These seas in which the _Primauguet_ was were almost always of the same
lapis blue; it was the region of the trade winds and of fine weather
without an end.
Sometimes, in our passage from one group of islands to another, we had
to cross the Equator, to pass through the motionless immensities and
mournful splendours.
And afterwards, when, in one hemisphere or the other, we ran into the
life-giving trade wind again, when the awakened _Primauguet_ began once
more to gather speed, then one realized better, by contrast, the charm
of moving quickly, the charm of being on this great, inclined, quivering
thing which seemed to be alive, and which obeyed you, alert and supple,
as it sped onwards.
When we sailed eastward in these regions of the trade winds, we sailed
close to the wind; and then the _Primauguet_ rushed upon the regular,
crisped waves of the tropics for whole days, without ever getting tired,
with little joyous flutterings such as sportive fishes might have.
Afterwards, when we returned on our course, with the wind behind us,
fully rigged, every inch of our white canvas spread, our progress, rapid
as it was, became so easy, so effortless, that we no longer felt that we
were moving; we were lifted up as it were in a kind of flight and our
movement was like the soaring of a bird.
As far as the sailors were concerned one day was very much like another.
Every morning there was first of all a kind of frenzy of cleaning which
began with the réveillé. One saw them, half-awake, jump up and start
running to commence as quickly as might be the great diurnal washing.
Naked, in their pompomed bonnets, or maybe wearing a "tricot de combat"
(a little knitted thing for the neck, not unlike a baby's bib) they set
to work to swill the deck. Water spurted from hosepipes; water was flung
by hand from buckets. Wasting no time they threw it over legs and over
backs until they were all besplashed, all streaming; they overturned
everything in order to wash everything; afterwards, scouring the deck,
already clean and white, with mops and scrapers to make it cleaner and
whiter still.
Sometimes they would be ordered to break off and go aloft to make some
alteration in the rigging, to shake out a reef or trim the sails; then
they would dress themselves hastily, for decency's sake, before
climbing, and quickly carry out the manœuvre ordered, eager to get down
again and amuse themselves in the water.
This is the work which makes arms strong and chests round; and the feet,
too, from being used to climbing bare, become in some measure
prehensile, like those of monkeys.
At about eight o'clock, at the roll of a drum, the washing would be
done. Then, while the hot sun was quickly drying all these things which
they had made wet, they would begin to furbish; the copper-work, the
iron-work, even the ordinary rings were made to shine like mirrors. Each
one would address himself to the little pulley, the little object, the
toilet of which had been specially entrusted to him and would polish it
with solicitude, stepping back every now and then with a critical air to
see how it looked, to see whether it did him credit. And, around these
great children, was still and always the blue circle, the inexorable
blue circle, the resplendent solitude, profound, having no end, where
nothing ever changed and nothing ever passed.
Nothing passed save the madcap bands of flying fish, moving like arrows,
so rapidly that one had time only to see the glistening of their wings
and they were gone. They were of several kinds; some large, which were
steel-blue in colour; some smaller and rarer which seemed to have
colours of mauve and peony; they surprised you by their rosy flight,
and, when you tried to distinguish them, it was too late; a little patch
of water eddied still and sparkled in the sunshine as if under a hail of
bullets; it was there they had made their plunge, but they were no
longer there.
Sometimes a frigate bird--a great mysterious bird which is always
alone--crossed, at a great height, the regions of the air, flying
straight with its narrow wings and scissor-like tail, hastening as if it
had a goal. Then the sailors pointed out to one another the strange
traveller, following it with their eyes as long as it remained in sight,
and its passage was recorded in the ship's log.
But a ship, never; they are too large, these southern seas; there are no
meetings there.
Once, however, we came across a little oceanic island surrounded by a
white belt of coral. Some women who dwelt there approached in canoes,
and the captain allowed them to clamber on board, guessing why they had
come. They all had admirable figures, eyes of true savages, scarcely
opened and fringed with very heavy lashes, and teeth of wonderful
whiteness which their laugh revealed to their whole extent. On their
skin, which was of the colour of reddish copper, were very complicated
tattooings resembling a network of blue lace.
Their passage had broken for a day the continence which the sailors
preserved. And then the island, barely seen, had vanished with its white
beach and its green palms, a very little thing amid the immense desert
of the waters, and we thought of it no more.
But there was no boredom on board. The days were quite adequately filled
with duties and amusements.
At certain hours, on certain days fixed in advance, the sailors were
allowed to open the canvas sacks in which their treasures were stored
(it was known as "getting out the sacks"). Then they spread out all
their little belongings, which had been folded inside with a comical
care, and the deck of the _Primauguet_ took on all at once the
appearance of a bazaar. They opened their needle-work boxes, and sewed
little patches very neatly on holes in their clothes, which the
continual play of strong muscles soon wore out. There were some of them
who stripped to the skin and sat gravely mending their shirts; others,
who pressed their big collars in a rather extraordinary way (by sitting
on them for a long time); others who took from their writing cases poor
little faded yellow papers, bearing the postmarks of remote little
corners of Brittany or of the Basque country, and settled down to read:
they were letters from mothers, sisters, sweethearts, who dwelt in
villages at the other side of the earth.
And, later on, at the sound of a particular whistle, which signified:
"Pack up the sacks!" all this disappeared as by enchantment, folded,
packed and re-consigned once more to the bottom of the hold, in the
numbered lockers which the terrible sergeants-at-arms came and locked
with little iron chains.
