. He was beginning to find his
+attitude of animal-tamer rather ridiculous. He did not know whom to
+assail in a place where they avoided his glance and all contact with
+him. On the nearest table there was an illustrated newspaper, and he
+took possession of it, turning its leaves. It was printed in German,
+but he pretended to read it with great interest.
+
+He had seated himself at the side, leaving free the hip on which his
+revolver was resting. His hand, feigning distraction, passed near the
+opening of his pocket, ready to take up arms in case of attack. In a
+little while he regretted this excessively swaggering posture. They
+were going to fall upon him, taking advantage of his reading. But pride
+made him remain motionless, that they might not suspect his uneasiness.
+
+Then he laughed in an insolent way as though he were reading in the
+German illustration something that was provoking his jibes. As though
+this were not enough, he raised his eyes with aggressive curiosity in
+order to study the portraits adorning the wall.
+
+Then he realized the great transformation which had just taken place in
+the bar. Almost all the customers had filed silently out during his
+reading. There remained only four blear-eyed drunkards who were
+guzzling with satisfaction, occupied with the contents of their
+glasses. _Hindenburg_, turning his mighty back upon his clientele, was
+reading an evening newspaper on the counter. The Andalusian, seated in
+the background, was looking at the captain, smiling. "There's an old
+sport for you!..." He was mentally chuckling over the fact that one of
+his countrymen had put to flight the brawling and brutal drinkers who
+gave him so much trouble on other evenings.
+
+Ulysses consulted his watch: half-past seven. Already he had driven
+away all those people that Freya was so afraid of. What was left to do
+here?... He paid and went out.
+
+Night had fallen. Under the light of the electric lamp posts street
+cars and automobiles were passing toward the interior of the city.
+Following the arcades of the old edifices near the harbor, groups of
+workers from the maritime establishments were filing by. Barcelona,
+dazzling with splendor, was attracting the crowds. The inner harbor,
+black and solitary, was filled with weak little lights twinkling from
+the heights of the masts.
+
+Ferragut stood undecided whether to go home to eat, or to a restaurant
+in the Rambla. Then he suspected that some of the fugitives from that
+dirty cafe were near, intending to follow him. In vain he glanced
+searchingly around: he could not recognize anybody in the groups that
+were reading the papers or conversing while waiting for the street car.
+
+Suddenly he felt a desire to see Toni. Uncle Caragol would improvise
+something to eat while the captain was telling his mate all about his
+adventure at the bar. Besides, it seemed to him a fitting finale to his
+escapade to offer to any enemies that might be following him a
+favorable occasion for attacking him on the deserted wharf. The demon
+of false pride was whispering in his ears: "Thus they will see that you
+are not afraid of them."
+
+And he marched resolutely toward the harbor, passing over railroad
+tracks outlining the walls of long storehouses and winding in and out
+among mountains of merchandise. At first he met little groups going
+toward the city, then pairs, then single individuals, finally
+nobody--absolute solitude.
+
+Further on, the darkness was cut by silhouettes of ebony that sometimes
+were boats and at others, alleyways of packages or hills of coal. The
+black water reflected the red and green serpents from the lights on the
+boats. A transatlantic liner was prolonging its loading operations by
+the light of its electric reflectors, standing forth out of the
+darkness with the gayety of a Venetian fiesta.
+
+From time to time a man of slow step would come within the circle of
+the street lamp, the muzzle of his gun gleaming. Others were lying in
+ambush among the mountains of cargo. They were custom-house men and
+guardians of the port.
+
+Suddenly the captain felt an instinctive warning. They were following
+him.... He stopped in the shadows, close to a pile of crates and saw
+some men advancing in his direction, passing rapidly over the edge of
+the red spot made by the electric bulbs, so as not to be under the rain
+of light.
+
+Although it was impossible for him to recognize them, he was positive,
+nevertheless, that they were the enemy seen at the bar.
+
+His ship was far away, near the end of the dock most deserted at that
+hour. "You've done an idiotic thing," he said mentally.
+
+He began to repent of his rashness, but it was now far too late to turn
+back. The city was further away than the steamer, and his enemies would
+fall upon him just as soon as they saw him going back. How many were
+there?... That was the only thing that troubled him.
+
+"Go on!... _Go on_!" cried his pride.
+
+He had drawn out his revolver and was carrying it in his right hand
+with the barrel to the front. In this solitude he could not count upon
+the conventions of civilized life. Night was swallowing him up with all
+the ambushed traps of a virgin forest while before his eyes was
+sparkling a great city, crowned with electric diamonds, throwing a halo
+of flame into the blackness of space.
+
+Three times the Carabineers passed near him, but he did not wish to
+speak to them. "Forward! Only women had to ask assistance...." Besides,
+perhaps he was under an hallucination: he really could not swear that
+they were in pursuit of him.
+
+After a few steps, this doubt vanished. His senses, sharpened by
+danger, had the same perception as has the wild boar who scents the
+pack of hounds trying to cross his tracks. At his right, was the water.
+At his left, men were prowling behind the mountains of freight, wishing
+to cut him off; behind were coming still others to prevent his retreat.
+
+He might run, advancing toward those who were trying to hem him in. But
+ought a man to run with a revolver in his hand?... Those who were
+coming behind would join in the pursuit. A human hunt was going to take
+place in the night, and he, Ferragut, would be the deer pursued by the
+low crowds from the bar. "Ah, no!..." The captain recalled von Kramer
+galloping miserably in full daylight along the wharves of
+Marseilles.... If they must kill him, let it not be in flight.
+
+He continued his advance with a rapid step, seeing through his enemies'
+plans. They did not wish to show themselves in that part of the harbor
+obstructed by mountains of cases, fearing that he might hide himself
+there. They would await him near his ship in a safe, hidden spot by
+which he would undoubtedly have to pass.
+
+"Forward!" he kept repeating to himself. "If I have to die, let it be
+within sight of the _Mare Nostrum!_" The steamer was near. He could
+recognize now its black silhouette fast to the wharf. At that moment
+the dog on board began to bark furiously, announcing the captain's
+presence and danger at the same time.
+
+He abandoned the shelter of a hillock of coal, advancing over an open
+space. He concentrated all his will power upon gaining his vessel as
+quickly as possible.
+
+A swift flame flashed out, followed by a report. They were already
+shooting at him. Other little lights began to twinkle from different
+sides of the dock, followed by reports of a gun. It was a sharp
+cross-fire; behind him, they were firing, too. He felt various
+whistlings near his ears, and received a blow on the shoulder,--a
+sensation like that from a hot stone.
+
+They were going to kill him. His enemies were too many for him. And,
+without knowing exactly what he was doing, yielding to instinct, he
+threw himself on the ground like a dying person.
+
+Some few shots were still sounding. Then all was silent. Only on the
+nearby ship the dog was continuing its howling.
+
+He saw a shadow advancing slowly toward him. It was a man, one of his
+enemies, coming out from the group in order to examine him at close
+range. He let him come close up to him, with his right hand grasping
+his revolver still intact.
+
+Suddenly he raised his arm, striking the head that was bending over
+him. Two lightning streaks flashed from his hand, separated by a brief
+interval. The first flitting blaze of fire made him see a familiar
+face.... Was it really Karl, the doctor's factotum?... The second
+explosion aided his memory. Yes, it was Karl, with his features
+disfigured by a black gash in the temple.... The German pulled himself
+up with an agonizing shudder, then fell on his back, with his arms
+relaxed.
+
+This vision was instantaneous. The captain must think only of himself
+now, and springing up with a bound, he ran and ran, bending himself
+double, in order to offer the enemy the least possible mark.
+
+He dreaded a general discharge, a hail of bullets; but his pursuers
+hesitated a few moments, confused in the darkness and not knowing
+surely whether it was the captain who had fallen a second time.
+
+Only upon seeing a man running toward the ship did they recognize their
+error, and renew their shots. Ferragut passed between the balls along
+the edge of the wharf, the whole length of the _Mare Nostrum_. His
+salvation was now but a matter of seconds provided that the crew had
+not drawn in the gangplank between the steamer and the shore.
+
+Suddenly he found himself on the gangplank, at the same time seeing a
+man advancing toward him with something gleaming in one hand. It was
+the mate who had just come out with his knife drawn.
+
+The captain feared that he might make a mistake.
+
+"Toni, it is I," he said in a voice almost breathless because of the
+effort of his running.
+
+Upon treading the deck of his vessel, he instantly recovered his
+tranquillity.
+
+Already the shots had ceased and the silence was ominous. In the
+distance could be heard whistlings, cries of alarm, the noise of
+running. The Carabineers and guards were called and grouped together in
+order to charge in the dark, marching toward the spot where the
+shooting had sounded.
+
+"Haul in the gangplank!" ordered Ferragut.
+
+The mate aided three of the hands who had just come up to retire the
+gangplank hastily. Then he threatened the dog, to make it cease
+howling.
+
+Ferragut, near the railing, scanned carefully the darkness of the quay.
+It seemed to him that he could see some men carrying another in their
+arms. A remnant of his wrath made him raise his right hand, still
+armed, aiming at the group. Then he lowered it again.... He remembered
+that officers would be coming to investigate the occurrence. It was
+better that they should find the boat absolutely silent.
+
+Still panting, he entered the saloon under the poop and sat down.
+
+As soon as he was within the circle of pale light that a hanging lamp
+spread upon the table Toni fixed his glance on his left shoulder.
+
+"Blood!..."
+
+"It's nothing.... Merely a scratch. The proof of it is that I can move
+my arm."
+
+And he moved it, although with a certain difficulty, feeling the weight
+of an increasing swelling.
+
+"By-and-by I'll tell you how it happened.... I don't believe they'll be
+anxious to repeat it."
+
+Then he remained thoughtful for an instant.
+
+"At any rate, it's best for us to get away from this port quickly....
+Go and see our men. Not one of them is to speak about it!... Call
+Caragol."
+
+Before Toni could go out, the shining countenance of the cook surged up
+out of the obscurity. He was on his way to the saloon, without being
+called, anxious to know what had occurred, and fearing to find Ferragut
+dying. Seeing the blood, his consternation expressed itself with
+maternal vehemence.
+
+"_Cristo del Grao!_... My captain's going to die!..."
+
+He wanted to run to the galley in search of cotton and bandages. He was
+something of a quack doctor and always kept things necessary for such
+cases.
+
+Ulysses stopped him. He would accept his services, but he wished
+something more.
+
+"I want to eat, Uncle Caragol," he said gayly. "I shall be content with
+whatever you have.... Fright has given me an appetite."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"FAREWELL, I AM GOING TO DIE"
+
+When Ferragut left Barcelona the wound in his shoulder was already
+nearly healed. The rotund negative given by the captain and his pilot
+to the questions of the Carabineers freed them from further annoyance.
+They "knew nothing,--had seen nothing." The captain received with
+feigned indifference the news that the dead body of a man had been
+found that very night,--a man who appeared to be a German, but without
+papers, without anything that assured his identification,--on a dock
+some distance from the berth occupied by the _Mare Nostrum_. The
+authorities had not considered it worth while to investigate further,
+classifying it as a simple struggle among refugees.
+
+Provisioning the troops of the Orient obliged Ferragut, in the months
+following, to sail as part of a convoy. A cipher dispatch would
+sometimes summon him to Marseilles, at others to an Atlantic
+port,--Saint-Nazaire, Quiberon, or Brest.
+
+Every few days ships of different class and nationality were arriving.
+There were those that displayed their aristocratic origin by the fine
+line of the prow, the slenderness of the smokestacks and the still
+white color of their upper decks: they were like the high-priced steeds
+that war had transformed into simple beasts of battle. Former
+mail-packets, swift racers of the waves, had descended to the humble
+service of transport boats. Others, black and dirty, with the pitchy
+plaster of hasty reparation and a consumptive smokestack on an enormous
+hull, plowed along, coughing smoke, spitting ashes, panting with the
+jangle of old iron. The flags of the Allies and those of the neutral
+navies waved on the different ships. Reuniting, they formed a convoy in
+the broad bay. There were fifteen or twenty steamers, sometimes thirty,
+which had to navigate together, adjusting their different speeds to a
+common pace. The cargo boats, merchant steamers that made only a few
+knots an hour, exacted a desperate slowness of the rest of the convoy.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ had to sail at half speed, making its captain very
+impatient with these monotonous and dangerous peregrinations, extending
+over weeks and weeks.
+
+Before setting out, Ferragut, like all the other captains, would
+receive sealed and stamped orders. These were from the Commodore of the
+convoy,--the commander of a torpedo destroyer, or a simple officer of
+the Naval Reserve in charge of a motor trawler armed with a quickfiring
+gun.
+
+The steamers would begin belching smoke and hoisting anchors without
+knowing whither they were going. The official document was opened only
+at the moment of departure. Ulysses would break the seals and examine
+the paper, understanding with facility its formal language, written in
+a common cipher. The first thing that he would look out for was the
+port of destination, then, the order of formation. They were to sail in
+single file or in a double row, according to the number of vessels. The
+_Mare Nostrum_, represented by a certain number, was to navigate
+between two other numbers which were those of the nearest steamers.
+They were to keep between them a distance of about five hundred yards;
+it was important that they should not come any nearer in a moment of
+carelessness, nor prolong the line so that they would be out of sight
+of the watchful guardians.
+
+At the end, the general instructions for all the voyages were repeated
+with a laconic brevity that would have made other men, not accustomed
+to look death in the face, turn pale. In case of a submarine attack,
+the transports that carried guns were to come out from the line and aid
+the patrol of armed vessels, attacking the enemy. The others were to
+continue their course tranquilly, without paying any attention to the
+attack. If the boat in front of them or the one following was
+torpedoed, they were not to stop to give it aid. The torpedo boats and
+"chaluteros" were charged with saving the wrecked ship if it were
+possible. The duty of the transport was always to go forward, blind and
+deaf, without getting out of line, without stopping, until it had
+delivered at the terminal port the fortune stowed in its holds.
+
+This march in convoy imposed by the submarine war represented a leap
+backward in the life of the sea. It recalled to Ferragut's mind the
+sailing fleets of other centuries, escorted by navies in line,
+punctuating their course by incessant battles, and the remote voyages
+of the galleons of the Indies, setting forth from Seville in fleets
+when bound for the coast of the New World.
+
+The double file of black hulks with plumes of smoke advanced very
+placidly in fair weather. When the day was gray, the sea choppy, the
+sky and the atmosphere foggy, they would scatter and leap about like a
+troop of dark and frightened lambs. The guardians of the convoy, three
+little boats that were going at full speed, were the vigilant mastiffs
+of this marine herd, preceding it in order to explore the horizon,
+remaining behind it, or marching beside it in order to keep the
+formation intact. Their lightness and their swiftness enabled them to
+make prodigious bounds over the waves. A girdle of smoke curled itself
+around their double smokestacks. Their prows when not hidden were
+expelling cascades of foam, sometimes even showing the dripping
+forefoot of the keel.
+
+At night time they would all travel with few lights, simple lanterns at
+the prow, as warning to the one just ahead, and another one at the
+stern, to point out the route to the ship following. These faint lights
+could scarcely be seen. Oftentimes the helmsman would suddenly have to
+turn his course and demand slackened speed behind, seeing the
+silhouette of the boat ahead looming up in the darkness. A few moments
+of carelessness and it would come in on the prow with a deadly ram.
+Upon slowing down, the captain always looked behind uneasily, fearing
+in turn to collide with his following ship.
+
+They were all thinking about the invisible submarines. From time to
+time would sound the report of the guns; the convoy's escort was
+shooting and shooting, going from one side to the other with agile
+evolutions. The enemy had fled like wolves before the barking of
+watch-dogs. On other occasions it would prove a false alarm, and the
+shells would wound the desert water with a lashing of steel.
+
+There was an enemy more troublesome than the tempest, more terrible
+than the torpedoes, that disorganized the convoys. It was the fog,
+thick and pale as the white of an egg, enshrouding the vessels, making
+them navigate blindly in full daylight, filling space with the useless
+moaning of their sirens, not letting them see the water which sustained
+them nor the nearby boats that might emerge at any moment from the
+blank atmosphere, announcing their apparition with a collision and a
+tremendous, deadly crash. In this way the merchant fleets had to
+proceed entire days together and when, at the end, they found
+themselves free from this wet blanket, breathing with satisfaction as
+though awaking from a nightmare, another ashy and nebulous wall would
+come advancing over the waters enveloping them anew in its night. The
+most valorous and calm men would swear upon seeing the endless bar of
+mist closing off the horizon.
+
+Such voyages were not at all to Ferragut's taste. Marching in line like
+a soldier, and having to conform to the speed of these miserable little
+boats irritated him greatly, and it made him still more wrathful to
+find himself obliged to obey the Commodore of a convoy who frequently
+was nobody but an old sailor of masterful character.
+
+Because of all this he announced to the maritime authorities, on one of
+his arrivals at Marseilles, his firm intention of not sailing any more
+in this fashion. He had had enough with four such expeditions which
+were all well enough for timid captains incapable of leaving a port
+unless they always had in sight an escort of torpedo-boats, and whose
+crews at the slightest occurrence would try to lower the lifeboats and
+take refuge on the coast. He believed that he would be more secure
+going alone, trusting to his skill, with no other aid than his profound
+knowledge of the routes of the Mediterranean.
+
+His petition was granted. He was the owner of a vessel and they were
+afraid of losing his cooeperation when means of transportation were
+growing so very scarce. Besides, the _Mare Nostrum_, on account of its
+high speed, deserved individual employment in extraordinary and rapid
+service.
+
+He remained in Marseilles some weeks waiting for a cargo of howitzers,
+and meandered as usual around the Mediterranean capital. He passed the
+evenings on the terrace of a cafe of the _Cannebiere_. The recollection
+of von Kramer always loomed up in his mind at such times. "I wonder if
+they have shot him!..." He wished to know, but his investigations did
+not meet with much success. War Councils avoid publicity regarding
+their acts of justice. A Marseilles merchant, a friend of Ferragut,
+seemed to recall that some months before a German spy, surprised in the
+harbor, had been executed. Three lines, no more, in the newspapers,
+gave an account of his death. They said that he was an officer.... And
+his friend went on talking about the war news while Ulysses was
+thinking that the executed man could not have been any one else but von
+Kramer.
