THE PERIL OF THE SEA
As I cannot eat, I remount to the poop, a piece of bread in my pocket; and, staggering, deafened, blown about, I join in the wild darkness and the indescribable confusion of noise. In this void, opening my lips, I carry a mouthful blindly to them. Soon, leaving the binnacle, little by little I can make out the form of the ship, and beyond, just at the limit of the contracted horizon, the sea in the clutches of the wind. In that black circle, I see the pale charging cavalry of the foam.
Nowhere about me is there solidity. I stand amid chaos. I am lost in the inner caverns of Death. My heart is grasped by the bitterness of the last hour. This is no menace brandished at me; it is simply that I have intruded into the uninhabitable. I am of no importance. I am voyaging through an indifferent element. I am at the mercy of the moods of the deep, of the mind, of the powers of the abyss. In the cataclysm that surrounds me, no compact holds; and the handful of human souls which this narrow vessel contains,may be scattered over the waters like a basket of bran. A delicate balance sustains me on the bosom of this abyss which is ready to join with my own weight and engulf me.
To escape this disheartening sight, I go to my cabin and to bed. Head to the wind, the boat lifts to the surge; and every once in a while the enormous hull, with its iron plate and boilers, its armament and storerooms filled with coal and projectiles, settles back upon the waves like a rider who gathers himself, gripping tightly with his knees, before a leap.
Then a little calm comes, and below me I hear the screw continue its feeble and homely sound.
But before the day which follows is ended, our ship enters the lonely port enclosed like a reservoir by a mountain range. Here is Life again! Touched with an artless joy, I may resume my survey of the brisk and lively spectacle, of the spontaneous play of common interests, of this assiduous, multifold, intermingled activity by which all things exist together.
Just as we drop anchor, the sun, through a gap in the mountains which hide it, shoots toward the earth four jets of fire so intense that they seem emissions of itsvery substance. Before raising them vertically to the illimitable sky, this king, appearing upon the highest ridge (Eye of our eyes, in the merciful possession of the Vision made visible!) makes, at this supreme hour, a majestic exposition of distance and origin. For a welcome I have this farewell, richer than a promise! The mountain is vestured in rose and violet, the marriage of light and night. I am overcome with a deep, strong sweetness. I lift to God my gratitude still to be alive, and my whole being expands in the realization of my reprieve.
This time I shall not drink the bitter waters!