The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

  "You'll hardly believe this, sir, but in the south of France they have donkey shows."

  "Donkey shows?"

  "Yes, I assure you. The ugly ones are regarded as the best."

  "Then it's the same as with mules: the ugliest are the best."

  "Just so. Like the Poitevin mare: big belly, thick legs."

  "The best type of mule is like a barrel on four posts."

  "The standard of beauty for animals is not the same as for men."

  "And certainly not the same as for women."

  "That's true."

  "I like a woman to be pretty."

  "I like her to be well dressed."

  "Yes: neat, tidy, well turned out, smart."

  "Looking brand-new. A young girl should always look as if she had just come out of a bandbox."

  "But about these two oxen I was talking about. I saw them being sold in the market at Thouars."

  "Yes, I know the Thouars market. The Bonneaus of La Rochelle and the Babus, the grain merchants of Marans--I don't know if you have heard of them--must have been at that market."

  The tourist and the man from Paris were talking to the American with the Bibles. There, too, the conversation was going well.

  "Sir," said the tourist, "I will tell you the tonnage of shipping in the civilized world: France, seven hundred and sixteen thousand tons; Germany, a million; the United States, five million; England, five million five hundred thousand. Add to this the tonnage of the smaller countries, and you get a total of twelve million nine hundred and four thousand tons, distributed in a hundred and forty-five thousand ships scattered over the oceans of the globe."

  The American interrupted:

  "Sir, it is the United States that have five million five hundred thousand."

  "I will accept that," said the tourist. "You are an American?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I accept that, too."

  There was a silence. The American was wondering whether to offer the man a Bible.

  The tourist went on:

  "Is it the case, sir, that you are fond of using nicknames in America, so much so that you apply them to all your famous people, and call your celebrated Missouri banker Thomas Benton 'Old Bullion'?"

  "Yes, sir--just as we call Zachary Taylor 'Old Rough and Ready.' "

  "And General Harrison 'Old Tip'--isn't that so?--and General Jackson 'Old Hickory'?"

  "Because Jackson is as tough as hickory wood, and because Harrison beat the redskins at Tippecanoe."

  "It's a very odd fashion."

  "It's just our way. We call Van Buren the 'Little Magician'; Seward is called 'Little Billy' because he introduced small dollar bills; and Douglas, the Democratic senator for Illinois, who is four feet tall but a great orator, is the 'Little Giant.' You can go from Texas to Maine, but you will never find anyone using the name Cass: it is always the 'big man from Michigan.' And Clay is known as the 'Mill-Boy of the Slashes': his father was a miller."

  "I would rather say Clay or Cass," said the man from Paris. "It's shorter."

  "You would show you didn't know what was what. Corwin, who is secretary of the Treasury, is the 'Wagon Boy.' Daniel Webster is 'Black Dan.' And Winfield Scott, whose first thought after beating the English at Chippeway was to call for a plate of soup, is called 'Marshal Tureen.' "

  The patch of mist that had been seen in the distance had grown in size, and now occupied a segment of about fifteen degrees on the horizon. It was like a cloud hanging low over the water for lack of wind. There was now hardly a breath of air. The sea was as smooth as a millpond. Although it was not yet noon the sun was growing pale. It gave light but not heat.

  "I think the weather's going to change," said the tourist.

  "We'll perhaps have rain," said the man from Paris.

  "Or fog," said the American.

  "The rainiest place in Italy, sir," said the tourist, "is Tolmezzo, and Molfetta has the least rain."

  At midday, in accordance with custom in the archipelago, the bell rang for dinner. Those who wanted dinner went below. Some passengers who had brought food with them ate it cheerfully on deck. Clubin ate nothing.

  While the passengers were having their meal the conversations continued.

  The Guernsey man, feeling an interest in his Bibles, joined the American, who asked him: "You know these waters?"

  "Yes; I belong to these parts."

  "And so do I," said one of the men from Saint-Malo.

  The Guernsey man acknowledged this with a bow, and went on:

  "Here we are in the open sea, but I would not have liked having fog when we were off the Minquiers."

