Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) A Novel

ly, his eighteen-year-old son was

he oars. If he entered the university, the beadles were on their guard fearing his long-reaching hands: for he already fancied himself a sailor and liked to imitate the men of the sea who, accustomed to contend with the

untry, she wanted to return to her own people. The poet Labarta would look after her properties that were not so valuable nor numerous as the income of the notary had led them to suppose. Don Esteban had suffe

e could easily guess. The rich brother from Barcelona was brief and affirmative, "But wouldn't that bring him in the money?"… The Blanes of the coast showed a gloomy fatalism. It would be useless to oppose the lad if he felt that to be his vocation. The sea had a tight clutch upon those who followed it, and there was no power on earth that could

Royal Armada. And in his mind's eye the poet could see his godson clad in all the splendors of naval elegance,-a blue jacket

, and the officers of the navy only had occasion to cruise from one port to another like the people of the coast trade, or even passed years

ch aunt from Valencia, her son embarked as apprentice on a transatlantic boat which was making regular trips to Cu

ething like the managers of the Palace Hotel, while the real responsibility devolved upon the engineers, who were always going below, and upo

he sky might be, it was always darkened by the floating crepe band from the smokestacks. He envied the leisurely sailboats that the liner was always leaving behind. They were like reflective wayfarers who saturate themselves with

little wind and the long equatorial calms permitted him to penetrate a little into the mysteries of the oceanic immensity, severe and dar

Everything in his depths was working with a vital regularity, subject to the general

enly serenity in sky and sea. Before the prow hissed the silken wings of flyin

fields of seaweed dislodged from the Sargasso Sea. Enormous tortoises drowsed in the midst of these clumps of gulf-weed, serving as islands of repose to the seagulls perched on their shells. Some of the seaweeds were green, nourished by the luminous wate

ffocating in the extreme. It was the zone of calms, the ocean of dark, oily waters, in which boat

acts, this night descending upon the full daylight of the Atlantic, had been the terror of the ancients, and yet, thanks to just such phenomena, the sailors could pass from one hemisphere to another without the light wounding them to death, o

to all the rest of the earth, modifying its temperatures favorably for the development of animal and vegetable life. There were exchanged the exhalations of the two worlds; and, converted into clouds, the water of the southern hemisphere-the hemis

the equator, govern a vast assemblage of water from the poles that comes to occupy their space, and these chilled and fresher currents are constantly precipitating themselves on the electric hearth of the equator that warms and salts them anew, renewing wit

e temperature of the British Isles, tempering refreshingly the coasts of Norway. The Indian current that the Japanese call, because of its color, "the black river," circulates b

f the coral sea. In a space as large as four continents, the polyps, strengthened by the lukewarm water, are building up thousands of atolls, ring-shaped islands, reefs and submarine pillars th

g its cavities; and this atmospheric suction, the work of universal attraction, is reflected in the tidal waters. Closed seas, like the Mediterranean, scarcely feel its effects, the tides stopping at their door. But on the oceanic coast the marine pu

es as furious as an organic creature when the horizontal currents of its interior come to unite themselves with the vertical currents descend

nction of nourishing and renewing life. Father Ocean completely ignores the existence of the human insects that dare to slip across his surface in microscopic cockle-shells. He does not inform himself a

lver streaked with serpentine shadows. Its soft doughlike undulations, replete with microscopic life, illuminated the nights. The infusoria, a-tremble with lo

est wave was able to crush, would come to the surface floating on the waters, around the island of wood. There were thousands of these umbrellas filing slowly by, green, blue, rose, with

the bridge of a transatlantic liner. The bark did not beat the sea into such rabid foam. It slipped discreetly along as in the maritime silence of t

he blue dominions, and was refreshing himself with a study of Maury's charts-the sailors' Bible-the p

ial so little exacting as to salary. So Ulysses wandered over the oceans as had the king of Ithaca over the Mediterranean, guided by a fatality which impelled him with a rude push far from his coun

ously clean as a Dutch home, whose captains were taking wife and children with them, and where white-aproned stewardesses took care of the galley and the cleaning of the floating hearthside, sharing the dangers of the ruddy and tranquil sailors exempt from the temptation that conta

the infinitesimal little beings that the gulf stream drags thither die, suddenly frozen to death, and a rain of minute corpses descends across the waters. The cod g

atorial current had brought thither from the Antilles. On the coasts of Norway, as he watche

er, close, compact, forming strata that subdivide and float out to sea. They look like an island just coming to the surface, or a continent beginning to sink. In the narrow passages the shoal

wing denser every moment, as though defying death. The more their enemies destroy them, the more numerous they become. The thick and close columns ceaselessly reproduce themselv

ing other beings, depopulating the globe…. But death was charged with saving universal life. The cetaceans bore down upon this living density and with their insatiable mouths devoured the nourishment by ton loads. Infinitely little fi

