.
By
Andreas Karkavitsas
My father — may the wave that buried him be holy oil for him — never meant to make a sailor of me.
"Keep away, my boy," he said, "keep away from the lying monster! She has no faith nor mercy. Worship her as you will — honor her — she never moves from her own aim. Don't look at her deceiving smile, promising her countless wealth. Sooner or later she will dig a grave for you, or she will cast you on the world a useless ruin, with nothing to own but your skin and bones. Sea or woman — it's all the same!"
These were the words of a man who had spent a whole life on a ship's deck, a man whose father and grandfather and great-grandfather had died by the mast. And he was not alone of this opinion. The other old men of the island, veterans of the ships, and the younger people whose hands were still callous, whenever they took their seats in the coffee-house to smoke their water pipes, would waggle their heads sadly and say with a sigh:
"There's no more bread to be gained from the sea. Let me have just a root of vine on the solid earth and I would throw a black stone behind me."
The truth was that many of them had money enough to own not only a vine but a whole island. Yet they would spend it all on the sea. They competed against each other to see who could build the biggest vessel or who would be a captain first. I, who often heard their words and saw their acts, contrary and inconsistent with their words, could not understand the mystery.
Some God's breath, I said to myself, some power sent from infinity was coming down to drag with it all those souls and hurl them captives against their wills into the open sea, just as the raging north wind beating on the bare cliffs bites off the weathered pieces and hurls them down in a mass of fragments.
But the same impulse was pushing me, too, that way. Ever since my childhood days, I loved the sea. You might say I took my first steps in the water. My first play was a box of beans with a little stick set up in the center for a mast, with two pieces of thread for hawsers and a sheet of paper for a sail, and my imagination made of this little box a triple-decked bark. I put it to sea with emotion, and imagined myself in it.
Of course, as soon as I took my hand off, my bark sank to the bottom, but I was not slow in building another of timber. My dockyard was at the little harbor of St. Nicholas. I put my boat to sea and I followed it, swimming to the entrance of the harbor, where the current swept it far away from me. Later I became first in rowing and first in swimming. All I lacked was a fish's scales.
"Bravo!" said the old sailors to me with their good-natured smiles as they saw me ripping the water like a dolphin. "You will put us all to shame!"
I was proud because of these words and I hoped that some day I would fulfill their prophesy. I remember it was my seventh year at school when I closed my books forever. I found nothing in them that would respond to my longings, while everything else about me, living or not, whispered to me a thousand tales: The sailors with their faces bronzed by the sun; the old men with their reminiscences; the piled timber with its story told at sight; the lasses with their songs:
"How handsome is my little mate when wet with the
sea-spray,
Puts on his change of snow-white clothes and takes
the helm in hand."
This song I heard ever since my cradle days and it seemed to me like a hymn sung by my island to lure its inhabitants to the life of the sea. My dream, too, was some day to be a mate and, wet with the sea spray, to hold the helm in hand. Surely I would be handsome then and strong — a real man. I would be the pride of my island and I would be loved by every lass.
Yes, I did love the sea! At times I saw her spreading from the headland far away and mingling with the blue firmament, like a sapphire floor, smooth, calm and silent with a secret that I longed to know. At times I saw her mad, spattering the shore angrily with white foam, toppling over the reefs, scaling the caves of the great rocks with a restless thundering roar as if she sought to penetrate the earth's fiery womb and to extinguish the flames that burned there. This intoxicated me, and I ran to play with her, to make her angry and provoke her, so that she might rush against me and chase me, and lash my body with her spray — tease her as we like to tease wild beasts bound with chains. Then, when I saw a ship lifting anchor and sailing out of the harbor into the open sea, and heard the cheering chanties of the sailors laboring at the capstan sheets and the farewells of the women, my soul would fly like a lonely bird after it. The sails of dark gray, swelling with the wind, the stays stretching like delicate lines against the horizon, the golden trucks leaving behind them a trail of light in the blue sky called out to me to go with them, promising new lands, new men, riches, joys, strange kisses that, though I knew it not, were stored in my heart as the inherited pleasures of my fathers. So, day and night, my soul longed for nothing else but the day of sailing away. Even when the news of a shipwreck reached the island, and the death of the drowned men lay heavy on everybody's heart, and silent grief spread from the frowning faces to the inanimate pebbles of the beach, even when I met the orphans of the dead in the streets, like gilded pieces of wood among the ruins of a once prosperous home, and saw the women clothed in black, and the bereaved sweethearts left disconsolate, and heard the survivors of the shipwreck tell of their misfortune, even then I was sorry and jealous that I had not been with them to see my own sweetheart in her wild majesty and to wrestle with her, wrestle unto death.