+
+On that same afternoon he had an encounter. While passing through the
+street of _Saint-Ferreol_, looking at the show windows, the cries of
+several conductors of cabs and automobiles who could not manage to
+drive their vehicles through the narrow and crowded streets, attracted
+his attention. In one carriage he saw a blonde lady with her back to
+him, accompanied by two officers of the English navy. Immediately he
+thought of Freya.... Her hat, her gown, everything about her
+personality, was so very distinctive. And yet, when the coach had
+passed on without his being able to get a glimpse of the face of the
+stranger, the image of the adventuress persisted in his mind.
+
+Finally he became very much irritated with himself, because of this
+absurd resemblance suspected without any reason whatever. How could
+that English-woman with the two officers be Freya?... How could a
+German refugee in Barcelona manage to slip into France where she was
+undoubtedly known by the military police?... And still more
+exasperating was his suspicion that this resemblance might have
+awakened a remnant of the old love which made him see Freya in every
+blonde woman.
+
+At nine o'clock the following morning, while the captain was in his
+stateroom dressing to go ashore, Toni opened the door.
+
+His face was scowling and timid at the same time, as though he had some
+bad news to give.
+
+"That creature is here," he said laconically.
+
+Ferragut looked at him with a questioning expression: "_What_
+creature?..."
+
+"Who else could it be?... The one from Naples! That blonde devil that
+brought us all so much trouble!... We'll see now if this witch is going
+to keep us immovable for I don't know how many weeks just as she did
+the other time."
+
+He excused himself as though he had just failed in discipline. The boat
+was fastened to the wharf by a bridgeway and anybody could come aboard.
+The pilot was opposed to these dockings which left the passage free to
+the curious and the importunate. By the time he had finished announcing
+her arrival, the lady was already on deck near the staterooms. She
+remembered well the way to the saloon. She had wished to go straight
+in, but it had been Caragol who had stopped her, while Toni went to
+advise the captain.
+
+"_Cristo_!" murmured Ulysses. "_Cristo!_..."
+
+And his astonishment, his surprise, did not permit him to utter any
+other exclamation.
+
+Then he burst out furiously. "Throw her overboard!... Let two men lay
+hold of her and put her back on the wharf, by main force, if
+necessary."
+
+But Toni hesitated, not daring to comply with such commands. And the
+impetuous Ferragut rushed outside of his cabin to do himself what had
+been ordered.
+
+When he reached the saloon some one entered at the same time from the
+deck. It was Caragol, who was trying to block the passage of a woman;
+but she, laughing and taking advantage of his purblind eyes, was
+slipping little by little in between his body and the wooden partition.
+
+On seeing the captain, Freya ran toward him, throwing out her arms.
+
+"You!" she cried in a merry voice. "I knew well enough that you were
+here, in spite of the fact that these men were assuring me to the
+contrary.... My heart told me so.... How do you do, Ulysses!"
+
+Caragol turned his eyes toward the place where he supposed the mate
+must be, as though imploring his pardon. With females he never could
+carry out any order.... Toni, on his part, appeared in an agony of
+shame before this woman who was looking at him defiantly.
+
+The two disappeared. Ferragut was not able to say exactly how they got
+away, but he was glad of it. He feared that the recent arrival might
+allude in their presence to the things of the past.
+
+He remained contemplating her a long time. He had believed the day
+before that he had recognized her back, and now he was sure that he
+might have passed on with indifference had he seen her face. Was this
+really the same woman that the two English officials were
+accompanying?... She appeared much taller than the other one, with a
+slenderness that made her skin appear more clear, giving it a delicate
+transparency. The nose was finer and more prominent. The eyes were
+sparkling, hidden in bluish black circles.
+
+These eyes began to look at the captain, humbly and pleadingly.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Ulysses in wonder. "You!... What are you coming here
+for?"...
+
+Freya replied with the timidity of a bondslave. Yes, it was she who had
+recognized him the day before, long before he had seen her, and at once
+had formed the plan of coming in search of him. He could beat her just
+as at their last meeting: she was ready to suffer everything ... but
+with him!
+
+"Save me, Ulysses! Take me with you!... I implore you even more
+anxiously than in Barcelona."
+
+"What are you doing here?..."
+
+She understood the captain's amazement on meeting her in a belligerent
+country, the disquietude he must naturally feel upon finding a spy on
+his vessel. She looked around in order to make sure that they were
+entirely alone and spoke in a low voice. The doctor had sent her to
+France in order that she should "operate" in its ports. Only to him
+could she reveal the secret.
+
+Ulysses was more indignant than ever at this confidence.
+
+"Clear out!" he said in a wrathful voice. "I don't want to know
+anything about you.... Your affairs do not interest me at all. I do not
+wish to know them.... Get out of here! What are you plaguing me for?"
+
+But she did not appear disposed to comply with his orders. Instead of
+departing, she dropped wearily down on one of the divans of the
+stateroom.
+
+"I have come," she said, "to beg you to save me. I ask it for the last
+time.... I'm going to die; I suspect that my end is very near if you
+will not hold out a helping hand; I foresee the vengeance of my own
+people.... Guard me, Ulysses! Do not make me go back ashore; I am
+afraid.... So safe I shall feel here at your side!..."
+
+Fear, sure enough, was reflected in her eyes as she recalled the last
+months of her life in Barcelona.
+
+"The doctor is my enemy.... She who protected me so in other times
+abandons me now like an old shoe that it is necessary to get rid of. I
+am positive that her superior officers have condemned me...."
+
+She shuddered on remembering the doctor's wrath when on her return from
+one of her trips she learned of the death of her faithful Karl. To her,
+Captain Ferragut was a species of invulnerable and victorious demon who
+was escaping all dangers and murdering the servants of a good cause.
+First von Kramer; now Karl.... As it was necessary for her to vent her
+wrath on somebody, she had made Freya responsible for all her
+misfortunes. Through her she had known the captain, and had mixed him
+up in the affairs of the "service."
+
+Thirst for vengeance made the imposing dame smile with a ferocious
+expression. The Spanish sailor was doomed by the Highest Command.
+Precise orders had been given out against him. "As to his
+accomplices!..." Freya was figuring undoubtedly among these accomplices
+for having dared to defend Ferragut, for remembering the tragic event
+of his son, for having refused to join the chorus desiring his
+extermination.
+
+Weeks afterwards the doctor again became as smiling and as amiable as
+in other times. "My dear girl, it is agreed that you should take a trip
+to France. We need there an agent who will keep us informed of the
+traffic of the ports, of the goings and comings of the vessels in order
+that our submersibles may know where to await them. The naval officials
+are very gallant, and a beautiful woman will be able to gain their
+affection."
+
+She had tried to disobey. To go to France!... where her pre-war work
+was already known!... To go back to danger when she had already become
+accustomed to the safe life of a neutral country!... But her attempts
+at resistance were ineffectual. She lacked sufficient will-power; the
+"service" had converted her into an automaton.
+
+"And here I am, suspecting that probably I am going to my death, but
+fulfilling the commissions given to me, struggling to be accommodating
+and retard in this way the fulfillment of their vengeance.... I am like
+a condemned criminal who knows that he is going to die, and tries to
+make himself so necessary that his sentence will be delayed for a few
+months."
+
+"How did you get into France?" he demanded, paying no attention to her
+doleful tones.
+
+"Freya shrugged her shoulders. In her business a change of nationality
+was easily accomplished. At present she was passing for a citizen of a
+South American republic. The doctor had arranged all the papers
+necessary to enable her to cross the frontier.
+
+"But here," she continued, "my accomplices have me more securely than
+as though I were in prison. They have given me the means of coming here
+and they only can arrange my departure. I am absolutely in their power.
+I wonder what they are going to do with me!..."
+
+At certain times terror had suggested most desperate expedients to her.
+She had thought of denouncing herself, of appearing before the French
+authorities, telling them her story and acquainting them with the
+secrets which she possessed. But her past filled her with terror, so
+many were the evils which she had brought against this country. Perhaps
+they might pardon her life, taking into account her voluntary action in
+giving herself up. But the prison, the seclusion with shaved head,
+dressed in some coarse serge frock, condemned to silence, perhaps
+suffering hunger and cold, filled her with invincible repulsion.... No,
+death before that!
+
+And so she was continuing her life as a spy, shutting her eyes to the
+future, living only in the present, trying to keep from thinking,
+considering herself happy if she could see before her even a few days
+of security.
+
+The meeting with Ferragut in the street of Marseilles had revived her
+drooping spirits, arousing new hope.
+
+"Get me out of here; keep me with you. On your ship I could live as
+forgotten by the world as though I were dead.... And if my presence
+annoys you, take me far away from France, leave me in some distant
+country!"
+
+She was anxious to evade isolation in the enemy's territory, obliged to
+obey her superiors like a caged beast who has to take jabs through the
+iron grating. Presentiment of her approaching death was making her
+tremble.
+
+"I do not want to die, Ulysses!... I am not old enough yet to die. I
+adore my physical charm. I am my own best lover and I am terrified at
+the thought that I might be shot."
+
+A phosphorescent light gleamed from her eyes and her teeth struck
+together with a chattering of terror.
+
+"I do not want to die!" she repeated. "There are moments in which I
+suspect that they are following me and closing me in.... Perhaps they
+have recognized me and at this moment are waiting to surprise me in the
+very act.... Do help me; get me away from here; my death is certain. I
+have done so much harm!..."
+
+She was silent a moment, as though calculating all the crimes of her
+former life.
+
+"The doctor," she continued, "depends upon her consuming patriotic
+enthusiasm as the impetus to her work. I lack her faith. I am not a
+German woman, and being a spy is very repugnant to me.... I feel
+ashamed when I think of my actual life; every night I think over the
+result of my abominable work; I calculate the use to which they will
+put my warnings and my information; I can see the torpedoed boats.... I
+wonder how many human beings have perished through my fault!... I have
+visions; my conscience torments me. Save me!... I can do no more. I
+feel a horrible fear. I have so much to expiate!..."
+
+Little by little she had raised herself from the divan, and, while
+begging Ferragut's protection, was going toward him with outstretched
+arms; abject, and yet at the same time caressing, through that desire
+of seduction that always predominated over all her acts.
+
+"Leave me!" shouted the sailor. "Do not come near me.... Do not touch
+me!"
+
+He felt that same wrath that had made him so brutal in their interview
+in Barcelona. He was greatly exasperated at the tenacity of this
+adventuress who, in addition to the tragic influence she had already
+exercised upon his life, was now trying to compromise him still
+further.
+
+But a sentiment of cold compassion made him check his anger and speak
+with a certain kindness.
+
+If she needed money in order to make her escape, he would give it to
+her without any haggling whatever. She could name the sum. The captain
+was disposed to satisfy all her desires except that of living with her.
+He would give her a substantial amount in order to make her fortune
+assured and never see her again.
+
+Freya made a gesture of protest at the same time that the sailor began
+repenting of his generosity.... Why should he do such a favor to a
+woman who reminded him of the death of his son?... What was there in
+common between the two?... Their vile love-affair in Naples had been
+sufficiently paid for with his bereavement.... Let each one follow his
+own destiny; they belonged to different worlds.... Was he going to have
+to defend himself all his life long from this insistent charmer?...
+
+Moreover, he was not at all sure that even now she was telling the
+truth.... Everything about her was false. He did not even know with
+certainty her true name and her past existence....
+
+"Clear out!" he roared in a threatening tone. "Leave me in peace."
+
+He raised his powerful hand against her, seeing that she was going to
+refuse to obey. He was going to pick her up roughly, carry her like a
+light bundle outside the room, outside the boat, flinging her away as
+though she were remorse.
+
+But her physique, so opulent in its seductions, now inspired him with
+an unconquerable repugnance; he was afraid of its contact and wished to
+avoid its electric surprises.... Besides, he wasn't going to maltreat
+her at every meeting like a professional Apache who mixes love and
+blows. He recalled with disgust his violence in Barcelona.
+
+And as Freya instead of going away sank back on the divan, with a
+faintness that seemed to challenge his wrath, it was he who fled in
+order to bring the interview to an end.
+
+He rushed into his stateroom, locking the door with a bang. This flight
+brought her out of her inertia. She wished to follow him with the leap
+of a young panther, but her hands collided with an obstacle that became
+impassable, while from within sounded the noise of keys and bolts.
+
+She pounded the door desperately, injuring her fists with her fruitless
+efforts.
+
+"Ulysses, open it!... Listen to me."
+
+In vain she shrieked as though she were giving an order, exasperated at
+finding that she was not obeyed. Her fury spent itself unavailingly
+against the solid immovability of the wood. Suddenly she began to cry,
+modifying her purpose upon finding herself as weak and defenseless as
+an abandoned creature. All her life appeared concentrated in her tears
+and in her pleading voice.
+
+She passed her fingers over the door, groping over the moldings,
+slipping them over the varnished surface as though seeking at random a
+crevice, a hole, something that would permit her to get to the man that
+was on the other side.
+
+Instinctively she fell upon her knees, putting her mouth to the
+keyhole.
+
+"My lord, my master!" she murmured in the voice of a beggar. "Open the
+door.... Do not abandon me. Remember that I am going to my death if you
+do not save me."
+
+Ferragut heard her, and, in order to evade her moaning, was getting as
+near as possible to the end of his stateroom. Then he unfastened the
+round window that opened on the deck, ordering a seaman to go after the
+mate.
+
+"_Don Antoni! Don Antoni!_" various voices cried the whole length of
+the ship.
+
+Toni appeared, putting his face in the circular opening only to receive
+the furious vituperation of his captain.
+
+Why had they left him alone with that woman?... They must take her off
+the boat at once, even if it had to be done by main force.... He
+commanded it.
+
+The mate went off with a confounded air, scratching his beard as though
+he had received an order very difficult to execute.
+
+"Save me, my love!" the imploring whisper kept moaning. "Forget who I
+am.... Think only of the one of Naples.... Of the one whom you knew at
+Pompeii.... Remember our happiness alone together in the days when you
+swore never to abandon me.... You are a gentleman!..."
+
+Her voice ceased for a moment. Ferragut heard footsteps on the other
+side of the door. Toni was carrying out his orders.
+
+But in a few seconds the pleading again burst forth, reconcentrated,
+tenacious, bent only upon carrying its point, scorning the new
+obstacles about to interpose between her and the captain.
+
+"Do you hate me so?... Remember the bliss that I gave you. You yourself
+swore to me that you had never been so happy. I can revive that past.
+You do not know of what things I am capable in order to make your
+existence sweet.... And you wish to lose and to ruin me!..."
+
+A clash against the door was heard, a struggle of bodies that were
+pushing each other, the friction of a scuffle against the wood.
+
+Toni had entered followed by Caragol.
+
+"Enough of that now, Senora," said the mate in a grim voice in order to
+hide his emotion. "Can't you see that the captain doesn't want to see
+you?... Don't you understand that you are disturbing him?... Come,
+now.... Get up!"
+
+He tried to help her to stand up, separating her mouth from the
+keyhole. But Freya repelled the vigorous sailor with facility. He
+appeared to be lacking in force, without the courage to repeat his
+rough action. The beauty of this woman made him afraid. He was still
+thrilled by the contact of her firm body which he had just torched
+during their short struggle. His drowsing virtue had suffered the
+torments of a fruitless resurrection. "Ah, no!... Let somebody else
+take charge of putting her off."
+
+"Ulysses, they're taking me away!" she cried, again putting her mouth
+to the keyhole. "And you, my love, will you permit it?... You who used
+to love me so?..."
+
+After this desperate call, she remained silent for a few instants. The
+door maintained its immobility; behind it there seemed to be no living
+being.
+
+"Farewell!" she continued in a low voice, her throat choked with sobs,
+"you will see me no more.... I am soon going to die; my heart tells me
+so.... To die because of you!... Perhaps some day you will weep on
+recalling that you might have saved me."
+
+Some one had intervened to force Freya from her rebellious standstill.
+It was Caragol, solicited by the mate's imploring eyes.
+
+His great hairy hands helped her to arise, without making her repeat
+the protest that had repelled Toni. Conquered and bursting into tears,
+she appeared to yield to the paternal aid and counsel of the cook.
+
+"Up now, my good lady!" said Caragol. "A little more courage and don't
+cry any more.... There is some consolation for everything in this
+world."
+
+In his bulky right hand he imprisoned her two, and, passing his other
+arm around her waist, he was guiding her little by little toward the
+exit from the salon.
+
+"Trust in God," he added. "Why do you seek the captain who has his own
+wife ashore?... Other men who are free are still in existence, and you
+could make some arrangement with them without falling into mortal sin."
+
+Freya was not listening to him. Near the door she again turned her
+head, beginning her return toward the captain's stateroom.
+
+"Ulysses!... Ulysses!" she cried.
+
+"Trust in God, Senora," said Caragol again, while he was pushing her
+along with his flabby abdomen and shaggy breast.
+
+A charitable idea was taking possession of his thoughts. He had the
+remedy for the grief of this handsome woman whose desperation but made
+her more interesting.
+
+"Come along, Senora.... Leave it to me, my child."
+
+Upon reaching the deck he continued driving her towards his dominions.
+Freya found herself seated in the galley, without knowing just exactly
+where she was. Through her tears she saw this obese old man of
+sacerdotal benevolence, going from side to side gathering bottles
+together and mixing liquids, stirring the spoon around in a glass with
+a joyous tinkling.
+
+"Drink without fear.... There is no trouble that resists this
+medicine."
+
+The cook offered her a glass and she, vanquished, drank and drank,
+making a wry face because of the alcoholic intensity of the liquid. She
+continued weeping at the same time that her mouth was relishing the
+heavy sweetness. Her tears were mingled with the beverage that was
+slipping between her lips.
+
+A comfortable warmth began making itself felt in her stomach, drying up
+the moisture in her eyes and giving new color to her cheeks. Caragol
+was keeping up his chat, satisfied with the outcome of his handiwork,
+making signs to the glowering Toni,--who was passing and repassing
+before the door, with the vehement desire of seeing the intruder march
+away, and disappear forever.
