Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) A Novel

. "We shall see each other…. I shall hunt you up." But it was Fe

r what you could have thought of me!" she sa

l's monument. The most of the mornings he used to wait in vain opposite the oyster stands, listening to the musicians wh

e flunkey would go to the telephone and inquire of the servants on the upper floor. And then with a sad and obsequious smile, as though la

rden of the beach of Chiaja,-to the very same places through which he had strolled with Freya. He was always looking for her to appear from one moment to another. Everyt

e hours there, contemplating the life of the inhabitants of the sea. And Ferragut blinked involuntarily as he passed rapidly from the garden boiling under the sun into the shadow of the damp galleries with no other

t the kind of sailor that sails along regardless of what exists under his keel. He wanted to know the mysteries of the immense b

ere the rivers empty, the materials of nourishment were accumulated by the impulse of the tides and currents, and there flourished sub-aquatic vegetation. This was the zone of the great fish and r

oceanic abysses,-that immense mass of water (almost the entire ocean), without light, without waves, w

becoming darker and darker, even turning to a dark red and brassy yellow as it gets further from the light. In this oceanic paradise of nutritive and luminous waters charged with bacteria and mi

rous, the weak inhabitants usually devouring the residuum and dead animals that come down from the surface.

e spots of light just where the meeting of the surface currents rain down a manna of diminutive dead bodies. The twisted limestone plants, hard as stone, are really not plants at all, but animals

that almost all of them lack eyes because of their distance from the sun. The filaments of the carnivorous trees are garlands of lamps; the eyes of the hunting animals, electric globes; the insignificant bacteria, light-prod

lights, and immediately their diminutive prey feel themselves as irresistibly drawn toward them as

hose of this abyssal world. All artificial fires p

dors incessantly vanish and reappear. And these lights pass through many gradations of colors:-violet, purple, orange, blue, and especially gre

atch even the weakest rays of light. Many have enormous, protruding eyes. Others hav

actile organs. Their antennae and swimming organs are immeasurably prolonged in the darkness. The filaments of their bo

nic surface, diaphanous and luminous, far from any coast. Next is seen the pelagic zone, much deepe

his rain of alimentary material. The great swimmers, supplied with formidable mandibles and immense and elastic stomachs, prefer the fortunes of war, the pursuit of living prey, and devour,-as the carnivorous devour the herbivorous on land,-all the little feeders on débris and plancton.

ed with microscopic algae and embryonic mucosities are the plancton. In its dense mass, scarcely visible to the human eye, float the siphonoforas, garlands of entities united by a transparent thread as fragile, delicate and luminous as Bohemian crystal. Other equally subtle organisms have the form

fishes of an astonishing fertility. The seaside towns increase in number, the sea is filled with sails, the tables are more opulent, industries are

y as a desert accursed. The fleets of fishing boats are placed high and dry on the beach, the shops are closed, the stewpot is no longer steaming, the horses of the ge

t numerous species which, in their turn, serve a

Pacific giant, without teeth, supplies his organism with plancton alone, absorbing it by the ton; that imperceptible and crystalline m

the surface have, as a general rule, a blue back and silver belly. In this way it is possible for them to escape the sight of their enemies; seen from the shadows of the depths, they are confounded with t

e splendor is the despair of the artist's brush, incapable of imitating them. A magnificent red seems to be the base of this color scheme, fading gradually to pale pink, violet, amber, even losing itself in the milky iris of the pearls and in the opalescence

cean-fishes and corals-sparkle with their own colors that are a reflex of their vitality. Their green, their rose color, their intense yell

nd contract, filling themselves with wrinkles, taking on the dark tone of the rocks. Others in moments of irritation or amorous fever, cover themselves with streaks of light and tremulous spots, different colored clouds passing over their epidermis

ew of the interior. The clear and shining walls that received the fire of the sun through their upper part, spread a green reflection over the s

rious floating beings of many colors. The bubbles of their respiration was the only thing that announced the presence of the liquid. In the upper part of these aquatic cages, the lumino

admired the nourishing force of the blue water

rst manifestations of life, continuing then its evolutionary cycle over the mountains which had

anopy of a certain number of meters. The birds and insects seldom go beyond this in their flights. In the sea, the animals are dispersed over all its levels, through many miles of depth multiplied by thousands an

ut absorbing its components, retains mixed with its chlorides, copper, nickel, iron, zinc, lead, and even gold, from the metallic veins that planetary upheaval

tain calculations that with the silver floating in the ocean

em. The oceanic beings know better how to recognize their presence, letting them filter through their bodies for the renovation and coloration of their organs. The copper accumul

capture them. The carbonates of lime deposited by the rivers or dragged from the coast serve innumerable species for the construction of their coverings, skeletons, and spi

re no more than oceanic water. The fish were water made into flesh; the slimy, mucilaginous anim

reduced, like a woods seen in a diorama. It was a palm grove, surging up between the rocks, but the rocks were onl

