The Toilers of the Sea (48 page)
He watched the sloop sailing into the distance.
Out at sea the wind freshened. He could see the
Cashmere
running out her lower studding sails and staysails to take advantage of the rising wind. The
Cashmere
was already out of Guernsey waters. Gilliatt kept his eyes fixed on her.
The sea was now up to his waist.
The tide was rising. Time was passing.
The seagulls and cormorants flew about him, anxious, as if warning him. Perhaps among all these birds there was one from the Douvres that recognized him.
An hour passed.
The wind from the sea was barely felt in the roads, but the
Cashmere
was now diminishing rapidly in size. To all appearance she was making good speed. She was now almost opposite the Casquets.
There was no foam around the Gild-Holm-âUr, no waves beating against the granite. The sea was swelling gently. It was now almost up to Gilliatt's shoulders.
Another hour passed.
The
Cashmere
was now beyond the waters around Alderney. She was hidden for a moment by the Ortach rock. After passing behind it she reemerged, as if from eclipse. She was now making rapidly northward, and had reached the open sea. She was no more than a speck on the horizon, scintillating in the sun like a light.
The birds hovered around Gilliatt, uttering sharp cries.
Only his head was now visible.
The sea continued to rise with sinister gentleness.
Gilliatt, motionless, watched the
Cashmere
disappearing.
The tide was now almost at the full. Evening was coming on. Behind Gilliatt, in the roads, a few fishing boats were returning to harbor.
His eye was still fixed on the distant sloop. This fixed eye was like nothing to be seen on earth. In its calm and tragic depths there was something inexpressible. It contained such consolation as can be found for a dream not realized; it was the mournful acceptance of something that was now over. The passing of a shooting star must surely be followed by glances like this. From moment to moment the darkness of the skies was increasing in these eyes, still fixed on a point in space. At the same time as the infinite sea was rising around the Gild-Holm-âUr rock, the immense tranquillity of the land of shadows was mounting in the depths of Gilliatt's eye.
The
Cashmere,
now imperceptible, was no more than a speck hidden in the mist, distinguishable only by an eye that knew where it was.
Gradually the speck, now no more than a vague shape, grew pale.
Then it diminished.
Then it disappeared.
At the same moment the head disappeared under the water. There was now nothing but the sea.
NOTES
1. ananke: Greek term for necessity.
2.
Cuges or Gémenos:
villages on the Mediterranean coast of France.
3.
overfall:
a turbulent stretch of open water caused by a strong current or tide over a submarine ridge or by a meeting of currents.
4.
Tewdrig:
king of Gwent in the sixth and seventh centuries.
Emyr Lhydau:
father of Umbrafel and Amon Dhû, who was the father of the sixth-century saint Sampson of Brittany.
5.
Ribeyrolles:
a journalist and politician who shared Hugo's exile in the Channel Islands.
6.
Madame de Staël:
Germaine de Staël (1766â1817), French novelist and woman of letters.
Chateaubriand:
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768â1848), French writer of the Romantic period and later a leading politician.
7.
Ernani and Astigarraga:
in the Basque country of northeastern Spain.
8.
marabout:
a shrine marking the burial place of a Muslim hermit or holy man.
9.
hobgoblins and auxcriniers:
witches and warlocks. The name
auxcriniers
was invented by Hugo.
10.
prince:
Albert, Queen Victoria's Prince Consort.
11.
Premières:
a village near Dijon. The director of the manufactory was Dr. Lavalle, not Lasalle.
12.
Chausée d'Antin . . . Faubourg Saint-Germain:
the Chaussée d'Antin was the fashionable district of Paris; the Faubourg Saint-Germain was its aristocratic quarter.
13.
Zaatcha:
in Algeria.
14. soudards: an old word for a rough or ruffianly soldierâperhaps recalling Wellington's own comments on the quality of his troops.
15.
doubles:
A double was a small copper coin worth one-eighth of a penny or one-sixth of a sou.
16.
Pollet:
the fishermen's quarter of Dieppe.
17.
tower:
the Victoria Tower, commemorating the queen's visit in 1846.
18.
Chouan:
participant in a royalist uprising in western France during the French Revolution, the Chouannerie.
19. unda
and
unde . . . ou
and
où: Latin
unda
= “wave,”
unde
= “whence”; French
ou
= “or,”
où
= “where.”
20.
Rollo
: the Norse chieftain who became first duke of Normandy.
21. Haro: originally a call to a dog to attack someone or something;
crier haro,
to launch a hue and cry.
22.
Du Guesclin:
Bertrand du Guesclin, constable of France in the fourteenth century.
23.
Pantagruel:
a variant version of Rabelais's genealogy of Pantagruel.
24.
Puseyism:
the nineteenth-century Catholic revival in England known as the Oxford movement.
25.
