Mare Nostrum (Our Sea)

Suddenly he felt all his weakness, all his misery, while his blood continued crimsoning the little lakes among the rocks. Closing his eyes to die, he saw in the darkness a pale face, hands that were deftly weaving delicate laces, and before night should descend forever upon his eyelids, he moaned a childish cry:

"Mamá!… Mamá!…"

Three months afterward upon arriving at Barcelona, he found his mother just as he had seen her during his death-agony on the Portuguese coast…. Some fishermen had picked him up just as his life was ebbing away. During his stay in the hospital he wrote many times in a light and confident tone to Doña Cristina, pretending that he was detained by important business in Lisbon.

Upon seeing him enter his home, the good lady dropped her eternal lace-work, turned pale and greeted him with tremulous hands and troubled eyes. She must have known the truth; and if she did not know it, her motherly instinct told her when she saw Ulysses convalescent, emaciated, hovering between courageous effort and physical breakdown, just like the brave who come out of the torture chamber.

"Oh, my son!… How much longer!…"

It was time that he should bring to an end his madness for adventure, his crazy desire for attempting the impossible, and encountering the most absurd dangers. If he wished to follow the sea, 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 with the international lawlessness that the ports offer for the reinforcement of crews. Remaining quietly at home would be best of all. Oh, what happiness if he would but stay with his mother!…

And Ulysses, to the astonishment of Doña Cristina, decided to do so. The good señora was not alone. A niece was living with her as though she were her 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 shore while he, with the gravity of a man, had been listening to the old secretary of the town, as he related the past grandeurs of the Catalunian navy.

She was the daughter of a Blanes (the only poor one in the family) who had commanded his relatives' ships, and had died of yellow fever in a Central American port. Ferragut had difficulty 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 over the ears. Her eyes appeared to have the changing tints of the sea, sometimes black and others blue, or green and deep where the light of the sun was reflected like a point of gold.

He was attracted by her simplicity and by the timid grace of her words and smile. She was an irresistible novelty for this world-rover who had only known coppery maidens with bestial roars of laughter, yellowish Asiatics with feline gestures, or Europeans from the great ports who, at the first words, beg for drink, and sing upon the knees of the one who is treating, wearing his cap as a testimony of love.

Cinta, that was her name, appeared to have known him all his life. He had been the object of her conversations with Doña Cristina when they spent monotonous hours together weaving lace, as was the village custom. Passing her room, Ulysses noticed there some of his own portraits at the 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. The mother listened with averted glance, and with trembling hands moving the bobbins of her lace. Suddenly there was an outcry. It was Cinta who could not listen any longer, and Ulysses felt flattered by her tears, her convulsive laments, her eyes widened with an expression of terror.

Ferragut's mother had been greatly concerned regarding the future of this poor niece. Her only salvation was matrimony, and the good señora had focused her glances upon a certain relative a little over forty who needed this young girl to enliven his life of mature bachelorhood. He was the wise one of the family. Doña 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. He was teaching Latin and rhetoric in the Institute of Manresa and spoke of being transferred some day to Barcelona,—glorious end of an illustrious career. Every week he escaped to the capital in order to make long visits to the notary's widow.

"He doesn't come on my account," said the good señora, "who would bother about an old woman like me?… I tell you that he is in love with Cinta, and it will be good luck for the child to marry a man so wise, so serious…."

As he listened to his mother's matrimonial schemes, Ulysses began to wonder which of a professor of rhetoric's bones a sailor might break without incurring too much responsibility.

One day Cinta was looking all over the house for a dark, worn-out thimble that she had been using for many years. Suddenly she ceased her search, blushed 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 silk, an old fan—all deposited in books and papers by the same mysterious reflex that had drawn his portraits from his mother's to his cousin's room.

The sailor now liked to remain at home passing long hours meditating with his elbows on the table, but at the same time attentive to the rustling of light steps that could be heard 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 oceanographic discoveries—but who could teach him the approved form of addressing a maiden without frightening her?… Where the deuce could a body learn the art of proposing to a shy girl?…

For him, doubts were never very long nor painful affairs. Forward march! Let every one get out of such matters as best he could. And one evening when Cinta was going from the parlor to her aunt's bedroom in order to bring her a devotional book, she collided with Ulysses in the passageway.

