God Forbid!

I do not yet know how this story will end, for what I am about to relate to you happened only yesterday morning, before I left the ship at Suez.

I sat in a long canvas chair, with heaps of books beside me and an empty soup bowl, my gaze reaching out to the cloud-crowned expanse, that encompassing expanse whose weight upon the breast was not lightened by the passing of the travelers. Everything seemed warm and damp, exceedingly damp. From the rim of the sky hung tattered banners of cloud, and into it the rim of the sea had melted away. The man sitting beside me had spread an open book upon his lap, with several books at his side as well, and he too was staring with a fixed gaze at the encompassing watery scene. The sea stirred up a spirit of melancholy and gloom, which nothing helped one to bear except the languor and idleness it breathes into the soul; it merges day into day, and so leads many people to believe that they must surely have enjoyed the voyage, since the time passed so quickly. It was plain that this gloomy, melancholy spirit hung over me and over my neighbor as well. My neighbor was tall and thin, with delicate hands, and there showed in his features a sensitivity of the utmost refinement. I asked myself who he might be... The books beside him were no help in answering that question, for they were of every kind: a translation of a collection of Greek verse, a modern novel, a scientific book, a study of the life of a certain statesman, and a collection of modern short stories. Then I noticed among them one of my own books — the one called "The Man Who Lost Himself." Suddenly he turned his eyes from the water and addressed me, saying:

"Do you like the sea?"

I answered:

"Yes, I like it — in a way — in spite of its tedium and of the terror it unfortunately stirs in me. I am a good sailor; but while others stretch out in their wooden berths wishing they might drown, I stretch out on my wooden berth, wearing all my clothes, praying to God that I may not drown, and thinking of that vast gulf of waters in which a man's head dwindles to almost nothing. That is why I prefer the Mediterranean, where one is usually within sight of land... though it seems to have vanished entirely today... Indeed, I wish I were already at the Suez Canal, for I expect to enjoy a pleasant afternoon there."

He said: "Yes, I know that feeling; it steals over me a little too. And since you are a writer, I will tell you a story about it. But I trust you do not believe in omens and portents?

"Perhaps, in point of fact, it does not deserve to be called a story. It is a piece of evidence more than a story — or a proof of a certain theory... That theory, or moral, is the old self-evident one which a certain modern novelist has been fond of repeating: that what you feel is truer, and must always be truer, than the mere idea that passes through your mind. Or, in other words: rely in your judgment on touch, not on sight. But people in these days lack the courage to act as they feel; they act according to reason, and then afterwards try to invent a logical explanation to account for the singular things that happen to them. But there is no use in that — no use at all.

"The ship was bound for South America. She left Tilbury on a rainy December afternoon, but the next day the sea was as calm as a blue pond in summer, and it stayed so for three days, until we had crossed the Bay of Biscay. Yet in spite of the calm sea we were late in reaching Lisbon, and when we arrived the port officials fell to disputing endlessly, as though they had resolved that we should be delayed in putting out of harbor. I stood watching the passengers coming down and listening to the noisy Portuguese quarrel rising and scattering like damp rockets between the ship's agent and one of the customs officers... Among the new passengers no one caught the eye except an English woman and her husband. She was truly beautiful, but her beauty was of a strange kind, as though she were a Greek goddess of fate. Her eyes were wide and of a deep blue in which one could read many meanings — one of them true and many of them false. Her startled, stony features were like a classical statue in which something of tragedy lay hidden. Then I thought — or rather I should say I felt — that there was something of the mermaid in her features, for her eyes belonged to the sea... Her husband, at her side, looked quite ordinary. But her singular appearance was confined to her face; her clothes seemed to have been chosen so as to efface the impression left by her strange beauty, to bring down its loftiness and make it ordinary and familiar.

"The next morning I was sitting on deck, as I sit with you now, and found myself next to her. After we had toyed a while with our books — a toying that resembled, in its restlessness, the movement and rolling of ships (truly there is a strong bond between seasickness and printed books) — we began to talk a little. And when we talked, no unusual impression was left upon the soul; her voice was calm, full of interest, steady in its tones though somewhat empty, and there was in it no strange element of tragedy or of prophecy. Yet in spite of that I knew — nay, I felt and sensed — that she was joined to those strange elements by close ties. We chatted for two hours or more. Before that the sea had been calm as a carpet, but during our conversation unmistakable signs of change began to show upon it, as though it were testing its powers, to use them on some coming occasion. Light winds stirred along its flanks, and the ship took on a roll that provoked the customary jokes and laughter among the young passengers, who moved noisily about the deck, and it doubled the ardor of those at their various games, who grew merrier still, to hide the first stirrings of nausea and queasiness they felt... You ask me what we talked about?... I have forgotten; but it was various things — politics, and travel, and books — innocent, tedious books.