+
+"Don't cry any more, my daughter.... _Cristo del Grao!_ The very idea!
+A lady as pretty as you, who can find sweethearts by the dozen,
+crying!... Believe me; find somebody else. This world is just full of
+men with nothing to do.... And always for every disappointment that you
+suffer, have recourse to my cordial.... I am going to give you the
+recipe."
+
+He was about to note down on a bit of paper the proportions of brandy
+and sugar, when she arose, suddenly invigorated, looking around her in
+wonder.... But where was she? What had she to do with this good, kind,
+half-dressed man, who was talking to her as though he were her
+father?...
+
+"Thanks! Many thanks!" she said on leaving the kitchen.
+
+Then on deck she stopped, opening her gold-mesh bag, in order to take
+out the little glass and powder box. In the beveled edge of the oval
+glass she saw the faun-like countenance of Toni hovering behind her
+with glances of impatience.
+
+"Tell Captain Ferragut that I shall never trouble him again.... All has
+ended.... Perhaps he may hear me spoken of some time, but he will never
+see me again."
+
+And she left the boat without turning her head, with quickened step as
+though, fired by a sudden suggestion, she were hastening to put it into
+effect.
+
+Toni ran also, but toward Ulysses' stateroom window.
+
+"Has she gone yet?" asked the captain impatiently.
+
+The mate nodded his head. She had promised not to return.
+
+"Be it so!" said Ferragut.
+
+Toni experienced the same desire. Would to God they might never again
+see this blonde who always brought them misfortune!...
+
+In the days following, the captain rarely left his ship. He did not
+wish to run the risk of meeting her in the city streets for he was a
+little doubtful of the hardness of his character. He feared that upon
+seeing her again, weeping and pleading, he might yield to her
+beseeching.
+
+Ulysses' uneasiness vanished as soon as the loading of the vessel was
+finished. This trip was going to be shorter than the others. The _Mare
+Nostrum_ went to Corfu with war material for the Serbs who were
+reorganizing their battalions destined for Salonica.
+
+On the return trip Ferragut was attacked by the enemy. One day at dawn
+just as he mounted the bridge to relieve Toni, the two spied at the
+same time the tangible form that they were always seeing in
+imagination. Within the circle of their glasses there framed itself the
+end of a stick, black and upright, that was cutting the waters rosy in
+the sunrise, leaving a wake of foam.
+
+"Submarine!" shouted the captain.
+
+Toni said nothing, but shoving aside the helmsman with a stroke of his
+paw, he grasped the wheel, making the boat swerve in another direction.
+The movement was opportune. Only a few seconds had passed by when there
+began to be seen upon the water a black back of dizzying speed headed
+directly for the steamer.
+
+"Torpedo!" shouted the captain.
+
+The anxious waiting lasted but a few seconds. The projectile, hidden in
+the water, passed some six yards from the stern, losing itself in
+space. Had it not been for Toni's rapid tacking, the boat would have
+been hit squarely in the side.
+
+Through the speaking tube connecting with the engine-room the captain
+shouted energetic orders to put on full speed. Meanwhile the mate,
+clamped to the wheel, ready to die rather than leave it, was directing
+the boat in zigzags so as not to offer a fixed point to the submarine.
+
+All the crew were watching from the rail the distant and insignificant
+upright periscope. The third officer had rushed out of his stateroom,
+almost naked, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Caragol was in the stern, his
+loose shirt-tail flapping away as he held one hand to his eyebrows like
+a visor.
+
+"I see it!... I see it perfectly.... Ah, the bandit, the heretic!"
+
+And he extended his threatening fist toward a point in the horizon
+exactly opposite to the one upon which the periscope was appearing.
+
+Through the blue circle of the glasses Ferragut saw this tube climbing
+up and up, growing larger and larger. It was no longer a stick, it was
+a tower; and from beneath this tower was coming up on the sea a base of
+steel spouting cascades of smoke,--a gray whale-back that appeared
+little by little to be taking the form of a sailing vessel, long and
+sharp-pointed.
+
+A flag was suddenly run up upon the submarine. Ulysses recognized it.
+
+"They are going to shell us!" he yelled to Toni. "It's useless to keep
+up the zigzagging. The thing to do now is to outspeed them, to go
+forward in a straight line."
+
+The mate, skillful helmsman that he was, obeyed the captain. The hull
+vibrated under the force of the engines taxed to their utmost. Their
+prow was cutting the waters with increasing noise. The submersible upon
+augmenting its volume by emersion appeared, nevertheless, to be falling
+behind on the horizon. Two streaks of foam began to spring up on both
+sides of its prow. It was running with all its possible surface speed;
+but the _Mare Nostrum_ was also going at the utmost limit of its
+engines and the distance was widening between the two boats.
+
+"They are shooting!" said Ferragut with the glasses to his eyes.
+
+A column of water spouted near the prow. That was the only thing that
+Caragol was able to see clearly and he burst into applause with a
+childish joy. Then he waved on high his palm-leaf hat. "_Viva el Santo
+Cristo del Grao!_..."
+
+Other projectiles were falling around the _Mare Nostrum_, spattering it
+with jets of foam. Suddenly it trembled from poop to prow. Its plates
+trembled with the vibration of an explosion.
+
+"That's nothing!" yelled the captain, bending himself double over the
+bridge in order to see better the hull of his ship. "A shell in the
+stern. Steady, Toni!..."
+
+The mate, always grasping the wheel, kept turning his head from time to
+time to measure the distance separating them from the submarine. Every
+time that he saw an aquatic column of spray, forced up by a projectile,
+he would repeat the same counsel.
+
+"Lie down, Ulysses!... They are going to fire at the bridge!"
+
+This was a recollection of his far-away youth when, as a contrabandist,
+he used to stretch himself flat on the deck of his bark, manipulating
+the wheel and the sail under the fire of the custom-house officers on
+watch. He feared for the life of his captain while he was standing,
+constantly offering himself to the shots of the enemy.
+
+Ferragut was storming from side to side, cursing his lack of means for
+returning the aggression. "This will never happen another time!... They
+won't get another chance to amuse themselves chasing me!"
+
+A second projectile opened another breach in the poop. "If it only
+won't hit the engines!" the captain was thinking. After that the _Mare
+Nostrum_ received no more damage, the following shots merely raising up
+columns of water in the steamer's wake. Every time now, these white
+phantasms leaped up further and further away. Although out of the range
+of the enemy's gun, it continued shooting and shooting uselessly.
+Finally the firing ceased and the submarine disappeared from the view
+of the glasses and completely submerged, tired of vain pursuit.
+
+"That'll never happen again!" the captain kept repeating. "They'll
+never attack me another time with impunity!"
+
+Then it occurred to him that this submarine had attack him knowing just
+who he was. On the side of his vessel were painted the colors of Spain.
+At the first shot from the gun, the third officer had hoisted the flag,
+but the shots did not cease on that account. They had wished to sink it
+"without leaving any trace." He believed that Freya, in her relations
+with the directors of the submarine campaign, must have advised them of
+his trip.
+
+"Ah,... _tal!_ If I meet her another time!..."
+
+He had to remain several weeks in Marseilles while the damage to his
+steamer was being repaired.
+
+As Toni lacked occupation during this enforced idleness, he accompanied
+him many times on his strolls. They liked to seat themselves on the
+terrace of a cafe in order to comment upon the picturesque differences
+in the cosmopolitan crowd.
+
+"Look; people from our own country!" said the captain one evening.
+
+And he pointed to three seamen drawn into the current of different
+uniforms and types of various races flowing familiarly around the
+tables of the cafe.
+
+He had recognized them by their silk caps with visors, their blue
+jackets and their heavy obesity of Mediterranean sailors enjoying a
+certain prosperity. They must be skippers of small boats.
+
+As though Ferragut's looks and gestures had mysteriously notified them,
+the three turned, fixing their eyes on the captain. Then they began to
+discuss among themselves with a vehemence which made it easy to guess
+their words.
+
+"It is he!..." "No, it isn't!..."
+
+Those men knew him but couldn't believe that they were really seeing
+him.
+
+They went a little way off with marked indecision, turning repeatedly
+to look at him once more. In a few moments one of them, the oldest,
+returned, approaching the table timidly.
+
+"Excuse me, but aren't you Captain Ferragut?..." He asked this question
+in Valencian, with his right hand at his cap, ready to take it off.
+
+Ulysses stopped his salutation and offered him a seat. Yes, he was
+Ferragut. What did he want?...
+
+The man refused to sit down. He wished to tell him privately two
+special things. When the captain presented to him his mate as a man in
+whom they could have complete confidence, he then sat down. The two
+companions, breaking through the human current, were standing on the
+edge of the sidewalk, turning their backs to the cafe.
+
+He was skipper of a small craft; Ferragut had not been mistaken. He was
+speaking slowly, as though taken up with his final revelation to which
+all that he was saying was merely an introduction.
+
+"The times are not so bad.... Money is to be gained in the sea; more
+than ever. I am from Valencia.... We have brought three boats from
+there with wine and rice. A good trip, but it was necessary to navigate
+close to the coast, following the curve of the gulf, without venturing
+to pass from cape to cape for fear of the submarine.... I have met a
+submarine."
+
+Ulysses suspected that these last words contained the real motive which
+had made the man, overcoming his timidity, venture to address him.
+
+"It was not on this trip nor on the one before," continued the man of
+the sea. "I met it two days before last Christmas. In the winter I
+devote myself to fishing. I am the owner of a pair of fishing
+smacks.... We were near the island Columbretas when suddenly we saw a
+submarine appear near us. The Germans did not do us any harm; the only
+vexatious thing was that we had to give them a part of our fish for
+what they wished to give us. Then they ordered me to come aboard the
+deck of a submarine in order to meet the commander. He was a young
+fellow who could talk Castilian as I have heard it spoken over there in
+the Americas when I was a youngster sailing on a brigantine."
+
+The man stopped, rather reserved, as though doubtful whether to
+continue his story.
+
+"And what did the German say?" asked Ferragut, in order to encourage
+him to continue.
+
+"Upon learning that I was a Valencian, he asked me if I was acquainted
+with you. He asked me about your steamer, wanting to know if it
+generally sailed along the Spanish coast. I replied that I knew you by
+name, no more, and then he ..."
+
+The captain encouraged him with a smile on seeing that he was beginning
+to hesitate again.
+
+"He spoke badly about me. Isn't that so?..."
+
+"Yes, sir; very badly. He used ugly words. He said that he had an
+account to adjust with you and that he wished to be the first one to
+meet you. According to what he gave me to understand, the other
+submarines are hunting for you, too.... It is an order without doubt."
+
+Ferragut and his mate exchanged a long look. Meanwhile the captain
+continued his explanations.
+
+The two friends who were waiting a few steps off had seen the captain
+in Valencia and Barcelona many times. One of them had recognized him
+immediately; but the other was doubtful whether it might be he, and, as
+a matter of conscience, the old skipper had come back to give him this
+warning.
+
+"We countrymen must help one another.... These are bad times!"
+
+Seeing him standing, his two comrades now came up to Ferragut. "What
+would you like to drink?" He invited them to seat themselves at the
+table, but they were in a hurry. They were on their way to see the
+consignees of their boats.
+
+"Now you know it, Captain," said the skipper on bidding him farewell.
+"These demons are after you in order to pay you up for something in the
+past. You know what for.... Be very careful!"
+
+The rest of the evening Ferragut and Toni talked very little together.
+The two had exactly the same thought in their brain, but avoided
+putting it in shape because, as energetic men, they feared that some
+cowardly construction might be put upon such thoughts.
+
+At nightfall when they returned to the steamer the pilot ventured to
+break the silence.
+
+"Why do you not quit the sea?... You are rich. Besides, they'll give
+you whatever you ask for your ship. To-day boats are worth their weight
+in gold."
+
+Ulysses shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't thinking of money. What good
+would that do him?... He wanted to pass the rest of his life on the
+sea, giving aid to the enemies of his enemies. He had a vengeance to
+fulfill.... Living on land, he would be abandoning this vengeance,
+though remembering his son with even greater intensity.
+
+The mate was silent for a few moments.
+
+"The enemies are so many," he then said in dismay. "We are so
+insignificant!... We only escaped by a few yards being sent to the
+bottom on our last trip. What has not happened yet will surely happen
+some day.... _They_ have sworn to do away with you; and they are many
+... and they are at war. What could we do, we poor peaceable
+sailors?..."
+
+Toni did not add anything further but his silent thoughts were divined
+by Ulysses.
+
+He was thinking about his family over there in the _Marina_, enduring
+an existence of continual anxiety while he was aboard a vessel for
+which irresistible menace was lying in wait. He was thinking also of
+the wives and mothers of all the men of the crew who were suffering the
+same anguish. And Toni was asking himself for the first time whether
+Captain Ferragut had the right to drag them all to a sure death just
+because of his vengeful and crazy stubbornness.
+
+"No; I have not the right," Ulysses told himself mentally.
+
+But at the same time his mate, repentant of his former reflection, was
+affirming in a loud voice with heroic simplicity:
+
+"If I counsel you to retire, it is for your own good; don't think it is
+because I am afraid.... I will follow you wherever you sail. I've got
+to die some time and it would be far better that it should be in the
+sea. The only thing that troubles me is worrying about my wife and
+children."
+
+The captain continued walking in silence and, upon reaching his ship,
+spoke with brevity. "I was thinking of doing something that perhaps you
+would all like. Before next week your future will have been decided."
+
+He passed the following day on land. Twice he returned with some
+gentlemen who examined the steamer minutely, going down into the engine
+room and the holds. Some of these visitors appeared to be experts in
+matters pertaining to the sea.
+
+"He wants to sell the boat," said Toni to himself.
+
+And the mate began to repent of his counsels. Abandon the _Mare
+Nostrum_, the best of all the ships on which he had ever sailed!... He
+accused himself of cowardice, believing that it was he who had impelled
+the captain to reach this decision. What were the two going to do on
+land when the steamer was the property of others?... Would he not have
+to sail on an inferior boat, running the same risks?... He decided to
+undo his work, and was about to counsel Ferragut again, declaring that
+his ideas were mere conjecture and that he must continue living as he
+was at present, when the captain gave the order for departure. The
+repairs were not yet entirely completed.
+
+"We are going to Brest," said Ferragut laconically, "It's the last
+trip."
+
+And the steamer put to sea without cargo as though going to fulfill a
+special mission.
+
+"The last trip!" Toni admired his ship as though seeing it under a new
+light, discovering beauties hitherto unsuspected, lamenting like a
+lover the days that were running by so swiftly and the sad moment of
+separation that was approaching.
+
+Never had the mate been so active in his vigilance. His seaman's
+superstition filled him with a certain terror. Just because it was the
+last voyage something horrible might occur to them. He paced the bridge
+for entire days, examining the sea, fearing the apparition of a
+periscope, varying the course in agreement with the captain, who was
+seeking less-frequented waters where the submarines could not expect to
+find any prey.
+
+He breathed more freely upon entering one of the three semi-circular
+sea-ledges which enclose the roadstead of Brest. When they were
+anchored in this bit of sea, foggy and insecure, surrounded with black
+mountains, Toni awaited with anxiety the result of the captain's
+excursions ashore.
+
+During the entire course of the trip Ferragut had not been inclined to
+be confidential. The mate only knew that this voyage to Brest was the
+last. Who was going to be the new owner of the _Mare Nostrum_?...
+
+One rainy evening, upon returning to the boat, Ulysses gave orders that
+they should hunt up the mate while he was shaking out his waterproof in
+the entry to the stateroom.
+
+The roadstead was dark with its foamy waves, choppy and thick, leaping
+like sheep. The men-of-war were sending out smoke from their triple
+chimneys ready to confront the bad weather with their steam engines.
+
+The ship, anchored in the commercial port, was dancing restlessly,
+tugging at its hawsers, with a mournful croaking. All the nearby boats
+were tossing in the same way, just as though they were out on the high
+seas.
+
+Toni entered the saloon, and one look at the captain's face made him
+suspect that the moment for knowing the truth had arrived. Avoiding his
+glance, Ulysses told him curtly, trying to evade by the conciseness of
+his language all signs of emotion.
+
+He had sold the ship to the French:--a rapid and magnificent piece of
+business.... Whoever would have said when he bought the _Mare Nostrum_
+that some day they would give him such an enormous sum for it?... In no
+country could they find any vessels for sale. The invalids of the sea,
+rusting in the harbors as old iron, were now bringing fabulous prices.
+Boats, aground and forgotten on remote coasts, were placed afloat for
+enterprises that were gaining millions by this resurrection. Others,
+submerged in tropical seas, had been brought up to the surface after a
+ten years' stay under the water, renewing their voyages. Every month a
+new shipyard sprang into existence, but the world war could never find
+enough vessels for the transportation of food and instruments of death.
+
+Without any bargaining whatever, they had given Ferragut the price that
+he had exacted; fifteen hundred francs per ton,--four million and a
+half for the boat. And to this must be added the nearly two millions
+that it had gained in its voyages since the beginning of the war.
+
+"I am rotten with money," concluded the captain.
+
+And he said it sadly, remembering with a homesick longing the days of
+peace when he was wrestling with the problems of a badly paying
+business. But then his son was living. Of what avail was all this
+wealth that was assaulting him on all sides as though it were going to
+crush him with its weight?... His wife would be able to lavish money
+with full hands on works of charity; she would be able to give her
+nieces the dowry suitable for daughters of high-born personages....
+Nothing more! Neither he nor she could for one moment resuscitate their
+past. These useless riches could only bring him a certain tranquillity
+in thinking of the future of his wife, who was his entire family. She
+was at liberty henceforth to dispose freely of her existence. Cinta, on
+his death, would fall heir to millions.
+
+In order to evade the emotions of farewell, he spoke to Toni very
+authoritatively. A chart of the Atlantic was lying on the table and
+with his index finger he marked out the mate's course; this course was
+not across the sea, but far from it, following an inland route.
+
+"To-morrow," he said, "the French are coming to take possession. You
+may leave whenever you please, but it will be convenient to have you go
+as soon as possible...."
