The sailor nodded his head; nothing could be more
just.
“I have deceived you, Ulysses. I am not
Italian.”
Ferragut smiled. If that was all the deception
consisted of!... From the day in which they had
spoken together for the first time going to Paestum,
he had guessed that what she had told him about her
nationality was false.
“My mother was an Italian. I swear it....
But my father was not....”
She stopped a moment. The sailor listened to
her with interest, with his back turned to the table.
“I am a German woman and ...”
THE SIN OF ULYSSES
Every morning on awaking at the first streak of dawn,
Toni felt a sensation of surprise and discouragement.
“Still in Naples!” he would say, looking
through the port-hole of his cabin.
Then he would count over the days. Ten had passed
by since the Mare Nostrum, entirely repaired,
had anchored in the commercial harbor.
“Twenty-four hours more,” the mate would
add mentally.
And he would again take up his monotonous life, strolling
over the empty and silent deck of the vessel, without
knowing what to do, looking despondently at the other
steamers which were moving their freighting antennae,
swallowing up boxes and bundles and beginning to send
out through their chimneys the smoke announcing departure.
He suffered great remorse in calculating what the
boat might have gained were it now under way.
The advantage was all for the captain, but he could
not avoid despairing over the money lost.
The necessity of communicating his impressions to
somebody, of protesting in chorus against this lamentable
inertia, used to impel him toward Caragol’s
dominions. In spite of their difference in rank,
the first officer always treated the cook with affectionate
familiarity.
“An abyss is separating us!” Toni would
say gravely.
This “abyss” was a metaphor extracted
from his reading of radical papers and alluded to
the old man’s fervid and simple beliefs.
But their common affection for the captain, all being
from the same land, and the employment of the Valencian
dialect as the language of intimacy, made the two
seek each other’s company instinctively.
For Toni, Caragol was the most congenial spirit aboard
... after himself.
As soon as he stopped at the door of the galley, supporting
his elbow in the doorway and obstructing the sunlight
with his body, the old cook would reach out for his
bottle of brandy, preparing a “refresco”
or a “caliente” in honor of his visitor.
They would drink slowly, interrupting their relish
of the liquor to lament together the immovability
of the Mare Nostrum. They would count
up the cost as though the boat were theirs. While
it was being repaired, they had been able to tolerate
the captain’s conduct.