nse fleets, creating, besides, colonies and cities. Human generations might become exhausted without succeeding in conquering this monstrous reproduction. The great marine devourers, therefore, are those that re?stablish equilibrium and order. The sturgeon, insatiable stomach, intervenes in the oceanic banquet, relishing in

he living, flesh and wood, cleanses the waters of life and leaves a desert behind its wriggling tail; but this destroyer brings forth

dventures,-a few always standing out clearly from his many

n leaving the Malvina Islands the boat had to go out in the teeth of a torrid, furious blast that closed the passage to the Pacific. The Straits of Magellan are for ships that are able to avail the

winter came to meet the navigators. The boat had to turn its course to t

rminable struggle, commenced to leak, and the crew had to work the hand-pumps night and day. Nobody was able to sleep for many hours running. All were sick from e

reat slopes on both sides of it. When the crest of one broke upon the vessel Ferragut was able to realize the monstrous weight of salt water. Neither stone nor iron had the bruta

time the leaden veils of the tempest were torn asunder, leaving visible a terrifying apparition. Once it was black mountains with glacial winding sheets from the Straits of Beagle. And the boat tacked, fleeing away from this narrow aquatic passageway full of perilous ledges. Another time the peaks of Diego Ramir

savage of the sea, taciturn and superstitious, shook his fist at the promontory, cursing it as an infernal divinity. He was convinced that they would never succeed in doubling it un

n impossible. And as though the Southern Demon had only been awaiting this tribute, the gale from the west ceased, the bark no longer ha

oubling the cape; it was the joy of existence, after having felt the blast of death; it was life again in the cafés and in the pleasure houses, ea

his glance was many times distracted from the dark-hued and youthful beauties dancing the Zamacueca [the national dance of Chile.] in the middle of the room, to the matrons swathed in black v

ans, laboring men from all countries, who did not know how to spend their day's wages in the monotony of these new settlements. Their intoxication diverted itself with most mistaken magnificence. Some would

in the northern hemisphere revolve from right to left, and in the south from left to right-rapid incidents of a few hours or days at the most. He had doubled Cape Horn in mid-winter after a struggle again

Africa. A Norwegian sailor tried to dissuade him from this trip. It was an old ship, and they had insured it for four times its value. The captain was in league with the proprietor, who had been bankrupt m

ways and devouring the sails. While Ferragut at the head of a band of negroes was trying to get control of the fire, the captain and the German crew were escaping from the ship i

groes and different objects piled together with the precipitation of flig

oat that was sending its blood-red gleams across the water. At daybreak they not

re tracing spirals around this floating hearse, following it with vigorous strokes of the wing, and uttering croakings of death. The waves raised themselves slowly and sluggishly over the boat's edge as though wishing to con

in his bed surrounded with the familiar comforts of his stateroom. And when he opened his eyes, the harsh reality ma

ht not to die!" asserted his

he cold. Their corpses floated many hours near the boat as if unable to separate themselves from it. Then they were drawn under by an invisible tugging,

e boat it appeared to cover half the sky. The long oceanic undulation became a ravenous wave upon encountering the outer bulwarks of these barren islands, breaking in

shot out like a projectile, falling in the foaming whirlpools and having the impres

his feet in different directions, making him revolve like the hands of a clock. Even his thoughts were working double. "It is useless to

ween the two waters, and grasping at the irregularities of a projecting rock, he raised his head and was able to breathe. The wave was retreating, but another again o

time his other mental hemisphere was reviewing with lightning synthesis his entire life. He saw the bearded face of the Triton in this supreme instant. He sa

fore this wave retired it hurled him desperately upon another ledge, the refluent water passing back below him. Thus he struggled a long t

water that dripped from his body was red, each time more red, spreading itself in rivulets over the greenish irregularities of the ro

ly to die stationed in front of it. His corpse would never float to an inhabited shore. The only ones that were going to know of his death were the enormous crabs scrambling over the rocky points, seeking

among the rocks. Closing his eyes to die, he saw in the darkness a pale face, hands that were deftly we

!… Ma

Portuguese coast…. Some fishermen had picked him up just as his life was ebbing away. During his stay in the hospital he wrot

oubled eyes. She must have known the truth; and if she did not know it, her motherly instinct told her when she saw Ulysses convales

n!… How mu

ea, very well. But let it be in respectable vessels in the service of a great company, following a career of regular promotion, and not wandering capriciously over all seas, associated wit

daughter. The sailor had only to go down in the depths of his memory to recall a little tot of a girl four years old, creeping and frolicking on the

ty in reconciling the little creature crawling over the sand with this same slender, olive-colored girl wearing her mass of hair like a helmet of ebony, with two little spirals escaping

ho had only known coppery maidens with bestial roars of laughter, yellowish Asiatics with feline gestures, or Europeans from the great p

time when he was a simple apprentice aboard a transatlantic liner. Cinta had doubtless taken them from her aunt's room, for she had been admiring this adventurous cousin long before knowing him. One evening the sailor told the two women how he had been rescued on the coast of Portugal.

