I rented a little country house last summer on the banks of the Seine,
several leagues from Paris, and went out there to sleep every evening.
After a few days I made the acquaintance of one of my neighbors, a man
between thirty and forty, who certainly was the most curious specimen
I ever met. He was an old boating man, and crazy about boating. He was
always beside the water, on the water, or in the water. He must have
been born in a boat, and he will certainly die in a boat at the last.
One evening as we were walking along the banks of the Seine I asked him
to tell me some stories about his life on the water. The good man at
once became animated, his whole expression changed, he became eloquent,
almost poetical. There was in his heart one great passion, an absorbing,
irresistible passion-the river.
Ah, he said to me, how many memories I have, connected with that river
that you see flowing beside us! You people who live in streets know
nothing about the river. But listen to a fisherman as he mentions the
word. To him it is a mysterious thing, profound, unknown, a land of
mirages and phantasmagoria, where one sees by night things that do
not exist, hears sounds that one does not recognize, trembles without
knowing why, as in passing through a cemetery--and it is, in fact, the
most sinister of cemeteries, one in which one has no tomb.
The land seems limited to the river boatman, and on dark nights, when
there is no moon, the river seems limitless. A sailor has not the same
feeling for the sea. It is often remorseless and cruel, it is true; but
it shrieks, it roars, it is honest, the great sea; while the river
is silent and perfidious. It does not speak, it flows along without a
sound; and this eternal motion of flowing water is more terrible to me
than the high waves of the ocean.
Dreamers maintain that the sea hides in its bosom vast tracts of blue
where those who are drowned roam among the big fishes, amid strange
forests and crystal grottoes. The river has only black depths where one
rots in the slime. It is beautiful, however, when it sparkles in
the light of the rising sun and gently laps its banks covered with
whispering reeds.
The poet says, speaking of the ocean,
“O waves, what mournful tragedies ye know
--Deep waves, the dread of kneeling mothers' hearts!
Ye tell them to each other as ye roll
On flowing tide, and this it is that gives
The sad despairing tones unto your voice
As on ye roll at eve by mounting tide.”
Well, I think that the stories whispered by the slender reeds, with
their little soft voices, must be more sinister than the lugubrious
tragedies told by the roaring of the waves.
But as you have asked for some of my recollections, I will tell you of a
singular adventure that happened to me ten years ago.
I was living, as I am now, in Mother Lafon's house, and one of my
closest friends, Louis Bernet who has now given up boating, his low
shoes and his bare neck, to go into the Supreme Court, was living in
the village of C., two leagues further down the river. We dined together
every day, sometimes at his house, sometimes at mine.
One evening as I was coming home along and was pretty tired, rowing
with difficulty my big boat, a twelve-footer, which I always took out
at night, I stopped a few moments to draw breath near the reed-covered
point yonder, about two hundred metres from the railway bridge.
It was a magnificent night, the moon shone brightly, the river gleamed,
the air was calm and soft. This peacefulness tempted me. I thought to
myself that it would be pleasant to smoke a pipe in this spot. I took up
my anchor and cast it into the river.
The boat floated downstream with the current, to the end of the chain,
and then stopped, and I seated myself in the stern on my sheepskin and
made myself as comfortable as possible. There was not a sound to be
heard, except that I occasionally thought I could perceive an almost
imperceptible lapping of the water against the bank, and I noticed
taller groups of reeds which assumed strange shapes and seemed, at
times, to move.
The river was perfectly calm, but I felt myself affected by the unusual
silence that surrounded me. All the creatures, frogs and toads, those
nocturnal singers of the marsh, were silent.
Suddenly a frog croaked to my right, and close beside me. I shuddered.
It ceased, and I heard nothing more, and resolved to smoke, to soothe my
mind. But, although I was a noted colorer of pipes, I could not smoke;
at the second draw I was nauseated, and gave up trying. I began to
sing. The sound of my voice was distressing to me. So I lay still, but
presently the slight motion of the boat disturbed me. It seemed to me
as if she were making huge lurches, from bank to bank of the river,
touching each bank alternately. Then I felt as though an invisible
force, or being, were drawing her to the surface of the water and
lifting her out, to let her fall again. I was tossed about as in a
tempest. I heard noises around me. I sprang to my feet with a single
bound. The water was glistening, all was calm.
I saw that my nerves were somewhat shaky, and I resolved to leave the
spot. I pulled the anchor chain, the boat began to move; then I felt a
resistance. I pulled harder, the anchor did not come up; it had caught
on something at the bottom of the river and I could not raise it. I
began pulling again, but all in vain. Then, with my oars, I turned the
boat with its head up stream to change the position of the anchor. It
was no use, it was still caught. I flew into a rage and shook the
chain furiously. Nothing budged. I sat down, disheartened, and began to
reflect on my situation. I could not dream of breaking this chain, or
detaching it from the boat, for it was massive and was riveted at the
bows to a piece of wood as thick as my arm. However, as the weather
was so fine I thought that it probably would not be long before some
fisherman came to my aid. My ill-luck had quieted me. I sat down and was
able, at length, to smoke my pipe. I had a bottle of rum; I drank two or
three glasses, and was able to laugh at the situation. It was very warm;
so that, if need be, I could sleep out under the stars without any great
harm.