, and from this rectilinear, marble-colored trunk sent forth, like a spout of branches

incers would come protruding again through the opening of their cylindrical scabbards, floating in the water with anxious hope. All these trees and flower-animals developed a mechanical voracity whenever a microscopic victim fell u

n attracted the att

crustaceans were moving their cutting and tentacular grinders and making their Japanese armor gleam: some of their frames were red-almost black

laws, its weapons of war and nutrition. Its nearest relative, the cricket of the sea, a dull and heavy animal, was sulking in the corners covered with mire and with sea weed, in an immovability that made it easily confounded with the stones. Around these giants, like

ture had imposed upon these animals, giving

egins to crack, the crustaceans have to withdraw from out their cuirass the multiple mechanism of their members and appendages,-claws, antennae and the great pincers,-a slow and dangerous operation in which many perish, lacerated by their own efforts. Then, naked and disarmed, they

ment of claws, the onlookers always search for a bizarre and extravagant little creature, the paguro, nicknamed "Bernard, the

s case unprotected,-a most excellent tid-bit, tender and savory for hungry fishes. The necessity for defending himself makes him seek a snail shell in order to protect the weak part of his orga

ather to put himself on the offensive, to inspire respect in devouring monsters, especially in the

their tingling organs, and the fragments of their hair burn like pins of fire. In this manner the humble paguro, carrying upon his back his tower crowned with formidable batteries, inspires terror in the gigantic beasts of the deep. The anemones on their part are grateful to him for being thus able to pass incessantly from one side to the other, coming in con

entally established the gradation of the fauna fro

le, the water filtering through the cracks and crannies of their texture, protecting their delicate flesh with a bristling of spikes,-sharp limeston

he sea-plumes lie flabby and dark as dead animals, until absorbing water, they suddenly rear themselves up, transparent and full of leaves. Thus they go from one side to the other, with the lightness of a feather, or, burrowing in the sand, send forth a phosphoric glow. The belles of the sea, the elegant Medusae, open out the floating circle of their frag

nettles and defend themselves by their fiery touch. Some subtle and colorless parasols were living here in the tank under the protection of a s

prey much larger than themselves, were grouped as in gardens the so-called "flower of blood,"

the Dead Sea and also in the southern seas. He had sailed over them under the illusi

aralyze their victims, contracting themselves until they formed a ball of lances that grasped their prey in a deadly embrace or cut it wit

hed to the rocks, the mollusks live

of ready-made refuges of limestone, expelling their former owners; the animal-plants exhale toxins; the planctonic beings, transparent and gelatinous, burn like a crystal exposed to fire; some organisms apparently weak and flabby, have in their tails the force of a carpenter's bit, perf

mollusk marching with his dwelling upon the back of this unique support. In others it is a swimmer, and the shell, opening and shut

the shallow depths with their limpid glades-and this light, spreading over the white interior of their dwelling, dec

forbidding on the outside, glistening within like a lake of pearl. Some received their terrestrial names becaus

e rocks by a hard and horny hank of silk that enwrapped their enclosures. Some of these shells, called hams,-clams of great size, with valves in the form of a clu

s cylindrical gimlet. The columns of Hellenic temples, submerged in the Gulf of Naples and broug

ish tanks were. In the corridor was a little trough of water and at the bottom a kind of rag, flabby and gray, with bl

cing their hands over the trough with a certain hesitation. Finally they would touch the living rag at the bottom,-the gelatinous flesh of the fish

a traveler who, after having lived among inferior huma

ating and slippery, like the waves. They all had accompanied him for many

light, and in order to be so had dispensed with the rigid and hard shell of the crustacean that prevents motion, preferring the coat of mail covered with scales, which expands and contracts, yields to th

asleep. The entire world belongs to them. Wherever there is a mass of water,-ocean, river or lake, in whatever altitude or latitude, a mountain peak lost in the clouds, a valley boiling lik

m and wave their arms as though they could be seen by the fishy eyes of stupid fixity. Then they woul

ter from the atmosphere had the density of millions of leagues,-an insup

to see before and behind them, their visual power extends but a short distance. The splendors with which Nature clothes the but