  The American, addressing the man from Saint-Malo, said:

  "Islanders are more men of the sea than those who live on the coast."

  "That's true. We coast people are only half in the water."

  "What are the Minquiers?" continued the American.

  "They're very nasty rocks," replied the man from Saint-Malo.

  "There are also the Grelets," said the Guernsey man.

  "That's true, too," said the man from Saint-Malo.

  "And the Chouas," added the Guernsey man.

  The man from Saint-Malo laughed. "Well, if it comes to that, there are also the Sauvages," he said.

  "And the Moines,"139 said the Guernsey man.

  "And the Canard,"140 riposted the man from Saint-Malo.

  "Sir," said the Guernsey man politely, "you can always give tit for tat."

  "There are no flies on us Malouins,"141 said the man from Saint-Malo, with a wink.

  "Have we got to make our way through all these rocks?" asked the tourist.

  "No. We left them to the south-southeast. They're behind us now."

  And the Guernsey man went on:

  "Counting both the big ones and the little ones, there are altogether fifty-seven rocks in the Grelets."

  "And forty-eight in the Minquiers," said the man from Saint-Malo.

  The conversation now continued between the man from Saint-Malo and the Guernsey man.

  "I think, sir," said the Guernsey man, "that there are three rocks you haven't counted."

  "I've counted them all."

  "From the Deree to the Maitre-Ile?"

  "Yes."

  "And the Maisons?"142

  "Yes. They are seven rocks in the middle of the Minquiers."

  "I see that you know your rocks."

  "If I didn't I wouldn't be a Saint-Malo man."

  "It is always a pleasure to hear what a Frenchman thinks."

  It was now the Saint-Malo man's turn to bow in acknowledgment. He went on:

  "Then there are the Sauvages--three rocks."

  "And the Moines--two."

  "And the Canard--one."

  "Its name shows that there is only one."

  "That isn't always so, for the Suarde is four rocks."

  "What do you call the Suarde?" asked the Guernsey man.

  "We call the Suarde what you call the Chouas."

  "It's not an easy passage between the Chouas and the Canard."

  "Only birds can get through."

  "And fish."

  "It's difficult even for them. In rough weather they knock against the walls."

  "There is sand in the Minquiers."

  "And around the Maisons."

  "These are eight rocks you can see from Jersey."

  "That's true: from the beach at Azette. Not eight, though--seven."

  "At low tide you can walk between the Minquiers."

  "Yes, of course: the sand is uncovered."

  "And what about the Dirouilles?"

  "The Dirouilles are very different from the Minquiers."

  "It's dangerous there, too."

  "They are over Granville way."

  "It's easy to see that you Saint-Malo people are just like us: you like sailing."

  "Yes," said the man from Saint-Malo, "but the difference is that we say we are accustomed to sailing, while you say you like it."

  "You are good
sailors."

  "I am a cattle dealer."

  "What other people came from Saint-Malo, then?"

  "There was Surcouf."143

  "Anyone else?"

  "Duguay-Trouin."144

  Here the commercial traveler from Paris intervened:

  "Duguay-Trouin? He was captured by the English. He was a brave man and a good fellow. A young Englishwoman fell in love with him. It was she who struck off his fetters."

  At this moment a voice of thunder was heard:

  "You're drunk!"

  IV

  IN WHICH CAPTAIN CLUBIN SHOWS ALL HIS QUALITIES

  Everyone looked round.

  It was the captain addressing the helmsman.

  Unusually, Sieur Clubin was using the familiar tu form. Normally he never addressed anyone in that way, and his use of it now showed that he must be furiously angry, or at least wanted to appear so.

  A well-timed outburst of anger is a way of throwing off responsibility, and sometimes of transferring it.

  The captain, standing on the bridge between the paddle boxes, glared at the helmsman, spitting out the word Drunkard! Honest Tangrouille hung his head.