+
+He explained his return trip to Toni, just as though he were giving him
+a lesson in geography. This sea-rover became timid and downhearted when
+they talked to him about railroad time-tables and changing trains.
+
+"Here is Brest.... Follow this line to Bordeaux; from Bordeaux to the
+frontier. And once there, turn to Barcelona or go to Madrid, and from
+Madrid to Valencia."
+
+The mate contemplated the map silently, scratching his beard. Then he
+raised his canine eyes slowly until he fixed them upon Ulysses.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"I remain here. The captain of the _Mare Nostrum_, has sold himself
+with his vessel."
+
+Toni made a distressed gesture. For a moment he almost believed that
+Ferragut wanted to get rid of him and was discontented with his
+services. But the captain hastened to explain further.
+
+Because the _Mare Nostrum_ belonged to a neutral country, it could not
+be sold to one of the belligerent nations while hostilities lasted.
+Because of this, he had transferred it in a way that would not make it
+necessary to change the flag. Although no longer its owner, he would
+stay on board as its captain, and the ship would continue to be Spanish
+the same as before.
+
+"And why must I go away?" asked Toni in a tremulous tone, believing
+himself overlooked.
+
+"We are going to sail armed," replied Ulysses energetically. "I have
+made the sale on that account more than for the money. We are going to
+carry a quickfirer at the stern, wireless installation, a crew of men
+from the naval reserves,--everything necessary to defend ourselves. We
+shall make our voyages without hunting for the enemy, carrying freight
+as before; but if the enemy comes out to attack us, it will find some
+one who will answer."
+
+He was ready to die, if that was to be his fate, but attacking whoever
+attacked him.
+
+"And may I not go, too?" persisted the pilot.
+
+"No; back of you there is a family that needs you. You do not belong to
+a nation at war, nor have you anything to avenge.... I am the only one
+of the former crew that remains on board. All the rest of you are to
+go. The captain has a reason for exposing his life, and he does not
+wish to assume the responsibility of dragging all of you into his last
+adventure."
+
+Toni understood that it would be useless to insist. His eyes became
+moist.... Was it possible that within a few hours they would be bidding
+each other a last good-by?... Should he never again see Ulysses and the
+ship on which he had spent the greater part of his past?...
+
+In order to maintain his serenity, the captain tried to bring this
+interview promptly to an end.
+
+"The first thing to-morrow morning," he said, "you will call the crew
+together. Adjust all the accounts. Each one must receive as an extra
+bonus a year's pay. I wish them to have pleasant memories of Captain
+Ferragut."
+
+The mate attempted to oppose this generosity by a remnant of the keen
+interest that the business affairs of the boat had always inspired in
+him. But his superior officer would not let him continue.
+
+"I am rotten with money, I tell you," he repeated as though uttering a
+complaint. "I have more than I need.... I can do foolish things with it
+if I wish to."
+
+Then for the first time he looked his mate square in the face.
+
+"As for you," he continued, "I have thought what you must do.... Here,
+take this!"
+
+He gave him a sealed envelope and the pilot mechanically tried to open
+it.
+
+"No, don't open it at present. You will find out what it contains when
+you are in Spain. Within it is enclosed the future of your own folks."
+
+Toni looked with astonished eyes at the light scrap of paper which he
+held between his fingers.
+
+"I know you," continued Ferragut. "You are going to protest at the
+quantity. What to me is insignificant, to you will appear excessive....
+Do not open the envelope until you are in our country. In it you will
+find the name of the bank to which you must go. I wish you to be the
+richest man in your village that your sons may remember Captain
+Ferragut when he is dead."
+
+The mate made a gesture of protest before this possible death, and at
+the same time rubbed his eyes as though he felt in them an intolerable
+itching.
+
+Ulysses continued his instructions. He had rashly sold the home of his
+ancestors there in the _Marina_, the vineyards,--all his legacy from
+the _Triton_, when he had acquired the _Mare Nostrum_. It was his wish
+that Toni should redeem the property, installing himself in the ancient
+domicile of the Ferraguts.
+
+He had money to spare for that and much more.
+
+"I have no children and I like to feel that yours are occupying the
+house that was mine.... Perhaps when I get to be an old man--if they do
+not kill me, I will come to spend the summers with you. Courage now,
+Toni!... We shall yet go fishing together, as I used to go fishing with
+my uncle, the doctor."
+
+But the mate did not regain his spirits on hearing these optimistic
+affirmations. His eyes were swollen with tears that sparkled in the
+corners of his eyes. He was swearing between his teeth, protesting
+against the coming separation.... Never to see him again, after so many
+years of brotherly companionship!... _Cristo!_...
+
+The captain was afraid that he, too, might burst into tears and again
+ordered his mate to present the accounts of the crew.
+
+An hour later Toni reentered the saloon, carrying in his hand the
+opened letter. He had not been able to resist the temptation of forcing
+the secret, fearing that Ferragut's generosity might prove excessive,
+and impossible to consider. He protested, handing to Ulysses the check
+taken from the envelope.
+
+"I could not accept it!... It's a crazy idea!..."
+
+He had read with terror the amount made out to him in the letter of
+credit, first in figures then in long hand. Two hundred and fifty
+thousand pesetas!... fifty thousand dollars!
+
+"That is not for me," he said again. "I do not deserve it.... What
+could I ever do with so much money?"
+
+The captain pretended to be irritated by his disobedience.
+
+"You take that paper, you brute!... I was just afraid that you were
+going to protest.... It's for your children, and so that you can take a
+rest. Now we won't talk any more about it or I shall get angry."
+
+Then, in order to conquer Toni's scruples, he abandoned his violent
+tone, and said sadly:
+
+"I have no heirs.... I don't know what to do with my useless fortune."
+
+And he repeated once more like a complaint against destiny: "I am
+rotten with money!..."
+
+The following morning, while Toni was in his cabin adjusting the
+accounts of the crew, astonished by the munificence of their
+paying-off, Uncle Caragol came into the saloon, asking to speak to
+Ferragut.
+
+He had placed an old cape over his flapping and scanty clothing, more
+as a decoration for the visit than because the cold of Brittany was
+really making him suffer.
+
+He removed from his shaved head his everlasting palm-leaf hat, fixing
+his bloodshot eyes on the captain who continued writing after replying
+to his greeting.
+
+"What does this mean, this order that I've just received to prepare to
+leave the boat within a few hours?... It must be some kind of a joke of
+Toni's; he's an excellent fellow but an enemy to holy things and likes
+to tease me because of my piety...."
+
+Ferragut laid aside his pen, swinging around toward the cook whose fate
+had troubled him as much as the first mate's.
+
+"Uncle Caragol, we are growing old and we must think about retiring....
+I am going to give you a paper; you will guard it just as though it
+were a sacred picture, and when you present it in Valencia they will
+give you ten thousand dollars. Do you know how much ten thousand
+dollars are?..."
+
+Bringing his mentality down to the level of this simple-minded man, he
+enjoyed tracing out for him a plan of living. He could invest his
+capital in whatever modest enterprise in the port of Valencia might
+appeal to his fancy; he could establish a restaurant which would soon
+become famous for its Olympian rice dishes. His nephews who were
+fishermen would receive him like a god. He could also be partner in a
+couple of barks, dedicated to fishing for the _bou_. There was awaiting
+him a happy and honorable old age; his former sailing companions were
+going to look upon him with envy. He could get up late in the morning;
+he could go to the cafes; as a rich devotee he could figure in all the
+religious processions of the Grau and of the Cabanal; he could have a
+place of honor in the holy processions....
+
+Heretofore, when Ferragut was talking, Uncle Caragol had always
+mechanically interrupted him, saying: "That is so, my captain." For the
+first time he was not nodding his head nor smiling with his sun-like
+face. He was pale and gloomy. He shook his round head energetically and
+said laconically:
+
+"No, my captain."
+
+Before the glance of astonishment which Ulysses flashed upon him, he
+found it necessary to explain himself.
+
+"What am I ever going to do ashore?... Who is expecting me there?... Or
+what business with my family would have any interest for me?..."
+
+Ferragut seemed to be hearing an echo of his own thoughts. He, like the
+cook, would have nothing to do on land.... He was mortally bored when
+far from the sea, just as in those months when, still young, he had
+believed that he could create for himself a new profession in
+Barcelona. Besides, it was impossible to return to his home, taking up
+life again with his wife; it would be simply losing his last illusions.
+It would be better to view from afar all that remained of his former
+existence.
+
+Caragol, meanwhile, was going on talking. His nephews would not
+remember the poor old cook and he had no reason to trouble himself
+about their fate, making them rich. He would prefer to remain just
+where he was, without money but happy.
+
+"Let the others go!" he said with childish selfishness. "Let Toni
+go!... I'm going to stay.... I've got to stay. When the captain goes,
+then Uncle Caragol will go."
+
+Ulysses enumerated the great dangers that the boat was about to face.
+The German submarines were lying in wait for it with deadly
+determination; there would be combats ... they would be torpedoed....
+
+The old man's smile showed contempt of all such dangers. He was certain
+that nothing bad could possibly happen to the _Mare Nostrum_. The
+furies of the sea were unavailing against it and still less could the
+wickedness of man injure it.
+
+"I know what I'm talking about, Captain.... I am sure that we shall
+come out safe and sound from all dangers."
+
+He thought of his miracle-working amulets, of his sacred pictures, of
+the supernatural protection that his pious prayers were bringing him.
+Furthermore, he was taking into consideration the Latin name of the
+ship which had always inspired him with religious respect. It belonged
+to the language used by the Church, to the idiom which brought about
+miracles and expelled the devil, making him run away aghast.
+
+"The _Mare Nostrum_ will not suffer any misfortune. If it should change
+its title ... perhaps. But while it is called _Mare Nostrum_,--how
+_could_ anything happen to it?..."
+
+Smiling before this faith, Ferragut brought forth his last argument.
+The entire crew was going to be made up of Frenchmen; how could they
+ever understand each other if he were ignorant of their language?...
+
+"I know it all," affirmed the old man superbly.
+
+He had made himself understood with men in all the different ports of
+the world. He was counting on something more than mere language,--on
+his eyes, his hands, the expressive cunning of an exuberant and
+gesticulating meridional.
+
+"I am just like _San Vicente Ferrer_," he added with pride.
+
+His saint had spoken only the Valencian dialect, and yet had traveled
+throughout half Europe preaching to throngs of different tongues,
+making them weep with mystic emotion and repent of their sins.
+
+While Ferragut retained the command, he was going to stay. If he didn't
+want him for a cook, he would be the cabin boy, washing up the pots and
+pans. The important thing for him was to continue treading the deck of
+the vessel.
+
+The captain had to give in. This old fellow represented a remnant of
+his past. He could betake himself from time to time to the galley to
+talk over the far-away days in which they first met.
+
+And Caragol retired, content with his success.
+
+"As for those Frenchmen," he said before departing, "just leave them to
+me. They must be good people.... We'll just see what they say about my
+rice dishes."
+
+In the course of the week the _Mare Nostrum_ was de-organized and
+re-manned. Its former crew went marching away in groups. Toni was the
+last to leave, and Ulysses did not wish to see him, fearing to show his
+emotion. They'd surely write to each other.
+
+A sympathetic curiosity impelled the cook toward the new marine force.
+He saluted the officers affably, regretting not to know their language
+sufficiently to begin a friendly conversation with them. The captain
+had accustomed him to such familiarity.
+
+There were two mates that the mobilization had converted into auxiliary
+lieutenants of the navy. The first day they presented themselves on
+board arrayed in their uniform; then they returned in civilian clothes
+in order to habituate themselves to being simply merchant officers on a
+neutral steamer. The two knew by hearsay, of Ferragut's former voyages
+and his services to the Allies, and they understood each other
+sympathetically without the slightest national prejudice. Caragol
+achieved equal success with the forty-five men who had taken possession
+of the machinery and the messrooms in the forecastle. They were dressed
+like seamen of the fleet, with a broad blue collar and a cap topped by
+a red pompom. Some displayed on the breast military medals and the
+recent _Croix de Guerre_. From their canvas bags which served them for
+valises, they unpacked their regulation suits, worn when they were
+working on the freight steamers, on the schooners plying to
+Newfoundland, or on the simple coasting smacks.
+
+The galley at certain hours was full of men listening to the old cook.
+Some knew the Spanish tongue on account of having sailed in brigs from
+Saint-Malo and Saint-Nazaire, going to the ports of the Argentine,
+Chili and Peru. Those who could not understand the old fellow's words,
+could guess at them from his gesticulations. They were all laughing,
+finding him bizarre and interesting. And this general gayety induced
+Caragol to bring forth liquid treasures that had been piling up in
+former voyages under Ferragut's careless and generous administration.
+
+The strong alcoholic wine of the coast of the Levant began falling into
+the glasses like ink crowned with a circle of rubies. The old man
+poured it forth with a prodigal hand. "Drink away, boys; in your land
+you don't have anything like this...." At other times he would concoct
+his famous "refrescoes," smiling with the satisfaction of an artist at
+seeing the sensuous grin that began flashing across their countenances.
+
+"When did you ever drink anything like that? What would ever become of
+you all without your Uncle Caragol?..."
+
+These Bretons, accustomed to the discipline and sobriety of other
+vessels, admired greatly the extraordinary privileges of a cook who
+could display as much generosity as the captain himself. He frequently
+communicated to Ferragut his opinion regarding his new comrades. With
+good reason he had said that they would understand each other!... They
+were serious and religious men, and he preferred them to the former
+Mediterranean crews, blasphemers and incapable of resignation, who at
+the slightest vexation would rip out God's name, trying to affront him
+with their curses.
+
+They were all muscular and well set-up with blue eyes and blonde
+mustaches, and were wearing hidden medallions. One of them had
+presented to the cook one of his religious charms which he had bought
+on a pilgrimage to _Ste. Anne d'Auray_. Caragol was wearing it upon his
+hairy chest, and experiencing a new-born faith in the miracles of this
+foreign image.
+
+"To her sanctuary, Captain, the pilgrims go in thousands. Every day she
+performs a miracle.... There's a holy staircase there which the devout
+climb on their knees and many of these lads have mounted it. I should
+like ..."
+
+On some of their voyages to Brest he was hoping that Ferragut would
+permit him to go to Auray long enough to climb that same stairway on
+his knees, to see _Ste. Anne_ and return aboard ship.
+
+The vessel was no longer in a commercial harbor. It had gone to a
+military harbor,--a narrow river winding through the interior of the
+city, dividing it in two. A great drawbridge put in communication the
+two shores bordered with vast constructions and high chimneys, naval
+shops, warehouses, arsenals, and dry-docks for cleaning up the boats.
+Tug-boats were continually stirring up its green and miry waters.
+Steamers undergoing repairs were lined up the length of the
+break-waters undergoing a continual pounding that made their plates
+resound. Lighters topped with hills of pit coal were going slowly to
+take their position along the flanks of the ships. Under the drawbridge
+launches were coming and going from the warships, leaving on the
+floating piers the crews celebrating their shore-leave with scandalous
+uproar.
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ remained isolated while the workmen from the arsenal
+were installing on the poop rapid-fire guns and the wireless telegraph
+apparatus. No one could come aboard that did not belong to the crew.
+
+The sailors' families were waiting for them on the wharf, and Caragol
+had occasion to become acquainted with many Breton women,--mothers,
+sisters, or fiancees of his new friends. He liked these women: they
+were dressed in black with full skirts, and white, stiff caps which
+brought to his mind the wimples of the nuns.... Some tall, stout girls
+with blue and candid eyes laughed at the Spaniard without understanding
+a single word. The old women with faces as dark and wrinkled as winter
+apples touched glasses with Caragol in the low cafes near the port.
+They all could do honor to a goblet in an opportune moment, and had
+great faith in the saints. The cook did not require anything more....
+Most excellent and charming people!
+
+Certain lads decorated with the _Croix de Guerre_ used to relate their
+experiences to him. They were survivors of the battalion of marines who
+defended Dixmude. After the battle of the Marne they had been sent to
+intercept the enemy on the side of Flanders. There were not more than
+six thousand of them and, aided by a Belgian division, they had
+sustained the onrush of an entire army. Their resistance had lasted for
+weeks:--a combat of barricades in the street, of struggles the length
+of the canal with the bloodiness of the ancient piratical forays. The
+officers had shouted their orders with broken swords and bandaged
+heads. The men had fought on without thinking of their wounds, covered
+with blood, until they fell down dead.
+
+Caragol, hitherto little interested in military affairs, became most
+enthusiastic when relating this heroic struggle to Ferragut, simply
+because his new friends had taken part in it.
+
+"Many died, Captain.... Almost half of them. But the Germans couldn't
+make any headway.... Then, on learning that the marines had been no
+more than six thousand, the generals tore their hair. So great was
+their wrath! They had supposed that they were confronted by dozens of
+thousands.... It was just great to hear the lads relate what they did
+there."
+
+Among these "lads" wounded in the war, who had passed to the naval
+reserve and were manning the _Mare Nostrum_, one was especially
+distinguished by the old man's partiality. He could talk to him in
+Spanish, because of his transatlantic voyages, and besides he had been
+born in Vannes.
+
+If the youth ever approached the cook's dominions he was invariably met
+with a smile of invitation. "A refresco, Vicente?" The best seat was
+for him. Caragol had forgotten his name as not worth while. Since he
+came from Vannes, he could not have any other name but Vicente.
+
+The first day that they chatted together, the marine, in love with his
+country, described to the cook the beauties of Morbihan,--a great
+interior sea surrounded with groves and with islands covered with
+pines. Among the venerable antiquities of the city was the Gothic
+cathedral with its many tombs, among them that of a Spanish saint,--St.
+Vicente Ferrer.
+
+This gave a tug at Caragol's heart-strings. He had never before
+bothered to find out where the famous apostle of Valencia was
+entombed.... He recalled suddenly a strophe of the songs of praise that
+the devotees of his land used to sing before the altars of this saint.
+Sure enough he had gone to die in "Vannes, in Brittainy,"--a mere
+geographical name which until then had lacked any significance for
+him.... And so this lad was from Vannes? Nothing more was needed to
+make Caragol regard him with the respect due to one born in a
+miraculous country.