hearing, because they are unnecessary to them. Atmospheric agitations, thunder-bolts and hurricanes do not penetrate the water. Onl

l necessities of animal life,-hunger and love. They suffer madly the cruelty of sickness and pain; among themselves they fight to the death for a meal or a

twilight world of the ocean, streaked with phosphorescent and deceptive splendor

igious faculty renders useless, in part, the colors in which the timid species clothe themselves in order to confound themselves with lights o

um. Some were lacking,-the dolphin, of nervous movement, and the tunny, so impetuous in its career. The captai

s place were swimming other animals of the same species, whitish and long, with great fins, with eyes always open

eak of its enormous head and its body in the form of a club, leaves visible only a long thread coming from its lower jaw, waving it in all directions in order to attract its prey. Believing it a worm, the victims usually chase

ad, mostly mouth, armed with hooks and curved knives. Guided by his yellowish eyes fixed on top, he waves his pointed little beard, cut like le

and others of the same species is vertical. The two sides of the bodies of the soles, compressed laterally, have different colorings. In this way, when lyin

f the Mediterranean fauna we

sal pinnacle of the peacock-fish which appears made of feathers, the restless and deeply bifurcated tail of the horse mackerel, the fluttering of the mullet with its triple wings, the grotesque rotundity of the boar-fish and the pig-fish, the dark smoothness of the sting-ray, floating like a fringe, the long snout of the woodcock-fish, the slenderness of the haddock, agile and swift as a torpedo, the red g

soup, the precious component sought by Uncle Caragol for the broth of his succulent rice dishes. The enormous head had a pair of eyes entirely red. Its great swimming bladders stung venomously. The heavy body with its dark bands and stripes was covered w

assing from glass to glass, reflected like a double animal when it approached the surface. It was the ray-fish with a flat hea

and the serpent-like head of the turtle were emerging from its cuirass of tortoise-shell. The little sea horses, slender and graceful as chess

ng seen more than the maritime animals behind the glistening glasses and a few uninter

n't com

en, the report of the midday gun struck him like an atmospheric blow

aspect invariably attracted his attention. These were great, reddish houses of the time of the Spanish viceroys, or palaces of the reign

sions, now rented in floors and displaying little metal door-plates indicative of office and w

tricts, he became dubious. The doctor would dwell only in a modern and hygienic edif

rge of the hotel had not been able to give him any precise directions. The signora Talberg was

romenade near the white Virgil. It was all in vain. After ten o'cl

he may com

ng certain places preferred by the widow, believing that in this way he wou

ially interesting to her. He recalled that Freya

entiment warned him that something very important in his life was going to be unrolled in that particular spot. Whenever Freya visited the

to amuse himself like any landlubber, contemplating the

om its submarine mountains, and by contracting his own personality, he could reduce himself to the same scale as the little victims that were falling under the devouring tentacles. In this manner he could fancy of gigant

t, ropy beast of the abysses. The geographers of antiquity us

ied it to the epicure, Lucullus,-the head as big as a barrel, and some of its tentacles so huge that one person could hardly reach around them. The chroniclers of

to the surface, they confounded it with an island; if it remained between the two waters, the captains, on making their soundings, became confused in their calculations, finding the dept

ny times encountered, supposing them to be merely the inventions of an imaginative sailor, stories of the forecastle mad

y achieved the measurement of its great depth. The apparatus of the diver could go down but a few meters; their only instrument of explorat

only agents that from time to time announce their existence in a casual way, as they float over the waves with members relaxed, snatched at by the iron jaws of the

k or wounded. The officials sketched its form and noted its phosphorescence and changes of color, but after a two-hour struggle with its ind

ous kraken. In one of his intelligent excursions across oceanic solitudes he fished up an arm of a cuttlefish eight yards

black and phosphorescent water, thousands of fa

oceanic dominion was usually brief and deadly,-the mandible battling with the sucker; the solid and cutting equipment of teeth with the phosphorescent mucosity incessantly slipping by and opposing the blow of the demolishing head like a battering ram, with the lashing blow of tentacles thicker and heavier than a

anic night with their bluish gleam of burned-out planets. But in spite of their relative smallness, they are animated by the same destructive iniquity as the others. They are rabid stoma

hate these monsters for no other reason than because they were so interesting to Freya. Their stupid cruelty appeared to him but a reflex of that incomprehensible woman

r after each futile daily trip in p

got to come to an end! I won't stand any more bull-baiti

on for the weeks that he had to spend in Naples, but why keep

e said again, cle

ays. Then he would go for his customary stroll, afterwards entering the Aqua

o his boat and on returning entered, through force of habit, sure that

stomed to the shadows of the greenish galleries…. And when the first images began to be

it was she, dressed in white, leaning on the bar of iron that separated the tanks from the public, looking fixedly at the glass which covered the roc

