Youth, a Narrative
Page 8
East. I had heard some of itslanguages. But when I opened my eyes again the silence was as completeas though it had never been broken. I was lying in a flood of light, andthe sky had never looked so far, so high, before. I opened my eyes andlay without moving.
"And then I saw the men of the East--they were looking at me. The wholelength of the jetty was full of people. I saw brown, bronze, yellowfaces, the black eyes, the glitter, the colour of an Eastern crowd.And all these beings stared without a murmur, without a sigh, withouta movement. They stared down at the boats, at the sleeping men who atnight had come to them from the sea. Nothing moved. The fronds of palmsstood still against the sky. Not a branch stirred along the shore,and the brown roofs of hidden houses peeped through the green foliage,through the big leaves that hung shining and still like leaves forgedof heavy metal. This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, somysterious, resplendent and somber, living and unchanged, full ofdanger and promise. And these were the men. I sat up suddenly. A waveof movement passed through the crowd from end to end, passed alongthe heads, swayed the bodies, ran along the jetty like a ripple on thewater, like a breath of wind on a field--and all was still again. I seeit now--the wide sweep of the bay, the glittering sands, the wealth ofgreen infinite and varied, the sea blue like the sea of a dream,the crowd of attentive faces, the blaze of vivid colour--the waterreflecting it all, the curve of the shore, the jetty, the high-sternedoutlandish craft floating still, and the three boats with tired menfrom the West sleeping unconscious of the land and the people and of theviolence of sunshine. They slept thrown across the thwarts, curled onbottom-boards, in the careless attitudes of death. The head of the oldskipper, leaning back in the stern of the long-boat, had fallen on hisbreast, and he looked as though he would never wake. Farther out oldMahon's face was upturned to the sky, with the long white beard spreadout on his breast, as though he had been shot where he sat at thetiller; and a man, all in a heap in the bows of the boat, slept withboth arms embracing the stem-head and with his cheek laid on thegunwale. The East looked at them without a sound.
"I have known its fascination since: I have seen the mysterious shores,the still water, the lands of brown nations, where a stealthy Nemesislies in wait, pursues, overtakes so many of the conquering race, who areproud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for meall the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in thatmoment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tusslewith the sea--and I was young--and I saw it looking at me. And this isall that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, ofromance, of glamour--of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strangeshore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh,and--good-bye!--Night--Good-bye...!"
He drank.
"Ah! The good old time--the good old time. Youth and the sea. Glamourand the sea! The good, strong sea, the salt, bitter sea, that couldwhisper to you and roar at you and knock your breath out of you."
He drank again.
"By all that's wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself--oris it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here--you all had something outof life: money, love--whatever one gets on shore--and, tell me, wasn'tthat the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young andhad nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks--andsometimes a chance to feel your strength--that only--what you allregret?"
And we all nodded at him: the man of finance, the man of accounts, theman of law, we all nodded at him over the polished table that like astill sheet of brown water reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled; ourfaces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love; our weary eyeslooking still, looking always, looking anxiously for something out oflife, that while it is expected is already gone--has passed unseen, ina sigh, in a flash--together with the youth, with the strength, with theromance of illusions.