  The blanket of fog had grown in size and now covered almost half the horizon. It was advancing in all directions at the same time, for fog has something of the quality of a patch of oil. It was expanding almost imperceptibly, driven noiselessly and without haste by the wind. It was gradually taking possession of the ocean. It was coming from the northwest and blowing straight toward the ship. It was like a vast, shapeless moving cliff, coming down on the sea like a wall. There was an exact spot at which the great waste of water entered the fog and disappeared.

  The point of entry into the fog was still about half a league away. If the wind changed they might still avoid being caught in it; but it would have to change immediately. The gap of half a league was visibly lessening; the Durande was moving forward, and the fog, too, was advancing. The fog was approaching the ship and the ship was approaching the fog. Clubin gave orders to put on more steam and to bear east.

  The Durande now skirted the fog for some time, but it was still advancing. The ship was still in clear sunlight.

  Time was being lost in these maneuvers, which were unlikely to succeed. Night falls quickly in February.

  The Guernsey man, watching the fog, remarked to the two Saint-Malo men:

  "This is a right nasty fog."

  "A filthy bit of weather," said one of them.

  "A bad thing to happen when you're at sea," said the other.

  The Guernsey man went up to Clubin:

  "Captain Clubin, I'm afraid we're going to be caught up in the fog."

  "I wanted to stay in Saint-Malo," said Clubin, "but I was advised to go."

  "Who by?"

  "By old sailors."

  "Well," said the Guernsey man, "I think you were right to sail. Who knows but there may be a storm tomorrow? At this time of year you must always be prepared for the worst."

  A few minutes later the Durande entered the bank of fog.

  It was a curious effect. Suddenly those who were in the after part of the vessel could no longer see those who were farther forward. A soft gray wall cut the Durande into two. Then the whole ship plunged into the fog. The sun was now like a great swollen moon.

  Everyone shivered with cold. The passengers put on their great-coats, the sailors their oilskins. The sea, with hardly a ripple, had a cold, menacing tranquillity. An undue calm of this kind seems to hold a hidden threat. Everything had turned pale and wan. The black funnel and the black smoke that it emitted stood out boldly against the pallor in which the ship was enveloped.

  There was no object now in making east. The captain turned the ship's head toward Guernsey and put on more steam.

  The passenger from Guernsey, who had been standing near the engine room, heard the Negro called Imbrancam talking to his fellow stoker and listened. The Negro was saying: "This morning, when we had sun, we were going slow; now, with this fog, we are going fast."

  The Guernsey man returned to Sieur Clubin.

  "Captain Clubin," he said, "are we taking enough care? Haven't we too much steam on?"

  "What can I do, sir? We must make up for the time lost because of that drunkard of a helmsman."

  "True enough, Captain Clubin."

  And Clubin added:

  "I want to make speed for harbor. It is bad enough having fog; it would be much worse with darkness as well."

  The Guernsey man returned to the two from Saint-Malo, saying:

  "We have an excellent captain."

  Every now and then great waves of fog, like carded wool, swept over the Durande, concealing the sun, which then reappeared, seeming paler and sickly. What little could be seen of the sky resembled its dirty, blotchy representation on a theater backcloth.

  The Durande passed close to a cutter that had prudently dropped anchor. It was the Shealtiel of Guernsey. The skipper noticed the Durande's speed. It seemed to him, too, that she was not on the right course; he thought that she was bearing too much to the west. He was surprised to see her going full steam ahead in the fog.

  By two o'clock the fog was so thick that the captain had to leave the bridge and stand near the helmsman. The sun had disappeared, and there was now nothing but fog. The Durande was enveloped in a kind of white darkness, and was sailing through a diffused pallor. Neither the sky nor the sea could now be seen.

  There was not a breath of wind. The can of turpentine hanging from a ring below the bridge did not even quiver.

  The passengers had all fallen silent. The man, from Paris, however, was humming under his breath Beranger's song "Un jour le bon Dieu s'eveillant."

  One of the men from Saint-Malo asked him: "You come from Paris, sir?"

  "Yes, sir. Il mit la tete a la fenetre. "

  "What are things like in Paris?"

  "Leur planete a peri peut-etre.-- Everything is going wrong in Paris, sir."