"But with every passing minute talk grew harder, for from time to time the sounds of colliding objects rose up, and the wind roared louder, though the corner we had chosen was sheltered and somewhat quiet... She told me they were going to Buenos Aires, where they would stay a week and then return home directly. For Mr. Rofni — that was her husband's name — had been ill, and the doctor had advised him to take this sea voyage. The husband said: 'I tried to dissuade my wife from coming, but she insisted. I did not lure you into coming, my darling, did I? I did my utmost to prevent you.'

"No, I cannot recall the whole conversation clearly; I remember only a thing or two of this kind. I remember Mrs. Rofni saying, in her firm voice that would suffer no nonsense or frivolity, and which was nonetheless strangely empty — that voice which uttered things as though they did not concern it — I remember her saying: 'In any case, I believe in fate and destiny. You cannot escape what is going to happen to you; it is what it is, and there is nothing for you but to accept it as best you can. No fox can escape forever, if the hounds are after it.' ... I remember that well, for the remark, though it is a familiar thing we have all heard whether we would or no, vexed me then most severely, so that I could scarcely hide my displeasure. For I found it out of keeping with that strange beauty, or with that face which seemed to be awaiting one of the great passions of feeling — and I was certain that passion was fear — for the moment that feeling came, that face would become a marvelous wonder of expression... But how often, in such cases, do people utter thoughts that disappoint one, since they do not harmonize with them... Then she ran on talking about the markets in the English counties, and gave herself up to slight fits of self-regard which did not harmonize with her either.

"But I asked myself at the time: were those really fits of self-regard? I felt that she had brought them into the conversation not to make an impression on me, but to bring ease and reassurance to her own soul. For such self-regard is bound up with everyday life, and everyday life is ordinarily free of heroism and valor, of calamity and tragedy, just as the thoughts she expressed were the thoughts of ordinary everyday life.

"And she clung to those thoughts because she longed most ardently to persuade herself that her life was in truth only of that ordinary kind, and that there was no actual existence to that great calamity, that ancient tragedy, to which she was bound and from which she had fled. Every thought she expressed, every occasion she alluded to, was as though she were pinching herself to make certain she was awake and that the dreadful nightmare had passed away...

"The weather grew rougher, and I did not see them again that day. The violence of the storm redoubled, until no one found any pleasure in the sea voyage. Indeed, one could no longer even sleep, though storms usually plunge me into slumber. Should sleep touch your eyes for a single moment of the night, you would be wakened at once by the sound of doors opening and slamming and colliding, or wakened by a strange sensation that the soul itself — that inner self around which the body is built — had shifted a little from its seat... The passengers asked themselves, as is their habit on a sea voyage: 'Why did I make this trip?' But I felt only one feeling, a feeling I have often known on the Atlantic — though I have made many crossings of it that could not be avoided — and that feeling is terror. It was not seasickness that overcame me; rather I felt terror of those cold valleys in the depths of the waters beneath the sea's surface, those endless winding valleys which, we are told, equal in their depth the mountains of the land in their height... And by the way (forgive me for cutting the thread of my story), has not the weather grown rougher since we began our talk — or is that only a fancy of my imagination?"

I was obliged to admit that the weather had changed, for the ship had begun to lurch unexpectedly.

"I thought as much," he said, and paused a moment; then he went on: "At any rate the Canal will be calm... But to continue my story. Fortunately I was to leave the ship at Madeira, and it was only a two days' journey away. But how I longed for it during those two days — that exquisite pearl set in the middle of the ocean, beneath the canopy of Atlantic cloud.

"The next day was so exceedingly bad that one no longer cared about anything — not food, nor drink, nor sleep, nor the passengers; yet I noticed, all the same, that Mr. Rofni sat down to luncheon alone... The following morning the storm seemed to have quieted a little, and while walking about the deck I met him.

"I cried with a false heartiness: 'Good morning! How are you this morning?... I am sorry to see you alone.'

"He replied: 'Yes, it is a worrying thing. How I wished the weather would be kind... We are drawing near Madeira now, and the weather ought not to be like this... I confess to you, it troubles me... Not because my wife is unused to sea travel — she feels no seasickness now — but the truth is that terror takes hold of her on a ship!'