At last I could no longer control myself. My father had sailed away with his schooner. My uncle, Kalligeres, was just about to set sail for the Black Sea. I fell on his neck; and my mother, too, fearing I might get sick, intervened in my behalf. He consented to take me along.
"I will take you," he said, "but you'll have to work. A sailing ship needs care, it's no fishing boat for food and sleep."
I was always afraid of my uncle. He was as rude and mean to me as he was to his sailors. Men avoided working under him.
"Better slaving in Algiers
Than with Captain Kalligeres."
they would say to show his heartlessness. He would "bake a fish on their lips" not only in the work he exacted but even in the food and the pay he gave them. Whatever there was of old salt junk, mouldy dry cod, bitter flour, weevilly biscuit and chalky cheese could be found in Kalligeres' stores to be used for his sailors. He would never speak, except to command, to swear, or to abuse somebody. Only men who despaired of any other chance would offer to be hired by him. So I knew well I was not going to indulge in caresses and good times. But the lure of the sea made me disregard everything.
"Only take me aboard," I said, "and I'll work as much as you want."
To make my word good, I plunged into work. I made the futtock-shrouds my play. The higher I had to go the more eager I was to climb up first. Perhaps my uncle wished to make it especially hard for me from the beginning and to acquaint me with the endless trials of a sailor's life in order to make me change my mind. He surely kept me going, from deck-washing to deck-scrubbing, from sail-mending to rope-twisting, from letting go and clewing up the sails to stowing them ; from the quay to the capstan, from loading to unloading, from calking to painting. I had to be first in everything. First be it ! "What did I care ? I was satisfied to climb high to the topyard and with my big toes grasping the backstay to look down into space and watch the sea open a way and retreat before me as my humble subject. Drunk with joy I compared myself to a proud bird winging its way triumphantly across the skies. I was in a magic trance. I looked with pity on the rest of the world, on the men who lived on dry land. They seemed to me like ants, creeping snakes, or slow-moving tortoises cursed to wear their shells forever as a useless burden.
"Bah!" I would say with contempt. "They think they live ! " On such a surge of enthusiasm I heard one day the Captain's voice roar like a peal of thunder beside me:
"Let go the sails! Clew up and let go all!"
I was frightened and ran to follow the other sailors without understanding exactly what the trouble was. Everyone to his post, and I to mine. They flew to the jibs; I followed them. They climbed up to the yards. I was among them, making fast and stowing every sail. Within five minutes the bark was a skeleton of spars. In front of his cabin the captain stood shouting and abusing and cursing. I looked at him but d_____ d if I knew what he was talking about.
"What in h___l is the matter?" I asked the man next to me as we were making the sky-sail fast. "The squall — don't you see? The water-spout!"
The water-spout ! A shiver ran down my back. I had often heard of its awful wonders; how it sweeps everything away on its path, how it makes tatters of sails, breaks down masts, and downs all sea-sailing things. There was not only one but three or four. Two of them rose towards Batum. The others were on our port bow sweeping over the waters from gray distance where sky and sea met. Ahead Caucasus, a frowning monstrous mass, showing his darkened coast walled with great cliffs like bare teeth ready to tear a world. Above us the sky draped with thick heavy curtains of clouds; below, the sea, blackish-gray, trembling from end to end like a living thing shuddering with fear. For the first time I saw my sweetheart frightened.
The one water-spout was high and arched like an elephant's proboscis, and hung over the waters, a black motionless monster. The other, at first like an immense thick pillar rising straight up, was suddenly broken in two like a column of smoke ; its lower half was shattered into a thousand fragments while the upper half hung from the clouds like a many-forked serpent's tongue. I saw the serpent moving on, stretching his neck, now this way and now that, brandishing his tongues as if seeking something on the face of the waters, and then suddenly flinging his body backward and gathering it in coils to nestle among the clouds. But a third one, black and gray and as thick as the trunk of a plane-tree one thousand years old, stood motionless for some time sucking up the water and swelling in size; and then tottering like a menacing beast, it started sweeping against us, a monstrous mass of terror.