+
+He made him describe many times the tomb of the saint, the only one in
+the transept of the cathedral, the moth-eaten tapestries that
+perpetuated his miracles, the silver bust which guarded his heart....
+Furthermore, the principal portal of Vannes was called the gate of St.
+Vicente and recollections of the saint were still alive in their
+chronicles.
+
+Caragol proposed to visit this city also when the ship should return to
+Brest. Brittainy must be very holy ground, the holiest in the world,
+since the miracle-working Valencian, after traversing so many nations,
+had wished to die there.
+
+It, therefore, did not produce the slightest astonishment that this
+slip of a boy who had been picked up at Dixmude covered with wounds,
+was now showing himself sane and vigorous.... On board the _Mare
+Nostrum_ he was the head gunner. He and two comrades had charge of the
+quickfirers. For Caragol there was not the slightest doubt as to the
+fate of every submarine that should venture to attack them; the "lad
+from Vannes" would send them to smithereens at the first shot. A
+picture post-card, a gift of the lad from Brittany, showing the tomb of
+the saint, occupied the position of honor in the galley. The old man
+used to pray before it as though it were a miracle-working print, and
+the _Cristo del Grao_ was relegated to second place.
+
+One morning Caragol went in search of the captain and found him writing
+in his stateroom. He had just come from making purchases in the shore
+market. While passing through the _rue de Siam_, the most important
+road in Brest, where the theaters are, the moving-picture shows, and
+the cafes, he had had an encounter. "An unexpected meeting," he
+continued with a mysterious smile. "Who do you suppose it was with?..."
+Ferragut shrugged his shoulders. And, noting his indifference, the old
+man could not keep the secret any longer.
+
+"The lady-bird!" he added. "That handsome, perfumed lady-bird that used
+to come to see you.... The one from Naples.... The one from
+Barcelona...." The captain turned pale, first with surprise and then
+with anger. Freya in Brest!... Her spy work was reaching even here?...
+
+Caragol went on with his story. He was returning to the ship, and she,
+who was walking through the _rue de Siam,_ had recognized him, speaking
+to him affectionately.
+
+"She asked to be remembered to you.... She has been informed that no
+foreigner can come aboard. She told me that she had tried to come to
+see you."
+
+The cook began a search through his pockets, extricating a bit of
+wrinkled paper, a white sheet snatched from an old letter.
+
+"She also gave me this paper, written right there in the street with a
+lead pencil. You will know what it says. I did not wish to look at it."
+
+Ferragut, on taking the paper, recognized immediately her handwriting,
+although uneven, nervous and scribbled with great precipitation. Six
+words, no more:--"Farewell, I am going to die."
+
+"Lies! Always lies!" said the voice of prudence in his brain.
+
+He tore up the paper and passed the rest of the morning very much
+preoccupied.... It was his duty to defend himself against this
+espionage that had even established its base in a port of war.... Every
+boat anchored near the _Mare Nostrum_ was menaced by Freya's power to
+give information. Who knew but what her mysterious communications would
+bring about their attack by a submarine on going out from the roadstead
+of Brest!...
+
+His first impulse was to denounce her. Then he repented because of his
+absurd scruples of chivalry.... Besides, he would have to explain his
+past to the head officers at Brest who knew him very slightly. He was
+far from that naval captain at Salonica who had so well understood his
+passional errors.
+
+He wished to watch her for himself, and in the evening he went ashore.
+He detested Brest as one of the dullest cities of the Atlantic. It was
+always raining there, and there was no diversion except the eternal
+promenade through the _rue de Siam_, or a bored stay in the cafes full
+of seamen and English and Portuguese land-officers.
+
+He went through the public establishments night and day; he made
+investigations in the hotels; he hired carriages in order to visit the
+more picturesque suburbs. For four days he persisted in his inquiries
+without any result.
+
+He began to doubt Uncle Caragol's veracity. Perhaps he had been drunk
+on returning to the ship, and had made up such an encounter. But the
+recollection of that paper written by her discounted such a
+supposition.... Freya was in Brest.
+
+The cook explained it all simply enough when the captain besieged him
+with fresh questions.
+
+"The lady-bird must just be passing through. Perhaps she flitted away
+that same evening.... That meeting was just a chance encounter."
+
+Ferragut had to give up his investigations. The defensive work on the
+ship was about terminated and the holds contained their cargo of
+projectiles for the army of the Orient and various unmounted guns. He
+received his sailing orders, and one gray and rainy morning they lifted
+anchor and steamed out of the bay of Brest. The fog made even more
+difficult the passage between the reefs that obstruct this port. They
+passed before the lugubrious Bay of the Dead, ancient cemetery of
+sailboats, and continued their navigation toward the south in search of
+the strait in order to enter the Mediterranean.
+
+Ferragut felt increased pride in examining the new aspect of the _Mare
+Nostrum_. The wireless telegraph was going to keep him in contact with
+the world. He was no longer a merchant captain, slave of destiny,
+trusting to good luck, and incapable of repelling an attack. The
+radiographic stations were watching for him the entire length of the
+coast, advising him of changes in his course that he might avoid the
+ambushed enemy. The apparatus was constantly hissing and sustaining
+invisible dialogues. Besides, mounted on the stern was a cannon covered
+with a canvas hood, ready to begin work.
+
+The dreams of his childhood when he used to devour stories of corsairs
+and novels of maritime adventures seemed about to be realized. He was
+now entitled to call himself "Captain of Sea and War" like the ancient
+navigators. If a submarine should pass before him, he would attack it
+from the prow; if it should try to pursue him, he would respond with
+the cannon.
+
+His adventurous humor actually made him anxious for one of these
+encounters. A maritime combat had not yet occurred in his life, and he
+wished to see how these modest and silent men who had made war on land
+and contemplated death at close range, would demean themselves.
+
+It was not long before his desire was realized. One morning on the high
+seas near Lisbon, when he had just fallen asleep after a night on the
+bridge, the shouts and runnings of the crew awakened him.
+
+A submarine had broken the surface about fifteen hundred yards astern
+and was coming toward the _Mare Nostrum_, evidently fearing that the
+merchant-boat would try to escape; but in order to oblige it to stop,
+its gun fired two shells which fell into the water.
+
+The steamer moderated its pace but only to place itself in a more
+favorable position and to maneuver with more sea room, with its arms at
+the stern. At the first shot the submarine began to recede, keeping a
+more prudent distance, surprised to receive an answer to its
+aggression.
+
+The combat lasted half an hour. The shots repeated themselves on both
+sides with the speed of rapid fire artillery. Ferragut was near the
+gun, admiring the calm coolness with which its servants manipulated it.
+One always had a projectile in his arms ready to give it to his
+companion who rapidly introduced it into the smoking chamber. The
+gunner was concentrating all his life in his eyes, and bending over the
+cannon, moved it carefully, seeking the sensitive part of that gray and
+prolonged body that was rising to the surface of the water as though it
+were a whale.
+
+Suddenly a cloud of kindling wood flew near the steamer's prow. An
+enemy's projectile had just hit the edge of the roofs that covered the
+galley and mess rooms. Caragol, who was standing in the door of his
+dominions, raised his hands to his hat. When the yellowish and
+evil-smelling cloud dissolved, they saw him still standing there,
+scratching the top of his head, bare and red.
+
+"It's nothing!" he cried. "Just a bit of wood that drew a little of my
+blood. Fire away!... Fire!"
+
+He was yelling directions, inflamed by the shooting. The drug-like
+smell of the smokeless powder, the dull thud of the detonations
+appeared to intoxicate him. He was leaping and wringing his hands with
+the ardor of a war-dancer.
+
+The gunners redoubled their activity; the shots became continuous.
+
+"There it is!" yelled Caragol. "They have hit it.... They have hit it!"
+
+Of all those aboard, he was the one who could least appreciate the
+effects of the shots for he could scarcely discern the silhouette of
+the submersible. But in spite of that he continued bellowing with all
+the force of his faith.
+
+"Now you've hit it!... Hurrah! Hurrah!"
+
+And the strange thing was that the enemy instantly disappeared from the
+blue surface. The gunners still sent some shots against their
+periscope. Then there was left in the place which they had occupied
+only a white and glistening expanse.
+
+The steamer went toward this enormous spot of oil whose undulations
+were twinkling with sunflower-like reflections.
+
+The marines uttered shouts of enthusiasm. They were sure of having sent
+the submersible to the bottom. The officers were less optimistic. They
+had never seen one raise itself up vertically, tilting its stern high
+in the air before sinking. Perhaps it simply had been damaged and
+obliged to hide.
+
+The loss of the submarine was a sure thing in Caragol's estimation, and
+he considered it entirely unnecessary to ask the name of the one who
+had blown it to smithereens.
+
+"It must have been that lad from Vannes.... He's the only one who could
+have done it."
+
+For him the other gunners simply did not exist. And, inflamed by his
+enthusiasm, he wriggled out of the hands of the two seamen who had
+begun to bandage his head with a deftness learned in land combats.
+
+Ferragut was entirely satisfied with this encounter. Although he could
+not be absolutely certain of the destruction of the enemy, the fact
+that his boat had saved itself would spread abroad the fact that the
+_Mare Nostrum_ was entirely capable of self-defense.
+
+His joy took him to Caragol's domains.
+
+"Well done, old man! We're going to write to the Ministry of Marine to
+give you the _Croix de Guerre_."
+
+The cook, taking his words in all seriousness, declined the honor. If
+such recompense were to be given to any one, let it be handed to "that
+lad from Vannes." Then he added as though reflecting the captain's
+thoughts:
+
+"I like to sail in this fashion.... Our steamer has gotten its teeth,
+and now it will not have to run like a frightened rabbit.... They'll
+have to let it go on its way in peace because now it can bite."
+
+The rest of the journey toward Salonica was without incident.
+Telegraphy kept it in contact with the instructions arriving from the
+shore. Gibraltar advised it to sail close to the African coast; Malta
+and Bizerta pointed out that it could continue forward since the
+passage between Tunis and Sicily was clear of enemies. From distant
+Egypt tranquillizing messages came to meet them while they were sailing
+among the Grecian Islands with the prow toward Salonica.
+
+On their return, they were to take freight to the harbor of Marseilles.
+
+Ferragut did not have to bother about the boat while it was at anchor.
+The French officials were the ones who made arrangements with the
+harbor authorities. He merely had to be the justification for the flag,
+a captain of a neutral country, whose presence certified to the
+nationality of the vessel. Only on the sea did he recover command,
+every one becoming obedient to those on the bridge.
+
+He wandered through Marseilles as at other times, passing the first
+hours of the evening on the terraces of the _Cannebiere_.
+
+An old Marseillaise, captain of a merchant steamer, used to chat with
+him before returning to his office. One afternoon, while Ferragut was
+absent-mindedly glancing at a certain Paris daily that his friend was
+carrying, his attention was suddenly attracted by a name printed at the
+head of a short article. Surprise made him turn pale while at the same
+time something contracted within his breast. Again he spelled out the
+name, fearing that he had been under an hallucination. Doubt was
+impossible: it was very clear,--_Freya Talberg_. He took the paper from
+his comrade's hand, disguising his impatience by an assumption of
+curiosity.
+
+"What is the war news to-day?..."
+
+And while the old sailor was giving him the news, he read feverishly
+the few lines grouped beneath that name.
+
+He was bewildered. The heading told little to one ignorant of the
+preceding facts to which the periodical alluded. These lines were
+simply voicing a protest against the government for not having made the
+famous Freya Talberg pay the penalty to which she had been sentenced.
+The paragraph terminated with mention of the beauty and elegance of the
+delinquent as though to these qualities might be attributed the delay
+in punishment.
+
+Ferragut put forth all his efforts to give his voice a tone of
+indifference.
+
+"Who is this individual?" he said, pointing to the heading of the
+article.
+
+His companion had some difficulty in recalling her. So many things were
+happening because of the war....
+
+"She is a _boche_, a spy, sentenced to death.... It appears that she
+did a great deal of work here and in other ports, sending word to the
+German submarines about the departure of our transports.... They
+arrested her in Paris two months ago when she was returning from
+Brest."
+
+His friend said this with a certain indifference. These spies were so
+numerous!... The newspapers were constantly publishing notices of their
+shooting:--two lines, no more, as though treating of an ordinary
+casualty.
+
+"This Freya Talberg," he continued, "has had enough said about her
+personality. It seems that she is a _chic_ woman,--a species of lady
+from a novel. Many are protesting because she has not yet been
+executed. It is sad to have to kill one of her sex,--to kill a woman
+and especially a beautiful woman!... But nevertheless it is very
+necessary.... I believe that she is to be shot at any moment."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+AMPHITRITE!... AMPHITRITE!
+
+The _Mare Nostrum_ made another trip from Marseilles to Salonica.
+
+Before sailing, Ferragut hunted vainly through the Paris periodicals
+for fresh news of Freya. For some days past, the attention of the
+public had been so distracted by various other events that for the time
+being the spy was forgotten.
+
+On arriving at Salonica, he made discreet inquiries among his military
+and marine friends in the harbor cafes. Hardly any one had ever heard
+the name of Freya Talberg. Those who had read it in the newspapers
+merely replied with indifference.
+
+"I know who she is: she is a spy who was an actress,--a woman with a
+certain _chic_. I think that they've shot her.... I don't know
+certainly, but they ought to have shot her."
+
+They had more important things to think about. A spy!... On all sides
+they were discovering the intrigues of German espionage. They had to
+shoot a great many.... And immediately they forgot this affair in order
+to speak of the difficulties of the war that were threatening them and
+their comrades-at-arms.
+
+When Ferragut returned to Marseilles two months afterwards, he was
+still ignorant as to whether his former mistress was yet among the
+living.
+
+The first evening that he met his old comrade, the captain, in the cafe
+of the _Cannebiere_, he skillfully guided the conversation around until
+he could bring out naturally the question in the back of his mind:
+"What was the fate of that Freya Talberg that there was so much talk
+about in the newspapers before I went to Salonica?..."
+
+The Marseillaise had to make an effort to recall her.
+
+"Ah, yes!... The _boche_ spy," he said after a long pause. "They shot
+her some weeks ago. The papers said little of her death,--just a few
+lines. Such people don't deserve any more...."
+
+Ferragut's friend had two sons in the army; a nephew had died in the
+trenches, another, a mate aboard a transport, had just perished in a
+torpedo attack. The old man was passing many nights without sleeping
+thinking of his sons battling at the front. And this uneasiness gave a
+hard and ferocious tone to his patriotic enthusiasm.
+
+"It's a good thing she is dead.... She was a woman, and shooting a
+woman is a painful thing. It is always repugnant to be obliged to treat
+them like men.... But according to what they tell me, this individual
+with her spy-information brought about the torpedoing of sixteen
+vessels.... Ah, the wicked beast!..."
+
+And he said no more, changing the subject. Every one evinced the same
+revulsion on recalling the spy.
+
+Ferragut eventually shared the same sentiments, his brain having
+divested itself of the contradictory duality which had attended all the
+critical moments of his existence. Remembering only her crimes, he
+hated Freya. As a man of the sea, he recalled his nameless
+fellow-sailors killed by torpedoes. This woman had indirectly prepared
+the ground for many assassinations.... And at the same time he recalled
+another image of her as the mistress who knew so well how to keep him
+spellbound by her artifices in the old palace of Naples, making that
+voluptuous prison her best souvenir.
+
+"Let's think no more about her," he said to himself energetically. "She
+has died.... She does not exist."
+
+But not even after her death did she leave him in peace. Remembrance of
+her soon came surging back, binding her to him with a tragic interest.
+
+The very evening that he was talking with his friend in the cafe of the
+_Cannebiere_, he went to the post office to get the mail which had been
+forwarded to him at Marseilles. They gave him a great package of
+letters and newspapers. By the handwriting on the envelopes, and the
+postmarks on the postals, he tried to make out who was writing to
+him:--one letter only from his wife, evidently but a single sheet,
+judging from its slender flexibility, three very bulky ones from
+Toni,--a species of diary in which he continued relating his purchases,
+his crops, his hope of seeing the captain,--all this mixed in with
+abundant news about the war, and the wretched condition of the people.
+There were, besides, various sheets from the banking establishments at
+Barcelona, rendering Ferragut an account of the investment of his
+capital.
+
+At the foot of the staircase he completed his examination of the
+outside of his correspondence. It was just what was always awaiting him
+on his return from his voyages.
+
+He was about to put the package in his pocket and continue on his way
+when his attention was attracted by a voluminous envelope in an unknown
+handwriting, registered in Paris....
+
+Curiosity made him open it immediately and he found in his hand a
+regular sheaf of loose leaves, a long account that far exceeded the
+limits of a letter. He looked at the engraved letter-head and then at
+the signature. The writer was a lawyer in Paris, and Ferragut suspected
+by the luxurious paper and address that he must be a celebrated
+_maitre_. He even recalled having run across his name somewhere in the
+newspapers.
+
+Then and there he began reading the first page, anxious to know why
+this distinguished personage had written to him. But he had scarcely
+run his eyes over some of the sheets before he stopped his reading. He
+had come across the name of Freya Talberg. This lawyer had been her
+defender before the Council of War.
+
+Ferragut hastened to put the letter in a safe place, and curb his
+impatience. He felt that necessity for silent isolation and absolute
+solitude which a reader, anxious to delve into a new book, experiences.
+This bundle of papers doubtless contained for him the most interesting
+of stories.
+
+Returning to his ship, the road seemed to him far longer than at other
+times. He longed to lock himself in his stateroom, away from all
+curiosity as though he were about to perform some mysterious rite.
+
+Freya was not in existence. She had disappeared from the world in the
+infamous manner in which criminals disappear,--doubly condemned since
+even her memory was hateful to the people; and Ferragut within a few
+moments was going to resurrect her like a ghost, in the floating house
+that she had visited on two occasions. He now might know the last hours
+of her existence wrapped in disreputable mystery; he could violate the
+will of her judges who had condemned her to lose her life and after
+death to perish from every one's memory. With eager avidity he seated
+himself before his cabin table, arranging the contents of the envelope
+in order;--more than twelve sheets, written on both sides, and several
+newspaper clippings. In these clippings he saw portraits of Freya, a
+hard and blurred likeness which he could recognize only by her name
+underneath. He also beheld the portrait of her defender,--an old lawyer
+of fastidious aspect with white locks carefully combed, and sharp eyes.