Looking at them, one might have been deceived by their wise and patient
airs, if one had not known them better; seeing them so absorbed in these
occupations of little girls, in these unpackings of dolls, it was
impossible to imagine what these same young men might become capable of
once they were allowed on shore.
There was only one hour of inevitable melancholy; it was when the
evening prayer had been said, when the Bretons had finished making the
sign of the cross and the sun had set: at that hour, assuredly, many of
them thought of home.
Even in the regions of wonderful light, there is still that vague hour
between day and night, which brings always and everywhere a touch of
sadness; then one might see sailors' heads turned involuntarily in the
direction of that last band of light which persisted in the west, very
low, touching the line of the waters.
A variegated band always; on the horizon there was first a dull red,
above, a little orange, above again, a little pale green, a trail of
phosphorescence, and then it merged with the dull greys above, with the
shades of darkness and obscurity. Some last reflections of a mournful
yellow lingered on the sea, which glistened still here and there before
taking on the neutral colours of night; this last oblique glance of day,
cast on the deserted depths, had something a little sinister, and, in
spite of oneself, there came a sense of desolation in the immensity of
the waters. It was the hour of secret revolts and wringing of hearts. It
was the hour when the sailors had the vague notion that their life was
strange and against nature, when they thought of their sequestrated and
wasted youth. Some far-off image of a woman passed before their eyes,
wreathed in a languishing charm, in a delectable sweetness. Or perhaps
there came to them, with a sudden trouble of the senses, a dream of some
senseless orgy of lust and alcohol, in which they would seek
compensation and appeasement when next they were let loose on
shore. . . .
But, afterwards, came night itself, warm, full of stars, and the
fleeting impression was forgotten; and the sailors gathered in the bow
of the ship and, sitting or lying there, began to sing.
There were some among the topmen who knew long and very pleasing songs,
the choruses of which were readily learnt by heart. And in the sonorous
silence of the night the voices sounded fine and vibrant.
There was, too, an old petty officer who never tired of telling to a
certain attentive little circle interminable stories; stories of
adventures which had really happened once upon a time to some handsome
topmen whom amorous princesses had carried away to their castles.
And still the _Primauguet_ sped on, tracing behind her, in the darkness,
a vague white trail which gradually disappeared like the trail of a
meteor. All night long she sped, without resting or sleeping; only, her
large wings lost at night their sea-gull whiteness and outlined then, in
fantastic shadow against the diffused light of the sky, the points and
scallops of a bat's wing.
But speed on as she might, she was always in the middle of the same
great circle, which seemed eternally to reform, to widen and to follow
her.
Sometimes this circle was dark and traced all round its clean-cut
inexorable line which stopped at the first stars in the sky. Sometimes
the immense contour was softened by mists which mingled sea and sky
together; and then it seemed as if we were sailing in a kind of
grey-blue globe, spangled with stars, and the wonder was that we never
encountered its fugitive walls.
The expanse was full of the soft sounds of water; it rustled
continuously and to infinity, but in a restrained and almost silent
manner; it gave out a powerful, unseizable sound, such as might be made
by an orchestra of thousands of strings touched by bows very, very
lightly and with great mystery.
At times, the southern stars shone out with surprising brilliancy; the
great nebulæ sparkled like a dust of mother-of-pearl, all the colours
of the night seemed to be illumined, in transparency, by strange lights.
One might have imagined oneself, at these moments, in a fairyland where
everything was lit up for some immense apotheosis; and one asked
oneself: "What is the meaning of all this splendour, what is going to
happen, what is the matter?" . . . But no, there was nothing, ever; it
was simply the region of the tropics and this was its way. There was
nothing but the deserted seas, and everlastingly the circular expanse,
absolutely empty. . . .
These nights were indeed exquisite summer nights, mild, infinitely mild,
milder than the mildest of our nights of June. And they troubled a
little all these men, the eldest of whom was not yet thirty years of
age.
The warm darkness brought thoughts of love which were not of their
seeking. There were moments when they came near to weakening again in a
troubling dream; they felt the need of opening their arms to some
desired human form, of clasping it with a strong and forceful infinite
tenderness. But no, no one, nothing. . . . It was necessary to pull
themselves together, to remain alone, to turn over on the hard planks of
the wooden deck, and to think of something else, to begin to sing again.
. . . And then the songs, merry or sad, rang out more strongly than
before, in the emptiness of the sea.
Nevertheless it was very pleasant on this forecastle during these
evenings at sea. The fresh wind of the night blew in our faces, the
virgin breezes which had never passed over land, which bore no living
effluvium, which were without odour. Lying there, one lost little by
little all notion of time and place, all notion of everything but speed,
which is always a pleasing thing, even when you are without a goal and
know not whither you are going.
They had no goal, these sailors, and they knew not whither they were
going. What did it matter anyhow since nowhere were they allowed to set
foot on shore? They were ignorant of the direction of this rapid course
and of the infinite extent of the solitudes in which they were; but it
amused them, nevertheless, to be going full speed ahead in the bluish
darkness, to feel that they were moving very rapidly. As they sang their
evening songs, their eyes were on the bowsprit, ever thrusting forward,
with its two little horns and shape of drawn cross bow, which leapt over
the sea, skimming the noisy waters in the lightsome fashion of a flying
fish.