"Down there! Get down!" I heard a voice from the deck calling me.
Turning around, I saw that all the others had climbed down while I had been clinging fast to the topmast, watching the strange miracle. I glided down the shrouds quickly and landed beside the captain. I saw him face the fearful monster with a savage frown and deep watchful eyes as if he were to bind it with an evil eye spell. In his right hand he held a knife with a black handle and stood in front of the mizzen-mast as if he had chosen it for a target. Near him the mate was filling up the rusty horn by throwing into its empty belly a powder of all kinds of old nails and pieces of lead. Round about, the rest of the crew stood with arms crossed, speaking no word, looking now at the sky and now at the sea with the indifference of fatalists.
Meanwhile the water serpent was advancing with winged feet and with swelled breast, sucking up the water like a thirsty Tantalus and casting it up as a smoky cloud of storm into the sky. At moments you might think it would sweep the whole deck clean of every spar or snatch up the whole bark, hull and all, and hurl it skyward. It must have been just about two yards from us. Never faltering, it rose before us a shining rounded mass of gold and green like a smoked crystal, and, deep in its trunk, a roughly hammered piston of black and gray, the water hissed upward eager to flood whole worlds through the great sky.
"Strike!" commanded the captain.
The mate, with a quick movement, emptied his horn against it. Old nails, pieces of lead and hemp, all were lost in its side. It seemed to tremble from top to toe.
Some doubt had entered its heart, or some cold fear had chilled its wind and it stopped. It made an effort to move again but it tottered, whirled about twice and stood again motionless, a tower of glass uniting sea and sky.
"Missed it!" said the captain bitterly.
"Missed it! — I see that," said the mate; "Just draw the pentalpha, captain, and let the sin be on my neck."
"My God," whispered the captain with resolution, "I am a sinner." He made the sign of the cross and, drawing with the knife a pentalpha on the mast, he pronounced the spell three times with a low voice :
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word." He fixed it in the midst of the sacred symbol with the fury of a man who was striking at the heart of a wild beast.
Something like thunder was heard, as if a gun was discharged on our broadside, and a monstrous wave rolled down our deck. At the same time lightning flashed from the Caucasus, and the mountain roared with loud rumbling. The squall burst now, and the sea, stirred with fright, foamed and raged over the whole main from end to end. A wild tempest, truly !
"Aloft the sails!" commanded the captain quickly.
"Top-sails! Jibs! Top-gallants! Royals!"
We spread our sails and soon the bark was on its course again.
II
Three weeks later we anchored at Constantinople with a cargo on board. There I received the first letter from my mother, a first letter that came like a first stab at my inexperienced heart.
"Yanne, my boy," said the old woman, "when you come back to the island with St. Nicholas' help and my blessing, you will not be any longer a captain's son as you were on the day you sailed away — your father is gone with his schooner and all our fortune! The Black Sea has swallowed them all. Now you have nothing left but this one-story house, me, a helpless woman, and God. May your arms be strong. "Work, my boy, and respect your uncle. If you have anything left over from your earnings, send it to me to buy oil and burn a candle before the Saint for your father's soul."
I crossed my hands and looked with tearful eyes at the sea. The words of the letter seemed to me like an echo of my father's words. He was a captain, owner of his own vessel for many years, and now his widow had to depend on my savings to make a wheat offering (Kolyva) for the dead man's soul! His wheat offering, not to speak of the poor widow's own needs ! Meanwhile, who knows against what reefs his iron strong arms are dashing, what gulls are tearing his flesh, or what waves are bleaching his fleshless bones!
How significant were his last words ! We had met for the last time just as we were sailing into the port of Theodosia when he saw me high on the top-yard stowing the skysail. He crossed himself and stood dumb with emotion. He had not expected such a thing.
"Why do you look at him, Captain Angele?" Kalligeres shouted to him as we sailed by. "I won't exchange him for your best hand."