Dr. Colenso's book:
John Colenso (1814â83), the liberal bishop of Natal whose book
The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined
led to a charge of heresy.
26.
Calas, Sirven . . . count for nothing:
Voltaire campaigned vigorously against the persecution of the Protestants Sirven and Calas. The dragonnades involved the quartering of dragoons in Protestant households.
27.
his speech:
evidently a reference to a speech by Hugo himself seeking support for Garibaldi.
28.
de Maistre:
Joseph de Maistre (1753â1821), theoretician of the Christian counterrevolution of the early nineteenth century.
d'Eckstein:
Ferdinand d'Eckstein (1790â1861), Catholic thinker and mystical writer.
29.
Moulin-Quignon:
near Abbeville in northern France.
30.
Furetière:
Antoine Furetière (1619â88), French satirist and lexicographer.
31.
Valognes:
a little town near Cherbourg.
32. eremos: Greek, “solitude, wilderness.” An inventive but unlikely etymology by Hugo.
33.
double: See note 15.
34.
Pasquier . . . Royer-Collard:
French politicians of the Restoration period.
35.
Bagpipe! . . . Guernsey remained calm:
The reference is to Gilliatt's bagpipes (p. 67).
36.
I am not entitled to be called Mess:
For the Guernsey social hierarchy, see p. 107.
37.
Ribeyrolles: See note 5.
38.
chapters of this book:
“The Bû de la Rue,” pp. 60â64.
39.
Tancred . . . Mazeppa:
Tancred features in Tasso's poem “Jerusalem Delivered.” Mazeppa was a seventeenth-century Cossack chief who was the subject of poems by Byron and Hugo.
40.
Ãle Saint-Louis . . . Quai des Ormes:
an isle and embankment in central Paris.
41.
“unknown Normandy”:
a reference to a book published by Hugo's son François-Victor.
42.
John Brown:
the militant American abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859 made him a martyr to the antislavery cause.
43.
Vadius and Trissotin:
in Molière's
Femmes Savantes
the pedant and the poet
.
44. “J'ai pien . . .
conjugal scenes here.”):
The joke turns on the Alsatian's Teutonic pronunciation, which confuses
patois
with
badois
(the language of Baden).
45.
Montmorency:
the Montmorencys were one of France's greatest noble families.
46.
Cahaigne:
a writer and politician who, like Hugo, was exiled to Jersey.
47.
. . . whom it immortalizes:
In fact, there was no mystery about it: it represented George II, but Hugo deliberately ignores this.
48.
Beccaria:
the great eighteenth-century economist and criminologist.
Monsieur Dupin:
a minor French politician of the early nineteenth century.
49.
Tapner:
Tapner was hanged in 1854; Hugo had made an appeal for his reprieve.
50. Jambage . . . poulage: compulsory deliveries of hams and poultry.
51. “Elle a-z-une . . .”: The intrusive
z
is a mispronunciation.
52.
Frobisher:
Sir Martin Frobisher, the sixteenth-century English navigator and explorer of Canada's northeast coast.
53.
Du Cange:
a seventeenth-century scholar who published a glossary of medieval Latin.
Barleycourt's:
Barleycourt was the pseudonym of a certain Abbé Hugo whom Hugo liked to claim as an ancestor.
Teutatès:
the Celtic god of war.
54. centeniers, vingteniers,
and
douzeniers: local officials at different levels. vingtaine
and
cueillette: subdivisions of the parish.
55.
the viscount:
a judge; also called the sheriff.
56.
Bishop Colenso: See note 25. Elliott:
John Elliott was a seventeenth-century doctor who made the remark about the sun in a private letter but was in fact brought before the court for attempted murder.
57.
Chateaubriand: See note 6.
58. reminiscitur Argos: “Remembers Argos” is a quotation from Virgil's
Aeneid,
referring to a Greek nostalgic for his homeland.
59.
the Edict of Nantes:
edict that granted religious freedom to Protestants, which was revoked by Louis XIV in 1695, leading to a large-scale exodus of Huguenots from France.
60.
duc de Berry . . . Louvel:
The duc de Berry, heir to the French throne, was assassinated by a fanatic named Louvel in 1820.
61.
. . . the country he had lost:
Hugo arrived in Guernsey in 1855;
Les Travailleurs de la Mer
was published in 1866.
62. La clef . . . amourettes!: “The key of the fields, the key of the woods, the key of love affairs!”
Prendre la clef des champs
(to take the key of the fields) means escape to the country, to freedom.
63. Homo Edax: “Man the devourer”; an adaptation by Hugo of a phrase in a poem by Ovid.
64.
Brèche de Roland:
a narrow gorge in the Pyrenees, said by legend to have been cut by Charlemagne's paladin Roland with his sword.
65.