en his life of mature bachelorhood. He was the wise one of the family. Do?a Cristina used to admire him because he was not able to read without the aid of glasses, and because he interlarded his conversation with Latin, just like the clergy. H

about an old woman like me?… I tell you that he is in love with Cinta, an

began to wonder which of a professor of rhetoric's bones a s

lushed and dropped her eyes. Her glance had met an evasive look on her cousin's face. He had it. In Ulysses' room might be seen ribbons, skeins of

from time to time in the near-by hallway. He knew about everything,-spherical and rectangular trigonometry, cosmography, the laws of the winds and the tempest, the latest oceanogr

f such matters as best he could. And one evening when Cinta was going from the parlor to her aun

ands that lifted her up from the floor. Then an avid mouth stamped upon hers two aggressive kisses. "Take that and th

ou. I am a bru

d not let him continue…. "No, No!…" And while she was moaning this protest, her arms were forming a ring around Ulysses' neck. Her head drooped toward his, seek

aid no mor

er daughter, but she is ambitious and exacting where her son is concerned. She had dreamed of something so much more brilliant; but her indecision was short. That timid girl was pe

d in a floating office, visiting the same ports and invariably repeating the same duties. His mother was extremely proud to see him in uniform. Cinta fixed her gaze on the almanac as the wife of a clerk fixes it on the clock. She had th

er glance searching for his blue coat and his cap with its band of gold among the tran

ne; first it was a bundle of batiste and lace carried by a showily-uniformed nurse; then by the time he was captain of the transatlantic liner, a little cherub in short skirts, chubby-cheeked, with a round head covered with a silky down, holding out its

attitude of the man who believes that he has arrived too late and is convinced that his bad luck was merely the result of his carelessness….

gressiveness which expressed itself by inventing classic nicknames. The young wife of Ulyss

lope was a queen of good habits. But the day that the professor, by log

grandfather…. Telemachus is n

ee his godfather. From time to time he had been receiving letters from the poet,-each one sho

on the top of the book-cases, the wreaths in their glass cases, the jewels and statuettes, prizes for successful poems-were still in their crystal cabinets or resting on the same pedestals; the books in their resplendent bindings formed their customary close battalions th

eye almost closed and the other very widely opened. Upon seeing the young officer, broad-chested, vigorous and bronzed, Labarta, who was huddled in a great arm chair, bega

or; her head was small; her face had the wrinkled surface of a winter apple or plum, or of all the fruits that shrink and wither when they lose their juices. "Do?a Pepa!…" The two old people w

dietary,-sweets serving as the basis of nutrition, great heavy rice dishes as a daily course, watermelons and cantaloupes

t suddenly attacks people of the abundant, food-yielding countries. Their life was one continual stream of liquid sugar…. And yet Ferragut could easily guess the disobedience of

rt one. The captain had

was awaiting him, rea

h Am

would see again this Colossus who seemed to repel h

encia…. Do for her all that you can….

a simple sailor, wandering over all the seas. Labarta wished to accompany him to the door but he sank down in his se

, her withered mouth whose down had turned into pin points. It was the kiss of an old beauty who remembe

!… He no longer write

ll ever bec

healthy person, and she became terrified when thinking of the years in which she mi

barta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle. Ulysses ran his eyes over the enclosed newspaper clipp

king at Barcelona, Do?a Cristina handed him a letter written by the poet almost in his death-agony. "Valencia, my son!

ths of the troubador, and tearing out the old prints from his volumes with the inconsequence of a lively child whose father is very far away and who knows that he is idolized by two

pon his return to Barcelona, Ferragut frequently found him installed in his home, in mute hostility to Do?a Cr

little Esteban should know the

axed, "that down in the Marina men become as strong as t

trust her grandson to the Triton, and let him awaken in him the love of ma

s life as a sailor and cosmopolitan vagabond. He considered his nephew the greatest of the Ferraguts, a true man of the sea like his ancestors but with the title of captain;-an adventurous rover over all oc

son; and after a few months had passed by, he would reappear, each time larger, uglier, more tanned, with

Black Sea, Do?a Cristina announce

ted with a certain cruelty in giving an account of his sad end, for she had never been able to pardon his fatal intervention in the

inst the rocks. The Dotor was still vigorous, but the years do not pass without leaving their footprints. Some believed that he must have had a struggle with a shark or some other of the carnivorous fish that abound in the Mediterranean waters. I

bed to him on summer evenings, by the light of the far-away gleam of the lighth

with a sad and incredulous smile, frequently recurred i

ve found down below something very interesting and when he got tired of liv

otor had

themselves upon distinguishing on the dark waters a bit of wood or a bunch of sea weed. They feared that suddenly would