At the same moment I was praying earnestly that the sea might open and swallow me. I could not rest as long as I felt his stem eyes fixed on me. I ran hurriedly from one end to another, as if I was too busy to stop. So down into the forecastle I would go, and up the futtock-shrouds ; or I would pass from the capstan to the pump and do anything to avoid him. He understood my confusion and did not rise from his seat; but from the place where he sat he followed me with a sad, complaining eye as if he was looking on a deathbed.
Next day he met me as I was going to town with the other men. As soon as I caught sight of him, I tried to hide, but he nodded and even from the distance his nod was so commanding that my legs refused to obey my will.
"My boy, whatever was the matter with you? Have you thought over what you are trying to do?"
For the first time I knew there was gentleness in my father's voice; but I did not hesitate.
"Father," I said with courage, "I did think it over. Maybe my act is foolish and bad; but I can't help it. I can't live otherwise. The sea calls me; don't try to cross me. Else I might go where you will never see me again."
He made the sign of the cross, puzzled by my determination. He looked straight into my eyes for some time, then he shook his head and said:
"Very well, my boy; do whatever God prompts you to. I have done my part. Remember, I have spared neither words nor money. You will have no reason to curse me in the future. Go with my blessing. "
His last blessing was my first regret. The sea did reward my love on my first trip.
I was now truly a hired man for Captain Kalligeres, to earn my bread and my mother's, who had been a captain's wife. Yet in spite of her advice, I could neither respect him nor work for my uncle any longer. If I must be a hired sailor, I thought, thank God there are other vessels. I would much rather get a hail of abuse from a stranger than from my own kin. A stranger would be more likely to respect my name. And so I made up my mind, if all was well, to disembark at the first port.
"Out for a better job? You will see!" said Kalligeres, who guessed my thoughts.
One day I went to ask a little olive oil for the meal.
"No," he said, "that's for the man who stands by the wheel."
I went a second time and a third. The same answer. It wasn't enough for him to feed us with every decaying thing ; he had to strike even olive oil off our rations. His avarice and his heartlessness were his most detestable traits. I decided to get back at him once, and one day when I was at the wheel and he was out of sight,
I took the picture of St. Nicholas from the chart-house, where a candle filled with olive oil burned before it, tied it on the wheel and left the deck. The bark, like a crazy person, wandered all over the sea.
"Yanne!" shouted the captain, "who ia at the wheel?"
" He who eats the oil ! " I answered.
All the crew split themselves laughing and that angered him.
"Get out!" he said. "Pack your things and go!"
"All right. Give me my pay."
He took me into the chart-house and opened his account book. He reckoned up my' dues in his usual manner.
"I hired you on such a day. The next day you came aboard; the day after you brought in your clothes and one day later you started work. Not so?"
He cheated me altogether out of five days' pay. Still it might have been worse.
"Just as you say," I said.
And so, with two pounds in my pocket, I landed in Messena.
III
From now on I lived like a real sailor. A life of toil and turmoil. Ant-like as far as being always busy, but never ant-like in saving. How could you ever save with such work from hand to mouth? One pair of shoes took one month's wages. A waterproof, another month's pay. One good time on shore, a third month. One month out of a job, six months in debt. How could you save and support a home? My home did not last long. Merciful death sealed its door. "Within a year my mother died and her care was taken off my shoulders.
Wandering from ship to ship, from captain to captain, and from trip to trip, I wasted ten years on the sea. It was a troubled life; one pleasure, three misadventures. Before you could say " praise God, " you had to yell "God help us!" Day and night my father's words resounded in my ears. What was the use? You might knock your fist against a knife or your head against a mast; the mast can't break. If I had a root of grapevine on land I might throw a black stone behind me and leave the sea forever. But where was the vine? I had one of two fortunes coming to me; either some wave would bury me or I might turn into the world a beggar. Very well, then. A blessed life had to be mine. I might stick to the Job and have a good time. I wasn't alone — was I ? Every sailor in the world has the same bad luck. I was a hired hand on many vessels and worked with many foreigners, too, but never did I envy anyone. A sailor's life is the same everywhere; abuse from the captain, contempt from the charterer, threats from the sea, kicks from the land. Wherever he turns, he faces an enemy.
