Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) A Novel

ietary of her family. This man ate nothing but fish, and her soul of an economical housewife worried

g drowsily the rumble of the early morning carts and the bell-ringing of the first Masses, the house would re?cho to the rude banging of doors and heavy footsteps making the stairway creak. It was the Triton rushing out on the street,

of interest and fear. Some blushed as he passed by, imagining against t

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.

ements 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 ta

creaking of the cranes, the dull rumble of the carts, the deafening cries of the freighters),-always had fo

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

ping around the mountains of wheat, flitting timidly away when hearing approaching footsteps. Over the blue surface of the harbor

very kind of vessel; and upon discovering that Ulysses was capable of con

n the devil do they t

of commiseration toward their empty baskets. Over there by his house on the coast, before the sun would be up

ntains 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

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

and steam like a fetid morass; Alexandria in whose low coffee houses were imitation Oriental dancers with no more clothe

e 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 we

nd homesickness than remorse; and then he would add by way

r like a great barren island. It was the promontory crowned by the Mongó, the great Ferrarian promontory of the ancient geogr

rtin, 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 a

more lands, with that sudden immovability that attacks the vagabonds of the waves and

tains 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 swimmi

he would finally say to

ow in the world you a

go far away from the city, was going to pass the summer with his family on the beach at Caba?al checkered by bad-smelling irrigation canals near a forlorn sea. The little fellow was looking very pale and w

ing the ceiling of the dining-room-three marvelous vessels in which there was not lacking a single

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

e, 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

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 y

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 the

the drift from a distant shipwreck. For the women it was somebody drowned, so bloate

as 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 Do

ed as a god, giving his hand to the men, while the women shrieked, lifting t

roprietor 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

rine 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 cour

n 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

h the animal and vegetable life of the sea, and more than all this, his tastes which were so at variance with

tentimes 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 i

oisted 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 fl

all that the Triton purchased with his money. If he hunted for a bottle of br

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 no

he said, showing th

ue furniture in whose drawers the money wa

ess, weighing the child down. He was very far from his mother, that good lady who was always closing the windo

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

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

and soon he was untying the sails from the gunwales and preparing the ropes. The unfu

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 t

ng 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 wor

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 b

t 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

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

iton, looking at the sky and then at the

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

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

rn!" he ordered in

ater 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

is feet suddenly made him lose his serenit

e!… U

me up immovable, as though his feet of stone were fastened to the bottom of the ocean. He wa

ing and swimming; then in the afternoons there

eared 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

a rocky pedestal, Ulysses

lated the doctor. "Every man mus

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 smuggl

he 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 fr

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 Med

t 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

rlike were they. If their villages were ever attacked, it was because their seafaring defenders were

ittle 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 rusti

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

icial 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 mine

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

nd 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 m

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

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

laim was that she had been a democracy of sailors, her freemen serving

"were admirals of fleets, and after com

strial 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 Lati

tion in the doctor. He knew that they had not existed, but he, ne

rned 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 the

ation 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 di

aughters, 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, h

calm existence of the philosopher-counselor of mankind, and Poseidon installed himself in th

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

and simple mortals; but an obliging dolphin came and went, carrying messages between Poseidon and the Nereid, until, overwhelmed by the eloquence o

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 sw

est. The brazen-hoofed horses with their stamping would paw up the huge waves and swallow up the ships. The trito

ming around the promontories, feeling himself enveloped like primitive man in the blind forces of Nature, he used to belie

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

pact-was due, according to the doctor, to the desire of possessing this harmoniously f

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 maste

the center of Europe. And thus history had gone on repeating itself with the same flux and reflux o

bsorption 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 Proven?al, the G

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 lif

ng 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 wou

ving 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, wh

nts 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 malic

in another of them, the son of a lawyer without briefs embarked for France, with no

ry 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 sa

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

r esteem for the old pottery and the shabby li

et, 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 s

versations among the fishermen and had noticed, besides, the precipitation of the women and their uneasy glances when they found the d

banks in order to surprise goddesses and mortals. The women of the Marina ran away as terrified as those Gree

with their fresh shafts of light, he would become melancholy and, forgetting the dif

many women of all colors-white, red, yellow, and bronze-but only once had he really b

her great black veil like the ladies of the Calderonian theater, showing only

ldhood 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 wishe

e opinion as did his uncle. The very idea of losing the winter fishing, the cold sunny morning, the spectacle of the gr

ords and boastful bullying in the old home of the Ferraguts. And trumping up the necessity of seeing her own family, she le

rdware 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 wi

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 Buen

mphibian. They were gentlemen of the coast who, having retired from the sea, were entrusting their barks to captains who had been their pi

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 horiz

atures. 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 witho

sides them there were only the carbineers installed in the barracks and various calkers

unian coast. The more timid and unfortunate ones were always fishing. Others, more valiant and anxious for r

on their knees, along whose length their bobbins wove strips of beautiful openwork, or grouped on the street corners in front of the

iled 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 mont

the houses in search of contraband goods smuggled in by the men, the Amazons worked off their nervous energy in hi

he 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 conte

y 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 i

age to the other hemisphere used here to tremble with a pre-monition of danger and sometimes even turned

h as that elder Ferragut had commanded, embarkations from Valencia that were bringing wine to Cette and fruits to Marseilles. Upon seeing the blue surfac

uickly, while t

ny books in his house. Treated by the rich with a certain contempt, the official used to s

ecian 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 Medite

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 Ara

the cathedral of Valencia. His godfather, the poet, had pointed them out to

ommercially, adding to its ancient vessels great galleons, light

death blow to the maritime riches of the Mediterranean. Besides, Aragon and Castile became united

sh colonial realm would have developed into something organic and solid with a robust life. But what could you expect of a nation which had

ything that was pleasing to his tastes made him hark back to the good old time of the domination

first stock the Almoga

ee

in order to f

er, who wrote of the expeditions of the Cat

to fill him with enthusiasm, and, in passing, he paid highest tribute to the Almogavar ch

return to the comforts of her well-regulated household f

s, contrived to prevent the doctor's again carrying off his nephew; and the Triton made his trips to Valen

arged with the guardianship of a little prince. The boy appeared to belong to them more than to his own father;

on in annoying his brother by eulogiz

ell, 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'

efore such pointed allusions, and

taking the courses of pilotage at the institute. Two years would be sufficient for the completion of these latter studi