If she had not known him, she might have trembled for her existence. She felt herself grasped by a pair of powerful hands that lifted her up from the floor. Then an avid mouth stamped upon hers two aggressive kisses. "Take that and that!"… Ferragut repented on seeing his cousin trembling against the wall, as pale as death, her eyes filled with tears.

"I have hurt you. I am a brute … a brute!"

He almost fell on his knees, imploring her pardon; he clenched his fists as if he were going to strike himself, punishing himself for his audacity. But she would 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, seeking the shelter of his shoulder. A little mouth united itself modestly to that of the sailor, and at the same time his beard was moistened with a shower of tears.

And they said no more about it.

When, weeks afterward, Doña Cristina heard her son's petition, her first movement was one of protest. A mother listens with benevolent appreciation to any request for the hand of her 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 perhaps the best companion for Ulysses, after all. Furthermore the child was well suited to be the wife of a man of the sea, having seen its life from her infancy…. Good-by Professor!

They were married. Soon afterwards Ferragut, who was not able to lead an inactive life, returned to the sea, but as first officer of a transatlantic steamer that made regular trips to South America. To him this seemed like being employed 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 the certainty that when three months should have passed by she would see him reappear, coming from the other side of the world laden down with exotic gifts, just as a husband who returns from the office with a bouquet bought in the street.

Upon his return from his first two voyages, she went to meet him on the wharf, her eager glance searching for his blue coat and his cap with its band of gold among the transatlantic passengers fluttering about the decks, rejoicing at their arrival in Europe.

On the following trip, Doña Cristina obliged her to remain at home, fearing that the excitement and the crowds at the harbor might affect her approaching maternity. After that on each of his return trips Ferragut saw a new son, although always the same one; 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 little arms to him; finally a boy who was beginning to go to school and at sight of his father would grasp his hard right hand, admiring him with his great eyes, as though he saw in his person the concentrated perfection of all the forces of the universe.

Don Pedro, the professor, continued visiting the house of Doña Cristina, although with less assiduity. He had the resigned and coldly wrathful 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…. If he had only spoken before! His masculine self-importance never permitted him to doubt that the young girl would have accepted him jubilantly.

In spite of this conviction, he was not able to refrain at times from a certain ironical aggressiveness which expressed itself by inventing classic nicknames. The young wife of Ulysses, bending over her lace-making, was Penelope awaiting the return of her wandering husband.

Doña Cristina accepted this nickname because she knew vaguely that Penelope was a queen of good habits. But the day that the professor, by logical deduction, called Cinta's son Telemachus, the grandmother protested.

"He is named Esteban after his grandfather…. Telemachus is nothing but a theatrical name."

On one of his voyages Ulysses took advantage of a four-hour stop in the port of Valencia to see his godfather. From time to time he had been receiving letters from the poet,—each one shorter and sadder,—written in a trembling script that announced his age and increasing infirmity.

Upon entering the office Ferragut felt just like the legendary sleepers who believe themselves awaking after a few hours of sleep when they have really been dozing for dozens of years. Everything there was still just as it was in his infancy:—the busts of the great poets 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 the length of the bookcases. But the whiteness of the busts had taken on the color of chocolate, the bronzes were reddened by oxidation, the gold had turned greenish, and the wreaths were losing their leaves. It seemed as though ashes might have rained down upon perpetuity.

The occupants of this spell-bound dwelling presented the same aspect of neglect and deterioration. Ulysses found the poet thin and yellow, with a long white beard, with one 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, began to cry with a childish hiccough as though he were weeping over the misery of human illusions, over the brevity of a deceptive life that necessitates continual renovation.