Once, when I had come to Piraeus on an English brig I thought of going to my island which I had never seen since the day I had sailed away with Captain Kalligeres. Fate had taken me on her wings and made me spin about the earth like a top. On my return I found my home a ruin, my mother's grave overgrown with weeds and my young sweetheart a grown-up girl. I had the priest read prayers for my mother, I burned a taper for my father's soul, and cast two glances on my sweetheart. I shivered all over.
"Who knows?" I thought bitterly. "If I had listened to my father's words might I not now be Mary's husband?"
Her father, Captain Parares, was an ancient shipowner, of the same age as my father. He was lucky with the sea. He struck it at the proper time and so he reaped a rich harvest from it. Then he sold his bark, St. Stephanos, bought some dry fields, turned them into a garden, and dropped his travels forever.
I did not leave on the next day as my plan was. Nor the day after. A week went by and I was still there. Something held me back, though I had nothing more to do. Only the same thought came again and again to my mind, putting out, like a light extinguisher, all other thoughts.
"If I had listened to my father's words, might I not now be Mary's husband?"
At the same time I kept passing and repassing her home, and towards evening I would take the road to the village — well. Just to catch a glimpse of her. In other words, I was in love with Mary. Whenever she passed with lowered eyes and light step before me and I saw her full breast and her hair hanging in black waves down her back, I felt a desire to run to her and lock her in my arms with unfailing passion. Her black, almond-shaped eyes seemed to promise to me a calm, happy and restful nest, and her bosom looked like a harbor of tranquil waters and smooth sands where a mariner might, without any fear, moor his boat.
It was like the vision that always haunts me. Waves, sky, earth and its crops, men, life itself always transitory and changing, tire our souls. As a balance of necessity, nature must seek stability; and our mind looks for a place where it can rest by day and by night while the body goes on with its endless trials and struggles. So a woman is found and a marriage is sought. Do you think it of small importance while you wander over the world to know that there is a little corner for you somewhere, where love burns for you expecting your return anxiously ? The same magnet that once had lured me, inexperienced lad, to the sea, was now drawing me, a full-grown man, towards the woman — only with much greater force. With the same blind passion, I followed the footprints of my fair one. I first sent Captain Kalligeres as messenger of my love. Then Kalomoira, "the Good Fortune," an old woman famous through- out the island as a matchmaker.
"I will not go," I thought, "until I have an answer."
But my messenger brought everything to a happy end. There was honey in her words and she won both the girl and her father.
"I want to speak to you," said Captain Parares to me one evening, after taking me apart. "Your purpose is good and your way is honest. There is nobody I would like to have in my house better than the son of a friend who was like a brother to me. Mary will be yours. But on one condition: You will have to give up the sea. I stand by your father's words. The sea has no faith nor mercy. You must give it up."
"But what am I to do?" I asked. "How can I live? You know I have learned no other trade."
"I know it. But Mary has a fortune of her own." It came like a slap to me and I turned all red.
"Then am I to take a wife to support me?" "No, she will not support you. Don't be angry. I did not mean to offend you. You will work together. There is the orchard, the vineyard, the field. They need workers."
The truth was, I needed nothing better. I was ready to give up the sea forever. I felt like St. Elias, who shouldered his oar and took to the mountains, looking for a place to live where men had never heard of his name. He didn't care either to look on the sea or to hear of it any longer. I felt exactly the same. Her name, her color, her charms had no more secrets for me. The spell had been broken.
"Agreed!" I said, "you have my word for it."
Three years went by, spent with Mary up in Trapi, my father-in-law's village. Three years of real life. I learned how to handle a pick and worked with my wife in the orchard, the vineyard and the field. "With work and love, I never felt the passing of time. When we did not dig together we chased each other under the citron trees like birds just learning how to fly. Her word followed on my. word; her kiss on mine. I learned how to dig around the citron trees, how to prune the vines, and how to plough the field. Then I knew how to pick the citrons in the fall, how to gather the grapes when vintage time came in August, and how to reap the wheat-field in the month of harvest. I earned fifty dollars from my citrons yearly, twenty from my vine, and forty from my wheat, besides the seed I kept for next year's crop and the provisions for my own home use. It was the first time that I really knew what earning was, and realized that my labor was received gratefully and rewarded wath plenty. The speechless earth tried in a thousand manners, colors, shapes, fragrances, fruits and flowers to speak and thank me for my taking care of it.