  "Then it's the same on land as it is at sea."

  "That's true. This is a terrible fog."

  "And it can lead to some calamity."

  "Why do we have all these calamities?" cried the man from Paris. "What's the point of them? What purpose do they serve? It's like the burning down of the Odeon,145 which made whole families penniless. Is that right? I don't know what your religious beliefs may be, but I can tell you that I am not happy with the way the world is."

  "Nor am I," said the man from Saint-Malo.

  "Everything in this world of ours," said the Parisian, "seems to me to be out of order. My idea is that God isn't there anymore."

  The man from Saint-Malo scratched the top of his head, like someone trying to understand.

  The Parisian went on:

  "God is absent from our world. They ought to pass a decree compelling him to stay in residence. He's in his country house and doesn't care about us. And so everything is going askew. It is clear, my dear sir, that God is no longer in charge; he is on holiday, and the business is being run by some deputy, some angel trained in a seminary, some imbecile with the wings of a sparrow." The word sparrow was pronounced in the manner of a Paris street urchin.

  Captain Clubin, who had come up to the two men, put his hand on the Parisian's shoulder.

  "Quiet, sir!" he said. "Take care what you are saying! We are at sea."

  The passengers were struck dumb.

  After a silence of five minutes the Guernsey man, who had heard this exchange, whispered to the man from Saint-Malo: "A religious man, our captain!"

  It was not raining, but everyone on board felt wet. They measured the progress the Durande was making only by their increasing discomfort. A feeling of melancholy came over them.

  Fog creates a silence over the ocean; it calms the waves and stills the wind. In this silence the churning of the Durande's engines had a troubled and plaintive sound.

  They met no more ships. Even if, away toward Guernsey or Saint-Malo, out of the fog, there were still a few vessels
at sea, the Durande, fog-shrouded, would be invisible to them and her long trail of smoke, emerging from nowhere, would look like a black comet in a white sky.

  Suddenly Clubin shouted:

  "Faichien! You've gone wrong again! You are going to wreck the ship! You ought to be put in irons. Get out of there, you drunkard!"

  And he seized the tiller.

  The helmsman, shamefaced, slunk forward among the men.

  "We'll be all right now," said the Guernsey man.

  The Durande sailed on, full speed ahead.

  About three o'clock the curtain of fog began to lift, and the sea could be seen again.

  "I don't like the look of it," said the Guernsey man.

  Fog can only be dispersed either by the sun or by the wind. By the sun is good; by the wind is not so good. But it was now too late for the sun. At three in the afternoon, in February, the sun is losing its strength. And if the wind rises at this critical point in the day, that is not a good sign: it will then often blow up into a hurricane.

  But if there was any wind at all it was barely perceptible.

  Clubin, with his eye on the binnacle, was holding the tiller and steering, muttering under his breath. The passengers heard him say: "No time to be lost. That drunkard has held us back."

  His face was completely expressionless.

  The sea under the fog was now less calm, and there was something of a swell. There were patches of cold light on the surface of the sea. Seamen are concerned when they see light patches of this kind: they show where the winds at higher levels have gouged out holes in the ceiling of fog. The fog lifted from time to time and then came down again thicker than before. Sometimes it was completely opaque. The Durande was caught up in a veritable ice floe of fog. Now and again this fearful circle opened up like pincers, revealing a little bit of the horizon, and then closed again.

  The Guernsey man, with his telescope, was now standing in the bow of the vessel like a lookout.

  The fog lifted, then came down again.

  The Guernsey man turned around in alarm:

  "Captain Clubin!"

  "What's the matter?"

  "We're heading straight for the Hanois."

  "You are wrong," said Clubin coldly.

  The Guernsey man persisted. "I'm sure we are."

  "We cannot be."

  "I've just seen a rock on the horizon."

  "Where?"

  "There."

  "That is the open sea. There can't be anything there."

  And Clubin continued on his course toward the point indicated by the passenger.

  The Guernsey man took up his telescope again.

  A moment later he came rushing aft:

  "Captain!"

  "Well?"

  "You must go about."