Ferragut found even greater difficulty in recognizing the little and shrunken señora who was near the poet. Her flabby flesh was hanging from her skeleton like the ragged fringe of past splendor; 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. "Doña Pepa!…" The two old people were thee-ing and thou-ing each other with the tranquil non-morality of those that realize that they are very near to death, and forget the tremors and scruples of a life crumbling behind them.

The sailor shrewdly suspected that all this physical misery was the sad finale of an absurd, happy-go-lucky and childish dietary,—sweets serving as the basis of nutrition, great heavy rice dishes as a daily course, watermelons and cantaloupes filling in the space between meals, topped with ices served in enormous glasses and sending out a perfume of honeyed snow.

The two told him, sighing, of their infirmities, which they thought incomprehensible, attributing them to the ignorance of the doctors. It was really the morbid wasting away that 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 the two old folks to the discipline of diet, their childish deceptions, their cunning in order to enjoy alone the fruits and syrups which were the enchantment of their existence.

The interview was a short one. The captain had to return to the port of Grao where his steamer was awaiting him, ready to weigh anchor for South America.

The poet wept again, kissing his god-son. He never would see again this Colossus who seemed to repel his weak embraces with the bellows of his respiration.

"Ulysses, my son!… Always think of Valencia…. Do for her all that you can…. Keep her ever in mind, always Valencia!"

He promised all that the poet wished without understanding exactly what it was that Valencia might expect from him, a simple sailor, wandering over all the seas. Labarta wished to accompany him to the door but he sank down in his seat, obedient to the affectionate despotism of his companion who was always fearing the greatest catastrophes for him.

Poor Doña Pepa!… Ferragut felt inclined to laugh and to weep at the same time upon receiving a kiss from, her withered mouth whose down had turned into pin points. It was the kiss of an old beauty who remembers the gallantry of a youthful lover, the kiss of a childless woman caressing the son she might have had.

"Poor unhappy Carmelo!… He no longer writes, he no longer reads….

Ay! what will ever become of me?…"

She always spoke of the poet's failing powers with the commiseration of a strong and healthy person, and she became terrified when thinking of the years in which she might survive her lord. Taken up with caring for him, she never even glanced at herself.

A year afterward, on returning from the Philippines, the captain found a letter from his god-father awaiting him at Port Said. Doña Pepa had died, and Labarta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle. Ulysses ran his eyes over the enclosed newspaper clipping containing the last verses of the poet. The stanzas were in Castilian. A bad sign!… After that there could be no doubt that his end must be very near.

Ferragut never again had an opportunity to see his god-father, who died while he was on one of his trips. Upon disembarking at Barcelona, Doña Cristina handed him a letter written by the poet almost in his death-agony. "Valencia, my son! Always Valencia!" And after repeating this recommendation many times, he announced that he had made his god-son his heir.

The books, the statues, all the glorious souvenirs of the poet-laureate, came to Barcelona to adorn the sailor's home. The little Telemachus amused himself pulling apart the old wreaths 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 indulgent ladies. Besides his trophies, the poet left Ulysses an old house in Valencia, some real estate and a certain amount in negotiable securities,—total, thirty thousand dollars.

The other guardian of his infancy, the vigorous Triton, seemed to be unaffected by the passing of the years. Upon his return to Barcelona, Ferragut frequently found him installed in his home, in mute hostility to Doña Cristina, devoting to Cinta and her son a part of the affection that he had formerly lavished upon Ulysses alone.

He was very desirous that the little Esteban should know the home of his great grandparents.

"You will let me have him?… You know well enough," he coaxed, "that down in the Marina men become as strong as though made of bronze. Surely you will let me have him?…"

But he quailed before the indignant gesture of the suave Doña Cristina. Entrust her grandson to the Triton, and let him awaken in him the love of maritime adventure, as he had done with Ulysses?… Behind me, thou blue devil!

The doctor used to wander around bewildered by the port of Barcelona…. Too much noisy bustle, too much movement! Walking proudly along by the side of Ulysses, he loved to recount to him the adventures of his 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 oceans, as he had been, but with a place on the bridge, invested with the absolute command that responsibility and danger confer. When Ulysses reëmbarked, the Triton would take himself off to his own dominions.