If I ploughed, the furrow remained faithfully where I opened it. It would receive the seed and hide it diligently from the flying things; then it would keep it warm and damp until the day when it would show it before my eyes fresh with dew, green with living sap,and finally mature with gold. The earth seemed to say : " See how I have brought it up ! " If I lightened the burden of a vine by pruning it, the vine would seem to burst into tears with emotion, and shaking with delight would open its eyes like bright butterflies and suddenly bring forth its heavy burden of new clusters. If I trimmed the citron tree, it would rise lithe with grace and dazzling with beauty, and with its tufted branches would build wonderful shady arches to cool our bodies from the noon-day heat and to shower fragrances on our sleep at night, while its light golden fruit would refresh our very being.
Yes, it is the earth God has blessed with feeling and not that senseless monster that wipes off your track as soon as your keel has opened it, jealous of any sign that anyone might try to leave on eternity. Praise the sea all you may ; flatter it, sing of it ; its answer is a thrust for you to get away, a murmur of discontent at your presence, or an untamed tiger's roar with which it tries to open a grave for you. Cain, after his crime, should have been condemned to a seaman's life.
At sunset we would walk back to the village. Mary would go ahead in the midst of her playful goats shak ing their bells as they frisked about merrily. I would follow with the pick on my shoulder leading behind me the mule loaded with logs for fuel. Then, at home, while Mary lighted the fire to make supper, I would light my pipe and sit down comfortably at the threshold in the midst of a blond honeysuckle that spread lustily over the walls in the midst of scented royal mints and spearmints and sweet marjorams, generous little plants that asked for nothing but a handful of proper earth and a drop of water to bathe us with fragrance and grace.
From this place I would exchange greetings with passing neighbors, greetings that trickled from the very heart.
"Good evening!"
" Good evening to you ! ' *
''Goodnight!"
''Good luck to you!"
I did not have to look anxiously at the sky any longer. I did not have to consider the position of the moon, the trembling light of the stars, the course of the wind, the rise of the Pleiades. And late at night, when I east anchor in my love's arms, what bay or what luring port could ever give me such happiness!
So two years passed and now we M'ere in the third. One Sunday in February I went with my wife to my old town of St. Nicholas by the Sea. Her cousin. Captain Malamos was christening his brig and had invited us to the joyful occasion. It was a beautiful day, which was the first awakening of my old longing. The dock was covered with timber, masts, beams, splinters, and woodshavings. The air was filled with the smell of the sea brine, the scent of freshly cut timber, the heavy odor of tar, pitch and ropes. There were hills of hemp and piles of steel pieces. From one end of the beach to the other there was an array of little row-boats beautifully painted, brigs careened, luggers stripped of all rigging and old hulls covered with barnacles and seaweeds. There were skeletons of cutters, schooners, and brigantines, some with just the keel and the sea-steps, others ribbed and planked up to the gunwale, others only half-way up. Any tool a seaman might wish for was there ; ftnd any seaman's dreams, ambitions, simple longings, and great hopes could be found on that gold-sanded beach, expressed vividly in some wooden structure by some shipbuilder's hands. The guests — the whole island, it seemed — old men and young boys, old women and young girls, moved in their Sunday clothes from one ship's frame to another. The boys hopped from place to place. The men handled their parts with knowing pride and often they spoke to them as if they were living things. The veterans of the sea sized up each ship's worth, estimated its speed, measured its tonnage, recounted the profits it might bring, and gave their advice to the master builder on everything. At last, they concluded by wishing the owner of each ship that its nails might turn to gold for him.
Captain Malamos' brig was standing in its dock with its fine and lovely hull, with its many props on both sides like a huge centipede sleeping on the sandy beach. Its prow curved like a delicately wrought saber ; its stern was girded with garlands of flowers. A glistening meadow of pure azure, the sea, spread before it, shimmering playfully and reaching for the ship's feet with little tongues of rippling water. She sprinkled it with her lukewarm spray, made it fragrant with her salt breath and sang to it a secret confiding song: "Come," she sang, "come to lie on my bosom. I will give you life with my kiss; I will breathe a soul into you and will make you fly on strong wings. Why do you lie there, a mass of soulless timber, like something heavy with sleep? Are you not weary of the torpor of the forest and its life of no will? Shame to you! Come out into the sun, and the air, and the light! Come to wrestle with the wave and ride victor over it! With raised breast meet the strong wind and tear him into tatters. You will be the whale's envy, the dolphin's mate, the sea-gull's comfort, the sailor's song; your captain's pride. Come, my bride, come!" and the ship seemed to feel the spell of the sea and began to creak, eager to leave its bed where it lay in idleness.