"I said: 'There is nothing shameful in that; I too am terrified... and I believe a very great many people are as well — if they confessed the truth!'

"He answered: 'That may be true... But the matter is different with her: her last sea voyage was on the Titanic. Her twin brother went down with that ship, and she herself was saved only by a miracle... For many years she refused to set foot on a ship's deck at all — she even refused to make the English Channel crossing, which takes but a single hour, though before that she had been very fond of Paris... And I will tell you a strange thing: the sea may be calm, perfectly calm, but no sooner does she set foot on a ship's deck than the storm begins — a beginning about which there is no doubt. I have seen it happen in the English Channel dozens of times, so that I often wished to persuade her to change her mind and come with me, even for that short distance... I ought to have forbidden this absolutely, from the very start... But she was anxious about me — I had been ill a long time, and those cursed doctors said a long sea voyage was the one thing that would restore my health — so she pleaded and insisted. And I could not prevent her; it seemed as though it were fated that she should come, terrified of it though she was — if you understand what I mean...'

"So that was the secret! No wonder, then, that she was terrified, even on the shallowest of waters. I remembered that splendid ship on her maiden voyage, and I remembered the playing hands, and the sudden, dreadful collision, and the all-embracing stillness when the winds of destruction reached her; then I remembered the turmoil and confusion in the water, and the strange, silent meetings in the deep green lanes between the waves, where those who could swim bobbed up and down, or knocked one against another like corks, yet could not speak to one another, for their voices were lost beneath the voice of the ocean, so that they seemed enemies one to another... So that was the secret!... That was the meaning of those two wide eyes, like the eyes of a statue in the dazzling sunlight; that was the meaning hidden beneath her casual words, absurd and grave at once: 'No fox can escape forever, if the hounds are after it.' No — nor can a man escape, if the packs of evil and destruction attend his comings and his goings.

"On the afternoon of that day we reached Madeira, and I bade farewell to Mr. Rofni and his wife. And though they were busy with the island folk, who assailed them, wanting to sell them the embroidered stuffs they carried, and flowers, and slippers, and boxes made of palm wood, and models of ox-drawn carts, and the costumes of the islanders — they waved to me as I left the ship in a boat for the shore. And I noticed once more the strange emptiness of expression on their two faces — a thing which, if you looked closely into it, revealed to you a terror beyond terror. Then I thought they gazed at the land with the look of one yearning and longing — but I was too far off to see clearly... Be that as it may, they were now safe, for the rest of the voyage, especially at that time of year, is calm in the hot zone, where the deep blue gardens glitter beneath the waters, and the flying fish leap above them as sparrows hop over the garden ground.

"Two weeks passed before I heard what had happened, and read in a newspaper: 'Hurricane in the South Atlantic. Tidal waves sweep over the coastal towns. British steamer sinks near Rik. All passengers drowned.' At once I remembered Mrs. Rofni... So the thing was over now... She belonged to the sea, in some fashion... and the sea was bound to take her back into its embrace. She had always known it, though her mind could not always believe it. Whatever else it might be, the thing was finished, whatever its meaning — a long chase was ended, whose beginning no man could discover; or perhaps it was only the middle act of a drama spanning several centuries, or several ages...

"I asked myself: what, I wonder, did that beautiful face look like at the end, and how calm and matter-of-fact did she keep her voice as she spoke to her husband for the last time, knowing what fate held in store for her... But reality often differs from prophecy, and so it happened this time... For I read the paper again, and in the stop-press news I read: 'One passenger rescued. A strange coincidence... Mrs. Rofni, who was rescued yesterday afternoon in a state of exhaustion, proves to be one of the survivors of the Titanic, whose twin brother went down with that ship. It is feared that Mr. Rofni, well known in the sporting world, and all the other passengers and the crew, have been drowned.' ... So the sea had not taken her back yet, and the fox had escaped once more — poor woman! The last act had not yet been played.

"... Perhaps you think me superstitious for feeling as I feel now? But life seems easier to understand when one believes in superstitions... At any rate, all that happened thirteen years ago... and — God preserve us — she is aboard this very ship, traveling to Ceylon to see her son. I spoke to her this morning; it is as though she had not aged a single day. But what is one to do: obey the belief in superstition, or defy it...? I am too much of a coward to commit the folly of leaving this ship at Suez."

He ceased speaking, and sank into silence and thought — but I struggled down into the depths of the ship, clutching at everything my hand fell upon so as not to lose my balance, and there I sent off a telegram.