LEAVING THE LAND
The sea has come to seek us. She pulls at our cable, she draws the side of our boat away from the gangway. With a great quiver, it increases little by little the distance that separates it from the encumbered wharf and the port of seething life. And we follow the heavy tranquil water in its lazy windings. Here is one of the mouths by which the earth disgorges, spewing its thick muddy waters forth to mingle with the tangled grasses of the sea. Of the soil where we once dwelt, there remains only its crude color, ready to liquefy. And, right before us, a fire low down in the limpid air indicates the horizon and the desert.
While we are eating, I feel that the boat has stopped. Through its body, and through my own, there is freer breathing. The pilot is disembarking. Under the electric light on his dancing canoe, he salutes us with a wave of the hand. They cast off the ladder, and we depart. We depart in the light of the moon!
And I see the curved line of the horizon before me, like the frontier of immeasurable slumber. All my heart despairs, with the thick sob one utters falling asleep, as the shore recedes behind us and fades out of sight. Ah, Sea, it is thou! I re-enter. There is no bosom so sweet as Eternity, and no security comparable to uncircumscribed Space. Our news hereafter will be that each evening will bring us the moon, rising on our left. I am delivered from change and from diversity. Here there are no vicissitudes but those of day and night; no solicitation but the sky’s before our eyes, and no repose but the bosom of these great waters which reflect it.
Cleansing purity! Here we may be absolved in the Absolute. What matter now the fermentation of people, the intrigues of marriages and wars, the operation of gold and of economic forces, and all the confused scheme of things below? Everything is simplified to the immediate act, according to the multifold passion of men and of things. Here I possess the central rhythm in its essence: the alternating rising and setting of the sun, and a simple fact; the appearance of the constellations on the horizon at an appointed hour.
And all day long I study the sea as onestudies the eyes of a woman who understands. I follow its reflection with the attentiveness of one who listens. In comparison with this pure mirror, how fare the gross intricacies of your tragedies and your ostentations?