All about, the guests were crowding. Captain Malamos stood by with a smooth-shaved, smiling face, dressed in his best, with a broad scarf about his waist. Near him, his wife, in a dress of silk, looked like a bride. They seemed to live their wedding day once more, while a violin, a mandolin, and a drum played their gay melodies with a spirit that seemed determined to carry the glad tidings to the ends of the earth.
"Would you believe it? I was not happy in the least. As I was sitting towards the end nearest the sea, I would see her little ripples reaching at my feet, and a certain sadness wrung my heart. My first sweetheart, whom I had not seen for years, was now facing me again, young and beautiful, clothed in her raiment of sapphire blue. Her face smiled with perfect gladness; and I thought that she had her eyes fixed on me and that she spoke words of regretful complaint:
"Faithless one! Deceiver! Coward!"
"Get thee behind me, Satan!" I said to myself, and made the sign of the cross.
I wanted to get away but my feet refused. My body seemed like a mass of lead that was stuck to the rock; and my eyes, my ears, my soul were a helpless prey to the wave which continued to sing its sad complaint :
"Faithless one! Deceiver! Coward! "
Tears almost came to my eyes. My hatred for the sea, her tyranny, her crimes, the sleepless nights and my fruitless labor, all, vanished from my mind like bad dreams. I only remembered my first joys, the glad drunkenness of the sea, the charm of wandering over her, the magic shiver of her dangers, the sheer enjoyment of escaping them, the recklessness of a sailor's life. All these joys I had abandoned for the sake of a woman.
"Well, what makes you so thoughtful, life of mine?" I heard a voice beside me. I turned and saw Mary, beautiful and smiling, with her lithe body, her fresh lips, her full breast, her shining eyes, and her coalblack hair. I felt confused and guilty as if I had been caught in the act of deceiving her.
" Nothing, " I murmured ; " nothing ! Lend me a hand to get up. I feel dizzy,"
I took her hand and grasped her with intense eagerness as if I were in danger of falling into the cold darkness of an abyss. The priest, in his vestments, was reading Ms prayers over the new ship. The shipbuilder began giving his commands:
"Let go the stern prop! Let go the prow! Loosen the sides now!"
One after another the props fell from the hull and the brig began to shake as if still stiff from sleep and hesitating to plunge forward into its new life. The boys that had climbed on deck were running from stern to prow and from starboard to port, making a noise like a flock of sheep.
The hands had taken their places beside the hull in order to push it into the sea. The master-builder com- manded again:
"Let go!"
At the united effort of so many breasts, the ship groaned, shook once more, and finally glided, like a duck, into the water with its youthful crew on deck.
" Good luck to it. Captain Malamos ! Good luck to it. May her nails turn to gold for you ! ' ' the crowd of seamen shouted, and sprinkled the captain and his wife with spray.
But at that moment one of the boys on deck stumbled as he ran and fell senseless overboard. On the same instant, I plunged into the sea with my clothes on. With the second dive I pulled the boy to the surface. I saved the boy but the meshes of the sea were tight about me and none could save me. From that time on I could neither sleep nor rest. Joy had left me forever. That plunge into the sea, her warm water that had embraced me, was now dragging my soul a slave behind it. I remembered its touch was like warm kisses that sent an electric current down my back. With my open eyes I saw before me a bride clothed jn blue ; young, glad, and tender, nodding to me from the distance to follow her.I could hear her call: "Come! Come!"