All at once there was a little knock at the side of the boat. I gave a
start, and a cold sweat broke out all over me. The noise was, doubtless,
caused by some piece of wood borne along by the current, but that was
enough, and I again became a prey to a strange nervous agitation. I
seized the chain and tensed my muscles in a desperate effort. The anchor
held firm. I sat down again, exhausted.
The river had slowly become enveloped in a thick white fog which lay
close to the water, so that when I stood up I could see neither the
river, nor my feet, nor my boat; but could perceive only the tops of
the reeds, and farther off in the distance the plain, lying white in
the moonlight, with big black patches rising up from it towards the sky,
which were formed by groups of Italian poplars. I was as if buried to
the waist in a cloud of cotton of singular whiteness, and all sorts of
strange fancies came into my mind. I thought that someone was trying
to climb into my boat which I could no longer distinguish, and that the
river, hidden by the thick fog, was full of strange creatures which were
swimming all around me. I felt horribly uncomfortable, my forehead felt
as if it had a tight band round it, my heart beat so that it almost
suffocated me, and, almost beside myself, I thought of swimming away
from the place. But then, again, the very idea made me tremble with
fear. I saw myself, lost, going by guesswork in this heavy fog,
struggling about amid the grasses and reeds which I could not escape, my
breath rattling with fear, neither seeing the bank, nor finding my boat;
and it seemed as if I would feel myself dragged down by the feet to the
bottom of these black waters.
In fact, as I should have had to ascend the stream at least five hundred
metres before finding a spot free from grasses and rushes where I could
land, there were nine chances to one that I could not find my way in the
fog and that I should drown, no matter how well I could swim.
I tried to reason with myself. My will made me resolve not to be afraid,
but there was something in me besides my will, and that other thing was
afraid. I asked myself what there was to be afraid of. My brave “ego”
ridiculed my coward “ego,” and never did I realize, as on that day, the
existence in us of two rival personalities, one desiring a thing, the
other resisting, and each winning the day in turn.
This stupid, inexplicable fear increased, and became terror. I remained
motionless, my eyes staring, my ears on the stretch with expectation. Of
what? I did not know, but it must be something terrible. I believe if
it had occurred to a fish to jump out of the water, as often happens,
nothing more would have been required to make me fall over, stiff and
unconscious.
However, by a violent effort I succeeded in becoming almost rational
again. I took up my bottle of rum and took several pulls. Then an idea
came to me, and I began to shout with all my might towards all the
points of the compass in succession. When my throat was absolutely
paralyzed I listened. A dog was howling, at a great distance.
I drank some more rum and stretched myself out at the bottom of the
boat. I remained there about an hour, perhaps two, not sleeping, my eyes
wide open, with nightmares all about me. I did not dare to rise, and yet
I intensely longed to do so. I delayed it from moment to moment. I said
to myself: “Come, get up!” and I was afraid to move. At last I raised
myself with infinite caution as though my life depended on the slightest
sound that I might make; and looked over the edge of the boat. I was
dazzled by the most marvellous, the most astonishing sight that it is
possible to see. It was one of those phantasmagoria of fairyland, one of
those sights described by travellers on their return from distant lands,
whom we listen to without believing.
The fog which, two hours before, had floated on the water, had gradually
cleared off and massed on the banks, leaving the river absolutely clear;
while it formed on either bank an uninterrupted wall six or seven metres
high, which shone in the moonlight with the dazzling brilliance of snow.
One saw nothing but the river gleaming with light between these two
white mountains; and high above my head sailed the great full moon, in
the midst of a bluish, milky sky.
All the creatures in the water were awake. The frogs croaked furiously,
while every few moments I heard, first to the right and then to
the left, the abrupt, monotonous and mournful metallic note of the
bullfrogs. Strange to say, I was no longer afraid. I was in the midst of
such an unusual landscape that the most remarkable things would not have
astonished me.
How long this lasted I do not know, for I ended by falling asleep. When
I opened my eyes the moon had gone down and the sky was full of clouds.
The water lapped mournfully, the wind was blowing, it was pitch dark.
I drank the rest of the rum, then listened, while I trembled, to the
rustling of the reeds and the foreboding sound of the river. I tried to
see, but could not distinguish my boat, nor even my hands, which I held
up close to my eyes.
Little by little, however, the blackness became less intense. All
at once I thought I noticed a shadow gliding past, quite near me. I
shouted, a voice replied; it was a fisherman. I called him; he came near
and I told him of my ill-luck. He rowed his boat alongside of mine and,
together, we pulled at the anchor chain. The anchor did not move. Day
came, gloomy gray, rainy and cold, one of those days that bring one
sorrows and misfortunes. I saw another boat. We hailed it. The man
on board of her joined his efforts to ours, and gradually the anchor
yielded. It rose, but slowly, slowly, loaded down by a considerable
weight. At length we perceived a black mass and we drew it on board. It
was the corpse of an old women with a big stone round her neck.