+
+From the very first lines, Ferragut suspected that the _maitre_ could
+neither write nor speak except in the most approved literary form. His
+letter was a moderated and correct account in which all emotion,
+however keen it might have been, was discreetly controlled so as not to
+disorganize the sweep of a majestic style.
+
+He began by explaining that his professional duty had made him decide
+to defend this spy. She was in need of a lawyer; she was a foreigner;
+public opinion, influenced by the exaggerated accounts given by the
+newspapers of her beauty and her jewels, was ferociously inimical,
+demanding her immediate punishment. Nobody had wished to take charge of
+her defense. And for this very reason he had accepted it without fear
+of unpopularity.
+
+Ferragut believed that this sacrifice might be attributed to the
+impulse of a gallant old beau, attracted to Freya because of her
+beauty. Besides, this criminal process represented a typical Parisian
+incident and might give a certain romantic notoriety to the one
+intervening in its developments.
+
+A few paragraphs further on the sailor became convinced that the
+_maitre_ had fallen in love with his client. This woman even in her
+dying moments shed around her most amazing powers of seduction. The
+professional success anticipated by the lawyer disappeared on his first
+questioning. Defense of Freya would be impossible. When he questioned
+her regarding the events of her former life, she either wept for every
+answer, or else remained silent, immovable, with as unconcerned a
+glance as though the fate of some other woman were at stake.
+
+The military judges did not need her confessions: they knew, detail for
+detail, all her existence during the war and in the last years of
+peace. Never had the police agents abroad worked with such rapidity and
+success. Mysterious and omnipotent good fortune had crowned every
+investigation. They knew all of Freya's doings. They had even received
+from a secret agent exact data regarding her personality, the number by
+which she was represented in the director's office at Berlin, the
+salary that she was paid, as well as her reports during the past month.
+Documents written by her personally, of an irrefutable culpability, had
+poured in without any one's knowing from what point they were sent or
+by whom.
+
+Every time that the judge had placed before Freya's eyes one of these
+proofs, she looked at her lawyer in desperation.
+
+"It is _they_!" she moaned. "They who desire my death!"
+
+Her defender was of the same opinion. The police had learned of her
+presence in France by a letter that her superiors in Barcelona had
+sent, stupidly disguised, written with regard to a code whose mystery
+had been discovered some time before by the French counter-spies. To
+the _maitre_ it was only too evident that some mysterious power had
+wished to rid itself of this woman, dispatching her to an enemy's
+country, intending to send her to death.
+
+Ulysses suspected in the defender a state of mind similar to his
+own,--the same duality that had tormented him in all his relations with
+Freya.
+
+"I, sir," wrote the lawyer, "have suffered much. One of my sons, an
+officer, died in the battle of the Aisne. Others very close to me,
+nephews and pupils, died in Verdun and with the expeditionary army of
+the Orient...."
+
+As a Frenchman, he had felt an irresistible aversion upon becoming
+convinced that Freya was a spy who had done great harm to his
+country.... Then as a man, he had commiserated her inconsequence, her
+contradictory and frivolous character, amounting almost to a crime, and
+her egoism as a beautiful woman and lover of luxury that had made her
+willing to suffer moral vileness in exchange for creature comfort.
+
+Her story had attracted the lawyer with the palpitating interest of a
+novel of adventure. Commiseration had finally developed the vehemence
+of a love affair. Besides, the knowledge that the exploiters of this
+woman were the ones that had denounced her, had aroused his knightly
+enthusiasm in the defense of her indefensible cause.
+
+Appearance before the Council of War had proved painful and dramatic.
+Freya, who until then, had seemed brutalized by the regime of the
+prison, roused herself upon being confronted by a dozen grave and
+uniformed men.
+
+Her first moves were those of every handsome and coquettish female. She
+knew perfectly well her physical influence. These soldiers transformed
+into judges were recalling those other flirts that she had seen at the
+teas and grand balls at the hotels.... What Frenchman can resist
+feminine attraction?...
+
+She had smiled, she had replied to the first questions with graceful
+modesty, fixing her wickedly guileless eyes upon the officials seated
+behind the presidential table, and on those other men in blue uniform,
+charged with accusing her or reading the documents of her prosecution.
+
+But something cold and hostile existed in the atmosphere and paralyzed
+her smiles, leaving her words without echo and making ineffectual the
+splendors of her eyes. All foreheads were bowed under the weight of
+severe thought: all the men in that instant appeared thirty years
+older. They simply would not see such a one as she was, however much
+effort she might make. They had left their admiration and their desires
+on the other side of the door.
+
+Freya perceived that she had ceased to be a woman and was no more than
+one accused. Another of her sex, an irresistible rival, was now
+engrossing everything, binding these men with a profound and austere
+love. Instinct made her regard fixedly the white matron of grave
+countenance whose vigorous bust appeared over the head of the
+president. She was Patriotism, Justice, the Republic, contemplating
+with her vague and hollow eyes this female of flesh and blood who was
+beginning to tremble upon realizing her situation.
+
+"I do not want to die!" cried Freya, suddenly abandoning her seductions
+and becoming a poor, wretched creature crazed by fear. "I am innocent."
+
+She lied with the absurd and barefaced illogicalness of one finding
+herself in danger of death. It was necessary to re-read her first
+declarations, which she was now denying, of presenting afresh the
+material proofs whose existence she did not wish to admit, of making
+her entire past file by supported by that irrefutable data of anonymous
+origin.
+
+"It is _they_ who have done it all!... They have mis-represented me!...
+Since they have brought about my ruin, I am going to tell what I know."
+
+In his account the lawyer passed lightly over what had occurred in the
+Council of War. Professional secrecy and patriotic interest prevented
+greater explicitness. The session had lasted from morning till night,
+Freya revealing to her judges all that she knew.... Then her defender
+had spoken for five hours, trying to establish a species of interchange
+in the application of the penalty. The guilt of this woman was
+undeniable and the wickedness that she had carried through was very
+great, but they should spare her life in exchange for her important
+confessions.... Besides, the inconsequence of her character should be
+taken into consideration ... also, that vengeance of which the enemy
+had made her the victim....
+
+With Freya he had waited, until well on into the night, the decision of
+the tribunal. The defendant appeared animated by hope. She had become a
+woman again: she was talking placidly with him and smiling at the
+gendarmes and eulogizing the army.... "Frenchmen, gentlemen, were
+incapable of killing a woman...."
+
+The _maitre_ was not surprised at the sad and furrowed brows of the
+officers as they came out from their deliberations. They appeared
+discontented with their recent vote, and yet at the same time showed
+the serenity of a tranquil countenance. They were soldiers who had just
+fulfilled their full duty, suppressing every purely masculine instinct.
+The one deputed to read the sentence swelled his voice with a
+fictitious energy.... "_Death!_..." After a long enumeration of crimes
+Freya was condemned to be shot:--she had given information to the enemy
+that represented the loss of thousands of men and boats, torpedoed
+because of her reports, on which had perished defenseless families.
+
+The spy nodded her head upon listening to her own acts, for the first
+time appreciating their enormity and recognizing the justice of their
+tremendous punishment. But at the same time she was relying upon a
+good-natured reprieve in exchange for all which she had revealed, upon
+a gallant clemency ... because she was she.
+
+As the fatal word sounded, she uttered a cry, became ashy pale, and
+leaned upon the lawyer for support.
+
+"I do not want to die!... I ought not to die!... I am innocent."
+
+She continued shrieking her innocence, without giving any other proof
+of it than the desperate instinct of self-preservation. With the
+credulity of one who wishes to save herself, she accepted all the
+problematical consolations of her defender. There remained the last
+recourse of appealing to the mercy of the President of the Republic:
+perhaps he might pardon her.... And she signed this appeal with sudden
+hope.
+
+The lawyer managed to delay the fulfillment of the sentence for two
+months, visiting many of his colleagues who were political personages.
+The desire of saving the life of his client was tormenting him as an
+obsession. He had devoted all his activity and his personal influence
+to this affair.
+
+"In love!... In love, as you were!" said, with scornful accent, the
+voice of Ferragut's prudent counselor.
+
+The periodicals were protesting against this delay in the execution of
+the sentence. The name of Freya Talberg was beginning to be heard in
+conversation as an argument against the weakness of the government. The
+women were the most implacable.
+
+One day, in the Palace of Justice, the _maitre_ Became convinced of
+this general animosity that was pushing the defendant toward the day of
+execution. The woman who had charge of the gowns, a verbose old wife,
+on a familiar footing with the illustrious lawyers, had rudely made
+known their opinions.
+
+"I wonder when they're going to execute that spy!... If she were a poor
+woman with children and needed to earn their bread, they would have
+shot her long ago.... But she is an elegant _cocotte_ and with jewels.
+Perhaps she has bewitched some of the cabinet ministers. We are going
+to see her on the street now almost any day.... And my son who died at
+Verdun!..."
+
+The prisoner, as though divining this public indignation, began to
+consider her death very near losing, little by little, that love of
+existence which had made her burst forth into lies and delirious
+protests. In vain the _maitre_ held out hopes of pardon.
+
+"It is useless: I must die.... I ought to be shot.... I have done so
+much mischief.... It horrifies even me to remember all the crimes named
+in that sentence.... And there are still others that they don't
+know!... Solitude has made me see myself just as I am. What shame!... I
+ought to perish; I have ruined everything.... What is there left for me
+to do in the world?..."
+
+"And it was then, my dear sir," continued the attorney, in his letter,
+"that she spoke to me of you, of the way in which you had known each
+other, of the harm which she had done you unconsciously."
+
+Convinced of the uselessness of his efforts to save her life, the
+_maitre_ had solicited one last favor of the tribunal. Freya was very
+desirous that he should accompany her at the moment of her execution,
+as this would maintain her serenity. Those in the government had
+promised their colleague in the forum, to send opportune notice that he
+might be present at the fulfillment of the sentence.
+
+It was at three o'clock in the morning and while he was in the deepest
+sleep that some messengers, sent by the prefecture of police, awakened
+him. The execution was to take place at daybreak: this was a decision
+reached at the last moment in order that the reporters might learn too
+late of the event.
+
+An automobile took him with the messengers to the prison of St. Lazare,
+across silent and shadowy Paris. Only a few hooded street lamps were
+cutting with their sickly light the darkness of the streets. In the
+prison they were joined by other functionaries and many chiefs and
+officers who represented military justice. The condemned woman was
+still sleeping in her cell, ignorant of what was about to occur.
+
+Those charged with awakening her, gloomy and timid, were marching in
+line through the corridors of the jail, bumping into one another in
+their nervous precipitation.
+
+The door was opened. Under the regulation light Freya was on her bed,
+with closed eyes. Upon opening them and finding herself surrounded by
+men, her face was convulsed with terror.
+
+"Courage, Freya!" said the prison warden. "The appeal for pardon has
+been denied."
+
+"Courage, my daughter," added the priest of the establishment, starting
+the beginning of a discourse.
+
+Her terror, due to the rude surprise of awakening with the brain still
+paralyzed, lasted but a few seconds. Upon collecting her thoughts,
+serenity returned to her face.
+
+"I must die?" she asked. "The hour has already come?... Very well,
+then: let them shoot me. Here I am."
+
+Some of the men turned their heads, and so averted their glance.... She
+had to get out of the bed in the presence of the two watchmen. This
+precaution was so that she might not attempt to take her life. She even
+asked the lawyer to remain in the cell as though in this way she wished
+to lessen the annoyance of dressing herself before strangers.
+
+Upon reaching this passage in his letter, Ferragut realized the pity
+and admiration of the _maitre_ who had seen her preparing the last
+toilet of her life.
+
+"Adorable creature! So beautiful!... She was born for love and luxury,
+yet was going to die, torn by bullets like a rude soldier...."
+
+The precautions adopted by her coquetry appeared to him admirable. She
+wanted to die as she had lived, placing on her person the best that she
+possessed. Therefore, suspecting the nearness of her execution, she had
+a few days before reclaimed the jewels and the gown that she was
+wearing when arrest prevented her returning to Brest.
+
+Her defender described her "with a dress of pearl gray silk, bronze
+stockings and low shoes, a great-coat of furs, and a large hat with
+plumes. Besides, the necklace of pearls was on her bosom, emeralds in
+her ears and all her diamonds on her fingers."
+
+A sad smile curled her lips upon trying to look at herself in the
+window panes, still black with the darkness of night, which served her
+as a mirror.
+
+"I die in my uniform like a soldier," she said to her lawyer.
+
+Then in the ante-chamber of the prison, under the crude artificial
+light, this plumed woman, covered with jewels, her clothing exhaling a
+subtle perfume, memory of happier days, turned without any
+embarrassment toward the men clad in black and in blue uniforms.
+
+Two religious sisters who accompanied her appeared more moved than she.
+They were trying to exhort her and at the same time were struggling to
+keep back the tears.... The priest was no less touched. He had attended
+other criminals, but they were men.... To assist to a decent death a
+beautiful perfumed woman scintillating with precious stones, as though
+she were going to ride in an automobile to a fashionable tea!...
+
+The week before she had been in doubt as to whether to receive a
+Calvinist pastor or a Catholic priest. In her cosmopolitan life of
+uncertain nationality she had never taken the time to decide about any
+religion for herself. Finally she had selected the latter on account of
+its being more simple intellectually, more liberal and approachable....
+
+Several times when the priest was trying to console her, she
+interrupted him as though she were the one charged with inspiring
+courage.
+
+"To die is not so terrible as it appears when seen afar off!... I feel
+ashamed when I think of the fears that I have passed through, of the
+tears that I have shed.... It turns out to be much more simple than I
+had believed.... We all have to die!"
+
+They read to her the sentence refusing the appeal for pardon. Then they
+offered her a pen that she might sign it.
+
+A colonel told her that there were still a few moments at her
+disposition in which to write to her family, her friends, or to make
+her last will....
+
+"To whom shall I write?" said Freya. "I haven't a single friend in the
+world...."
+
+"Then it was," continued the lawyer, "that she took the pen as if a
+recollection had occurred to her, and traced some few lines.... Then
+she tore up the paper and came toward me. She was thinking of you,
+Captain: her last letter was for you and she left it unfinished,
+fearing that it might never reach your hands. Besides, she wasn't equal
+to writing; her pulse was nervous: she preferred to talk.... She asked
+me to send you a long, very long letter, telling about her last
+moments, and I had to swear to her that I would carry out her request."
+
+From that time on the _maitre_ had seen things badly. Emotion was
+perturbing his sensibilities, but there yet lived in his mind Freya's
+last words on coming out of the jail.
+
+"I am not a German," she said repeatedly to the men in uniform. "I am
+not German!"
+
+For her the least important thing was to die. She was only worried for
+fear they might believe her of that odious nationality.
+
+The attorney found himself in an automobile with many men whom he
+scarcely knew. Other vehicles were before and behind theirs. In one of
+them was Freya with the nuns and the priest.
+
+A faint streak was whitening the sky, marking the points of the roofs.
+Below, in the deep blackness of the streets, the renewed life of
+daybreak was slowly beginning. The first laborers going to their work
+with their hands in their pockets, and the market women returning from
+market pushing their carts, turned their heads, following with interest
+this procession of swift vehicles almost all of them with men in the
+box seat beside the conductor. To the working-folk, this was perhaps a
+morning wedding.... Perhaps these were gay people coming from a
+nocturnal fiesta.... Several times the cortege slackened its speed,
+blocked by a row of heavy carts with mountains of garden-stuff.
+
+The _maitre_, in spite of his emotions, recognized the road that the
+automobile was following. In the _place de la Nation_ he caught
+glimpses of the sculptured group, _le Triomphe de la Republique_,
+piercing the dripping mistiness of dawn; then the grating of the
+enclosure; then the long _cours de Vincennes_ and its historic
+fortress.
+
+They went still further on until they reached the field of execution.
+
+Upon getting down from the automobile, he saw an extensive plain
+covered with grass on which were drawn up two companies of soldiers.
+Other vehicles had arrived before them. Freya detached herself from the
+group of persons descending from the automobile, leaving behind the
+nuns and the officers who were escorting her.
+
+The light of daybreak, blue and cold as the reflection of steel, threw
+into relief the two masses of armed men who formed a narrow passageway.
+At the end of this impromptu lane there was a post planted in the
+ground and beyond that, a dark van drawn by two horses, and various men
+clad in black.
+
+The woman's approach was signalized by a voice of command, and
+immediately sounded the drums and trumpets at the head of the two
+formations. There was a rattle of guns; the soldiers were presenting
+arms. The martial instruments delivered the triumphal salute due to the
+presence of the head of a state, a general, a flag-raising.... It was
+an homage to Justice, majestic and severe,--a hymn to Patriotism,
+implacable in defense.
+
+Recalling the white woman with deep bosom and hollow eyes that she had
+seen over the head of the President of the Council, the spy for a
+moment recognized that all this was in her honor; but afterwards, she
+wished to believe that the triumphal reception was for herself.... She
+was marching between guns, accompanied by bugle-call and drum-beat,
+like a queen.
+
+To her defender, she appeared taller than ever. She seemed to have
+grown a palm higher because of her intense, emotional uplift. Her
+theatrical soul was moved just as when she used to present herself on
+the boards to receive applause. All these men had arisen in the middle
+of the night and were there on her account: the horns and the drums
+were sounding in order to greet her. Discipline was keeping their
+countenances grave and cold but she had the certain consciousness that
+they were finding her beautiful, and that back of many immovable eyes,
+desire was asserting itself.
+
+If there remained a shred of fear of losing her life, it disappeared
+under the caress of this false glory.... To die contemplated by so many
+valiant men who were rendering her the greatest of honors! She felt the
+necessity of being adorable, of falling into an artistic pose as though
+she were on a stage.
+
+She was passing between the two masses of men, head erect, stepping
+firmly with the high-spirited tread of a goddess-huntress, sometimes
+casting a glance on some of the hundreds of eyes fixed upon her. The
+illusion of her triumph made her advance as upright and serene as
+though passing the troops in review.