I could not work any longer. I tried to go back to my orchard, field and vineyard, but all seemed to me walled in and narrow. The shade of the citron tree was heavy and cold. The vine-twigs with their knots seemed disgustingly ugly, like a lobster's legs. The furrows of the field, cheap. So I spent day after day on the beach plunging in the water. I felt its touch with shivers of delight. I caught hungrily its salt breath and I wallowed in bliss among the seaweeds as on a bed of soft feathers and silk. I would spend hours picking sea urchins and crabs. Often I would go down to the harbor and with some hesitation draw near the groups of sailors to hear them talk about their rigs, and travels, and storms, and shipwrecks. They would hardly look at me. You see, I was only a peasant, an old farmer, while they were sailors, dolphins of the sea. What could a poplar have to do with rhubarb? How could it stoop trom. its height to see the little weed at its feet? They could not even count me as present in their company. The younger sailors would look at me with wonder as if they said: " Where does this ghost come from?" The older men who once had been my friends and my mates would occasionally deign to address me with a jest:
"Now, Yanne, you have your hawsers pretty tight. You don't have to worry about wind or sea. You've cast anchor for good!"
Their eyes had such an expression of pity that I could read in them what they did not speak in words: "You are a dead man! You don't belong to the living world any longer!" So I turned to the beach to tell my troubles to the waves. At the end, I turned back to my early years and consoled myself with little ships which I built with my hands. My skill was mature now and I could make them with oak masts and actual stays and sails, while my imagination was again aflame and made triple-decked barks out of them. I was a child again.
Mary watched me and wondered about my change. Often she thought I was turning insane and prayed to Virgin Mary to help me. She made more than one vow to the Holy Virgin of Tenos, and went on many pilgrimages to the neighboring country shrines with bare feet. She had prayers read over my clothes, and often beating her breast with anxiety, she called on the saints and tried to secure their help in bringing me back to my senses again.
"Mary," I said to her once, "there's nothing that will help. Neither saints nor vows can cure my trouble. I am a child of the sea. It calls and I must go. Sooner or later I must return to my old trade. Else I could not live."
As soon as she heard it she put on mourning. At last she knew the serpent that had been biting her so long in secret.
"Your trade!" she cried; "to be a sailor — and poor again!"
"Yes, a sailor! I can't help it. The sea is calling me!"
But she could not understand. She would not hear of it. She cried and prayed. She threw her arms about me, pressed me to her bosom, and covered me with kisses, clinging to me with despair, anxious in her jealousy to make me see the toil of the sea, its dangers, and shipwrecks. She would abuse the sea, find a thou- sand faults with it, and curse it as if it was her rival. But all was in vain. Neither her arms nor her kisses could bind me any longer. Everything seemed cold and wearisome, even my bed.
One evening, about sunset, as I was sitting on the rocks by the sea, plunged in my usual thought, I saw before me a brig sailing by, with all her sails bulging with the wind. It looked like a cliff of light rising suddenly from the midst of the sea. All her spars and stays were painted with wonderful distinctness against the blue sky. I saw the jibs, the courses, the top-sails, the top-gallants, the trucks. I believe I could even see the billet-head. My eyes seemed to get a supernatural power so that they could turn timber to crystal and reach the very depths of the ship. I could see the captain's cabin adorned with the picture of St. Nicholas and his never-failing candle. I could see the sailors' bunks, hear their simple talk, and feel their sour smell. I could see the kitchen, the water-barrels, the pump, the capstan. My soul, like a homesick bird, had perched on the full-rigged ship. I heard the wind whistling past the stays and shrouds, singing with a harmony more than divine of a seaman 's life ; and before my eyes passed on winged feet virgins with fair hair and black hair, virgins with blue eyes and dark eyes, and virgins with flowers, showing their bare breasts and sending me distant kisses. Then I saw noisy ports, taverns filled with smoke and wine-cups and resounding with sweet voiced guitars and tambourines. Suddenly I saw a sailor pointing at me and heard him say to his companion :
"There goes one who renounced the sea for fear of it!' "
I sprang up like a madman. Never for fear ! Never, I thought, and ran back to the house. Mary had gone out to the brook. So much the better. I took a purse from under my pillow, cast a last glance on the bed, and with a pack of clothes on my shoulder, I disappeared like a thief. It was dark when I reached St. Nicholas, but without losing any time I jumped into a boat and rowed to the brig.
Life has been a phantom for me ever since. If you ask me if I regret it, I would not know what to answer.
But even should I go back to my island now, I could never rest.
The sea claims me.
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