Xerxes:
During his war against the Greeks, the Persian king Xerxes cut a channel across the isthmus on which Mount Athos stands.
66.
Trinacria:
the “three-cornered” island; the original name of Sicily.
67.
Robert Wace:
a twelfth-century Anglo-Norman poet, author of two verse chronicles, the
Roman de Brut
and the
Roman de Rou. Pierson:
Major Pierson was killed while fighting off a French attack on Jersey in 1781.
68.
dromond . . .
monstrum!: The dromond was a large boat used in medieval times for either war or commerce.
Homo homini monstrum
(Man is a monster to man): an adaptation by Hugo of a tag from Plautus,
Homo homini
lupus
(Man is a wolf to man).
69.
Bû de la Rue:
The name (“Bout de la Rue,” “End of the Street”) is symbolic of the remoteness of the place. Beyond it there is nothing but the sea: cf. the last words of the novel.
70.
Houmet Paradis:
a small offshore island.
71. Amant alterna catenae: “Chains like changes”: an adaptation by Hugo of a phrase in Virgil's
Bucolics.
72.
rods: vergées.
There are two and a half
vergées
to the acre.
73.
dénerel:
a sixth of a bushel.
74.
Rosier's
Dictionary . . . Advice to the People on Heath: The names of the books point to “left wing” interests that would shock the Reverend Jaquemin Hérode and the émigré noble.
75. sarregousets . . . sins: apparently some kind of hobgoblins; the term
sin
is not otherwise known.
76.
the Sommeilleuses:
cliffs on the south coast of Guernsey.
77.
Catioroc:
off the northeast coast of Guernsey.
78. one St. Michael and the other: St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall and Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy.
79. douzaine: the bench of twelve magistrates (
douzeniers
) that was the local governmental authority in each parish.
80. vingtaine: a subdivision of a parish.
81.
Gilliatt the Cunning One:
Gilliatt le Malin.
Malin
is ambiguous: it means “cunning,” but “le Malin” is an old name for the Devil.
82.
Mess:
short for Messire; see the description of Guernsey's social hierarchy on p. 107.
83.
Martin:
Thomas Martin, a plowman who became famous for his visions in the early nineteenth century.
84.
Busios:
the first month of the year in the calendar of Delphi.
85.
bisquine:
a three-masted fishing boat used in Normandy for catching oysters.
86.
Bailli de Suffern:
the celebrated eighteenth-century French admiral who fought against the British in America and India.
87.
Portbail:
a little port on the Cotentin peninsula, south of Cherbourg.
88.
Jean Bart:
the celebrated seventeenth-century French admiral who fought against the British in America and India.
89.
Admiral Tourville:
seventeenth-century French admiral who fought British and Dutch naval forces in European waters.
90.
Ango:
a leading sixteenth-century shipowner.
91.
duc de Vivonne:
seventeenth-century French marshal and naval commander.
92.
Duquesne:
seventeenth-century French naval officer.
Duguay-Trouin:
eighteenth-century French naval officer and privateer.
93.
Duperré:
the French admiral who took Algiers in 1830.
94.
La Bourdonnais:
eighteenth-century French sailor and government official.
95.
“. . . with powder”:
The reference is to a firearm loaded with powder but not with ball. The old émigré was implying that Déruchette was unwittingly provocative.
96.
Bible . . . help of chloroform:
Genesis 3:16: “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.”
97.
“Is it . . . work together?”:
Cf. Genesis 1:6.
98. La Croix-de-Jésus: a work of popular piety.
99. cabeza de moro: a Moor's head, acting as a punchball or arcade game target.
100.
Oomrawuttee:
Amravati, on the east coast of India.
101.
. . . an immense white plume:
The whole description of Rantaine reveals him as a royalist. He could recite Voltaire's
Henriade,
a glorification of Henry IV. He knew by heart “Les Tombeaux de Saint-Denis,” a lachrymose poem on the royal skeletons in the abbey of Saint-Denis. Souloque was a black slave who rose to become emperor of Haiti. The Verdets (“Greens”) were bands of royalists who ran a campaign of terror in the south of France in 1815.
102. neboissed: the term is unexplained. No connection with Turkish can be detected. A derivation from Russian has been suggested but seems unlikely.
thaleb:
student of Islamic doctrine.
103. Montebello: an American warship launched in 1812.
104.
two leagues an hour:
six knots.
105.
galgal:
a combination of lime, oil, and tar.
106.
afloat: Ã flot,
“afloat,” can also mean “doing well, prospering.”
107.
“In the future . . . Lons-le-Saulnier?”:
a play on words: Nancy and Lons-le-Saulnier are both towns in eastern France.
108.
“a husband and a donkey”:
another play on words: A husband is
mari,
a donkey is
âne.
109. Et vidit quod esset bonum: “And He saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:31).