+
+"Good heavens!... What poise!" exclaimed a young officer behind the
+lawyer, admiring Freya's serenity.
+
+Upon approaching the post, some one read a brief document, a summary of
+the sentence,--three lines to apprise her that justice was about to be
+fulfilled.
+
+The only thing about this rapid notification that annoyed her was the
+fear that the trumpets and drums would cease. But they continued
+sounding and their martial music was as comforting to her ears as a
+very intoxicating wine slipping through her lips.
+
+A platoon of corporals and soldiers (twelve rifles) detached themselves
+from the double military mass. A sub-officer with a blond beard, small,
+delicate, was commanding it with an unsheathed sword. Freya
+contemplated him a moment, finding him interesting, while the young man
+avoided her glance.
+
+With the gesture of a tragedy queen, she repelled the white
+handkerchief that they were offering her to bandage her eyes. She did
+not need it. The nuns took leave of her forever. As soon as she was
+alone, two gendarmes commenced to tie her with the back supported
+against the post.
+
+"They say," her defender continued writing, "that one of her hands
+waved to me for the last time just before it was fastened down by the
+rope.... I saw nothing. I could not see!... It was too much for me!..."
+
+The rest of the execution he knew only by hearsay. The trumpets and
+drums continued sounding. Freya, bound and intensely pale, smiled as
+though she were drunk. The early morning breeze waved the plumes of her
+hat.
+
+When the twelve fusileers advanced placing themselves in a horizontal
+line eight yards distant, all of them aiming toward her heart, she
+appeared to wake up. She shrieked, her eyes abnormally dilated by the
+horror of the reality that so soon was to take place. Her cheeks were
+covered with tears. She tugged at the ligatures with the vigor of an
+epileptic.
+
+"Pardon!... Pardon! I do not want to die!"
+
+The sub-lieutenant raised his sword, and lowered it again rapidly.... A
+shot.
+
+Freya collapsed, her body slipping the entire length of the post until
+it fell forward on the ground. The bullets had cut the cords that bound
+her.
+
+As though it had acquired sudden life, her hat leaped from her head,
+flying off to fall about four yards further on. A corporal with a
+revolver in his right hand came forward from the shooting picket:--"the
+death-blow." He checked his step before the puddle of blood that was
+forming around the victim, pressing his lips together and averting his
+eyes. He then bent over her, raising with the end of the barrel the
+ringlets which had fallen over one of her ears. She was still
+breathing.... A shot in the temple. Her body contracted with a final
+shudder, then remained immovable with the rigidity of a corpse.
+
+Voices were heard. The firing-squad re-formed in line, and to the
+rhythm of their instruments went filing past the body of the dead. From
+the funeral wagon two black-robed men drew out a bier of white wood.
+
+Turning their backs upon their work, the double military mass marched
+toward the encampment. The ends of Justice had been served. Trumpets
+and drums were lost on the horizon but their sounds were still
+magnified by the fresh echoes of the coming morn. The corpse was
+despoiled of its jewels and then deposited in that poor coffin which
+looked so like a packing-box. The two nuns took with timidity the gems
+which the dead woman had given them for their works of charity. Then
+the lid was fastened down, shutting away forever the one who a few
+moments before was a woman of sumptuous charm upon whom men could not
+look unmoved. The four planks now guarded merely bloody rags, mutilated
+flesh, broken bones.
+
+The vehicle went to the cemetery of Vincennes, to the corner in which
+the executed were buried.... Not a flower, not an inscription, not a
+cross. The lawyer himself could not be sure of finding her burial place
+if at any time it was necessary to seek it.... Such was the last scene
+in the career of this luxurious and pleasure-loving creature!... Thus
+had that body gone to dissolution in an unknown hole in the ground like
+any abandoned beast of burden!...
+
+"She was good," said her defender, "and yet at the same time, she was a
+criminal. Her education was to blame. Poor woman!... They had brought
+her up to live in riches, and riches had always fled before her."
+
+Then in his last lines the old _maitre_ said with melancholy, "She died
+thinking of you and a little of me.... We have been the last men of her
+existence."
+
+This reading left Ulysses in a mournful state of stupefaction. Freya
+was no longer living!... He was no longer running the danger of seeing
+her appear on his ship at whatever port he might touch!...
+
+The duality of his sentiments again surged up with violent
+contradiction.
+
+"It was a good thing!" said the sailor, "how many men have died through
+her fault!... Her execution was inevitable. The sea must be cleared of
+such bandits."
+
+And at the same time the remembrance of the delights of Naples, of that
+long imprisonment in a harem pervaded with unlimited sensuousness was
+reborn in his mind. He saw her in all the majesty of her marvelous
+body, just as when she was dancing or leaping from side to side of the
+old salon. And now this form, molded by nature in a moment of
+enthusiasm, was no longer in existence.... It was nothing but a mass of
+liquid flesh and pestilent pulp!...
+
+He recalled her kiss, that kiss that had so electrified him, making him
+sink down and down through an ocean of ecstasy, like a castaway,
+content with his fate.... And he would never know her more!... And her
+mouth, with its perfume of cinnamon and incense, of Asiatic forests
+haunted with sensuousness and intrigue, was now ...! Ah, misery!
+
+Suddenly he saw the profile of the dead woman with one eye turned
+toward him, graciously and malignly, just as the "eye of the morning"
+must have looked at its mistress while uncoiling her mysterious dances
+in her Asiatic dwelling.
+
+Ulysses concentrated his attention on the Phantasm's pallid brow
+touched by the silky caress of her curls. There he had placed his best
+kisses, kisses of tenderness and gratitude.... But the smooth skin that
+had appeared made of petals of the camellia was growing dark before his
+eyes. It became a dark green and was oozing with blood.... Thus he had
+seen her that other time.... And he recalled with remorse his blow in
+Barcelona.... Then it opened, forming a deep hole, angular in shape
+like a star. Now it was the mark of the gunshot wound, the _coup de
+grace_ that brought the death-agony of the executed girl to its end.
+
+Poor Freya, implacable warrior, unnerved by the battle of the sexes!...
+She had passed her existence hating men yet needing them in order to
+live,--doing them all the harm possible and receiving it from them in
+sad reciprocity until finally she had perished at their hands.
+
+It could not end in any other way. A masculine hand had opened the
+orifice through which was escaping the last bubble of her existence....
+And the horrified captain, poring over her sad profile with its
+purpling temple, thought that he never would be able to blot that
+ghastly vision from his memory. The phantasm would diminish, becoming
+invisible in order to deceive him, but would surely come forth again in
+all his hours of pensive solitude; it was going to embitter his nights
+on watch, to follow him through the years like remorse.
+
+Fortunately the exactions of real life kept repelling these sad
+memories.
+
+"It was a good thing she was shot!" affirmed authoritatively within him
+the energetic official accustomed to command men. "What would you have
+done in forming a part of the tribunal that condemned her?... Just what
+the others did. Think of those who have died through her deviltry!...
+Remember what Toni said!"
+
+A letter from his former mate, received in the same mail with the one
+from Freya's defender, spoke of the abominations that submarine
+aggression was committing in the Mediterranean.
+
+News of some of the crimes was beginning to be received from
+shipwrecked sailors who had succeeded in reaching the coast after long
+hours of struggle, or when picked up by other boats. The most of the
+victims, however, would remain forever unknown in the mystery of the
+waves. Torpedoed boats had gone to the bottom with their crews and
+passengers, "without leaving any trace," and only months afterwards a
+part of the tragedy had become evident when the surge flung up on the
+coast numberless bodies impossible of identification, without even a
+recognizable human face.
+
+Almost every week Toni contemplated some of these funereal gifts of the
+sea. At daybreak the fishermen used to find corpses tossed on the beach
+where the water swept the sand, resting there a few moments on the
+moist ground, only to be snatched back again by another and stronger
+wave. Finally their backs had become imbedded on land, holding them
+motionless--while, from their clothing and their flesh, swarms of
+little fishes came forth fleeing back to the sea in search of new
+pastures. The revenue guards had discovered among the rocks mutilated
+bodies in tragic positions, with glassy eyes protruding from their
+sockets.
+
+Many of them were recognized as soldiers by the tatters that revealed
+an old uniform, or the metal identification tags on their wrists. The
+shore folks were always talking of a transport that had been torpedoed
+coming from Algiers.... And mixed with the men, they were constantly
+finding bodies of women so disfigured that it was almost impossible to
+judge of their age: mothers who had their arms arched as though putting
+forth their utmost efforts to guard the babe that had disappeared. Many
+whose virginal modesty had been violated by the sea, showed naked limbs
+swollen and greenish, with deep bites from flesh-eating fishes. The
+tide had even tossed ashore the headless body of a child a few years
+old.
+
+It was more horrible, according to Toni, to contemplate this spectacle
+from land than when in a boat. Those on ships are not able to see the
+ultimate consequences of the torpedoings as vividly as do those who
+live on the shore, receiving as a gift of the waves this continual
+consignment of victims.
+
+The pilot had ended his letter with his usual supplications:--"Why do
+you persist in following the sea?... You want a vengeance that is
+impossible. You are one man, and your enemies are millions.... You are
+going to die if you persist in disregarding them. You already know that
+they have been hunting you for a long time. And you will not always
+succeed in eluding their clutches. Remember what the people say, 'He
+who courts danger--!' Give up the sea; return to your wife or come to
+us. Such a rich life as you might lead ashore!..."
+
+For a few hours Ferragut was of Toni's opinion. His reckless
+undertaking was bound to come to a bad end. His enemies knew him, were
+lying in wait for him, and were many arrayed against one who was living
+alone on his ship with a crew of men of a different nationality. Aside
+from the few who had always loved him, nobody would lament his death.
+He did not belong to any of the nations at war; he was a species of
+privateer bound not to begin an attack. He was even less,--an officer
+carrying supplies under the protection of a neutral flag. This flag was
+not deceiving anybody. His enemies knew the ship, seeking for it with
+more determination than if he were with the Allied fleets. Even in his
+own country, there were many people in sympathy with the German Empire
+who would celebrate joyously the disappearance of the _Mare Nostrum_
+and its captain.
+
+Freya's death had depressed his spirits more than he had imagined
+possible. He had gloomy presentiments; perhaps his next journey might
+be his last.
+
+"You are going to die!" cried an anguished voice in his brain. "You'll
+die very soon if you do not retire from the sea."
+
+And to Ferragut the queerest thing about the warning was that this
+counselor had the voice of the one who had always egged him on to
+foolish adventures,--the one that had hurled him into danger for the
+mere pleasure of discounting it, the one that had made him follow Freya
+even after knowing her vile profession.
+
+On the other hand the voice of prudence, always cautious and temperate,
+was now showing an heroic tranquillity, speaking like a man of peace
+who considers his obligations superior to his life.
+
+"Be calm, Ferragut; you have sold your person with your boat, and they
+have given you millions for it. You must carry through what you have
+promised even though it may send you out of existence.... The _Mare
+Nostrum_ cannot sail without a Spanish captain. If you abandon it, you
+will have to find another captain. You will run away through fear and
+put in your place a man who has to face death in order to maintain his
+family. Glorious achievement, that! ... while you would be on land,
+rich and safe!... And what are you going to do on land, you coward?"
+
+His egoism hardly knew how to reply to such a question. He recalled
+with antipathy his bourgeois existence over there in Barcelona, before
+buying the steamer. He was a man of action and could live only when
+occupied in risky enterprises.
+
+He would be bored to death on land and at the same time would be
+considered belittled, degraded, like one who comes down to an inferior
+grade in a country of hierarchies. The captain of a romantic,
+adventurous life would be converted into a real estate proprietor,
+knowing no other struggles than those which he might sustain with his
+tenants. Perhaps, in order to avoid a commonplace existence, he might
+invest his capital in navigation, the only business that he knew well.
+He might become a ship-owner acquiring new vessels and, little by
+little, because of the necessity of keeping a sharp watch over them,
+would eventually renew his voyages.... Well, then, why should he
+abandon the _Mare Nostrum?_
+
+Upon asking himself anxiously what his life had so far amounted to, he
+underwent a profound moral revolution.
+
+All his former existence appeared to him like a desert. He had lived
+without knowing why nor wherefore, challenging countless dangers and
+adventures for the mere pleasure of coming out victorious. Neither did
+he know with certainty what he had wanted until then. If it was money,
+it had flowed into his hands in the last months with overwhelming
+abundance.... He had it to-spare and it had not made him happy. As to
+professional glory, he could not desire anything greater than he
+already had. His name was celebrated all over the Spanish
+Mediterranean. Even the rudest and most ungovernable of sailors would
+admit his exceptional ability.
+
+"Love remained!..." But Ferragut made a wry face when thinking of that.
+He had known it and did not wish to meet it again. The gentle love of a
+good companion, capable of surrounding the latter part of his existence
+with congenial comfort, he had just lost forever. The other,
+impassioned, fantastic, voluptuous, giving to life the crude interest
+of conflicts and contrasts, had left him with no desire of recommencing
+it.
+
+Paternity, stronger and more enduring than love, might have filled the
+rest of his days had his son not died.... There only remained
+vengeance, the savage task of returning evil to those who had done him
+so much evil. But he was so powerless to struggle against all of
+them!... This final act appeared to be turning out so small and selfish
+in comparison with that other patriotic enthusiasm which was now
+dragging to sacrifice such great masses of men!...
+
+While he was thinking it all over, a phrase which he had somewhere
+heard--formed perhaps from the residuum of old readings--began to chant
+in his brain: "A life without ideals is not worth the trouble of
+living."
+
+Ferragut mutely assented. It was true: in order to live, an ideal is
+necessary. But where could he find it?...
+
+Suddenly, in his mind's eye, he saw Toni,--just as when he used to try
+to express his confused thoughts. With all his credulity and
+simplicity, his captain now considered his humble mate his superior. In
+his own way Toni had his ideal: he was concerned with something besides
+his own selfishness. He wished for other men what he considered good
+for himself, and he defended his convictions with the mystical
+enthusiasm of all those historic personages who have tried to impose a
+belief;--with the faith of the warriors of the Cross and those of the
+Prophet, with the tenacity of the Inquisition and of the Jacobins.
+
+He, a man of reason, had only known how to ridicule the generous and
+disinterested enthusiasms of other men, detecting at once their weak
+points and lack of adaptation to the reality of the moment.... What
+right had he to laugh at his mate who was a believer, dreaming, with
+the pure-mindedness of a child, of a free and happy humanity?... Aside
+from his stupid jeers, what could he oppose to that faith?...
+
+Life began to appear to him under a new light, as something serious and
+mysterious that was exacting a bridge toll, a tribute of courage from
+all the beings who pass over it, leaving the cradle behind them and
+having the grave as a final resting-place.
+
+It did not matter at all that their ideals might appear false. Where is
+the truth, the only and genuine truth?... Who is there that can
+demonstrate that he exists, and is not an illusion?...
+
+The necessary thing was to believe in something, to have hope. The
+multitudes had never been touched by impulses of argument and
+criticism. They had only gone forward when some one had caused hopes
+and hallucinations to be born in their souls. Philosophers might vainly
+seek the truth by the light of logic, but the rest of mankind would
+always prefer the chimerical ideals that become transformed into
+powerful motives of action.
+
+All religions were becoming beautifully less upon being subjected to
+cold examination. Yet, nevertheless, they were producing saints and
+martyrs, true super-men of morality. All revolutions had proved
+imperfect and ineffectual when submitted to scientific revision. Yet,
+nothwithstanding, they had brought forth the greatest individual
+heroes, the most astonishing collective movements of history.
+
+"To believe!... To dream!" a mysterious voice kept chanting in his
+brain. "To have an ideal!..."
+
+He did not fancy living, like the mummies of the great Pharaohs, in a
+luxurious tomb, anointed with perfume and surrounded with everything
+necessary for nourishment and sleep. To be born, to grow up, to
+reproduce oneself was not enough to form a history:--all the animals do
+the same. Man ought to add something more which he alone
+possesses,--the faculty of framing a future.... To dream! To the
+heritage of idealism left by our forebears should be added a new ideal,
+or the power of bringing it about.
+
+Ferragut realized that in normal times, he would have gone to his death
+just as he had lived, continuing a monotonous and uniform existence.
+Now the violent changes around him were resuscitating the dormant
+personalities which we all carry within us as souvenirs of our
+ancestors, revolving around a central and keen personality the only one
+that has existed until then.
+
+The world was in a state of war. The men of Middle Europe were clashing
+with the other half on the battlefields. Both sides had a mystic ideal,
+affirming it with violence and slaughter just as the multitudes have
+always done when moved by religious or revolutionary certainty accepted
+as the only truth....
+
+But the sailor recognized a profound difference in the two masses
+struggling at the present day. One was placing its ideal in the past,
+wishing to rejuvenate the sovereignty of Force, the divinity of war,
+and adapt it to actual life. The other throng was preparing for the
+future, dreaming of a world of free democracy, of nations at peace,
+tolerant and without jealousy.
+
+Upon adjusting himself to this new atmosphere, Ferragut began to feel
+within him ideas and aspirations that were, perhaps, an ancestral
+legacy. He fancied he could hear his uncle, the _Triton_, describing
+the impact of the men of the North upon the men of the South when
+trying to make themselves masters of the blue mantle of Amphitrite. He
+was a Mediterranean, but just because the country in which he had been
+born happened to be uninterested in the fate of the world, he was not
+going to remain indifferent.
+
+He ought to continue just where he was. Whatever Toni had told him of
+Latinism and Mediterranean civilization, he now accepted as great
+truths. Perhaps they might not be exact when examined in the light of
+pure reason, but they were worth as much as the assurances of the
+others.
+
+He was going to continue his life of navigation with new enthusiasm. He
+had faith, the ideals, the illusions that heroes are made of. While the
+war lasted he would assist in his own way, acting as an auxiliary to
+those who were fighting, transporting all that was necessary to the
+struggle. He began to look with greater respect upon the sailors
+obedient to his orders, simple folk who had given their blood without
+fine phrases and without arguments.
+
+When peace should come he would not, therefore, retire from the sea.