Ferragut, without any surprise, as if s

ium for a long time. The tank of cuttlefish was to her like a cage of tropical b

d before going to lunch she had felt an irresistible desire to see them. She

ow beautifu

the amazing mimicry of their species, they had changed themselves to appear like minerals. Only a pair of expert eyes would have been able to discover them, heaped together, each one huddled in a crack of the rocks, voluntarily raising his smooth skin into stone-like

something belonging to her. "The guardian is going to feed them…. Poor things! Nobody pays a

es of color, reddish clouds changing from crimson to green, circular spots that became inflated in the swelling, forming tremulous excrescences. Between two cracks there appeared a

d Freya joyously. "I'm s

bottom, forming bulwarks in whose shelter they had disguised themselves in order to pounce upon their victims. In the sea, when wishing to surprise a meaty, toothsome oyster, they wait

should have to endure more than a year of enclosure in the Aquarium, they would

asm. "I adore them. I should like to have them in my home, as they have gold

me uneasiness that he had experience

y!" he said

tly enjoyed the faint perfume that exh

r him. And he listened to her voice as though it were distant music as it continued explaining briefly all the particulars about those stones that were

, a crack of their skin would open and close alternately. From one of their sides came forth a tube in the form of a tunnel that swallowed equally the respirable water and drew it through bot

s. She began speaking in a low tone as if to herself, without paying any attention to Ferragut who was perplex

a reptile of checkered sides that she wore as necklace or bracelet over there in her home in the island of Java,-an island where groves exhaled an irresistibl

ce for hours and hours, just like a Brahman priestess before the image of the terrible Siva, and the 'eye of the mo

. What he wanted to know was the reason that had take

h commandant," she sai

d I followed

er husband been a great student?… Had he not taken

in order to be sure, bu

course. "That professor was my second

ilvered by the sun, passed a human shadow. It was the silhouette of the keeper. Down below, the three sh

nd yellow scales. An odd community interest appeared to exist among these monsters: only the one nearest the prey bestirr

, remaining fastened to the ground by one of his radiants, and raised the others like a bundle of reptiles. Suddenly he converted himself

eet disappeared and there only remained visible a trembling bag through which was passing like a succession of waves, from one extreme to the other, the digestive swollen mass which became

aped in their turn, spreading out their stars, then shrinking together in o

pon him with a contact growing more intimate every moment. From shoulder to ankle the captain could see the sweet re

an odd expression. Her pupils appeared enlarged, and the whites of her eyes had a waterines

ses, admiring the ferocity of the cuttlefish, grieving

tching out my talons!… To devour!… to devour! They would struggle uselessly to free themselves

ple of the poet, possessed with a fierce wrath again

th elegance. They appeared like torpedo boats with a conical prow, dragging along the heavy, thick and long hair o

the struggle, the sacrifice, the death. The bits of sardine were a meal without su

ints, they had fallen on the sandy bottom, fl

end at the end of a thread

d. Its arms writhed like serpents seeking the recent arrival. In vain the guard pulled the thread up, wishing to prolong the chase. The tentacles clamped th

d her hands

pale, though a feverish heat

erocious eyes and around its base the twisted skeins of its arms full of projecting disks. With these it pressed the crab against its mouth, injecting under its shell

iful it is

oured them, moving their flabby bodies in order to permit the pass

n a crab, but one witho

amed with

ceded with emotional agony and hazards. The poor crustacean, divining its danger, was swimming towards the rocks hop

caping!" cried Freya, pa

s armed extremities, which were now serving as apparatus of locomotion. It was the struggle of a tiger with a mouse. When the crab had half of its body already hidden within the green

rself back as though she were g

emulous pressure had encircled his body. The acts

rom the oceanic depths-must have slipped treacherously behind him and was clutching him in one of its t

nd herself tightly around him and was clasping his waist with a

ful and misty, appeared to be far off, very far off. Perhaps she was not even looking at him…. Her trembling mouth, bluish with emotion, a

n kissed in this way. The water from that mouth surging across her row of teeth, discharged itself in his li

ss, that with it was going to begin a new existence, that he never would be able to free himself from these deadly and

thought lost and body inert and resigned, like a castaway who descends a