+There would still be much to be done. Then would begin the commercial
+war, the sharp rivalry to conquer the markets of the younger nations of
+America. Audacious and enormous plans were outlining themselves in his
+brain. In this war he might perhaps become a leader. He dreamed of the
+creation of a fleet of steamers that might reach even to the coast of
+the Pacific; he wished to contribute his means to the victorious
+re-birth of the race which had discovered the greater part of the
+planet.
+
+His new faith made him more friendly with the ship's cook, feeling the
+attraction of his invincible illusions. From time to time he would
+amuse himself consulting the old fellow as to the future fate of the
+steamer; he wished to know if the submarines were causing him any fear.
+
+"There's nothing to worry about," affirmed Caragol. "We have good
+protectors. Whoever presents himself before us is lost."
+
+And he showed his captain the religious engravings and postal cards
+which he had tacked on the walls of the galley.
+
+One morning Ferragut received his sailing orders. For the moment they
+were going to Gibraltar, to pick up the cargo of a steamer that had not
+been able to continue its voyage. From the strait they might turn their
+course to Salonica once more.
+
+The captain of the _Mare Nostrum_ had never undertaken a journey with
+so much joy. He believed that he was going to leave on land forever the
+recollection of that executed woman whose corpse he was seeing so many
+nights in his dreams. From all the past, the only thing that he wished
+to transplant to his new existence was the image of his son. Henceforth
+he was going to live, concentrating all his enthusiasm and ideals on
+the mission which he had imposed on himself.
+
+He took the boat directly from Marseilles to the Cape of San Antonio
+far from the coast, keeping to the mid-Mediterranean, without passing
+the Gulf of Lyons. One twilight evening the crew saw some bluish
+mountains in the hazy distance,--the island of Mallorca. During the
+night the lighthouses of Ibiza and Formentera slipped past the dark
+horizon. When the sun arose a vertical spot of rose color like a tongue
+of flame, appeared above the sea line. It was the high mountain of
+Mongo, the Ferrarian promontory of the ancients. At the foot of its
+abrupt steeps was the village of Ulysses' grandparents, the house in
+which he had passed the best part of his childhood. Thus it must have
+looked in the distance to the Greeks of Massalia, exploring the desert
+Mediterranean in ships which were leaping the foam like wooden horses.
+
+All the rest of the day, the _Mare Nostrum_ sailed very close to the
+shore. The captain knew this sea as though it were a lake on his own
+property. He took the steamer through shallow depths, seeing the reefs
+so near to the surface that it appeared almost a miracle that the boat
+did not crash upon them. Sometimes the space between the keel and the
+sunken rocks was hardly two yards wide. Then the gilded water would
+take on a dark tone and the steamer would continue its advance over the
+greater depths.
+
+Along the shore, the autumn sun was reddening the yellowing mountains,
+now dry and fragrant, covered with pasturage of strong odor which could
+be smelt at great distances. In all the windings of the coast,--little
+coves, beds of dry torrents or gorges between two peaks--were visible
+white groups of hamlets.
+
+Ferragut contemplated carefully the native land of his grandparents.
+Toni must be there now: perhaps from the door of his dwelling he was
+seeing them pass by; perhaps he was recognizing the ship with surprise
+and emotion.
+
+A French official, motionless near Ulysses on the bridge, was admiring
+the beauty of the day and the sea. Not a single cloud was in the sky.
+All was blue above and below, with no variation except where the bands
+of foam were combing themselves on the jutting points of the coast, and
+the restless gold of the sunlight was forming a broad roadway over the
+waters. A flock of dolphins frisked around the boat like a cortege of
+oceanic divinities.
+
+"If the sea were always like this!" exclaimed the captain, "what
+delight to be a sailor!"
+
+The crew could see the people on land running together and forming
+groups, attracted by the novelty of a steamer that was passing within
+reach of their voice. On each of the jutting points of the shore was a
+low and ruddy tower,--last vestige of the thousand-year war of the
+Mediterranean. Accustomed to the rugged shores of the ocean and its
+eternal surf, the Breton sailors were marveling at this easy
+navigation, almost touching the coast whose inhabitants looked like a
+swarm of bees. Had the boat been directed by another captain, so close
+a journey would have resulted most disastrously: but Ferragut was
+laughing, throwing out gloomy hints to the officers who were on the
+bridge, merely to accentuate his professional confidence. He pointed
+out the rocks hidden in the deeps. Here an Italian liner that was going
+to Buenos Ayres had been lost.... A little further on, a swift
+four-masted sailboat had run aground, losing its cargo.... He could
+tell by the fraction of an inch the amount of water permissible between
+the treacherous rocks and the keel of his boat.
+
+He usually sought the roughest waters by preference, but they were in
+the danger-zone of the Mediterranean where the German submarines were
+lying in wait for the French and English convoys navigating in the
+shelter of the Spanish coast. The obstacles of the submerged coast were
+for him now the best defense against invisible attacks.
+
+Behind him, the Ferrarian promontory was growing more and more shadowy,
+becoming a mere blur on the horizon. By nightfall the _Mare Nostrum_
+was in front of Cape Palos and he had to sail in the outer waters in
+order to double it, leaving Cartagena in the distance. From there, he
+turned his course to the southwest, to the cape where the Mediterranean
+was beginning to grow narrow, forming the funnel of the strait. Soon
+they would pass before Almeria and Malaga, reaching Gibraltar the
+following day.
+
+"Here is where the enemy is oftentimes waiting," said Ferragut to one
+of the officers. "If we have no bad luck before night, we shall have
+safely concluded our voyage."
+
+The boat had withdrawn from the shore route, and it was no longer
+possible to distinguish the lower coast. Only from the prow could be
+seen the jutting hump of the cape, rising up like an island.
+
+Caragol appeared with a tray on which were smoking two cups of coffee.
+He would not yield to any cabinboy the honor of serving the captain
+when on the bridge.
+
+"Well, what do you think of the trip?" asked Ferragut gayly, before
+drinking. "Shall we arrive in good condition?..."
+
+The cook made as scornful a gesture as though the Germans could see
+him.
+
+"Nothing will befall us; I am sure of that.... We have One who is
+watching over us, and ..."
+
+He was suddenly interrupted in his affirmations. The tray leaped from
+his hands and he went staggering about like a drunken man, even banging
+his abdomen against the balustrade of the bridge. "_Cristo del
+Grao!_..."
+
+The cup that Ferragut was carrying to his mouth fell with a crash, and
+the French officer, seated on a bench, was almost thrown on his knees.
+The helmsman had to clutch the wheel with a jerk of surprise and
+terror.
+
+The entire ship trembled from keel to masthead, from quarter-deck to
+forecastle, with a deadly shuddering as though invisible claws had just
+checked it at full speed.
+
+The captain tried to account for this accident. "We must be aground,"
+he said to himself, "a reef that I did not know, a shoal not marked on
+the charts...."
+
+But a second had not passed before something else was added to the
+first shock, refuting Ferragut's suppositions. The blue and luminous
+air was rent with the thud of a thunderclap. Near the prow, appeared a
+column of smoke, of expanding gases of yellowish and fulminating steam
+and, coming up through its center in the form of a fan, a spout of
+black objects, broken wood, bits of metallic plates and flaming ropes
+turning to ashes.
+
+Ulysses was no longer in doubt. They must have just been struck by a
+torpedo. His anxious look scanned the waters.
+
+"There!... There!" he said, pointing with his hand.
+
+His keen seaman's eyes had just discovered the light outline of a
+periscope that nobody else was able to see.
+
+He ran down from the bridge or rather he slid down the midship ladder,
+running toward the stern.
+
+"There!... There!"
+
+The three gunners were near the cannon, calm and phlegmatic, putting a
+hand to their eyes, in order to see better the almost invisible speck
+which the captain was pointing out.
+
+None of them noticed the slant that the deck was slowly beginning to
+take. They thrust the first projectile into the breech of the cannon
+while the gunner made an effort to distinguish that small black cane
+hardly perceptible among the tossing waves.
+
+Another shock as rude as the first one! Everything groaned with a dying
+shudder. The plates were trembling and falling apart, losing the
+cohesion that had made of them one single piece. The screws and rivets
+sprang out, moved by the general shaking-up. A second crater had opened
+in the middle of the ship, this time bearing in its fan-shaped
+explosion the limbs of human beings.
+
+The captain saw that further resistance was useless. His feet warned
+him of the cataclysm that was developing beneath them--the liquid
+water-spout invading with a foamy bellowing the space between keel and
+deck, destroying the metal screens, knocking down the bulk-heads,
+upsetting every object, dragging them forth with all the violence of an
+inundation, with the ramming force of a breaking dyke. The hold was
+rapidly becoming converted into a watery and leaden coffin fast going
+to the bottom.
+
+The aft gun hurled its first shot. To Ferragut its report seemed mere
+irony. No one knew as he did the ship's desperate condition.
+
+"To the life boats!" he shouted. "Every one to the boats!"
+
+The steamer was tipping up in an alarming way as the men calmly obeyed
+his orders without losing their self-control.
+
+A desperate vibration was jarring the deck. It was the engines that
+were sending out death-rattles at the same time that a torrent of steam
+as thick as ink was pouring from the smokestack. The firemen were
+coming up to the light with eyes swollen with the terror stamping their
+blackened faces. The inundation had begun to invade their dominions,
+breaking their steel compartments.
+
+"To the boats!... Lower the life boats!"
+
+The captain repeated his shouts of command, anxious to see the crew
+embark, without thinking for one moment of his own safety.
+
+It never even occurred to him that his fate might be different from
+that of his ship. Besides, hidden in the sea, was the enemy who would
+soon break the surface to survey its handiwork.... Perhaps they might
+hunt for Captain Ferragut among the boatloads of survivors, wishing to
+bear him off as their triumphant booty.... No, he would far rather give
+up his life!...
+
+The seamen had unfastened the life boats and were beginning to lower
+them, when something brutal suddenly occurred with the annihilating
+rapidity of a cataclysm of Nature.
+
+There sounded a great explosion as though the world had gone to pieces,
+and Ferragut felt the floor vanishing from beneath his feet. He looked
+around him. The prow no longer existed; it had disappeared under the
+water, and a bellowing wave was rolling over the deck crushing
+everything beneath its roller of foam. On the other hand, the poop was
+climbing higher and higher, becoming almost vertical. It was soon a
+cliff, a mountain steep, on whose peak the white flagstaff was sticking
+up like a weather-vane.
+
+In order not to fall he had to grasp a rope, a bit of wood, any fixed
+object. But the effort was useless. He felt himself dragged down,
+overturned, lashed about in a moaning and whirling darkness. A deadly
+chill paralyzed his limbs. His closed eyes saw a red heaven, a sky of
+blood with black stars. His ear drums were buzzing with a roaring
+_glu-glu_, while his body was turning somersaults through the darkness.
+His confused brain imagined that an infinitely deep hole had opened in
+the depths of the sea, that all the waters of the ocean were passing
+through it, forming a gigantic vortex, and that he was swirling in the
+center of this revolving tempest.
+
+"I am going to die!... I am already dead!" said his thoughts.
+
+And in spite of the fact that he was resigned to death, he moved his
+legs desperately, wishing to bring himself up to the yielding,
+treacherous surface. Instead of continuing to descend, he noticed that
+he was going up, and in a little while he was able to open his eyes and
+to breathe, judging from the atmospheric contact that he had reached
+the top.
+
+He was not sure of the length of time he had passed in the
+abyss,--surely not more than a few minutes, since his breathing
+capacity as a swimmer could not exceed that limit.... He, therefore,
+experienced great astonishment upon discovering the tremendous changes
+which had taken place in so short a parenthesis.
+
+He thought it was already night. Perhaps in the upper strata of the
+atmosphere were still shining the last rays of the sun, but at the
+water's level, there was no more than a twilight gray, like the dim
+glimmer of a cellar.
+
+The almost even surface seen a few minutes before from the height of
+the bridge was now moved by broad swells that plunged him in momentary
+darkness. Each one of these appeared a hillock interposed before his
+eyes, leaving free only a few yards of space. When he was raised upon
+their crests he could take in with rapid vision the solitary sea that
+lacked the gallant mass of the ship, astir with dark objects. These
+objects were slipping inertly by or moving along, waving pairs of black
+antennae. Perhaps they were imploring help, but the wet desert was
+absorbing the most furious cries, converting them into distant
+bleating.
+
+Of the _Mare Nostrum_ there was no longer visible either the mouth of
+the smokestack nor the point of a mast; the abyss had swallowed it
+all.... Ferragut began to doubt if his ship had ever really existed.
+
+He swam toward a plank that came floating near, resting his arms upon
+it. He used to be able to remain entire hours in the sea, when naked
+and within sight of the coast, with the assurance of returning to
+_terra firma_ whenever he might wish.... But now he had to keep himself
+up, completely dressed; his shoes were tugging at him with a constantly
+increasing force as though made of iron ... and water on all sides! Not
+a boat on the horizon that could come to his aid!... The wireless
+operator, surprised by the swiftness of the catastrophe, had not been
+able to send out the S.O.S.
+
+He also had to defend himself from the debris of the shipwreck. After
+having grasped the raft as his last means of salvation, he had to avoid
+the floating casks, rolling toward him on the swelling billows, which
+might send him to the bottom with one of their blows.
+
+Suddenly there loomed up between two waves a species of blind monster
+that was agitating the waters furiously with the strokes of its
+swimming. Upon coming close to it, he saw that it was a man; as it
+drifted away, he recognized Uncle Caragol.
+
+He was swimming like a drunken man with a super-human force which made
+half of his body come out of the water at each stroke. He was looking
+before him as though he could see, as if he had a fixed destination,
+without hesitating a moment, yet going further out to sea when he
+imagined that he was heading toward the coast.
+
+"_Padre San Vicente!_" he moaned. "_Cristo del Grao!_..."
+
+In vain the captain shouted. The cook could not hear him, and continued
+swimming on with all the force of his faith, repeating his pious
+invocations between his noisy snortings.
+
+A cask climbed the crest of a wave, rolling down on the opposite side.
+The head of the blind swimmer came in its way.... A thudding crash.
+_Padre San Vicente!_... And Caragol disappeared with bleeding head and
+a mouth full of salt.
+
+Ferragut did not wish to imitate that kind of swimming. The land was
+very far off for a man's arms; it would be impossible to reach it. Not
+a single one of the ship's boats had remained afloat.... His only hope,
+a remote and whimsical one, was that some vessel might discover the
+shipwrecked men and save them.
+
+In a little while this hope was almost realized. From the crest of a
+wave he could see a black bark, long and low, without smokestack or
+mast, that was nosing slowly among the debris. He recognized a
+submarine. The dark silhouettes of several men were so plainly visible
+that he believed he heard them shouting.----
+
+"Ferragut!... Where is Captain Ferragut?..."
+
+"Ah, no!... Better to die!"
+
+And he clung to his raft, hanging his head as though drowning. Then as
+night closed down upon him he heard still other shouts, but these were
+cries of help, cries of anguish, cries of death. The rescuers were
+searching for him only, leaving the others to their fate.
+
+He lost all notion of time. An agonizing cold was paralyzing his entire
+frame. His stiffened and swollen hands were loosening from the raft and
+grasping it again only by a supreme effort of his will.
+
+The other shipwrecked men had taken the precaution to put on their life
+preservers when the ship began to sink. Thanks to this apparatus, their
+death agony was going to be prolonged a few hours more. Perhaps if they
+could hold out until daybreak, they might be discovered by some boat!
+But he!...
+
+Suddenly he remembered the _Triton_.... His uncle also had died in the
+sea; all the most vigorous members of the family had finally perished
+in its bosom. For centuries and centuries it had been the tomb of the
+Ferraguts; with good reason they had called it "_mare nostrum_."
+
+He fancied that the currents might possibly have dragged his uncle's
+dead body from the other promontory to the place over which he was
+floating. Perhaps he might be now beneath his feet.... An irresistible
+force was pulling at them; his paralyzed hands loosened their hold on
+the wood.
+
+"Uncle!... Uncle!"
+
+In his thoughts he was shrieking to his relative with the timorous
+plaint of the little fellow taking his first swimming lesson. But his
+agonized hands again encountered the cold and weak support of the raft
+instead of that island of hard muscles crowned with a hairy and smiling
+face.
+
+He continued his tenacious floating, struggling against the drowsiness
+that was urging him to relax from his drifting support and let himself
+go to the bottom, to sleep ... to sleep forever! His shoes and clothing
+were continuing to pull and tug with even greater force. They became an
+undulating shroud, growing heavier and heavier, surging and dragging
+down and down to the uttermost depths. His desperation made him raise
+his eyes and look at the stars.... So high!... Only to be able to grasp
+one of them, as his hands were now clutching the wood!...
+
+At the same time he made instinctively a movement of repulsion. His
+head had sunk in the water without his being conscious of it. A bitter
+liquid was beginning to filter through his mouth....
+
+He made a mighty effort to keep himself in a vertical position, looking
+again at the sky, still black as ink, and all the stars as red as drops
+of blood.
+
+Suddenly he felt a certain consciousness that he was not alone, and he
+closed his eyes.... Yes, somebody was near him. It was a woman!...
+
+It was a woman white as the clouds, white as the sail, white as the
+foam. Her sea-green tresses were adorned with pearls and phosphorescent
+corals; her proud smile was that of a goddess, in keeping with the
+majesty of her diadem.
+
+She stretched her pearly arms around him, pressing him close against
+her life-giving and eternally virginal bosom. A dense and greenish
+atmosphere was giving her whiteness a reflection like that of the light
+of the caves of the sea....
+
+Her pale mouth then pressed against the sailor's, making him feel as
+though all the light of this white apparition had liquefied and was
+passing into his body by means of her impelling kiss.
+
+He could no longer see, he could no longer speak.
+
+His eyes had closed, never to open again; a bitter river of salt was
+flowing down his throat.
+
+Nevertheless he continued looking at her,--more luminous, pressed
+closer and closer,--with a sad expression of love in his glassy
+eyes.... And thus he went down and down the infinite levels of the
+abyss, inert, and without volition, while a voice within him was
+crying, as though just recognizing her:
+
+"_Amphitrite!_... _Amphitrite!_"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
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